Marc, Jacky, and Lloyd were in a small area of the tavern cordoned off for specifically them and the rest of Berk's group. This one, unlike the others Marc had been in, was basically just a restaurant like he was used to from the 21st century, full with wait service and menus handed out at the table.

  There were two tables for them, as thanks for the work they were doing. Whether it was legitimate or they were told by the monarch to do so was unknown, but Marc was fairly certain that Jacky and Berk were the only others who’d think of that.

  The twin thieves, who were also at their table, were taking sidelong glances at Lloyd. Being a Rogue who wasn’t with the guild meant he was on rocky footing with any who were. They were humans, one a boy named Theo and the other a girl named Lia, and they were more there to keep them out of trouble than other people. Berk’s excuse was that thieves knew how they liked to move, and the Root ones were bound to not steal from the people within the canopy for the duration. Marc still wasn’t sure if he trusted them.

  Still, so far they’d caught multiple thieves, all of whom had been thrown out of the ward, probably permanently. They were being hosted by a “friend” who also lived in the ward, some snow elf noble.

  Berk was sitting at the other table with the remaining four members of the group, an Icess alchemist named Vara, a human curate named Johan, and two human Glorifiers that Marc hadn’t caught the names of.

  “So,” Lia started. Marc thought she was the older sibling but wasn’t quite sure. “Have any good hauls lately Lloyd?”

  Lloyd didn’t even look up from his meal, some kind of dire beasts fillet, answering, “I don’t steal.”

  Lia scoffed, as Theo, more diplomatic of the two, continued where she left off, “You’re a pure combat rogue? I’ve heard its tough to get to your level doing that.” They probably didn’t know what level Lloyd, or even Marc, was.

  Lia grabbed Theo’s attention, “Well, he’s partied with a brute anyways. Any combat would be easy like that.” A. . .pot shot at Marc? He was more confused than offended.

  “So, you kids trying to get us angry, or are you just really bad at talking to people?” Marc asked. The twins got red-faced, clearly thinking they were more manipulative than they were. They were quiet for the rest of the time there.

  After their meals, they were set free. Jacky, being a noble, was letting the two of them stay in her home, which was modest compared to the rest of the nobility. Marc wasn’t expecting Downton Abbeys left right and center, but Rodaan’s home was close, and some of the buildings they saw patrolling were quite similar. Jacky’s home, to contrast, was about the size of a well-off American home, albeit the rooms were different. Some of Jacky’s sisters, too young in dryad years to go out on adventures, were also in the house. Though, given they were plants, exactly how long a dryad year was remained uncertain.

  Then came the realization that the house had no real beds. Some dryads never slept at all, able to stay awake for their entire lives, but Jacky was not one of them. She didn’t need a bed either, instead being able to more or less fuse into a wall and sleep there. The first night was slightly awkward as Marc and Lloyd tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible, but afterwards Jacky contacted some of her other family members to get some cots, blankets, and pillows brought over.

  And so Marc slept through the flood beyond the walls of the city. He didn’t dream, but that wasn’t new to this life as a wanderer. He did, however, wake early in the morning, full of energy and with no easy way to get it out.

  He checked his character sheet, seeing that he only had a few days before his first instance of Sightseeker expired. A lot of those instances were bundled up in the first few days he was in this world, so he had to be wary of losing a lot of them right in a row. His main stat was Resilience, but one could be mistaken with how strong Sightseeker made him at first.

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  Lloyd was sleeping in the same room, stock still. Whenever Marc had looked at him asleep, he always thought, just in the back of his head, that Lloyd had died in his sleep and what he saw was a corpse. But in the morning he always got up no problem.

  Marc stood, and to try and use up some of his excess energy, he left the house as quietly as he could, and started wandering the streets. He looked up into the night sky, an unbroken dome of unfamiliar stars with an alien moon as the capstone. As he was about to get philosophical, he saw something familiar - the shape of a very specific vulture.

  The Thief and Paragon were waiting. They’d been underground for multiple days by now. Exactly how long was hard to tell. The Sharoaa was fine with the silence, which the elf lent to his class of Whisper, but she was getting less and less tolerant of it. As they had gone through the tunnels, they had, thankfully, correctly interpreted their map. It did take them past the corpse of someone, but she couldn't even tell what it was, let alone who.

  Probably someone killed by the rat lunatic!

  They spent most of the time they were waiting for going over the plan, from house to house, and how to throw the guards off their trail. Her mentor was hoping there would be a big push from the Dires at some point in the next few days, which they’d be able to hear (or at least he would) from where they were, and then they could steal everything that wasn’t nailed down without much opposition.

  This was also her interview, for lack of a better term, to join the Paragons. The group was enigmatic, international, and universally respected for their skills. They were an invite-only organization, with membership ranging from royalty to barbarian warlords. A lot of people wanted to become Paragons, but almost none had the grit to stick to their most essential rule. The Elf, more by happenstance than anything else, was one of them.

  “Do not perform the Ritual of Becoming before reaching your highest level.” That meant 50 levels at each echelon. Her mentor had, at minimum, 150 levels under his belt. Despite being primarily a rogue, he was probably stronger than some dragons by the sheer number of times he’d had a chance to increase them. Being Echelon 4 and a paragon put him above most Echelon 5 adventurers in a similar way.

  She wanted that for herself.

  After hours more of waiting in the dark, with nothing to do but stare at a wall or a map or some other boring thing she’d done fifty times already.

  “You’re awfully impatient for an elf,” his voice rang out. Well, it was a whisper, but there was near total silence surrounding it.

  “Not all of us are content to sit in the wilderness for thirty years counting snowflakes and naming every star,” she shot back.

  “Well, we could continue our discussion from before.”

  “Please, no more philosophical nonsense. I can tell from your voice that you don’t really believe in it either.”

  He laughed. They had actually become fairly good acquaintances over the weeks planning. Not close enough to be friends, but also more than just two people about to stab each other in the back. If nothing else, he was refreshing company from the dead-enders who wasted away in the root.

  “Fine, fine. A question I do believe in, then?”

  “Go ahead, if you want.”

  “What do you think being a rogue serves for the world?”

  She thought for a second, eyebrows knitting together, before she looked in the direction his voice came from, “Isn’t this just more philosophy?”

  “I said something I believe in, not that it would be a history question.”

  She gave a small sigh, “Greed? We serve ourselves? Or cowardice for hiding all the time?”

  “Ah, let me rephrase,” he said, clearly hoping for a different answer. “I believe that each of the Historia serves some tendency of the people in this world. Its a fairly common believe in larger cities, even becoming close to religion around Moonset. Brute serves destruction, which is why they have so many reckless boons that inflict damage back at them. Farmer serves either protection or nurture, depending on who you ask. Mage serves wonder, and so on. The idea is that by partaking in what a historia serves, that is why you gain experience.”

  She thought for a moment. Rogues were disliked, for a reason, but. . . if they had to serve a purpose.

  “I guess,” She started, unsure of her answer, “Rogue serves. . . secrecy?”

  There was no noise for a second, before he responded once more, “Well then, let’s keep being good little rogues, and wait for the time to strike.