Elise was returning from her boss hunt with the rest when she was called on by Callan to his castle. She gathered her things and freshened up before heading over. When she arrived, she found Callan drinking recovery potion as if it was going out of style. He was sitting near his main entrance waiting for her. His clothes were still torn open and you could see the wounds closing. Elise's eyes darkened at the sight. Who would try to attack Callan in broad daylight, but as she looked closer, she noticed it was claw marks. She didn't say anything at first, just waited for Callan to stop drinking potion after potion. He threw the last bottle he owned at the ground after emptying it into his mouth. He was in a foul mood. Then he finally said in an angry tone, "there's some powerful beast in the cave you suggested. I almost died. Was that your plan?" Elise's face scowled, then she spoke, "You asked me to find the location of the new beast. I found it and gave you the coordinates. I told you I should have gone first since I have been leading boss rallies." Callan looked at her in the eyes and then let out a breath of air. "I just needed to see your face to confirm I wasn't set up." Elise kept examining him with her eyes and then asked, "how did you survive?" Callan rested against the wall and said in a much more relaxed tone, " I used my men as meatshields to get out. I'll have to use some crystals for the shrine to get them back. Some deserted me and others can't be recovered." Elise looked at Callan's gargoyle that had grown. It was maybe 3 feet tall, but now it was 4 feet and it grew some muscle too. She then asked, "what did you do to your gargoyle?" Callan looked at his gargoyle and replied, "I fed it." Elise furrowed her browns and then Callan rolled his eyes because he didn't want to explain himself. "Lucy's stomach growled in the cave, so I fucken fed it." He laughed really hard at his own comment. Then he kept talking, "I didn't know Lucy was hungry." Elise, still puzzled, then asked, "what did you feed it?" Callan answered, "I told it to eat anything in the cave that's not me or my army. Then in the middle of the fight in the dark, it fed on something and that's when I left." Elise went Oohh and asked, "what beast was there? The announcement didn't give a description of it. It was mysterious and without the power level posted. That's why so many have failed and began to disappear." Callan had been grabbing small stones of grabble near him and throwing them at a water fountain to the right of him. Then he said,
"I couldn't see. There was something distorting the light and we were weakened before the encounter. My chest felt heavy and it was hard to breathe. When I started coughing out some shit and I knew I was in trouble. I coughed some black stuff when I got here. The recovery potion didn't get it out, just healed the damage. I still have to go into the infirmary to clean that crap from inside me."
Elise nodded in understanding and said, "well you're alive and you are closer to finding out that I am." Callan furrowed his brow, " Eden went in with DBoots too. We took separate tunnels. I haven't checked how they did." Elise said, "Oh, DBoots was with Eden, how interesting. I'll chat with them both. I'm on friendly terms with them." "Don't bother, they're probably dead already, I lost a lot of power on this hunt," interrupted Callan. Elise had already sent a quick hello to both of them and pursed her lips at what Callan said. She had met them both at the server mixer and found them entertaining. Then replies came in from both Eden and DBoots. Callan raised his eyebrows as he heard the notification sounds. Elise looked at Callan cautiously, then said, "I guess they survived as well."
When Eden and DBoots received the message, they both took it as a normal hello. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then they received the same question from Elise, "a little birdy told me you went searching for the new boss today. How did it go?" Both Eden and DBoots were in their separate castles and paused at the message, then they messaged each other "What's our story for the hunt?" when they noticed they were on the same page, they laughed. Eden then messaged DBoots, "is your concubine asking because she wants to know about the boss or because we were together." DBoots replied, "probably the first one, she is not my concubine, we just have a mutual interest." Eden replied, "sure you do, wink wink." Then DBoots replied, "I'm not that easy. I'm classy." Eden replied, "Classic peeping Tom, ha ha ha , but seriously, let's just say we tucked tail and got out with our army once we noticed the dark particles." DBoots replied, "yes sir, mam."
Elise showed the replies to Callan on how Eden and DBoots left the cave right away. Callan had been messaging Muffin to do her own investigation and he showed Elise what Muffin had found out. In Muffin's message she wrote how she faked knowing what happened to Eden in the cave and asked how she was doing. Her informant said when she asked around, they only saw Eden return alone. No army. Muffin had asked around FTG too but no one knew DBoots was even hunting for the new boss, so no one paid attention to his whereabouts.
Callan at first thought Eden lost her army, but then checked the stats on the server, and noticed she was still at the same power level. Except she was ranked 27th due to server war. The story wasn't matching up and Callan didn't like it. How the fuck did Eden and DBoots come out unscathed from that cave? What were they hiding? He looked at Elise and told her, "Find out why she's lying." Elise pursed her lips because he was always acting like the king, but he wasn't even the leader of the alliance, she was. It irritated her. "There are better ways of getting information, Eden tends to leave out crumbs of information because she's terrible at lying. DBoots on the other hand, he is very tight lipped. I'm sure I can get the real story."
Back at Eden's castle, she was resuming reading the letters she received by members interested in growing into a fighter. She wrote out their names and placed them in a system based on their ranks in the server, size and knowledge. She had received a request from Blowzella to come over and talk about something. Eden took a moment to think about what she could possibly want to talk about. Actually, there was a lot she had been missing since she wasn't taking part in some of the meetings, like the identity of Erza, Odin's attack on her and the merge offer. Eden thought that if she really wanted to be involved in alliance business, then she would be more up front. She replied to Blowzella that she can meet her at the tavern in the server community town, but Blowzella wanted to speak in private. Eden didn't want to suggest going to Blowzella's castle because she didn't want to get caught up in the identity of her villagers. Something in the back of Eden's mind still. So reluctantly Eden suggested that Blowzella come over. Perhaps she can test how Erza would do in an interaction.
Eden received a message from Callan asking her how she was doing. "Hello Miss Eden, I heard you got out safely. Did you manage to see the boss?" Eden replied, "I got out safe and I did not see the boss of the cave we needed to defeat to win." She was referring to the king but Callan didn't know that. Then Callan said, "how fortunate, I wanted to check on my best fighter." Eden responded, "I'm not your best fighter, unless you have made up your mind that all of my members will be guaranteed a spot in your alliance." Callan replied, "We don't have room for everyone, but perhaps we can do it in cycles, once the alliance expands in capacity, the rest can come." Eden felt like it was a start. She was happy to find out her members won't be left behind. Then Callan asked, "what kind of questions do you have to increase power?" Eden replied, "how do I forge stronger armor?" Callan replied, "you go into your catalog and look at the different types of crystals you need to forge it. You also need the materials and gold. Then your forger needs to be highly skilled in order to be able to create that. Depending on the forger's level, it can create the armor or weapon as shown in the catalog or create something rare." Eden then asked, "how did you learn about this?" Callan replied, "I have my ways." Eden followed with another question, "is there someone knowledgeable in this server who taught you?" Callan replied, "You could say that, but I can't give you all my secrets." Eden then replied, "what you shared is enough knowledge for me since I'm still learning. Thank you. It's getting late for me, I'll talk to you in the morning if you have time." "Sounds good, sweet dreams Miss Eden," answered Callan. Eden got up from her chair in her study after setting all the unread letters in one stack and the answered ones in another stack. Then she removed the towel from her head and went to her room. Callan was still in his study just reading the conversation over trying to find the crumbs Elise mentioned. He scowled as he said "I gave her the information you told me to give her, but she gave me nothing." Lucy, who was right behind him moved in closer to his ear and said "there was more than one in that cave. She didn't meet the boss of the cave. That indicates that there was a leader. They are magical beings, I could taste it in their blood."