Dungeon Raider System

*Beep beep* *Beep beep*

"Not again." Uriel said grumpily. He didn't need to even open his eyes to know he was at a hospital. The chemical scent and the annoying beeping sounds were all the confirmation he needed, but taking into consideraion how ill he felt before passing out, it didn't come as a surprise.

However, as soon as he opened his eyes he realized the beeping sound was actually coming from his cellphone. The notifications didn't stop coming one after the other, though they were most likely news that had been clogged up due to how much time he spent on the dungeon. The rapid influx of information was too much for his sleepy brain and he opted for asking any of his friends in person.

This time, he wasn't hooked to any medical device as the doctors assumed he fainted due to exhaustion, there weren't any nurses on sight either and none of his friends were picking up the phone.

He stumbled upon a water dispenser in the hallway and greedily drank directly from it, he didn't remember being so thirsty ever before. 'Just what's going on?' He wondered, but curiosity soon gave way to fear as he realized that even the nurse station was empty, something absolutely unthinkable in the usually busy and crowded hospital.

Just when he was about to panic, an ominous sensation of something crawling up from behind invaded him.

"You're finally awake!" Nika patted him on the back.

"How is Medusa doing?" Uriel had so many questions inside of his mind, but he knew the right thing was to ask about his friend first.

"They're keeping her in a comma so her body focuses solely on healing but they say she's fine."

"Why is there no one else in here?"

"That's because I rented the whole floor to keep everything about our incursion a secret. We don't want people asking questions. It's actually pretty much a standard procedure for companies like ours, though I didn't know it was so expensive."

"Expensive!?" Uriel repeated, he found that word to be extremely offensive, especially now that he knew that the company's funds were coming out of his pocket.

"Don't look at me like that, It wasn't my idea to fake Medusa's death and hide her. You can't do stuff like that without losing money." Nika glared at Uriel.

Although Uriel wasn't fond spending credits, he had to admit that Nika did well. Not only did they need to keep Medusa hidden from her father, he didn't want to draw any attention towards himself. Contrary to Sam, who always dreamed of becoming a celebrity, Uriel just wanted to have a comfortable life while keeping a low profile.

"Fine, at least we managed to get our hands in some artifacts." Uriel sighed with longing. Any artifact made of orichalcum was bound to be worth a lot of money and if he did things correctly, he might even be able to keep one or two for himself, even if they were small.

"About that, we need to talk." Nika said with a look on her face that hinted Uriel wouldn't like what he was about to hear.

***

A few days later, all the founding members of the Dungeon Raiders company reunited in their headquarters and were finally able to hold their first meeting. They all sat down on the plastic chairs by the cheap table, with a few boxes of take out on top.

"Your hat is so cute." Janett, the only employee for the time being, said to the still convalescent Medusa in an awkward attempt to break the ice. Because of the serious burns she suffered, she lost most of her hair and it was barely starting to grow again. Because of that, she didn't take Janett's words as a compliment and glared at her with her crimson eyes.

"Huh, This is a really nice place, boss." She then attempted to make conversation with Uriel, but he was in a bitter mood and remained silent.

"Don't bother," Said Nika once she saw Janett eyeing Sam in a last ditch effort to make thins less awkward. "They're all sulking for one or other reason. Hey Uriel, as the CEO is your duty to fix this."

"You're right," He grinned wickedly and continued. "as the CEO of the Dungeon Raiders company, I'll delegate this duty to you."

"Ugh!" Nika was expecting Uriel to dismiss his duties as their boss, but she was taken aback by his unrepentant behavior. "Fine, then I'll start by informing everyone of our current situation. After finishing the exploration we were forced to pawn all of our loot in order to cover the costs, something you may have already noticed by our boss' cheerful attitude.

The good news is that we acquired all the necessary tools and machinery to start the extraction process."

"Ahhh! Why would I care about that, I'm married to a lovely woman and we couldn't even spend our wedding night together." Sam placed his elbows on the table and hid his head between his arms.

"Ew, that's gross. You can't be in love with a cryptid, that's disgusting."

"I don't care, she's the love of my life!"

"I was almost burnt to death, lost all my hair and you're here whining about your monster girlfriend!"

"I... I lost Mister Wabbit." Luna added with a blank face, though her eyes showed how deeply hurt she was about losing her stuffed animal. At the time, she was too focused on Medusa to realize she dropped it right at the exit of the dungeon, but now it was all she could think of.

She had asked Uriel time and time again for a replacement, but he had refused because he simply didn't have any credits to spare.

"I don't get it, why are we even here? We should be outside hunting and making money!" Uriel wanted to slam his hand on the table, but he didn't want to risk breaking it because he didn't have any credits to spare.

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"Hunting? We can't do that anymore, the Mapple corp. and the army are already putting together mining teams."

"So? You said it already, we have the equipment."

"It's not going to magically grow legs and go to the dungeon and even if it did, we still need employees to operate it. I can't go to the dungeon because I need to keep pretending I'm the CEO, Medusa won't be able to go because she's currently hiding. We need employees to make credits and we need credits to get employees, in other words, we need people to invest in our company..."