Scorching Ascension - 1.24: Any clues? (Unedited)

EDIT: Don't read these here! They've been heavily edited and I'll come back and change them. Go read it on RR. Here's the announcement for the edits:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/95647/scorching-ascension-progression-litrpg-apocalypse/chapter/1892368/announcement-lance-encounter-edits-done

Thanks for subscribing!

-----------

Amelie

Amelie stared at the bare-chested stranger for one more second then broke the silence. “What happened to him? Not that I mind some skin, don’t get me wrong. But what’s up with the burnt pants?”

Gerald, Liz, and Audrey turned to the short woman.

“What?”

“Weren’t you a med student or something?” Gerald asked.

Amelie raised an eyebrow at the older man. “Yeah, so?”

Liz blinked. “Well… aren’t you like, not supposed to say stuff like that?”

Amelie shrugged and continued peeking at the stranger from behind her sister’s shield. Lance had a nervous smile on his face while he pointed his bow at the stranger. She nodded toward the approaching young man. “He’s not a patient and I’m not in a hospital. And it’s not as if I was ever going to graduate. This crap spared me from getting kicked out of the program. Anyway, shush. This is about to get good.”

The clearing was quiet as Ethan rubbed the back of his head. He glanced around, met Amelie and Audrey’s eyes, then nodded to Liz and Gerald. 

Damn. Liz and Gerald weren’t lying about his levels.

Amelie grinned as the archer’s smile grew tighter and clammier by the second. 

Serves him right.

The newcomer cracked his neck and spoke, nodding down at the armed bow. His voice was clear, and Amelie thought she heard a note of amusement in it. “Put that thing down before someone’s eyes get poked out.”

His meaning quickly clicked in her mind, and her grin grew wider. 

Lance gave him a confused look before he regained his smile. His little group had grown tense, while the nocked blue arrow began crackling with electricity. “You mean before I poke someone’s eyes out? Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”

Ethan shook his head as he continued approaching. She couldn’t see any wand or weapon on him, but he didn’t seem worried at all. “I said what I said. Don’t think I forgot that potshot you took at me yesterday. So put the bow down before I come and shove it up your ass.”

“Again with the threats, brat,” spat out the shield bearer. Robert, if she recalled right. Something about management or construction? Didn’t matter. He was just another asshole drunk on power.

Ethan shrugged. “I’m not the one threatening you with a weapon, am I? I don’t even have my wand out. But once more I promise you this: you won’t like what happens the next time you point those toothpicks at me. So. Lower your weapons, and let’s talk.”

Lance glared at the approaching young man, his smile gone while the gear turned behind his dead eyes. The drunkest on power of all. He used to work in security, she believed. Those black pants and boots looked like they might fit the role, but who knows.

The archer began lowering the shortbow, but Amelie noticed he wasn’t relaxing his pull.

Is this guy for real? 

Amelie shook her head. How stupid could he be? She wished he’d do it. She’d love to watch him get the shit kicked out of him. There was no chance he could hurt the newcomer. She’d seen the monsters that cracked through level 30 and how tough those things could be. There was no way that arrow would be able to do any permanent damage. Shit, it might not even reach him and even if it did, it would barely affect her mana to heal what little damage the projectile would do.

Her eyes were opened wide. She didn’t want to miss anything. By god, she wanted to see what happened. For a second, she considered scaring off Lance somehow to force him into action. Unfortunately, the archer’s caution won out. Lance relaxed his bow and a moment later, his two companions lowered their wand and shield respectively.

“Coward!” heckled Amelie as she poked her head out from behind her sister’s shield, earning her a surprised look and a wider smile from Ethan, and a tasty hateful glare from Lance. The archer’s grip tightened around his bow, but he didn’t dare lift again. The worried glanced he shot at the still wand-less Ethan told her all she needed to know.

Amelie was first to step out from cover. Audrey scrambled after her to shield her, and Liz and Gerald quickly followed suit.

***

Ethan had found the source of commotion pretty fast, all things considered. He’d stopped for a second or two to read a notification, because he just had to. He’d been right about the hidden quest. He hadn’t noticed it at first as he’d been absorbed in testing the new wand form, but as he made his way, he saw it.

Congratulations. Hidden quest:  <Upgrade a spell to tier-2 > completed.

1 tier-2 spell token awarded. 

He wondered if he’d get something as well for learning [Gout of Flames] as well. But it will have to wait. For now, Ethan let the archer and his two companions stew as he turned his attention to Liz and her teammates.

Gerald greeted him warmly, and even gave him a surprisingly wide smile and a handshake. The man seemed a bit more gaunt since last he saw him, but he most certainly had been investing in Might, if his handshake was of any indication.

His clothes are fine too, lucky bastard.

Liz, still wearing her greasy—and now bloodied—overalls enthusiastically gave him a few bullet points about what happened since they’ve last met. Martha hated his guts, apparently, which he honestly couldn’t care less about, while old man Luther had not been in Lance’s camp. As far as they could tell, of course. Liz and Gerald hadn’t been allowed to ask too many questions or roam as they wished. As soon as they got there they had to “pay back” the favor Lance had done them, which quickly turned to straight-up exploitation.

Lance—the archer—and his little group seemed to have put themselves in charge. Liz even alluded to a couple of disturbing things that made the archer and his troupe shuffle uncomfortably.

Ethan didn’t miss that.

Liz paused after a few moments, finally unable to ignore his current attire then waved at him. “Look I’m glad to see you’re alive… but what happened to your clothes? It looked like you just stepped out of a burning building.”

Ethan glanced down and grimaced. “Ah well… they got burnt. I’m afraid I’m going to lose the pants soon as well.”

“Nice,” said the shorter girl in gym clothes, right before she caught an elbow from an impressively fit woman. Her sister, if Ethan recalled right. Amelie and Audrey.

He could see the familiarity in both of their features. The eyes were the same, a clear green that almost looked blue. Amelie had more of an average height and two streaks of white-dyed locks, while Audrey was as tall as he was and definitely more muscular. Her hair was cut short, and she still had her tower shield in her arm.

Liz and Gerald had gotten themselves some good teammates, it seems.

Ethan was most impressed with Liz and Gerald, to be frank. He’d left them barely a day ago and here they were, each almost at level 14 and 15. That was decently fast progress but before he could congratulate them and turn his attention back to Lance, someone else stepped closer.

The coach was a tall and fit man. He was still wearing a green and yellow tracksuit with a small high school logo near the chest that Ethan didn’t recognize. Aaron stopped a dozen or so feet away, creating a loose triangle with three factions standing a good distance away from each other. 

Amelie kept openly glaring at the archer, which was fair, considering that man’s attitude so far. She did call him a coward too, and Ethan agreed. He had definitely wanted the archer to take a shot just so he could beat the living crap out of him. Ethan didn’t think another half-assed shot at his life was worth killing for, but the man did deserve a good punch and if what Liz alluded to was real—which he believed, considering she had no reason to lie—Lance definitely deserved a couple of kicks as well. Enough to make him lose a few days in recovery.

They soon started talking, with the coach telling them how he found himself with his class at the mouth of a cavern, which contrasted with Ethan’s experience. “We started exploring the cave and came upon those lizard-things. They tried to capture us at first but when we pushed them off me and the boys, they’d gotten a lot more aggressive… we ah… had to kill a few. But ever since we’d been hunting toads and lizards and whatever else we could find for levels.”

Ethan nodded along. This implied that there might be more drop points around and potentially more camps like the one Liz had stopped at. The underground network might extend a lot further than expected, so he needed to pick up the pace. There wasn’t a lot of days left and unfortunately, he didn’t expect many to share where the exit lay if they ever found it.

Main Quest: Gain access to the second floor within 5 days, 14 hours, and 14 minutes.

Time continued to tick down and it was somewhat understandable that some would keep such valuable knowledge to themselves. But not everyone was a good liar, and Ethan believed he had a good sense about this sort of thing so when the three factions plunged into an uncomfortable silence after a few seconds, he threw the grenade in their midst and watched.

“Any clues on the floor exit so far?”

As soon as he asked it, all of his focus was on Lance and his group. Liz’s group might know something, and so might the coach, but Lance was the only one he felt would deserve to have the figurative coins shaken out of his pockets.

Lance’s face was blank, and so was the shorter shield-bearer. But the healer cracked. When Ethan had voiced his question, the office-worker had glanced at Lance.

Ethan kept the smile off his face. It seemed like he might be walking away for this meet-up with some actionable information after all.