"The how seems rather obvious. Obvious enough for it to have a name. Luma code." Bekka replied evenly, striding along beside the man, George a step behind, a calm reassurance at her back. Even now she could hear the soft rustle of his futuristic combat gear as he moved. The barest of whispers, really. But it was surprisingly familiar, even in the game.

She had actually. . . yes, she'd missed George, the eternally short Lancy. And most definitely, her dear Duff. She hid a smile at that thought, it really was a comfort to have the old team back, even if only for a bit.

Out the airlock and to the concrete stairwell that led down a level they moved. "How much has the core changed since the Beta?" She questioned conversationally, craning her neck ever-so-slightly as she tried to inconspicuously get a new look at the place. She'd only ever visited it once, for a few weeks, and was curious to see what, if anything, had changed.

______

Duff laughed raucously at that. What were the odds? What ... were . . . the . . . odds. "You're wossaname, stuck in 'ere too?" He laughed yet more, eyes twinkling with mad merriment.

Lancy shrugged, obviously quite used to his boss's behavior. "Oi, lad." He called out to Bec. "You saying you actually felt something? Could be bad news, boyo. This game 'ere is pretty violent, most people who go home crying to mama if they gets stabbed. Gamers don't cuz it's just a stat, yeah?"

Duff chortled more at that. "Gelyke speelveld, yah?" He barked to Lancy merrily, starting to rummage through some of the netting, fingers twitching speedily as he moved. "Now, Bec. The Game might 'urt a bit more."

Through the streets they weaved, Terrel leading the charge without a second glance to any other option than the one she took. Of course, she didn't really remember the city that well, but it was better to look like you knew where you were going than sit down and ponder your course of action in front of everyone else. Besides, after a minute or two of walking, she was fairly certain things were coming back to her.

Probably.

A shop with a rickety sign hanging off it seemed to indicate that clothing could indeed be purchased somewhere in this city, so Terrel turned sharply into the thing. Pushing the beads that composed the door aside, the dark-skinned woman checked the corners of the building immediately before even seeing if anyone was behind the shoddy counter.

The shop--if you could even call it that--was composed of a single room with a few wardrobes in varying degrees of assembly. Mostly the place smelled like mothballs, and a cooky old woman hobbled out from behind a shadow to peer at them intently.

"Help you? Clothes?"

When Terrel didn't immediately respond, the woman somehow sped across the floor faster than you'd think a crooked old witch could manage, immediately eying her over. Without permission, she began laying her hands over Terrel's frame, as if feeling her form and taking measurements, but the younger woman quickly swatted the hands away, a gold piece falling to the floor in the wake of the gesture.

"Hands to yourself, bitch," Terrel snarled with a disgusted grimace; leaving Rogueport the first time had been an easy choice. "Rua, find something in here that fits and change into it. We'll trade her what we're wearing for it."

---

"It's about twice the size since the Beta," Bavish responded, "when more companies networked with Y-Corp, they expanded the facilities of the Core to make room." The large man swiped a card on a door, opening a passage directly into the passenger room of his shuttle. It was cozy craft, seating about six with the seats facing each other and an automated pilot to take care of the rest. He motioned them to sit opposite him.

"There's more than one Luma code. I'm wondering which one and how on earth it fell into the hands of a simple 'traveler' such as yourself," he said, settling into his own seat and returning the conversation back to something worthwhile. The thing about having information was it made you painfully aware of the important details you didn't have.

Stuck in here too? Bec raised an eyebrow at that. Was Duff stuck? Maybe that explained why he seemed so out of place, playing a video game. Either way, Bec kept silent for the moment, listening to the much bigger man's words, and Lancy's when he piped in. His face was frozen in a perpetual grimace.

"You're right, if this is a permanent change then I very well may experience pain now, too." An unpleasant thought, but one that had already occurred to him. "Guess I better do my best never to get hit. Can't say that's much different from usual, though."

Edited by WillowtheWhisp on February 16, 2014 at 2:16:50

Terrel wasn't the only one who grimaced at what was occurring. Was it always going to be like this in Rogueport? Rua had little idea how long they'd need to stick around the city before they began their hunt for Kasdim-Ur. He wandered off to where the clothes were, muttering. "Trade my clothes hell, I like this jacket..."

Whatever. He could just pay normally. Not like he was hurting for cash right now. He grabbed a few items off of the shelf and looked them over before nodding to himself. These'll do.

One by one, he used his game menu to switch out his attire, stowing away his coat, shirt, and breastplate for a loose shirt of orange and blue fabric, held down with a belt buckled at a downward angle. His black trousers were swapped out for wide-cuffed shorts that went past his knees, inked with black tribal designs over the dark blue material. He added a red-orange sash over his brow, knotted past his temple to complete the design. He supposed the overall ensemble would look alright, but he felt ridiculous dressed like this.

"Whatever," he muttered as he adjusted his sword from his back to his waist, the hilt poking out from behind his right hip in an unusual manner--best off to alter the way he held his weapons when he changed back. He turned back to the counter and slapped down a few coins to pay for the clothing, then looked to see whether or not Terrel was done with her own disguise.

Edited by RisingDragon on February 15, 2014 at 18:18:47

Terrel tied her own hair back with a blue bandanna and matched a vest and blouse to somewhat go with it. In general, she aimed to shed as much weight as she could, as it could only inhibit your movements and make you sweat down here. The heat really was incredible, even near the water like they were, and the air might as well have been a cloak over your face.

Dropping her old garments on the counter, the old woman eyed them reproachfully but snatched them anyway, immediately rifling the pockets to see if the previous owner had forgotten to remove something. Rua, on the other hand, seemed more attached to his own getup and wished to pay the more traditional route. As the coins hit the table, Terrel instinctively checked the door. Brandishing money in the open here could be inviting to those who made their living off traditional thievery.

The old woman examined it, and Terrel kept a hard gaze on her, wondering what she'd do. It was one thing to state terms before a deal, and it was another to simply offer what you felt fair. Down here, 'fair' was just a different way of saying 'negotiable.'

"Not enough," the witch sniffed at last, though she scooted the currency toward her anyway, "these coins not worth as much as you think. You pay again."

Terrel narrowed her eyes--that meant double. "How about I cover it," she spat, "by including an extra boot, right up your--"

"Kork!" the hag interrupted, and what Terrel had thought was a heaping piling of rugs shifted, revealing an almost bearishly large attack dog that sniffed loudly and growled at the guests. "You pay again," she repeated, as if the matter were now settled. Terrel closed her mouth at that, grimacing and eying the beast reluctantly. For her part, not even her own stubbornness demanded further negotiating with that thing in the room.

Rua sighed and shook his head in exasperation. This is why a lot of players were against the idea of coming to Rogueport. Unless they were in an aligned guild for protection. But, he knew a thing or two to deal with this kind of situation. Eying the beast in the corner warily, he moved back to the counter and palmed down the same amount, but kept his hands over the coins as he turned his gaze back to the shopkeeper.

"Take it or leave it," Terrel growled, wishing she could reach for the weapon she no longer had. Seeing as they'd already overpaid for no more than rags, the only way this got stretched out was by her trying to scam even more money off them.

Thankfully, the wretched woman sniffed derisively, and Terrel jerked her head toward the door. Without a break, she exited herself, feeling some relief in the 'fresh' air of the cooling evening. The streets were beginning to slow down a bit, even compared to when they entered, and the sun was drooping low over the rainforest, threatening to vanish by means of the large hill they faced.

After a moment of consideration, Terrel glanced around subtly and pulled a piece of chalk from her inventory. Leaning casually against the side of the woman's shop, she used it to etch a pattern into the wood, small but unique, and turned to leave a moment later.

"Cheap witch," she said at last to Rua, "even the pettiest of merchants fancy themselves some artful con here. Clothes fit all right?"

"They're a little loose, but that's the style around here, looks like," he replied, looking around. It certainly helped cool him off in Rogueport's tropical heat. Night's approach only added to it; it looked as if tonight was going to be comfortably cool in this getup.

A lump in the side of his shirt shifted about, and Rua flinched at it, grimacing. "Alright, alright, hold on," he muttered as he reached in from the low collar and pulled Relayia out.

She chirped reproachfully as he planted her back on her customary seat on his shoulder, where she began eying the ends of his headband's knot. "Well, we might as well get a feel for things around here, see where the brokers are hiding at," he continued, taking note of what he said so he didn't publicly imply their unfamiliar status here.

Bekka swept her gaze over the shuttle interior, sitting a moment later, George opting to stand at her side, silent as usual. "You can't tell what Luma code was used?" She asked pointedly, clearly suspicious.

____

Duff nodded, "Good plan, that." He agreed with Bec before removing a pistol from the webbing and staring. "Lancy. Why de hell are we using Tommy and Kish crap? I know they got their guns scanned into this game too. But .. . oi vey man, a little pride? We made mooi better guns than these Tommy's."

Lancy shrugged, "Bekka said something about not being able to access her "official" bank. Boss. She left me the codes to get in. Figure we can get to it in this core?" Here he looked to Bec. "Oi, how long you been playing? Bekka's got a load of gear we can use, but its stuck in some weirdo bank. Think they'd have like. . . an access port here somewhere?"

“Might be too late for that,” Terrel said slowly, taking up a gradual walk in no direction in particular. In a lot of ways, it was safer to just keep roaming than it was to stay in one spot. “It’s getting late, even on this side of the world, and we’d probably be better off finding beds before it gets completely dark.” Inns were tricky here in Rogueport, though, because when you rented a room it kind of suggested you weren’t from around here. It probably wasn’t going to help that Rua’s character looked out of place anyway, but the fact that hers didn’t was just luck. They’d make it work.

“Typically, you can slide under the radar by just getting drunk at one of the taverns and stumbling into their rooms. People stay the night all the time when they don’t want to risk passing out in an alley, or worse. I know of a safe enough place up the hill a ways—we might even be able to get some information while we’re up there.”

---

Bavish scowled at the woman, though he wasn’t entirely surprised. Giving something over too quickly, especially information, was something you just didn’t do. Unfortunately, it just so happened to make his life a huge pain at the moment.

“No, it’s not like we have our ear directly into Y-Corp’s communications. If we did, you’d probably be talking to a Stamarian representative at the moment. Not that they have too many people here, though, thank God.”

The large man sighed again, leaning his head back on the glass of the transport as the doors shut and the thing began to move. “There are seven Luma Codes and seven corresponding Radiance Codes to access the Core. The Luma codes are Lora, Lok, Lyfe, Luir, Lemn, Lajag, and Lastrad. Only one of those requires the program to be with you to use the code, so do you mind telling me which of the six remaining ones you managed to use? Or do I have to play 40 questions or less?”

"It began with an L. Beyond that, I don't really recall." Bekka replied blithely, mismatched eyes watching Bavish carefully. She didn't mind his scowl as such. But then, Luir had done them a favor. She wasn't about to give up the girl's name. Even as she spoke, she felt the barest of motions in George standing next to her. The man was preparing to shoot his way out, if need be.

"Next question?" She tilted her head to the side.

Edited by Ajax on February 17, 2014 at 5:02:18

"What, one of the temple ruins 'round here?" he asked, glancing up the hill towards the end of the shanty town. He could make out the remnants of old temple walls and statues, which in his experience usually suggested more beyond where he couldn't see. He shrugged and conceded the point. "Well, you're the boss here. Most places like this liven up at night in my recollections though."

"Not that far up the hill," Terrel said with a bit of a frown, not entirely sure what he was on about. "In any case, the taverns tend to be better places to talk than just out in the open. Grungy and dirty though they are, it's easier to see people in advance."

She itched at the clothing uncomfortably, raising a finger and pointing at a building a couple of "blocks" from them, though it wasn't a very good sort of measurement. The streets were anything but planned, and they just seemed to wind into one another as if set up by a drunken child.

At any rate, they were only a few minutes out.

---

The man rolled his eyes at her response. "That is the question, Bekka," Bavish responded tersely, his eyes narrowing on the woman's mismatching ones. It was hard to look at, even though it was less common to see in the game than in real life. Frustrated, he turned away from her to look out the window.

The Core was enormous, stretching seemingly forever as it built itself on the inside of a sphere. Everything eventually pointed toward the center, but the sphere was large enough to make that look gradual and almost natural inside. Some people found it beautiful; others found it unnerving.

Something occurred to him, though, like a memory long forgotten. There had been someone else, hadn't there? Immediately, he scoured his own thoughts, looking for holes. It didn't take him long. When he had gone through the corridor before entering the hangar--what had he seen? The thought slipped out of his fingers like a slick bar of soap. He grasped for it again, and his face paled a bit. Who had made him forget?

"There were six of you on that gunship, weren't there?"

Bekka had rather been expecting this, and hoped her poker face was good enough to beat Bavish's eyes. "She's one of ours." She said simply, not trusting herself to speak much more than that. "Young mage girl, handy with the healing. And we like healers. We're a bit rough, if you hadn't noticed."

She scrunched back in her chair, trying to get comfortable, looking Bavish over more carefully. Her story was flimsy at best, but she couldn't think of much else to say.

Bec looked over at Lancy. "From what I've gathered, this place is designed to be a central hub as much as any of the main cities, though given it's population, that probably isn't justified. Nevertheless, it should have what you need. If this port is like any other, there will be a guide just off the launchpad. It should have the directions needed." Bec explained. He'd gotten to know the main cities pretty well; information was freely available, and he'd had nothing better to do than read or wander about the safe zones.

Bavish shook his head simply. His image of that girl was frustratingly blurry, but he knew what that meant. There was no way they had a sixth member of their team who just left the group immediately upon arrival. No, she was new, and he was beginning to put the pieces together.

"I appreciate what you think you're trying to do Bekka, but the reality is I'm going to find out eventually. I don't think it was a member of your group; I think she was one of the Luma Programs themselves." He looked at her intently, the time for treating this matter lightly now past.

"They've been disappearing, Bekka. We think the Stamarians are involved. Y-Corp does not involve itself with these matters, but it affects all of us. Whoever came back with you is safe now--all the White Lions in the game could not harm her here, not that we'd want to.

"This is important to all of us. Who did you find there, in the Stamarian prison? We won't disturb her, but it's important in finding the other three."

Duff glanced over to Lancy. The shorter man shrugging. "One of us should watch 'or the gunship. Guessing that'd be me?"

Duff nodded, "Yup," he said with a smile. "Give me da codes, I'll go get us some better guns than these Tommy's." Here he looked to Bec. "Bec, what say you come along with me, eyeah?" Here he smiled manically, trying to gloss over the fact that he really didn't know much about this game. That had always been Bekka, due to her job. . . not Duff. Oh no, never Duff.

_____

"We---" Bekka started to say, only to nearly have a heart attack as George spoke up instead.

The armored figure's voice was simple, firm and had the sound of a man who considered words more valuable than coin, spending them only with great disdain. "You Still haven't said what a Luma code is." He interrupted. Clearly not answering Bavish's question, and cutting Bekka off before she had a chance to try and weasel her way out.

Instead, she tried her best not to stare. George only ever really got talkative around Duff or she. And to speak to an outsider . . . it was bloody weird, to say the least. She prayed her eyes weren't bulging in surprise, but was almost positive she was white as a sheet.

"Well if you say so... lead the way," Rua said, gesturing her own forward. After all, she was the one who knew her way around here, not him. "I'll make sure someone doesn't try to shank us in an alley or something." Did this place even have proper alleys?

They walked without incident, save one man bumping into Terrel along the way; a quick pat revealed that he hadn't stolen anything, though, so it was of no importance. The few minutes passed in wary silence, Terrel deciding to save her vocal chords for once they were inside. It came upon them quickly, and the woman wasted no time in entering.

To call the place noisy wouldn't have done it justice, but it wasn't as bad as could have been. She'd been in places before--they called them Hells--that were so noisy and seedy that you had to wonder what the bloody point was for even going inside them. You couldn't drink the ale, you probably shouldn't sit down, and all the company was there for reasons you were happy to stay ignorant of. Here, though, here was much nicer.

A man lay in the corner of the room, nearly naked and either sleeping or something worse, and while several people seemed to be having shouting matches, no one was smashing heads just yet. Terrel maneuvered her way over to one of the booths, raising two fingers to a waitress and dusting off her seat before sliding into it.

"Okay, so we're going to have to find some connections in this place," she said at last with a sigh, finally relaxing just a bit. "Rogueport's full of brokers, but most of them are either useless or want your firstborn child. I haven't been down here in over a year, though, so I'm not counting on finding an old buddy or anything." Not to mention the fact that the number of people who owed her favors was precisely zero. "It would help if we knew more about what we're looking for. Maybe we should crack open those..." she swallowed spitefully before the word, "books."

The waitress dropped by the table apathetically, unloading two large mugs of ale and vanishing in another direction. Terrel sniffed the stuff suspiciously, tasted it on her finger, but seemed satisfied with it afterwards, taking a long drink from it.

---

Bavish watched them closely. It was the first George had spoken since he had seen him, but judging by the reaction some rule had been violated. He hadn't told them what a Luma Code was, yet, that much was true. It was also true he had avoided it for this reason. Their need to ask confirmed that, indeed, they probably didn't know what it was. It had certainly been the girl who had opened the gateway, then.

The information wasn't exactly private--you could find it in the codex--but it wasn't very well known. You needed to know where to look and why it was relevant, and when you did find it you would probably conclude it wasn't, in fact, relevant to your life at all.

"A Luma Code is a unique passkey given to each of the Luma Programs. This code, among other things, allows clearance if you try and portal directly into the Core. There are lots of rumors surrounding them, though, one of them suggesting they are keys in finding the seven Legendary Artifacts, but it's too difficult to say--not that that's stopped the Stamarians. You can imagine why someone might find it a valuable thing to possess. The Luma Code, in many ways, is its corresponding Program's identity. While the Programs are powerful in their own right, the Code is what makes them special."

The tension still felt palpable, but Bavish was not yet ready to be intimidated by these people. Resting his hands together, he looked at them politely. "Now, I've answered your question. Care to answer my own?"

Unlike Terrel, for Rua this bar was everything he had expected, and had grimaced upon entering the raucous place. The place was noisy and smoky, and he could barely hear himself think. Smelled like fish in here too, but Rua was starting to think that would be the most defining characteristic here other than everyone being criminals, present company included.

When their drinks arrived, he ignored his ale while Terrel inspected her own. Unlike other teenagers, he'd never gotten a taste for alcohol. Instead he heeded his companion's suggestion and brought out the books from his inventory, dropping them down in the seat between him and the wall. That should keep prying hands away from them for the moment. "I'm not sure we could really trust a "friend" that hangs out in this place anyway," he replied as he picked up Tribal Authority and opened it up on the table to read.

"I've got nothing better to do. I mean, I could either accompany you, which would more than likely be awkward, or I could stay here, which would be equally as awkward. I'm thinking that the Core will be a tad more interesting than staying here, though." Bec replied dryly. Plus, getting out would give him a chance to gather some information on the place; there wasn't much information on the Core, and virtually none on its layout or what it contained.

"Trusting a criminal here is just like trusting one any other place," Terrel said with a chuckle, taking a long drink from her mug. "Just need to know what they have to gain and lose. Only difference here is that it applies to everyone." She raised the mug again to her lips, using the action to disguise her frequent desire to look around the room. So far, though, everything was still calm.

The drink, on the other hand, tasted cheap and fake, but that applied to most alcohol in this game. For natural reasons, Y-Corp seemed to want to make getting drunk in the game less enticing than in real life, so the result was a bunch of crap.

But it was something.

Putting it down, she relieved herself of a sigh and looked across the table to her reading companion. "As nasty as this place is, I'm sure it's only the beginning. Rogueport may be a dangerous place, but it's not the bloody wilderness. I have a feeling the rainforest will make us whimper and long for our cozy, safe beds in this den." It was a cheerful thought.

Looking down at her own mug, she realized a good three-quarters was already gone, and she had a mind to finish it off in the next drink. Glancing at Rua, she asked without shame, "Not going to drink yours?"

Rua didn't look up at Terrel's question, but only shook his head briefly as he continued to scan through the contents of the book. "Not really my thing," he said offhandedly, turning a page and finally finding the chapter on Kasdim-Ur once more. "Two sisters at home, so our parents were big on abstinence. You can have it if you want."

Terrel finished off her beverage before sliding her companion's across the table toward herself, though she sipped at that one more meagerly. Drinking in these places was a good way to show you were relaxed, but she had no intention on getting drunk--that'd be just as dangerous as not drinking at all.

"Similar boat, actually," she replied to him, thoughtfully. "Got a brother and a sister back home too, though they're loads smarter than me. Guess there's probably a reason why I'm the one stuck, huh," she added soberly, though in truth she was happy for it. She wasn't smart enough to offer her younger siblings good advice, but she was prepared to offer her own life as living testament of what to avoid doing. This game was hardly the first example of that.

"Anything useful in there?" she asked about the book, though she had hardly afforded him much time to look.

"Nothing too obvious, no."

He flipped through another page and sighed, frowning. "I'm not sure why they put this thing in the axed repository," he told his companion. "It's written in-universe, so there's nothing obvious for us. It's just... it's just lore-expansion, I guess?" God knows plenty of large world-scale games had their own books and stories for the players' immersion, though he was never one to really read through such things. "Something to make the game a bit more alive for players."

He brought a finger down to a passage, reading it more closely. And grimaced at what it told him. "This part here, though... it says the person was chosen to "carry the burden of evil," and sacrificed," he said, tapping the passage as he pushed the book her way. Then he realized that she couldn't read, and frowned all over again. Still, maybe that voice function of hers could spell it out for her. "I guess someone made a big ritual out of it."

You couldn't be frustrated toward someone's irreverence to your own illiteracy; she'd learned that one the hard way. Instead, she adopted a look of long-suffering and took the book cautiously, as if it would loudly insult her capabilities if she weren't nice to it. Not entirely sure what Rua wanted her to do with it, she looked for Waldo on the pages, turning them slowly and hopelessly.

To her surprise, one of them had a picture.

It was a drawing of a man--or what used to be a man--lying on a table with torso cut open down the middle revealing a distinct lack of anything useful inside. Arrows indicated that the man's missing organs had been, in fact, transferred to a container near him. She'd heard of this before.

"Not this ritual, I hope?" she asked, sliding the image back over to him. Maybe there was no association between the two--you'd have to ask the guy who could read the damn thing--but none of it made her feel any better so far.

Rua accepted the book back and promptly recoiled at the illustration, having not expected something like that included with the text. He grimaced. "Maybe?" he said, unsure. "Probably. I guess the whole point was his tribe or city or whatever picking someone to bear all of their world's evil or some nonsense like that."

He pondered it for a moment, then sighed. "Honestly? Sounds like the making of a boss enemy in the game," Rua told her. "Maybe a lich or something... which would explain why Relayia grabbed that book, now that I think about it."

"She's a ma--" Bekka began, but was again cut off by her armored comrade. "Her name is Luir." The calm voice of George broke out. "We found her in Stamarian territory, gave her a ride. She got us here."

She couldn't help but glare. Luir had done them a favor. She knew George felt the same of that sort of thing as she and Duff. Favors were currency, and to repay a favor by giving her away . .. she had the distinct urge to shoot him somewhere soft and kick him several times.

He'd left out the prison details, sure. But the White Lions could most likely figure that part out on their own. Even as her mind raced with phrases she wanted to shout out, such as "what the hell, Georgey?" It also belatedly realized her comrade wasn't actually acting much like a complete noob, as he should have been.

With a grimace she leaned back in her seat, mismatched eyes seething with anger, but not speaking just yet.

_____

"Come on, then. Bec me boy." Duff chuckled, slipping on an old leather jacket he'd found in the webbing and double-checking his pistol. "You want a gun?" He slapped the release for the door, causing it to open with a "shlick" as he hopped out into the gantry. "Never leave 'ome without it."

Terrel grimaced. Call it what you wanted--still sounded like a deathtrap. "Ever get the feeling like things aren't all in control? I mean, there's only so much a bunch of nerds with their legal pads and scribble down, right? I mean, Y-Corp's big but it isn't big enough to generate a whole world intentionally. I've heard they let a lot of the stuff build itself--maybe this is what it looks like gone wrong." If Project Theta were the cake, then this was certainly the icing to go with it.

---

Very interesting indeed. Bavish watched them keenly but was quick to try and point out the fire, "Relax, Bekka, we're not hunting for her. My guess is Luir is heading to the Light Temple right now, and not even Gahm himself could touch her." So it was Luir, then? Maybe if he didn't have other things on his mind he would have time to be incredulous.

"Thank you for telling me," he made sure to add, addressing both of them, "you don't need to believe me, but I can tell you the White Lions have nothing except goodwill towards the Luma Programs. But the cat's out of the bag now, either way." Bavish sighed, straightening his posture and looking keenly at the two of them. He had more questions, but they would have to wait until things leveled out between the three of them.

"You've answered my question now. Do you have more for me?"

"That's a cheerful thought," Rua muttered in response to Terrel's suggestion. He shook his head rapidly for a moment, as if to shake away the thoughts. It didn't really help. "Here's to hoping the dev team knew what they were doing, then."

Letting the game build itself. Magical.