By the time everything was done and we’d left the administrative building, it was late afternoon. I took a deep breath, happy to taste air not tainted with the smell of dust and decaying paper. Tristus pulled out a pouch from somewhere and started handing them out, one for each of us.

Patience took hers, and weighed it in her hand. “Twenty-five gold?”

Tristus nodded. “For escorting me here safely. I was planning to give you all the full amount when we returned, but I figured since I was going to take you all to the market district… it would be cruel to not give you at least half now so that you could truly enjoy it.”

Millicent, Patience, Nica, and Zevrack smiled at that, Tib looked indifferent. I myself was tempted to indulge a bit, but I had other plans and it looked like I’d have just the man I needed to help me.

“Tib. You remember what I talked about earlier, about wanting to make things better for adventurers?”

He nodded, his interest piqued far more by that than the prospect of shopping.

“Any chance you could take me to meet some of them? Maybe someone with some clout?”

He looked over at Tristus. “I don’t know. Just because that bastard said he no longer wanted the position doesn’t mean Tristus is safe yet.”

“I think we’ll go visit some tailors and get measurements done first, then lunch with wine, and after that maybe head to the bar next to the god of magic’s school,” said Tristus, adding more and more to his planned outing for the day.

I saw Tib’s expression grow more weary with each new thing Tristus added to the list. “Actually, I trust Nica and the rest of them to keep him safe.” He tapped Tristus’ shoulder. “I’m going to take Cor to an old adventurer bar to meet a friend. It’s probably safe to go back to the family apartments now. We’ll meet you there.”

Tristus nodded, but slid a glance to me, “You sure you don’t want to do some clothing shopping?” He asked with a smile.

I would normally very much enjoy doing that, but I shook my head. “No, but if Zevrack sees something he thinks I would like I’ll reimburse him for it later.”

Zevrack cocked his head at me.

“You know my tastes.” I gave him a wink, and he either returned the gesture or was just blinking. It’s hard to tell when you can only see one eye at a time very well.

With that, we broke off from the group and Tib led me through the city. We had a brief stop at a restaurant and ate something that reminded me of a gyro, then moved on. We walked from the administrative district to a place that seemed more suited for skilled laborers. It was a step up from the slums, but not a big one.

Eventually we came to a tavern. There was a sign outside with the image of a dead goblin on the front and the words, “The Goblin’s Lament”. A fitting name for an adventurer bar.

We walked through with Tib leading the way, and I could tell immediately we’d come to the right place. It was two stories, with a bar in the center, and was full of the most strange and diverse group of individuals I’d seen since arriving in Tu’reyne.

I saw an orc in full warpaint arm wrestling a gnome with the physique of a bodybuilder and piercings covering the entirety of one ear. There was an elven woman floating in the air between sections of balcony, reading a book and sipping from a goblet of wine that moved itself to her lips seemingly by her will. At the bar itself sat a massive boulder of a man. He had an eyepatch over one eye and a gearworked leg that was puffing steam. He was gesturing wildly to an amused crowd, who were wearing a mix of polite and genuine smiles. The man’s mug was spilling here and there as he spoke and gesticulated wildly as if possessed by his own storytelling.

It was toward the one eyed and legged man that we walked. We reached him just as he finished the tale he was in the middle of.

“-and I said. ‘If that’s the basilisk, what the hell is this?’, and Temo looked over to me and said, ‘a rooster with a snake up its arse’.”

That led to a wave of laughter that tore through those that were gathered near him, and he rewarded himself with a heavy gulp from his mug. When we’d gotten a bit closer, his smiling face turned to us, and the smiled widened even further. “Tib! Kid, I haven’t seen you forever! Too busy with skitterlings I presume?”

Tib shook his head. “No. I abandoned that job a long time ago.”

The man nodded, “I know that boy. I was just having a laugh. Whose yer elf friend?” he said, gesturing toward me.

“Cor,” I said, holding out a hand.

He took my arm by the wrist and gave it a vigorous shake. “Nice to meet ya Cor. I’m Cassius.”

Tib gave Cassius a firm pat on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you. How have things been since I’ve been gone?”

His smile dipped slightly. “Unfortunately, much the same as before you left.” He picked absently at the skin under his eyepatch. “Bunch of bad jobs on the fringes. Take what I can get, but the pay is never quite enough to cover the bribes and I’m left with just enough to drink between jobs. Still,” he sighed, “it’s the life I’ve chosen.”

I nabbed a recently vacated stool next to Cassius and ordered some wine. He seemed like the kind of guy who liked to drink with a group, and I wanted to make a good impression. “What were your last few jobs? If you don’t mind my asking?”

He scratched at his chin. “Clearing mites from a mine, taking care of a group of hill spiders harassing goat herds, and I think the one before that was raiding a group of renegade academy students. Turned out they weren’t so much ‘renegades’ as ‘too flighty to remember to pay their taxes’.”

I cocked my head. “Is that normal? Are those types of quests standard?”

He nodded. “Yep. Every once in a while one will come up with a hoard of gold or a cursed object that needs to be cast into a volcano, but they’re always snapped up by some patrician’s adopted party.”

I scratched my chin. The adventuring system in place here seemed like, well, a bunch of bullshit. “What happens if someone just goes directly to do quests for people? Tries to go around the bureaucracy?”

“Well,” he looked around, “freelancers tend to have their legs broken.”

I nodded and took a sip of my wine. “Can I guess what would’ve happened if you hadn’t done those jobs?”

“Bit of an odd drinking game, but sure.”

“A mine would’ve closed down, a herd would’ve been picked apart, and those mages

would’ve never paid their taxes encouraging others to do the same.”

“Aye. That seems likely. Guess that means I drink.”

I smiled. “If adventurers don’t do this dirty work, do they send a legion in?”

Tib shook his head. “The legion’s busy on the eastern and northern borders, they can’t afford to be all places at once.”

“So, if no adventurers did jobs like those then Heracleum would lose out on large parts of its industry and it would cost them a large amount of money?”

Tib and Cassius both nodded.

“Ever considered going on strike?” I asked.

“Strike?” asked Cassius.

“You refuse to work until certain demands are met?”

Cassius leaned down and drew us both closer. “What’re you talking about here boys?”

Tib spoke up. “Cor is trying to figure out a way to make adventurer’s lives better. I wasn’t sure this was the turn it would take, but the logic does seem sound.”

Cassius shook his head. “Logic doesn’t mean nothing. This is about bureaucracy. If a few adventurers were to do something like this, they’d be dead within a week.”

“What if all of them did it at once?” I asked.

He laughed. “Getting all the adventurers to agree to something like that? You’d have to be either the king, or some kind of legend to manage something like that.”

I nodded. I hadn’t expected to start leading some kind of crazy revolution my first day in Heracleum, I wasn’t that arrogant. I just wanted to get some information, meet some people, and get a feel for things. This would be a difficult place to start. They already had a formal system in place, and a lot of dangerous authority was involved with it. It was the opposite of Itlan which relied on boards in bars, and word of mouth and was held together by duct tape and spit. Both had advantages and disadvantages as places to start. Either way though, I’d need to make a name for myself before I could really accomplish anything.

“Sorry, I was just trying to see where things stood around here. Didn’t mean to seem like I was trying to stir up trouble.”

Cassius raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

“You were telling a story about a cockatrice earlier? How’d that start?” I asked.

That question brought a smile to his face, and he started weaving a raunchy tale about a job he and his party had done almost a decade ago.

Tib and I spent the rest of the day there, meeting people, exchanging stories, and generally having a good time. I had it in my head that this was all basically networking, but by the fourth round that mindset had evaporated.