Waif :: "Why, hello there, friends.”

He stared at the creepy animal, startled and unsure of how to respond to a phrase that seemed so simple, yet vaguely threatening all at once.  Those words hung there in the creature’s chatbox for several moments before a new line of text followed.

|Brindle_Fox244| Hey. We finally found you.

Waif :: "?"

He scrambled to click on Waif’s chatbox and started typing.

Yes. We need you for our first quest. |SevenAteEight|

Waif :: "?"

Did the question marks mean a lack of understanding, or that it was just bidding them to continue explaining what they were here for?

|Brindle_Fox244| Yeah, uh...we need you to come with us until we find a Spire, then have a conversation with us and the Spire.

Waif just looked at them a moment, then stretched languidly, flexing the long, fingerlike digits on its front paws. A smirk crawled along its round face.

Waif :: "Here. Bring the Spire here."

Oh, good, it did understand. At least they wouldn't have to be here all day figuring out exactly what they needed to say to it.

The creature yawned, looking at them with a hint of amusement before turning and settling down, curling up as if going to sleep.

So that was that. Clicking on the Set chatbox, he sent a quick message to Brindle.

Guess that’s his way of saying ‘Ok’. |SevenAteEight|

He steered his avatar away, to walk out of the mess of briars when Brindle sent a reply.

|Brindle_Fox244| What if he runs off?

He blinked, lifting his fingers off the arrow keys, halting his character as he went to type.

What? |SevenAteEight|

|Brindle_Fox244| Well, he's a Craven. Their job is to unwind things. Sow discord and all that. How can we trust him to help us?

Well...most of the time, NPCs seemed to be made to cooperate with quests, but the description for Spire said that its aspects were not straightforward as the average game.

A flicker of anxiety twisted his gut. This game was supposed to be a little more realistic than average, which was probably why it took so long to find Waif in the first place.

It might take that long to find the Spire, too. What if Waif was programmed to abandon the quest after a certain amount of time? But neither of them could be expected to just sit and wait with this Craven for hours on end. And it would be frustrating to let all their efforts go to waste.

Can Greenie keep track of him? |SevenAteEight|

He didn't want to leave his own pet behind, and Brindle should come with him as backup in case they ran into other players.

A couple minutes passed before the reply came.

|Brindle_Fox244| Yeah, I think so. There’s a Watch And Report skill listed in his bio, so it'd be worth a shot.

Ok. |SevenAteEight|

He waited patiently until the notification showed in the Set chat.

Greenie is watching Waif.

|Brindle_Fox244| K, ready.

He steered his character forward, weaving his way out of the den of thorns. But, if Brindle was correct in worrying that the Craven might not cooperate, why did it agree to help them so easily?