Dalthan Sol’Magor had lived his entire life in the bustling port city of Wavecrest. As a native of the cosmopolitan metropolis, Dal had long since grown jaded toward all the creature comforts life had to offer. Exhibiting the kind of snobbery that can only be cultivated on the streets of a world capital, the thief had accepted his hometown’s innate superiority as a statement of fact. Simply put, Wavecrest had the best food, the stiffest drinks, and the most beautiful women.

After growing accustomed to the dizzying diversity of the crowd around him, Dal didn’t see anyone or anything that he felt was better than what he could find on the streets of his home city. The architecture of the Mausoleum’s gate was certainly majestic, but its fluted columns and soaring archways were no more impressive than Wavecrest’s Senatoria. The courtyard that lay beyond the Mausoleum’s gate was well-manicured with stone paths and hedgerows that, while objectively beautiful, would seem woefully inadequate next to his city’s Arboretum. As Zaplixel led him to the Guild of Experience and Levels, whatever that was, Dalthan glanced across the steady flow of people working their way through the courtyard. Unfortunately, his brief search didn’t turn up anyone truly noteworthy. Exotic? Certainly true. Some were eye-catching despite the simple white attire they wore. But superior? Compared to Wavecrest? Absolutely not.

Or so he’d believed.

All his conviction vanished like whiskey in a drunkard’s cup when he saw the beautiful creature working the counter for the Guild of Experience and Levels. Long, wavy hair the color of spring moss framed a face that would make a goddess weep with envy. Unblemished green skin the shade of pure jadeite gave the woman an ethereal presence that made Dalthan’s breath catch even before his gaze drifted below her slender neck. A brightly colored patchwork top, stitched in the myriad colors of fall leaves, clung precariously to her voluptuous form.

After letting his eyes drift across the woman’s enchanting form like a starving lion perusing a butcher shop’s counter, the rogue pulled his gaze from her bare midriff to meet the enchanting sparkle of her golden eyes. He couldn’t help a flash of disappointment when he noticed the moue of distaste scrunching her dark green lips. Not that he could blame her. Working a desk job had to be a mild form of mental torment, no matter how interesting and attractive your next customer happened to be.

“Can I help you?” The ravishing woman’s clear, airy tone sounded like the whisper of pillow talk shared between satisfied lovers.

“Oh, you already are!” Dal said in a low, vibrating tone that caressed the ear like crushed velvet. “Seeing you is like witnessing a rainbow at the end of a hurricane.” The rogue reached up to doff a hat that wasn’t there. The lean man quickly adapted, turning the motion into a flourish to compliment his short bow. “Dalthan Sol’Magor, at your service. And you are?”

“My friends call me Sylvia,” the woman said. “You can call me Madame Representative.” The smile on Sylvia’s lips dripped condescension the way a cobra’s fangs drip venom.

Her expression almost gave him pause. Almost. Dalthan chalked it up to having to defend herself from cretins far below her station. It must be a rare treat for her to meet someone with his charm.

“The pleasure is mine,” he murmured, reaching to gallantly take her hand.

“It is,” Sylvia replied flatly as she pulled her hands back out of his reach.

“I’m new in town,” Dalthan said as he hid a wince behind the flash of a rakish smile. His body language oozed self-confidence the way fried chicken dripped grease. And why shouldn’t he be confident? He’d been practicing that smile in the mirror ever since he was old enough to say the word ‘conman.’ “I just met Zap in the Mausoleum. He’s been a stand-up fellow. Nice enough to answer some questions and lead me to your lovely establishment.” Dalthan tossed her a saucy wink, never breaking eye contact as he turned his head slightly to address the black-robed man behind him. “Say ‘hi’ to the nice lady, Zap.”

The wizard rolled his eyes. “Why would they put a nymph at the Mausoleum?” Zap complained to the distractingly attractive woman behind the counter. “They have to know the effect it’ll have on the first-timers. They can’t focus on the Tutorial stuff with you back there. It's like piling a bunch of cake on a kid’s plate and then telling them to eat broccoli.”

“First, I like broccoli.” Sylvia lifted a hand with its index finger extended. Her middle finger rose as she ticked off another point. “Second, we had a beholder stationed here last month. All the newcomers were too afraid to stop. Tracking down a bunch of dregs without character sheets was a huge hassle. And third,” the nymph continued as she straightened her ring finger, “watching them trip all over themselves is the highlight of my day.”

“Can he just get his money?” Zaplixel asked in a pleading tone. “Then you can toy with him as much as you want. I’ve got better things to do than babysit a dreg.” Zap sneered as he looked down his long, hooked nose, “Especially this one.”

When Sylvia shook her head, her luxurious green hair swayed like leaves waving in the wind. “I can’t give him his seed money until he gets a character sheet. So if you want to get paid, you need to stick around. Those are the rules.”

Dalthan’s head swiveled between the two like a cat watching a swinging string. His lips pursed together in an offended line when Zap said something about babysitting. But before he could offer a clever rejoinder, Sylvia said something that sounded even more important.

“Wait a minute,” the rogue muttered as his gaze settled on the beautiful woman with an honest intensity his green eyes had lacked till now. “What did you say about getting paid?”

Rather than reply, the nymph ducked beneath the counter to withdraw a thick tome. The book’s black cover was littered with red arcane sigils that looked like blood splashed across the scene of a murder. When the heavy book thumped ominously onto the countertop, Dal had to resist the urge to step back.

“Give me your hand, Mr. Sol’Magor,” Sylvia said, reaching toward him with one hand while the other rapidly flipped through the yellowed pages of the mysterious book.

The thief visibly relaxed as he reached toward her outstretched hand. “I do appreciate a woman who can take charge,” he said with a lopsided smile stretching across his lips.

That smile melted into an expression of abject horror when he saw one of Sylvia’s fingers twisted into a curved thorn. He immediately moved to jerk his hand away, but the nymph was faster. A quick snap of her wrist drug the tip of the thorn across his palm to open up an angry red line.

“What the fuck, lady?!” Dalthan jerked his hand back, but the damage had been done. Worse yet, he’d somehow left behind a drop of blood that began to rise into the air with the ponderous flight of an oversized soap bubble.

“Don’t be a baby,” Sylvia chided as she seemed to direct the wobbly drop of blood through the air with a complex gesture of her hand. “Women hate a whiny man.”

The nymph’s golden eyes met his as the drop of blood fell onto an empty page of the book. “Not that you know much about women.”

“Hurtful,” the thief said, suddenly finding Sylvia significantly less attractive.

“But true!” Zaplixel cackled from the side.

Dalthan turned to give Zap a murderous glare. “At least I’ve gotten laid in the past decade. A man wearing that much jewelry is obviously compensating for something.”

The mirth dancing across Zap’s face suddenly vanished like a vampire fleeing from the rising sun. “Are you done with this dreg yet?” Zap demanded of the nymph.

“Almost,” Sylvia said as she took hold of the page Dalthan’s blood had landed on. In one smooth motion, she tore the yellowed paper from the book’s heavy spine. Except, it didn’t actually tear. The page in the book remained, completely unharmed, an exact copy of the one now held in the nymph’s slender hand.

“This is your character sheet,” the woman said as she handed it across the counter. “It isn’t a physical thing. It is magic made manifest. Once you take it, it will bind to your soul and all you have to do is think about it for a phantom copy to appear in your hand.”

Dalthan’s fingertips hesitated just shy of touching the offered paper. Since his eyes were focused on the sheet, and the woman holding it, he never saw Zap step in right behind him. The bald wizard struck Dal’s elbow with his open palm, hard, causing the rogue’s hand to jerk forward. As soon as his fingers brushed against the yellowed page, it vanished into thin air.

Dal blinked in surprise as he experimentally shook his hand. When the paper didn’t immediately present itself for disposal, the thief began to round on the wizard with the light of imminent violence sparkling in his emerald eyes. “When did you become such a dick? I didn’t even want whatever this character sheet is,” Dalthan fumed.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Like the memory of a long-forgotten dream, one stray thought was all it took to open a door in his mind. He could feel something tugging at his soul, like a newborn grasping at a tickling finger. Then the weight of a piece of paper, yellowed with age and stained with black ink, settled onto his palm as if it had been there his entire life.

Unable to resist the pull of his curiosity, the thief tilted his gaze down to read the text that’d been written with the kind of flourish he’d expect from a bored accountant.

Name: Dalthan Sol'Magor Class: Rogue

Race: Demi-Human

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Milestones: 0/2 Level: 11

HP: 45

MP: 33

SP: 0 Skills

Appraise 5 Jump 10 Search 14 Attributes

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 19 Constitution: 10

Intelligence: 17

Wisdom: 9

Charisma: 20 Balance 14 Listen 10 Spot 7 Bluff 14 Move Silently 14 Disguise 9 Feats Climb 7 Open Locks 14 Read Lips 5

Silver Tongue, Devastating Backstab,

Ambidexterity, Uncanny Dodge, Acrobatic, Urban Stealth, [ Redacted ], Supremely Skilled, Identify

Escape Artist 12 Perform 14 Sense Motive 1 Forgery 8 Pick Pocket 14 Swim 7 Gather Information 12 Sleight of Hand 14 Use Rope 10 Hide 14 Tumble 10 Disable Device 10

“This can’t be right,” Dalthan said, his eyes stopping long before they reached a column of numbers halfway down the page. “This says I’m evil. I told you, there’s no way I’m evil.”

With his attention wholly focused on the sheet of paper in his hands, Dal never noticed the flabbergasted look that passed over Sylvia’s flawless face. “You are in The Hub of Evil, Mr. Sol’Magor. There is, literally, no way that you aren’t evil.”

“That can’t be true,” Dalthan disputed. “You don’t exactly strike me as evil.”

“Before I ended up here, I used my body to lure men deep into the forest I lived in,” Sylvia said, her golden eyes gleaming with the luster of a summer sun. In contrast, her voice was cold as midnight frost on a winter’s eve.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Dalthan said, still looking at his sheet with a frown. “I know women who work down at the dock that do that on a nightly basis. The luring part, not the forest part. Though, for the right price, they might drag you out into the woods.”

“Then, I drowned them in a stream,” she finished as if Dalthan had never spoken. The rogue was spared the predatory grin that tugged at the corner of Sylvia’s lips when she spoke. “And I liked it.”

Dalthan took a moment to digest this.

“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” the thief insisted. “This ‘Neutral Evil’ has to be a mistake.” The rogue’s jaw clenched as if he could will the letters written across the sheet to change. “I just tried to get what I want. That’s the same thing everyone does. I’m just better at it than most people.”

“Neutral Evil?” Zaplixel chuckled, eyeing the distraught thief speculatively. “You’re not just evil. You’re a damn sociopath. That explains so much. So. Much.”

“That’s not even the only part that’s wrong.” Dalthan insisted, ignoring the asshole wizard’s ludicrous assessment of his mental faculties. The rogue’s gaze remained fixed on the paper like pig iron clinging to a magnet. “It says here that I’m a demi-human but I am one hundred percent human. The story of how he met my mother was one of the only things my drunk father ever managed to say without slurring his words..”

Sylvia frowned at this, her golden eyes sliding across the rogue in a long, assessing look. “If you truly dispute anything on the sheet, you can take it to Lord Balerik’s temple. I would seriously advise against it unless you are sure there is an error. His priests do not appreciate having their time wasted.”

“So your dad fucked a fae,” Zaplixel said, growing more impatient with the process by the second. “Come to terms with it on your own time. I ain’t getting paid to be your therapist.”

The character sheet finally vanished from Dalthan’s hand as his gaze rose to cast a withering look toward the wizard. Ignoring the look that flashed across the rogue’s face, Zap focused his attention on Sylvia. Moving at the steady pace of a career desk jockey, the druid stashed the heavy book beneath the counter. Moments later she withdrew a lumpy black pouch from a drawer built into the underside of the counter.

“Now are we done? I’ve got places to be.” Zaplixel’s pale eyes followed the movement of the lumpy pouch in Sylvia’s hand like a cat watching a koi.

With a long-suffering sigh, the nymph turned back to Dalthan. After unceremoniously dropping the pouch onto the desktop, she asked the thief, “Did Zaplixel the Swindler lead you to the Guild of Experience and Levels?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dalthan replied distractedly, his green eyes rapidly blinking as if the courtyard had suddenly filled with smoke. “Hey, are you two seeing these strange floating words?”

The sudden input of information was almost overwhelming. Every time his eyes passed over someone he could see a label, or a title, written in the air over their head. One burly figure marching by in little more than a cotton loincloth was marked [Human Barbarian]. He caught a glimpse of the pale woman he’d seen in the Mausoleum, her title read [Vampire Noble]. Even Sylvia and Zap had words hovering over their heads, [Nymph Druid] and [Human Swindler], respectively.

Dalthan did a double take at Zaplixel’s label. “Hey,” the rogue began, only to be cut off by Sylvia’s next question.

“Did Zaplixel the Swindler answer any of your questions regarding The Hub?” The druid asked in a crisp, professional tone as she jotted things down in some sort of formal ledger.

“He answered a question about those strange altars,” Dal’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as Zap tried to look everywhere but at him.

“Then he qualifies as a Guide for your Tutorial.” Sylvia gave Zap a sharp nod as she unlaced the pouch. Her delicate fingers withdrew two round gemstones that looked like crystallized blood. As she set the darkly tinted rubies on the counter, she addressed Dalthan with an oddly apologetic tone. “The rules require you to pay your guide for their help.”

Still reeling from the onslaught of information, Dalthan struggled to keep up with the flow of conversation. The mention of ‘payment’ snapped his mind back into focus long enough for his gaze to flicker between the lumpy pouch and the two lonely gems laying on the countertop. He briefly tried to guess how many of those crystal coins it would take to make the pouch look that full before his shoulders lifted in a dismissive shrug.

“Sure. If he wants a couple of those ruby things…”

Dalthan didn’t have time to finish before Zap swooped in and jerked the pouch off the counter like an eagle latching onto a salmon. “Finally! If I’d had to spend one more minute around this shit hook dreg I was going to lose it.”

“What?” Dal managed to choke out while he watched the other man deposit the pouch into a pocket of the black robes he wore.

“The payment for a Guide is ninety-eight chips,” Sylvia said, her voice still holding a hint of apology like the wind whispering across an empty grave. “Since your seed money is one hundred chips, that leaves you with two left after the mandatory payment.”

Dalthan’s eyes were wide as saucers when he turned back toward the swindler. “Give me my money back!” he hissed.

“No chance, sucker.” Zap shook his head with a mocking chuckle. “You think I was hanging out with you because I wanted to? Please. This is The Hub of Evil, kid. You don’t have any friends here, and you never will.” Zaplixel cocked his head to one side, bringing a hand up to slide his palm thoughtfully across his shaved head. “If it helps, don’t think of this as money you lost, think of it as a lesson you bought.”

With that, the black-robed crook darted away from the kiosk and into the unending flow of creatures moving through the courtyard.

“Come back here you shithead!” Dalthan shouted as he moved to give chase.

Only to stop at the warm, firm pressure of slender fingers gently squeezing his bicep.

“Hey,” Sylvia said in a low purr that sent lightning running up and down his spine. He turned back to her just in time to see her glancing furtively to see if anyone was watching. Satisfied that they were free of nosey spectators, the beautiful nymph leaned closer to whisper in his ear.

“If you actually manage to change your alignment, come find me again. I’ve never had a good guy before. I’ll rock your world so hard you’ll spend the rest of your life stumbling.”

Dalthan reeled back, finding himself staring into molten pools of gold that burned with the heat of a raging forest fire.

The thief replied the only way he could.

“Deal,” he said, flashing her that roguish smile as he snatched the two chips off the counter.

A heartbeat later he was rushing through the crowd like a lightning bolt tearing its way across the sky.