“YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!” Tony screamed, the man was barely holding himself back from striking Gareth.

“THAT ITEM WAS MINE!” He continued to scream.

Everyone in the room was deathly silent, people were pressing themselves into the walls trying to avoid Tony’s wrath. The man was lashing out his surroundings, having already broken two chairs in his fit.

Gareth stood stone faced in front of him, his unchanging face not revealing a hint of emotion.

“I’m sorry Tony, I couldn’t tell the kid what it was before he accidentally crushed it.” It wasn’t the first time Gareth had explained the situation.

Not that Tony seemed to care. “YOU’RE USELESS!”

This actually generated a murmur from the room, sounds of discontent filling the room. Tony quickly calmed hearing this. His eyes raked across the room before he spoke. “Gareth, your services are invaluable here. I apologise but, this is why we have the looting rules here. You know that I need to be stronger to properly protect everyone here.”

When Gareth didn’t react to his words Tony turned his attention to Nick. “You fucked up kid. The rules here are that all the loot, all items, all gems, all stickers, they come to me first. Then I decide how they’re distributed.”

Nick didn’t like the sound of that at all.

Tony continued. “I need to look after everyone here, thousands of people rely on me to stay safe. To do so, I need to make sure my core followers are strong.”

Nick’s eyes widened at the number, thousands? In this place? He’d seen a couple hundred at most while walking around. What he did know for sure though was that this was blatant extortion.

“Give him the wraps kid.” Gareth said calmly.

Surprise arched across Tony’s face. “You not only found a goblin but also found an item? Hmm, at least you can do your job.”

Nick reluctantly took his wraps out of his pocket and handed them over to Tony. Tony looked them over before throwing them to his second in charge, Sebas. Sebas looked them over for a second and Nick could see his eyes glow slightly.

“Wraps around hands. Increases the durability of hands. Solid item.” Sebas stated.

“Good find kid. Keep up the good work and you might pay off the debt you owe me for the class gem.” Tony patted Nick on the shoulder.

How had he ended up in the debt of this goober? Nick really wasn’t liking Tony so far.

A group of four people walked through one of the doors leading into the bar. They were all wearing assorted pieces of actual armour, not armour created from junk metal. It was mainly leather but a few pieces or plate mail or chainmail was also present. They also all had very serious looking weapons, swords, shields and maces. It was almost like he was watching a group come back from some sort of HEMA match or renaissance fair.

“Ah the team arrives! Nick, meet the team.” Tony called out as the team approached him. “This is Joshua, he’s the leader of the group so you best be listening to everything he says.”

Joshua was a tall man, broad shouldered and resting a large sword across one of them. The man looked Nick over before opening his mouth. “I guess we’ll take what we can get.”

“He’s a scrawny looking brat.” One of the other men said. This man looked at Nick through long oily hair that hung in strands across his face. His own stature was much taller than it was thick, if Nick was going to return the favour he’d say the man was rather scrawny looking himself.

“Now now Jacob, there’s more than meets the eye here. Gareth says the kid beat the giant challenge. Solo.” Tony explained.

The last man in the group let out an approving grunt. This man was a bit shorter than Nick but made up for it in sheer muscle mass. The man was built like a rhino.

“But wait, there’s more.” Tony smirked. This smirk clearly made the last member of the group uncomfortable. She was an average looking woman, soft brown hair and eyes but looked uncomfortable and was shifting on her feet.

“The kid managed to get himself to level two Explorer while he was out.” Tony almost spat the words out.

“What’s his new skill?” Joshua hurriedly asked.

Tony hadn’t asked him yet and he just turned to Nick.

“Well uh, it’s a map. I can open a map of all the places I’ve been to.” Nick offered.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The group thought it over for a second. After a while Joshua asked a question. “Does it mark locations?”

“It labels them based on my knowledge, but it doesn’t reveal anything about the rooms themselves.” Nick explained.

“Well it looks like we’ll be able to go a lot deeper, more safely at least.” Joshua said.

This earned another approving grunt from the stocky man. The woman looked slightly anxious at the revelation and Nick noticed Jacob grin.

“Well you better work the kid to the bone. He owes me greatly for using that class gem.” Tony complained.

“Can’t believe you let him boss.” Jacob snidely remarked.

“I didn’t. Whatever, introduce yourselves for a while. Also help move the kids' family to our quarters.” Tony said before walking off to his bar stool and grabbing a drink.

The group fanned out around Nick. Joshua spoke for them. “Like Tony said, I’m Joshua. I make the calls and everyone follows them, simple rules. What’s your name kid?”

“I’m Nick, I guess we’ll be working together.” Nick chuckled, which seemed to ease the group a bit.

Joshua let out a smile. “Good to see you seem somewhat good spirited. Last explorer Tony found was a bit of a prick.”

If they’d become an Explorer the same way Nick had, he could understand why they’d be a bit of a prick.

Joshua dragged Jacob back over, who’d managed to slink away and was talking to a couple of the females in the room.

“This is Jacob, the team's main Scout.” Jacob scowled at his short introduction.

“I’m the backbo-” He started before Joshua cut him off.

“This bull of a man is Logan. Doesn’t talk much but he can take a hit better than most men I’ve met.” The man-rhino, Logan, simply nodded at Nick.

Then Joshua moved to the last member of the group. “This is Maddy, the most important member of our team. She’s our Healer, making her the priority to keep safe.” The woman meekly nodded at the introduction.

A healer? So he couldn’t get fireballs or lightning bolts, but healers got to exist? This really wasn’t fair at all. Though it did sound like a very interesting class, he definitely wanted to know a bit more about whatever magic he could actually find.

“Well that’s the team. We look forward to seeing how much loot you could get us moving forward. We’ve certainly been missing Greg.” Joshua laughed.

“Yeah I could do with the extra pills.” Jacob sneered.

Joshua then had Nick take them to get his family gathered up. Thankfully no one else had decided to go walkabouts like Nick had and the family was all in the room he’d left them. Once Nick had introduced everyone to everyone, their few belongings were gathered up and Joshua led them back towards the bar.

“So where are we going?” Nick finally asked.

Still leading the way, Joshua replied. “Staff’s Quarters is what we call them, they’re basically just nicer rooms much closer to the bar. Only the people working for Tony are allowed to stay in them.”

Nick wasn’t much into history but he couldn’t help but sigh. The signs were just too clear at this point. He really was in some sort of dictatorship run by a gruff bald man.

The group walked back into the bar, then through the door Nick hadn’t been through. It opened up into a wide room that was only filled with the occasional support pillar. Along the walls were the occasional spaced out door, the room was so large that each wall held dozens of doors. It was easily the strangest room Nick had been in so far, he had yet to see so much open space in any of the rooms.

“This is weird.” Benny blurted out, earning a deep chuckle from Logan.

Joshua smiled. “Yeah, there’s a reason no one hangs around in here for longer than they need. It just doesn’t feel right here.”

“It doesn’t feel right anywhere here.” Maddy finally spoke her first words Nick had heard.

Joshua cleared his throat and pulled out a piece of paper. “Well let’s find you guys a free room.”

The man inspected the piece of paper for a while before striding off towards one of the walls. “We had a mid sized one just free up. Not too far from the main door here.”

“Free up?” Lily questioned.

“Yeah, a couple idiots died to the Brute as we emptied the floor before the flood.” Jacob grinned. His eyes scanned Lily before Nick stepped between them, which only deepened Jacob's grin.

“The Brute that I killed?” Nick said, staring down Jacob.

Jacob’s grin dropped.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you guys. The reason Tony recruited Nick here is that he convinced Gareth that he’d killed the Brute on his way here.” Joshua said, placing emphasis on Gareth’s name. Jacob’s face went stony at the name.

Nick jumped as he felt a weighty hand fall on his shoulder. He turned to face Logan, who simply nodded before speaking. “Good job.” Nick could only nod in response.

“While I’m sure we all want to hear the story of how you managed that, we can save it for later. Here’s a free room. Give it a check.” Joshua said.

The family did as he said and entered the room. If the room they’d been in before had been a spacious hotel room, this room was a luxury suite. The door opened up into a wide lounge/foyer with a small kitchenette in one corner. A few doors lined the walls, an open one showing that they lead to bedrooms.

“Wow, this place is certainly above my budget.” Henry said. “This might be the nicest hotel room I’ve ever seen.”

“The only price is freedom.” Nick sighed.

“Bah, stop being cynical Nicky. It’s just just worker’s accommodation, standard practice.” Henry replied.

“I’m not a worker, I’m fairly sure I’m a glamorised indentured servant at this point.”

“Bah, we’ll work it out. Now that I’m back on my feet I’ll find a solution.” The man smiled.

“What’s an indentured servant?” Benny asked.

“Nick’s a slave with extra steps.” Lily replied before Nick could.

Nick glared at his sister, Benny deserved a softer answer than that. “It’s a rather unfair type of work, but I’ll get out of it somehow, don’t worry.”

“Okay bro, you’ve got this!” Benny tried to smile.

Nick tousled his hair, before moving back out to the team waiting for them.

“Happy with it?” Joshua asked.

Nick nodded in reply.

“Good, now to get back to the bar you just have to go through the door we came through, it looks different than the rest.”

He pointed at the door and Nick noticed that it had the same circular window as the rest of the doors in the bar. Nick made sure that each member of his family knew which door would lead them out of this eerie room.

“Alright, I’m sure you get it but don’t go walking into the other rooms here. Most of them have people living in them and we all like our privacy. Most people hang something small around their door handle to show which room is theirs.”

Joshua pointed at a door nearest to the group and everyone could see that a small trinket was hanging off the door handle.

“It’s a simple system but there’s not much else we can put on the doors that won’t just get cleaned off.”

“Who cleans the doors?” Lily asked.

Joshua’s face fell serious. “The Cleaners. If you see anyone that looks like a cleaner, don’t approach them. They won’t go in your room while anyone is in there and you can put the Do Not Disturb sign on the handle to make sure they don’t ever go in.”

Joshua looked at each member of the family. “Don’t approach them, if you ever find yourself close to one just back away. They won’t hurt you unless you provoke them.”

This was the second warning the family had been given about cleaners. Nick decided that if he ever did see one he’d probably give them a wide berth. It seems low paid workers were quite the danger around here.

“Well enough of that. Nick, while your family settles in, let's go do something fun.” Joshua grinned. The smile spread through the group, even Maddy had a small smile on her face.

“Something fun?” Nick asked.

“Gotta see what the new guy's made of.”