"You see anything suspicious?" Four asks.
"Yeah, Five being here."
"Stop minding him, he's not here for us, just focus on the mission and finish it fast."
Well the task of this stage is very boring, I'd much rather solve the mysterious relationship between Kenneth Spears and Corpse.
"I don't see anything that they're doing." I remarked on the activity of Hearts.
And yeah, they weren't doing anything at all. Hearts visitors were either sitting idle or wandering around in circles.
"I don't see Ace of Hearts." Four states.
"Probably just in his tent."
"Yeah but better safe than sorry. Hey excuse me!" Four calls out to one of the armed Diamonds guard surveiling the area.
"Ace of Hearts in there?" He asks.
"Yes, no one's allowed out as per Ace's command."
"Mind if you go in there and check?"
"Sure."
The armed guard walks towards the largest and grandest tent, with more intricate adornments and better quality fabrics compared to surrounding tents.
After an inaudible conversation between the guard outside and whoever inside through the tent's entrance, Ace of Hearts walks out, then gives us a wave with that same derisive and obnoxious smirk.
"They're not doing anything." Four says with a perplexed frown.
"Yeah this is boring, Five looks like he's doing something though."
"I said leave it, we don't want trouble with Living Cemetery." Four denied my indirect request to investigate Five vehemently.
"Alright then." I figured he'd say no, so I didn't feel disappointed.
"It's almost noon, let's check out the gate."
"Okay."
It was Ten of Diamonds leading today, we weren't there to volunteer, just there to observe.
"If the task is to protect Jack of Diamonds, there's probably nothing outside during expeditions." Four says.
"Yeah."
"Yo, Three and Four, y'all shouldn't volunteer, I don't trust those Hearts guys." Ten walked up to us, armed with two pistols in each hand.
"We're not here for that, just walking around." Four's the one talking, obviously not me, an avid gamer can never communicate well with a stranger.
"Ah alright, I suggest staying at your posts, keep your people safe, we never know what those outsiders are here to do."
"We actually might have an idea. Since they're so eager with meeting our Jack, it could have something to do with him."
"Could be."
Four really isn't afraid of divulging in-game information at all, maybe I'm a bit too paranoia with my words.
"Well anyways, good luck on your expedition."
"Thanks, you guys stay safe too." Ten patted Four's shoulders before heading back to the front of the group of soldiers.
"Search for anything useful, stay safe, and don't die on me!" Ten spoke with conviction to the soldiers, a much simpler preface compared to Two's in stage 1-1.
"Reignite humanity's hope!" The same slogan with the same movement, thrusting the weapons up into the sky in full spirits.
"Reignite humanity's hope!" The soldiers follow suit.
Then, the group of armed soldiers marches out the gate in an organised and systematic formation.
"Well, nothing else for us to do I guess." Four says.
"Could always find the guy that delivered us bread today, maybe he knows where Jack of Diamonds is."
"You remember his face?"
"I'm certain I could recognise him."
"Alright, he's not from my group, I'm sure of that, not in yours too I'm gonna guess?"
"Nope."
"We'll search for him, one building at a time."
"Let's start with Two." I suggested.
The officer that has been absent the entire duration of the game.
Checking her group first is hitting two birds with one stone, finding the man who delivered today's bread, and if a miracle were to occur, finding Two.
"Haven't seen her all day, her box of bread was just carried back by the man with the trolley right?" I added.
"Yeah, her group will kill her if they see her."
Which is why it requires a miracle to actually find her, chances of her actually being with her group is incredibly slim.
"Alright, her building's close, we'll start there." Four says.
Nothing, Two wasn't there, then we proceed to spend hours searching through buildings after the buildings for the man who delivered food today. But still, nothing
"A real ghost of a man, there's a reason why Jack used him I guess." Four ranted.
"There's one place we haven't yet searched."
"Where's that?"
"The lab."
"We did pass by didn't we? I told you to look inside if one of those scientists was the guy we're looking for too."
"Yeah and none of them were, there's always upstairs though."
"We're not allowed in there, I don't even know who's allowed in there despite playing this game for so long." Four said.
I was losing my voice at that point, sweating profusely and nearly out of breath.
Noticing my exhaustion, Four extended out his hand to me, offering what looks like a can of cold soft drink.
I was severely dehydrated, I opened the can and devoured it's content quickly before questioning it's existence.
"Where'd you get this?"
"You can purchase food and drinks from your earpiece by thinking, costs more points though."
"How much for a drink?" I thought in my head.
"What drink would you like?"
"A can of cold sparkling lemonade." That's what Four gave me, so it's the first thing in my head.
"50 points."
What? That's so expensive, a regular meal in the shopping district costs at most 30 points.
"I'll buy one."
"Current balance, 7320 points."
Out of nowhere, just like how I can summon my sword out of thin air, another identical can of ice cold sparkling lemonade appeared in my unoccupied left hand, my right hand was holding the empty can earlier.
"To repay you." I offered the fresh new can of sparkling lemonade to Four.
"Oh why'd you do that, you should be preserving your points."
"Too late now."
At first, he seemed exasperated by my decision of returning the favour, but then eventually accepted the drink with a grin anyways.
"Thanks, but don't do it again."
"It's not just to repay you, but also to lighten your mood for a suggestion I'm about to make."
Since I've already betrayed his trust once, he gazed at me suspiciously upon that statement of mine.
"And what's that?" He asks.
"We're not allowed into the lab, or upstairs of it. We don't have to be allowed though."
At that time, the sun was already setting while the two of us sits on a rubble not far away from the Hearts' camp to observe their movements.
"We'll be turning the entire map of npcs against us, even I can't save us then." Four says.
"Not if we're not caught in the action."
"How do you figure that happening?"
"In a few more minutes this city will be completely dark, only source of light being a couple of lamps we have that's all going to be used to monitor Hearts.
If we mask ourselves, take out the guards and break the locks as quietly as possible, no one will see us."
There's literally nothing else we can do to progress, we need to find leads to where our Jack may be, Four will agree to this, I'm sure of it.
"How do we mask ourselves?"
Yep, he agreed to it.
"The people don't need that many broken blankets."
The sky's getting darker and darker, the sun was not visible a few hours ago already as it's blocked by clusters of skyscrapers.
Four takes another sip of his drink in hand, sank in his thoughts for a while until the sky turns dark blue before commencing our operation.
"Let's go."