Going To The Ruins

After we finish eating the three of us return to my Domain.

"Okay, before you go to the Ruins you need armor." Asami says to Luna. Asami found a book detailing what to expect in Ruins. She discovered that the monsters in the Ruins are always stronger than ones outside the Ruins.

"How do I get armor?" Luna asks her giving me an idea.

"I think I can do that." I say taking my old armor out of my inventory. I use Craft on them and a strand of Lunas fur. Luna tends to shed and get the bed covered in her fur. This is the first time I've been thankful for that. The armors stats don't change but the size does. As I hoped, the armor now fits Luna. "Here you go." I say handing her the armor. She struggles putting it on so me and Asami help. Once it's on she looks down at herself.

"Good, I was worried they'd be heavier." She says moving her limbs and jumping, getting a feel for the weight.

"Here Eric. I'm not sure how long you'll be there so I packed a lunch for you two. But remember to wait until you find a safe zone to eat!" She says handing me a large plastic container filled with food. I thank her and store them away. The safe zone she mentioned is another part of the Ruins. Each floor can be anywhere from half a mile big to twenty miles. Normally it would be to dangerous to stop and rest but fortunately all Ruins contain at least one safe room on every floor. These rooms are ones surrounded by a naturally created barrier, although no one knows why these rooms exist. I kiss Asami bye and Luna hugs her before we return to my apartment. I helped Luna take off her armor so we don't stand out and put it in my inventory. We leave my apartment and I catch my gramps outside.

"Eric, I was just coming to see you." He says greeting me.

"Do you just wait outside my door until I leave?" I ask him and he laughs before continuing, completely ignoring my question.

"Where are you two off too?"

"We got a job to explore some Ruins. We were on our way there now." He looks at us surprised.

"They really let you clear a Ruins? How many floors is it?"

"Three."

"That's why. Okay well I just wanted to see how you were doing. I though you'd be sleeping or upset but I'm glad to see I was wrong."

"Not really. I'm nervous about how the guilds are going to react but there's no point just sitting around. Besides I doubt they'd go so far as to kill me or anything so I'm not that worried."

"Good, well I won't waste anymore of your time. Off you go." He says motioning for us to go. Luna pulls on my arm and if her tails were out, they'd be wagging with excitement. Before we left I put the address of the Ruins entrance onto my map. I open it to double check and see it'll take us about half an hour of walking. We get to the entrance without any issues and I look around. The entrance is apparently at an apartment complex. I try the door but it's locked and needs a key. I take out the binder from my inventory and open it. It says to ring apartment 229 and say you're here for pest control. I look at the metal panel filled with buttons next to numbers and find 229. I press it and a moment later someone answers.

"Yes?" Says a masculine voice.

"Hey, I'm here for pest control." I say trying to sound confident but nearly making it sound like a question. The voice is quiet a moment before I hear a buzz and the door unlocks. We enter and get on the elevator. Luna looks around, confused as to why we entered this to go higher. I forgot she doesn't know what this is and she freaks out when it starts moving. She shouts in shock and grabs the railing, falling into the corner. I laugh and help her up, fortunately we're the only ones here.

"Calm down Luna. This is an elevator. It has cables or strong ropes that the machines pull and lift up." I say trying to explain it to her. She takes my hand and nods but holds me until we get off the elevator. We quickly find apartment 229 and knock. The door opens immediately and a man in a suit motions for us to come in. We do so and they shut the door.

"Eric, I need to see your papers." He says reaching out. I nod and take them out of the binder and hand them to him. He quickly reads it and nods before leading us into the main room. "I thought you'd be at school so sorry for the mess." He says as we walk by a few pizza boxes and empty 2-liters. "We started renting this apartment as soon as the Ruins were discovered and I've been here waiting for someone to explore it. And here it is." He says pointing to a bright red door. The door is on the wall right next to a window looking outside. "Open the door and walk through and you'll be teleported or moved to the Ruins. The door on the other side will take you back here so you can come and go as you wish. And here, the keys are yours now, we'll keep paying the rent for this place so long as you keep exploring the ruins. But if you take too long or if we detect you haven't explored it for five days in a row, excluding any time you can't like getting hospitalized, we'll assign someone else to this." I nod and thank him, taking the keys and he starts packing up the trash. I turn to Luna and she takes her tails and ears out.

"Ready?" She asks me excitedly and I smile and pet her.

"Yeah, let's go." I open the door and we walk through.