At the very beginning I had to overcome a huge hurdle to write this chapter. That very hurdle is called 'conglomerate'. I didn't know how to spell it. And my spelling was so messed up that even google (whom always gives friendly suggestions) stayed silent. Online dictionaries wouldn't help me either. And trying to find the word while searching for synonyms didn't help at all. Eventually (I really wanted to use the word 'conglomerate') I sat down with an English-Dutch dictionary - which I haven't touched ever since I finished secondary school - and I flipped through all the words starting with 'co'.

After a fair bit of reading orange colored words beginning with 'co' I came across 'conglomeration', described as 'a bundle' or 'collection'. I thought that I found the word stuck on the tip of my tongue, but remembered it with the wrong meaning. Only after I visited my dearest writing friend, the website thesaurus, I found out that the entry indeed can mean a (mega) cooperation, multinational or monopoly. Just in time; I almost questioned my sanity. The only thing I hope is that I'll never forget how to spell 'conglomerate'.

Just in case I am not sane and start writing gibberish, or make common spelling or grammar mistakes I'd be most delighted if you'd point them out.

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Turmoil

The heiress of the Long conglomerate was known as a decisive woman. She had a vision, knew what she wanted and could be quite vicious in order to get it. Her rants against the poor employees were infamous. She was nicknamed 'the dragon', and the first time she actually overheard her own nickname she made a silent promise: if her employees would be incompetent enough, the whole company would whisper that 'the dragon' could actually breathe fire. No exclusions made. Eventually, even the board of the daughter company of the Long conglomerate - the Second Life company - began to know better than to antagonize her and face her displeasure. They were however, experienced old men. Battle-scarred, if you will.

How vexing the heiress might have thought them to be, they had their uses for they knew what they were doing in their field. The downside of the equation was that they, on certain occasions, would be those of the very few whom dared put their foot down if they deemed their cause was important enough, even if their foot would be burned down by 'the dragon', better known as Long Shui Han.

It was only after the third nervous breakdown - in a timespan of less than a week - of yet another unsuspecting secretary that had just been doing her job by serving tea into the warzone of a meeting room that the board had been willing to offer a compromise. A compromise on the speed of the in-dome time, that is. Shui Han had been very happy with this small victory and agreed with it, figuring she still had a full month to come down to the time mark which she found acceptable.

The best part of this compromise was that it was arranged the day before everyone would enter the dome. The board had reluctantly agreed to making the in-dome time go by fifty times faster than real world time. So rather than thirty-one days turned to three-thousand-and-one-hundred days, it became fifteen-hundred-and-fifty days. Roughly, four years. So still one year longer than what Shui Han had hoped for, but much better than the original plan.

But this morning, just for a few hours, it wouldn't matter. Feng Lan and her team had just been put on the machines, and she had just finished saying goodbye to the people that had come to wave their loved ones goodbye. They all had left the building. Except for Yang Ming of course, a bit of quality time was just what she needed. So when her phone started beeping just when she leaned in to kiss her beloved boyfriend, she wasn't pleased.

A beeping cellphone can usually be disregarded, but the very beep that was cruelly tearing the two apart was one that could not be ignored. It was a warning signal: extreme emotion levels had been registered at one or more players. Shui Han dreaded opening that phone, for she had a ominous feeling that she could make an educated guess which names would be visible on the screen once she opened her phone.

She might as well have claimed she had the gift of clairvoyance, for it was no surprise whatsoever to read both Prince's and Guiliastes' name on her screen. Shui Han was positively livid. She wasted no time in putting back the in-dome time decay back to real world time decay. She grabbed her almost forgotten boyfriend, and dragged him with her to the recording rooms, demanding to watch the data from 3 minutes before the fluctuation in the emotion levels.

Yang Ming and Shui Han stood baffled, watching the screens, while the whole fiasco unfolded before their eyes.

"...You are crossing the line. We can't have you killing him. Look at him, do you see what you have done? And here we were, thinking we were finally over and done with that kind of behavior. You let us down. You'll make your brother worry again..."

"Damn right I'm worrying again," Yang Ming said with a frown. He shook his had with a resigned look on his face.

"And I thought she was finally at the point where they could interact with each other as human beings again."

Shui Han growled something incomprehensible and didn't waste any time by ruthlessly shoving one of the employees out of his chair, diving behind the keyboard. Immediately she began to compose a beautiful message of fury for her beloved future-sister-in-law with every intention of having her tremble in fear when she was done reading it. It was preposterous. An hour ago they hadn't even been put on the machines! They weren't in the dome for fifty hours of their time. Forty hours at most, and they were already antagonizing and killing each other! Yang Ming looked at her for ten full seconds before deciding he wanted to do the same.

He didn't want to scare those poor employees any further though, the one whom had been shoved out of his chair was looking a bit green, and was trembling to see his boss this angry - even when the anger wasn't directed at him personally. With a sigh Yang Ming grabbed his phone, opened his newest Second Life app, and began to compose a message as well. Doll was absolutely right, he was worried and he had every intention to make his sister feel miserable for her behavior, for it was unbecoming and more importantly: unfair to Gui.

…

Lesus was perplexed. The four guests didn't even wait for Lesus to turn on the lights when they had finally reached the training grounds. It was pitch black, yet those four... lunatics hadn't any qualms unsheathing their blades – as if it were common practice to do so in the absence of light. The minute he went about lighting the torches of the place, all he could see from the fight was the sparks flying away from the clashing blades.

By the time the training grounds were finally lit Lesus wasn't sure whether he should be mesmerized or rather appalled by what he saw. It was without a doubt a spectacular sight to behold: seeing three seasoned warriors standing their ground against one little elf, consumed by rage. If these were the qualities from an adolescent not quite pure blooded dark elf, he feared the day that he'd come across a seasoned pure blooded warrior of the fearsome race that is known to live beneath the surface. Lesus shuddered at the thought, and silently vowed to himself that he would never thwart a dark elf.

Lesus shook his head at the thought, and concentrated on the magnificent spar he was witnessing. The elf was fighting with only a dao as his weapon, and managed to fend of a man twice his size wielding a claymore, a man that was more than practiced with the several knives and shuriken he kept throwing at the elf, and a man that looked deadly precise with his katana. From time to time he was actually pushing the three of them back.

Even though the elf wielded but one weapon - his dao - he had no problems fighting off the continuous attacks from two or more blades at the time. While doing so he showed spectacular footwork. Beautiful roundhouse kicks against wrists, somersaults to jump away from an attack – preferably so that the attackers end up attacking each other – and some pretty nasty kicks aimed at their temples. To make room he'd kick his attacker straight into the chest, pushing them backwards; kicks of which Lesus knew they would be lethal for some of his knights. The fact that the three adversaries remained unfazed by these kicks testified of great strength and told him no of these four individuals should be underestimated. They were to be reckoned with.

It took no less than three quarters of an hour before the enraged elf had finally run out of steam. It was quite amazing to see how well the four of them were tuned into each other. It looked as if the fearsome battle stopped just as abruptly as it had begun. The four of them lowered their blades almost simultaneously. It was only the elf whom had lowered his head as well.

"Thanks guys, for being there as my stress relief."

Without so much as even waiting for a reply the elf sheathed his dao and walked up to Lesus.

"Judgment Knight, thank you for your hospitality and letting us use your training grounds."

Lesus nodded at the elf.

"That's quite alright, though I would appreciate it if the four of you would spar with me from time to time. It isn't very often that I come across people that would be a match to me."

The Blood Elf grinned.

"We'd love to, in fact: Cold Fox and I suffer from the exact same problem..."

Whatever the elf was about to say, he stopped mid sentence. All the color drained from his face and in stead of looking fearsome, he looked as if he now was ruled by fear.

"My travel diary is burning." Whimpered the elf in a cryptic statement. Whatever that was supposed to mean, it looked like it had grave consequences. The warrior with the claymore shook his head, the one with the knives and shuriken facepalmed, and the one in black with the katana closed his eyes.

"Just open it Prince, the sooner you have read it, the sooner you're free from your dread." The mouth had spoken from beneath the facepalm, that very sentence made Prince's face turn into an appalling shade of green. Even greener, he noticed, than some first time offenders before he would interrogate them... How peculiar. Lesus folded his arms and lifted an eyebrow at these antics... Why, in the name of the harsh God of Light, would anyone fear their travel diary?

With visibly shaking hands the elf pulled out his little travel diary and opened it at one of the two tabs that were giving an uncanny glow. So it was a bewitched travel diary? Sentient objects were something to be feared, indeed. Lesus wisely decided he didn't even want to know how the magic worked or what it did; silently he swiftly turned and left the training grounds. He had a gut feeling he would be better off if he didn't know.

…

The few weeks that had past after the day on which the strange assemblage of individuals had been invited to the Holy Temple had been rather eventful. When the holy knights had realized that Knight-Captain Sun had actually forgotten about the worship service before the coronation of the new king the whole temple had to face it: they had just sunk to a new low. It did however, serve for an explanation as for why Knight-Captain Sun had invited the obscure adventuring team – even demanding a party to welcome them – on the eve of such a busy day to come.

The whole situation had become a lot more palatable when the Pope realized he couldn't wriggle his way out anymore: he finally approved for Knight-Captain Sun to have a personal secretary. The Storm Knight had cried tears of joy when he heard the welcome news that the only paperwork he had to do was solely his own while Lesus himself was very glad he wouldn't be sent out anymore on miscellaneous errands. Adairs eyes had spoken volumes while he said that he hoped for a swift cooperation with his newest colleague. Sadly it was easier said than done; no one knew how to find someone that could actually understand what Knight-Captain Sun wanted to convey.

In the end Storm had to thank a certain territorial demon for finding the solution. Guiliastes had given them an eloquent answer: he and Prince were able to communicate with Sun because they were well grounded when it came to literary knowledge – finding the key points of a cryptic message was something they could do for a living. Or so they said. The enigma called Doll was a whole different story altogether, apparently she had been raised to become a diplomat. From a young age she had been trained in understanding and bending language in a creative way in order to get whatever it was that she wanted to be accomplished. What Lesus failed to comprehend was why someone would educate a girl with a light core of elements in diplomacy and necromancy alike.

'Seeking for an individual with a passion for literature, who knows the basics of diplomacy. Being familiar with secretary work is appreciated.' They had to admit that the job request that had been given to the job agency was a bit questionable. In fact: Knight-Captain Metal even wondered out loud if the request had been taken seriously if it weren't for the official Holy Temple logo and the ever so impressing Sun Knight stamp at the bottom of the letter...

Lesus wasn't surprised at the malice his colleague Earth had radiated when Grisia found out that the person who would spend an incredible amount of time with him, and actually understand him, turned out to be a enthusiastic young lad. The surprise had come when Grisia voiced his frustrations; 'I had hoped the benevolent God of Light would have granted me the radiation of a young woman to assist me in my job...' - Prince began a tirade about emancipation, lack of professionalism on the work floor, about woman being seen as sex-objects and how appalled he was by the behavior of both Earth and Sun.

Lesus had acted immediately and dragged Prince to the training halls in order to spar with him. After sparring for about an hour the elf had finally calmed down, complimented Lesus on his swordsmanship and asked for private lessons. Lesus grabbed his chance and told Prince that if he'd manage to get Cold Fox he'd happily teach them both. When Prince happily skipped away in order to find Cold Fox, a very frightening phenomenon happened. Lesus Judgment showed a cat-ate-the-canary grin at the thought of gaining two sparring partners with potential. Within five seconds flat the fairly busy training grounds became deserted. That particular night an awful lot of drunk holy knights could be found in taverns. Strangely not a single one of them had wanted to talk about the 'horrors' they had seen that day...

It weren't only Cold Fox and Prince whom had found their pleasures of being guests of the Holy Temple. Kong Kong had hit off pretty well with Demos Cloud – they couldn't be found at all. Guiliastes managed to find common ground with Elmairy Leaf whom now divided his time between shooting contests with Guiliastes and trading recipes with Prince. Mr Wolf (none of the knights even considered calling him brother, that was a private thing for the knights) had been happy to spend time with both Grisia and the Pope on a lot of complicated, and 'classified' holy light stuff that probably went over anyone's head, even if they tried to explain whatever it was they were doing. Lesus was happy to see that Mr Wolf still spend some time with the Moon Knight, whom normally was condemned to loneliness for no one could put up with his 'arrogance'.

The wandering couple kept true to their name, and they made the Holy Temple their basis from which they left for their wanderings while keeping in touch through those seemingly sentient travel diaries. Luckily Doll wasn't forgotten when everybody else found their own activities. Lesus could hardly believe his ears when Chikus Blaze came to Lesus in private, confessing that the young girl had set Blaze's heart on fire. Poor Chikus was in crisis with his conscience and morale.

Lesus was even more surprised when he carefully breached the subject with Prince. He told her that his 'little sister' had a mind that was beyond her years, but more importantly: Prince said that he never came across anyone so headstrong as Doll, except for himself. In other words: Prince told Lesus that his pubescent little sister could fend for herself, and he expected her to do so. But than again, Doll had already proven herself to be truly puzzling. How often does one come across such a young individual who can heal minor wounds, is more than proficient in necromancy, and is so eloquent that on some occasions even Grisia didn't know well how to respond? Heck, she could have been Grisia's little sister with those features! Maybe that was the reason that Blaze was infatuated with her?

Against better judgment, Lesus Judgment let them be. He had more important matters to focus on in stead of the love life of one of the most vivacious knights he had crossed. Speaking of more important matters; he had done a tremendous job in daydreaming and forgetting those very matters he should address. Back to the present. Grisia had just loudly declared his love for the princess, whom was just been proposed to by the Son of the God of War. As if on cue, Ceo seemed to be cured of his slump and began gossiping like mad. Lesus cringed. How much damage control was going to be needed?