Robin’s sneaking suspicions stepped out into the light a lot sooner than he expected. Before the ink of his signature was even dry, Zahn was speaking.

‘Now that’s out of the way, I have an assignment for you.’

‘All right,’ Robin said. Because that wasn’t alarming at all.

‘It’s recently come to light that a cache of treasure long thought lost is…not so lost. Now, I cannot be seen expending resources on a treasure hunt, but you? Hunting for treasure is exactly what everyone expects a new recruit fresh to the adventuring game to do.’ Zahn smiled toothily.

‘How did it come to light if no one brought it back?’ The whole thing sounded suspect to Robin.

‘How much do you know of Noviel?’

‘Not much. A few things Fiamah told me.’

‘We are quite an old city, and one of the strongest in the region. Our wealth and prosperity stems in a large degree from our geography.’ Zahn didn’t quite have the lecturing skill of Fiamah, but he managed to tell an entertaining enough story. ‘Noviel is situated atop a living dungeon, The Yawning Gyre, and we—that is the Adventurers Guild—have maintained close and cordial relations with it. She, rather. Refers to herself as Gyrfalcon.’

‘A renewable resource,’ Robin said. Of course the city was wealthy and full of magic! It had what amounted to a sentient well of pure energy that could repeatedly and reliably produce all manner of rare and powerful matter from within itself.

‘Yes! Very well put. A renewable resource. I like that.’ Zahn chuckled. ‘Gyrfalcon exists in the caverns far beneath the city, though there are a few entrances that connect her to the surface. Two that we know of outside the city limits, and several in the sewers, though they tend to shift. Gyrfalcon abhors stasis and regularly shifts her composition, even abandoning sections of herself that she’s become bored with.’

‘And this treasure is in one of those abandoned sections.’

‘We believe so, yes. Many of our younger members do contract work in the sewers, clearing out infestations or rogue monsters that escape or flee from Gyrfalcon and ascend towards us. One of these parties stumbled across some unfamiliar tunnels through a gap in a crumbling sewer wall. They explored, naturally, and eventually came across this cache. They managed to grab a few handfuls of gold and jewels before they awoke something—it’s not clear if it was a guardian of some kind or a trap or a degraded spell—and nearly the whole party perished.’

Robin listened, fascinated. This was proper adventuring nonsense, this! It probably should have given him second thoughts about engaging in this profession, but it really didn’t. He was, if anything, even keener to get started.

‘There was only a single survivor—the group’s healer. She did not handle the experience well, I’m afraid. Though she brought back some dregs of treasure, the experience has quite unseated her mentally. We have reliable descriptions of several of the more interesting pieces of treasure, and a few ideas as to what might be down there with it, as a guardian, but no knowledge of the location or just how much else is down there.’

‘And you can’t scry it out for some reason,’ Robin observed.

‘No. Gyrfalcon is very good at warding against divinations of all kinds. She hates her surprises being foiled. She’s very private that way.’

‘So you want me—’

‘And a party. I don’t think going down alone is the wisest course of action.’

‘—to gather a party—’

‘Yes, though perhaps it’s best if they don’t know the full particulars of what you’re looking for, hmm? I expect you’ll need to nudge them along a good bit. You should probably find solid, dependable sorts who will follow your lead, even as they don’t realise you are leading.’

‘—trick them into going treasure hunting beneath the sewers, find this treasure—’

‘So long as you retrieve one particular jewel, that’s all I’m really interested in. You can keep the rest. It’s called the Eye of Na’Vec. Incredibly powerful. Incredibly cursed. Bring me that gem, and I’ll grant you free lifetime membership in the Adventurers Guild and a rank within the White Star Company to boot.’

Alright, Jafar. Nothing but the lamp. Got it. Because this wasn’t shadier than the plane of shadows at dusk.

‘And are you going to provide me with any kind of operating budget?’ Robin asked. ‘This is swiftly becoming quite the undertaking. I’ll need food, lodging, supplies—’

‘I’m sure a resourceful individual such as yourself can make do,’ Zahn replied. ‘I understand your performances brought in quite a bit of coin in Bordertown. Why, enough to pay your yearly membership fee here, and that is not an insubstantial sum.’

Robin attempted to barter at least some free room and board in the Adventurers Guildhouse, but Zahn wouldn’t budge.

‘Think of this as your trial by fire. Succeed, and you can write your own way.’ Zahn didn’t mention what would happen if he failed.

He didn’t have to. Robin’s imagination was already running wild with thoughts of the poor healer and whatever she had faced in the depths that made her that way.

Well, if he was going to do it, he certainly wanted to get paid twice for doing a single job if possible. More times, if he could manage it. There would be the treasure he managed to salvage, and Zahn’s reward, but since Zahn was so interested, others surely were as well, and honestly, this seemed like the sort of thing his interface usually granted a quest for—

Right on cue, a notification appeared.

New Quest! [Places, Please!]

You have the opportunity to make a place for yourself in Noviel. Establish yourself and gain rewards! Secure lodging, find yourself a party, establish your reputation. Just be careful not to get too comfortable! You’ve got other quests that will tempt you far and wide.

Reward(s): +1 Streetwise; +1 Socialise; +1 Expression. If all objectives are achieved within one month, +1 Free Property Rank.

There it was. Well, he certainly had incentive. Might as well agree and get to work!

***

‘Burned! Burned, burned, burned!’

The table erupted in both laughter and groans. Robin, sitting there, several cards face up in front of him, was currently the focus of much derision and sympathy, having just spectacularly lost the last hand of Dragon Poker.

He was down in the Adventurers Guild main hall again. If he was going to accomplish his new assignment, he needed a party. And the best way to get a party was to get chummy with other guild members.

Which was why he’d allowed himself to lose an alarming amount of his hard-scavenged coin. People are friendlier when they’re taking your money. He’d scouted out some prospects but hadn’t yet met anyone he really fancied grouping with.

‘Another hand?’ Harrekh, a massive woman with green skin, black hair, and a cute, upturned nose, asked.

‘Why not?’ Robin forced an easy smile.

‘I’m in as well,’ the thin, rangy man to Robin’s left said. His name was Zhatin, and his luck had been nearly as bad as Robin’s. He also took losing far less well than Robin did.

The other players at the table nodded, and ante’d up. There was Darla, a dwarven woman with fair hair and eyes like emeralds, green and glittering and hard. She sat to Robin’s right. To her right was Kal, an androgynous figure with brow ridges and flowing sea-foam-coloured hair. They smelled of the sea, though to the best of Robin’s knowledge there were no oceans anywhere nearby, not for leagues and leagues.

‘Your deal.’ Harrekh passed the cards to Kal, who sat to her left.

They took them, and Robin noticed their fingers had one more joint than anyone else at the table. It made them a very dexterous dealer. The cards shuffled with a crisp snick several times before Kal sent them spinning across the table to rest before each of the players.

Robin had spent several of the past hands filling in the gaps of his knowledge about the game’s rules. He managed to recall several fragments using [Bardic Lore], but snippets of legend don’t always reflect current rules. But now, he had a solid grasp on the rules and the order of the hands, and, most importantly, how to count the cards effectively to tip the scales of the game in his favour.

Play progressed. Cards were discarded and dealt. Bets were placed and raised. Gold and silver and copper glinted in the centre of the table and eventually were joined with other, odder things, as people ran out of ready cash to gamble with. Potion vials and daggers enchanted with minor enhancements joined the pile, as did the odd bit of jewellery and rare fruit and, finally, even the deed to a run-down tavern at the edges of Noviel’s entertainment district.

Robin perked up at that. Now that was an interesting prize! It seemed perfect. He’d say too perfect if he didn’t already suspect his interface of meddling more than a little in his life. He had suspicions as to why, but they were seeds sprouting in the dark and he refused to look at them too closely.

‘Raise,’ Zhatin said as he placed the deed on the table.

Kal quietly folded. Harrekh stubbornly rummaged through her belt pouch and pulled out an axe to match the raise. Darla chewed on her bottom lip for a while before likewise digging deep, adding a flagon of mead that drew a collective gasp from the room.

Must be really good stuff!

The room went quiet. What had started as a friendly game had gotten unexpectedly high stakes. There was a sizeable amount of wealth stacked on that table right now.

It was Robin’s turn. He had to decide if he wanted to throw away all the good will he’d gathered this evening in exchanged for a serious chunk of wealth and a bigger hunk of jealousy from the assembled players and some of the audience.

He flicked over the cards he’d counted. Compared them to those in his hand and the possibilities that floated in the grips of Zhatin, Harrekh, and Darla.

Good odds. Not great. But maybe if he could bluff someone out of the round…

‘I can match that,’ he said, dumping the last of his coin onto the table.

It wasn’t enough. Robin grimaced and pulled a tightly sealed scroll from his ring. It was a map, showing the location of the ruined tower in Wyndham Wood. Not a secret he wanted to part with lightly, but he was reaching the edge of his personal wealth.

The others looked to Saress, a lizardkin diviner that was spot checking the items for value. He nodded slightly. The map was worth enough.

Robin watched Darla out of the corner of his eye. Zhatin was all in, and Harrekh would never surrender. So long as they weren’t playing a much deeper game than he thought they were capable of, those two would stay in. Darla, though, while not easier to read, was clearly a more cautious player. She could be spooked into folding if she thought her hand was hopeless.

‘And I raise,’ Robin said, pulling another piece of paper, also sealed, from storage, ‘the ward-key to get into the tower and access its repository of ancient knowledge.’

Darla blanched.

‘Fold,’ she said, revealing her hand.

Robin quickly noted and counted the cards she revealed before Kal quickly swept them up into the discard pile.

His odds had just improved.

Zhatin called. Harrekh raised, removing her enchanted bracers and adding them to the pile.

Did he trust he’d counted correctly? The only way he could stay in now was to add his [Mask of Disguise] to the pile. That was a risk beyond any he’d ventured so far. The loss of the item wouldn’t be crippling, quite, but it would hurt a lot. He relied on it.

No. He trusted himself. Robin reached up and peeled the mask off his face and added it to the pile.

He didn’t say what it did. Saress wouldn’t say anything, if he even divined its full capabilities. He didn’t have to throw away the secret, at least.

Play went around the table. Call. Call. Call.

Moment of truth.

Harrekh revealed three queens, the lodestar, and the polestar.

Zhatin smiled viciously, revealing a full house, kings and eights. Without even looking at Robin’s hand, the slim man began to reach for the pile of wealth in the centre of the table.

‘Hold on,’ Robin called out, freezing the man mid-reach, ‘I think you missed one.’ He revealed a king of his own. Iron. ‘As did you.’ He jerked his chin at Harrekh and revealed a queen. Also Iron. Then he quickly flipped over the Prince of Iron, then the ten, and finally the nine. A full fist of Iron.

And a winning hand.

The room erupted in cheers. Zhatin shot him a hateful glance, but Harrekh just boomed with laugher and shook her head.

Robin reached out and drew the pile of wealth to himself, quickly replacing his own personal items and returning the relevant ones to storage. He left the personal items of the other players on the table together with a sizeable stack of coin.

‘Who wants the chance to win back their stuff?’ He could afford to be generous. He counted out several coins. ‘And a round for everyone still here!’

Time to win back some of the good will he’d lost in his victory. While everyone was celebrating, however, he made sure to tuck the tavern deed safely into his storage.

Looks like he had himself a place to live!