When talk turned to actual membership, some of Ershwal’s unease dissipated. The standard contract with the Ravenous Jaws was a five year stint, but Raksha insisted he wouldn’t sign one like that and would prefer to be more of a job by job member who was brought in when needed. He said his goal for delving was to eventually open up an enchanter shop of some sort in town, rather than make a career out of it. He just needed the funds and recognition to be able to do that and five year contract would get in the way.

It was an arrogant request, a part time member was unusual, only those who had lots of value could make it worth it to a party.

The rest of the group grumbled at his words, more so about them wanting him permanently rather than being upset at his audacity, something that annoyed Ershwal. Ershwal was more than satisfied with the request though, tying the suspicious man down to their group seemed like a bad idea to her, but having a little distance while still benefiting from the contact was a win/win in her book.

Not that she’d let him know that, Ershwal would leverage every angle she can get out of any new provisional contracts with him.

Ershwal also took the opportunity to state their group’s goals. With the anticipation of the dungeon getting approved for an additional three levels soon, it was the Ravenous Jaw’s intention to be one of the first to explore the new floors as they came about. Such a job was risky, but also very rewarding, her group was the only non-house affiliated group in the running for the spots.

Raksha confessed to actually having experience in dealing with the mapping and exploration of new levels, it was something he had done multiple times as part of the Imperial army.

That revelation was music to Ershwal’s ears, because, while their group was more than experienced in dealing with the current five levels of the dungeon, they never delved into anything without having a map and intelligence on what they were facing. It would have been brand new to all of them. Ershwal could already see the wild success their group was going to have with such an experienced delver.

Ershwal belatedly realized how much of a turnaround her thoughts on Raksha made in just the last day. Perhaps she should reconsider some of her own assumptions regarding men in general….

After everybody calmed down some, Vinny undid the privacy spell, claiming she didn’t want to waste the mana if it wasn’t needed anymore. With the bubble down, they stuck to less delicate topics, eventually all of them agreeing to a provisional run with Raksha that afternoon, after they had all eaten.

Ershwal ordered meals for everybody, the guild hall having a decent kitchen themselves, and also set up a time slot for the dungeon as well. The guild officer in charge today was giving her suspicious glances, but did as she requested. Ershwal couldn’t blame her, she could hardly believe what was happening herself.

Walking back to their booth, the eyes of everybody in the hall weighed heavily on her back. She’d always been a well known character in the guild, being the leader of one of the top teams had that effect. But she had never faced such scrutiny.

One of her friends, a team leader of another group, a woman she respected, had pulled her aside on the way back.

“Are you’all for real?” Her friend said privately, a small look of concern on her face. “You realize everybody is dying to know what the hell is going on, and people are talking out of there asses everywhere.”

“Its real,” Ershwal replied, feeling downcast. “I can’t tell you the specifics, but yeah. We are taking him on a provisional run this afternoon, but I think it's going to work out.”

“Lord almighty,” the woman said with a shake of her head. “Men, in the guild, what will come next? I mean, I heard what he did to officer Janelle yesterday, but…..” She then looked back at Ershwal. “You had better know what you are doing, Ersh. I know and trust you, and I respect your judgement, but you know others won’t feel the same.”

“Since when have the teams cared about what each other do?” Ershwal replied defensively. “We all do our own thing here, it's not anybody’s business how I operate my crew.”

“Sure, sure” the woman responded easily. “But it's not that simple and you know it. You know the guild’s been looking to increase the dungeon rank. How’s that going to look when one of the top five teams becomes a laughing stock? House Yilner’s involved too of course, they've invested a lot into the petition to the Emperor. I won’t be surprised if the guild head pays you a visit if you insist on this jane-foolery.”

“He’s the real deal,” Ershwal hissed irritably. “Soon enough, everybody will recognize that and then you will regret not getting him on your team.”

The woman looked unimpressed at her words. “Well, I hope that’s the case, Ersh. I really do. Good luck on your delve today.”

Accepting the well wishes, Ershwal made it back to her seat. Her friend’s words were on point though, she hadn’t considered that part of it. The guild had been working on getting three more levels added to the dungeon for the past year. The petition to the Empress was a massive thing, all the top teams had been interviewed and their abilities had been cataloged. She also knew a ton of paper had to be organized, and economic reports had to be filed and analyzed, all as proof of the city’s ability to handle a level eight dungeon.

House Yilner had been the initial push to get the ball rolling and they had also bankrolled a lot of the work involved. Getting the petition denied would be a huge loss of money as well as a massive blow to the prestige of house Yilner. Something she knew they could not afford.

Still, it really wasn’t her problem and, if Raksha had proved to be a fraud, she wouldn’t hesitate to move on without him. But he wasn’t and the skills and knowledge he had shown was stuff she could really use on their team. At this point, she couldn’t accept him joining any other team but hers, even with her nebulous danger sense going off in the background.

…. God almighty, what was she getting herself into.

The meal was good, but Ershwal had trouble tasting it. She let the conversation drift along without her, Irellia and Vinny doing most of the talking. They kept the subject on easy stuff, each of them bragging about their past exploits. Ershwal just kind of stared at the enchanted sword that Raksha had laid next to himself.

The weapon looked so mundane, a sword like any other. Sure, it was of good quality, but what kind of delver had a poor sword at their hip? Nothing about it screamed value or danger, the sheath and handle all function and no artistry. She had seen a few enchanted weapons before, and they all had this look about them, jewels and garish decoration making it obvious it was no ordinary weapon. Those kinds of tools tended to find themselves attached to ambitious little ladies from houses with too much money and too little brains, who waved the stick around like it was the empress's scepter. Ladies like the one from House Yilner, a woman who waltzed into the guild every now and then, flaunting her treasures and mediocre skills around while her entourage of competent house mages followed.

When the Ravenous Jaw’s escorted the Yilner Lady through the dungeon she would show off her enchanted equipment, a gaudy sword, dagger, and chest piece, every chance she could.

But there Raksha was, as unassuming as ever, wearing ten enchanted pieces like they were shoes she could just take on and off.

Ershwal thought about last night, when she had confronted the man at The Day’s Rest. She remembered him wearing the same pieces he had on right now, but she hadn’t given the equipment a thought at the time, too focused on her gender and ex-slave status to see the treasure right under her nose.

What did that say about her?

Lost in introspection, Ershwal let the afternoon slip by until the time slot came.

At five minutes till, the group got up and made their way to the dungeon entrance. As if on cue, the delvers across the guild hall started jerking and heckling them as they walked past, jolting Ershwal out of her reverie.

“Make sure you don’t use him all up!” one drunk woman yelled at them. “We’d all like a turn with him at some point.”

Alarmed at the words and others like it that flew across the hall, Ershwal shot a quick look towards the man in question. He seemed fine, a slight frown on his face, but nothing more to show for the insults thrown at him. She supposed it was something he was familiar with.

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Another woman actually stepped in front of them, blocking their path with a malicious look in her eye. “Be sure to tell us how he performs!” she demanded with a leering grin at Raksha. “A little tall and thick for my taste, but that probably means his dick is the same.”

“Get the hell out of our way,” Ershwal snarled, shoving the bastard aside.

The offending woman fell back with a stumble and her friends suddenly all stood up from their table as one.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” one of them growled.

“Pushing trash to the side,” Ershwal answered back, putting on her trademark glare. “You should know not to mess with the Ravenous Jaws, like that.”

“Big talk from the women bringing the slave whore into the dungeon.” another one answered, stepping closer. The third woman was helping their fallen comrade off the floor.

Irellia pushed her way past Ershwal, the whole group feeling suddenly very protective about their newest member. Irellia set her considerable bulk in front of the group and gave a disdainful sniff. “You all can mind your own business, that’s what. Raksha’s under my protection now if you all got a problem with it, you can come at me now, sis.”

It looked to Ershwal for a moment that a fight was about to break out, but Irellia had a reputation as a nasty brawler in the guild and the other group seemed to think better of starting a fight in the middle of the hall. They stepped out of the way, but didn’t let their group pass without piling on the insults along the way.

“They are going to pay for this,” Ershwal heard Vinny muttering to herself and she winced. For somebody who had a support role, Vinny had a mean and vindictive streak and knew how to make people hurt.

Alesby had grabbed onto Raksha’s arm in the meantime, as if to support the man, but he didn’t seem too pleased by it, scowling at her while she guided and pushed him forward with the group. All in all, Ershwal was pleased by her group's defensiveness of the lone man already, even if the man himself didn’t really appreciate it.

They made it to the entrance without further hold ups, the officer giving them a flat, bored look before issuing them in. As soon as they stepped into the dank cave and crossed the invisible barrier that indicated they were in dungeon territory, all sounds of the guild hall disappeared, the sweet soothing silence of the forest a relief for once.

“Unbelievable,” Vinny complained, “Those complete assholes. You have to deal with that all the time?”

“More or less,” Raksha replied easily. “Comes with the territory. Although, that was a bit much, even for me.”

“How do you deal with it?” Alesby asked, the most affected out of their group. The troubled look on her face had yet to go away.

Responding with a shrug, Raksha replied, “I try to ignore it, mostly. Reacting to it usually just encourages more attention. You punch back when you have to, but that rarely turns out well. I’m still new, so they don’t know what to make of me, but eventually it will cool down.”

“That’s so unfair,” Alesby protested. “You don’t deserve that, nobody does.”

Raksha just gave her an inscrutable look, not replying.

“Alright,” Ershwal said, clapping her hands for attention. “Let’s go kill some monsters and forget about it. Raksha, how do you want to do this? At this point, we just want to see your abilities, so whatever you think is best to display them.”

“Sure thing,” he replied easily, reaching into his sack, “I think I’ll just clear the floor with Vinny as support then. The rest of you can hang back and observe what to do and how I move. After that, we can move as a group and figure out the best way to work together.” From out of his sack he pulled out a little square container made from wood.

“Are you serious?” Vinny demanded. “You want to solo the entire first floor?”

“Well, you’ll be with me.” Raksha replied with a grin. “But we can just hit each of the different types of monsters and terrains if you want. I could use some more cores though, my current stock is sadly depleted.” He opened the box and pulled out several stacks of bound paper and started handing a stack out to each person.

“What do you need the cores for?” Alesby asked, idly taking the stack that Raksha shoved in her hands. Ershwal accepted a stack without comment, unwrapping it and checking out the individual pages.

“Enchanting.” Raksha replied without hesitation, “Powdered monster cores are the easiest reagent to get for the ink I use to make talismans. Speaking of Talismans,” he added, handing out the last stack. “I’ve given you each a copy of the five of the spells I have found most useful, Barrier, Stun, Flash, Infernal Ray, and Heal.”

“This piece of paper holds Infernal Ray?” Alesby asked, sounding distressed. Ershwal couldn’t blame her, that specific spell had cost Alesby five gold to purchase and a year before she got it down to actually be useful in a fight.

“And what the hell is ‘flash’?” Vinny asked, comparing the pieces of paper.

“Flash is just a very bright flash of light that can be used to blind your opponent. Be careful with that one, you can just as easily blind yourself. And as for the Infernal Ray, yes, but it has about a third of the strength as the version found in the guild archive. Alesby, you would probably want more utility type talismans in the future, instead of something like infernal ray, but you get the picture. Let me know what you guys want, and I’ll give you a discount. Consider these as free samples.”

“How many different spells do you know?” Ershwal asked, a little upset at the casualness of this. “I know ten different spells that are usable in a delve. It sounds like you know dozens!”

“Well, I don’t have to know them the same way you all know them,” He explained with a shrug, “I just have to be able to inscribe them. And I can keep copies to refer to if I forget something.”

Hardly feeling better about it, Ershwal sighed at the unfairness. “It still must have cost you a fortune to purchase all the spells from the guild.”

Raksha chuckled before answering, “Actually, I crafted most of the spells myself. There’s an inherent infrastructure that can be logically parceled out in magic crafting, so if you know what to look for, you can create a spell that has the effects. I ended up looking up the names of the different spells here after I created them.”

Of course he did. Adding spellcraft to his list of skills hardly seems worth mentioning now.

“That’s why I like to get as many samples of spellwork as possible, comparing the samples of the different variables in each type of spell. I’ve been working on a comprehensive table of spell effects, it's far from complete, but I think when finished it could help a lot of people.”

And make him an enemy of the state. The guild and the empire made a lot of money and kept power by picking and choosing who and what people got access to top tier spells. Most noble houses have their own archive of spells and a good indication of each house's relative power and standing relates to the size and potency of their spell archive.

Their own group had purchased four standard spells that were accessible to each person if they wanted it. The rest had been purchased individually.

With yet another sigh, Ershwal realized she would need to steer the man away from obvious pitfalls like that one in the future, but it was a battle she was not prepared to get into today.

“So how do we use these then?” Ershwal asked, straining to put on a smile. On the back of each paper was a helpful label, identifying the one in her hand as the useful Barrier spell.

“I’ve been told it's not that different from normal spellcasting,” Raksha explained, “The spell is already there, you just need to push your mana and intent into the talisman to activate the effects.

Ershwal knew what he meant by intent. It's what made her skill, eviscerating strike, appear on the tip of her mana blade, and not on some other random part of her body. Holding the barrier talisman up, she did as instructed, using her intent to make the barrier appear right in front of her.

The light green barrier popped into existence exactly where she wanted. This one being a low tier spell, the barrier was not completely transparent. She tapped it with her knuckles and felt the hard cool surface. Ten seconds later the barrier disappeared, along with the talisman in her hand.

With a sigh, she gazed up at the artificial sky. It was all too easy. If this was a plot by Raksha to sell his talismans, it was going to work very well.

She looked around the group to see the others doing the same, enjoying the abilities. She watched as Irellia used the Infernal Ray to blast a large bush in front of her, smiling like a child when the bush instantly went up in flames. The girl’s only offensive abilities were the strength spells she used alongside her sword and shield; she probably never imagined she would be able to shoot a ray bolt like that.

“These aren’t toys people,” She found herself calling out, her voice sounding tired and weak, “Don’t just play around with them.”

“Okay Father,” Vinny replied with her own smirk, waving around the Infernal Ray too.

Raksha just watched on with amusement, chuckling at the antics. Alesby had been infected too, a happy smile on her face as she studied the various talismans.

“Let’s go, Vinny,” Raksha called out, unsheathing his sword. “You can play around with those later, we’ve got to find some monsters to kill.”

“Do you even need me?” Vinny asked, still focused on the talismans, “Just go clear them all yourself.”

“Vinny!” Ershwal barked, feeling like things were spiraling out of control.

Vinny had the decency to look sheepish, and turned to join Raksha.

The rest of the group got the message too, and they stopped messing around. They formed up and waited for Raksha to get some distance before starting to follow.

As Ershwal walked she pulled the Infernal Ray and pointed it at a thin tree. She activated it and a torrent of fiery death shot out, blasting a hole in the tree and leaving the ends in a blaze.

She had to admit, it was immensely satisfying.