He frowned and pulled up the Set chat so he could talk without these quest thieves seeing. A few moments passed. Mr. Crocodile was silent, probably thinking over Brindle’s plan, and that gave him a moment to think of an argument before sending it to her.

Why was this so upsetting? There was the matter of pride and boundaries of course, but surely there was a practical reason aside from the fact that they shouldn’t let themselves be stolen from...

Finally, he thought of one.

They get stronger by fulfilling quests, too. If we let them rip off of us now, we're helping problematic people get strong enough to hurt us more later. |SevenAteEight|

|Brindle_Fox244| Got any better ideas? They outnumber us and I don’t want to have to find another Spire.

That reply came back pretty quick, and he couldn’t send a response because he really didn’t have any better ideas.

Hopefully Mr. Crocodile and his friends hadn’t already found a Craven, or at least didn’t feel like bothering with a fight right now.

|MrCr0cod1le| Sure. We can go always take the Spire away at any time if you’re lying.

Great. So now they just had to make sure they could get back on course again.

Right. Follow us. It might take us a little bit to figure out where the Craven is, since we had to go off course a bit to try and avoid you. |SevenAteEight|

Part of him just couldn’t help pointing out what a freaking problem Mr. Crocodile’s group was being. He turned his character and was about to start heading back to the right. Might as well just try and get onto the exact same path they started out on before they were interrupted by these other people.

|MrCr0cod1le| Yeah, that’s what happens when you try to be stingy and keep all the good things away from us.

Seriously? What the hell was this guy’s problem?

His fingers came down harder on the keyboard than they should have. His character bolted away, and he looked from side to side, searching out the right path. Brindle and Silver would follow on their own. And if he kept talking to Mr. Crocodile, he was bound to start a fight or just make himself angrier.

Their steps all padded rapidly behind him, becoming more and more audible in his earphones as they caught up.

|Brindle_Fox244| So you guys had a hard time trying to find a Spire too?

She was seriously trying to be friendly right now?

|~Gold~Vein~| He’s exaggerating, but yeah, Silver’s the first Spire we’ve caught a glimpse of. And we haven’t seen a Craven either, so thanks for helping us with that.

|Brindle_Fox244| You’re welcome, though I wish you guys hadn’t forced us into ‘helping’ you.

He scoffed at this new exchange. If this Gold Vein person was actually as ‘polite’ as he seemed while talking to Brindle, what was he doing following Mr. Crocodile without protest?

Brindle was really way too nice. That was good when they were trying to make decisions together, but it was downright aggravating to watch her talk to these thieves as if they did nothing more than cut in line at the grocery store or something.