It turned out that the ability to customize mobs was... modestly interesting. It was a good distraction, and it got her thinking.

  She had picked out one of her generic minions, giving her a name and color palette immediately – the swords-woman was now Hikari, with a brilliant white vest covering a more subdued undershirt, and matching brilliant white hakama. The assistant summoned the woman in front of her, full-sized, and Michelle frowned as she looked over her own private NPC.

  She then spent the next hour and a half not customizing the woman, but making her feel more right. That was a much more comfortable way to think about it.

  She could appreciate that the hard Japanese styling of the template was about as close to a cultural norm as she would have, as a Japanese-American. There wasn't a strong, historical culture that she could point to that screamed "American". Maybe that was her bias growing up here; everything she knew was American, and it could vary a lot from place to place. If anything, American culture seemed like it was consumerist, concrete and steel, sometimes freshly built, but never more than a century or two old.

  At the same time, no matter what her mother or grandfather thought, she wasn't Japanese. Not culturally.

  The only real obvious physical change she made to Hikari was a softening of the face's more distinctly Asian look. Hikari had clearly been made as a pure Japanese woman; if she and Hikari stood side by side, they didn't look much alike, even without the traditional clothing. It was hard to pin down exactly what was different, mostly because she couldn't exactly describe what her non-Japanese heritages exactly were. Dad was a kind of southern white mutt; Grandma had been some kind of Latin-American, probably also mixed. Michelle had forgotten the details, if she'd ever been told. It's not like she, or anyone she knew, had done any genealogy.

  Maybe she would, assuming the world didn't end. Or, you know... assuming the US didn't go entirely to shit, which kept feeling more likely month by month, since that would likely destroy the records. But then, things had felt unstable for years, even before the Dungeons had arrived. It was just... hard to shake the feeling that a Dungeoneer-Military coup would just roll over the country one of these days, and then either tyrants would be in control of everything, or a civil war would start, and who knows which would be worse.

  Well. Civil war would definitely be worse, unless it were won quickly and by the best possible people, which it probably wouldn't be. But at least that opened the possibility of things changing for the better. Maybe. Probably not.

  Michelle shook her head to clear it, then looked back up at Hikari, who had gone from standing to leaning against the railing. She'd paid for an AI upgrade, and she'd been able to start pushing the NPC into having any sort of personality beyond following orders. Now Hikari was a little casual, even flippant sometimes, but would get very serious anytime Michelle was.

  The Minion now even had multiple sets of clothes, all of them dirt cheap Dungeon items. The more traditional Japanese wear seemed like a decent battle uniform for now, but she preferred this Hikari, in a yellow baby doll shirt and blue shorts, her hair up and tied with a white ribbon, and of course a decent but unimpressive pair of sneakers. Hikari also had another set of clothes for home, but they were nothing special.

  When she'd asked Hikari if she had her own opinions on her style, she was surprised to find that she did – about her hair, of all things. Apparently she liked to have at least a trace of sidelocks, and preferably enough to hide her face from the side.

  She couldn't quite explain why, though.

  "I'm sorry, Chelle," Hikari said, having quickly grasped the user of her name instead of "Master" or anything else weird. "It's not really something that I understand."

  The assistant had leaned in slightly and added, "NPCs are not supposed to wrestle with questions about their existence." Then, when Michelle had given her a kind of cold stare, she shrugged. "The Administrator didn't create the policy, but he does agree with it. It's one thing for NPCs to look and sound mostly human, but things would get more complicated if they seemed to have real souls, for lack of a better word." She paused, and then added, "Mostly, he says, the problem is with some people running into an NPC that seems more real than they do."

  That thought gave Michelle a nasty shiver and a new thought to suppress. But... she had also seen some people that were, well... they seemed almost as empty as Hikari, though she was probably wrong about that. And sometimes, maybe, she felt empty like that too. It was just...

  "I get it," Michelle said after a moment, forcing the thoughts out of her mind. "I don't want to talk about that." She paused, and glanced at the assistant. "So Jerry is listening?"

  The woman gave a so-so gesture with one hand. "As an Administrator, he splits his attention in many ways. The part you would recognize as his conscious mind isn't here, but if he tries to remember what happened here, he could. As long as nothing bad happens, he lets people have their privacy, letting go of irrelevant details."

  More like an illusion of privacy. Not that the modern world is much better. Michelle didn't say what she was thinking, and if the assistant, or Jerry, read it on her face, they didn't say anything.

  "What will Hikari be like when she goes back into a Run? The lower AI?" When the assistant looked like she was trying to find words, Michelle just rolled her eyes. "I mean, show me."

  Almost instantly, it seemed like her Minion was now shallower, even though she hadn't really moved or changed. Michelle frowned, and asked, "Hikari. What do you think about your hair?"

  "It doesn't matter right now," Hikari answered, sounding a little monotone.

  "But what do you think of it?"

  Hikari looked at her, and Michelle could tell it was a lost cause. But...

  "Okay," she said. "Do you like your current hair more than before we changed it? The sidelocks, I mean."

  "Yes," Hikari said, voice still flat.

  "That's not a programmed response," the assistant added, as Michelle thought about it. "Hikari has access to her memories and personality, but can't use most of it. She can't have an opinion about her hair right now, but she already made up her mind about that. You could say that it's..." the assistant searched for a word. "...history, now. It's decided."

  "So if I spent time with the real Hikari... sorry, the 'higher-AI' Hikari, and asked this Hikari about her feelings about what we did..."

  "If it's something she already made up her mind about, she can answer that, but asking her to summarize opinions that she hasn't already fixed in her mind won't give you any response. Summary is a more complicated task than it might seem; her feelings exist, but putting them into words, or taking any complex actions because of them, isn't possible at this level."

  That made a little more sense, and in the end, she didn't see it mattering. It was just... it was weird. I mean, of course it was weird, but... it was.

  Michelle just sat in thought for a while, before looking up. "Put Hikari back the way... I mean, bring her intelligence back. And I'll purchase a support item so I can summon her outside."

  "The choker, or something more subtle?"

  Michelle frowned. Of course the choker was intended to be viewed as more of a slave or pet collar. That did kind of take away from anyone else using things like that... well, unless that was what they wanted.

  "Subtle. An armband or something."

  The assistant moved up to Hikari, first to the minion's left side, and then at a glance from Michelle, moving to her right. The first appearance of the bracelet was a bit ugly, like a fat brass ring with a dangling alpha symbol. When she glanced at the symbol she got a mental nudge, and when she stared, an interface pop-up told her explicitly that Hikari was an NPC.

  What it would do for humans, she had no idea, though perhaps the alpha symbol would be a good enough hint.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "You can customize the look of it," the assistant offered. "For only a small additional price."

  Michelle settled on a brass-looking bracelet that was at least a little more ornamental, two thinner, but still thick bands spiraling around Hikari's wrist, and the alpha symbol was Hikari's white color.

  When the item was finished and paid for, it suddenly became connected to her Dungeoneer interface, causing Hikari to show up in the corner of her vision like a party member. The display didn't offer much, but she could tell Hikari was alive, at least.

  "Okay," Michelle said after a minute. "What about the mobs? Can I see one of the dragons?"

  "Which version?" The assistant appeared unflappable, though perhaps Michelle shouldn't have been surprised.

  "The first one is fine. The juveniles."

  The beast that appeared looked just like she remembered it, but since it wasn't hostile, it just kind of looked... dull. Like a dog with a particularly braindead stare, it was more unnerving than comforting.

  "I suppose these can have better AI, too?" Michelle hoped it wouldn't cost much, since she knew that another support item for summoning the dragon would put a decent dent in what she had saved up right now.

  "Of course," the assistant said, cheerfully. "Technically, animals and monsters can be just as intelligent as people, though we recommend not going much beyond where Hikari is now." Michelle exchanged another look with her minion, who raised her eyes back at her, but said nothing. "When NPCs get past a certain level of intelligence, and start thinking for themselves, you may find that they develop habits and opinions in the background, without your interaction. In many cases, those may clash with your own style, or be problematic in other ways."

  Of course. They're still possessions, not people. Not even animals. But Michelle took the advice for what it was. She still wasn't sure how often she'd be summoning her... pets, and she didn't want them being offended or hurt if she ignored them. That had been how she settled on Hikari's intelligence level, and she put the dragon one step below that, just to be safe.

  Immediately, the little lizard perked up, its eyes focusing in on her as though it had just occurred to the thing how close she actually was. Instead of leaping back or advancing forward, it chose to circle around her, reminding Michelle a lot of how her mobs had fought.

  Against her, mostly.

  She knelt down and offered a hand, and to its credit, the dragon understood, coming and position itself for her to touch if she wanted to. She offered a few gentle pets, and then scratches, eventually finding that the thing wasn't really sensitive and liked a little more pressure on its skin. Still, as she rubbed it, she could see the animal intelligence in there. It quickly got the idea that she wasn't afraid and wanted to be friendly, and with a spring, it leaped up onto the railing, and then quickly onto her shoulders.

  Michelle let out a yelp, but the dragon didn't use its claws, and its tail quickly draped across her arm, steadying it as she stood back up. When she reached up with her right hand, it bent its head down, both to let her touch it and to look at her, if with a bit of a side-eye.

  "White fang," Michelle decided the name with a pleased nod. "Can I get a support item for him?"

  With the assistant's help, Michelle made just a quick palette change for White Fang, subtle, but enough to tell him apart from others. Beyond that, though, she didn't alter him at all; even his new collar looked good on him. Animals... it was somehow easier for her to accept that Fang was simply foreign; she had no desire to make him more handsome or wholesome. Eventually, she'd need to fight him anyway, so there was no point to making him too... nice. Maybe she'd turn him into an elite, or a lair boss. A lair boss would make sense, though the lair would outgrow his juvenile state eventually. Maybe that just meant his personality would be placed in a larger body, with the same palette swap. She decided not to ask.

  Putting the two away felt weird. She had to pull out her deck to do it, and she could tell she was supposed to touch them to put them back in their cards. That left the support item for each in her Inventory... and when she pulled out each support item, she found that it could be reused with a different card, rather than being bound to Hikari and Fang specifically.

  That made sense, she supposed, since it was a support item for her deck of Run cards, and not a specific accessory for that person. But it felt a little... impersonal. Perhaps it would feel better if she had more than one minion and one pet dragon, but for now, she had no use for that much.

  When she finally left, it was 5:00, and she realized she had never eaten her fast food.

  So she took a little table in the waiting area for the Run and pulled the bag out of her Inventory. It was fresher than it should have been, for how long she'd waited, but it wasn't fresh, even as fast food goes. Still, she let her eyes wander the crowd as she nibbled on her burger, trying to get a sense for the people who were just waiting and watching others.

  They were a diverse cast, of course.

  Once she started paying attention to the entrances, it was clear that people were coming and going from a lot of different places, though it didn't look like this room included people from overseas. It was diverse, but it was mostly American-diverse, not global-diverse. A lot of the clothing styles were the same, and the feel of them all... it was complex, but there weren't the kind of hard divisions she suspected she would feel between Americans and foreigners.

  Many of the people coming in, especially when they grouped together into teams, were pretty obvious about their roles. It wasn't hard to spot the tanks, usually, nor the mages, and obviously priestesses stood out. But there were middle roles that were impossible to pick out without specific pieces of equipment, fighters and half-magic classes. She supposed that from the outside, it wouldn't be clear what her role was, either.

  Michelle became aware that a woman at a nearby table was watching her, though she ignored her at first. Eventually, when she glanced back two or three times and the woman still seemed to be staring, the woman frowned, and got up, walking over like it was only natural. Michelle hesitated, but pushed down any obvious discomfort as the woman moved to the opposite side of the table.

  "Are you alone?" The woman was brown-haired bordering on red, with the kind of hairstyle that might have been either well-tamed curls or disheveled straight hair.

  "I have a team," Michelle answered, figuring that was the direction the conversation was headed. "We just lost a couple members, though.

  The woman raised an eyebrow. "A lot of teams basically explode after a few runs. You a close-knit group?"

  Michelle gave a halfhearted shrug. "Right now it's me, my best friend, and her boyfriend."

  "That'll do it." The redhead pulled out the chair across from her and sat, then offered a hand. "Lauren Wheatgerm."

  "Michelle Takoyaki." She shook the hand, though the action always felt a little weird to her. "You're looking?"

  "Part of a party of four," Lauren answered with a sigh. "Apparently lots of teams are sitting at four and a filler. Three and two fills isn't uncommon, either. Either way, in my experience, the fills usually suck. I guess anyone who was actually any good wouldn't stay a free agent very long. When their party split, they'd probably find at least one person there to stick with."

  That made sense. It wasn't the best news to hear, but even so. "We're also kind of just starting. Have you been in a lot of Runs?"

  "Eight or so." Lauren fidgeted with her hands, but it seemed more idle than nervous. "The first couple of times were weird and kind of fun. But like Dungeons, you quickly realize that they're a fuck-ton of work. Committing to a Run means a long-running, high-intensity workout. Even if you and the enemy schedule breaks, that's a lot of stress."

  Of course she'd seen that much, in her first run. Jerry had let them schedule any kind of break they wanted, but warned that a half hour break every four hours running was pretty standard. As well as a truce for sleeping hours, though that wasn't exactly enforced.

  Jerry had claimed that he normally had no part in that, and it was up to the teams to negotiate breaks. And the fact that Lauren had said if you schedule breaks... that suggested even those might be more like the truces.

  "Yeah," Michelle eventually acknowledged in the silence. "We just got done with a tutorial run. That was like... 18 hours, and we didn't exactly finish."

  "That's a long tutorial." When Michelle looked up, the woman seemed surprised. "I mean, the group I took a tutorial with got our asses wiped in under seven hours, though that might have been because we were idiots. Our Takes weren't aligned, and our Commander was a dick."

  "We were kind of the same," Michelle admitted. "But we all knew our roles, and we pulled together when it mattered." Mostly.

  "Well, I don't blame you for calling it quits after more than 12 hours in a tutorial run," Lauren shrugged. "Being on the back foot sucks, and constantly arguing, and nitpicking, and the people who just want to assign blame..." She shook her head. "I guess if you're with your best friend, you have at least one person on your side. Assuming her boyfriend didn't turn her against you."

  What the hell kind of party are you in? Michelle kept that off of her face, especially since she knew it was only luck that she'd avoided the same fate. "We've been in the dungeons together for a while," she answered. "We got a lot of our arguing done then."

  "Mm. Well, I guess." Lauren looked away, and sighed. "It sucks looking for a free agent. Would you be willing to go for one Run solo? You don't have to join our team."

  After everything you just said about your team... "No," she said, carefully. "I'm still kind of recovering right now, and I'd rather stay with my friends when I do go back in."

  Lauren sighed, but stood. "Alright. Best of luck, Michelle."

  Michelle watched the other woman leave, and noticed several other people in the area who seemed to be at least half-listening. So they also knew she wasn't a free agent, which made them all less likely to ask.

  She hadn't even discussed her role, or what Lauren's team wanted out of their fill. Which honestly sounded a little desperate, or maybe just reckless. It didn't matter which.

  It only took another few minutes for Michelle to finish off her food and drink and toss the garbage in a nearby can. Another minute of looking around, just to soak up the atmosphere, and then she found her way back out of the Alpha dungeon, checking her phone along the way. She knew Nin had sent a message earlier, though it was just chatting, not a request or invitation. She'd call or text her when she got back to her apartment.

  She couldn't help thinking about Lauren's comment about stress, but for now, she didn't care. She'd been in dungeons, fighting for her life. And the thing that she was looking for in the Fool's Run... it was something she'd only found when she pushed herself. Jerry had taught her that the first time, and though she kind of hated him for it, and was definitely kind of traumatized by it, he'd been right.

  As much as there was wrong with what he did, he did prove that she was capable of more than she'd ever thought. More than anyone who knew her had ever thought. She was still struggling to recapture that feeling... but she felt like she'd find it, in the Run.