Soul's comments caught Alexis a little by surprise. Maybe she was letting her opinions on Engineer and Keeper to colour the rest of her judgement. She sat in silence for the rest of the journey back, staring out at the sky.
The helicopter having landed, Alexis followed the others as they were led through the base by Engineer. She kept thinking on this Dungeon Master, and what he might look like, but quickly gave up on the exercise. After what she'd seen so far, he could be anything from normal human, to a computer, to a slathering slime monster with three jaws and six pairs of eyes. Keeper's words as she stood to open the door didn't come as any surprise. To Alexis. The view that greeted her as she entered the door with the other recruits however did.
"This is a joke, was her first thought, as she stopped dead in her tracks, "this has to be a joke..." She glanced at Keeper, but the woman's stern, no-nonsense expression gave nothing away. Fighting down a growing sense of unease, she turned her attention to the young man on the bed. He didn't look any older than she was, nor did he look, or smell, especially healthy. Her mind tracked back to earlier thoughts, about this all being some rich person's game. He'd certainly need to be rich to have this sort of setup. The thought made her feel sick, especially when the image of Reece's body flashed into her mind. She dismissed the notion almost as quickly however. This was far too elaborate for that. That being said, this could be another test. Whoever these people actually were, they certainly weren't averse to throwing people in at the deep end, and in Engineer's case hoping they would drown. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Soul separate himself from the group. She could imagine his feelings on this. Then she remembered Charles He had looked like a child, but his power had far surpassed his appearance. There wasn't any reason the same couldn't apply, she'd already come across stranger since she'd arrived. There wasn't even any guarantee this Dungeon Keeper was human.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she brought her mind firmly back to the task at hand. There was no way to tell if this was another test, so she'd just have to take it at face value for now. She also decided to keep her grievances over the entire debacle so far to herself. Maybe Soul was right, it was something she'd get used to. Right now though, that wasn't much consolation. A number of questions ran through her mind, but the stream dried up as she took another look at the Dungeon Master. This was something that would take some getting used to. She cleared her throat.
"Um, yeah, I have one," she said, trying to keep her voice calm and measured, "in fact, I've got two. Who exactly are you guys? And why recruit us, rather than, say, hire a bunch of battle-hardened mercenaries?"
