Astral Flow

Chapter 9

Upon entering, what is assumedly, the guild hall the duo of Ryder and Yuria notice that it's practically dead inside save for one or two people talking near a counter.

Ryder looks around, a bit surprised by the lack of people around, though if they got out of a meeting they must've gone to take care of whatever they had planned.

"So this is where adventurers gather for missions and such?" Yuria asks as she looks around in interest. "It could certainly hold a lot of people, though I can understand why they went out of fashion years ago."

"They did? I'm going to guess it's whenever things started to go bad." Ryder looks to Yuria now while loosely keeping an eye out for Aranea.

Yuria nods in response. "Indeed, when the collapse happened there were very few who wished to stay side by side with others." After a brief pause she slowly began walking towards a flight of stairs in the back. "After all, many sought to claim power for themselves, while others simply wished to survive."

Yuria stops and looks at a door to the right at the top of the stairs. "Your leader is in there, I can sense her."

Ryder raises an eyebrow in a questioning manner. "I'm sorry, you can sense her? How?"

"It's just a talent of mine, not only that but I also have special eyes that let me see eeeeverything." she says in what seemed to be a joking manner, a small smile on her face.

Ryder sighs as she says this and rolls his eyes, not taking her seriously in the slightest. "Sure you do."

Though he may not have believed her fully he still walked over to the room to check and see if Aranea was in there.

His hand casually pushed the door open where he saw Aranea sitting at a desk reading over a page of some sort. Her eyes quickly darted over to him as if on high alert, more than likely due to not expecting any more visitors.

Aranea's eyes widen a bit as she realizes who it is, the paper almost slipping out of her hand.

Quickly she stands up and walks closer, looking him over as if to make sure this isn't some kind of illusion.

"You're back? How? Everyone said you were dead and gone." she asks while patting him on the shoulder to make sure he wasn't fake.

"Long story... basically though I made it out of bounds and was saved by Yuria." Ryder says while motioning to his companion in green who's absentmindedly just staring off into space.

"Alright then, well it's good to see you alive and well." Aranea says with a smile on her face before backing up a little bit. "So what brings you here? I imagine there's something you wanted to talk about."

"That I do, I want to know exactly what's been going on since I left." Ryder's voice seems to get a bit more serious now, not the normal soft tone that usually lingers out.

His eyes seem to harden a bit as well, it's an unusual characteristic. "I want to know as many details about the dungeon and land as possible."

"Alright... well there's a lot to know about the Fort." Aranea mutters a bit as she reaches down and pulls a map out from under her desk. "I hope you're ready, because this will take a minute."

Ryder nods in response, his eyes fixated on the map in her hand. All he wanted was to finish this game before anything else could happen.

No more confusing story, no more being stuck here, no more otherworldly beings!

All Ryder wanted was to get out and make sure everything was still okay, after all he's been gone a little over a month! Who knows what could've happened in that time?