The Path of Ascension 6: A LitRPG Adventure

11

It was interesting to see the city so packed as, normally, the moon didn’t hold that many people during the off cycles. But when a new cycle was happening, the city filled to bursting as it struggled to contain millions of people for a few months.

It took Queen another week, but she had reportedly made a longer trip than they had. Still, she still arrived with plenty of time to spare for group training.

Minkalla was close to the eruption that would herald the new cycle, and as it neared, the time estimate got more and more accurate. With a little less than two months left, they had the event timed down to the hour.

Queen had to go through the same onboarding process they had, but hours later, she also was free.

A few hours after that, they were finally able to meet up.

In their Quill and Torch masks, Matt and Liz sat with Luna off to the side as they waited for Queen and her own manager to enter the heavily secure room in Luna’s personal portable home, which hovered in a reserved space for those types of residences.

Liz turned to Luna and asked before their guest arrived, “And it’s a good idea to tell Queen everything about us?”

Matt rubbed his finger along the webbing of her hand. He appreciated her defensiveness, but they had been over this, and he did agree with Luna’s reasoning. For all it stung that they hadn’t even been allowed to tell the Unbroken everything but were expected to tell a comparative stranger. Still, they needed full trust for what they were about to do.

“It’s better for you to go in alone rather than hide something from a teammate in a place as dangerous as Minkalla. But if you choose to not team up with her, you’ll almost certainly be forced to Tier up before you get the best rewards.”

Matt smiled under his mask. Liz was always worried for him, but they had been given preliminary psychological evaluations of Queen months before this. They had exchanged them after they reconfirmed their intentions to go to Minkalla together. Neither party had been particularly eager to share something so frank and personal as a psych-eval, but they sort of knew each other after communicating over the last three years. Everything said, Queen was trustworthy, and wouldn’t expose Matt’s Talent for no reason. Or for any reason, really. But it was still a scary thought.

All that aside, Luna was right. Minkalla was dangerous for Tier 14s, let alone Tier 11s like them. The safety briefer’s speech still rang in his ears, as had a thousand and one similar speeches Luna had given them in private. She was confident that they’d be able to survive the place at Tier 12, and that they would survive long enough at Tier 11 to reach Tier 12 if needed. But if they wanted the best of the still-unnamed rewards, they needed to go with Queen and stay Tier 11 the entire time.

If Matt went in there hiding behind the separate identities of Quill or Matt, they wouldn’t stand a chance. He needed to use his full kit, old and new skills alike, to even have a hope of reaching the core at Tier 11, and getting whatever reward awaited them.

And Queen seemed trustworthy from everything they had learned of her. She had told them a little about her brother, who she had needed to practically raise herself after her parent’s divorce and mother’s death.

As someone deprived of his parents, he sympathized with her about her lack of a caring father and mother. It was cruel and wasteful of something precious and beautiful. Family shouldn’t do that to each other.

Matt also understood Liz and her own protectiveness of him.

It was nice, but unnecessary at this point.

Half an hour later, Queen walked through the door alongside a blonde with vibrant purple eyes and a teasing smile that kept trying to creep on her face.

Queen waved at them as she sat down.

The blonde was the first to speak, “I’m Carol. Manager extraordinaire.”

Luna raised her index finger while somehow looking bored and attentive at the same time. “Luna. Manager.”

Carol explained. “It’s customary to have the managers introduce themselves, first for the Pathers when doing something like this. Talents and real identities alike are closely hidden secrets. As managers, we are trusted to keep secrets, but if you want us to leave, we will. If either of you don’t agree to do your little tell all, now is the last chance to back out. Minkalla is dangerous, and we can’t have misgivings.”

Matt shrugged and looked at Liz. Even with masks on, they could read each other, and neither cared about the other manager. Luna had already explained that managers were under strict control regarding what they could and couldn’t say, and that they were trusted and well vetted. Beyond that, they were all under strict surveillance in case one of them tried anything shifty.

Privacy didn’t exist for a manager.

That was enough for them not to worry about Carol.

It still felt weird to reveal everything, but Matt was the first to reach up and pull off his mask.

Liz did the same a moment later, and Queen mirrored the motion heartbeat later. As soon as they did that, Aster burst into the room and scampered onto Matt’s lap as she introduced herself.

“I’m Aster and also on the team, but I’m not a part of the secret identities, so I needed to hide. It’s nice to meet you! You did really good at the tournament. I was rooting for you to do well, and you did!” Queen looked overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of the exuberant fox, but it gave Matt time to inspect the woman who had been under the mask.

Her skin was dusky and her hair dark like the normal complexion of those in the Detrual section of the Empire. Her hair was surprisingly long for a melee fighter, and now unleashed from the mask, he could see it was kept in a tight bun on the back of her head.

Her eyes were what caught Matt.

They were steel gray, like Shen Ruogang, the woman he was trained by in the Legacy he earned during the Tier 10 tournament. Their eyes were similar in the fact that they looked sharp enough to cut through steel with a single glance.

As Queen finally brought her attention from Aster, she looked from him to Liz before her eyes narrowed.

Her first words were, “So, which fighting style is the real one?”

Matt shrugged, “Both. I’m a blademage. I was just holding back most of the mage as Matt, and most of the blade as Quill.”