Chapter Seventy-five

Chapter Seventy-five

“So, what do we know?” Kay asked the cramped gathering in his office. Technically the one-room building was the office of multiple people, but he was going to milk his “in charge” status as best he could.

“There’s some kind of unknown enemy that has a group of Rittians of unknown size as minions. It either drove them mad or found them that way, but they’re crazy. Based on the information we have from your Quest and what the Rittians were shouting when you fought them, they need sacrifices to awaken the thing, and when it wakes up, we’re screwed.” Cindy summarized the information they had.

“We could always leave?” Stephen volunteered cautiously.

“We could,” Eleniah acknowledged, “But that counts as the Quest being failed, I think. The reward for failure was the settlement being destroyed, right?” She glanced at Kay, who nodded. “So we could leave in order to make sure everyone comes out alive. But we’d definitely lose the settlement, and I think it would be even harder to reclaim it after whatever’s down there wakes up.”

Kay sighed and shook his head. “We can’t leave. I mean, we can, but Meten is leading a whole group of people here. It would be shitty of us to not even try to stop the thing, lose all the hard work we made because of that and consequently abandon a whole group of people we said could come join us.”

Eleniah shrugged, “So we go in. What’s the plan?”

Everyone turned to look at Kay.

“The bare bones of it? We send a group in to try and stop whatever is happening. Sacrifices of some kind, probably. Then we destroy whatever the enemy is, if possible. Retreat and run if it’s too much, and find Meten’s group and lead them away so they aren’t caught in whatever happens. Start somewhere new.” Kay tapped at the table a few times. “Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m on the attacking team since I have the Quest. Eleniah’s on the defending team because she’s our strongest fighter. Leaf stays here with her since you wouldn’t be much help in cramped tunnels underground. Sorry.”

“No, you’re right,” Leaf acknowledges with a shrug, “There’s not a lot of plants down there, and I’m all about AOE attacks. I’d catch you up in them as much as the enemies in terrain like that.”

“Cindy, you stay up top.” Kay continued, “As much as I’d like to take you down with us to make finding it easier, you don’t have a combat class, so I’d worry about losing you.” He glanced around the rest of the room. “Chitel should come with me, along with Stephen, Claudia, and Leya.” He glanced up into Darten’s face. “Sorry, but as much as I’d like to bring you, those tunnels will probably get pretty small and well...”

Darten chuckled, “No point bringing me where I won’t fit. Even if I could restructure the tunnels around me?”

“That would add more time, and we don’t know if they have enough integrity to deal with that without collapsing. Plus, we need one of you two,” Kay pointed at Darten and Leya, “Up top to search for tunnels around the area. Since Leya’s already better sized for the attacking team...”

Darten made a face but nodded his agreement. “I get it.”

“Good.” Kay slowly looked around at everyone who’d gathered up to plan. “Any questions?”

A chorus of “No” and shaking heads answered him, so he nodded once. “Good, everyone, start getting ready then. We’re leaving as soon as possible.” People started shuffling around each other to leave. “Cindy, you stay.”

She glanced up at him with a frown, but she sat down.

Kay waited until everyone had left, except Eleniah, who had stuck around. “Cindy, I know I said that you can’t come on the attack with us, and I know there are probably some limitations to what you can do, but while everyone’s getting ready, anything you can do with your Classes to give us a direction or a location or anything useful would be a blessing.”

“Oh,” She brightened up, “Of course, yeah. You didn’t have to single me out like that to ask.”

Kay gaped at her. “Seriously? That’s awesome!” He grinned widely at her, “You just gave us freaking directions. That’s way better than having to wander through a tunnel system with no clue how to get where we want to go and an unknown time limit looming over us.”

Cindy blushed and glanced away, “Well, thanks. I can tell that the tunnels get really complicated near the middle of the plateau, so you might get a bit lost there, but just keep more south than north like I said.” She pointed again, “The entrance is off to the northwest,” She traced her finger towards the cliff face, “Just head east till you’re inside the plateau.”

“Alright, Miss Find Anything Protagonist, I’m off to get ready for a delve.” Kay smiled at her and stood up, “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”

“Don’t be weird!” She snapped at him, “And this isn’t a Dungeon, so you can’t call it a delve.”

Kay snapped his head around to stare at Eleniah, “There are Dungeons? Wait, no, you know what? That can wait.” He pushed his chair in and headed for the door. “There’s packing to do.”

Kay gathered with the rest of the attacking team and started coordinating their packing. They didn’t all need to bring food for the entire group, they only needed so many lights and bedrolls and such, so they needed to plan who was bringing what. After an hour or so of debate and packing, they were ready to go.

Everyone took some time to say goodbye and share best wishes.

Claudia hugged the twins, who were sad she was leaving but didn’t really understand what was happening. He saw an interesting look pass between David and Claudia when she said goodbye to him, which Kay filed away for later. Darten and Leya had a quick conversation off by themselves for a minute, which Kay also noted.

Eleniah stepped up to him, “Be careful.” She admonished.

“I will. I have backup this time, too, so don’t worry.”

She glared at him, “I am allowed to worry about my friends.”

Kay stepped forward and hugged her. “The Quest’s difficulty is only ‘Hard’, so we can get it done. If it was higher than that, I might start to get worried, but it isn’t.”

“You don’t know a single thing about Quest difficulties!”

Kay shrugged. “There are things that are hard but worth doing.”

“That has nothing to do with this!”

He grinned, “True, but it distracted you from worrying for a bit.”

She glared at him and smacked his shoulder.

Everyone gathered up around them. Kay glanced around and saw determined gazes look back at him. “Time to go. There’s an unknown threat to destroy.”