“…I’m not entirely sure how that explains this,” she gestures to the window in front of her, “although I’m guessing your name is Lucy Whitby?”

“Yeah—uh, are adventuring parties a thing, here?”

“…Yes.”

“That was a weird question to even have to ask, wasn’t it.”

“Yes.”

“Load save.”

…This time, when she opens her screen to invite Terendelev to her party, the tip it offers is that she can use the “Info” command to learn additional details about Game functions.

“Info, Party.”

?

INFO/PARTY
You can invite other people to engage with The Game by inviting them to your PARTY or GUILD. You may have nine PARTY members at any given time excluding yourself.
PARTY members may gain XP, levels, classes, MP, SP, HP, Skills, Attributes, Titles, Traits, and Achievements; all gains will be retained after leaving the PARTY. All PARTY members are immune to friendly fire from other PARTY members.
PARTY members may communicate over arbitrary distances using the PARTY MESSAGE (PM) system.
XP gained by any PARTY members are pooled and allocated to PARTY members according to the selected schema. XP is currently distributed: [EQUALLY TO ALL PARTY MEMBERS]

Hm…okay…

…If Terendelev manages to beat up Deskari, that would be soooooo much XP. This is objectively not the most important thing about the situation but it’s still true.

She’s going to have to reload her save anyway at this point, so she might as well ask:

“So, who is Iomedae, actually?”

Honestly not the weirdest thing about the situation right now.

“Iomedae is the Lawful Good goddess of triumph over evil, an ascended deity of the Starstone, and the patron of the crusades.”

“Crusades” is not the most promising word ever, but. “Crusades against the demons?”

“Yes.”

That’s prooooobably fine then, although she’s definitely going to have to look into it more later.

“Thanks. Load game.”

This time, when Terendelev is confused by the pop up window in front of her, Lucy specifies that “adventuring parties” are a thing her powers apparently numerically represent.

“What, exactly, does numerically representing an adventuring part do?”

“It gives you access to a subset of my powers and lets us communicate over long distances by text.”

“Hm. Very well.” She hits the “Accept” button and goes back to casting buffs.

This is deeply suspicious but unfortunately Hulrun’s ability to gainsay Terendelev is limited.

Hey, you know what’s way more definitely demonic than weird powers on a strange apparently-human?

To be clear, Terendelev would have preferred it if Lucy had been wrong or lying.

Terendelev does significantly better this time, with forewarning and buffs.

This time she lasts five while rounds, landing several hits of her own on Deskari before he kills her.

Fuck!

“Load save.”

“So, uh, my powers also give me prophetic visions, and Deskari keeps killing Terendelev.”

“Prophecy has been broken for a hundred years.”

“Keeps killing me? Am I being Raised in between?”