"Who is that?"

Rend says "That is Lord Tremaine, he wants to embarrass you."

I take a step towards Tremaine and with a look clear out the people between us. Turning the manacles down to their lowest setting I draw Blitz and leap forward in a single action. In a split second my blade stops less than an inch from his throat, he hasn't even realized I moved yet.

There are gasps and muted screams all around me, to those with untrained eyes it would have looked like I teleported. Even to Borrik, Ambrose, and Roddick I probably looked like a blur moving across the room. Tremaine belatedly screams and falls on his rear trying to get away from my blade.

"Lord Tremaine, you wanted a demonstration didn't you?"

All the nobles around us are laughing behind their hands, except Pine, his face has gone ash white. It is obvious that he put Tremaine up to this and just as obvious that he didn't like the result. Any ideas he had about taking me head on just flew right out the window.

He probably thought I was all talk like the other nobles he knows, using a made up story to seem important. Now he knows I am very dangerous and hopefully he will focus on that threat and not look for other threats. He notices me watching him so I give him a nice big smile, one full of teeth.

When Pine sees my smile he has a couple of his cronies pick up Lord Tremaine and then they all leave the party. I calmly sheath Blitz and tone my smile down to a normal level before I turn around to face the crowd and give them a shrug. The nobles all laugh and pretend it was a great show as I walk back across the room to Lord Rend.

"Sorry for the interruption."

Rend says "No, no, I wouldn't have missed seeing that for anything!!"

"Which part, Tremaine falling over or Pine's face?"

Rend says "Tremaine falling on his rear was good, but Pine's face was priceless!"

"Glad you enjoyed it! So, any paperwork or anything I need to do to join the faction?"

Rend says "No, I will handle everything, just if anyone asks, you are a member of The People's Faction."

"Alright, I'm sure people will be asking after that little show."

Rend says "Oh, I guarantee it! No one, not even me, has had the guts to stand up to Pine publicly like that! Everyone is going to want to talk to you just so they can say they did."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Ugh, that is the last thing I wanted to deal with tonight."

Rend says "I can understand that, but you should really go mingle and get it out of the way. We can talk another time, under better circumstances."

"Sounds good, it was a pleasure meeting you. Much more so than meeting the rest of this crowd is going to be."

Rend laughs and shakes my hand again before I turn and walk away to start mingling. He was right, everyone wants to talk to me, and not one of them has anything interesting to say. I quickly lose track of who is who, there are just too many to remember after a brief introduction.

Or maybe it is just that I don't feel any of them are worth remembering. There are only two groups I take notice of, those that introduce themselves as members of my faction and those that have made snide comments. When those try to introduce themselves all they get is a sarcastic answer to their comment and then they get ignored.

The members of my faction I pay enough attention to that I will remember their names at least. Everyone else who asks gets told I have already joined The People's Faction, which is pretty much everyone else I talk to. They all try to be sly about asking if I have joined a faction yet but I just bluntly answer what they are really asking so that they will leave me alone.

Time passes so slowly that it feels like hours have passed since I talked to Rend when it has only been about thirty minutes. I am seriously contemplating just being rude and walking out when two plainly dressed men approach me. They introduce themselves as the guild masters of the blacksmiths and miners.

Pelos says "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lord Ash."

Scott says "If you don't mind, we have a problem we would like to discuss with you."

"Alright, I can listen for a minute. If nothing else it will keep the vultures away."

Pelos says "Hah! We have a similar opinion of them!"

Scott says "We are coming to you because of the story that is going around and because of your demonstration earlier."

"Ah, so you have something that requires the use of force?"

Scott says "Yes, we have a problem that involves beasts."

"Isn't that something you should go to the adventurer's guild for?"

Pelos says "We did, the first group that went in didn't come back, the second group came back heavily mauled."

Scott says "They said the beasts were so fast that they couldn't fight them."

"Can you describe the beasts?"

Pelos says "The second group of adventurers described them as big lizards with feathers."

"About five feet tall, moves on two legs, unbelievably fast?"

Scott says "You are familiar with them?"

"Yes, I've encountered and killed them in the underground beneath the kingdom."

Pelos says "Then you are just the man we are looking for!"

"So what's the rest of the situation?"

Scott says "The damn things have taken over an entire mine, and we have no idea where they even came from!"

Pelos says "It just happens to be the richest and most productive mine in the territory claimed by Illium. It being closed is severely hurting both our guilds."

"Do you have a map of the mines?"

As we move over to an empty table in the corner of the room so that Scott can spread out the map Ambrose, Roddick, and Borris join us. The guild masters greet each other as I am looking over the map, it covers quite a large area and seems to go fairly deep. Looks like I will be going back underground yet again, at least I got past my fear already.