“Is that Bedrick?” Jonas asks out of the corner of his mouth as he sinks a little lower in the booth. “Is Bedrick Brathwaithe coming this way?” The way he’s acting you’d think this Bedrick guy is a Marvel superhero.

“Looks like,” Flynt agrees.

The man approaching us is human and older, the gray sheen of his blond hair suggesting he’s in his 40s—though a fairly hard 40s judging by the scar across one eye and down his cheek and neck. He wears chain mail and leather armor that clinks slightly as he moves. He has a large silver cloak statement piece that really ties the whole outfit together and wears a sheathed sword at his side. He walks heavily and with purpose. People momentarily silence as he passes, and after, they lean into one another and whisper. The Silver Swords (as this Bedrick character’s adventuring party seems to be called) have been drinking by the bar for longer than I’ve been downstairs, but I suppose that’s a little different from one of them walking through the tavern. The dull roar of conversation lessens to more of a loud murmur as he comes to a stop beside our table. He holds something.

“We wanted to say, good job out there.” Bedrick’s voice is gruff and, like a lot of people I’ve heard around the tavern, his accent sounds like one of those guys at Dragon*Con who has made being a Whovian a major part of his personality and laments that he isn’t actually British. “We’d never have expected novice adventurers to charge in against that many spell casters, but you got their attention long enough for us to get into position and bring them to heel. You made that fight a lot easier, and probably saved civilian lives in the process. You should feel proud of yourselves.” He offers a smile that comes off more as a grimace, and he directs it especially toward me for some reason. “You shared the risk, you should share the reward. Maybe this will help you kids get started.” He drops a small brown sack onto the table. “You be careful out there.”

He knocks the table once with badly scarred knuckles, then turns on his heel and meets his compatriots at the door. An extremely tall, heavily muscled woman with a giant ax on her back catches my eye and nods once as she claps the man on the shoulder, and the five Silver Swords exit together. The moment they do, the roar comes back with a vengeance.

We are all frozen for a long beat, then we look at the sack on the table in one united movement. There’s another pause before Tyrus snatches it up like a frog grabbing a fly and he opens it, peering in.

“Oh shit,” he says.

“What is it?” Jonas asks, coming out of his starstruck stupor, though his face is a little ashen.

“What do you think it is?” Tyrus’s voice is a low, harsh whisper. “Coinage. More coinage than I’ve ever had at one time. All gold pieces.”

Flynt whistles between his teeth, and his gaze meets Meg’s across the table. “What do you think about that?”

“I’m not going to chase after them to try to give it back, if that’s what you’re asking. It must have come from the city. They wouldn’t pay us from their own pockets. Not that much gold, anyway.”

Jonas sits forward, craning his neck. “How much is in there?”

“I don’t want to dump it out in the middle of the tavern now, do I?” Tyrus clutches it close, eyes darting around, suddenly paranoid.

“Oh, come on. Everyone saw him give it to us,” I say. “Just count it in the bag.”

“Fine, fine, hold on.”

We sit in anxious silence as the dwarf carefully counts, moving each gold piece aside to do so. I take a sip of my drink, which I’m almost finished with, and my stomach growls. I could use some French fries, though I doubt they have them. Maybe some bread? Or an actual meal would be good… but I’m a little concerned about what the food situation is. It may be a dream, but it feels like I’ll have to eat eventually. Some stew might be pretty safe…

“Twenty-five,” Tyrus breathes. “Twenty-five gold pieces.”

“Five each,” Flynt says. Meg nods her head.

I shake mine. “I barely did anything. You should divide my share.”

“No. Even split,” Meg says. “Five ways.”

“I don’t… I don’t even know how money works here.”

A pause as they all stare at me again.

“You do have some, though, right?” Flynt asks.

“Yeah, a little, but I mean… how does it work? Copper, silver, gold?”

“Iron, copper, silver, and gold,” Tyrus replies. “I don’t know about where you come from, but silver is the base here. Gold is… a lot. Ten irons make a copper, ten copper make a silver. Fifty silvers make a gold.”

It’s my turn to be a little stunned. Apparently, my little starting allotment wasn’t so bad after all. Thanks, Erin, for that VIA upgrade.

“I mean, what does that mean, though? What’s average income here?”

“Depends on what you do,” Meg says. “But you can generally live quite comfortably in Oosal on about two gold a month.”

“Well. Comfort is relative,” Jonas remarks.

“We should maybe divide it up in Keira’s room,” Flynt says. “Just in case. I agree with Tyrus, we don’t want that much money out on the table.”

“And you should do it,” Meg says. “Make sure that Tyrus didn’t miscount.”

“You don’t trust me?” Tyrus asks, still clutching the coin purse to his chest.

“I don’t know you.”

“You don’t know him either,” the rogue points out.

“No, but look at him. At the spells he threw. How he took care of her. He’s the trustworthy one at this table.”

“Oh, the wounding,” Jonas says. “You’ve known me for years.”

“Exactly. And that one?” She nods toward me. “No offense, but I don’t really believe anything that has come out of your mouth after I’m new here.”

Which, ouch, but yeah, alright, fair enough.

“Maybe I’m just a very good actor,” Flynt says before I can respond.

“Trust me, you’re really not, Mr. Paragon, and we both know it.”

Meg and Flynt both crack small smiles at that, and it feels like there’s a conversation happening between the words that the rest of us just don’t understand. For a moment I wonder if it’s flirtation or if lines are being drawn. Could go either way.

“Okay, so we’ll deal with our newly gotten gains momentarily,” Jonas says. “Are we all agreed we’re going to give the notice board a shot and see how we work together? Because Meg and I have been trying the duo thing and it’s just not that tenable.”

“Especially since one of us doesn’t exactly bring the damage,” Meg replies.

“Exactly. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of what I do unless I get close enough to apply withering hands.”

“Withering hands?” I ask.

“It’s a spell I learned,” Jonas says. “A kind of creepy spell that honestly works a lot better when gardening than when fighting, but my mentor promised that as I get better at channeling my energy the spell will improve with me.”

“You’re still never going to be much of a fighter,” Meg says.

“No, I’m really not.” He sighs. “We’ve been trying to figure out how you network and find others, but there really aren’t a lot of novice adventurers these days. At least not any we’d especially want to connect with.”

“As we do have morals and all,” Meg adds.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Douchebag said something along those lines,” I say. “Adventurers being in short supply.”

“Douchebag?” Flynt raises an eyebrow.

“Um. You know what? I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s not a compliment.”

“I gathered.” He glances into the room where the young Stormbringer scion holds court with a bunch of similarly aged, similarly dressed young people. “He is right about that, though. Adventuring isn’t as common as it used to be. You can still make some pretty good money doing it, but it’s dangerous, and it’s not an easy living. Most of us who want to take it on have adventurers in the family. My mother. Meg’s grandfather.”

“My aunt,” Tyrus says.

“I just have Meg,” Jonas replies. “My family are bakers.”

“No adventurers for me, either, that I know of,” I agree. “Not really. Where I come from, adventuring is generally thought to be just monster hunting and that kind of thing. Is it the same way here?”

Flynt shrugs. “There are a lot of monster hunters out there. But a lot of monster hunting is also a little incidental. There’s questing, too, especially once adventuring teams start to get experience and level up their skills. The Dragon Wars saw a lot of valuable, powerful artifacts disappear, and many of them still haven’t been recovered, despite the centuries. The rich and powerful and the academic citadels will pay good money if you come across one.”

“And there’s dealing with the evil magic users,” Jonas says. “Like the types we just ran into. Mundane fighters can do a lot, don’t get me wrong, but a city watch is really more meant for normal crime. There’s not much most of them can really do against a whole company of evil mages. Adventurers fill in the gaps.”

I frown. I’ve played a lot of D&D over the years, but never really thought about it. Now, though, this whole adventuring system seems weird. What’s to stop anyone from deciding I want to be an adventurer? What makes our group so different from the so-called mundane fighters of the city watch?

“What is it that separates us?” Maybe the question will sound naïve— it certainly feels like something I should know if I’ve grown up in this world, but, you know, I haven’t. “What makes us adventurers and them mundane? It can’t just be a choice, right? Otherwise, wouldn’t everyone choose to learn magic, develop the skills?”

Meg toasts her mug toward me. “The million-gold question. Gramps’s theory is that it’s due to the redistribution of residual dragon magic. Some have been imbued with more of it, allowing us to tap into powers and develop these skills if we want them, and then some haven’t.”

“It makes a kind of sense,” Flynt says. “You don’t really hear about adventurers during the dragon ages. Not the same way, anyway.”

“That’s because the dragons kept them down,” Tyrus replies. “That’s part of why the Dragon Wars were fought to begin with, they were keeping all the magic to themselves.”

“So magic is a finite thing?” I ask.

Jonas swallows the remains of his drink. “Is there no magical theory where you’re from?”

“Not really. Well. Lots of theory, but nothing concrete. Nothing practical. Not that I know, anyway.”

“The theory is that it’s finite,” Flynt says, tone shifting a little more academic as the lightly western drawl fades. “When the world was created, some suggest that it was done so with a certain amount of magical energy. Everyone has a little bit of it, and that’s what gives us a soul, sentience. Some of us have a lot more. That’s what gives us the types of abilities and skills we have.”

“How do you know if you have more than average?” I ask. “I can’t cast any spells. I shoot a bow and arrow. What makes my skills different than a normal archer on the city wall?”

“They may not be, to be honest,” Jonas says. “We might get you out there and get a couple quests down and discover you’re not advancing at all. Things just aren’t connecting, your skills aren’t improving. Then we’ll know.”

“We could also try to teach you a couple of basic spells,” Flynt adds. “I think we have a book of ranger’s spells in the Emporium, I can maybe let you borrow it.”

I remember my skills sheet. I didn’t have anything hinting that I could cast spells. But I did have a lot of locked talents…

“How do you all know you are one of these special people?”

“I can heal or wither with a touch of my hands,” Jonas says, holding them out in front of him, his fingers spread. “Meg is wielding a magic sword she can power with her own Essence. Flynt slings spells. Tyrus can basically disappear in plain sight.”

“More or less,” the dwarf agrees.

“Being honest with you, you may not be cut out for this,” Meg says. “You need to be prepared for that. Don’t get your hopes up yet.”

“And there’s no other way to know except to get out there and see if the bell goes ding, level up?”

“For a novice-leveled ranged fighter? Not really,” Jonas admits. “Sorry. Not unless you’re showing other magical affinity, which judging by your face when Flynt suggested the book, I expect not.”

“Great.” I sigh. It would be just my luck— and just the sort of fuckery my brain would get up to— to find myself in a magical setting and not actually have any magic. But I have to, right? Flynt said [Skills] and [Abilities], just like in my [Menu]. That’s needlessly repetitive phrasing, and the purposeful use of it suggests it actually means something. “I guess we’ll find out then. Because I’m not just going to sit around and let you all have all the fun.”

“And that’s why I have faith you do,” Flynt says, laughing and clapping a hand briefly on my shoulder. “Come on. Finish your drink. Let’s get those coins divided so you can get some sleep.”

“Why am I the only one who needs to get some sleep?” I ask, picking up my mug and looking down into it for a moment before shrugging and swallowing down the remains in one big gulp that gets a ha! from Tyrus. “I don’t even think elves do sleep.”

“Of course you sleep,” Meg says. “What kind of elf doesn’t sleep?”

“The badass kind,” I mumble, starting to have doubts as to how I feel about Meg. But I do like Jonas. And Flynt, though I also think Flynt is trying a little too hard to get me to like him, which makes me wary. The jury’s still out on Tyrus. That makes me feel a little bad. Meg probably has a good reason for being a little too serious and literal, a little bit cagey.

I stand and feel the ale go directly to my head, making me wince.

“Easy there,” Flynt says, standing with me and holding out an arm, which I shake my head at.

“I’m fine.”

“Elves are such lightweights,” Jonas chuckles, following suit by getting to his feet and letting Meg and Tyrus out.

“Should we pay?” I ask.

“I’ll get it on the way out,” Flynt says. “My treat.”

“I like you more and more, Mr. Paragon,” Tyrus replies with a lightly mocking tone as he hands over the coin purse.

“That really better not stick.”

“Oh, it’s sticking,” Meg says, smirking. And I do like her for that.

It takes me a couple steps to feel confident, then I lead them toward the stairs and up to my small room halfway down the hall. We all cram inside, and I realize in that moment how tall we all are. Tyrus is short, of course, about up to my chest, but Meg is easily a couple inches taller than I am, and Flynt half a head taller than that, probably closer to six-foot-six than I thought. Jonas is about my height.

“Okay.” Tyrus looks up at Flynt. “This is very unnerving for me. Can you count out the coins so I can get out of this forest of people?”

I almost snort at that, and he scowls at me as Flynt dumps the coins out in the palm of his large, pale green hand (a fact that is already starting to feel less weird to me).

The coins are smaller than I expected, more like little tabs of metal, each with a stylized Q stamped on one side and a coat of arms on the other. He counts out five and hands them to Jonas, then five to Tyrus, five to Meg, five to me, and he keeps his hand held out to showcase the five to himself.

“All accounted for,” he states. “Good job, Tyrus.”

“For the record, I could have palmed as many of those as I wanted and none of you would have known.”

“I have no doubt,” Flynt agrees. “But I don’t think you did.”

“I didn’t. But I could have.”

“We’ll keep that in mind. So we meet at the notices in the morning?” Flynt looks between us, and Tyrus nods as he pushes to the door.

“Bright and early I’m sure,” he says, stuffing the coins into a pouch on his belt before he opens the door. “After breakfast, though. Ninth bell. No earlier. I don’t like mornings.”

“Ninth bell it is,” Meg confirms with a sigh. She nods at Jonas, and follows Tyrus out the door with Jonas close behind. He wishes me a good night with one of his warm smiles, shakes Flynt’s hand, and disappears at her heels, (thankfully) leaving the door open.

“Ninth bell,” he says, and I repeat it, completely unclear how I’ll even known what time it is.

A blink on the edge of my vision.

> [ACHIEVEMENT: FELLOWSHIP]

As he’s about to leave, I catch Flynt’s sleeve and he falters on his way out the door. I hope he doesn’t get the wrong idea, but I need some answers here, and, for whatever reason, he seems eager to help me.

“Just, real quick, can I ask you what I hope won't be as weird a question as I think it's going to sound?”

He hesitates, glancing out the opened door, then looks back to me. “Weirder than not knowing how money works?”

“Yeah. Much weirder.”

His light green brow furrows and he sets the door closed, folding his arms across his chest. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“You guys talk about abilities and being squishy… so you see the menus too, right?”

“Menus?”

“You know. The stats bar and achievements and abilities, the XP. Stuff like that. The [System].”

He gives me a look that says he has no idea what I’m talking about. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he says, slowly, inspecting me. “I haven't heard of anything like that before. Has it only been since you got to Qeth?"

"Pretty sure."

"Hm. I’m not personally religious, but maybe Certain is looking out for you, in your new place?”

“Certain?”

“Our goddess of travelers and those lost. Or, you could have some kind of intuitive magic that got triggered… I have heard of Qeth doing that. Or, maybe, Keira, you've been through a bit of a trauma and hit your head when you fell. "

"Maybe." Though I was definitely seeing messages before hand.

"It's also possible you’re just losing all sense of reality.” He grins at that, underscoring humor. He's not really giving it a lot of credibility, though can I especially blame him? How would I react if someone said the same to me?

“Right,” I scoff, then sigh. “That might actually make me feel better if I could be sure of that.”

He chuckles. “Isn’t that part of losing your mind? You don’t actually know it’s happening to question it, so you just go along as if it’s entirely natural?”

“Catch-22.” He raises an eyebrow. “It’s a, uh, story where I come from about exactly that. Plus some other things. Fog of war and… all.”

“You’ll have to tell it to me some time,” he says.

“You probably wouldn’t thank me if I did,” I reply. “But, uh. Thank you. For today. I’m not sure what I’d have done without your help. I was pretty lost there.”

“You looked it.” He grins in a way that shows off his small lower tusks, which are just larger than his other teeth and only notable because I was sub-consciously looking for them. They’re not as awkward as I would have expected; they suit him, and, if anything, they somehow add to his overall charm. “Glad I could help. And that I didn’t get you killed.”

“I’m glad for that too.”

“And I don't think you've lost touch with reality. I think you're just tired. I’ll come by in the morning,” he says. “Help you find your way to the notice board. Meantime, get some food and get some sleep. You’re going to have a bit of a hangover in the morning. Healing that deep, it hits like a runaway wagon.”