Thirteen

At nine-thirty Lisbeth went to meet the others, none of whom were ready yet. Lisbeth came to this conclusion after finding the empty lounge where they had agreed to meet. Eventually Krista and then Amy arrived, dressed very similarly to how they had been during the floor meeting; mildly provocative but not overly so. They both had a single question for her.

“Are you sure you can get us all in?”

“Yes, I know a guy on the inside and apparently my association has a standing agreement with the dwarves.”

“A guy on the inside?”

“Yeah, we are both a part of the same pirating group in a game we play.”

“Game?”

“Yeah, spaceships, spreadsheets, screwing each other over, good times. Anyways he owes me.”

At this point the conversation was interrupted by Nerissa’s arrival, and she was gorgeous. Or at least she was to Lisbeth, which she then let the others know through a series of very loud thoughts and emotions. Amy blushed, Nerissa smiled and Krista gave a small giggle, the sudden realization of what had been heard caused Lisbeth to then turn red in turn. Nerissa was wearing a black button up shirt that hugged her curves, she had left her raven black hair loose so it cascaded half way down her back. The entire ensemble really did make Lisbeth want to…well those are thoughts for after the party.

“Presumptuous little thing aren’t you.” Nerissa stated with her own giggle.

“Sorry, I’ll do whatever you ask as an apology.” Lisbeth’s thoughts revealed exactly what was on the table with that offer, and Amy blushed again.

“Come on we should get going, Charis is waiting.”

“We are early.”

“So is she, I promised a date with Lance. That girl wouldn’t be late for the world.”

“Why did you invite her along?”

“She is an enchanter, and a friend of mine asked me to do some headhunting.”

“So you’re pimping out Lance to make her take a job?”

“That sounds wrong.” Amy quipped.

“But accurate. Besides Lance doesn’t mind.”

Three minutes later they were all outside Mind Hall, were Charis was indeed waiting for them, and had been for some time. After a short round of introductions that mildly freaked Charis out, mostly because she was surrounded by telepaths, they headed to the dwarven dorm. The dorm wasn’t as ugly as Mind Hall, but it certainly wasn’t a pretty building either. It was only four stories tall, but since most of the rooms weren’t singles, it held more people than Mind Hall. Also, according to rumors, it had a basement the size of a gym for events such as this.

The main entrance was completely swamped with people, a good sixty or so milling about hoping to gain entrance. The people who thought they could actually get in were lined up outside the door. Lisbeth skipped the line entirely and walked to the front. Hinrich, being a freshman, was on door duty and waved them in. He also whispered something into the ear of the guy on I.D. duty so they weren’t checked. It is good to have connections. Signs and a flow of people led them down the hall to the stairs, and two flights down a massive hall opened up before them.

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

Charis walked a couple of steps behind the telepaths, and something about them unnerved her. She knew it wasn’t their fault, but still they could hear her thoughts, or feel emotions, and she didn’t even know what kind Lisbeth was. They seemed like good people, keeping up a friendly banter as they walked to the dwarven dorm, but she couldn’t tell if that was just for her benefit or not. When they arrived Charis was sure they wouldn’t get in, seriously there was a written list and a guy checking I.D.s. Nope, they all got waved past the entrance, and when the I.D. guy seemed like he was going to object the doorman said something to him and there were no issues. How did that even work. Amy spoke over her shoulder.

“Lisbeth has connections apparently.”

Of course Lisbeth had connections, that is what she had been talking about when they had first met. Charis was mildly worried that Lisbeth wanted to make herself one of those connections. Charis had been approached before by big corporations and wealthy individuals, she had up until this point turned them all down on advice of her lawyer. Go to college, get an education, have fun, when you graduate make your millions, and never fall into debt with someone. Good advice, it had seemed and easy to follow since she had what they wanted, not the other way around. Now Lisbeth apparently had what she wanted. Sure she could have turned Lisbeth down, but the Twins were damn sylphs, class ten all the way through.

Charis’ stopped rather abruptly upon entrance to the underground dwarven hall. It was massive and glorious, there were two to three hundred people already inside the hall. Most of the crowd appeared to be dwarves, there was also a handful of elves, the rest were humans. For some reason they all seemed older, very few of them seemed to be freshmen, which made sense in a way since the dwarves did I.D. at the door. New arrivals were afforded a wonderful view of the hall, since the stairs actually let out on a balcony overlooking everything, another flight of stairs allowing entry onto the main floor. The twins had apparently been waiting for them, and quite literally jumped out of the crowd to fly up to the balcony to join them. That gained a reaction from the crowd, only sylphs and a handful of class nines could fly. Lance spoke up first.

“We were wondering when you would make it Lisbeth.”

“We arrived exactly when we were meant to. Introductions, Nerissa, Amy, Krista, Charis, meet Seth and Lance.”

Lisbeth indicated each person in turn as she spoke, she seemed to be about to say more when her phone rang. She pulled it out of nowhere that Charis could see, fuck that’s a pocket, and said something rather rude after looking at the caller I.D.

“I have to take this, so play nice.”

Lisbeth walked off answering the call, apparently looking for somewhere quiet. Charis did hear the name of the person she was talking to a ‘Sinclair’, odd, that was the name of the person Lisbeth said she would be meeting when they first met. Was Lisbeth seriously going to do this, drag her here and then just abandon her with no idea what to do next? Charis was really starting to regret agreeing to come even with the twins in attendance.

“So your name was Charis right?” Lance said in a voice that managed to excite Charis in interesting and pleasant ways. Fine, Lisbeth would win this round and get her bloody favor.

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