Tony Stark hadn't been too sure about the two "gods" when Rhodey first pointed them out in Norms Town, but they had certainly grown on him. They were…unusual compared to the average person, almost as though they were trapped in the Norse god theme they were role-playing. God of Thunder especially fit in the role of Thor, though his little brother (sister, now?) wasn't too far behind him in the role of Loki. Apparently, it was their father who was so interested in the subject, and Tony couldn't help but wonder just what kind of lives those two were living with their family. Mischief didn't seem all too fond of his—her, damn it—father on the few occasions the man was brought up, but Thunder was always quick to talk over her during those times. Daddy issues were something Tony could relate to, and to some extent he felt a sort of kindred spirit in God of Mischief, as anti-social as the kid was.

Now that the four had actually partnered up, Tony could say his opinion of the two had brightened considerably. It was Rhodey who remained nervous, especially in the presence of Mischief. That was simply how his old buddy was though, and Tony knew he would warm up to them as well once they proved themselves trustworthy. It was all of that Marine Corps training that made Rhodey so cautious, and his time working for Stark Industries hadn't done much to dim the years he had spent as a lieutenant beforehand.

As it stood, Rhodey was currently ahead in the cave with God of Thunder, while Tony and Mischief sat a little way back to support them. Tony loved being able to construct his drones and just sit and watch them take action. He didn't need to get right in the midst of the battle like Rhodey and Thunder did, meaning less chances of him accidentally getting his ass killed.

Tony gave a quick glance at Mischief beside him. The kid's spells reached shockingly far for a mage, and Tony was having a difficult time remembering if illusionists were programmed to have the longest reaching spells or not. It made sense, considering how low their HP and defense were, but the information just wasn't coming to him. Either way, the enemies in the cavern were all a few levels above the entire group, so the only way Mischief's magic could really help was with Blink. Not that that wasn't helpful, of course. Tony had been thrilled to find out Rhodey could now take some hits without receiving the damage from them. They would eventually need to find a way to deal with the high magic cost and slow casting speed of the spell later, but it would do until then.

At one point, some enemies had spawned behind the group and tried to attack them while Rhodey and Thunder had been distracted, but as problematic as being a Jötun in the Flame Cavern was, it also had its benefits. Ice was weak against fire, sure, but they were opposing elements, and fire was just as weak against ice. Mischief's Freeze passive ability gave her knives ice elemental damage, which helped considerably in their close-range fighting.

That wasn't to say Tony couldn't have handled the enemies himself. His hammer and attack stat weren't that bad, especially compared to an illusionist, but hey, every little bit helped. Thunder hadn't been kidding when he said his sister could take care of herself, and it made Tony's job as bodyguard seem a lot less like babysitting than he thought it would.

Their quest was going well enough, even if Rhodey kept complaining about how they should look for a healer to add to their team. During those times, Tony would scoff and remind him about how he would eventually be able to construct a healing drone, that he need just be patient, but Rhodey never looked comforted by this. Mischief would give him an inquisitive look over the issue, and it only made Tony like her even more. The kid had to have figured out by now that Tony knew more about the game than he was letting on, but let her wonder for longer. If she and Thunder knew they were in a party with Tony Stark, then there might be more trust issues between them than he would like.

He didn't know about Thunder, but Mischief was a smart kid, and would be able to put two and two together. Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, had worked on this game. There was a reason he knew as much as he did about it, and why he had such benefits as a title and insane amounts of gold ("Why do you have over 500,000 gold?" Mischief had asked him in an accusing tone not too long ago).

The thing was, Tony had no idea who this Thanatos prick was. With all of the work and co-op he'd done with Marvel Industries, there wasn't a single person he could think of who might have caused all of this. Something like this shouldn't have gotten past him, not with all of the time and effort he had put into perfecting the game and its systems. If anyone besides Rhodey knew who Iron Man was, then they would blame him for this, he just knew it. They would threaten him to fix the game, maybe even kill him in their anger. He wanted to be free of this madness as much as they did, but he doubted they would listen to him once they knew the CEO of Stark Industries was before them.

Tony was personally invested in this, more so than anyone else. Someone had hacked his game; had changed its parameters and the way the headsets themselves even worked. Not just anyone could get past Tony's work like that, and he wanted to know who the hell this person was now. The gods of mischief and thunder were reliable, competent players, but Tony knew he would need a bigger party to deal with this Thanatos guy. If he had as much control as Tony thought he did over the game, then they would need as much manpower as they could get.

Until then, they were on a quest through the Flame Cavern. It wouldn't take that many more quests until Tony felt the party would be safe to move on elsewhere. If the difficulty balance of the game hadn't been changed, then Tony felt confident in guiding the group in the right direction. Now, if only he knew what these infinity stones were and where to find them. They hadn't been in the initial programming of the game, and could only be something Thanatos himself added.

A loud scream brought him out of his thoughts, and he realized that he had let himself and Mischief get ambushed by a fire elemental, which wasted no time in attacking the illusionist beside him. Tony whipped around to whack the monster with his hammer, but couldn't do more before God of Thunder himself shoved him aside and beat the enemy to death within seconds. Note to self: Never piss off big brother Thunder.

With the battle over and the enemy rush finally done with, Tony found himself sitting back by Rhodey, unwilling to go near the still enraged God of Thunder.

"I'm fine! Now back off, you oaf!" Mischief complained, being all but smothered by her worried brother.

Thunder backed off, but looked none too happy about it.

"I was taken by surprise, and my MP was too low for me to cast Blink again. It's nothing some potions can't fix," Mischief continued, already taking out two potions to use.

"You shouldn't even be here, sister! This place is too dangerous. Look what that single hit did to your health! Two more of those and you'd be dead. The rest of us can take far more hits than that from the enemies here."

"That's why I hang away from the fights. I merely need to watch my back more often and keep an eye on my magic reserves. And maybe get some better spells," Mischief muttered as an after-thought, making Tony chuckle against his better judgement.

Rhodey, ever the brave man, stepped forward and offered up his only ether to Mischief. The item had been dropped by an enemy early on in their quest through the cavern. Tony only hoped that a single ether would keep Mischief's magic going through the rest of the cave. They were near the end, but he couldn't anticipate what kind of fire power it would take for them to defeat the boss there.

"Is that all we have?" Thunder questioned, looking between both his sister and Tony.

"I never thought to buy any," Tony admitted. He had more than enough gold to do so. "My drones cost a lot of MP, but I don't need to construct them as often as Frost Queen here needs to cast Blink."

"I didn't have enough money to buy any in town. They're too expensive," Mischief continued, pointedly looking away from Thunder in annoyance. Thunder gave her a helpless stare in response.

With God of Thunder's anger and worry sated (well, mostly. Tony could see Thunder's worried gaze repeatedly turning to Mischief), the group continued onwards. The enemies from that point on were not nearly as numerous, and the group fell back into their earlier patterns. Tony noticed Mischief holding back on casting her magic, likely in order to reserve it for the boss at the end. He also noticed that at some point Mischief had shapeshifted back into a flame troll, which made him chuckle in good humor.

"Does being a fake flame troll make you feel better about yourself?" Tony had asked, much to Mischief's chagrin.

Once the end of the cavern was reached, the boss appeared immediately, the horned Ifrit summoned from a vast roar of flames. Neither Rhodey nor Thunder flinched, Thunder already imbuing his hammer with the power of ice. Tony was preparing some turrets by himself and Mischief (boy, was watching a flame troll shy away from fire amusing), and Mischief began to cast Blink spells on the two more physical fighters up front.

Ifrit was a possible summon for those of the summoner subclass, and Tony knew it was the earliest one could get besides whatever happened to be their beginning summon. There was a good list of beginner summons, and which one a person started off with was completely random. Defeating Ifrit would give a player the power to summon it, but alas, no one in the party could accomplish such a task. Tony was hoping they would eventually come across a summoner, as not only did they have the potential to be one of the most powerful classes in the game, but he really just wanted to see all of the badass summon monsters in action. He was often a man of simple tastes, he would admit.

Thunder's ice hammer was wheedling Ifrit's HP down quickly, aided by Rhodey's combined ammo shots from the cannon he had spawned. Ifrit's claws had at one point managed to strike Rhodey, and the drop in HP had been considerable, but it had been taken care of in no time by some potions from Mischief. The kid had a never-ending supply of those things, and Tony was tempted to call her a potion hoarder just for the sake of it. Either way, it was immensely helpful.

The constant string of Blink spells prevented Ifrit's claws from ever striking again, but the AI for their enemy wasn't dumb. Tony himself had aided in the enemy AI programming, so he would hope so. After realizing that it couldn't strike its foes physically, Ifrit opted for shooting fire spells at them. As the group soon found out, Blink only protected against physical attacks. Mischief had yet to unlock the spell to protect against magic.

As Mischief's magic ran out once more, she was put on healing duty with her potions, hanging back behind Tony's steady stream of turrets. Tony could see how antsy she was getting over not being able to help out more, and more than once he caught her glancing down at one of the knives she held in her hands. There wasn't much to worry about; Tony knew Mischief was smart enough to not rush into battle against a fire type boss with the disadvantages she had.

"What if I threw the knife at it?" Mischief had asked in the heat of battle, preparing another potion to throw at Rhodey.

"Equipped items can't stray that far from your avatar before they de-spawn. You'd need the ninja sub-class's Throw ability to properly do that," Tony informed her, hurriedly constructing another drone to help intercept physical blows from Ifrit. His MP was running dangerously low too, but he could see how low Ifrit's health was. A few more blows from Rhodey's Open Fire ability and Thunder's ice hammer would finish it off. Tony didn't know what he'd do without his Examine passive ability. He could tell it drove Mischief nuts that she couldn't see enemy information like an engineer could.

Soon enough, Ifrit fell, de-spawning in a burst of flames. The congratulatory message was flashing across Tony's face, letting him know of his experience gain. It was the most substantial amount of exp. that he'd managed to get since starting the game, and finally he found himself relatively caught up to the other three in the party level-wise. All of them were now at level 8, Tony having just barely made it past level 7. He cursed his earlier decisions to sit out and let Rhodey take care of so many battles on his own. Thunder and Mischief had equal amounts of experience, and that's how it should have been with him and the cannoneer.

Well, that was something he'd just have to live with for now. Perhaps when everyone else was resting in their tents he would sneak out and catch up some, but until then, celebrations were in order.

"Alright!" he cheered as soon as the group found themselves out of the cavern.

Looking around, his party members were in varying states of disarray. Rhodey was using potions on himself while Thunder proceeded to fret over his flame troll sister. Mischief was doing her absolute best to ignore him, checking the forums as she so often did outside of battle. The kid was religious about making sure nothing else was going on in their world, and it had the added benefit of taking the responsibility away from Tony.

"How about we head back to Norms Town and get our reward for that quest, now?" Rhodey suggested once his HP was back at full health. "If we skip some fights and head straight there, we should make it by the end of the day."

"Were the items and gold we obtained from our battles not enough? There is more to receive at Norms Town?" Thunder questioned, hand tightening on Mischief's shoulder.

"Of course, big guy!" Tony agreed. "Every quest has a prize from whichever NPC issued it to you. You can't tell me you're satisfied with what you got from that cavern alone."

"It would be an honor to receive a reward for our bravery!" Thunder responded, appalled. Tony chuckled as Mischief audibly groaned at her brother. "Now, Loki—"

"God of Mischief."

"Same thing," Tony reminded, Mischief giving him a pointed look.

Thunder continued on as though he had never been interrupted, "—I understand if you feel, ah, more comfortable in this form," he gave the flame troll a disgusted look, not even trying to hide it, "but perhaps you would like to try something else out?"

"That's a little racist, don't you think, brother?" Mischief replied, even as her form changed to that of an Aesir.

The flame troll form had added a few inches to her height, making her nearly the same height as her brother, and that height remained the same as an Aesir. She looked similar enough to her human form now, the change only toning out her body and giving her some muscles. Thunder gave his sister a nervous look at this, tightening the grip on her shoulder even further. If Mischief had a problem with this, she certainly didn't show it.

"Well now that just looks wrong," Thunder muttered.

"You're just upset that I'm the same height as you again. I know how you always used to get around Vidar," Mischief commented. Tony figured Vidar must be one of their other brothers. If that was the case, he wondered if the Norse mythology thing was still just role-playing, or if their parents legitimately loved it so much as to name all their kids after Norse gods. With their slipups, Tony was beginning to suspect the latter.

As always, Thunder eventually relented under his sister's shenanigans, moving on when Rhodey voiced his impatience with them. If there was one thing Tony could always rely on Rhodey for, it was keeping people on track. He often found both Rhodey and Pepper ganging up on him whenever they found him screwing around in the lab or the bedroom, and as annoying as it sometimes was, they at least made him get shit done.

The group continued onwards, skipping fights at Rhodey's behest. Thunder did not appreciate having to run from most battles they came across, claiming it was cowardly, but Rhodey reminded him that they all wanted to reach Norms Town before the end of the day. Running was a necessary evil. None of this did anything to placate Thunder, who was becoming increasingly agitated with every battle they walked away from. More than once, Tony caught Mischief throwing a Calm spell on her brother when things began to get too heated, and he vaguely wondered when the older of the two would begin to catch on. He was hoping it wasn't until later that day, when they were at least in Norms Town and Tony could hide in an inn room from the man.

"You know, I've noticed something," Mischief began a couple hours later, MP having been restored from an ether that an enemy had dropped. Her brother was still under the effects of the last Calm spell, but Tony knew it would be wearing off soon. "Most of the parties I've seen so far appear to have at least two people who knew each other before the game started. I thought it was dumb luck that my brother and his friend managed to each be chosen as beta testers, but lately I've begun to think otherwise."

"That's because it wasn't dumb luck," Tony began. "Marvel tried to give the headsets to people in groups of two or three so that they would have someone to party up with right away."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rhodey giving him a warning look. Don't give away too much information that you shouldn't know, it practically screamed.

"Interesting," Mischief replied, also having noticed Rhodey's look. She tried to play it off, but Tony saw the way that her eyes had drifted over to Rhodey for just the briefest of moments. "I suppose it makes sense, though. It's proven especially helpful now that we're all at risk of dying here, so I guess I should be grateful."

As she spoke, her body shapeshifted from Aesir back to human, though her sex remained as female as ever. It confused Tony ever so slightly, but he wasn't going to judge someone for their preferences. Thunder had been treating it as though it were the most normal thing in the world, but that didn't mean Tony still wasn't tempted to ask about it.

Thank god, the group finally returned to Norms Town. Thunder stormed off to find the NPC quest giver, and Tony grabbed Rhodey and Mischief each by the arm, dragging them off in the opposite direction. Predictably, Thunder figured out his sister's deception about an hour before they had reached the town, and he hadn't been particularly pleased by the development. Once he accepted the quest reward, it would automatically be sent to his other party members, so there was no need to hang around the angry wannabe Norse god for longer than necessary.

Mischief was complaining about wanting to head to the stores and buy new equipment and items, and Tony almost agreed to let her go, but of course Rhodey was there to keep them in line. Their energy was low, Tony could feel it in how groggy he was becoming. Out of the corner of his eye, he would catch glimpses of Mischief's shapeshifting failing her, the Jötun-blue of her skin appearing for mere moments before the form of a female human would return. As much as neither of them wanted to admit it, Rhodey was right.

Approaching the inn, Tony caught Mischief sending her brother a message, likely telling him about them buying a room. At the front desk, they studied the rates of different inn rooms, and together they decided on a room with two double beds. For four people, it was the cheapest option, as much as Tony didn't want to room with Thunder at the moment. At least he already knew that Mischief would be the one to get stuck sharing a bed with him.

As they reached their room and settled on their beds, the reward announcement popped up in front of their faces, and Tony couldn't help but grin. He had gained a new hammer, significantly stronger than his last one, and with the power of fire imbued on it. The sight of Rhodey's smirk beside him gave him more than enough information that he received a similar reward. The cannoneer's main weapon was, naturally, a cannon, and Tony was betting Rhodey received a powerful, fire elemental one. Glancing at the bed across the room, Mischief didn't look nearly as pleased.

"What, not what you were expecting?" Tony teased, even as Mischief tried to school the pout that had been on her face.

"Well, for one, I have no desire to use staves; I would have preferred to receive a new knife. And for another, how in any way does a frost giant wielding a flaming staff make any amount of sense?"

Tony merely snickered as Rhodey gave the kid an annoyed look. It hadn't taken much time for either of them to find out that Mischief was a complainer, and Tony knew Rhodey wasn't the biggest fan of that kind of attitude. Tony just thought it was endearing, and reveled in giving the kid a hard time.

In no time at all, Thunder showed up at the inn room, dropping down onto the bed beside Mischief. As much as his anger had driven him before, Tony could now tell that the man was dead tired. It wouldn't take long at all for him to pass out, for which Tony was immensely grateful. Mischief was absently going through the forums again, a confused frown marring her face for bare seconds before it was schooled to a more neutral expression. Perhaps in the morning, granted if he remembered by then, Tony would ask about what was going on there, but right now Thunder appeared to have the best idea out of the group.

Sleep now, worry about religiously checking forum posts later. That quest took too much out of all of them, and he knew both his and Mischief's MP were running far too low. A quick check on Rhodey's MP confirmed the same for him, though Thunder's MP was in shockingly good shape. Whatever, that didn't matter. The four of them very quickly found themselves passed out in their beds, Tony with Rhodey, the Norse siblings with each other. They could worry more about the game's mishaps and craziness later.