Days later the group arrived back at 5 Star Road entering to their guild hall only to be tackled by Forala. Victor found himself no longer touching the ground sandwiched between two soft pillows being spun around. “What happened to all of you?!” She put him down. “Wait wait, first let me tell you what I’ve been able to do.” She seemed so excited. If she had her tail it would be wagging. Four dwarves sat in the corner of the guild hall. Two with long beards two with shorter beards. “These are the Traveling Dwarves of Krogal. They joined our guild and have been doing a bunch of closer quests. They’ve really raised our standing around here.”

  “Aye lad! I hear you’re part of the first group.” Havel stroked his long grey beard.

  Bjorn chuckled stroking his long brown beard. “He’s the angelic knight you old beard.”

  Glenda Goldgrip stroked her long blond beard. “Well he’s getting up there. He is 40.”

  Tina Twostone noted. “Well he’s also the highest level. If forgetting minor facts is all that old age has brought him, I’d say he’s doing well.”

  Forala clapped a few times. “They found 3 artifacts, I found 2 and between us we’ve made a thousand gold for the guild. We’ve been doing phenomenally! Dwarves, may I introduce, Victor, Serena, Emilie, Jenora, Brice, Swordie, and Cawthorn.”

  “That’s incredible!” Victor and the whole group seemed shocked at just how well things were going.

  “I’ve been trying to recruit others but it’s been difficult. Other than the Dwarves of Krogal few groups will speak with me, and fewer will consider speaking with me after they learn I’m a half drake.” She seemed disappointed before resuming her enthusiasm. “Anyway! What took you so long? If you’d not returned in the next 5 or so days I’d have gone on a rescue mission to save you guys.”

  “It’s a long story.” Victor noted.

  Havel slapped the table. “Oh I LOVE long stories! Have a seat and do tell.”

  “Would anyone else like to take this one?” Victor turned to them.

  “I SHALL TELL IT MY MAGE!” Cawthorn burst forth flapping onto the center of the table. “THERE WE WERE! IN THE HURAVA NECROPOLIS WHEN A DEADLY TRAP SENT US PLUMMETING TO DEEP BELOW THE EARTH TO THE BOTTOM OF THE NECROPOLIS!”

  Glenda stroked her blonde luxurious beard. “Wait aren’t you able to fly? You’re a crow? How did you fall down a trap?”

  “THAT IS UNIMPORTANT! ONCE WE FELL WE WERE TRAPPED! WE SAT THERE SEARCHING FOR A WAY OUT AND MY MAGE DISCOVERED BENEATH THE CARPET WAS A PORTAL!” Cawthorn raised his wings waiting for applause.

  Tina shook her hand as if to say no. “Not even remotely believable. A tier 10 circle spell? Get better material.”

  “He’s telling the truth actually.” Victor noted and the others agreed sitting down.

  Brice agreed. “The entire purpose of the necropolis was to create enough gold to melt down and turn into the required magic circle.”

  Tina raised an eyebrow. “Go on…”

  “A MYSTERIOUS AND MAGNIFICENT HERO SAVED US FROM THE ABYSSAL LABYRINTH, IT WAS THEN WE WERE TRANSPORTED TO THE GREEN GARDEN! MASSIVE BEASTS ROAMED THE LAND AND ATTACKED US AND FOR DAYS WE STARVED BEFORE A FRIENDLY CIVILIZATION OF APES ATTACKED US!” Cawthorn explained.

  “Friendly civilization attacking you? Am I too old for this story?” Havel asked

  “They trapped us and made us fight a giant snake. We beat it then they helped us escape through a green portal.” Victor added.

  “MY MAGE I AM TELLING THE STORY!” Cawthorn insisted.

  “Very well, continue.” Victor bowed and extended his hand differing to Cawthorn.

  “IT WAS THEN WE FACED OUR GREATEST TRIAL! WE HAD LANDED IN HELL !” He emphasized the last word extremely hard pausing for dramatic effect. “I, THE GREATEST BIRD TO EVER LIVE, FOUND THE PORTAL BUT IT WAS GUARDED BY A LEGION OF DEVILS! MY MAGE IN HIS INFINITE BRILLIANCE STARTED THE ASSAULT AS A GROUP OF ELVES ATTACKED THE DEVILS LEAVING THE TOWER POORLY GUARDED! THEY SLAUGHERED THEIR WAY TO THE PORTAL AND WE ESCAPED THAT FLOOR! ONLY THEN WE LANDED ON THE MOST HORRIBLE FLOOR. An open plain of warm summer time.”

  “You escaped hell?” Bjorn asked. “That’s a hell of a feat.”

  “MY MAGE IS A HELL OF A MAGE!” Cawthorn proclaimed. “IT WAS THEN WE FACED OUR GREATEST CHALLENGE! ANIMALS THAT EXPLODE INTO FOOD IF ATTACKED! WE ATE OUR FILL AND FILLED OUR BAGS WANDERING FOR A WEEK BEFORE STUMBLING UPON AN OLD MAN!”

  “An old man? In the abyssal labyrinth? I guess in one of the adjacent realms someone might be living in one of those realms but who would dare live there?” Havel asked confused.

  “DEOX THE DESTROYER LIVED THERE! THE CALAMITY HIMSELF! THE CREATOR OF THE ABYSSAL LABRINTH! THE END OF ALL THINGS! THE POURER OF TEA!” Cawthorn proclaimed.

  The dwarves collectively chuckled. “You expect us to believe you met Deox the destroyer and you’re still alive, here, now?”

  Forala started looking at Cawthorn strangely and checking the heads of Victor and the others. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “WE DID MEET THE DESTROYER!” Cawthorn threw up his wings angry they wouldn’t believe them.

  Emilie leaned forward. “It’s true, at the very least he called himself the destroyer.”

  Brice insisted. “He was the destroyer. He opened a portal looking down on my old home and cast a spell that could have wiped out the entire town in a single spell. He closed the portal because he didn’t want to destroy it he just wanted to teach us a lesson.”

  “SEE! WE DID MEET THE DESTROYER!” Cawthorn desperately insisted.

  Havel chuckled. “Yeah sure you did crow. Lets hear the rest.”

  Cawthorn looked to Victor distressed refusing to return to the story. “FINE! YOU’LL BELIEVE ME ONE DAY! I’M THE GREATEST BIRD TO EVER LIVE AND MY MAGE IS THE GREATEST MAGE!” Cawthorn hopped up on Victors shoulder. Victor gently pet him causing him to close his eyes and lean against his cheek.

  Victor reassured them. “Well he’s telling the truth, although a bit abbreviated. Anyway we found a Crystal Rune Stone: Fireball in the necropolis. It’ll make a great trap for thieves or for a careful mage.”

  Brice nodded. “It’s a rank 3 artifact. Based on rules you set out we should each get 4 artifact points and it goes into the vault.”

  “You’ve only gotten 1 artifact in all that time? We’re up to 7.5 points each. Although yours is higher tier than our artifacts were.” Bjorn noted.

  Forala cheerfully picked up the rags surrounding it and hurried off to the vault. She returned almost as fast as she left and noted something in the ledger at the desk by the back. “I’ve documented your find, you’ll need to do an adventurers guild quest next.”

  Serena slyly looked at her. “Well it sounds like you have a job specifically in mind.”

  “The forest trolls I broke up just before you left for the necropolis have gone and found help from somewhere else and have reformed. They’re not a big threat but they’re amassing south of here with occasional reinforcements arriving from the Xalper mountains. I killed most of them but clearly they were just part of a larger encampment. When you’re all ready you should deal with them. The reward is 700 gold from the guild. I paid the 7 gold to take the quest on your behalf because they were far too weak to pose much of a threat to your group.” Forala handed them a paper with the quest information on it.

  “We need to sell some items and turn the gold we found into coins. I will do that today.” Serena pulled out the bag and Jenora handed over the dragon scale powder along with the crushed bones.

  “Does the rogue do that in every group?” Bjorn asked.

  Havel clarified. “Rogues are inherently greedy by nature. They always want to be in charge of the money even if they’re good hearted.”

  Tina Twostone protested. “That’s not fair! We just want to make sure there is a fair accounting of the funds so no one gets cheated.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Serena laughed. “No I want to be in charge of the money. Being in charge makes me feel happier and in control of my life.”

  “You can be in charge of the group too if you want Serena, I don’t mind following you.” Victor noted.

  “Oh hell no!” She laughed. “You’re the one leading this band of misfits that’s never going to change.”

  Brice concurred. “I definitely feel more confident with you in charge.”

  Jenora agreed. “It’s you or no one.”

  “Hey! You let me lead you around for years!” Emilie protested.

  “Yeah, but you had claimed me. I’d let you lead me around again if you wanted to Emilie, but you’d have to claim me again.” Jenora smirked at her playfully.

  Glenda recoiled. “Uhg jilted and desperate ex-lovers in the same group? How can you possibly get anything done.”

  “We weren’t ex-lovers until we were trapped in the abyssal labyrinth.” Emilie corrected them.

  Tina raised an eyebrow. “Well, why’d you two break up?” The group became tense and no one spoke for a few moments. “That bad huh? So which guy or was it the short tan girl?”

  Emilie put up her hands to stop her. “No! No! No! It wasn’t that at all! It’s more complicated.”

  Tina leaned forward skeptical. “Most of the time that someone says that they really mean they want to be with someone else, or the other person is already doing someone else. Not that it’s any of my business. I just thought I’d ask.”

  Jenora agreed. “Complicated is certainly a good word for what the reason is. Lets just leave it at that.”

  Victor clapped his hands to distract them. “Well Serena you can sell everything off and we can collect our gold.”

  “I’ll do that but I wanted to ask should we buy a mule or a few horses? We can setup a cart and we’ll probably travel faster than our normal walking speed.” Serena pointed out.

  “Yeah we need to do that, it’ll be annoying to carry back all the large weapons troll have.” Jenora added.

  “Speaking of which I owe some gold to Forala, please just give my gold to Forala for my debt.” Victor nodded to her. “We have a lot of meat from the abyssal labyrinth so I’m good on food for a while too.

  Forala smirked. “Look at this guy, he didn’t even get paid yet, and is trying to pay of his debt.”

  “I’ve been in debt before. I don’t want to be in debt if I can avoid it.” Victor insisted.

  Havel noted. “She lent me some money too to get me this massive hammer. It really helped a month ago when I was struggling to get back into the swing of it. No pun intended.”

  Serena stood up leaving her things at the table. “Victor can you put these away for me? I’m going to go get us our coin.”

  “Of course.” Serena waited at the exit and Victor put away her things in her room. “Come on Victor!”

  “Oh I’m coming with you?” Victor asked.

  She looked at him like and tilted her head toward Emilie and Jenora. “Yes, come on.” They quickly went to the market and Serena shrewdly ended up bargaining up the dragon scale powder to 700 gold from the estimated 600. They then sold the rest and converted the solid gold to coins at the nearby Freedman’s Guild Bank. After that Victor started walking to the theater. “Why are we headed to the theater?”

  “I wanted to ask Lilly Anderson if she knew any way to get people back together after they’d broken up. She seemed levelheaded when we spoke to her last time.” Victor sauntered forward.

  “Wait you don’t think I’d be good at that?” Serena asked confused.

  “Well I’ve only ever been in a relationship with you and you just carried me to a room and aggressively made your intentions known. If I had to guess your advice would be for Emilie to just straight up tell Jenora and demand she work on becoming comfortable about her again no matter what it takes.” Victor looked straight at her.

  “It’s the right way to handle it.” Serena narrowed her eyes at him.

  “It is!” Victor agreed wholeheartedly. “For us. Emilie won’t do that though. She’s afraid not na?ve like me. I don’t know what to do and she seemed like the oldest wisest woman we met in the city. I’m happy to take suggestions on who else to speak to but it feels stupid not to try.”

  “Are you sure we should butt into their relationship?” Serena asked.

  “She explicitly asked me to help.” Victor countered.

  “Wait really?” Serena tilted her head. “She asked you?”

  “Yes. Do you know a better person to ask than her? I’m open to suggestions because I suck at this but it’s important to the future of our group for both of them to cooperate.” Victor insisted.

  “Eventually losing a cleric to relationship drama would be a rather dumb reason for us to die somewhere.” Serena waffled back and forth but agreed.

  “So do you know anyone better to ask?” Victor repeated.

  “No, let’s go. She seems like a reasonable person and she’s pretty intimidated by me. I should be able to help you get into the room with her at the very least.” Serena proposed.

  “Thanks. I really don’t know what to do other than ask for help here.” Victor and Serena approached the theater.

  Amelia was smoking outside as she was last time. “Oh shit! It’s you two. What do you want?”

  Serena walked up. “We want to speak with Miss Anderson.” She crossed her arms.

  Amelia threw down her cigarette and stomped on it. “Alright I’ve been told if you ever show up to take you to her. She’s doing auditions right now though so please be respectful and don’t interrupt.”

  Victor nodded in agreement following her into the foyer then to the opulent theater. They hadn’t actually entered it last time and really didn’t know how massive it actually was. The size astonished him. He’d never actually been in a theater besides the school one. “It’s so big, and it smells like spicy incense. I like it in here.”

  “It’s a very refined smell.” Serena took a deep sniff.

  “Darling you need to be louder! Your voice is divine but you need to sing louder!” A massive hat turned to them approaching. “Oh it’s you two. Sit sit!” She cleared off the seats next to her. She leaned over as the girl on stage began singing a lot louder. “How can I help you two love birds?”

  “Well I have this friend. This hypothetical friend recently left her significant other but she doesn’t want to leave them but after specific events she became afraid of this person and broke up because of that fear. She wants to get back together but fluxgates between wanting to and being afraid. She’s having nightmares about what happened.” Victor explained

  She raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh, and this friend. Is she a short girl?”

  “Yes! How did you know?” Victor asked.

  “Darling, what did an angelic knight do to make a girl afraid of him?” She asked Serena confused.

  “Huh? No, he’s never scared me.” She paused remembering that one time. “Well except this one time when I found out he associates with some unsavory customers.”

  “Serena.” Victor protested in a hushed whisper.

  “It did scare me for a minute before I realized he was just stupid for dealing with that guy and vowed to kill him some day. I’ll never let Victor live that dumb deal down but I’m not going to leave because of something like that.” Serena tapped her cheek with her finger. “It would pretty much take another girl claiming him for me to leave him.”

  “Well I should hope you have at least that much self respect girl, he’s an angelic knight not Marten the Many.” She hid her chuckle behind a fan.

  “I’ve got plenty of it. He wasn’t asking about us, it actually was about a friend he just didn’t want to say who.” Serena explained. “The friend left the other friend because she is a shape shifter.”

  “She asked me to ask on her behalf, probably because of her pride but it might have been something else too.” Victor noted.

  “Oh do tell. That skill is almost always innate. Unless she has the polymorph spell and is using that instead.” She asked. “Is it the shapeshifting skill or the polymorph spell? Oh I guess it’s probably not important. What did she turn into? Was she secretly a shapeshifting vampire disguised as a human? Was it a werewolf? Does he have control over the transformation?”

  “Kind of?” Victor shrugged as Miss Anderson leaned in eagerly interested in the story. “She can transform at will but not transform back. The other form, lets just say hypothetically is a werewolf, and said werewolf form ran out of control and nearly swallowed said friend in a single bite. She didn’t have control of it, and still doesn’t but now the werewolf form is friendly instead of vicious and ravenous. Now she is justifiably afraid of her but doesn’t want to be. What can she do to get back together?” Victor asked.

  “And you’re sure it’s not your darling here who is the werewolf?” She flipped her fan closed and pointed.

  “No I’m human right down to the bone. I’m not a shitty werewolf, elf, or vampire.” Serena Insisted.

  “Well darlings if that is the case then there’s only a few things you can do. She has to experience it safely in small doses, or you can lean in and really play up the danger of the situation but make her the protector. Make her fall for her other half too by putting her in danger and letting her be saved is a dangerous gamble but probably fixes it overnight if it works. If it doesn’t she probably will never want to see the fellow again. The offending werewolf could also try to gain control but that’s probably easier said than done.” Miss Anderson explained.

  “We should definitely try the first one then.” Victor turned to Serena.

  “Wait I thought it wasn’t you two. You’re not a werewolf and an angelic knight are you darling?” She asked one last time.

  Serena reassured her. “He’s not but that was helpful. Thank you for your assistance.”

  “Any time darlings, you’re always welcome here.” She warmly nodded as the girl on stage continued singing. “Wonderful darling you’re doing so much better now.” The two of them left the theater headed back to 5 Star Road near the end of the day.