If I’m honest with myself, it’s partly the way she dresses and her place of business. She’s apparently wealthy. She has some expensive looking name brand clothes and a fancy schmancy high-rise office in New York City. She can afford to swap out furniture in the place like it’s nothing and she can afford to upgrade her home base to levels I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. Another part of it is just the suspicion that there’s something she’s not telling me. I mean why does she need me? She’s rich, why can’t she hire someone more experienced for her team? Is this some charity offer? You know, help the poor brown boy who’s new to the System and have something to brag about with her rich friends?
Lillian looks up from scrolling through her phone and smiles when she sees me looking at her. My heart skips a beat at seeing that smile, and I chastise myself for thinking so poorly of her. No, she’s never given me one look of pity or looked down on me. Still, I just can’t shake the feeling there’s something she’s not telling me, and until she does, I just can’t take her offer.
The bus finally arrives at the mall, and I notice just what Lillian and John meant by the area being affected by the dungeon now. There are no cars in the parking lot of the mall, and the outside looks even more run-down than when I first came down here. Walking from the bus stop to the front entrance, we see several figures loitering around with long sleeve jackets and their hoods up even though it’s a bright, warm day. The practically empty mall has only a few people walking around inside on a Saturday, and all the people working in the stores give us suspicious looks as we walk past.
I lead Lillian to the second floor of the mall and take her to the dungeon. She tsks when she looks at the dungeon door, and I see her focusing on it. I realize I haven’t used Inspect on the dungeon since I first found it. I focus my attention of the red dungeon door, and a blue box appears.
Dungeon - Zeldario Mash
Recommended for groups of levels 4-9
Classification: Fantasy
Restrictions: No high-tech weapons or abilities
Wow, that’s a lot more information than I got the first time I inspected the dungeon. I guess increasing those levels in Inspect paid off. What’s more concerning though, is that the proof that the dungeon has grown more powerful has been right here the whole time. When I first looked at it, it recommended for levels 1 -5. Now it's for groups of levels 4 - 9. No wonder I got killed last time trying to solo it.
I Inspect Lillian, wondering if the two of us can handle the entire dungeon by ourselves.
Lillian Coke
Level 9
Even with my increased level in Inspect I still only get her name and level. It must have something to do with the difference in our levels. I mean wow, the last time I used inspect on Lillian, she was only level 7. Now she’s level 9. I guess that means we’ll be ok in the dungeon.
Lillian opens the red door and steps inside. She disappears the moment she crosses the threshold. Is that what it looks like when I walk through one of these doors? I can only imagine what some average person would think. I imagine them opening and closing a regular door trying to figure out how I disappeared or find the trap door. Someone might even think I’d stepped through a portal to a magical Harry Potter world. I imagine a dungeon appearing in a train station in London and rumors spreading that someone disappeared near Platform 9. Then gaggles of people running into brick walls and posts trying to find the right place to get to Platform 9 3/4.
I’m pulled from my musings by a cough and see Lillian poke her head out of the doorway expectantly. I quickly follow her through the door into the dungeon. Once in the dungeon, Lillian pulls up her inventory, and her outfit transforms. She goes from ripped jeans and a cardigan to full heavy platemail with glowing magical runes. Lillian has a massive two-handed sword strapped to her back. Only her head is uncovered though she has a helmet in her gauntleted hands.
“Well, get changed into your battle gear, Anthony.” She orders.
Still stunned by the complete change in both her demeanor and outerwear, I pull up my inventory and tap on the simple leather armor set. There’s a quick flash of light, and I find myself covered in tough leather. I look down at myself and feel underdressed compared to Lillian, whose armor practically glows with power. However, if Lillian thinks less of me for my cheap beginner armor, she doesn’t say anything as she starts to walk through the cave. I have to jog a little to catch up with her. She moves surprisingly fast in all the heavy looking metal armor. I guess she’s invested a good number of her stat points into strength and constitution. There’s no other way she could walk around in that stuff without being exhausted.
Lillian exits the cave and scans the area looking for the land below the mountains. The forest, the plains, and the large castle from which a blood red fog spews forth to cover the land.
She turns to me and asks, “What’s the quest line that beats the dungeon?”
I tell her about the old man down the path and the quest he gave to defeat King Kanon and free Princess Plum. She nods as if she’s heard the quest before.
“Ok, I’ll invite you to group up with me. Just accept the invitation and share the quest with me.”
A blue box pops up in front of me.
Lillian has invited you to join her group. Do you accept?
I think, ‘Yes,' and a small portrait of Lillian appears in the upper left corner of my vision. Unlike the other System boxes, this one seems locked in place even though I move my head. Next to the portrait is are three horizontal bars. A red one, a blue one, and a yellow one. I can only assume these bars represent her health, mana, and TP.
“Hey, why can I see your health but I have to look up my character sheet to see mine?”
Lillian sighs wearily, “Why haven’t you read through the guidebook? There’s a whole section in there about customizing your User Interface. You can see any of your or your group's info by simply selecting the options in your User interface section. You can even save particular settings with a unique name that lets you activate or deactivate them.”
I really should read through that entire guidebook sometime. I call out, “User Interface,” and a blue window pops up with a bunch of choices to change the way I see things. I can have damage notifications come up instead of seeing red numbers float from myself. I leave that as is. I mean who wants a bunch of popups about damage distracting you in the middle of combat? I do select to see my health, mana, and TP bars. The horizontal bars pop up, and I have to resize them move them to the bottom left corner of my vision. I also set them to become translucent unless I look directly at them. I also enable them to flash when they're below 20% so that I know I need to take a potion or run away.
There are a ton more settings I can alter or turn on but I ignore the rest for now since I’m not sure how I want to set everything up and Lillian is giving me the stink eye.
“I’m all set. Thanks for telling about that. Why don’t you have your health bar where you can see it?”
She shakes her head at me, “I do see my health bar. The changes to your User interface are things only you can see. I mean who wants to walk around seeing other people’s boxes hanging out?”
That makes sense. Lillian reminds me that I need to share the quest with her. I sheepishly tell her that I don’t know how and she gives me another look that tells me I need to read that guidebook.
It turns out it’s a simple matter of calling out for the Quest Log and pressing a little button next to the quest description labeled, ‘share quest.’ With the quest for the dungeon shared, Lillian pulls up her quest log and reads through the details. It only takes her a minute to read through the details and close her quest log.