35. Reevaluate

35. Reevaluate

Morgana woke early the next morning to soft knocking at her door. For a moment, she lay there disoriented. She'd fallen asleep?

It had taken long enough. She had been unable to for hours. On several occasions she'd considered skipping the night's rest entirely. But it seemed exhaustion had claimed her eventually.

Another knock brought her back to reality, and she slid out of bed with a mumbled, "Coming."

On the other side of the door was Vesper.

She looked better than yesterday, which wasn't saying much, considering the mess she'd been in. She had bags under her eyes and her hair was frazzled, but there was a lightness to her posture that hadn't been there before.

"Hey," she said, sounding more like herself—almost surprisingly so. "Good news. Can I come in?"

"Good...news?" Morgana asked, blinking. Vesper invited herself in, and Morgana closed the door behind her. "What good news?"

"I broke into Archibald's shop," Vesper said breezily.

That jolted the last of her sleepiness away. "You did what?" she asked, boggling at the woman.

"Broke in," Vesper said. She plopped down on Morgana's bed and started kicking her legs back and forth. The only thing that stopped Morgana from panicking was how easy-going she seemed—almost back to her normal self. Though a shadow still hung over her shoulders; the events of yesterday definitely hadn't gone forgotten. "But don't worry, like I said, it's good news."

Morgana took a breath, forcing herself to withhold judgment. "Explain."

"Wasn't gonna leave it up to luck. Wanted insurance. Decided to poke around and see what I could find." She shrugged. "You're forgetting I'm a [Thief]. Was easy. Came in through his bedroom window. He didn't have a clue."

A headache started to form. The mundane sort, not from her injury.

"Okay?" she prompted, sitting next to Vesper.

"Rummaged around his office and found a few things. I'm not gonna say we don't have to worry about him at all, but we're not screwed. Odds are high he'll leave us alone."

Vesper launched into an explanation of what she'd found during the midnight expeditions Morgana had been blissfully unaware of. To her credit, the risk had been worth it, for sheer peace of mind. A large portion of Morgana's sleeplessness had been thanks to the looming threat of armored guards knocking on Rune's front door—and what she would do if that happened.

When Vesper was finished, Morgana rubbed her forehead and sighed. "I wish you would've told me you were doing that," she said. "I could've helped."

"No offense, but the last time we needed to be sneaky, you made everything worse."

"I was barely conscious, then!"

"Still," Vesper said. "You're no sneak. This was a one man job."

Morgana blinked. "It seems like most of it is out of his control, anyway," she said. "He seems like a reasonable person—he'll recognize he can't help even if he wanted to."

Vesper was already shaking her head. "You don't understand. Flint's, well, protective is putting it lightly. At least when it comes to me. I know my brother. He's going to insist. You need to be firm with him. Tell him he's out. He'll listen to reason if it's coming from you, but not me. Plus...I obviously don't want to tell him I can't have him in the dungeon with me. That'll open a whole other..." she trailed off. "Yeah. Anyway."

Morgana frowned at her. The pleading look she delivered was genuine enough that she caved. "Alright," she said. "But is going into the dungeon just the two of us safe?"

"If we stick to the first floor? Almost definitely." She tilted her head. "Why? You thinking of finding a different third?"

"I don't think that's a good idea. Not unless we know we can trust them, somehow. My situation is too sensitive."

"I'm thinking we just need to get you in a full set of armor. We already considered that, but didn't take the suggestion seriously enough. Can't have you dropping in a single unlucky hit. A helmet would've stopped all of this."

"The mask gives me mana regeneration," Morgana said. "I would've bought a helmet if not for that." What an unfortunate strike of fate that the one mage-focused item the dungeon had dropped had been what caused their team disaster. They'd have been leagues better off without it.

"And once our defensive issues are shored up, we can move to deeper floors," Vesper said.

They'd all been idiotic, rushing into harder and harder encounters. Having extreme offensive power didn't matter if their defense was so far behind. They should've treated their glaring weakness with the severity it deserved.

"We can figure out the details later," Vesper said. "I just wanted to fill you in on—uh, what I was up to last night, and Flint."

"Alright."

Vesper smiled, though it was a little strained, and patted her knee and stood. "I'm gonna go check in on him again," she said. "Talk to you later."

Vesper left, and Morgana sat on her bed, stewing in her thoughts. Vesper's expedition to Archibald's shop might have been reckless—a trait that was becoming more and more obvious in the woman—but it had settled no small amount of turmoil inside her head. She was glad she'd done it, dangerous as it had been.

Their goal moving forward was simple, and, in fact, hadn't changed much. They needed to level, equip themselves, and progress deeper into the dungeon as soon as it was safe. And actually safe, this time.

There was also another motivation for Morgana wanting to get stronger. While regular payments to Archibald might fend off their problems for now, there was a longer-term solution to the unpleasant apothecary.

With power came immunity.

That was true in Morgana's world, much less Vesper's, which seemed to operate even more strictly on a hierarchy of strength—since it was built into the core of these people's existence, via the System.

So if they became high-level delvers, became people of importance...a crime like what they'd done? Surely they could be free from its consequences, especially if amends were made with Archibald.

Eventually, she stood and began her morning routine, getting dressed and clean. The injury on the back of her head was merely a tender spot, now; she could forget it was there. A worried Rune checked in on her, and she assured her that everything was okay. Maybe it was the tone of her voice, but she seemed reassured for the first time, if still concerned. The girl was too sweet. She'd been fretting since they'd first staggered into her 'guildhall.'

After a light breakfast, she went to see Flint. She wasn't looking forward to the conversation, but it needed to happen.