The C-rank estimate came in at nineteen days.

That estimate was running through my mind as I made the trek back to the dungeon entrance. Nineteen days at current rate. Vorn had his next contact with Daren in two to three days. His next one after that in even less time. That was the way these things were going – each successive interaction was shorter due to the relationship meter making the interaction seem more like it just needed to happen.

Nineteen days to get to C-rank. Vorn constructing the Daren/Lyra angle all the while.

This had been the case for some time now and it had never really been on my side. Since waking up in this world with a STR of 12 and four day timer, I have seen it all along but not quite able to put it together until now.

I opened the full overlay map and read it properly.

VORN — KNOWN VECTORS

Primary — Lyra direct — SUSPENDED

Secondary — Kai negotiation — DECLINED 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Tertiary — Daren trust infiltration — ACTIVE (Phase 1 complete)

Three vectors – one on hold, one on hiatus, one operational. The Daren vector was the living issue, while the Lyra vector was a temporary thing – it could be put away until the right time came along. Should Vorn penetrate the trust circle of Daren far enough, he would no longer require the access to Lyra. Daren would introduce him.

I wanted the Daren vector to be as tricky as the Lyra vector had become.

The issue being – how?

When I arrived at Lyra’s, her stall was deserted. Mid morning, the cloth quarter settling down to work after its customary start, the usual customers browsing through the bolts of material without any pressing hurry. Lyra was busy rearranging a shelf of fabrics, wearing the same old guild tunic and disheveled amber hair, looking comfortable in doing something that had been done a thousand times before.

I scanned her UI first.

PASSIVE MONITORING — LYRA

Relation/Daren: 612 – stable

Corruption: 92/100 – stable

Mood flag: Focused/Calm

Active interaction: NONE

Vorn contact: no new entries

Stable still. The suspension was working. Vorn hadn’t sent anything back to Lyra, not yet; that would come later, once he’d gotten the trust infiltration to work well enough for him to use naturally. For now, she was just a woman folding clothes on a Tuesday morning unaware that she had a fresh board.

She glanced up when I approached.

"You look tired," she said. Not harsh. Simply matter-of-fact.

"Late night," I said.

She understood the same way anyone else here would have. They didn’t question dungeon explanations. The way you just assumed people had their reasons for working late at an office job. She returned to her folding and I rested against the stall and considered what exactly I needed out of this meeting.

What I needed out of it was information, specifically — had Daren mentioned Vorn.

"Daren heading out early today?" I asked.

"He left before I woke up," she replied. "Floor 5 bounty. He told me about it last night."

"Did he mention anything else?"

She held the bolt of fabric midair, eyeing me with that look that some people gave you when they were trying to determine if your question was innocent or not. Her trust threshold had been at 61, which was high enough that she had brought up Vorn without me asking. She was analyzing my question, instead of answering it.

"Like what?" she asked.

I waited for a moment, because pressing too hard would cause her to be more cautious. It was harder to manipulate people who had high trust registers.

"Nothing really," I said. "He was in good spirits this morning. Just wanted to see if it lasted."

This part was at least partly true. The trust flag hadn’t budged, but there was a shift in the mood indicator.

LYRA — FLAG UPDATE

Mood: Focused / Calm / Warmer

Processing: Passive

Trust Threshold: 61 — Stable

Warmer. Not a lot. But she wasn’t getting suspicious.

"He was good last night," she said. Her hands were back on the shelf. "We actually had a proper conversation. Asked about the stall. Me." A slight pause. "It worked."

Heard her say it worked despite that 612 on the meter, and he still hadn’t closed on Lyra for a week and two days since that conversation that was the start of this whole thing. Daren asking. Lyra talking. This relationship behaving exactly the way it should, because the people in it were finally paying attention.

I had to make sure it kept doing that.

"It worked," I echoed. Even said it with more meaning than I’d thought I would.

That afternoon I ran numbers for the rest of the quest board.

Two to three days. The gap until the next Vorn/Daren interaction. Two to three days until he found out that Daren was a no-go.

Option one – tell Daren directly. He knew Vorn, what I knew, what I saw. The thing was that this was still the same old problem. I had UI data and wiki info, none of which were things I was capable of communicating without sounding like a lunatic. You see, I know this man is evil because there are glowing numbers hovering above his head would not go over well with a B-rank adventurer who had just enjoyed an absolutely lovely conversation over the last four minutes in a permit queue.

Option two – make myself more visible in the B-rank world. If Vorn’s strategy was all about chance encounters in the permit queue, overlapping floor rotations, and sheer proximity due to both adventurers doing dungeons, then the answer was to increase Daren’s own social sphere. To make it more difficult for Vorn to have any sort of unobstructed access.

There was just one problem – rank. I was D. Daren was B. It was by design that the floors did not overlap, and that the permit queues had their own respective lines.

Option three, speed things up. C-rank in less than nineteen days. Reduce the buffer between the B-rank circuit before Vorn’s infiltration had enough depth to use.

I stared at the quest board rewards without really looking at them.

Nineteen days was how long it would take based on my progress. My progress was killing Floor 2 and 3 Skitterers, and using beetles when they were available. If I went for full Floor 3 kills, learned the bounty system, increased my playtime, then...

I brought up the EXP calculation screen.

CURRENT RANK: D

EXP: 0/1000

Floor 3 average EXP gained: 8-12 EXP per kill

Floor 3 bounty reward: 50 EXP for completing the floor

Equivalent to beetles on Floor 3: Ironback Crawler, estimated at 45-60 EXP kill

Projected time at Floor 3 pace: 11-13 days

Eleven days. Reduced almost by half just from progressing further down the floors.

The issue was that Floor 3 recommended stats, and I hadn’t checked them yet. I opened the dungeon entrance page.

FLOOR 3 — ASHVEIL UNDERCROFT

Recommended STR: 35

Recommended AGI: 25

Current STR: 12

Current AGI: 17

Risk assessment: HIGH RISK / NOT RECOMMENDED

High risk. Not recommended. Just like the one Floor 1 had given me when I was unranked and having an STR of 12 against a recommended value of 50.

I studied the Risk Assessment for a moment.

Then I turned to look at Vorn’s flag, which hung in the corner of my overlay.

VORN — NEXT CONTACT WINDOW: DAREN

Estimated Time Frame: 2-3 days

Status: pending

2-3 days. Eleven days if I took on Floor 3. Nineteen days if I played it safe.

I lifted the stylus off the quest board and scrawled my name in the Floor 3 bounty list.

High risk. Not recommended.

I’d fought with far worse odds before.

CURRENT STATS

STR: 12

AGI: 17

INT: 20

Rank: D

EXP: 0/1000

Floor 3 opened tomorrow. Tonight I was going to learn how it felt to have something recommended against you.