[center][h1][color=ffcc55][u]E l i a n[/u][/color][/h1][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][i]~ Dungeon ~[/i]
[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/center]

Once they'd started moving, Elian stayed alert.  But still, she had to check.  "Yo, you doing alright?" she asked Graves, leaving off the insulting nicknames this time.  "The new patch or whatever...can't be easy, given your equipment.  I mean, I'm gonna keep you in one piece and all, but I don't exactly have anything for--"

Graves cut her off as the gate they'd just passed closed behind them.  Well fine, if he didn't want to talk that was his choice.  She'd be here if he changed his mind, and he'd have a chance again later when she tried to ask him what was going on outside the game, that his mood was so off.   She'd not forgotten that little scene with the new archer.

A sudden light heralded a game-wide announcement, with a projection of one of the devs' characters that they used for the job.  To the best of her knowledge, it was an empty account, and she was fairly certain any one of them could jack in to use it.  Probably with just a regular computer, instead of a full VR rig.

But the news was [i]always[/i] in character.  Always.  It was puzzling, to see the false persona drop and be replaced by what looked much more like a programmer put out of their depth, or maybe a PR guy trying to handle a problem he didn't have a plan for.  A sentence or two more and she understood why.  As the image vanished, Elian found herself gaping at where it had been, unable to get her mind off the idea that [i]they could all die[/i].  What the hell?

She knew freezing in a dungeon was bad, but all the same she couldn't move.  Landon's voice rang louder than it should have, but the words might as well have been some incomprehensible buzz, with how much of them she processed.  It took Graves punching her shoulder and making a comment about explosives to bring her back to the present, and then she quickly moved back with the rest.  The noise of the explosion was deafening, even with her fingers in her ears.

When the smoke cleared, the gate wasn't even dented.

No.  No, no, [i]no![/i]

"This can't be happening," she whispered.  "This, and us stuck in a dungeon?"  They didn't have a way out except through, and that with this one being atypical to begin with -- why was everything lining up just right to destroy them?  "Oh God, oh God."  She knew enough self-defense that even creeps didn't particularly frighten her.  The real world was rough, sure, but you kept your eyes open and you learned to roll with the punches.  Sure, some people were awful, but a lot weren't, and there was no point in worrying your life away.

But the number one rule was that you avoided taking stupid risks.  And staying in a dungeon where the monsters could actually /kill/ them seemed pretty stupid.  They were designed to give players a challenge.  Even the mobs that could be spoken to or negotiated with weren't pushovers.

[i]And they couldn't turn around.[/i]

Not only that, but she was the group healer.  If she fell apart, they all paid for it, and that was not the kind of responsibility she wanted.  She looked at the other players around her, in varying states of fear and shock.  Even Graves looked less than certain.

Two choices to deal with this.  "Either way, we're going to need to face the monsters."  Her voice wavered, but she was too shaken to care.  "I don't...I don't know if I can do this.  I know I'm the party healer, but...I'm no hero.  I'm just a dance instructor and a gamer.  This--" she waved to the dungeon "--is a hobby.  If I wanted to be responsible for people's lives I'd've been a surgeon or something."  The shock was still there, but the sharp edge of fear was starting to cut through it.  They were well and truly fucked.