The Royal Family was in turmoil. The justice system was, itself, on trial. The military was angry and handicapped. The fleet was gone, and the system was burning down. There were no actual fires or violence, but everyone was angry and confused.

The fleet didn't care for most of the overly bureaucraticcally corrupt systems of supposed government. They hardly cared for the lives of the people, but they wanted one thing. They wanted their creator back. Costan was an immortal, the prison should have decayed and had to be rebuilt many times over before he ever came close to death, but they murdered him and were forcing his corpse to maintain a wretched imitation of life.

Costan had other problems at that time. He was "reborn" on the world of Dipshee by the demand of the god Dipshee to avoid or lessen some catastrophe or another. Somehow the native Dipshi were unable to do such on their own. Costan, had the hardest time not referring to them as the Dipshits.

The Dipshi were human, for the most part. There were orc like things and elves, but he mostly encountered humans... After he finally got born to a normal family. He died multiple times from being born to a rich or noble family and being infanticided. Wacky bunch of weirdos murdering their own children because "it's cursed" or "witchery".

He finally got reborn into a farmer's family. They were poor and every coin went to taxes, but they survived and ate well enough. The world was a weird one where everything was tied to magic and half of everything was built by the gods, done by the gods, this that n the other by the gods. There were many things that regular Dipshi couldn't do, like jumping, climbing anything that didn't already have a ladder or rope, swimming, and crossing a roped off area without using a teleportation spell.

Then there was the system. Almost everything was done with the system gifted on to the world by the gods. Everything and everyone's place and usefulness were determined using it, even fighting was somehow turn based. Then Costan happened, somehow able to act inside and outside of the systems parameters. There was a magical screen for everything, but Costan could take it or leave. His sight would be occluded by multiple system windows and warnings if he said the wrong words.

Costan was given a different name, but didn't care for it. Most people gave up on calling him Nostomus and called him Noso. It was all good, he was figuring it out, until his mother got pregnant again. They told him that he would have to leave because of the taxes and he wouldn't be fit for conscription, being covered in fur and all.

Noso didn't like being kicked out, but he would probably do better on his own anyway. Sure he didn't have shoes and was only half of the height of an average Dipshee human, but he would be happier alone. People constantly hovering over him and stopping him from doing basic things always bothered him. They gave him a rough woven bag with some food in it and pointed him towards the nearest city.

Who the hell names a city Fishfell? It doesn't matter, that is where they pointed out that he should go. He happened upon an old well on his way and tried to get water from it. The well was dry, but there was a jangling sound from the bucket hitting the bottom. He figured that he might need some money for his new life, and climbed down the well.

His bare feet jingled on the coins as he dropped the last two feet down. There would have been a nice haul right there, if it weren't for the other person busy picking up coins. Costan looked at the black clothed man and the man looked back at him. There was an uneasy silence between them for an uncomfortable few seconds.

"Hi, I guess we kind of had the same idea. They call me Noso. How about you?"

The guy didn't speak, but wrote down a reply on a scrap of paper. "Goge, mute."

"Okay, can we work together with a nod for yes and a shake for no?"

Goge nodded his head.

"Nice, any ideas on where that cave goes?"

Goge shook his head.

"Think we should find out, after we get enough coin out of this well for people to get water again?"

Goge grinned and nodded.

The cave entrance was mostly occluded by the mountain of coins, Costan, aka Noso, had already accepted the fact that this would take multiple trips with his one bag. He filled the bag and was about to make the climb up when Goge stopped him. He quickly scribbled a question.

"Why are you using a bag instead of your inventory?"

"I completely forgot because I don't like using the system. I've been reincarnated and transmigrated so many times that I have to sift through multiple versions of the same screens just to get to the right one. I guess it might need doing though." Noso looked at the coins with that last part.

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Noso groaned as he called up the inventory. His vision was completely occluded with locked inventories, errors and, to his surprise, more than one functional inventory. He figured out a way to minimize things and stuff them into the corner, after pulling some paper and pens out for his new college and some helpful things for himself.

The it was as easy as picking up the coins into the new inventory. Then he got bored and put the other inventories into the new inventory, the entire screens with items and all. Then he decided to use the well bucket. The system was fickle about it, wanting the "bucket of gold" added to the general inventory space instead of the gold in the bucket. It accepted it's fate when Noso stretched the screen and physically dumped the buckets contents into the coin slot.

The water splattered back to the pile of coins as the coins were automatically tallied and added. Noso received the title Pusher of Boundaries. He would have to check in on that before entering any settlements, but he showed the trick to Goge to speed up the process.

It still took them hours to clean out the well. Goge couldn't swim, so Noso was stuck diving down to fill the bucket and let Goge deal with hauling it back up while Noso caught his breath. There was a good twenty feet of water down past the cave entrance, all clogged up with coins.

Never mind the shattered skeleton that was down there, they made bank on those discarded coins. So long as they didn't spend frivolous, they could live comfortably for years, maybe even decades, depending on the markets. They quietly made their cautious way down to cave to see what was to be seen.

Noso had to dispatch a few undead skeletons, once again employing the bucket to do so. The cave split twice. Left had rule led them to a dead end with a pick axe, some minable ores, and coffins and corpses threatening to fall from the ceiling. Then the left hand rule led them to the heavily trapped basement of what was likely a black smiths shop, given from the tools and materials and the smell of unwashed pits and singed hair.

They left the basement be because you don't make the blacksmith angry if you plan on sticking around. From the sense of direction and distance, backed up with the system map, they were under Fishfell while in the basement. The left hand rule then led to a poorly trapped path.

They stole the traps, and the stuff that was used to obscure them. Four fire traps, some crates, a barrel of oil, and a barrel of poison, the system stated that the oil was flammable and the poison was mildly explosive. Noso wouldn't have to work too hard to make firearms a thing. Then he realized that he could inspect things.

He inspected Goge and found out that he was a noble, but was shunned by his family and became a rogue after a curse took his voice. Noso then inspected himself, and oh boy. Many titles had chased him, even here. He doubted that anyone would let him near the city with some of those. Emperor of Hell, Lord Death, Reincarnator, Destroyer of Worlds, Massacre Maker, Lord Death of Murder Mountain, Exemplar of Extinction, High Commander Carnage, The Furry Doom, The Endless Void of Violence... It just doesn't look good on a resume, but it definitely would keep people from thinking of him as an easy mark.

"Um, Goge, did you perhaps inspect me when we met?"

Goge shook his head but his eyes soon grew very wide very fast.

"Those are carry over from a previous life. I'm way different when you are on my side than I am to my enemies."

Goge gave a slow nod, but started keeping an eye on Noso.

"Oh, come on. Every one of the horrible titles is because of assholes that wanted to cause harm onto others. Except for the Emperor of Hell one, the gods sent me to hell because I had killed myself once and things happen."

Goge gave another slow nod.

"And. You don't believe me. Well, after we finish up exploring and get to an inn, we will divvy up the gains fifty-fifty and part ways."

Goge lifted an eyebrow, then wrote something.

"I have no problem adventuring with you, but how will people react to a rogue and the Emperor of Hell showing up?"

Noso quickly realized that could be a big problem, but they would have to cross that bridge at a later time. He had no real plan except for pointing out that it is not unlawful to have the titles and pointing out that he had committed no crimes in their town. If they chose to arrest him, he didn't know.

They continued exploring and found the cave outlet. It was a secret grotto, but given the ships tucked in there, maybe it's a secret cove during high tide. Then they saw the flags, pirate flags. This could be a plan c. The pesky scallywags would have to be dealt with eventually, though. You can't just leave pirates to pirate.

"Should we take care of the pirates now or later?"

Goge wrote his response. "Later, let's go get some sleep somewhere. If they try and arrest you, you can use pirate killing as a bargain piece."

"Fair enough Sir Goge."

Goge immediately held up a scrap of paper with "don't call me that" written on it.

"Alright, so just Goge then?"

Goge nodded.

It was sunset by the time they got to the city gate, which wasn't all that far away. It seemed like all points of interest were with a day or twos walk. The guard stopped them and refused entry after sunset, but the sun was actively setting. Goge reach into his pocket and pulled out a bag of coin.

Noso stopped him. He whispered "trying to bribe that guy could get us both arrested" in Goge's ear. Goge wavered his hand in response, like he had been doing for a while. "Okay then how much is the usual bribe?"

Goge wrote ten per person, but it was better than sleeping outside without a tent.

"So, just twenty then?"

Goge nodded, but the guard must have caught on to the conversation and inspected Noso.

"It's the usual ten for Goge, he's poor. But the Emperor of Hell will have no entry."

Noso had to link back up with Goge the next day. They hashed out a system of Noso never entering settlements while Goge ran in and took care of shopping and bounties. It's pretty much how the rest of that life went, they got up to some wacky adventures but nobody even heard of Noso.

They didn't just take out one pirate band, they went on to topple multiple criminal empires. Goge went down in history as the infamous Silent Solitaire because most people thought he worked alone. The silent part stayed even after Noso managed to cure his muted status.

The adventures came to an end though, the Inquisition got wind of the Silent Solitaire hanging out with an evil beast-cursed individual. While Goge got off with a warning about the company that he kept, Noso was executed, after a very long fifty to one small scale holy war. Nevermind that the two of them had prevented and stopped more calamities in ten years then the Inquisition had in a hundred.