“A little humility goes a long way. A lot of humility goes nowhere.”

I don’t know which religious leader tongue-fucker said that, but I gotta give it to him - unlike most nuggets of wisdom, this one is actually gold. Take it from someone who has spent most of his life going nowhere. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I never wanted to wear any of the flashy clothes or jewelry that lots of guys wore to the clubs, and I never went for the girls who wore that kind of stuff. If I saw a gucci belt with the GG logo, it meant I’d already lost - good game. Problem is, the more I grew to disdain those ostentatious folk, the more I dressed down - old t-shirts and ragged jeans. I’d gone too far the other way, too stuck in my bitterness and envy to change. Anybody with half a fashion sense would have looked way better than me, even if my bank account and bicep measurements little-person’d theirs. Shit, these younger guys are getting fucking nipple rings these days. I don’t think I’ll ever have enough man-points to pull that off.

“...there were dozens of these dangerous fish monsters… maybe even a hundred… and they all swam at us at once, ready to rip us to shreds - but we drew our blades and slaughtered all of them with ease.” I recounted.

We were presenting this tall tale to the adventuring class, where every group was taking turns sharing what happened during their expeditions.

Behind me, Spud, Beck, and Sylvana all nodded their heads. That’s totally what happened.

Naturally, Ms. Brooks had a few questions.

“These fish monsters - can you describe them?” she asked.

“Yeah, they were grey, scaleless… they only had a tailfin… and they had a green light on top.”

Ms. Brooks clapped her hands. “Ah! You must be talking about fishlights! They’re quite common in cave systems around here. Tell me, Mr. Razzetti, did the fish have teeth? -I’ll know if you’re lying.” she added pointedly.

“No, ma’am, they did not.” I admitted.

Murmuring broke out among the rest of the students in the adventuring class, everyone registering their opinion on the difficulty of my squadron’s accomplishment.

Whatever. Half of these douchebags didn’t kill shit.

“They didn’t pose much of a threat then, did they?” she persisted ruthlessly.

“Beck almost drowned!” I argued.

“No ma’am… they did not.” Sylvana answered for me.

“And that’s just fine!” Ms. Brooks “For your first time in the killing field, your squadron did… hmm… average. What’s important is to learn from what happened, and figure out what you could have improved.”

That made me feel a bit better.

“Can anybody tell me the big thing they did wrong?” she asked the class.

Never mind…

The rest of the class was silent. As far as they were concerned, my squad was radioactive cancer - they wanted negative (less than nothing) to do with us.

Finally, Ms. Brooks answered her own question.

“All four of them went into the cavern!” she began. “In that situation, the best thing to do would be to keep one person outside. That way, they could have gotten help from the forward base if there were any problems. For example, what would you have done if the rope chafed against the rocks and snapped while you were in the cavern?”

She has a point…

“We would have resorted to cannibalism, ma’am.” Beck answered matter-of-factly. “Starting with him.” he pointed to his brother.

“Nuh-uh! You’ve got more meat on your bones!” Spud countered. “It’s only fair!”

“Another thing!” Ms. Brooks interjected before the argument could spiral into a full shitnado. “When it comes to fishlights: the juveniles have bright green lights. As they mature, the light dims to yellow, and eventually red when they reach their full adult forms. The adults are much larger, and they have teeth, so always remember: green means GO! Yellow means CAUTION! And red means STOP! Make sense?”

“Yes ma’am” we said.

A little too much sense…

“If you’d gone for a swim with fully mature fishlights, you probably would have been eaten.” Ms. Brooks concluded. “So if you’d left a person outside of the cave, then at least that person would have survived!”

Brutal… I had no idea we sucked this much at adventuring.

“Now! Onto the story that I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for! Burt, will your group please come up front?”

If you think I’m going to write out that fuckhead’s whole fucking story, then you’ve got shit in your-

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-skull, because we were all going to hear about it plenty at the party they threw in his fucking honor.

I trudged sulkily down the road. The sun had just gone below the horizon, and it was getting dark fast. My destination: the Adventurer’s Guild.

The party they were throwing that night was supposed to be a real hellraiser - apparently the guild threw it once a year to celebrate the opening of the killing field to students, and to informally welcome them to the community of lowlife degenerates who risk their lives for pocket change.

The drinks would be free, and I would need all of them.

“Hi Bradley! Glad you could make it!” Ms. Brooks greeted me at the door. She was posted up at the guild entrance, bouncing any students who tried to crash the adventurer’s-only event.

“Hey Ms. B.” I waved. “See any of my crew?”

“Hmmm… Sylvana’s not here yet… and I believe I saw your friend Spud… in the lounge!” she recalled. “He was sprawled out on a sofa, spitting beer at people and yelling that he was a human water fountain - you might want to go help him.”

Already!? This thing only started 15 minutes ago!

I thanked her for her guidance and walked in.

I gotta hand it to the Adventurer’s Guild - their clubhouse is awesome. The building itself is one of the largest mansions in the city, squatting right next to Market square. I’d walked past it all the time, and even went up to the courtyard out front to peruse the kill quest reports, but this was the first time I’d ever actually been inside the building itself.

The interior did not disappoint. The main lobby is a wide-open L-shaped room, with the main entrance at the corner, and a great staircase on one end, leading up to a hybrid indoor-outdoor balcony area overlooking the rest of the lobby. I peered through one of the doorways leading away from the main room, and found that they collectively led to the lounge - another large room full of large stuffed furniture, flanked with the heads of wild animals.

The bar was nestled into the end of the L that didn’t have the staircase. There were a bunch of tables parked out in front, packed with squadrons of real, professional killing field janitors and overflowing with empty wooden tankards. In the middle of all of them, a special table had been elevated on a platform above all the other tables. A special table for special people. Burt, Stella, Clayton… and that other random hanger-on who had joined them on the first day of classes.

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Did I say special? I meant “special”.

As I stood at the entrance, taking it all in, a drop of something landed on my shoulder. I dabbed at it and sniffed…

Blood!?

I looked up… and there, hanging above the entrance… was the Primantipede that Burt’s group had slain!

It looked just as Burt had described to the class - which was amazing because of how ridiculous he’d sounded.

Fuck, where do I even begin with this thing… Think of a scorpion, but ten feet long. Its six hairy legs ended in oddly human hands, and its “stinger” looked just like an arm tipped with a frighteningly clawed hand… And despite all of this, it still had the huge compound eyes and razor mandibles of an insect. What a goddamn nightmare. This was the most powerful creature slain by any of the adventuring students on their virgin voyages, which is why Burt’s group was getting the victorious gladiator treatment.

They said they’d stumbled into the caves “on accident”, but I’m damn sure they went in on purpose, looking for the big game.

You know what? Good for them. Keep up the good work. Get yourselves killed, please.

I went over to the bar, edging my along the fringes of the hall to avoid detection. When the bartender finally served me, I slammed my beer in one go to let him know I meant business. He nodded silently and put two more down in front of me. Service here was really fast, and peering over the bar, I could see why - they had a gigantic pool of beer back there. The bartenders would dunk six tankards at a time in the pool to fill them instantly. A few barrels were lined up behind the pool, taps opened, just pouring endlessly into the tub.

God damn these people can drink.

I downed my second like I’d downed my first, and took my third on a stroll to the lounge, paying absolutely no attention to Stella and Burt’s game of footsie as I went.

As advertised, Spud was laying upside-down on one of the sofas, his back where you’d normally sit, his legs sticking out the top. He was holding a half-full drink, and he was talking to nobody in particular, making about as much sense as normal.

“Bradley! Buddy!” He called out when he saw me. “I just had the greatest idea!”

“Uh… what’s that?” I asked.

“They should make a cup with a hole at the bottom! So you can drink it like this!” he licked the bottom of his tankard with a salacious, flickering stroke that could give an angel an orgasm.

“That’s not how fluid mechanics works, dumbass.” said Beck, who had been sitting next to Spud with a dazed expression on his face.

I blinked.

Did Beck really just say “fluid mechanics?”. Nah, I must be hearing things.

I must have been seeing things too, because moments ago, my drink hadn’t been so empty. I doubled back, and this time the bartender dunk-poured four drinks for me. As I turned to re-enter the lounge, a patch of pretty pink hair caught my attention. It was attached to a familiar elfen girl, who was standing in between Burt and Stella, engaged in what was surely a super captivating conversation. I fought a strong urge to clap her on the shoulder and drag her back to the lounge with me, but eventually just decided to retreat. I’d already seen a couple of fights break out, and if Burt decided to take a swing at me, nobody was going to throw him out of his own party.

I parked myself on the couch next to Beck, handed them a couple of drinks, and kept the other two to myself.

“To business, gentlemen!” I announced, glargging on numero quatro. The brothers cheered and followed their vanguard into battle.

I glanced through a doorway at the main hallway - I had a pretty good view of the elevated table from here. Sylvana was laughing at something Burt had said. I glargged harder.

“Hey! Bradley!” A voice shouted. I looked up… as the group on the sofa opposite ours respectfully cleared out, making room for Zerch and his crew to plunk down.

“I heard you slayed some vicious, monstrous fish beasts!” he grinned.

“He almost died.” I said, pointing to Beck.

“You almost died first!” he protested.

Zerch laughed. “Tell me all about it!” he requested, his whole group leaning in to hear better over the shouting, fighting, music, and everything else.

I gave him my take of the events, this time making it a bit more realistic. But when I got to the part about slaughtering all the fishlights, their whole group, as well as the rest of the adventurers who had gathered around to hear my tyro’s tale, shouted in outrage. I was suddenly doused with the contents of every drink in the launch, drenching me from head to toe.

“What?!” I demanded. “They attacked us first!”

“Mate, you fucked up.” a grizzled veteran adventurer spat.

Don’t tell me those damn things were sentient or something?!

“They were just young’uns!” another protested.

“Yeah, I heard! What’s the fucking problem?!” I asked again.

“Matey! Mate. Matey…” the old adventurer said again. “Them there fishlights don’t have teeth, yeah? Just perfect, fleshy mouth holes! And they’ll latch onto anything! So what you can do with ‘em is…”

He leaned down and whispered something into Spud and Beck’s ears.

“No way! Really!?” Spud asked, incredulous.

“Bradley! We have to go back!” Beck cried.

“We’re not going back, and that’s final.”

“Easy for you to say! You’ve got the elf chick!”

I glanced at the table again. Stella was touching Sylvana’s hair, probably giving some animated compliment about how totally gorgeous she was. Burt had a “friendly” hand on the small of her back.

“Thanks for reminding me guys. If you’ll excuse me…” I stood up.

Do I really “got the elf chick”? Time to find out.

I walked up to the table, knifing my way in Between Burt and Sylvana. Clayton didn’t seem to notice, he was too busy ragging on their other group member. Poor sap.

“...so I used my magic to stun the thing, and-” oh, hi Bradley!” Stella waved, cutting off her version of events.

Magic!? Burt didn’t say anything about that in class!

IS THIS BITCH USING ICE MAGIC IN PUBLIC?!

DOES SHE KNOW HOW DIFFICULT THAT MAKES THINGS FOR ME?!

“H-hey Stella.” I said, gathering myself. This wasn’t an argument I wanted to have in public.

“IT’S THE SHRIMPYYYY!” Burt shouted exuberantly. He slammed an empty drink on the table in front of me. “Be a dear and fill this up, will ya?”

“With pleasure!” I smiled. Then I bunched up my shirt, sopping wet from my recent beer shower, and wrung it out into Burt’s cup.

Burt laughed out loud, doubling over in his chair. “I’ve missed you, shrimp! Why don’t you hang out with us any more?”

Because I hate you?

“Boy, this is normally the part where I would stand up and beat the shit out of you, but… I’m stuffed! And I already do that every other day… it’s getting boring! I wanna fight something a bit stronger!” he ranted.

“Well, the tournament’s coming up…” I suggested.

“Damn right!” Burt answered. He seemed to enjoy talking to me, which is how you knew he was absolutely plastered. “With me on the team, the adventurers are going to destroy thost military brats this year! Shit, even you could probably take one of them on!”

“Nah, I’m gonna sit it out…” I waved dismissively. Burt was just goading me into joining so that he could beat me up in front of a packed stadium. He was absolutely not getting bored of beating me up - take it from the person on the receiving end.

“SHAME! SHAME!” Burt shouted. “Well, if you’re not a fighter, then please excuse us! This table is for FIGHTERS ONLY! Sylvana, you can stay.” he added quickly.

“That’s alright! I was just leaving, but you have a wonderful evening!” Sylvana said, putting an arm around my waist.

Burt’s eyes suddenly focused as confusion flashed briefly across his face. This was not something that had ever happened to him, and he did not like it one bit. Stella seemed taken aback as well. To be honest, I hadn’t been expecting it either.

Have I not been giving this girl enough credit?

I led Sylvana away quickly before they could give us any trouble, and we spent the rest of the party sitting in the lounge, engaging in valuable team building rapport with Spud and Beck.

“They’re kinda mean, aren’t they…” Sylvana said, referring to Burt and co.

I stared at her like she was made of diamond-encrusted million-dollar bills.

“Thank you!” I wept, covering her in a bear hug.

“It’s what happens when men get even a little bit of strength - it goes straight to their heads.” she added.

“Well, hold on now…” said a voice. “Strength isn’t bad - it’s just a tool. Yes, it can be used poorly, but every good thing around us is only possible because it is protected by strength.”

As the voice was speaking, I noticed that the words I was listening to synced up perfectly with the movements of Beck’s mouth.

“What he said.” Spud agreed listlessly, staggering around on the precipice of drunken oblivion.

What the fuck!?

I stood up and bid them all adieu.

If Beck is the most coherent person here… then I think I’ve had enough to drink.

As I walked out of the entrance, a girl standing in the courtyard waved at me. It was… Arrabella?

“Hey! Uhm… Bradford? Have you seen Burt? Is he in there?” she asked.

“He’s gonna be a while…” I responded, not bothering to correct her.

“That’s fine, then! Thank you!”

As I walked by, I turned towards her. I couldn’t help myself.

“He’s cute, isn’t he?” I asked with a mischievous wink.

“Yeah, totally.” Arrabella giggled.

When I turned away to continue walking, the grin instantly melted off my face.

This bitch.