"You know," I said, trying to maintain some degree of dignity and likely failing, "I am able to walk."

"I am aware. You can run and jump too. Why?"

"Because you are carrying me instead of walking with me," I said, moving from annoyed to bemused.

"Eh, this is faster. And we need to chat about the Katarina messages. Decisions need to be made."

We flew past the guards at the gate who only chuckled at my predicament. I figured Jasna must have messaged ahead as they didn't bat an eye but two did seem to swap some coin, like they'd made a bet.

Once we were a few miles outside the city, which took the incredibly strong woman a very short amount of time, she slowed as we entered a copse of trees, giving us some shade and breaking line of sight for anyone that might be following.

As Jasna gently set me down, I looked to my feet and saw an ornate box with quite familiar patterning: it matched the inside of Katarina's carriage.

"I'm surprised you let this out of your sight," I said, nudging the box slightly with my foot.

I bent down and opened the hinged lid, recoiling in surprise as I heard an angry and petulant voice in my mind, "Did you really just kick my box? I can feel that you bozo. Ooh, that's a fun one: bozo. Weird clown though. Okay, I am still recovering but what's the plan Stan?"

The dungeon was in rare form, more ADHD than ever before, which was an accomplishment.

Jasna didn't budge as though my staring at a glowing green and white patterned orb was entirely normal. I said out loud, "Uh, let me talk to Jasna about the plan. So far, she's the only one that knows you are this intelligent and weren't actually destroyed, though I think our friend might suspect something."

"Cool beans, I'll just stay here looking pretty," the dungeon core said and pulsed to a rhythm while she hummed softly in my head. I felt a malevolent chuckle as she started into Never Gonna Give You Up.

"Who are you talking to?" Jasna asked. A dawning realization spread across her face. "Oh, got it. Wait, it can hear verbal language? That's quite interesting. Could it hear us from our trip back?"

"I was in a box that was designed to hide me completely from the world, nothing in or out… Pretty but not the sharpest crayon in the shed. Wow, that one's mean, fun, and confusing. Love it."

"Be nice," I said then winced at Jasna's confused expression with an accompanying head tilt. "The dungeon is being a little snarky. I think she's upset I kicked the box."

"She?" Jasna asked. "Do dungeons have genders?"

"Ugh, this is annoying as all get out. I've absorbed enough people with AAIs, let me see if I can mock something up." The dungeon then made a series of straining noises like it was fighting for its life on the toilet. "Dude, I can hear your thoughts. Gross. Got it I think."

"I hadn't considered that," Jasna said suddenly. "No, why would I do that? I guess I never really thought to in general. And yes, power differential is an issue. Can we not talk about this?"

"Hey dungeon, can you speak to both of us at the same time?" I asked, getting annoyed.

"Probably. Just didn't want to. Trying now, can you both hear me? Respond with who you have a crush on."

"Yes and no," both Jasna and I said simultaneously and then laughed.

"You're no fun," the dungeon said. "If you could see my proverbial face, it would be pouting and it's all your fault."

"Okay, let's get back on track. One, do you have a gender? Two, do you have a name? Three, if no, do you want a name?" I asked.

"I guess I identify as female. Those are always the adventurers I like the most. The guys usually taste way worse. Smelly and their core allocations are always bleh. 'Oh, look at me, I put way too much into one physical subcategory because I'm overcompensating.' And nope, no name but I want to hear your suggestions!" the dungeon said excitedly.

"Zandana," Jasna immediately replied.

"That just means dungeon in a local dialect, doesn't it? Seriously girl, what is… no, not going to get upset. Ooooh, I like that one!"

"Uh oh," I said. Jasna looked confused but I knew where this was going when my mind slipped to the dumbest name I had ever encountered.

"You may call me The Lady Princess Gabriela The Never Delved XVII, The First of Her Name, The Destroyer of Dreams and Delights, The Defeater of Delvers!" the dungeon said with glee.

"It's based off an old nickname for my ex's dog," I explained to Jasna's ever more confused expression. "Fine, but I'm just calling you Gabby. Why do you want to be named after a dog? And please stop reading my mind," I said with a heavy sigh.

"Can't stop. And wouldn't if I could. Anyway, that's the thing you were most fond of in any of your last five serious-ish relationships. A bit sad really." She paused for a second to let me stew. "Plus, I am a princess and it just has a good princess name ring to it," Gabby said cheerfully.

"I am lost but don't think I care," Jasna said. "Let's actually talk about what matters and that's what do we do with you? I don't think I can hide you in the city as a core, lead-lined box or not. Tiesa will find you in my apartment as she just starts cleaning when she comes over. Are you even recovered yet from removing a shard?"

"Yeah, feeling way better but not recovered enough to want to actually be deployed. Can you get me an essence stone? I think that will do it. I have given a few out and this drained and slightly fractured feeling is the same after I did. Otherwise, it will take a few weeks. How are you liking your bond?" Gabby asked me.

Realizing Steve wasn't here, I panicked for a second before remembering he was with Tiesa so he'd be fine and well-cared for. And overfed.

"He's a handful. Did you choose species?"

"Nope, wasn't strong enough to be able to do that. What'd you get?"

"Sugar glider," I said as Jasna said "Focus!"

"I'll show you him later but yes, Jasna is absolutely correct. We need to figure out a solution here. Especially so we don't get found and you at best get destroyed. I know Ratmir would probably literally kill a hundred small animals or maybe that many small humans to get to study you. And he's of the smellier variety." I paced back and forth while trying to think.

I'm not ready for this conversation. I wanted to think a few more days…

We discussed possibilities for another 30 minutes before circling back to essentially the first few things we discussed.

"Okay, okay, let's sum this up," I said, raising my hand.

"He's making an annoying hand gesture, isn't he? He kept doing that in the dungeon, with those dorks or by himself." Gabby chuckled while Jasna looked like she was holding back a smile.

"Yes, and let me cook for a bit. And I know you know what that means Gabby, Jasna it just means let me talk and go on. So first, we have to be careful where we deploy you because some people are powerful enough to sense a dungeon or rift. And there is some scanning equipment that might point you out but it's very rarely used. So when we do deploy you, it should be close enough to a higher Tier rift to mask your presence.

"Second, you can only hold an entrance mirage – like you did after we fake destroyed you – for a few hours. So we have to find a place where a cave mouth isn't going to look bizarre. And we also have to find a place that doesn't have so much traffic that someone will discover you.

"Third, you need either time, especially outside a lead-lined box, to absorb more essence, or you need a Tier 1 essence stone. That will help you recover enough to be deployed.

"Fourth, for now, I am going to take you in a lead-lined box to the inn. Jasna brought this plain one and she's going to figure out how to get the other box back to Katarina; we'll try to come up with something convincing to throw Tiesa off on why it was missing.

"Fifth, I am not going to bow and address you as 'Your Royal Highness' whenever I speak to you Gabby. Did I get it all?" I asked, ticking things off my fingers as I read what I had jotted down in my notes app.

"Well, the fifth is wrong but yes, I think for now, we want to look for a place to deploy me near here. I also won't have near enough essence to give an awesome reward like, what did you say his name was again? Steve? Really?!"

"Not having it. He picked it after about twenty minutes of suggestions," I said and finally just plopped on the ground, too exhausted from running down issues and contingencies.

Just like the old days. I kind of miss this but also really don't…

"It's true. I wanted Pancake to win. He refused," Jasna said dejectedly.

"Pancakes should always win," Gabby said sagely. "Back to my point, I need dead bodies with essence to create great rewards. So bring me yummy corpses. And I'll tell you if I am getting too high on null and we need to purge again. It feels like a more manageable concentration here but I've only been out for a few minutes."

"And we're agreed that we aren't bringing in anyone on this yet? And when we do, it will be Jasna letting Tiesa know first but not where Gabby is, right?" I asked, wrapping up.

"Y— someone's coming," Jasna said calmly.

Oh, sodus.

***

"What the hell do you think you're doing in there! Come out with your hands and your pants up!" a gruff voice bellowed through the foliage.

"What about if we come out with both down instead?" Jasna called back and then let out an almighty giggle. As she reached for her waistband, I couldn't help but tilt my head at her. "No, you're right, best not," she murmured to me and shrugged.

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"I didn't bring dinner so not fair to ask you to bring the show!" the man yelled back. "Coming in so put your clothes on quickly!" A leg poked through a clearing between two trees and wiggled around in the air, the rest of Gabor following soon after.

He looked between us and then seemed to investigate the area around us, getting down to examine the grass. "Oh, my lovely and scary wife told me to come investigate why Jazzy snuck you off. Were you really just out here talking?" He shook his head and muttered, "Freaking weirdos."

"We needed to have a private conversation. Terry had been storing the artifacts we found at the facility in Katarina's box but she was starting to look for it. So I got him a new lead-lined box. You know how bad it is for the objects and spatial storage item both when you store anything highly magical in one." I looked to Jasna, surprised at her easy lie but also worried about the pile of artifacts currently potentially doing damage to my storage ring.

"Well whatever. I'll get the box back to Katarina – did you know she had the gall to ask me if we took it? When did the guard even investigate the carriage? And are you sure there wasn't anything more going on out here? Why did you sneak away, couldn't that have happened in the city?" Gabor was circling back to his guard persona, digging deeper when things didn't add up.

"You know how I don't ask or talk to Tee-Tee about your card games or that random warrior that sometimes appears in the fighting pits? Let's have you do the same," Jasna said as she picked up the ornate box and handed it to Gabor.

"You drive a hard bargain but deal. Get back to town soon, Tiesa is really wondering and she'll come out here herself. I don't think either of you want that. Wait, why can't I send a message?" I saw Jasna move subtly. "Nope, there it went through, weird blip," Gabor said.

Suddenly I got fourteen messages from Tiesa on my AAI asking increasingly insistent questions about where we went and what we were doing. Jasna's leg was pressed against the simple box she brought to house Gabby.

My friend shrugged and began jogging back to the city, carrying the ornate box to presumably deliver to Katarina.

I lifted up the box lid slightly. "Any reason you decided to block AAI messages? And how did you do it without causing a pop-up?"

"I am an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Like a burrito with an unknown meat and fillings. Will it be beans or rice or something terrible like a lot of lettuce? Did they add the guac? Did they scrimp on the cheese? Or use that gross liquid stuff? That's going to ruin the integrity of the tortilla! Is that pork or chicken?" Gabby made a noise like she was really considering something deep and looking off into the distance. Jasna looked incredibly confused.

Ignoring the strange woman of a dungeon, I asked, "So what do we do here? I think I should take the box to Vana's but we need a better place for it and you should head directly to Tiesa to distract her long enough for me to make it back. What will distract her?"

"If she thinks we were out here for amorous interaction." The way Jasna said it was so matter-of-fact, it was far more funny than sexy. Like the most awkward teacher in the school trying to teach sex-ed. "Okay, she can tell when I am lying, so I need you to kiss me."

"Wait, what?" I said, utterly confused.

"Oh, do you not want to? Okay, hmm. What lie will she believe?"

What the jebbie is happening here…?

"Uh, no, it's okay. I just, you know, tend to do that with someone I'm dating not to convince someone of a lie… Yeah, I have no idea here but I'll help you sell the lie, yes." I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

She rolled her eyes, then put her hand on the back of my head leaning in to kiss me on the lips.

More a coming together of mouths than a kiss honestly…

It lasted five seconds. I knew it was that long because I could literally feel her counting.

It wasn't the worst kiss of my lives but it was probably even more awkward than my first kiss in my first body.

And that attempted makeout session ended rather abruptly with me accidentally kissing her eyelid.

"Okay, that should be enough for me to convince her." She nodded and jogged off, picking up speed as she headed for the gates.

Standing stunned for a few seconds, I picked up the box and slowly started trudging back to town, mumbling to myself the entire time.

***

[Incoming Message from Tiesa Gogol: Don't play around with Jasna. She's not the best at the relationship thing. And come get Steve, he's getting grumpy.]

[Incoming Message from Katarina Illeva: A messenger just dropped off the box. They said a courier dropped it off with them to deliver to our estate. I am not sure what contraband you smuggled past the guards but just use a damn storage item next time. My possessions are not your toys or tools.]

[Incoming Message from Gabor Gogol: Wait, so you were out there smooching? I need all the deets. You, me, Risto at his place.]

[Incoming Message from Risto Lazarov: DEETS!]

Why will my AAI translate 'deets' but not swear words…

I slowly headed towards Gabor and Tiesa's house after dropping off Gabby, knowing this was going to be an awkward night for sure. Just thinking about the kiss made me blush though I wasn't sure if it was embarrassment at how awkward it was or something else.

As I was a block away, a familiar voice called out, "Hey, was hoping to catch you now. We got an emergency assignment 'offer' about five minutes ago. Though it's not actually an offer as much as a demand. They think a rift just outside town is going to break in the next half day, maybe hour or less. Really nasty one too, mix of flying and fast land-based animals, will mess things up." Pavel was coming from behind me from the direction of the inn and was already wearing his gear.

"I need to grab Steve, we have to test his allocation bracelet," I said, pointing to the Gogol abode. "But you need to come in there with me." I hoped to use him to skip over the awkward conversation Tiesa and Gabor surely wanted to have.

At my knock, the many voices emanating from the house only got louder, all laughing and boisterous. And of course Steve sensed me through our shared bond as I felt him wake up.

"There he is! Get in here! You fooled me good, you really were out there for— uh, can I help you?" Gabor turned towards Pavel.

"Sorry, need to collect Steve and then we have to go," I said to a chorus of boos from Tiesa and Risto who were within earshot but couldn't see Pavel standing there. I raised my voice over them. "Looks like imminent rift break, suddenly shot up in essence level or something. Just south of the city. So while I know you all want to grill us, I have more important things to do."

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #17: When the opportunity to redirect attention is laid on a platter for you, take it. Use your provided resources to the fullest, even if that's only to get out of an awkward conversation.

Are my tips getting less helpful? Nope, that one is definitely reusable.

"How are you getting there?" Gabor asked, all mirth gone from his features in an instant. "Do the guards at the gate know to be on the lookout?"

"I don't know sir, you'd have to ask them. We're here to collect Steve and head out immediately." Pavel dropped into a persona of someone subservient reporting to the guard quite easily.

"He's not a sir here, he's just Gabs," Tiesa said as she appeared holding a sleepy and grumpy Steve. "Do you need us as guards?" she asked to Pavel.

"It's just outside the city so should be fine. Maybe twenty minutes by horse. We have the four from the facility and then the city is permanently loaning us another. We don't have time to round up more horses. You could guard the rift distortion in case it breaks while we're in there? Anyway, we need to get going." Pavel put a hand on my shoulder as Steve took up residence on the other.

Tiesa handed me a small backpack-like contraption. "Here, the prototype for Steve's back harness. It's not fully ready so I wasn't going to show it to you yet as I don't love it, but it should provide good enough protection for a single delve." It went over my shoulders and had a decent amount of structural support but nothing to really protect him from a direct attack. The lattice of metal bars would keep him from falling out but the bars were too thin for my taste.

It kinda reminds me of those backpacks for taking a cat on a walk with you.

"Not sure about this but I guess it'll have to do," I said.

As we exited the gate five minutes later at a run, Pavel finished reading me in on the small amount of info we had on the rift.

"We want to get there as soon as possible. We should be able to get our footing inside and then plan better but they thought it might break tonight." Vidas handed me the reins. "We ride hard and fast."

The fifteen minute journey left the horses spent and my butt slightly sore. We couldn't even talk without yelling so we communicated little. When we arrived, there was one tired and scared-looking man there who had called in the imminent break. As soon as we came into view, he got on his horse and left, pelting back for the city.

The rift entrance itself felt different, even from the pen where we put our horses a few hundred feet from the distortion in space. It vibrated with a light that quickly strobed through the color spectrum and seemed to hum and beat in rhythm with my heart against my cores.

"Okay, we can feel how full it is. We need to get in there now and then we can figure out the plan." Vidas turned to me. "Rifts rarely break once someone enters, especially if they can clear a few monsters quickly."

Pavel went down the line checking everyone's gear. "Terry, I know you are capable but let us handle this. We don't have many healing potions left and didn't get a restock in town yet. I know you hate just being the essence sponge but this was already a hard Tier 1 rift. Protect yourself more than anything else."

With a final nod, he and his brother entered. Inara followed 30 seconds later and Romie another 30 seconds after that with me close on their heels.

I exited the distortion into a scene of mildly controlled chaos.

The team had deployed their glow stones and I quickly followed suit. The dusky forest – is it always a forest in the green zone? – was bathed in the fading light of a twilight that barely shone through the canopy of the sparse but incredibly massive trees.

They were like oaks that had been growing for well over a hundred years on Earth, the radius on every single one was over six feet (2m). Their canopies extended extremely high into the sky but had branches far closer to the ground than I wanted.

Because of the swooping, squawking feathered dinosaurs.

They looked like a kid with an overactive imagination tried to make a small velociraptor fly – an unholy combination of the grace and speed of a hawk with a face filled with outward-jutting teeth that were clearly used for tearing. They even had a leading blade-like tooth and two more protuberances, one from each temple on their heads, that looked razor-sharp.

Luckily for us, the skyborne abominations made a sound as they started their dives, else we'd have silent assassins dropping from above wielding knives from their faces and feet alike.

As I entered, I pulled my shield and focused only on defending.

Two dinobirds were already dead on the ground, spreading a pool of sickly green blood as two of the larger, land-based variety battled with Pavel and Vidas.

These were more like ostriches or emus though with heavy cudgel-like appendages for arms.

One leapt into the air to try to dig its talons across Pavel's stomach but he expertly parried, causing it to slightly lose balance. He followed by lightly thumping it in the face with his shield, causing it to shriek in rage and strike in fury with its beak against his shield.

Both movements were designed to let Inara slip behind and she managed three dagger strikes – right, left, right – to the back of one leg before jumping away, avoiding a plunging head from the emu-like beast and a dive from a different monster above.

I'll call them raptorsoars and then wannasoars. Heh. Quite proud of those names.

After Romie dispatched two of the flying monsters, causing two more to scatter, it was an easy mop-up led by Vidas and Pavel. Meanwhile Inara took turns either distracting the weirdly agile beasts or landing crippling blows to their legs.

"Wow, those looked like a tough battle," I said, gently petting Steve.

"Yeah, it really is full to bursting if there are that many enemies just inside the entrance distortion," Inara said, cleaning her knife on the feathers of a wannasoar.

"Uh, sorry Vidas but we need a few minutes. Just killing two before Terry could take the null wiped me. I feel like hot garbage," Pavel said to his brother, not even waiting for a response and plopping to the ground.

"Agreed," Romie said and did the same.

"Okay, but let's review footage while we wait. I could only watch a bit while riding, didn't want to fall off again. Embarrassing and painful." Vidas also sat down.

I probed Steve through our connection and he seemed more excited than anything and his allocation bracelet filter – green essence only – seemed to be working so he had zero complaints outside of not being fed right that instant.

I tried to keep him quiet and calm to not attract more attention from any dinobirds. He examined and then experimentally took a bite of a corpse but spit out the feathers, looking utterly betrayed.

After ten minutes of rest and watching videos of past runs, Vidas circled everyone up.

"Tactical assessment. Let me know if I missed anything. The two sets of monsters work extremely well together. The air-based 'swooping lizards of claw and maw' are known to scout out and alert their ground-based cousins. They rarely swoop unless they get critical mass but stay alert anyway. Two people spotting the trees at all times to call out for Romie.

"The ground-based lizards are rather hearty and can take a beating. My fight where I only had to tie one up and protect from swoops was inching up on medium difficulty. We want to lure them in smaller groups. That means moderate noise attraction protocol. Unfortunately, our scent lures won't work.

"Terry, you are to be next to Inara or Romie at all times, one spotting the trees and one spotting the ground for an ambush. Retreat to a safe distance and keep an eye out when we engage. We work on bringing them to us in small groups if we can. Based on past recordings, the boss can call any we haven't killed to herself so we need to sweep before we get there."

Vidas looked at everyone and got a series of nods.

"Are we collecting bodies or resources?" I asked.

"Nope, this is about being efficient. If you have room and it won't dirty up your spatial items, do as you please. But safety is crucial here."

With that, we headed off into the forest, our small glowing beacons pushing back the doom and gloom of sudden talon strikes from above.

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