The young princess stood atop the podium, a confident look on her face as she smiled out at the adventurers before her. It had been about a year since she had been searching for her missing friend, using the fact that her father, the lord of the City-State she called home, and thus the king of its nation, wanted her to go out and experience the world as the excuse. As well, it had been a little over two since she herself had graduated from the Central Academy, which was used as a way to teach nobility and Royals alike on the ins and outs of life in this world.

As such, many of the famous Adventurers of the world had in fact come from that academy.

This, for obvious reasons, had made her excited, both now, and a year prior when she first stood on the podium, at the time in a dress that fitted more for some gala than an adventurer. At the time, she had announced both the Guild and to the entire Capital, that she would become an Adventurer. And so, she stood once again on the podium, a confident look on her face as she addressed the Adventurers that were inside the Central Branch at the time. This time, however, her outfit was more befitting for an adventurer, particularly a magic user, like her whole family was. She prided herself in being an expert in many forms of Magic, even knowing some esoteric and forgotten magics. Though she never told her father or family about this, since she had snuck into the secret library under her Father's study in their Manor to read the books inside there, all while she was studying other forms of magic.

Because of this, she had risen in the ranks rather quickly, being praised as a genius mage, many people lauded the young princess as the "Next Merlin" due to how quickly she was able to grasp such things. Despite this, a simple crack was on her confident facade. She wouldn't have been able to advance as quickly as she had, had she not remembered the things her missing friend had taught her back in the academy before she had mysteriously vanished a few years prior. Shortly after the strange incident with the dungeons took place.

This made her worried about her, as the two had always talked about becoming Adventurers together and exploring Dungeons all across the world. The Young princess knew that her friend, who at the school was a quiet dark elf about her age, was in fact the better magic user, having seen her do things that even expert Mages had trouble with. Such as instantly pulling up multi-layered spells that used several more Magic Circles than most people thought possible. This, of course, could be attributed to her elven heritage, as it was well known that Elves, Dark Elves in particular, were uniquely attuned to magical things.

The Princess had wanted to begin the search for her missing friend almost right away, but both her father and the Knight-Captain had dismissed her worries, at the time, saying that the strange new Dungeons that were almost constantly popping up were of more concern.

But, that was now in the past. And the princess was free to do as she pleased while an Adventurer.

She had worked her way up the ranks for a year, getting as high as she could, before beginning her plan to search for her friend. A year ago, she had let slip out that her family was interested in Dungeon Artifacts, and that she herself wanted to go into dungeons looking for a specific one. She deliberately left out what that 'artifact' was, knowing that such an unknown would likely attract the attention of many Adventurers, even ones outside her father's domains. She had hoped, that if the word spread far enough over the year, her friend might have heard it as well. And thus would head towards the capital to reunite.

However, the following day, after she had addressed the many Adventurer's who had gathered, explaining to them that they would begin searching for the artifact in the Dungeons near the Capital, she now rested in the room she was renting from the Inn near the Guild, a frown upon her face. Her friend had not been among the crowd, nor had she approached her in the time leading up to the announcement. This, of course, worried the young princess, as she shuffled upon the bed.

The young princess furrowed her brow a bit as she sat there upon the bed, alone for once as she did so. She had searched everywhere she could during this past year, and she had found no trace of her friend. It was almost as if someone had deliberately hidden her, which made her worried even more. She shuffled lightly, as she lightly bit down on the thumb, a worried look still on her face as she did so. She wasn't sure what had happened to her friend, or where it was she had disappeared to. She had hoped, that in the time she3 had been searching for her, something would come up.

But nothing had. And that, in and of itself had made the young princess worried. Partially about her friend, and partially about herself. The reason, of course, was that lately, mostly starting as of some time last year, people had started doubting her that her friend the young dark elf even existed, almost as if some force outside their knowledge had been erasing people's memories of the girl, whom the princess had grown rather fond of, in the time that they knew each other.

This, of course, would mean there's one of two things going on. The first is that the young princess was lonelier than she had thought and indeed did imagine her friend. Likely after reading or learning about Dark Elves, who supposedly never left their deep forest abodes or any place they called home at the time. Or, she was in fact real, something had happened to her, and someone else was removing her completely from people's minds.

The young princess, of course, was not sure which scenario was worse.

She sat there, resting on the bed for a good hour or two as she stressed over this, all while a couple of her other friends, Adventurers she had befriended in her time in the guild, helped deal with the massive influx of Adventurers in the area due to her open call for them for dungeon exploration. A part of her did in fact want to find one of those 'Dungeon Crystals' that she had overheard her father and some big-wigs in the Adventurer's Guild talk about behind closed doors, but it had mostly been to hopefully reunite with her old friend.

Since her friend had not shown up, then she would have to go with Plan-B, and actually utilize the Adventurers to look for this 'Dungeon Crystal.' Thus, why she had instructed Adventurers to mark down anything suspicious they find in the Dungeons, and not touch anything that might be the Crystal. This was due to her having overheard someone telling her father that it seemed like the Dungeon Crystals bound to whoever it was that held them, upon leaving the dungeons, meaning that they likely worked on a 'Finder-Keepers' system.

She, of course, was lucky enough to have the much sought-after Appraisal Skill, meaning she'd be able to find Dungeon Crystals easily. If, they existed.