“I want to go camping,” I complained, though I had to admit, I didn’t much want to do that in a dungeon. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be nearly so relaxing to curl up in a hammock with monsters around me.
“The Pitt can open for days,” Jin explained, telling me he’d picked up our conversations despite us being near the back of the room. “Exhaustion will often take you down faster than anything else. We plan to be prepared this time. You will have proper equipment, and other espers will leave caches of supplies as well. We will break our teams into multiple groupings. Scouts will seek out civilians and leave trackers, where the rescue teams will rush in to escort those civilians out.”
“You mean we’re supposed to just leave frightened people with a tracker?” Carter asked, crossing his arms as though he were speaking to the dumbest person he’d ever met.
Which was usually the tone he reserved for me.
“Exactly. Scouts have the skills to move more quickly, to cover more ground. By separating the two tasks, we ensure the best chance at saving as many as possible. In addition, we will have teams assigned to hold the portal, and others to help clear lines between the civilians and the portal. Others will stand guard outside the portal for any breakthroughs that occur. Any questions?”
“When do we find out what our group is?” another esper asked.
“There is a designation on each of your bags. That tells you where you will be assigned.”
I turned mine even though I knew the answer. We were always on portal duty. It was the least important job, really, the one taken up by those who they couldn’t trust to do better jobs. Basically, if the other teams all fucked up and a huge waveescaped through the portal, well, we were all fucked anyway. Might as well have the most useless there.
Our squad had been on portal cleanup for most jobs over the past ten years, so despite all the training we’d all done to get ready for this one, I knew where we’d end up.
Except, when I turned it, I sawscoutwritten on the bag.
Scout? That meant we were expected to venture the farthest into the dungeon, to serve as the eyes and ears, seeking out those who needed help. In a normal dungeon, it would also include finding the heart, but here that didn’t matter much. We couldn’t destroy it anyway, so the location hardly mattered.
“The fuck?” Ingram asked, the first to utter aloud his confusion.
The Guild hadn’t given a fuck about us for years. They hardly remembered us anymore, yet they were putting us in a position of importance? Why?
I didn’t understand it, couldn’t make sense of it. I doubt they were just being ‘forgive and forget’ about what happened last time.
“Maybe they figure we’ll have a heads up, since we were there before,” I said.
“We fucked it up last time, and besides, these dungeons often take in parts of the real world. It means it won’t look exactly the same. Anything we knew about it won’t really matter,” Carter said. “No, that isn’t the point.”
“They want us dead,” Shear said, his voice steady as though he had no doubt.
“You can tell?”
He shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t be foolish enough to send anyone here who knew why that choice was made, not when they knew I’d be here. It just makes sense. They want Yun, and we’re in the way. What better way to take care of all their problems than by removing us from the equation? The highestnumber of rampages and deaths are always from scouts, so if they put us there—”
“Then we’re likely to not make it back,” I said.
“And then they can take Yun and do whatever they want with her,” Carter added.
Shear nodded. “It is a rather good plan. With our reputation, no one would bat an eye at the idea that we had fallen in there.”
Carter snorted loudly. “Then they’re dumber than even I thought, and I hadn’t given them a lot of credit. The Pitt couldn’t kill us last time—it won’t this time, either.”
Shear said nothing, suggesting he might not agree but wouldn’t dare say it. That was so his style, though. He spoke only when he needed to, when he had something that would add to the situation. He didn’t speak for no good reason, and telling Carter he was wrong, that we might just get our asses handed to us, what good would that do?
“So you’ll be scouts?” Jin asked from just beside me.
I jumped, hating the reaction immediately. I was an esper, damn it, I didn’t get jump scared by anyone. Still, I’d been so focused on Shear and the others I hadn’t noticed his approach.
Jin smirked, clearly having caught my slip up. Then again, I’d never been good at playing the posturing games. They just weren’t my thing.
“Seems that way.” Carter lifted his bag to show the label as proof. “It’s been a while since I got to visit a stable dungeon. Should be fun.” His tone remained cheery, and to anyone else, it probably sounded like he was headed to a theme park, not a dungeon. “I’m thinking about wearing purple to really blend in and match the vibe.”
“The vibe?” Jin frowned for a moment, an expression that suggested he had little idea what Carter was talking about. “You sound like my fifteen-year-old niece.”
“What? I thought that was fire. Totally main character energy. Oh no, am I.…cooked?”
