They walked in silence for the next few minutes, searching for a likely place to hide out. Nobody gave them anything more than a cursory glance, instead continuing on their way. There was only so much that they could conceal their auras though, and they still gave off a sense of power higher than normal for the area. However, that was hardly an issue. They only seemed to be near the peak of Tier 1 at most.

Ten minutes of aimless wandering later, they found something that looked promising for their needs. A small tavern with a sign in the window advertising a few open positions on the team. Called the Haunted Mule, it seemed down on its heels. It was exactly what they needed, a place to hide out with a cover story for their presence. Smiling slightly, Jonathan pushed open the door and strode in.

The tavern was largely empty, and the one of the few patrons there sat against the bar, in some form of drunken stupor. Every now and again he would mutter to himself under his breath. As Jonathan watched, he slumped over, and fell out of his chair. Nobody helped him.

The bartender, a swarthy middle aged man seemed to have seen such a display many times before, and he simply continued to clear a cup that seemed to be getting more dirty from the rag he was using than the other way around.

“It says you’re hiring?” Jonathan queried.

“Depends on who’s asking,” the bartender grunted, not looking up. “Do you have what it takes?”

“What exactly would it take?” Edgar asked, a look of confusion on his face. “It’s a job at a tavern. It isn’t exactly dimensional magic.”

“Be that as it may, do you have what it takes?”

“Yes?” Jonathan replied uncertainly.

“Good. You’re hired.”

Jonathan raised one eyebrow, and walked over to the bar. “Anything we need to do?”

“If you can clean and walk, you should be good. Get to work.”

Jonathan sighed, and picked up one of the ubiquitous stained rags, and began to clean. He kept his speed to a more normal level for the Tier he was pretending to be, which meant that he blurred around rather than simply appearing to be invisible. However, this display did not raise any eyebrows. Although he was quite powerful compared to a human baseline, he was nothing in the grand scheme of Mire, or at least his alter ego was.

Hushar and Edgar got to work as well, with both of them revealing a modicum of their elemental prowess. The fact that the bartender wasn't asking any questions was even more suspicious than the display was. However, the man was hardly a threat to them.

The next few days passed in a peaceful fashion, with them working the bar in the day, and on their masteries during the night. As none of them needed to sleep, it was easy enough to get in significant practice. Jonathan had resolved to wait until he had figured out the schedule of the bar before departing to Tartarus once more, so that they could be gone when nobody would come looking for them.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

In any case, it was a decent enough method of increasing Pathway skills and elemental mastery, and Joanthan was able to break through to the next level in his mastery of the Void through targeted meditation. It was now at thirteen percent. He hoped that would be a good portent, rather than an ominous one.

They made a few scant Leviathan marks for their work, which they only accepted as a cover more than anything else. The taciturn barkeep had refused to say his name, or even engage in anything more than basic conversation with them. That suited Jonathan well enough.

Sometimes, they explored the city, trying to find a cartographer who could provide them with a map of the world. However, most of them simply had maps of the city and its surrounding environs. Obviously, cartographers by trade would be unlikely to go out adventuring in the far reaches of Mire.

The best shops were in the center of the city, where the nobles lived, or whatever the equivalent was in Mire. However, that section of the city was walled off from the rest, similar to how the center of the Ashen Citadel had been sectioned off from the rest of the city. It had far higher level guards than the rest of the city did, with some of them even reaching level 270, around that of Theodore. However, Jonathan doubted that they were at a similar level of strength.

Still, it would be highly risky to assault such a heavily guarded part of the city without some sort of plan. For now, he simply had to wait.

In an dungeon of the Oozing Bastion

Tukar, Maranta and Bordeg languished beneath the catacombs of Slothari’s city, trapped within one of her dungeons. Branth was kept in a separate room, left to languish in an even greater level of filth than the others, as punishment for deserting his company. All of the mercenary companies of Mire were ultimately under the control of Slothari, and betraying one was akin to treason. He could just about communicate with them, but there was hardly a point.

The dungeon was filled with other rebels and lost souls, and the darkness there was so absolute that even with their enhanced sight, seeing anything was impossible. It was a sort of torture that went beyond the physical, as most people at Tier 3 would already have a high resistance to pain.

They sat in a tiny cell, too small for them to stand up in, or indeed, do much of anything at all. All there was to do was cultivate their elemental affinity, or they would have, had there not been a pervasive anti magic array encompassing the entire dungeon. It was meant to be a place of punishment, and there was no punishment worse for the strong than to be denied that strength.

“How long has it been?” Tukar groaned, his voice weak.

“Hours? Days? Who knows. This place is like a tomb. Are we already dead?” Maranta replied.

“Have faith in Jonathan. He will come for us,” Bordeg said.

“Yes, but when? He is nowhere near powerful enough to defeat Slothari, and leveling to the max of Tier 3 will take months at the very least.”

“We lived through far worse during our trials of initiation in Tartarus. This is nothing compared to that.”

They lapsed into silence, with nothing to talk about that had not already been discussed.

In a corner of the room, a tiny fly sat on the wall, watching them. It was a tiny piece of Slothari’s form, and it transmitted information to the gestalt hive mind that made up her form. As of yet, there was nothing of note, save for the sweet suffering that she so delighted in. A thousand flies sat in the corners of a thousand rooms, watching their inhabitants. Only some of those inhabitants were still sane, or even alive.