They were almost all Tier Two and Three.

Which translated into it being after midnight and I still had most of the money that I’d given the barkeep. And after seven hours of listening to how these ‘heroes’ had each slain a floor boss a whole tier higher than them by themselves and with their bare hands, I was ready to cash out and get a room.

There was one person who had been sitting in the corner all night and watching me. I needed to hear a different story, so I walked over to him and motioned at the table across from him. “Do you mind?”

The golden man shrugged. “Seems like you own the place tonight.”

He was bald and wearing goggles, so I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. He was wearing thick denim armor, so he was probably a Speed/Magic hybrid.

I sat down and smiled at him. “Viskor…” I almost used my real name. “Tres.” If this blew up, I didn’t want it to get back to my family. By using the city as my last name, I was outing myself as coming from Mundane lineage.

“Tres?” The gruff man shook his head. “Really? A tee four and no family has scooped you up?”

Mantles slowed down how one aged and the higher Tier the mantle was, the longer one could live. Which meant that someone who was Tier Five and a hundred, probably looked like a Mundane in their mid-thirties. All of that meant that it was impossible to gauge how old someone was just by looking at them but this man looked old like he shouldn’t be dungeoning much longer old.

“What can I say?” I spread my arms and grinned. “I like to be a free man.”

“Right… A free man that spreads every All he has because he doesn’t want to get robbed.”

I grinned. I must have looked like I had money, because quite a few of the female Adventurers had tried to hang on my arm. Normally, I would have entertained them to my heart’s content, and theirs too. But tonight I needed to have people tell the grittier version of their stories. Something about chivalry kept those stories under lock and key while there were women at the table, so having them continue to flock around me had slowed that down. So I’d told a story about how I’d won a bet with a Noble and was afraid that I'd be robbed, so I was spending every All I had before that could happen. That had dissipated all of the women and men who had been hanging on my arm hoping for a handout. Well almost all of them. A redhaired, brown-eyed, golden woman wearing a very revealing leather top had been staying about an arms length away from me the whole night. Coupled with the scars she was sporting, I could tell she wasn’t someone who sought handouts.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The woman sat down in between us. “Had enough?”

I raised an eyebrow as I stuck out my hand. “Viskor Tres. Pleased to meet you. What do you mean by enough?”

“Nyssa Tizon.” A small smirk cracked her lips as she saw where my eyes were fixated. Given her shirt, there was a part of me that was lamenting that it was her hair that was holding my attention. I’d seen women braid their hair before, but I’d never seen anything like this. She’d started at the front and done three tight, small braids, then brought the hair under each of those braids together while braiding three of the braids together three times, then repeated the process until it was bound tightly at the back of her neck with metal beads.

“That’s amazing.” I nodded at her hair. “Never seen anything like it.”

“Thanks.” She nodded at the older man. “Gall Tizon.I’d ask you back to my room, but I don’t think my father would let us go alone.”

Tizon wasn’t a house name. It was late, so it took my brain a second to sort through the information I’d stored away thinking I’d never use it.Tizon was a city in the Shrine Ward to the west. It was also the city controlled by Tres’ mother.

I turned to the older man. “Only outlaws have second generation city names.” I shook my head. “And you were giving me a hard time about mine.

Nyssa looked around the bar. “I think this party has run its course. Why don’t you get what’s left of your money back and we go to our room?”

“I thought you said…” I heard the older man grunt and realized he was coming too. “Oh. Tempting….” I allowed myself to look her over one more time. “But I think I’ll pass.”

I started to get up and she caught my left hand. I didn’t feel the coin she had put in it at first until she started pressing on it.

“I really think you should join us.” She let me go and I looked at the coin for a second before putting it into my CB for safekeeping. To the rest of the Adventurers, it would have just looked like a one All coin, but to a Grenium, I could see the mark that was stamped on it. A mark of a trident, which was the symbol of one of Tizon’s personal guards, a Trident.

“Where are you staying?”