With that message sent, I started to fly into the air and teleport into the Alpine zone.
From what I could tell, it was a region focused on cold themes. It had the standard bears, wolves, and big cats as enemies, but I still decided to buy information about the zone.
It was pretty cheap, ten gold, and the information was pretty valuable considering my entire guild was going to be leveling here sooner rather than later.
One of the NPC hunters told stories about the true monsters that lived up there.
The stories lined up pretty well with the myths of yetis and wendigos, so I wanted to go on a yeti hunt.
That plan lasted until I actually started walking into the forest.
The cold got through my robes almost immediately. Even standing behind a tree to get out of the wind barely helped, and after a few minutes my fingers were getting stiff.
It was a deep chill, almost as bad as Zach's magic.
So I gave up on that idea pretty quickly and headed back to the city, then back to my room.
Being back in my room was nice, but sadly it opened the door to my own thoughts.
I had to think here.
I just sent a message to the entire guild, but I didn't even prepare or plan ahead…
What I need to do is…
Sleep.
I can't think like this.
I'm in no position to be running the guild right now.
There were many avenues I could pursue to gain power, and as of around an hour ago we finally got our twentieth member.
So that's everyone we need to do our first raid…
And unless I changed my mind in the morning, I thought we were going to go to the Leviathan Shores.
With all twenty of us, at level forty… We should be able to mine the crystals and maybe kill a leviathan.
Then we could use the drops and such for gear…
Yah.
I pulled the blanket up and tried to get comfortable.
A few minutes passed.
Then a few more.
Every time I closed my eyes, I started thinking about Jane again.
Eventually I opened my messages.
Mei's name was still there, and after staring at it for a while I started typing.
[Whisper to Mei] "Hey, you awake?"
I regretted sending it almost immediately.
What was I even going to say?
Thankfully, or maybe unfortunately, she answered before I figured that out.
[Whisper from Mei] "Yah. Everything okay?"
[Whisper to Mei] "Just can't sleep."
[Whisper from Mei] "Me neither. Someone outside keeps playing the same song."
That got a small laugh out of me.
[Whisper to Mei] "Is it at least a good song?"
[Whisper from Mei] "It was."
I sat up a little, leaning against the wall behind the bed.
For a while we just talked about the village. Apparently the celebration had slowed down, but nobody had actually agreed that it was over.
She asked if I got home okay.
I told her yes.
Then I spent far too long deciding whether to say anything else.
[Whisper to Mei] "Do you ever feel like you should be enjoying this more?"
Her answer took longer this time.
[Whisper from Mei] "Being here?"
[Whisper to Mei] "Yah. Magic and everything. This is basically what I wanted my whole life, and half the time I just feel like shit."
I stared at the message after sending it.
That was probably too much.
We barely knew each other.
[Whisper from Mei] "I cried because I couldn't remember our apartment number yesterday."
I stopped thinking about what I was going to say.
[Whisper from Mei] "I could remember the building and the door. Just not the number. Then I got upset about being upset over a number."
[Whisper to Mei] "Did you remember it?"
[Whisper from Mei] "Yah. While I was eating."
[Whisper to Mei] "That's good."
It felt like a stupid response, but I didn't have a better one.
[Whisper from Mei] "You seemed happy earlier."
I knew what she meant.
Sitting beside her, getting closer, enjoying the way she looked at me.
Then leaving to find Jane.
[Whisper to Mei] "I was. I think I just made some things complicated."
[Whisper from Mei] "Do you want to talk about it?"
My fingers hovered over the screen.
I could tell her.
Although explaining why I was upset about Jane would probably involve explaining what I had been doing with Mei, and suddenly I was much less interested in having the conversation.
[Whisper to Mei] "Not really. Sorry."
[Whisper from Mei] "Okay. We can talk about something else."
So we did.
She asked about the cold region, and I told her about my very successful expedition to stand beside a tree and leave.
Eventually her replies started taking longer, and I told her to get some sleep.
After saying goodnight, I put the screen away.
I still felt pretty miserable.
But at least I wasn't lying there trying to plan a leviathan hunt anymore.
In the morning I got up early and went to the library.
It was a reliable place for information on the zones, but getting that information was tedious.
There was no system of organization, so it was more or less just thousands of books strewn about.
I spent the first half hour finding books I had already looked through.
What I wanted was information about what lay beyond the Leviathan Shores, and eventually I found a good few entries.
It was the reason the NPCs never traveled the ocean.
About two thousand feet from shore, the Abyss started.
The weather was often terrible, and it was where the leviathans in the cove actually came from.
The farther from shore you went, the deeper it got, apparently to a depth nobody had been able to measure.
Overall, a clear sign to turn back and go home for most people.
But that also meant there was an opportunity.
Right now, leviathans were considered too much of a pain to deal with. Their size alone made most attacks useless against them.
I started writing down ideas anyway.
Then, beneath those ideas, I wrote down what we actually had.
Twenty people.
Uneven equipment.
Very little experience fighting together.
I didn't even know how most of them planned to breathe underwater.
Looking at the two lists beside each other made the decision a little easier.
The crystals weren't going anywhere.
Probably.
After returning the books to what I hoped were their original piles, I walked to the city entrance.
Several guild members were already waiting, and after a while of teleporting people I managed to gather the rest.
It was the first time I had seen all twenty of us together.
Some had proper robes and staves. Others were wearing collections of individually decent items that looked terrible together.
One guy was still wearing what I was pretty sure were tutorial boots.
Yah.
We had some work to do.
Although I tried to avoid her gaze, I could feel Jane's eyes on me.
Luckily, there were plenty of people to talk to.
I started asking about levels, supplies, and who had actually fought together before, writing everything down so I wouldn't immediately forget it.
We were going out in four groups total.
Myself, Zach, Merlin, and Jane would head them, with the healers and defensive casters spread between us.
We'd run through familiar dungeons first, get used to each other, and finally attempt the dungeon in the back of The Nest on whatever difficulty we felt was right.
When I read out the groups, Jane looked up at me.
"We're not going together?"
"You've got the most experience with your summons," I said. "I need you leading one."
It was a good reason.
Which made it a lot easier to avoid mentioning the other one.