I managed to progress the quest last night. On the bright side, the next part is pretty clear.

The response was surprisingly quick in coming.

I assume what it is asking for is something that would generally be considered impossible?

How did you know 💕

This time, the pause was much longer.

It’s possible I’m just learning the way you talk about things

Possible? I hope so~

…

Are you being this flirty on purpose or is this just how you text?

Who knows???? (bit of both)

Actually for-real cannot see any way to do it impossible or just definitely nobody has done it before and it does not make any sense impossible?

Alex had to think about that for a second. It wasn’t really a question she’d thought to ask herself originally, because her resources were so limited, but…

Doesn’t make sense impossible. Significant contribution to a world boss.

Oh

I’m just worried that we’re still in the first half of the quest

A reasonable concern, but we will get to it when we get to it.

You can still back out, you know

Lynn’s response was much slower in coming, and Alex almost let her insecurities get the better of her for a moment, a second message begging her not to leave written and deleted three times before the response came.

I know. I do not want to.

The second arrived moments later, before Alex could even really process that.

I have an idea. You will not like it.

Still, the excuse was welcome.

Now you’re stealing my lines too? doom. despair.

She’d been joking when she responded, but the fact that Lynn had categorically refused to explain whatever her plan was and insisted on speaking in-game, face-to-face about it made Alex more and more sure that Lynn hadn’t been. Especially because, instead of meeting in the sort of place she’d expected, Lynn had sent her a set of instructions for getting to a player’s house– more than that, one she didn’t recognize, in a place she’d never heard of.

Not that it was entirely hard to get to; a simple train ride, taking her to the outer city (One with a level curve that spiked in the seventies, moving into the hundred-tens a few miles into the nearby mountain range– a level range that would draw a ton of guild attention if it weren’t for the fact that it was also incredibly easy to die, with undocumented area bosses into the hundred-fifties, enormous home-field advantage, unstable ground, and shockingly low portal appearance rate.), followed by a bus to a smaller house. Fully player-owned, by the look of it, which meant that whoever this was was fairly high level, as well.

And she’d never heard of them. “Faycez” was the listed name, pronounced not like “faces” but “Fay-says”. Whoever they were, they’d taken great pains to make their house not stand out on the largely NPC block, only the HUD and menu meaningfully distinguishing it to Deyana’s eyes.

Walking up to the door, she knocked on it lightly, while simultaneously sending a message to Geria that she’d arrived.

From inside, a man’s voice was quick to respond. “Hold on a second!”

The thumping of dozens of books onto the ground, moderate cursing, smash of glass, major cursing, and slam of a door very much did not ease her feelings of trepidation.

The man who opened the door was tall.

That was her first impression of him, overwhelming everything else as she found herself looking significantly up from where she was, probably a little too close to the door. When she did, wide, cobalt-blue eyes framed by messy black hair distracted her enough that she didn’t manage to catch anything he said, needing to take a moment to steady herself.

She corralled herself into a response quickly enough, though not so much so that she could piece his words together. “I’m sorry, I missed that?”

He blinked, then backed up slightly, leaning on the open door. “Oh, right. I’m Faycez. I don’t know how much Geria told you…” His voice was a high baritone, smooth as aged cider and deeply distracting.

Deyana sighed, pushing it out of her thoughts. “Basically nothing. She thinks I’m going to hate whatever her plan is, and I don’t necessarily think she’s wrong.”

He tilted his head, looking confused. “Plan..? Well. I never thought her the sneaky type, though I never really can tell. Either way, come in. You are Deyana, yes?”

He’d stepped out of the way by the time she started moving, nodding to him in the process. “Yeah, that’s me. Are you a live-in?”

He hummed, closing the door behind her and activating an extensive set of runes, only visible on the inside. His second touch, just above the baseboard, was striking– all around the room, unbroken by a hallway, several rooms she could see around the living room/kitchen, and large amounts of furniture, a single interwoven line of traced runes looped around the house before coming back to the door. “Not in the traditional sense; I’m more of a lore finder. Mostly. I’ve been studying Olympia, recently.”

Deyana blinked. “I thought that was a myth?”

Faycez’s grin grew quickly, in spite of his obvious attempt to hide it. “Would you believe I did as well? But check this–“ He made a quick series of hand gestures, ending with two fingers held up, palm in, and changing to a full-hand point away from him.

The buzzing in her ears was intense enough that she braced for an attack–

And a tiny jet of fire flew about a yard from his hand before flaring out.

“Was that casting?” Deyana squeaked, but Faycez was already shaking his head.

“No, that was programmatics, name pending. I was finally able to dig up some of the Olympia documentation,” Deyana made a note in her head to ask about that– the mythical ancient anti-monster system had documentation? “and I was able to translate enough of it to have a fighting chance at using some. It’s not really useful yet– that little spat of nothing costs six hundred mana. Here, where it’s way stronger than most places already.”

A thumping sound came from down the hallway they were standing next to, followed by a woman’s voice that she didn’t recognize. “Fay, you bastard, wait to tell them everything until after we get what they’re offering!”

Deyana looked down the hall, and, not seeing anyone, called out. “I’m not going to run out on you two, unless something really goes wrong. Anything from Geria comes with a pretty high recommendation on it, right now.” She lowered her voice, turning back to Faycez. “I’m surprised you’re not with the Keepers or Lightseekers. They’d kill for info like that.”

His grimace in response told her that it might not have been the best response, but he quickly sighed and went back to a neutral face. “I used to be a Lightseeker, but they ban anyone who brings up Olympia without hard proof. And…” He lowered his voice to a whisper, bending down to her level so she could hear him better. “The Keepers don’t really have anything to do for fighters, and I didn’t want to leave Symphir alone.”

“Why would–” Deyana was interrupted by the door at the end of the hallway slammed open, revealing a woman who couldn’t have been more than five foot for a fraction of a second before a scrawling of runes on the outer edge of the stile flashed, bringing the door to a stop before the knob hit the wall. As it did, a bar of solid-looking light clobbered the woman over the head and sent her stumbling into the opposite wall.

“Fay, goddamnit, did you fucking trap my door?”

Faycez turned, blinking, and watched her curiously. His voice was calm, but with an obvious tinge of humor to it. “It would only go off if someone slammed it open in a way that would otherwise damage it. Again. I’d expected to wait at least a week before you set it off.”

The woman started stalking towards them, and Deyana very quickly found herself staring above her head at Geria, both of them blushing slightly. The woman– Symphir, she guessed– was stalking towards Deyana and Faycez, wearing an obviously high-impact sports bra and compression shorts that did absolutely nothing to hide her obvious muscles or the fact that she was stacked.

They weren’t typically the first things she noticed about women, but Alex knew that even her self-control had limits. Limits low enough that she found herself sending ‘muscles’ to Geria, receiving quick, wide-eyed nods in return.

Symphir stopped, and Deyana slipped her eyes back to her, looking down slightly to make eye contact as the other woman pulled off her strange combination of padded half-fingered, elbow-length gloves. “So you’re the one Geria said knew some secret bullshit. Secret for a secret.”

Deyana swallowed, finally putting together the pieces. “You’re a hand-to-hand fighter, right? Probably having a tough time with getting the right gear to boost yourself.”

“Health-specialized hand-to-hand fighter. I haven’t been able to find jack.”

Deyana didn’t quite manage to hold in her initial response– she laughed, helpless. “I can do something about that, if you need. Indie runewriter, at your service, and one who’s got an understanding of what you actually need, too. It’ll be pretty involved, and probably hurt a bit.”

Symphir’s challenging look morphed into a bit of a glare. “Health-specialized. No shit.”

“I meant–” Deyana stopped herself with a small shake. “Tattoos. Runic tattoos. I’m frankly shocked your last guild didn’t know that’s what you needed.”

The other woman’s head leaned back, and she made a ‘why’ gesture at the ceiling. “That… absolutely makes sense. That seems… a bit obvious, for them not bringing it up.”

Deyana shrugged. “There’s a lot of downsides to it. It hurts, for one. Designing it is going to be a lot of work, and re-designing it… well. It does literally involve basically skinning you alive. A little it at a time, with healing in between, but still.”

Symphir froze in place for a second, then shuddered lightly, though the look on her face was much less bothered than Deyana would ordinarily have expected. Her voice got a lot softer as she spoke again. “Yeah, okay. The crafters I was working with would… probably not have been okay doing that. You’d do it?”

Geria locked eyes with her again, then flicked them over towards what was for her the wall, and what was for Deyana the couches in the front room. “How about we all sit down? Geria told me to come here for a conversation, and I can’t imagine this is on accident.”

“It is not,” Geria said, walking up behind Symphir. “Though it is much more complicated than this exchange.”

They moved to the couches, Deyana ending up in the corner, Geria on her left and Faycez on her right, though the latter was at a right angle. At a motion from Deyana, Geria continued.

“We need your help for something.”

Symphir snorted. “Yeah, thought so. But it ain’t like you’ve got the guild anymore, so…”

“That is true, but–”

“Nothing to offer, nothing to gain. I got you here, sure, but sticking our neck out–”

Deyana cut in. “Let her finish.”

The look Symphir gave her could have cut granite, but she did go quiet long enough to let Geria speak.

“There is a lot of difficulty here. Obviously. But we are not asking you to stick your neck out, we are offering a trade of one-time service for one-time service.”

Symphir opened her mouth to respond, but Faycez put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “What service would that be?”

“From us to you– Deyana helps you design and inscribe a set of runic tattoos for Symphir, including a use of her, currently unique, rune.”

“I’d need to destroy an item with it.” Deyana said, quickly, and Geria titled her head, but nodded.

“From you to us– we need your help to cast a spell.”