"What do we do now?" Leticia looked to Grace. Their party had been making their way through the Howling Caverns for the past week, but they were finally back out on the surface, taking a break near a small waterfall not far from the entrance to the caverns.

"Isn't it obvious." Grace leaned over cleaning out the bottom of her bag, before looking up at her friend. "We move on to the next dungeon. We might have gotten a lot stronger compared to when we first got here, but this world has some real beasts out there, and the demons seem pretty well-furnished with them."

"Hmm." Leticia's face soured. They had been tramping through the dark, sleeping on rocks and eating jerky and stale bread while constantly fighting for their lives for over a week now, and now, what, they were going to do it all again? When did it stop?

Almara got up and stuck an arrow in the ground right in front of Grace, forcing her to look up at her. "We need a break, Grace. We never signed up for this." She stared at her silently, her face a blank mask of emotions.

"She's right," Shawn was gleefully chewing on a fresh bread roll he had gotten when they had restocked their supplies in town. "We're just kids trying to survive. There's no need to push so hard. Who do you think is going to reward us? Max? That king? We didn't sign up for a war. We barely signed up to being adventurers."

"But who do you think is going to stop the Demon King, huh?" Grace was mad, and a little bitter. "Who do you think has the potential? How many…" a half sob choked her throat. "How many people do you think will have to die if we don't stand up and do something?"

"Grace," Will took one of her hands. "I know you're still torn up over Ray's death, but we can't afford to be hasty. You're not Max, you don't have to be. Let's just…take things at our own pace, alright?"

"Aghh" She tried to pull her hand away from Will, but he held her fast. "Fine," She wiped a tear from her eye with her free hand. "I guess you guys are right." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "We could go check out the town of Virve, spend a few days by the sea. It's supposed to be quite peaceful there."

"Sounds great," Will squeezed her hand.

"Works for me," Shawn swallowed the last of his bread.

The rest of the party murmured their assent, and started making preparations to break camp.

***

"I still can't believe you chose that Leticia, girl. With your influence you could have gotten the pick of the litter, what do you even see in her?" Draugner, God of the Mind and Verena, Queen of the Spirits sat in a private viewing chamber idly watching Grace's party break camp as they talked with one another.

"I'm far from as reckless as you, Draugner, I've placed several wards on her should the worst happen, and besides Leticia has a good heart, which matters far more to my subordinates than anything else." Verena sipped from a glass of a translucent green liquid as she watched the god sitting across from her more than the mortals breaking camp. "Have you still not recovered that piece you put in that little runt they all care about?"

Draugner's faced soured. "Someone must have caught on. I don't know how, and I'd almost suspect treachery if I didn't know better," he gave her an annoyed look. "The only good news is that even though they managed to sever my connection with the piece my protections won't be so easily overrode. I dare say there's only two or three beings that could crack it and one of them's in this room."

"And the other one? Do you think they'd be able to make contact without us knowing?"

Draugner grinned. "Even if they wanted to, I doubt they could. It's our little undead rebel. She hasn't had any contact with the other gods for centuries, if not millenia, so I don't see why she'd help one of us now."

"You mentioned the possibility of a third?"

Draugner shrugged. "There's no way to know for sure, I don't keep tabs on everyone's past times, and there's always the occasional mortal that springs up with genius enough to surprise even us, but I'd still say the chances are low."

"I think you're too overconfident." Verena said with a sigh. "I'd have my spirits look out for someone, but it'd tip our hand that something's going on…Actually." She turned to the god across from her with a sly smile. "You know what we could actually use this to our advantage."

"What do you mean?" Draugner frowned. It always irked him that as brilliant of a soul-engineer he might be, Verena always outshone him in politics.

"We spread a rumour that there's a mortal genius researching souls. If anyone starts catching on…"

"They fall into our net!" Draugner brightened.

"We need allies for the second part of our plan, right? As the gods slowly start to realize that not everything's as it seems with the System, then we slowly bring in those smart enough to have seen through the ruse."

"And instead of feeling duped, they feel like they got one up on us." Draugner completed. Draugner sighed contentedly. "And hopefully this will get me my lost piece back, if nothing else. Thank god." He let his head droop back into the cushions.

Verena smirked. "The gods have nothing to do with it."

***

"Should we really have let them go?" Velda, the guardian of the floor of Greed, looked over Noe's shoulder as a screen displayed Riviera, Rufi, and Me sneaking through the backrooms of an undead military outpost.

"They're not really ours to keep," Noe shrugged. "Rivi's served her punishment, more or less, and regardless it was always meant more as a rehabilitation than a true punishment. We want her to thrive, no? Perhaps getting involved in this latest string of events will help spur her growth."

"But…Did you really have to manipulate them like that?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Noe turned to her with a sheepish grin.

"Don't give me that," Velda rolled her eyes. "You take the Silvie girl away when Rivi would notice, making her fear your interference. You put way too much responsibility on the poor girl's shoulders while also secretly hinting that Rivi is different and that she can trust her, only to throw them back together without any direct watch or command. You knew exactly what would happen."

"Huhh, this is why I stay dormant most of the time, you all are getting far too smart for me. I swear if I were to try to play my normal games with the rest of you I'd have a mutiny on my hands before I could count to ten."

Velda snorted. "Or we'd be chained back up inside your mind before we even thought about betraying you. We may be smart, Noe, but you still run rings around us when you really try."

"Awww, someone has so much faith in me!" Noe rubbed the head of her subordinate. "Well, whatever. I'll have a last meeting with you and Endra to give you guys some tips for what I think is to come, before going back to sleep for a while. Oh and I'll keep an eye on the girls, so you don't need to spare any manpower for that. If anything happens I'll come back up to bother you all again."

"You're not a bother." Velda gave Noe a surprise hug, resting her head on her shoulder. "We're all grateful for what you did and for what you continue to do, even if we don't always show it. So thanks."

Noe flushed. For all the thought and effort she had poured into giving her parallel minds their own lives, whenever they showed her affection like this a part of her couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't actually some narcissistic impulse of her own embedded deep inside them. "Don't worry about it." She broke her embrace with the Guardian, then disappeared back down into her void.

Velda looked into the air where she had disappeared a little wistfully. "If only she let us in…" She shook her head. What she had was enough. It was up to Noe if it would ever turn into anything more.

***

"Hmph." Noe sat down in her void finally alone once more. "Now that I'm back I can finally get to…"

With a wave of her hand a holographic display and keyboard appeared before her and she began rapidly typing and clicking as various lines of text scrolled before her faster than a human mind could comprehend.

"Draugner's really too sloppy these days. He thinks just because no else studies soul-craft that he can get away with slap-dash encoding, and a half-assed security system. Does he not know that I'm out here?"

A jelly doughnut appeared from the void and floated into Noe's mouth, which she took a bite out of as she continued typing on the keyboard.

"And…there" She typed a dramatic last keystroke. "I'd like to see what you make of that, Mr. God of the Mind."

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