Party Up

“What do you think the dragons are?”

The 5-year-old princess scoffed at Frankie as she held a pen to her parchment.

“Dragons are reptiles! Dummy.”

She scribbled down a tally before continuing.

“Well, this is going well.”

Katie looked over to the scroll. “How many left, fifty?”

“Thaaat’s right. And I haven’t seen a single one of them say those things are animatronics. Some guy claimed they were genetically engineered, but I guess that doesn’t count.”

“Do you think they’re animatronics?”

“Duh. What else could they be? They ain’t holograms. Though, I struggle to imagine how he got them to fly.”

“It definitely is impressive.”

“Maybe I can add that to my findings… one American parkgoer, convinced they’re robots.”

“You can’t include yourself in your sample, that’s unscientific!”

Frankie groaned.

“We were supposed to be riding theme park attractions, not studying the scientific method…”

“All parks are scientific! Just think. All the rides, the engineering… the social science too! There’s so much going on in all of them…”

“Can you take the scroll again? I’m tired of talking to people.” She handed her sister the list.

“You were doing great back there. Let’s see… hey, why don’t we take a break? Do a different task for awhile? We’re not a time limit this time, you know. We could take as long as we want!”

“You just wanna go ride coasters. Besides, he’d hate us if we did that. Let’s stick to this one for now.”

“Some of the others look fun though! Like… wait, what is this one even asking?” Katie squinted at the page.

“The one right under the dungeons, right? Yeah, that’s an odd one. Nobody would tell us that stuff unless we got close to them. Walking around like this ain’t gonna work.”

“Maybe that could be something we work towards! Let’s see, how can we get close to someone in as little time as possible…” The adventurer rubbed her chin as she plotted.

“You scare me sometimes.”

“Oh, I’ve got it! We’ll join a party! And then we’ll brave the dungeon- two birds with one stone! After we beat it, they’ll have to open up to us!”

Frankie started to nod. Frightening as she was, her big sis was starting to make sense.

“Hm… if it gets us done with this thing any quicker, then alright.”

“Great! Let’s go, then!”

A round building, some sort of adventurer’s guild near the center of the marketplace allowed any parties to scout for new members. Frankie and Katie applied as two blades for hire- without a price, of course, only the qualifier that the group they joined had to be at least four tourists strong, letting them fill out their survey without jumping around between parties for weeks. It was a flawless plan.

“Still nobody…?”

It wasn’t going too well.

Turns out that the majority of adventuring squads didn’t need more than four members. Groups often left the building with that amount, but never came in there already like that. Be it actual strategy or RPG-induced unspoken rule, nobody ever wanted more than four people, and most of them coming in there only asked for healers anyway. That or “Doves,” whatever that meant.

“Can’t we just ask them to set us up with a group of four?”

“Tried. There’s not a single one on call.”

“Aw…” Katie crumpled onto the polished wood table they sat at, rolling out her arms as her chin rested atop it.

“Excuse me? Yes, we’re looking for two additional party members to brave the dungeon! They must be strong as well as cunning!”

The sisters’ eyes shot up. A mismatched party of four was standing at the front desk, their fittingly dramatic knight doing the talking as the other three slacked off. Their thief incessantly flirted with their mage as a tall barbarian stood to the side admiring an action figure he had previously purchased.

The staff immediately directed them to the Pop sisters. They jumped from their seats, sweating as the party approached them. They’d done it. Four people, all right there waiting for them- no, coming towards them- and they were even headed towards the dungeon!

The blonde knight drew his sword at Katie in the middle of the guild center.

“I challenge you to a duel!”