LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 21 (Patreon)

There wasn't a lot of official news out there about the Dungeons yet, it had been just 48 hours. The official new releases were just a few articles and video speeches from government officials about 'staying calm' with no real concrete advice other that 'stay away from the glowing portals', but social media was loaded with information. It wasn't at the point where daredevil influencers were trying to sneak past the barricades to touch one, but it was coming.

Mira found some candid footage of the Union Point Dungeon Break with just a few minutes of searching. The critters that the Dungeon was barfing out were reptilian than the ones in the Ruined Borough. Some of them acted intelligent and used weapons, but their tactics were only a few rungs above the goblins. The really interesting thing was that there was exponentially more of them than the things trying to get out of the Gate than the things that had followed her and her party out of the Ruined Borough.

She would have been tempted to identify as the difference between a D and S rank Dungeon, but she remembered the System saying something about the monster spawn rate when it warned them about the approaching Dungeon Break. She seemed to recall the System indicating the rate would be higher in the event of a Break, which might explain why the Bowler Hats were out there fighting a comparative trickle of goblins as opposed to the tidal wave of lizards they were seeing in Union Point.

There was more information out there about the disappearances that preceded the Dungeons.

LifeLog had activated their crisis feature where people could mark themselves 'safe' from an event and have it show up on their profile. Mira resisted the urge to update her profile right away, but she already had a few DMs asking if she was the same Samira Bellamy in the global alerts.

"They want to come see you," Adra said, jostling her out of her thoughts. On screen, she saw Morwen leading her party out of the executive office/throne room where Adra had been debriefing them in his other body.

"Right," Mira took a deep breath, checked to see if her hair was dry (it wasn't) and nodded. "What was I supposed to be talking about and to who?"

"Pretend your parents' lawyer wanted to talk to your about your job contract," he said and then paused to add, as an aside, "Your real lawyer is named Soneares, by the way. There was such a call earlier, but she was there to safeguard your interests inasmuch as we can at this juncture. She will be doing the preliminary research on conservatorship law in this world. I'll introduce the two of you later."

Mira wasn't sure that bringing in an otherworldly lawyer was actually the best plan, in this case. Soneares would have to start with learning their entire legal codex before she could even begin to dive into specialized case law. Demons might make the best lawyers, but not from a cold start against an experienced local.

"Three named demons?" Mira asked, surprised by the number—although not the gender composition. Adra's infantry demons, who she now thought of as Bowler Hats, tended to be overwhelmingly male. Mid-level executive demons like Morwen tended to be female. It was only when you got to the uppermost-level demons like Syrith when genders were evenly split.

(Demons had a complicated birth caste structure that was mostly biological, rather than social, and they weren't as prone to toxic class stratification as humans were because all demons had the same final life phase; a neuter state where their intelligence and mana-based abilities skyrocketed. Those were the Wise Ones.)

"Much of my infantry volunteered to come help stabilize dungeons and the Supreme Council of Wise Ones prefer that there is a certain ratio of upper level demons present when that many lower level demons relocate, in the event that we must declare sudden evacuation from this realm," he explained. "A small council of Wise Ones is forming to support me here, but the final candidates have yet to be settled on."

"I thought the demons were here because of the System?" Mira asked as she started to tidy up the remains of her meal. In doing so, she found someone had stocked the kitchen with basic necessities beyond Mason Dietrich's sad bachelor fuel.

Adra followed her as she worked.

"They were originally planning on establishing a much smaller presence here. That changed when they realized that I am in play. I told you, our coming is always a sign of great change. The demons have been with me long enough to know that and if you've ever tried to keep a demon out of a fun fight…well. I don't recommend it."

Mira thought of her two bodyguards from her previous life, who she privately thought of as Mister White and Mister Green, and nodded to acknowledge his point. They loved a fight, the dumber the better. To them, a dust up was just good clean fun. She could think of only one or two occasions where they'd had to take their work seriously and cleaning up the aftermath was almost more trouble than the assassins they'd flattened.

In summary, if a demon wasn't having fun in a fight then you'd better pray it was because it had turned out to be a boring one.

"Fair enough," she sighed and looked herself over. The pajamas she had on weren't obviously nightwear. They were the kind of soft leisurewear that was suitable for both sleep and wearing around the house. "Do I need to change? Where are we meeting them?"

"They're coming here," Adra said, just as the door buzzed.

He started to go answer it, but Mira waved him back towards the couch. "You're pretending to be a jerk now, right? Jerks don't answer the door, not even when their beloved fiancee just got back after a scary misadventure."

Adra grumbled, but went to sit. He pulled his phone out and, now that she knew what to look for, Mira could see it when he withdrew the majority of his attention from the body; leaving just enough to casually scroll through a muted video app.

"Good job," she praised him and went to answer the door.

Adra's other body was in the hallway, escorting the party to her door.

Cece was in the lead and Mira watched her gaze flick over Mira's shoulder to where the Mason body was parked on the couch, looking bored and disengaged. She breathed a little sigh of relief and looked back at Mira.

"Oh good, you got a chance to clean up! Can we come in?"

Mira nodded and guided them inside, choosing to ignore the similar once-overs the boys gave her along with the dubious sidelong glances they shot at 'Mason's' back. Adra hadn't won over any friends with that body, but he didn't seem to be trying to.

"This is a nice place!" Alan said as he made a slow circuit of the living room. He seemed to dwell on the entertainment system for an inordinate amount of time, like he was looking for something.

Bryn seemed more interested in the kitchen, while Randall was sticking close to Cece. Cece, in turn, was sticking with Mira.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Mira asked the room at large. "I'm afraid we just have water on hand. You saw what happened to my grocery run."

Everyone made agreeable noises, but Adra-as-Illya addressed Adra-as-Mason. "Dietrich, I need your opinion on something. Miss Bellamy can entertain our new Hunters for a while—if that's alright with you?" the last bit was aimed at Mira.

"Of course," she agreed.

Obviously, this was just a puppet show to keep Adra from having to play two roles or for anyone to pick a fight with 'Mason.' She wasn't convinced that Alan, at least, wouldn't try. He kept making a face whenever he happened to be looking in 'Mason's' direction, which made her wonder if Alan also ran in the same rich-boy circles as Mason, Illya, and the Magnates.

Adra's bodies left, but his shadow matter remained. He'd be fully informed on anything that happened in this room.

As soon as they left, Alan clapped his hands together and turned to Mira. "Alright, I wanna know where you have it stashed."

"It?' Mira echoed, scrunching her nose. "What are you talking about?"

He chuckled. "I see you, okay. What is it? A Nintari? PlaySystem? An XCube? I wanna say you seem like a console type, but I'm willing to be surprised."

"I have no idea what you mean," Mira said backing up. Her ears felt hot for some reason and she turned sharply away.

"So they're not here," Alan surmised. "Let's see, what would you play. League of Champions? Gears of Battle? World of Warfare? BlockCraft?"

"Give it up, Alan," Randall sighed and dropped onto the couch, which seemed to give everyone else permission to relax.

Mira was a little annoyed it hadn't occurred to her to do the same, but Alan had immediately started in on trying to out her as a gamer or something. She'd been on the defensive.

"I just want to exchange player tags!" Alan turned back to Mira. "You're on FOG, right?"

She was going to have to look these things up later.

In the meantime, she flipped her hair in Alan's general direction and said, "I'm ignoring you."

He just said, "There's a SquadCom server I want to add you to, later."

"Give it a rest," Will sighed and elbowed Alan as he sat down. Good to know those two were still close. He looked up at Mira. "Did that Mason guy explain to you that we all have jobs now?"

"I knew they were going to make you an offer like mine," Mira said, instead of yes or no. "Are you getting the same XP share?"

"That was a nice surprise!" Cece chirped as she sat down and patted the sofa next to her. Mira sat as bidden. "I was wondering if there was an incentive built into the System for joining one of these Guilds. That man at the gate made it sound like the System established the Guilds."

"Blake Heron," Alan groused, now distracted from his cheerful badgering. "I couldn't say anything downstairs, but he's bad news. He's this venture capitalist who does a lot of fundraising, but always seems to be the only person who comes out ahead in the end. One of my uncles got burned by him. I heard he keeps getting investigated, but the investigators suddenly drop the case for no reason. I didn't even know my Merchant Skills had a passive effect, but he lit up red as soon as I looked him in the eye. Even the System doesn't trust him."

"Which skill was that?" Mira asked.

"My Contract skill apparently flags people who have broken a System contract recently either so I don't bother with them or to impede their ability to do further business within the System," he explained. "I had to look it up while we were in the car. RIP Andre. I don't think the Four Seasons is going to offset how badly he's about to get shafted."

"Did Mister Illya have a color?" Cece asked.

Alan snapped his fingers and pointed at her. "Yeah, weirdly, he did. He was green all the way and even had a star-rating. That's fascinating, because I know about the Volkovs too and I wouldn't have predicted that."

"What's wrong with the Volkovs?" This time it was Randall who asked.

Alan scrunched his nose. "Illya Volkov is the third eldest son of the CEO of Volkov Industries, a huge family business private specializing in security, secure transport, and weapons manufacturing. I'm not saying that they have ties to organized crime because no one has ever been able to prove it, but they previously owned a lot of cash-only businesses—although the rumor is that they've divested themselves of most of that once their legitimate income streams stabilized."

Funny, Adra hadn't mentioned that his first-choice body was a Mob Prince. She should have guessed from the name.

Note: These are all fairly self evident, but I'm noting them here.LifeLog - Facebook

Nintari - Nintendo

PlaySystem - PlayStation

XCube - XBoxFOG - Steam

League of Champions - League of Legends

Gears of Battle - Gears of War

BlockCraft - Minecraft

World of Warfare - World of Warcraft

SquadCom: Discord