"I swear, I am going to kill that pompous moron!" Tiesa said for the seventh time in the last 30 minutes. She was incensed, stalking around and making choking motions every few seconds.

"Oh, can I help?" Jasna asked while Steve lounged on one hand and ate from the other. She had grabbed some more food while Tiesa rushed to the gate, arriving to be with me even before the carriage got there.

"I didn't mean that literally. At least I don't think I did. Maybe… Let's table that."

"Uh, so this throws about 80% of our plans in the trash. Again. For at least the second time. What do we do here?" I asked, looking over my notes.

I quickly ran through my plans that were now, at best, in jeopardy. Steve and I getting scanned was out the window, my plans to register with the Adventurers Guild were out too; we couldn't sell the Affinity Alteration Amaryllis to Melandra and her brother, healing potions were off the table unless they had some in Velez, I couldn't contract a blacksmith and enchanter for a new weapon in Pitola at least, my hair was still awful, and I wouldn't be able to visit the Sprouting Jade Financial and Trade offices again.

After relaying everything to the two women, I asked, "Could we do any of this through an intermediary? Or are you two banned from the city too?"

"We are 'temporarily barred from entrance'," Jasna said. "Wait, does that mean if we didn't leave, we could have stayed?"

"Probably not but I know the Mayor is big on technicalities like that and possibly would have approved," Tiesa said, again pounding her fist into her hand.

"Yeah, she actually seemed okay of the people outside the inn today. Everyone else sucked. Koval seems like a real problem," I said. "But let's focus up. Can we get the Aspirations of Ascendancy to grab some stuff for us before they are booted out too? Or are we still even aligned with them?"

Fifteen minutes later after a quick back-and-forth over AAI, Inara came bounding out of the city, looking like she was going to pass us by, then circled back under the cover of the trees into the carriage waiting area. "Wow, you caused some trouble today. They even put out a special news blast about it on my favorite feed and a special edition of the newspaper just on what went down. I'm impressed. You're infamous."

No Three Amigos jokes Terry, keep it focused.

"We need a few things done in town but can't ourselves for obvious reasons. And frankly non-obvious reasons, this was all pretty confusing. I understand everything has changed from yesterday and—" I paused at her look.

"We made the decision yesterday to stay with you and we're sticking with it. We can't sneak you into the city, too dangerous. But we can do a few things. I'll get us some supplies – hand over the rest of your gold and we'll see how much we can charge to this Katarina person." She gave a small chuckle. "Don't worry, we won't go too overboard. Per the message, I'll get you a new set of throwing knives – ones that don't give away your position, funny as that was – and I'll see if any of the weapons merchants have a morningstar like you want."

She paused, looking thoughtful. "I think we'll also get booted if you all stick around here – pretty clear to anyone watching you are waiting for someone if you don't get moving and we're an obvious answer – so I think we've only got a few hours to get everything done. You wanted some food, some healing potions, and, did you want me to get the little guy scanned? Not sure if they'll allow it but we can try, take him in to the Adventurers Guild office inside the gate. Anything else?"

"Tiesa, Jasna, what are your thoughts about sneaking Steve in to get him scanned?" I asked, thinking it was probably not worth it.

"Too risky," Jasna said at the same time as Tiesa said, "bad idea."

Good, still on the same page.

Inara shrugged. "I put it on the table if you wanted it, not because I thought we should. Okay, we'll be back; see you in maybe one and a half bells?"

Two hours sounds like a lot of time to just sit and wait but what else can we do?

***

[The Order of the Ever-Consuming Glider, has been registered with the Adventurers Guild, Pitola branch. You are invited to join The Order of the Ever-Consuming Glider. Would you like to join? Yes/no. To see available quests, please join a party, then use your login system.]

"I just got a weird, worrying, and maybe wonderful AAI message," I said, taking a break from Jasna's intense sparring practice. Without informing her first, receiving a wooden sword strike to the shoulder.

"That's loaded, spit it out," Tiesa said, lounging against a tree and, as she called it, 'providing advanced oversight and guidance'. Jasna called it 'laying down and feeding Steve', which was a less entertaining if far more accurate title.

After forwarding the message to both, Tiesa started laughing maniacally. "Oh, that is such a funny move, I am sad we didn't think of it," she said, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. "I bet it was Inara, she is such a little sodus in the best way."

"I mean, I did think of it, I didn't want to make the ask. I thought it would get them in massive trouble. And it still might. It really is a stick in the eye for the city where they're based, is that a smart idea?" I asked, feeling equal parts elated for me and worried for Vidas and team.

"They're adults. Mostly. I'm sure they talked it out and came to a decision. They are in good standing so it shouldn't be an issue and you technically aren't not in good standing or banned, you are just hated by the Guildmaster of this particular branch and not allowed in this city. Or Zalano. The Zalano branch is the headquarters for the Adventurers Guild and the Guild branch there itself isn't against you. I don't think." Tiesa laughed. "Man, we need a list of everyone who doesn't like you…"

"Good thing most quests don't require you to pick them up or turn them in physically anymore." Tiesa let out a yawn which Steve used as an opening to return the favor of the last hour and throw some food in her mouth. "Oy, you little gremlin!" she yelled and proceeded to tickle the little beast.

I finally clicked yes to the invite and got back to training with Jasna.

***

"Did they say anything when you registered the team?" I couldn't help but be curious as Tiesa and I were chatting with Vidas and Pavel in the carriage again on the way back to Velez. Jasna was on the roof 'showing Steve the wonders of the world'.

Really, it was an excuse to stop feeding him as it really wasn't healthy for something weighing so little to eat 20K calories in a day; as he would happily do.

"Nope, didn't bat an eye." Vidas smiled and took a sip of the wine we were sharing to celebrate.

Pavel rolled his eyes and elaborated. "We went to our typical office and they know how we operate; this is definitely not the first time we've added someone and changed the team name. That's literally what we do for our jobs. Nikoleta took care of it as usual."

"Well, I hope she doesn't get in trouble either," I said, a bit of worry twisting my stomach.

Vidas just laughed. "She didn't do anything wrong and their union is insane."

Pavel chuckled too. "Plus, all employees are technically under the organization itself, not the branch, and the organization doesn't care about you. And we didn't do anything wrong either, you are not on a restricted list. I think Koval thought since you were banned from Pitola and Zalano, that was enough to keep you from the Guild. No idea why he hates you."

Tiesa nodded. "Yeah, this felt like a lot extra… I mean, he sucks but not usually this much from my experience and stories."

"Agreed. Enough on that, let's take a few delve jobs on the way back to Velez." Vidas clapped his hands, rubbing them together in excitement.

"I don't think that's wise. We want to get away quickly if we can," Tiesa said.

"We are taking a big bet here on you guys. I want to make sure we get paid." Vidas looked to Pavel.

"We have significant stretch incentives that if we get him past Tier 1.5 in the next two months, we are going to be able to get through Tier 2 pretty darn quickly. Like almost bare minimum of time for essence settling." Pavel had a greedy look in his eye. "Of course, we'll keep him safe, don't worry. But especially with the allocation of essence in rifts going mostly to him, we're golden."

I sent a message to Tiesa. [I think we need to play ball here. They went out of their way to help me at significant risk to themselves, politically and maybe even physically. I'm not thrilled about it, but I say we should do at least one delve.]

"Ugh, fine. Terry says we need to be nice to you so we'll do it." She jostled my shoulder with her own. "I do appreciate you making my life easier by sticking with us – paying for delve slots and then having Jasna or I in there would mean we get zero rewards for it and lose a lot of money. Plus, we can get Terry into good standing with the Guild. Ten successful contracts and no one can keep him from being an official member. Basically, I don't love it but I'll support it."

As we went through the list of available Guild delves, a few were directly on the path back to Velez.

There was a kobold rift that was supposedly very annoying smell and temperature-wise; a scientist wanted to study weapon evolution over time in the rift so the job was to collect all their spears and short swords. It didn't pay well and no one wanted kobold meat. Their hide was terrible for anything too, so the economics just didn't make sense.

Another was swarms of insects and we all immediately said no, not wanting anything to do with insectoids so soon after the dungeon.

The walking forest rift sounded pretty interesting but we didn't have the storage capacity to bring back the wood that the person sponsoring the delve wanted. Usually, people brought a series of five or six carts just to haul all the goods back. It also took a considerable period of time to chop everything down – especially without axes – and Tiesa was unwilling to wait that long.

Finally, the one we chose was a swamp rift – it was only a few hours further down the road and paid the best. It did include a few insects in the form of giant mosquitos but it was mostly crocodiles and vampire manatees with a few tree-based snakes to mix things up.

Stolen novel; please report.

The snakes' venom was very useful in antidotes and in some cooking recipes from along the southern coast, the mosquito blood was good for mundane healing supplies as it could be used for both coagulants and anticoagulants with the right treatment, and the crocodiles were valued for their tasty meat and tough skin. The vampire manatees were just extremely hard to kill and annoying.

And UGLY.

While none of the monsters were a great fit for my fighting style, none were a hard counter. A smash to the head or six with the morningstar worked on all of them, per Tiesa, and so we prepared for me to be the lookout and emergency backup for the delve.

As I pulled through the tear in space, the familiar feeling of something tugging at my cores, I was shocked at just how humid yet frigid the swamp was.

Without my enhanced constitution thanks to essence, I think I would shiver so hard, I'd pull a muscle! This is miserable!

It reminded me of visiting a California client and the old Twain quote of 'the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco'.

In the watery environment, it was Inara and Romie's time to shine. While Pavel and Vidas could hold the enemies off, Inara was devastating at taking out a wing on the mosquitos with a quick dash-n-slash while Romie's arrows found crocodile eyes, making the fights rather one-sided; quite literally as the team would approach from the side that was blinded.

My joke pointing that out did not go over well other than with Romie, who howled so loud, it brought out a few enemies.

Pavel convinced Vidas to let me fight one-on-one against each of the monsters at least once to get a feel for their different styles.

The snakes were probably the easiest. They relied on stealth and fast strikes and so my shield provided enough cover that they smashed their fangs against it. That did mean they weren't worth as much since it damaged the venom glands so I was only allowed one go. It wasn't that interesting, enlightening, or challenging to smash a dazed creature to death so that was okay with me.

My first manatee fight was far more exciting.

I waded into the water that was just above my waist and felt a small suction, both through the water and on my spirit. The manatees, if given license, would latch on physically and drain mana and blood from enemies.

I threw a large rock to my right to simulate movement and the hideous white-gray bulbous head emerged suddenly, spraying water all over me. It looked like if you melted the head of a poorly made plastic whale with a magnifying glass and then painted its eyes red and glued in some fangs.

That is to say, horrifying yet not intimidating.

I used my shield to redirect it into a slightly shallower area and was almost sick to my stomach at its weird flipper feet that allowed it to stand upright at about seven and half feet (2.3m).

Its arm flipper was far more flexible than I thought and it brought it towards my chest in a quick slash that I barely got my shield in the way to deflect.

It emitted a terrible noise, like a blender trying to destroy a mobile phone.

With my shield somewhat out of position, it moved to crash down on me.

I leapt back as much as I could when surrounded by water.

So not much.

As it was tipping over, I used the morningstar as a brace and dug my boots into the mud, rolling the giant mass of stinking blubber to the side and gouging a line down its side with the points on the weapon's head.

It crashed down, almost knocking me over but I brought the weapon down in two quick blows, one to the eye and the other on the knot of fat on its head.

I didn't quite blind it but I did royally piss it off.

Throwing caution to the wind, it rose up again. But I was ready.

I hooked my shield under where its flipper met its body and swung two quick jabs at its foot, unsettling its balance and starting to topple it over.

I leapt and rolled with the blubbering mass of blubber as it fell to the back and side.

Bad decision.

As a large, round, and slippery beast, I didn't maintain leverage on top and despite two blows to its face on the ride down – one shield and one morningstar – it looked little worse for wear.

We once again faced off, this time with my back to deeper water. Knowing that could be extremely bad, potentially with another manatee or croc waiting to snack on me, I feinted to the right and it swung while I made my way to a small island of slippery mud and wood to the left.

As I shot past it, the enraged beast got a good blow to my shoulder with its fore-flipper, though not enough to do serious damage.

As I got to the high ground, I was able to lure it out, flinging a throwing dagger into its cheek.

It charged.

That was its undoing.

As an incredibly angry animal that could essentially only flop around on land, I quickly worked to wear it down and kept circling it to keep it engaged and not let it roll back into the water.

My finishing blow to its head was a two-handed affair with all my strength and I felt its skull collapse.

Turning around to the team in triumph, I saw betrayal. An arrow at the end of Romie's bow, loosed as it fired directly at me.

The world slowed down.

The arrow missed my face by mere inches.

And then I felt the rush of essence and an extremely heavy weight crash against my back, sending me flying face first into the muck.

Always finish the job… Like in Pulp Fiction, two in the head so you know they're dead.

I held my hand up in thanks while Vidas gave me a death glare.

"Always keep fighting until you feel the essence. And sometimes a bit after as it might not be your monster that just died," Pavel said. Instead of helping me up, he kicked more mud in my face, getting some in my mouth. "You deserve worse than that. And Jasna will give that to you when she sees the recording. And no, we can't scrub that part out. And wouldn't if we could."

Grumbling, far more at myself than the team that saved me from my arrogance again, I buckled down for the rest of the rift.

I even added a small AAI overlay on my vision: FINISH THE DAMN JOB.

The crocs were far easier with a simple trick that I confirmed with the team would theoretically work before attempting it.

I didn't want to risk my morningstar so I stuck my warhammer in its mouth as it approached and it reflexively snapped down on it. I jumped to clamp and keep its mouth shut and then slowly shoved the weapon deeper, turning it and hooking the spike on the back of the weapon on the monster's insides in a horrible and slow corkscrew of torment.

"Can we please finish it? I concede you win but this is brutal to watch and you are also ruining the meat," Pavel said, raising his spear.

Realizing the position I was in, straddling its back and with a hand clamped on the mouth, I took a dagger from my bandolier and slashed it down three times, finally getting through the skull and hitting brain on the third.

"That works too."

"Sorry, I was too enamored with my plan and that it was working. Didn't really think about any other factor," I said sheepishly, rubbing my hand – and thus croc brains and blood – across the back of my head.

Inara looked at my face of sheer disgust and giggled.

Once we mopped up the stragglers, it was time to face the boss of the rift.

"Look, I am getting more confident you can handle yourself. But stay back." Vidas was short winded as per usual. He turned to his team – the rest of our team – "Tactic 27, keep spread. I need you two on range, taking down the mosquitos while we take on the crocs." He pointed first to Inara and Romie and then to himself and Pavel.

Based on the recordings and that we hadn't seen any variation in the rift yet from the standard configuration, there would be two humanoid crocodiles, likely wielding spears, and two massive mosquitos backing them up. Sometimes the giant bloodsuckers had a ranged attack that was like a bullet of blood but we didn't think it was likely.

The forest clearing was free from any debris which would make footing easier. We saw the crocodiles, both peeking their heads from behind boulders.

Romie opened the fight with a double arrow to a mosquito that was well hidden in the canopy. Only one made solid contact but it did hit near the shoulder, hurting its ability to fly.

The crocodiles lobbed the rocks at us though they were relatively easy to dodge, picking up their spears and bellowing.

At that, Vidas charged first, taking an angle to avoid the rock in his path, followed by Pavel who tried to use the boulders for some cover if possible. The larger brother rammed both of the giant bipedal crocodiles, using the flat of his enormous blade, and I saw their melee plans immediately.

Vidas fully engaged the croc on the right and tried to keep the second one's attention while Pavel worked to wear the one on the left down quickly through a series of shallow jabs and slashes from his spear.

I quickly decided to call the one on our right Roger and the other Larry.

It started well with Larry limping gingerly on a damaged foot within the first few exchanges from Pavel's excellent spear jabs.

Romie provided anti-air support, keeping the mosquitos off the brothers while Inara looked for an opening as the disgusting monsters floated down from their perches to use an assassin-style strike.

One of the mosquitos was close to falling so Inara dashed in, slashing across its abdomen impossibly fast, using a new enchantment that left an X-shaped wound from a single swipe of her long dagger.

But that's when it went wrong.

Vidas overcommitted on a swing to parry Roger who he was entirely responsible for and Larry dove under the spear thrust of Pavel to bite deeply, crunching the armor on Vidas' left leg. It cost the croc dearly as Pavel stabbed down and landed a nasty blow to the back of Larry's neck but it didn't quite kill it.

Inara called out, "Vidas injured, left leg, mild to maybe severe, turtle up!"

Pavel quickly moved to get directly next to his brother and started fighting more defensively.

Romie landed a well-placed shot to Roger, the mostly uninjured croc, hitting its off hand with an arrow, reducing Roger to using the spear essentially one handed.

However, that meant no one was boxing in the second giant mosquito, which zoomed directly for me.

I felt the flutter in my heart as I prepared my shield and morningstar. Then a different flutter in my stomach.

Why is this the most happy I've felt?

I can psychoanalyze myself later, it's bug smashing time.

The top foreleg swept in for a probing strike that I easily deflected with my shield while I prepared for the fast proboscis jab to the face. The videos and even the fights we'd had with the awful bloodsuckers said that was far-and-away the most likely attack.

It was agonizing keeping my head still, knowing a jab that could potentially be a one shot kill was coming for my face. If I dodged too early, it was likely to change the direction of the strike and I couldn't control where it might hit.

As expected, the disgusting barbed needle of death and itchiness came flying for the center of my forehead as the mosquito reeled its head back and lunged forward to strike.

I dodged to the same side as my shield while bringing my weapon behind me to try for a lucky break of the proboscis.

My weapon connected and I heard a satisfying crack but the long straw of awfulness remained attached to its ugly, massive, bloodthirsty face.

I feinted an overhead swing to show it another opening and then used my shield to block it in slightly against a tree on its right and my left.

If it wanted to retreat, it would have been easy for the mosquito, but the strike against its face seemed to send it into a rage. I heard the others shouting but all I could hear, all I could see, was the fight in front of me.

This is what it's all about.

We traded blows, the monster catching me across the forehead and piercing the chain shirt on my shoulder to draw more blood that it happily zoomed into its face with magic. But I got the better of the exchange, using a baseball swing to the body to press it into the tree and then an overhead quick slash to score a huge gash down its face.

Two quick strikes to the wing cost me a sharp poke to the chest but it was deflected first by my shield, significantly reducing the momentum and keeping my internals intact.

The ram to my breastbone still had a lot of force but snapped the probiscis off and led to a vicious defense but an inevitable victory by me.

As I finally smashed the mosquito for the third time post essence rush, Pavel caught my attention.

"Well, that corpse is probably ruined. But good fighting. Inara was going to intervene but she thought you were doing well enough without our help. That chest strike was a bit scary though…" He gave an annoyed look at his fiancée.

"Told ya. You owe me 10 silvers and a massage," she said with a wide smile across her face. At his incredulous look, she shrugged. "What?"

"I don't think he wanted me to know you were betting on my life," I said.

Not sure how I feel about that. Inara believed in me but Pavel wanted to step in. Both are kinda in the wrong and the right here…

And why didn't they cut me in on the action?

"To be clear, I didn't bet you'd die, that would be insane. I bet that we'd have to intervene before you got seriously hurt. Romie had a kill shot on it lined up before it even started flying at you and Inara could have deflected that last blow, though it might have broken her arm to do so." Pavel looked like he was ready for me to yell.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained. That was great experience. Always have to be on my guard, right?"

I'll process this later…

"Uh, well we voted and you get to dispel the reward distortion," Pavel said, clearly looking confused.

"Great. We got all the bodies we are taking?" I asked, heading for the glowing rip in reality.

"Yes boss, we're locked and loaded," Inara said, falling in step beside me.

Vidas growled while I rolled my eyes.

As we reached the distortion, I gave a quizzical look at her being so close.

Then she shoved me through the distortion and grabbed the few gold lumps that materialized before they could hit the ground like I did.

"Always have to be on your guard, right?" she said laughing and exited the rift.

Jasna is going to make me – and probably them – pay so much for the mistakes in this rift… Still, lots of progress, both in Tier and in my fighting capability.

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