Soul Merger

Alissa sighed as she slowly walked through the streets towards the hostess club. Despite how much she had talked up how she was going to properly become friends with Juli and Sera, her gut was churning about actually going through with it. How much of that was her being afraid she was overstepping her boundaries and how much was the fact she was going to visit two hostesses and tell them she wasn't coming back as a customer? She had no idea.

Still this was something she needed to do. Because she did consider the girls friends, and disappearing without ever talking to them again would be far more rude than anything she could say in person.

She arrived at the back door and forced herself to knock before her brain could think up any reasons to delay.

Of course there was a long delay so she could simmer in her worries, but eventually the bouncer opened the door. "Oh. You're back."

"Yes. And yes I have money." Alissa showed a hundred crown note. "So are Juli and Sera free, or should I come back later?"

"Hmph, should charge extra for a request, but it's early special so I guess this'll do." Apparently the woman was smart enough to know what would happen if she tried to cheat customers. "Same room as always."

"Thank you," Alissa replied before slipping through the door towards the back room. The politeness of course caused the dwarven woman to make a show of slamming the door, which only amused her more.

Once she was safe in the room she shrugged off her cloak and stretched. At least she didn't have that annoyance hanging over her head. She'd had to bundle up everywhere recently. Maybe she should keep dropping by just to relax while talking. Though that would be a pretty expensive relaxation session.

The door opened just a bit, and Sera slipped inside. The elf woman looked both relieved and annoyed. "There you are! Where'd you disappear to? I was worried you'd decided to stop coming after that disaster last time!"

"I told you not to worry," Juli said as she followed after, closing the door behind. "Alissa's too pretty to die and too nice to just ditch without saying goodbye." The bunny girl winked. "You'd at least send a letter, right~."

"I don't know where either of you live," Alissa pointed out. "But yeah I wouldn't just disappear on you because I found other friends."

Both the women stared at her like she'd grown another head. Sera reacted first and sat down across from her. "They're good people right? They haven't asked to borrow money or anything?" The elf folded her hands and stared her in the eyes.

Meanwhile Juli grabbed a rather expensive sparkling wine and waved it around. "Okay! We gotta celebrate! It's a momentous occasion!"

Alissa sighed. She wasn't that bad- Okay, she had been that bad. But it was still a sore point. "I'm suddenly feeling a lot less bad about telling you I wanna meet casually instead of as a customer."

"All the more reason to force you to buy the expensive stuff now." Juli said. The bunnygirl did at least wait before popping the bottle, so Alissa gave her a nod.

Sera pulled out the glasses. "It'll be nice to be able to complain about my job. Seriously though, it's good to hear you've met some people. I suppose I'll miss the paid break time a little."

"I'll miss the outfit," Juli said slipping in next to Alissa and pouring the wine. "So tell us about your new group. Is it that dragon girl?"

"She's one of them." Alissa flopped back on the couch. "Let me tell you all the weird stuff that's happened."

Alissa started explaining the Boneyard delve and what came after. Now that she was saying it out loud it sounded a little ridiculous to her. But it was all true. Sometimes delving got weird.

After she finished telling them about the giant attack Seri shook her head. "If I didn't know better I'd say you were lying to impress us. Do you really want to be doing such a dangerous job?" The elf's eyes turned away. "It's kinda worrying that you're always in mortal danger."

"The traveling merchant was in just as much trouble," Alissa pointed out. "And this is one of the few jobs I can do without people claiming I'm using my merge to seduce customers."

"You could join us and become top girl," Juli suggested with a wink.

Alissa flicked the bunnygirl's ear. "I'd hate this job. I'm not good at being entertaining. I don't know how you two do it."

Juli laughed. "Because I am good at being entertaining. I like people, I like chatting, and I like flirting. The only bad part of the job is there aren't enough female customers. I have to flirt with the other girls to achieve balance."

"Really need to introduce you to Rosalina," Alissa said as she took a drink. The bubbly wine was interesting, but not worth whatever she was paying for it. Oh well.

"I took it to get some money while I was new in town," Sera added as she stretched. "Might quit one day if I find something better. Or if my age starts showing. Too bad elves aren't immortal like they were in the ancient tales."

Alissa raised an eyebrow. "Is the job market that bad? Us delvers can never really tell what it's like for normal people."

"It's terrible if you don't have a specialty skill," Sera groaned. Juli nodded in agreement. "The fires out east ruined a lot of villages and farmland, so a lot of people have moved in. But the city council is focusing on keeping the Labyrinths contained so there's not much money going out to rebuild things. Which means apprenticeships and entry jobs are full."

"Huh." Alissa sipped her drink and thought that over. "I'd heard there had been more incursions from below but I didn't realize it was starting to eat into other budgets. Must be pretty bad if the council actually managed to distribute money without a public protest from the losing guilds." One of the universal constants of a guild run city was that whenever one of the guilds got the short end of the stick they'd round up their workers to complain. It was like voting, but with more fistfights.

Juli's ears shivered. "I was kinda hoping you knew what was happening actually. Sure it's great that there's more delver parties coming in and spending big, but I'm a little worried about all the increased monster activity."

"Not to mention it's a little creepy when some of those parties just disappear," Sera said pointedly.

"Sorry sorry," Alissa waved apologetically. "Unfortunately, I have no idea why monster activity might be up. Maybe I can ask Fili, but I'm pretty sure the answer is 'it depends.' Or a very fancy 'we don't know.' I tend to focus on surviving the fights, not handling the big picture."

Sera sighed and shrugged. "Well, be careful. I'm really glad you aren't running into those places solo anymore but it still sounds dangerous."

"It is," Alissa admitted. "But I'm trained for it. And I'll be getting some new gear to help keep me alive very soon."

"You'll have to show us when you get it," Juli said. "And on that note, where does the ever secretive succubus live so we can actually meet up? Now that you aren't going to be throwing down one hundred crowns just to chat."

Alissa snorted. "Sure. I'm in the shack along the Green River just down from the Marble Bank. It's easy to find."

"Swanky," Juli replied. "I'm in the 8th megablock. 387."

"4th megablock 801," Sera said. "So many stairs."

"At least it means you have toned legs," Juli said. "I keep telling you it's a charm point."

The elf did have quite nice legs, which her short skirt showed off well. When she realized she was staring, Alissa forced herself to look back at the woman's eyes. "Good exercise too. Just keep telling yourself that. It's one of my tricks when getting out of the labyrinths that have long staircases."

"Hm hm~" Juli leaned against Alissa' shoulder, ear's flopping on her head. "So there is some interest in that walled off heart of yours. Should I play matchmaker?"

Alissa felt her eyebrow twitch. She ignored Sera's blushing and settled for flicking Juli in the forehead. "I'm not the type to randomly sleep with friends. If you're looking for that I'll introduce you to Rosalina later."

"I suppose that's the best I can hope for," Juli sighed, leaning back. "So what other crazy things happened on your little trip South?"

"Ugh. Far too many annoying things," Alissa said. She decided to gloss over the amount of danger they'd been in. But there were plenty of other bits to cover. "As you can imagine volcanoes are too damn hot...."