The orcs unceremoniously dumped Gary off at his newly chosen prefab bohemian home. Filled with all kinds of knick-knacks, and baubles in an effort to make him appear to be more interesting. Of course he wasn't, but the home would at least make him seem somewhat tolerable to be around.

The orcs had fortunately untied him, and returned his backpack to him.

He decided to first find the bathroom in his new home, and shower. Afterwards he would go out and get a haircut. Becoming a baronet was quite a step up from being a know-nothing nameless nobody. It even came with a small stipend. Gary could finally live out one of his many random, and fleeting dreams. He could finally live a bohemian lifestyle. Dedicated to…uum hmm Gary isn't sure if he has any interest in creative pursuits. He's certainly interested in the creativity of others, but not so much his own.

Ah yes! Now he has it. Gary is now intent on enjoying the high bohemian lifestyle, as a bon-vivant. Lookout Calassaria here comes the man that will put the nouveau in nouveau riche!

Calassaria was on fire. Gary woke up in a ditch a large distance away from the city, and could tell that the smoke rising up from it was most definitely not decorative.

His memories were confusing at worst, hazy at best.

Gary decided to run off into the wilderness as he rightfully assumed that this was somehow his fault, and he would no longer be welcome. He could kiss goodbye to his easy life, and his nobility.

Let's rewind a few months.

Gary had decided to live his life in the best way possible. Filled with debauchery, excess, hookers! The works! So long as he still got his stipend he would live without a single care in the world. He was fortunate that Calassaria was such a luxurious city. Any pleasure, and treasure could be found here for the right price. Probably not a price that Gary could afford, but he didn't need to have everything in existence available to him. Just what was most pleasing in the moment.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Gary spent every night travelling through every dive bar, back alley, and motel 'partaking the fruit', as he would say. Every morning he would visit every apothecary, temple, and hospital to alleviate the sudden and mysterious rashes that he would develop. Claiming that clearly his crotch, and only his crotch, had somehow rubbed up against a particularly itchy poisonous plant. Not that anyone that helped him with his issues truly believed him. Gary learned to both love and hate those stupid, sexy tieflings.

One day in his months long binge, Gary made the awful mistake of walking into a gambling house. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't exactly the type of man that didn't get obsessed with the idea of 'winning' at gambling. In a small moment of clarity he once examined the last gold coin he was planning on betting. It was shiny and held the image of the plains goblin king on the front. On the back where the words "spend me, bitch" in goblinoid script. Fortunately for the coin, Gary was just the right bitch to spend the coin. This was Gary's last coin for that particular month. He wouldn't get his stipend until the next month, which was a month away. This led to him ending up in the debt of the tiefling mafia. This was not a good place for Gary to be.

Due to being extremely low on the nobility totem pole, and lacking any connections as he'd only just arrived, Gary was forced to make use of his 'skills' to pay back his debt. He spent a good deal of time as runner for the mafia. Generally avoiding death by the skin of his teeth, and still near constantly inebriated.He somehow ended up with more debt than he started with nearly every job. It's not like the threat of losing a few digits got to him. He had 10 fingers and toes after all. What difference did it make if he lost a few here and there. Eventually his debt got so large that the only possible way for him to pay it back was to take a leading role in a bank robbery. By this point the tiefling mafia had found out that he was a mage, and they hoped that they would be able to put him to real use.

The night of the robbery Gary was drugged up, convinced that this would be his last job, and pointed in the 'right' direction. This was a mistake that Calassaria, and the mob, would come to regret. Gary aimed his trusty laser musket, that he only just remembered he owned, at the wall just outside of the vault and fired. A whirlwind of mana descended upon the musket. Night turned to day, day turned to night, the smell of burnt strawberries filled the city.

The musket fired a beam of multicolored light turning the wall to ash. The beam also turned all of the coins to ash, and the bank, and the shop next to it, and the one after that, and a good portion of the city. A fire had started somewhere. All of the mages in the city who had been in the process of casting a spell had misfired when all of the mana came Gary's way. All of the men that had come with Gary were sprawled across the ground, having been overwhelmed by the mana burn.

Gary, in his stupor, made the only rational decision he could make in that moment, and escaped out of the city as far as his legs could carry him. Until, of course, he collapsed unconscious into a ditch.