"............................." Darrel was silent as he heard that.

"I... uh..." he stammered.

"Well, I don't run a guild, no." he said.

"But... I DO have connections to people that work in the guild system." he told her.

"I might be able to find out more info for you." he went on.

"Try and get this through the grapevine, so to speak."

Darrel nodded in response.

"Fair enough." he said.

"I'll see what I can do." he told her.

"For now, let's concentrate on food." he went on.

"What do you want here?" he asked.

"What are you in the mood for?" he asked further.

In his mind, however, he was thinking about the connections he had... specifically, one BIG one.

"Hmmmm." Darrel muttered.

"I think I'll go with their triple-stack burger." he said.

"I'm feeling pretty damn hungry." he reasoned.

"So what will you be doing now?" he asked.

"You going to be staying somewhere different?" he asked her.

"Or, like, is any of your contact information changing?"

Darrel's eyes widened a bit when she said the last part.

"Wh-what?" he asked.

"No! N-no!" he said.

"Wait, no, that's not what I-" he stammered further, before shaking his head a little. He then paused, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

"No I am not worried about the random girl who interrupted your life." he told her.

"I'm worried about my sister." he said.

"We ARE family, and if there's one thing Rene's taught me, it's that family look out for each other." he finished, sincerity more than evident in his tone.

Darrel thought for a moment, before shrugging.

"I don't need to head home immediately." he said.

"I still got time to kill." he told her.

"So we can hang out and do whatever." he reasoned, looking at his phone.

"Yeah, I'd say I have another hour and half or so, before I've reached 'gone for a concerning amount of time, given the reason for the outing' territory." he chuckled.

"Anything else you'd care to do?" he asked her.

"Bowling??" Darrel asked.

"Not a bad idea!" he said.

"Been a while since I last went bowling, has to have been a few months or so." he went on.

"So, yeah, sure, let's go bowling!" he said further.

"Where?" he asked her.

"There's a few alleys in this city." he reasoned.

"Sure thing." Darrel replied.

Later that night, Darrel and Abby's evening had concluded, and they parted ways. Darrel had returned home, and had asked to speak with his father. Jaden had obliged him, and after a few minutes of talking in his room, Jaden left Darrel to his own devices, and made his way to the den.

Once there, he sat down in one of the chairs, and took out his cell phone.

"All right then." he said.

"Let's get this started." he muttered, dialling his mother's number.

"Hey, yeah, can we talk?" he asked when she answered.

"And no, it's nothing like an emergency, or whatever." he said.

"It's... well... actually, it's guild-related, believe it or not." he told her.

"And ASAP would be great." he continued.

"When can I speak with you, face-to-face?" he asked.

"And where?"

"New cafe...?" Jaden asked, before snapping his fingers!

"AH! Ground Under, or something like that." he remembered.

"Yeah, sure thing." he said.

"And no, I don't want to join the ranks." he then told her. "But this IS quite important, I would say." he then assured her further.

"Regardless, I'll meet you inside the place." he went on.

"Get there a few minutes early and such... unless you beat me to it." he finished.

Jaden sighed.

"Yeah... yeah, he does." he agreed.

"Anyway, yeah, wanna talk to you about... well... a number of things." he said.

"But before we do, want to order?" he asked.

"Or do you have any sort of idea as to what you want?" he asked further.

"Just to get it out of the way before we talk business, so to speak." he reasoned.