This was Certus’ first day in a human city! His parents had told him to go explore the world, a euphemism for kicking him out of their abode. He had maybe caused a little too much trouble(It really wasn’t his fault that the local mage had lost their spellbook this time though), but with gold in his eyes and hopefully soon in his pocket he set off to be rich.

Of course, because he was a cleric of the admittedly sketchy God of Trickery, he did have a couple spells, although he’d been unable to advance in any way beyond the basics for a whole year now. One of which was Disguise Self, allowing him to block the vision of his kinda stubby horns which he absolutely in no way had an inferiority complex over. He did like his eyes though, and only changed the gold so that his eyes weren't solid gold. He still had gold pupils, he removed the tail entirely(which was quite striking, being black with streaks of gold), and lightened his hair color a little from full black, to brownish black. Everything else about him was majorly human, being a nice caramel color, and not being stuck with the hoofed feet that some of his more unfortunate brethren had.

But once he got himself settled enough to pass the city gates, he went directly to a tavern. All the books about heroes and whatnot always started with them meeting their party at taverns after all, so that was the first stop and shop so to speak. There weren’t too many people drinking because it was midday, so it wasn’t fully packed. Most of the people in the tavern weren’t drinking, but instead looking for parties. There were a couple kids on the side, wearing regular clothes, looking for a party to port for. Seemed like as good a way as any to make money.

Before he went over to stand by the kids searching for a job however, he first went into the bathroom and edited his disguise a little more, changing his wool hoodie into a coarser fabric, and changing his leather pants to look a little more beaten down. Hopefully the additional sympathy from the adventurers would make them more likely to choose him. It didn’t take too long before a party decided to pick him up as the requisite porter. It was a pretty normal party, made up of a fighter, and two other mages, including a cleric. Obviously, he didn’t tell them about him being a cleric of the God of trickery. He just said that he had no class and couldn’t find a job in town. He went on a whole spiel about how he was a orphan, abandoned

by his family, and living on the streets in total despair. He hadn’t eaten for days, the whole nine yards. While it was pretty evident they didn’t believe him, in some sense he figured they didn’t care enough about it, given that he was just the porter.

The mission they needed a porter for was in all of 2 hours, but since he didn’t really have anything he needed to prep he left them alone for the first of the two hours, inwardly dreading the moment he’d have to go back to them out of disguise. Then he decided to just go back and tell them now, rather than hope the expedition took less than an hour overall and that his disguise would hold out. They took it surprisingly well, Derrick(the fighter), and Madea(another of the mages) not really caring. They were both inhuman though, and the sole human(Vanidur, the cleric serving under the god of Protection, Helm) didn’t appear to like him. It didn’t really matter though, since it wasn’t like he’d risk sabotaging the mission without a personal grudge, and it looked more like it was based on his religion. Another hour passed, with everyone making small talk, until it was time to leave.

The mission they had this time was bandit subjugation, with them requiring proof of ten subdued bandits(right ear), and all loot gained from the bandits. Despite the fact that he wasn’t insanely strong, he was perfectly capable of porting the loot from place to place. The very first day they managed to get six bandit ears, stacking up a decent pile of loot too. They also managed to find the location of the bandit nest, meaning they knew where to go for the final four ears(and more!). The party paid for his inn room for the night, and he’d get paid in full directly after the last three. He left the scavenged things in a bag along with the warrior, although he couldn’t help but to swipe a couple coins(they wouldn’t miss it), and slept for the night.

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In the morning it was time to go. It took nearly until midday to make it to the bandit hideout, but they made it. The bandits were situated inside of a mountain cave, and the plan was for the party to wait until night and stealthily kill the guards. Then they’d be able to decide whether or not it was worth continuing the heist. Derrick snapped his fingers, and it was go time. Certus, Madea, and Vanidur all entered the cave directly after Derrick, doing their best to remain silent. That didn’t last for long though, since Vanidur dropped a dagger directly on the stone floor. The sound echoed through the entire cave, and they immediately heard the footsteps of what sounded like hundreds of bandits. That was all it took before Certus turned around and caught Maldea running out the cave entrance, collapsing it behind herself.

At this point, his only choice was to think fast, or get murdered in a gruesome manner by bandits. Unfortunately for the rest of his party self sacrifice was a foreign concept as far as he was concerned. He sidled into a dark corner of the cave entrance and disguised himself as part of the rabble, blending in with the crowd that burst into the entrance. Derrick and Vanidur were shortly disposed of, with the 20 something bandits that showed up not giving them a second to try and talk their way out of it before dogpiling them.

Now Certus had a different time limit, of one hour after which he either needed to be away from this group so he could disguise himself, or just straight up out of the cave. Luckily, with the combined efforts of all of the bandits it took around twenty minutes for the cave entrance to be cleared. In the end, he made it out of that encounter a good couple hundred gold richer, with how easy it was to steal from most of the bandits in there packed that closely to one another.

Unfortunately for him, the real trial wasn’t the bandits but how he would manage to keep getting jobs after a disaster like this. Everyone thought it was his fault his party died, because Madea had made it back. She told everyone his version of what had happened, and no one would choose to believe the porter tiefling over a prestigious magician. It only really clicked what this meant for Certur when most of the adventuring parties that came by the tavern looking for porters skipped directly over him, and went to even those who were smaller than him. A hard task to find, and an even harder hire to justify outside of the prevalent dislike for Certus.

But a year passed, he moved to a new town, began working with new adventurers, making normal money as a porter/medicine vendor, and left his past behind him.

The past never stays gone forever however, and one day he saw Madea in the inn he was currently looking for work in. Certus didn’t go talk to the bartender in search of jobs that day, and instead knocked out the bellboy in the back and disguised as him. When the bartender called for the bellboy(who happened to be resting quite nicely in the alley out back), Certus was the one who showed up and carried her bags up to her room.

It took a while for him to push himself into it. Justifications like “If she tells the same stories about me here, it’ll ruin my life” or other such nonsense. In the end, it was revenge. Honestly, surprise made it an incredibly easy kill, and no one suspected the bellboy who came back downstairs. It didn’t take long for shame to wash over himself, and he now had a new promise to himself. Nobody could ever find out about the fact that he straight up murdered a mage. When he went back to the inn the next day though, nobody even suspected him, and the only thing that had changed was the fact that there was no bell boy. Unfortunate for him, but for Certus it was better the bellboy than himself.

It was almost looking like cleric wasn’t for him, what with his willingness to kill for something as trivial as this. But it seemed his god disagreed, with this being the first time in two years his god had offered any type of growth. That morning, he had woken up knowing new spells and cantrips, and officially becoming an actual cleric. He received the proper amount, whereas before all he knew was Charm Person and Disguise Self. Maybe his life really was on a permanent trend upwards?

For the next two years, he took odd jobs, moving between towns, although with the newfound fact that maybe he really could cheat his way through life, he became a con artist. His main con was card tricks, and he made some pretty good money off of it, but every now and then he sold odd things he managed to buy or otherwise acquire. He stayed relatively afloat, racking up nearly 200 coins.