Chương 165: The Party Ends

The others stayed upstairs with Morlando, and from what Meno caught before leaving, the biggest problem was not the secret corporate warfare, the subdermal tracking stamp, or the fact that their first Feltforge assessment had involved zapping fake security through 30 floors of Streamline Tower. It was moving to Vernova.

Patro wanted an advance so he could afford a new flat, Kestrel had already started digging into the logistics, and BrineSaint was asking questions with enough patience to keep Morlando trapped in that office for another hour. Meno had reached his limit. He stripped off the protective vest and AR gear, dropped the whole pile onto Morlando's floor, then permanently borrowed one of the shirts kept in the executive office.

It was a little too expensive-looking for him, but it covered the damage from his earlier False Hero regression, which was all that mattered. The elevator worked again, so Meno rode it back toward Floor 18 while trying to figure out how long they had actually been gone. Long enough that there would be no believable explanation for disappearing and returning in a different shirt. Whatever. He was ready to go home. The party had been great at first.

Rina had been fun, Honeyjuice had turned out better than it had any right to, and he had gotten useful Veyrath information out of people he normally only saw through rankings and stream clips. Then Morlando had turned the whole building into a recruitment dungeon, which ruined the vibe. When Meno reached the table again, Rina and Celeste were still there. Scuzzy had joined them and now had Oxy half-sprawled across him, which was not the party configuration Meno had assigned earlier.

He had set those two up to get levels together, not start whatever this was. It bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Scuzzy was effective, but sane was not a word Meno would ever use to describe him, and whatever had happened between Meno and Oxy did not mean he wanted her getting hurt because he had casually paired her with the first strong guild member available. Rina brightened when she saw him approaching.

"Yay, you are finally back. Nice shirt." Celeste had been looking toward the crowd behind him, searching for someone else.

"Where have you guys been? Where is Brine?"

"Meeting with the big shots upstairs," Meno said.

"He should be back soon." That eased some concern from Celeste's face, but it did nothing about the other issue hanging between them. The music was still pounding across the atrium, Honeyjuice was still flowing, and neither had erased what happened on the dance floor. Celeste looked tired more than angry now.

"You told him, haven't you?" Rina shifted against the sofa.

"Are you still worried about that? It's not that big of a deal."

"It is."

"Yes, but we worked it out," Meno said.

"Blew off some steam. The boss guy set this whole VIP experience up for us. It was great." Celeste's eyes narrowed.

"What exactly do you mean by VIP experience?" Rina broke down laughing again, which only made the misunderstanding worse. Meno could not exactly clarify that the VIP experience involved tactical vests, stun grenades, a broken skyscraper window, and kicking Morlando Felt unconscious. There was no version of that explanation that improved the conversation.

"Rina, we are leaving. Let's go find everyone else. Bye, Celeste. Don't worry. Everything is fine." Rina stood and waved toward the group.

"Okay, goodbye, guys. It has been fun meeting you." Celeste looked defeated, but still nodded at them. Meno left Scuzzy and Oxy where they were for the moment and took Rina across the atrium in search of Honeygrave's party. They found them on the opposite side of the room, already wrecked enough to make the flight home look quieter than the trip out.

Both twins were passed out across separate sections of a couch, while Sway danced alone in front of them with enough concentration that he seemed unaware his entire party had stopped participating.

"We are bouncing," Meno said.

"You guys coming?"

"Yes," Merry said at once. Honeygrave looked much less enthusiastic about leaving the party than his girlfriend, but he was sober enough to remember the important injustice.

"Thanks for the branding, man. Everyone thinks I came up with this cursed drink even though it was you going around ordering it in buckets. Real cool."

"You should sell it," Rina said.

"We will look into it." Honeygrave glanced around the room.

"Anyway, Vivi has been gone for a while. No clue where she is."

"Try northwestern storage," Merry said. Her delivery was so flat that it took Meno a second to register the information, and Honeygrave looked at her too, clearly having missed something. Meno had not. Something had happened. He told Rina to stay with the group and cut through the crowd toward the northwest side of the atrium. After spending part of the night breaking into Streamline storage rooms, he knew the layout better than any guest should.

He found the door without trouble and opened it with enough force to make the handle bounce off the wall. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Then he closed it again. Immediately. Merry had set him up. There were some images the human brain should have a delete function for, and Vivi being very occupied with JaxxonVale had just joined the list.

Meno planted himself outside the door instead, because he was not letting somebody else walk in there and take the same psychic damage. The problem was that Vivi and Jaxxon had not noticed him opening the door. Meno waited, increasingly impatient, while the party continued around him. He wanted to go home, sleep off the poison stacks, and log back into Veyrath before the entire leaderboard passed him. Fifteen minutes later, the door finally opened. Vivi came out first and almost walked into him.

"Oh, boss. Why are you here?" Jaxxon appeared behind her, took one look at Meno, and understood the situation much faster.

"Great."

"Jaxxon, if my assistant becomes a mess because of you, I'll have GraveMistake farm you until you stop logging in."

"Relax. I am a good person." Saying that out loud made it less convincing, but Jaxxon's alignment was a side quest Meno had no energy for. He motioned for Vivi to follow and started back toward the others.

"Calm down, boss," Vivi said as she caught up.

"We were just having fun. You don't have to worry."

"I am not worried."

"It's sweet. I can see you are worried. Thank you."

"Whatever." They collected Honeygrave's party and finally made it into the elevator. Kestrel, BrineSaint, and Patro were still upstairs negotiating with Morlando, and Meno could not bring himself to care what had become complicated enough to keep them there this long. His brain had hit the daily processing cap. When they reached the rooftop, the VTOL was gone. The security team had at least reassembled themselves. All three guards were waiting near the landing area, giving Meno ugly looks without saying anything.

Professional, even after being zapped. One of them called the transport, and the VTOL returned roughly ten minutes later to take the group back to the airport. The flight home was quiet compared with the way out. The twins slept through most of it, Honeygrave and Merry kept to themselves, and Vivi had finally lost enough energy to stop pretending she was still networking. Meno and Rina spent the trip making up for lost time.

The limo ride from the airport passed just as smoothly, and by the time the Pearl came into view, Meno felt like he had been attending the same party for three days. Vivi took the car home after dropping them off. The others rode the elevator to their floor together, and Honeygrave's party split away toward their rooms with tired goodbyes. Merry stayed behind.

"I am sorry I was a bit harsh." Meno had not expected that, but after everything else tonight, he had no interest in extending the conflict.

"It's fine. I get it. I can be a bit much at times." Merry left to catch up with Honeygrave. That left Meno and Rina standing alone in the hall, and Rina showed no sign of heading toward her own suite.

"So…" Meno said.

"So…" That exchange carried enough information. Meno led her to his room, and Rina spent the rest of the night making a strong argument why she was also rank one. Meno woke with a hangover and Rina sleeping naked across his body. His phone had somehow survived the night within reach. He found it near the edge of the mattress and checked the time. Saturday. 1: 04 PM. The party had cost him a disgusting amount of XP.

Even worse, everyone who had skipped the event had gained close to twenty hours of uninterrupted catch-up time. Aurelia immediately came to mind. She had never shown up despite qualifying through the top 50, and after seeing how aggressively she had been climbing lately, Meno wondered whether skipping the party had been intentional. That would be smart. He carefully extracted himself from under Rina and headed for the shower. By the time he came out, Vivi was knocking on the suite door.

Meno opened it with wet hair, confused about why she was there. It was the weekend.

"You can take a day off."

"That's dumb. Not today." Vivi came inside carrying her usual work setup.

"I have to manage the fallout from the party. The buzz is huge. There have been a lot of clips on social from the event, including one with you jumping around shirtless like an idiot."

"Wait just a second. Phones?" Meno asked.

"Duh, of course. These people are all about content. Did you expect otherwise?"

"That's lame. I didn't record anything."

"Don't worry, I haven't seen anything too bad. Your little speech, some dancing clips with you and Rina, and you throwing away your shirt. It was dark, so the footage isn't that revealing, thankfully. I also recorded a bunch we can post on your Connect." Meno lowered his voice and glanced toward the bedroom.

"Rina is still sleeping, so keep it down."

"I am pro. Don't worry." Vivi set herself up in the living room, and Meno went downstairs to deal with breakfast. Honeyjuice had left a mark on his system, which meant normal rotation rules no longer applied. The occasion demanded recovery food. He ordered two steak burgers with an extra slice of pepperoni pizza placed between the buns. The Pearl staff had dealt with him long enough that nobody even questioned it anymore, relaying the order to the kitchen with the same professionalism they might have used for eggs.

Meno added chicken broth on the side and enough blueberry juice to purge whatever remained of the previous night. By the time he returned to the suite, the food followed soon afterward. He had the staff spread everything across the living-room table beside Vivi's computer setup, which she did not appreciate, then went to wake Rina. He shook her shoulder gently. She grabbed a pillow.

"Just five more." Meno kept shaking because the burgers were getting cold, and wasting steak because somebody wanted to sleep through the afternoon was unacceptable. Eventually, Rina surfaced enough to identify him.

"Meno? It's early."

"Past noon. The food is ready. You should dress. Vivi is here."

"Oh, nice." Rina climbed out of bed without putting anything on and walked straight into the living room. Meno followed behind her and found Vivi completely unbothered as Rina dropped into a chair beside the food. The knowing look Vivi gave her suggested Meno was the only person in the room who found the situation even slightly excessive. He went back to the bedroom, grabbed a shirt, and draped it around Rina before sitting down. After that, nobody wasted time.

The burgers disappeared fast, along with the broth, pizza, and most of the blueberry juice. Rina did not complain about missing vegetables this time. Hunger had finally corrected her priorities.

"That was sooo good," she said when the damage was done.

"I want to sleep a bit more, then I need to go to the gym."

"Okay. I'm about to log in, so see you later." Meno started getting up, but Rina caught his hand and pulled him back.

"We should talk now, before you go full PBG mode." Vivi understood immediately. Without being asked, she packed enough of her setup to leave the suite and gave them privacy. Meno waited until the door closed.

"So, the party was a bit of a mess, but it was also fun. I'm still not sure if you can handle me. My mind also brings up all this doubt about why you would even want to, but I'm not going into a little speech about it," Meno said. Rina shifted closer.

"Oh, I can handle a lot. Don't worry about me. I should be the one asking now that you're sober if you changed your mind."

"Yeah, then we're good. I'm not pretending to know exactly what your work entails. But you don't know everything either. Seems fair."

"I think you know more than I do," Rina said.

"True. So, are we still seeing each other?"

"Yes." Rina wrapped him in a long hug, then pulled him back toward the bedroom. Because of the unexpected morning workout, it took another hour before Meno managed to let Vivi back inside, reach the capsule, and finally log into Veyrath. It had been a long journey, but he had made it back. The party was done, the real-world side quests could wait, and the leaderboard had been allowed far too much breathing room already. It was time to pump the numbers. Tyrant EX first. Then Level 100 as fast as possible.

If reaching it unlocked a way for everyone to fix their classes, Meno was not even being selfish anymore. This was public service.