With his story planned out, Ambrose began to walk into town as quickly as he could. Almost immediately a teenage girl stopped him.

“Who are you?”

Putting on his best salesman smile Ambrose prepared to lie his ass off. “My name is Ambrose, I am a traveller new to these parts, and I was hoping to restock at this town of yours”

The girl tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowing in confusion.

“You just walked, from that way?” she said, pointing towards the jungle.

Ambrose believed he was being caught out on something, but couldn’t be sure what and just decided to double down. Hoping that if he answered the girls questions, that she wouldn’t cause a fuss.

“Yes, it's been a bit of a rough journey, I got pretty lost in that jungle. Could you tell me where we are?”

The girl continued looking confused for a while longer, before her eyes widened, her mouth agape in the smile of someone meeting their celebrity crush.

“You’re a Sponsored aren’t you” The girl tried whispering conspiratorially, though it came out as whisper shouting in her excitement.

Ambrose looked panicked around, there were people roaming around but none were paying much attention to him just yet, so he dropped the act. “Fine, keep it quiet though, how the hell did you know?”

The girl proudly placed her hands on her hips. “Fufufu, simple. We are on an island, and this is the only town on it. Welcome to Baro island and village.

Damnit Prism, surely you could have warned me about that.

“Come with me and I will show you to the tavern.”

They walked through the small, ocean town. It clearly wasn’t overly well off, though it was fairly pleasant. The people seemed well fed, and the town had a sizable wall surrounding it, though there seemed to be few guards. The few around could be seen on the walls, watching the jungle for any creatures sneaking up, rather than caring about the comings and goings of the town.

They reached the tavern, one of the larger buildings in the town, which was already occupied by several small groups of townsfolk coming in for a drink and a meal.

Ambrose picked up on several different conversations.

“I heard that that royal brat was going to be sent to take over.” An older gentleman said to his drinking partners.

A pair of guards were arguing in a different corner.

“..saw that tree wave at me. I swear.”

“No you didn’t, stop blabbing your lies. We haven’t seen any ents..”

The most concerning of all was a middle aged woman missing an eye, and covered in worn and torn leather armour. She was having a two way conversation though Ambrose could only hear her part, as she was sitting by herself, at a table set for four.

“.. no. You need to listen to me. I felt it pulling at me again Erik, something bad..”

His escort jumped up and sat on the bar, and looked over to the tavern keep, as he came out from the back, setting a bowl of hot stew in front of each of the arguing guards.

The well built man glanced over towards Ambrose before turning to the girl. “Luce, how many times have I told you to keep your butt off my bar.”

The girl shrugged, before grandly gesturing to Ambrose. “I needed to get your attention. Dad, this is a Sponsored.”

Ambrose glared at the girl, mouthing a stern "what the hell" while her father couldn't see. The man just rolled his eyes. “And I am the giant king of Limnus. Sorry about her stranger, only one her age so she gets rather bored.

The man headed around back to get more bowls and shouted out to him. “The name’s Jobe. Didn’t think that a ship was coming in today, the only scheduled one should still be a few days out, where did ya come from, and what can I get ya.”

He came out with a single filled bowl, with a stack of three empty ones, all of which he placed on the table with the one eyed woman, who stopped her conversation and began eating.

The older men were paying attention to the conversation between Ambrose and Jobe now, and yelled out. “What are you on about Jobe, no ships tonight.”

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The yelling began to draw the attention of everyone else in the tavern. As all began to stare at Ambrose he began to sweat, deciding to whisper to the tavern keep. “Okay look what your kid said is correct, can we please move on or talk in private.”

The man looked almost angry at Ambrose, glancing between him and Luce. Apparently deciding that he wasn’t playing a prank on him, the man’s gaze turned contemplative. “A gold gets you a meal and a room.”

Ambrose hurriedly, but awkwardly slipped a coin off of his bangle, not having time to think about the odd pricing.

“Sit down and eat up, I can show you the room after dinner is finished.”

Ambrose did so and began to wolf down the food when it was presented. It was a hearty fish stew and tasted better than basically anything else he had ever eaten. Several others had filtered in while he was doing so and conversations centred on who he was and where he had come from, though he heard no more whispers of Outworlder, Otherworlder, or Sponsored.

Once she had finished her meal the one eyed woman stared at Ambrose, as people drank and made merry she continued to stare. When most of the patrons had left for the night, only being allowed a couple drinks each, she finally approached.

Ambrose was half napping on the bar, still waiting for Jobe to come out and no longer pestered by Luce, who had been sent off to clean up his room and would no doubt be waiting upstairs to interrogate him. When next he opened his eyes to check on the progress of the night, he was startled by the strange woman’s sharpened gaze only inches from him. He fell out of his seat and onto the ground. The few remaining patrons laughing at the antics of the traveller who had joined them for the evening.

“She might be crazy but she won’t harm ya lad” one of them shouted, raising his glass towards Ambrose’s sprawled form.

Over the din she stood over Ambrose, stared into his eyes and talked to him, quiet enough that only he could hear but not so quiet as a whisper. Her voice filled with curiosity but was laced with a sharp edge. “You smell wrong Outworlder. I will be keeping my eye on you. Your kind brings chaos. I have already felt it coming.“

She paused, wrinkling her nose. “You also smell like river. And blood.” She looked down at his bag. “So the legends are true. You people do collect random garbage.”

She left the tavern after that, Lobe had also finished clearing away the bowls and Luce had come back down, returning the key to her father, before heading out. When he was ready Jobe looked towards Ambrose and flicked his head to the right. Proving that the men's head nod language was multi universal.

“It’s small but kept well, your business is your own. If you want my opinion, keep your knowledge to yourself. Ships stop by fairly regularly travelling between the various islands, Kulroe, and parts of Limnus, so you should only have to wait a month or so at most, depending on where you want to head. Luce has a bit of hero worship going on so she’ll no doubt happily trade you bits of knowledge.”

The man paused outside the door, key in the lock. “If you touch my daughter, the whole town will happily try to kill you. Renna was an adventurer once, and is now the town’s best hunter, despite the crazy. I have enough Strength of Body to tear an arm off. And the wife's the towns healer and cook, so you can damn well bet she can cook up some poison to keep you in agony for the rest of your life.”

“Be out by mid morning unless you plan on sticking around. Have a good night.”

With his threatening out of the way, Jobe turned the key in the lock and left it there, heading back downstairs.

Ambrose entered his room, and was mildly concerned to find that Luce was already sitting on his bed waiting for him. “How did you get in here, the door was locked.”

“Ah finally, you took forever. Oh and I unlatched the window when Dad had me clean the place.”

She leaned forward, an evil look in her eye. “Tell me everything.”

Ambrose was forced to talk over bits and pieces of Earth until the small hours of the morning. Where the young woman finally relented and left.

“Come find me in the morning. I can show you around town and we can go over some basics so you don’t look like so much of an idiot next time.”

The morning came and went, Ambrose received his tour of the town, finding it larger than originally thought. The town had been built up several centuries ago, and had been a popular place amongst travellers and adventurers alike. When a war between the dragons and giants had once again come to a peak, it had spilled out from the giant’s continent of Limnus and into the Thousand Islands, of which Baro was one of. This spill over meant that many of the local adventurers had been pulled into the war to fight directly, or called back to one of the nearby kingdoms to which they had ties to. Many had died off, and with less and less returning from the outer kingdoms, the town had begun to shrink over time.

This trend had only grown worse when the Blood Orcs had invaded, spreading across the Thousand Islands like a plague that was still yet to be put to rest.

Now, the town had many unoccupied buildings that were kept intact, and maintained by order of the previous lord, who had died almost a year ago.

The town had been sent word from their kingdom, the Kingdom of Ethria, to maintain a holding pattern until a new lord was chosen and sent to them, though they had been waiting for longer than expected. Constant rumours had spread around the town about who the next lord would be, or if the town had been forgotten entirely. Though Luce was confident that once word got out of a Sponsored having appeared within their town, that one would arrive with the utmost haste.

Apparently, Sponsored were fairly common, with most of the active gods having one. They were also said to bring good luck, though that didn’t track with the crazy lady’s ominous warnings, so Ambrose was unsure if either was actually true, thinking that perhaps it was just down to the person.

With her part of the bargain complete, Luce headed off to deal with her work for the rest of the day, leaving Ambrose to his own devices.

Ambrose wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He effectively only had two different paths forward. Either, he could try to complete the dungeon’s quest and then try his hand at the dungeon itself trying to grow his skills and become some sort of adventurer, or, he could abandon the idea and replace his clothes, try to live out a peaceful life and ignore the whims of his dickbag god.

Though with so few adventurers coming to the island the dungeon would likely die. If that happened, no matter how far he travelled, Ambrose would be stuck looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life, perhaps even multiple.

“Alright, I just need to repair one of the halls, then I can relax and travel the world or something. Time to go shopping.”