Dungeons Online

**Since people are likely to get confused - The scene moves to the inner side of the Online Hub, PoV goes back to its high-manager Peter, the time doesn't change**

"We encountered some kind of problem, as usual," Peter reported, directly reading from the sheet of paper he had prepared. "I was informed by the manager responded that it's some kind of local coding issue," the manager of the online hub raised his head, looking right at the lenses of the small camera in the wall. 

"Problems, problems and problems," the young girl on the other end of the call sighed. "Ever since you were assigned your post, your reports are nothing but problems," she said, fixing a small detail of her hair. 

'That's because I'm fulfilling my duties in the right way, you dumb whore,' Peter thought as he put a wide smile on his face. "I would like to claim it's my own incompetence as others do, but I don't like lying at the same time," he said, not showing any signs of defeat on his face. "If you wanted some bootlicker to run the place, you guys would never pick me in the first place. And to the end of my ambitions, I'm going to do my best for this Online Hub to flourish!" Peter said decisively. 

'Did I go at her too strong?' he asked himself in his thoughts, looking in the bright screen on which the video feed of the call played out. 'I know it's easy to say I will take responsibility for whatever that problem is, but with the report day tomorrow?' Peter scoffed lightly. 'There is no way I will let them make me into a sacrificial lamb!' he thought, spitting at the corrupt system he had to operate within. 

"Still, whatever your excuses are, the fact that you keep having problems remain," the secretary of the local head, Peter's direct superior, shook her head. "I received my orders regarding cases like yours," the girl said, raising her eyes from her own stack of notes. "Since you proved to be unable to solve the problem with your own resources, you will get to the local hub and procure forty saps from the incubator there," the girl announced the verdict before raising her eyes to the screen. "This influx of outsourced staff will also shift the income ratios," she added before hiding her eyes away to the side. "Just saying in case you forgot," the girl added, refusing to look at the camera's lens. 

"Isa," Peter said, his tone meeking down in but an instant. "You know that I cannot agree to that," he said in a pleading voice. "Please, just one more day. I will get saps from my own incubator, cream of the top, no questions asked," he suggested, hoping to get away from the punishment for at least this one last time. 

'Just wait until I start bringing the score with that guy,' Peter thought, unknowingly tightening his hands to fists. 'He reached level fifty so quickly and even found a method to absorb more energy from the stones than we do through their system,' Peter recalled the most striking points of the man he found out. 'If only he didn't just go and disappear like that,' Peter shook his head, still annoyed by this obstacle to his plans. 

"Peter," Isabelle said, her tone softening. For a moment, she turned silent, thinking over the topic as hard as she could, to the point of veins popping up on her forehead. "Fine, but this already exhausts all the favors you ever had on me," she added, squinting her eyes. For a moment, anxiety mixed in her pupils with relief. 

The anxiety of abusing her position to help her childhood friend out and relief of freeing herself from the burden of his favors. 

"Thanks, I appreciate it," Peter nodded his head with gratitude. 'That was close,' he thought, his hands tightening. 'If they forced another forty saps on me, the ratios...' For a moment, Peter sank into his thoughts, calculating his current situation. 'Damn, the hub would lose a third of its income!' he shouted in his thoughts as he realized. 

"Well, that will be all for the prereport," Isabelle said, gathering her notes together. "I hope you won't disappoint me tomorrow," she added before ending the call. 

"As if I would let that... Or wait," Peter was about to curse at the girl, or rather the system that forced her to act like that when a realization struck him. 'A third of our income?' he asked himself, noticing just how overbearing this kind of solution was. 'So she only intended to scare me away with this, to think I let her catch me off guard like that,' he complained about himself before shaking his head. 

"Welp, I won't do anything from here. Let's deal with things one by one," 

Peter said to himself before standing from his chair and heading to the doors. 

This personal communication array was located directly by Peter's quarters. It was one of the predesigned features of every online hub, aimed at allowing its high-manager to always be on call of the higher brass. 

"Kira? Where are you?" Peter shouted as soon as he closed the door to the communication room. 

"Right here," the girl replied, lazily raising her hand.

'She didn't even bother to raise up,' Peter complained but ended up swallowing his pride and holding back a necessary lecture. "Buckle up. We are going to brute-force that bug out," he said, already heading towards the doors leading outside of the staff's quarters. 

"What? Weren't you going to just let it go?" Kira raised her eyebrows in surprise. "What happened?" she asked as her eyes moved to the door of the communication array. "The brass?" she changed her question, guessing the answer on her own. 

"Yeah," Peter nodded his head in response. "I got them to agree for forty saps from our own incubator," he informed before shaking his head. "Can you imagine that this bitch wanted to push forty of the outsourced ones on me?" Peter asked before biting on his lip. 

"Well, let's not waste time, then," Kira said, jumping off the sofa on which she was lazying before. "Right, I got some news about that Tom guy," the girl said, raising up another stack of papers in her hand. 

"Leave it for after the report is done," Peter ordered, already waiting at the doors. "I will deal with it once we bury this headache off," he added.

"Well, what a waste of the resources of the Investigators faction," Kira said with a bright smile. Then, she turned her eyes to her theoretical superior.. "You might've lost your favors with Isa, but you just got some from me."