It barely took me a moment to survey the enemies before I reacted.

Stood in front of me was the gnome leader, he was unarmed and therefore not a threat. Next to him on the right-hand side was a small catonid woman wearing a green beret and army fatigues. She pointed a crossbow squarely at my chest, though she looked uncertain.

On the other side of the gnome was the biggest lycanid I had ever seen. His head nearly touched the roof and his back was wider than a car.

He’d give Sally a run for her money with his bloated, vein covered muscles. He also pointed a crossbow, though this one was aimed at Bell.

I decided that he was definitely the most dangerous of the two, his steely gaze told me that he wouldn’t hesitate to fire. He was a born killer.

I acted, mostly on instinct.

Activating perception of the apex predator, I dropped my torch and dashed towards the large lycanid. It was a risky move. Stopping time severely drained my stamina which meant that if I didn’t time it perfectly I’d be unable to attack once the skill wore off.

I drew my dagger as time stood still, reaching the lycanid just in time to perform a precise slash along the tendons of his wrist.

It was an odd thing to watch, I saw his skin split and I knew his wrist would go limp enough to drop the crossbow, but because time had been stopped, no blood gushed out when my dagger made contact with his skin. It was an eerie sight.

I wished I still had my second dagger; I had much more practice dual wielding them than I did using one at a time. Though I guess you can’t cry over spilled milk. I made a mental note to buy a second one as soon as I could.

I resumed time after approximately two seconds and my stamina bar was down to less than a quarter.

Not wanting to waste time, I wrenched the crossbow out of the surprised lycanid’s limp hand and jumped backwards as blood finally began to gush from his wound.

I expected him to howl in pain but he barely released more than a surprised grunt as his limp wrist dripped blood onto the ground.

As I moved backwards I swung the bow around and placed the tip of the bolt firmly into the side of the gnome’s head. I was certain that he was the leader of this ragtag militia and hopefully that would make the catonid think twice about using her own crossbow.

“Drop your weapons!” I shouted, “or the little guy gets it.”

The catonid swung around to face me, visibly much more startled than her growling counterpart. She looked between me and the gnome and then with a sigh, placed her weapon on the ground.

Bell hurriedly kicked it out of her reach and pointed a hand at both her and the lycanid, little flames sparked threateningly from her palms.

“Well done human,” Asmodeus said with a little nod, “that was exhilarating… can we do it again?”

I’d almost forgotten that he’d been perched on my shoulder the entire time. I wondered how he’d experienced my skill. Maybe it felt like teleportation to him? I’d have to ask him later.

“Well, gnome,” the lycanid growled in a deep huff that was quite typical for his people, “it seems this human of yours has spunk. I like him.”

“Yes,” the gnome nodded, seemingly unphased by the crossbow bolt prodding his podgy little temple. “He is quite unique… for a human. I think he could prove most useful to the cause.”

“Hold on a god damned second,” I said, feeling the temperature rise in my chest. “I haven’t agreed to anything, why would I even consider helping you out after you led us into an ambush?”

The lycanid laughed dangerously, his eyes watched me intensely. It was unnerving.

“Apologies human, it was but a test,” the gnome replied nonchalantly.

“Testing for what exactly?” I growled, “you’re lucky I didn’t kill you.”

“A test,” he explained, “to determine how you would react under unknown, threatening situations. We wanted to see what choices you would make. Would you try to talk your way out of it? Would you attack us in a fit of rage and get shot? Or would you use your personal power to turn the tide? Suffice to say, we are most impressed.”

“Oh goodie, I’m so glad I’ve won your respect,” I replied, shaking my head.

“You speak facetiously,” the gnome continued, “but you should be glad to have won our respect. Without it you would never have made it out of here alive.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He shot me a devilish grin and then clicked his fingers. The room lit up suddenly with blinding florescent lights and I realised that we were surrounded by at least fifteen militia members all pointing crossbows at us.

Well shit, the little guy’s got game.

“It seems we are outgunned, human,” Asmodeus said loudly, “would you like me to devour their souls for you?”

“I can fireball them to death?” Bell suggested, “it’s been a while since I got to enjoy the pleasures of burning flesh.” She shot an evil grin at the group of guards closest to her and a few of them grimaced and squirmed where they stood. I couldn’t blame them.

“You literally burned half the population of an entire island to death barely three days ago,” Panda said, shaking his head and pulling out his pipe as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

I smiled to myself. My little team was becoming pretty awesome.

“I like her too,” the lycanid growled, gesturing towards Bell with his limp wrist, “the little dragon… not so much.”

“How dare you?” Asmodeus said, glaring at the behemoth from my shoulder, “I am not little… I’m fun sized.”

“Alright then gnome,” I said, trying to put steel into my voice, “what do you want from us? You said we should talk in private, so talk.”

“Perhaps you would like to remove that weapon from my head first?” He asked.

“No thanks, I think it’s fine just here for now.” I replied cooly.

“Very well then,” he sighed, “this little community you see before you is called the Under-Slums, it is a place for outcasts, minor races and those who are mistreated and abused by the current capitalist system of Cali Port and indeed, the rest of the continent.

“Down here we follow a simple yet fair rule, ‘all for one and one for all’. We have a hierarchy of course, which is run by an elected representative. Our council meets once a week to discuss the best ways in which to enrich our citizen’s lives and we try to keep things fair and equal for all of our people.

“In order to do this we formed a worker’s union above ground, the idea being to campaign for fairer wages and working conditions for the lower classes. As things stand, many can’t afford to feed their young on the meagre wages forced on us by the bourgeoisie who own all the businesses and land.”

“And that’s why you blockaded the gates, to protest these unfair wages?” I asked.

“Exactly,” the gnome replied, “when the upper classes decided to laugh at our demands we realised a show of force was necessary. Sadly, they only seem to understand violence and power, but they forget that there are many more of us than there are of them.

“All we want is equality among all the people of Cali Port, a fairer share of the wages, less discrimination, a peaceful and moral life. A communist utopia.”

“This doesn’t sound very communist to me,” Bell pointed out, “it’s definitely left wing, but I’d barely even call it soft socialism.”

“Good point,” I replied, furrowing my brow, “where we’re from communism is about the government owning everything and distributing it evenly among people. All jobs pay the same, it’s true equality. Everyone works together for the good of the community. Well, that is, unless you’re an artist, musician, writer or philosopher… and unless a maniac takes power and corrupts the entire idea, which literally always happens.”

“That is very interesting,” the gnome replied, his eyes twinkling slightly, “it sounds very similar to the gnomish hives we come from.”

“Like I said before,” Panda interjected, “your definitions are different to theirs.”

“Then why do they use the same words?” Bell asked, “How is it that two completely separate places have developed the same words for their politics but they don’t have the same meaning?”

Panda shrugged and then a message notification popped up in our group chat.

Panda: My best guess is that they aren’t using the same words as you. They speak an entirely different language to you outworlders, remember? The language you hear is being translated by your skills, the political factions of this world use words that would be alien to you, so I think the system is translating them by using words that are close in meaning, but that you are also familiar with.

Kaleb: Then what about the race names? I’ve never heard of a lycanid before back on Earth.

Panda: No, but you have heard the word lycanthrope and the word cat, and a garuda is a mythical creature from Earthen culture. The words you’re being given by the system all mean something to you, even if they’re spliced together with another word.

Bell: Why didn’t you tell us this before? It could have saved us a lot of confusion.

Panda: Honestly, I didn’t really consider it until recently. As a sage I can speak the languages of this world and the language of my summoner automatically. All of those languages get jumbled up in my head, they make sense to me, but it’s as natural as breathing. It’s part of being a daeomon.

Kaleb: I guess that makes sense. So we need to abandon everything we know about Earthen politics and assume that our faction words don’t match up with those of this world.

Panda: I would say so, yes. It seems that the factions of this world have similar ideas to that of yours, but they’re not identical.

Asmodeus: Cease this idiocy, the three of you have been standing in silence for almost a minute. The gnome looks quite worried.

Bell: HI AZZY!

Panda: Who added him to the chat?

Bell: I did, we’re besties now.

“Ok gnome,” I said, pulling out of the chat and seeing the puzzled expression on his face. “I understand what you’re saying, so how about you call off your guards and we can chat about it over a nice drink?”

“… ok…” the gnome replied wearily, lifting his hand which in turn signalled the guards to lower their weapons and leave the room. “Would you mind explaining why you were silent for so long?”

“I just needed a minute to think things through that’s all,” I replied with faux confidence. “You threw a lot of information at me there and I needed to sort through it.”

“Like a loading screen,” Bell added unhelpfully.

“Well then, shall we move to a more comfortable room and begin negotiations?” He asked.

“Yes, of course,” I replied courteously.

Negotiations? What the hell are we negotiating?

“This is going to be fun,” the lycanid said in a deep, hoarse voice, “he he he.”