Niss jolted awake again after some time had passed, he kept phasing in and out of sleep as he recovered. All he could hear was confusion and shouting going on nearby. Sitting up in the comfortable bed he was recovering in, he saw that he was alone but the door had been left open to the hallway.
Feeling well enough now to get up and investigate, Niss got to his feet. Wandering down the hall to find the source of the confusion and loud voices he rounded the corner of the hallway to find himself in a large room where there were several guild officials and some rough looking mages, joined by the one that had brough Niss back to the capital, although he was unscathed.
'Blaze Reckoners? Did they already clear the dungeon?' Niss thought.
"You need to get at least one S-rank here!" Thad was raising his voice at the man in guild clothes in front of him, it was Finnrod the elven man from before.
"Alright, alright I understand but Duke Erik Frost is busy in the North. I will see what we can do about getting an S-rank, besides the king we have a few lords in the south."
"You have sufficient evidence to dodge the formal teleportation request! Just send someone to inform them so they get here quickly. If these orcs have large numbers and they go for the nearby town or even if they come here, there will be an unfathomable death count!" Thad was getting in Finnrods face pushing his finger against the elven man's chest. It was a little out of character for the leader of the Blaze Reckoners, but he was a very passionate man, having lost his family to a dungeon that released upon his hometown in a similar fashion to this. Thad committed his life to clearing dungeons so that it would never happen again, the thing he cared most about was innocent lives.
"Well, you are indeed correct. I will act accordingly, why don't you all settle yourselves and get prepared to head back out with the S-rank we can get ahold of." Finnrod said as he grasped Thad's finger and pushed his hand away from him calmly.
Niss was watching this all pan out, right after Finnrod and Thad finished arguing Siarra finally noticed.
"Niss! You are up!" Siarra ran over and wrapped her arms around him in a big warm hug.
"Ow." Niss looked at her bright and happy energy despite this bad situation and felt a small bit of peace in his heart.
"Sorry, I just was so worried you were hurt and…. w-we couldn't find Trevor." She said as her face shifted back to a worried and grim expression.
"I heard, So the Blaze Reckoners couldn't beat them either?" Niss asked more towards the whole group than just Siarra.
This earned him some annoyed looks before MiMi ran towards him.
"Hey! We could take them all! Thad was just being cautious!" MiMi pouted.
"Aren't you a little small to be fighting orcs?" Niss looked down at the short pink haired girl.
"Blleeeehhhh" MiMi stuck out her tongue and went back to Thad's side.
"Yes, we could but it was dangerous, and we did not know if more of them would show up, preventing us from leaving. Besides the two that you all killed there was five more, clearly not all of them as their leader never showed himself and they wouldn't all leave the dungeon at once." Thad continued speaking as the conversation had opened up more towards everyone in the room. "Like I explained to Finnrod, this is a unique dungeon evolution. It is nothing like I have seen before, never should a D-rank dungeon evolve to have peak A-ranks and possibly S-rank monsters that quickly. We're dealing with quite the anomaly and there is a need for caution and thought before we charge in." Thad sighed deeply patting MiMi on the head, "We could have carried on clearing them but I was unwilling to take that risk without informing the guild and getting back up in the off chance we fail." Thad had just finished speaking when Niss jumped in.
"Wait, wait back it up." Niss said to Thad. "Are you telling me that we defeated TWO of those pale orcs?"
"Well, yes there was the one dead beside you and the remains of half of one nearby." Thad answered.
"Then Trevor is alive somewhere! He was fighting the other one. If it died and Trevor wasn't there, he must be alive!" Niss was thrilled at this realization.
"You are right, but he could have been taken captive rather than escaped since we did not see him at all. I will keep an extra careful eye out for your friend when we head back to the dungeon."
"Thank you… Blaze Reckoners" Niss said.
"My name is Thad, and this is MiMi. Then you have Monty, Kaleb, Calli, and Russel over there."
"Yo." Said the rest of the Blaze Reckoners.
They weren't exactly being rude, they were just more nervous and focused on current events. They also were generally not as social as Thad and MiMi were.
"Alright, well then were going to the teleportation building to meet up with whoever the guild gets a hold of first." Thad said and motioned for his group to get their things together.
"Good luck!" Siarra wished them wholeheartedly.
...
Back in the private room, Niss, Siarra, Curt and Lys had regrouped.
"I'm afraid my father will trap me in our castle if he finds out what happened…" Lys said to them.
"Well at this point, every dungeon we have gone to has been a disaster." Siarra said quietly.
"I think we should take this time to advance ourselves. We shouldn't leave without Trevor. I am not going to accept that he died when we all got the chance to live." Niss spoke with an even tone showing his seriousness.
"Niss you are right, we can all take some time to better ourselves while we wait for the Blaze Reckoners to come back with Trevor." Siarra smiled at Niss with warm and hopeful eyes.
"I happen to have a healing tome I have not finished with. I think you have a tome you need to learn as well Niss. It's a good idea to just wait this out." Curt glanced at each of them seeing their reactions.
They all agreed, and the guild had provided them with rooms for the night since their case was part of an emergency. Each of them talked for awhile before eventually heading to their respective rooms for the night.
…..
Niss was sitting on his bed in the familiar legs crossed underneath position focusing on his aura.
'Hey, I see a few issues with your aura that I think we can fix quite easily to get you into third stage.'
'Wait really? How?'
'Well since all I am is now fully part of you, its fairly easy for my experienced mind to notice the mistakes in your aura.'
'Well then Nyx, why don't you bless both of us by helping me fix these mistakes of mine.'
'Yes M…..Okay'
'?'
'Lets get to work on it shall we?'
'….Okay.'