The Insider System

Chapter 295: Membership

Donny had run out of things to think about at this point and had just resorted to counting the seconds to keep himself awake. It had been a long time since he had slept but with him being the person who was controlling the barrier he needed to be awake till they knew if they were ok or not.

Of course this meant if they weren't he would be exhausted while they were fighting for their lives but he knew when it came to that his adrenaline would keep him going. "Donny, it's been around four hours of nothing already. I..." He could tell Keel had almost just given him an order to drop the barrier but hadn't because he knew there was no way he would have listened to it.

"Did you hear me Donny?"

"Yes, just a few more hours." Every second they were in the barrier could be seen two ways; a waste of time or one second closer to rescue and he was going to look at it as the second thing them waiting out the disaster in a safe space. What was a few more hours spent almost falling asleep when compared to being chased down by Demon Worshipers and undead.

...

"We're here." Snapping out of the daze he had been in while running back to the city again, Lake saw that Tiff was right and they were in fact about to walk into the temple. It was crazy that his body had gotten him all the way here without him even realizing it. He guessed that was what happened when you had completely lost interest in what you were doing.

Now that they were here though there were things he could do so started paying attention again and asked. "Are we about to go see the Temple Head?" He knew they hadn't been gone for long but he felt the Temple Head would have something for him to do.

...

Tiff nodded to Lake question and headed for the Temple Heads office. She needed to tell the Temple Head that they hadn't gotten the dagger back yet and let her know the reason was because it was in the Metal Domain. This made the situation even more unsolvable than it had been a few days ago even if they had someone like Lake who could just bring her directly to it.

Seeing the Temple Head's door was closed Tiff knew this meant she was in a meeting but with her being who she was there wasn't anything she wasn't allowed to hear. "Lake, wait here for a few seconds." After telling Lake to wait she opened the door and interrupted the meeting the Temple Head was having.

"Wow, that was fast, where's the dagger?" Tiff had expected the Temple Head to think this when she had walked in and had planned to say they had come back early before she could but it seemed the Temple Head was much faster than her. This wasn't surprising when you took into the difference in their stats.

"No, we had to come back before we could complete the mission. It seems the Dagger is in the Metal Domain." After she had started to talk the Temple Head had waved the other people that had been here out of the room so it was only them by the time she was done talking. "Where's Lake?"

"He's right outside the door." Tiff wasn't surprised the Temple Head wanted to talk to both of them since he was just as much a part of this as she was. "Would you tell him to come inside the room so we can talk?" Tiff quickly opened the door and said. "Lake you can come in."

...

Walking in Lake waved to the Temple Head and sat down. He was sure they would already be talking about something so he just stayed quiet and let them continue. "So how do you know it's in the Metal Domain already? There's no way you went all the way there in the time you were gone."

This was actually a question that he would be able to answer better so Lake spoke up. "The direction of the dagger didn't move the whole time we were out there and it was pretty obvious we were heading for the Metal Domain and Tiff seemed to think it would be better if we came back and waited."

After he was done talking Tiff quickly added to what he had just said. "There were a lot of Demon Worshipers where we were and I didn't want to get involved." The Temple Head seemed to agree with their decision because she was nodding for a while before she said. "Well if you two are right it could be a while before you're actually able to go get the dagger."

Lake didn't think that needed to be added but he knew the Temple Head wasn't done talking just yet because she was still nodding and he was pretty sure it was because she was still thinking about something. A few seconds later she finally stopped nodding and said. "With the dagger there we have more reason to send forces to help. I should be able to get twenty or so more qualified people to go if I say it's for the God of Lights newest..."

Hearing the abrupt stop to the Temple Heads sentence, Lake knew she had almost just said a secret she didn't want him to know but he just let it pass while pretending he didn't notice. "I should go get in touch with them now." As the Temple Head was walking out Lake turned to look at Tiff.

...

"What?" Seeing Lake shrug she knew he wanted to know what they were doing next but she didn't want to leave in case the Temple Head came back and expected them to still be here so she just sat down as a way of saying they weren't going anywhere. Lake seemed to get the message because he said. "Ok."

A few seconds later he seemed to remember the conversation they were having before they had chased after that Demon Worshiper. "So how does one join the Temple, would now be a good time for me to ask the Temple Head?" Tiff was happy someone like Lake really wanted to join the Temple because there were moments that someone like him would be helpful almost everyday.

...

Lake could tell that not only Tiff really liked this idea. As soon as he asked the Insider moved around a little. This didn't happen very often in situations where he wasn't pretending to be someone else or stealing so he knew it was happy about his decision. "Yeah if you ask the Temple Head when she gets back she'll take care of it."

Lake had expected this to be a pretty easy thing for him to accomplish but there was actually something he wanted to ask Tiff about before he actually went through with it. "How much freedom will I have once I'm a member?" This had been his only problem with the Alchemist guild when he had first joined so he wanted to know if he was going to have any free time to do his own things.

"That really depends on you. We are at war though so you'll probably be asked to do a lot of stuff by the Temple Head but it seems you were already fighting the Demon Worshipers on your own so I don't think you'll have any problems."

"So I can say no if the Temple Head asks me to do something I don't want to do?" Seeing Tiff nod Lake felt good about this decision. "You can but there are certain situations where you'll be penalized by the Temple if you don't do what you're told. This is really only done in emergencies though so your life will probably be at risk already so saying no doesn't really make sense and its not like the Temple would send someone as talented as you on a suicide mission."

What Tiff had just said hadn't changed his mind at all because he knew she was right about his value. It had been the same reason Lucas hadn't let him leave the spire at first. Thinking about Lucas, Lake remembered the thing he had said about other guilds having to check with him before they allowed a member of the Alchemist guild join them and was about to ask Tiff but after thinking about it decided to just talk to the Temple Head about this.

There was a chance Tiff wouldn't know anything about this since it seemed she was only a member of the Temple. He would also have to ask the Temple Head about this no matter what since she would be the one who needed to go talk to Lucas about him. With this out of the way, Lake was about to ask Tiff about what the dagger could actually do but was cut off by the door opening.