He stared at the screen, uncertainty and annoyance poking at him as he read Mr. Crocodile’s message again. After a moment, he clicked on that player’s chat box and gave a purposefully useless and noncommittal response.

Stuff |SevenAteEight|

No one did anything for a moment. Apparently, it was possible for a situation to feel both awkward and hostile at the same time. They probably didn’t know how to react to such a short reply, but he didn’t feel like being cooperative when he knew they were going to cause a problem soon.

|MrCr0cod1le| Silver...where’d you find her?

Silver :: I’m a male, thank you very much.

He blinked as Silver cut in. So this NPC was programmed to react to conversations that mentioned its name? Well, maybe this was an opportunity to answer Mr. Crocodile in a way that would direct him elsewhere.

In that tower thing nearby. We didn’t go deep inside it, though, so there’s probably more Spires in it that we didn’t see. |SevenAteEight|

Hopefully these people would run off and look now.

Silver :: Actually, that spire belongs only to me.

A flash of irritation flit through him at that. Stupid thing. Why did it have to intrude and make this situation so much harder?

And obviously, the idea of Spires not causing turmoil was a lie, because now, instead of going on their way, these people would be more inclined to fight until they took Silver.

|MrCr0cod1le| Well, you and your friend seem to be good at finding Spires, so we’ll just take Silver and be on our way.

Oh look, there it was. And this person even had the audacity to try and rationalize his theft. The sheer ridiculousness of that ‘rationalization’ only made it more infuriating.

I’m not going to waste time looking for another Spire just because you’re too lazy to find one yourself. |SevenAteEight|

|MrCr0cod1le| There’s no way you can keep him to yourself if we attack you. We aren’t going to waste our time looking for another Spire when there’s one right here.

Of all the stupid --

Silver :: I'm not here to cause discord. If you can't compromise, I'm going back to my spire.

He froze. So, wait, if Mr. Crocodile’s Set attacked, Silver would go back to his tower and not help either group? Maybe, or maybe not, but Mr. Crocodile hasn’t said anything else yet. Either he was waiting for a reply from him, or Silver’s words actually gave him pause.

So maybe this NPC’s meddling had some use after all.

|Brindle_Fox244| Um, look, we already found a Craven, too. If you follow us and cooperate, you can talk to both of them after we're done. Or at the same time, if we can all still finish the quest that way.

Wait, what, she wanted to invite them along? Something in him bristled at that. Mr. Crocodile’s Set needed to be dealt with somehow, but preferably in a way that made them go away instead of tagging along. Yeah, it might keep them from taking Silver, but was it really wise to help them at all?