Tamara looked dead already, her eyes were emotionless and wide open as she lay perfectly still in her hospital bed. The blinds had been fully pulled down in the room cloaking it completely in darkness. But even through all the darkness I was still able to make out that the room was very large and lavish it was over double the size of the room I had woken up in months ago.
"Well you've clearly been well taken care of." I said kicking back on a nice desk chair at a corner desk in the room. In front of me stood a mess of monitors and other computing things.
"..."
Clarisse shifted uncomfortably in the doorway and then stepped over quietly to stand by my side. She kept her eyes to the floor and stood in an awkward stance.
"I must get your interior decorators number. I've been looking for this same amount of deathly feng shui for our guild headquarters."
Again Tamara just lay there saying nothing and doing just the right amount of breathing and blinking that the human body required.
"I don't mind doing both parts of the conversation you know, After all who wouldn't love to talk to someone with such great opinions." I stated rolling the chair over to beside her bed on her right side.
"I've heard a lot about you! I'd shake your hand but you don't appear to have one on this side." Usually I wouldn't be this rude but I had to get her to say something just to get the conversation rolling.
"What do you want?!" Tamara finally said with a dry voice laced with venom.
"I want you to find someone for our guild can you do that?"
"No! I don't work for vultures like you anymore. Just let me die in peace..." Tamara said turning over away from her.
"OK how about I change the topic? What do you want more than anything in the world? If it's for more time then you're speaking to the right person." I rolled the chair right around so I was now facing her.
"Are you another healer? Because you can't help me." She said dismissively whilst turning around again.
"I'm not rolling this chair around again so just hear me out. I have no healing abilities. The only thing I have at my disposal is time."
"..."
"Believe me or don't but I just need to make you a deal. I give you more time to spend skipping ropes and eating candy and in return you find Vicki for us?"
"Sure whatever." Tamara said returning back to her original state of lying down completely still.
"Clarisse you didnt do anything back there you just froze up. Are you alright?" I said as we made our back across the city to our headquarters.
"I've just never been around death I didn't know what to do." Clarisse said tucking her hair behind her pointy elvish ears.
"I guess elves live a long time so I guess it's understandable. But I was really counting on your nurturing nature to help us out there."
"That poor girl can we really help her?" Clarisse asked gazing at me expectantly.
"As long as she holds up her end of the deal, yes."
"That's a sad way of looking at it we should be helping her because it's the right thing to do."
"Everyone has been gunning for us since I got here and it's only going to get worse. We can't afford to be heroes." I said walking ahead of her.
I knew she was right but we're a broken group full of broken people. We're all so fragile I need to do everything I can to keep the house of cards that we're building from falling apart. If that means attatching a price to helping a 6 year old so be it. I had died before and left people behind I was determined not to let the opposite happen.
I was way more worried now about Vicki than I was about being a good person. Besides all I had was time, I could always fix any mistakes. Clarisse and Tamara would never know how many times I had attempted to make that deal, how many days I had spent in that dark hospital room.
That line of reasoning is exactly how I had found myself at the top of a tower with my knife held firmly to the neck of beloved fairy tale character, Rapunzel.
I twisted the knife in my palm whilst my other hand held a glass vial to her eye.
"I am truly sorry but unfortunately your tears are going to help me and my people much more than you will ever know!"
I reflected on my actions leading up to this for a second, how my brain had churned out the fact that Rapunzel's tears had healing properties that could even bring people, how I had searched through the Association's database for a dungeon based on the fairytale and how I had clambered up the tower using the fair maiden's hair and immediately pulled a knife to her.
"I-I j-just dont u-understand!" She said in between sobbing.
"I'm sorry to do this but could we make this quick..." I had had to board a flight over to America as for some reason the dungeon was placed in the middle of a giant park there and my return ticket had me getting onto a flight back tomorrow and I really wanted to do a little sightseeing.
"Oh Rapunzel let down your hair!" I heard coming from outside somewhere.
"Occupied! Come back later!" I yelled out unhanding Rapunzel. "Listen I really am sorry Rapunzel and under normal circumstances I'm not that bad of a guy just desperate times y'know. Anyway if you could let down your hair so I could get out of your umm hair."
She begrudingly went to the window and flowed out her hair and wiped away her tears.
Well I sure hope we don't have to clear this dungeon any time soon otherwise it's going to be very awkward. I jumped down from the hair rope and bolted out of the dungeon before the witch could get to me.
A very whirlwind dungeon visit but I really did have to do some sightseeing before my flight back home. The top ranked guild in the world happened to be in America and they held tours around their headquarters.
I have no idea who I was before I ended up in that coma but I really hope I never had to do this much back breaking work otherwise it's a wonder I don't have spinal issues and frown lines in the present. Then me and Steven could be confused for twins.