“Dammit,” Britt muttered as she stared at the weight bar in her hands.

Rose chuckled from the treadmill she was jogging on. “Those things have a weight limit, you know.”

Britt held up the bent bar. “Damn thing is rated for 1500 pounds. It’s supposed to be strong.”

“It is strong, Britt. You’re just not supposed to hang additional weights off of it with straps after you’ve maxed it out.” Rose ended her run and stepped off the treadmill, wiping her face with a towel as she approached Britt. “We’ll get you some new bars next time we head out. This isn’t the first one you’ve broken, it won’t be the last.”

Britt tossed the bent bar towards the corner of the in-home gym and decided she was done for the day. “If you guys would just let me get a dwarven weight set, this wouldn’t be an issue.” She picked up her towel and drink and followed Rose out of the room.

“It’s not a matter of ‘letting’ you. It’s that we can’t afford it. Have you seen the market price for mithril these days? Why not settle for an orichalcum set? It’s almost as strong, and far cheaper.”

Britt sighed. “I told you before. Orichalcum may be strong, but it has no flex. Instead of bending once it reached its limit, it would snap. Mithril is strong and has some flexibility, allowing me to stack more weight. That’s why they use orichalcum for shields and axes and mithril for swords and armor.”

Rose shook her head. “I wouldn’t know anything about that, but I’ll trust your judgement on it. Ok, no orichalcum weight set. We’ll just have to keep buying new equipment for you until we get a large influx of cash or a particularly lucrative quest pops up on the guild website.”

“Ha,” Brittany scoffed. “Like we could do any of those anyway with our current party. What’s our glorious leader doing today?”

Rose stopped as they reached the door to her room. “Still training with Reese. It’s only been a week since I woke him up. You remember how it was when you were learning the trade, don’t you?”

“I was twelve. I took to my role easily. It didn’t take a lot of time to figure out my job was to hit and get hit. We… tanks,” she said the word with disgust, “have the easiest job in the party.”

Rose nodded. “And he’s got the hardest. In addition to figuring out his own abilities, which haven’t manifested yet, he’s also got to learn ours. He needs to learn strategy, management, three dimensional thinking, study up on common threats, the administration side of our lives…” she trailed off as she thought about everything that had been dumped on the poor guy. “You might want to go easy on him for a bit.”

“Excuse me?” Britt asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Look, he didn’t ask for this. Really, it’s our fault he’s in this position. If we’d done what we should have with Bruce, he’d still be living his normal life. A sad, lonely life from what I can tell, but one he seemed to be comfortable in. Now his best friend is an enemy out to kill him, he’s surrounded by women that make him uncomfortable, and he’s got a workload heavier than anyone I’ve ever met, save some of the guild masters and council leaders. I’m just saying, maybe cut him a little slack, alright? If you catch him staring every now and then, maybe pretend you didn’t notice on occasion. It’s what I do. What’s a little fanservice if we can finally get back to work?”

Britt glared daggers at Rose. “I am not some work of art for him to admire.”

Rose took a step back and eyed Britt up and down, giggling. “I don’t know about that, hun. You look pretty damn good to me. Especially the way those leggings hug your ass.”

Britt’s face lost her anger, turning red from embarrassment instead. She was suddenly very self-conscious about herself. “I-I-I… I gotta go shower,” she stammered out before beating a hasty retreat to her room. Rose giggled again at the reaction and opened the door to her own room.

*

“Come on. I thought you said you were a gamer,” Reese lamented. She was laying on her belly on Phil’s couch in his room, watching him stumble around with a VR headset on. Her legs kicked back and forth as she watched him get his ass kicked on the TV the Playstation was connected to.

“I said I played games, not that I was good at them!” he replied as he jumped back from the huge spider that was running at him. “Why the hell am I playing Skyrim, anyway? It doesn’t have any party mechanics that I’d find helpful.”

Reese shrugged. “Getting you used to the idea that you’re going to see some strange things out there, maybe?”

Phil stopped, his character dying just as he removed the headset and turned to face Reese, who was a lot closer than he remembered her being when he put on the headset. Had he really moved around that much? VR was so weird. He took a step back. “That’s it? That’s the whole reason?”

“Pretty much,” she said. She waved her hand in the air and an image began to form between them. Phil went pale as a large two headed dog appeared. It was as tall as the average great dane but built like a rottweiler. Lowering both its heads, it eyed Phil and growled, showcasing far more teeth than he was comfortable looking at.

“Uh, Reese?” he squeaked out.

She gave an evil grin and flicked her finger at Phil. The dog immediately barked viciously and leapt, covering the distance to him in a heartbeat, not giving Phil any time to even think of dodging, let alone attempting to perform the maneuver. Just before making contact, the dog abruptly vanished in a puff of purple smoke. Phil landed on his ass, trembling as Reese rolled around on the couch, her cackling laughter filling the room.

“You really are a witch,” he muttered as he checked himself over. He didn’t piss himself, but it was a near thing. Flopping on to his back, he struggled to get his breathing and heart rate back under control. Reese’s laughter calmed down after a minute and she rolled onto her side, propping her head up on her elbow.

“I’m a mage, dear leader. You don’t want to meet a true witch, trust me.”

He lifted his head up, looking over his chest at her. “What the hell was that?”

“Illusion magic. That was an orthus. Two headed dog.”

“Like the old Greek myth?” he asked.

“Where do you think the myth came from? A lot of what we call myths, legends, and most fantasy in general is based on something that once existed or currently does.”

Something clicked in Phil’s head. “Orcs.”

She nodded. “And elves, and dwarves, and goblins, and likely anything else you could think of. As far as we know, however, there are no pureblood races anymore. They’ve all bred themselves into extinction. What we have now are people who might show racial traits every now and then. Britt’s incredible strength, durability, and immunity to charm magic are leftovers of the orc race. Rose’s affinity for life magic, which is where her healing comes from, hint at an elvin heritage. Bruce was descendant from an ancient line of heroes, and me, I’m a Merlin.”

Phil raised an eyebrow. “A Merlin? Like King Arthur Merlin?”

“The one and the same!” she said brightly, sitting up on the couch. “Well, not a direct descendant of the man himself, but one of his pupils. They called themselves the Children of Merlin. As far as I know, however, Merlin himself had no actual children.”

“Um, do you think I-” Phil began, sitting up himself.

She cut him off with a shake of her head. “Sorry pal. You’re a regular old human. We checked while you were out. Your lineage is pretty boring, to be honest. Your family seemed destined for mediocrity in all ways.” She immediately felt bad about her choice of words, watching his shoulders drop with disappointment. “Hey now, don’t give up. You’re a party leader now. First one in your family that’s ever held the job dating back to antiquity. Who knows what powers will show as you gain more experience and confidence?”

He chuckled. “It’s ok. You don’t need to comfort me. I just allowed myself to fantasize for a second. So, all those races used to be real, huh? But wouldn’t that be public knowledge then? Why does the world think they’re all just myths and fantasies? Surely graves or fossils or something would’ve been discovered, right?”

“Ancient agreements and promises. As the humans grew to be the more dominant species on the planet, the races began to see that they were feared. Some tried to capitalize on that fear and rule the comparatively weak humans. What they didn’t count on was the sheer number of humans. They bred faster than the races, and the humans soon learned that enough numbers can overwhelm even the strongest of opponents. Many ancient battles in mythology were real battles between humans and the races. Troy was a dark elf stronghold. These days, the secret of the races’ prior existence is kept to avoid throwing the world in turmoil.”

“Turmoil?”

“You see the amount of conflict between religions these days, right? Even though they fundamentally say the same things, the delivery is different, and each one thinks they’re the right one. Most of the conflict is more passive aggressive. Arguments on websites and protests outside various religious structures. Some are more… physical, in their arguments. Now, you take that environment and throw in the fact that humans once shared this planet with dozens or even hundreds of different races. Completely different races, not the made up ‘races’ of today, where it’s really the one race in different colors. It’d be like aliens landing on the White House lawn. It would destroy everything people hold dear in their beliefs, and people don’t react well to that.”

Phil nodded, understanding her point. He’d always been agnostic himself, but he could understand that the more devout might have issues if their beliefs were contradicted so radically. “So what happened then? You said there were descendants, so obviously not everyone hated the other races.”

Reese smiled. “Obviously. There were plenty of humans who didn’t have any issues with them at all. Maintained trade, built up mixed race towns, even started families. In the end, the races weren’t hunted to extinction. They were bred out of existence. As time went on, less and less purebloods were born, and those with mixed blood procreated with regular humans and other mixed bloods. The older pureblooded races eventually died out, leaving behind generations of descendants that continued breeding with other mixed heritage people and humans until everyone was indistinguishable from everyone else. They didn’t look like orcs, or elves, or what have you, but human. Some traits remained, however. Like Britt’s strength, Rose’s healing, my magic, and so many other examples around the world.”

Phil shook his head. “You make it sound like a college lecture.”

“Would you rather have the TLDR version? The races fought and fucked themselves out of existence. The humped themselves into oblivion. You’re imagining it now, aren’t you? Elves and orcs and dwarves and humans all in a sweaty pile.” She smiled as his face started turning red and he shifted his seating a bit. “Well, it wouldn’t have happened like that. As the stories say, elves and dwarves didn’t get along. Most Orcs hated everyone. Amazons hated men. Goblins, fortunately, were too stupid and died out on their own. Anyway, to sum up, that’s why the races are no longer around. As for why no one finds any trace of them, that’s part of the ancient agreements and promises I mentioned. Any time an archeology dig discovers something, the nearest guild branch sends someone out to cover it up. They infiltrate the group and remove the evidence as they go. Remember all that talk about secret rooms in the pyramids in Egypt, and then suddenly there wasn’t?”

“You mean there were? Secret rooms?”

“Oh yeah. Filled with hordes of treasure. And a great big old dragon skeleton. You should read up on the history of that find. It’s in the library here. The work put in to covering that up was a masterstroke.”

Phil’s eyes went wide. “Dragon? Like a flying lizard that breathes fire?”

She smiled and leaned forward. “Like a flying lizard that breathes fire,” she confirmed. “Only, don’t call them lizards. They really hate that. And they don’t breathe fire. So really just intelligent flying reptiles.”

“They hate that? You said that in a present tense. As if they’re still around.”

“They are! They tend to isolate themselves though. Unlike in the stories you’ve read, they can’t assume human form or anything like that. I think there’s a small colony in the southern end of the Rockies. One or two in the Appalachians. Anywhere not frequented by humans.”

“Holy shit,” said Phil, rubbing his face in disbelief. “There’s so much I don’t know, isn’t there?”

Reese smiled and nodded. “We haven’t even scratched the surface.” She turned serious again. “I have to admit, you’re trying a lot harder than I thought you would. I kinda figured you be a lot less… enthusiastic about all this.”

Phil sighed. “I guess finding out my best friend was a mythical being sucking my ‘charm’ or whatever you want to call it out of me had an effect. Or maybe it was when he threw me into the wind trying to kill me. It does change your outlook on things. Which reminds me, I don’t think I’ve ever properly apologized to you.”

Reese blinked. “For what?”

“For my actions that day. I hadn’t realized what my demand had done to you. I’ve done my best to avoid making the same mistake again, but that doesn’t change what I did. I really am truly sorry.” Phil wanted to demonstrate his sincerity somehow, but bowing seemed a bit tacky to him, and he couldn’t really think of anything else. He settled for just lowering his head a bit and breaking eye contact, staring at the floor in front of himself. He saw movement in his peripheral vision and was soon staring at a pair of tiny feet, probably a woman’s size 5 if he had to guess, not that he knew anything about women’s shoe sizes.

Reese knelt down in front of him and lifted his head by cupping his jaw in both hands. She smiled brightly at him, then leaned in and hugged him. He momentarily panicked at her proximity, remembering the first time they’d interacted, but steeled himself and lightly placed his hands one her back. Even in his distracted state of mind, he still noticed that he felt no evidence of a bra strap beneath her shirt. Stop it! he chided himself. Don’t turn this into something weird!

“Thank you,” she murmured into his shoulder. “Apology accepted, though not needed. It was a rough day for everyone.” She was grateful for it anyway. It was the first apology she’d received from a party leader in a long time. One she hadn’t known she was craving. For a brief moment she saw Bruce in her mind’s eye. Not the tyrant he’d become, but the man she’d known before. The man she’d-

“I’m terribly sorry! Am I interrupting?”

Reese and Phil flinched apart. Phil immediately pulled his legs up to his chest and turned beet red while Reese turned and smiled at the bewildered brunette standing at the door.

“Not at all,” she beamed. “Phil just apologized for what he did the other week, and he just looked so cute I had to hug him!”

Rose looked between the two of them, then shook her head. “Um, ok. The, uh, the guild has requested our presence. All of us.” She nodded her head at Phil, indicating that he was included as well. Reese nodded and jumped to her feet, dancing towards the door. She stopped and turned, eyeballing the man currently hiding behind his knees.

“You might want to change. Jeans and t-shirts don’t go over to well at the guild. Business casual should be fine.”

Phil nodded. “Oh, uh, ok,” he said, not moving.

Reese tapped her foot. “Hurry up now. They don’t like to be kept waiting when they summon people.”

“I, uh, I need a couple minutes. I uh…” he trailed off, face turning the reddest she’d seen to date. He pointedly made no effort to make eye contact with her. She cocked her head in confusion for a second before it clicked.

“Oh,” she said, feeling embarrassed for him. “Uh, sorry. We’ll be off then. Meet us in the foyer when you’re, ah, done. Ok?” Phil nodded mutely, wanting to die on the spot. Of course, he’d get a hard on when a beautiful woman got that close to him. Despite everything he’s been through, he was still a healthy young man in his late 20s, and she was damn attractive. He just wished the timing was better, like when he was completely alone and not being stared at by pretty women.

“Alright,” said Reese. Taking Rose’s arm, they left his room and closed the door behind them.

“What was that about?” Rose asked as they walked down the hall.

“Remember when we talked about him getting his mojo back?”

Rose nodded, then came to a complete stop. “Oh. OH!” she said, a little too loudly. Reese shushed her down, giggling.

“Stop it!” she hissed and got them walking again. “Poor guy probably feels bad enough as it is. It’s not his fault though. His mind and body adapted to being drained by what’s his face. Now it doesn’t know what to do with all that excess energy. It’s like he’s going through puberty again, I’ll bet.”

Rose nodded. “Could be. I can’t tell if that makes him lucky or unfortunate.”

“Considering he shares a house with three attractive women like us, it could go either way. On the one hand he’s got enough spank material to keep him busy-”

“Crude,” Rose cut in.

“On the other hand,” Reese continued as if she hadn’t heard her, “given his fear of intimacy with women, he may find the environment troublesome.”

Rose nodded. “What if someone gives him a hand?” She rolled her eyes at Reese’s chortle. “Not what I meant, but another possible solution.”

“Are you suggesting one of us sleeps with him? Because if you are, we both know there’s really only one person that fits the criteria, right?”

“I just thought-”

“Please, stop. Look, I know you’re just floating ideas, but it’s not gonna go down like that. If it does. Sure, once you get him out of his shell he’s a likeable enough guy, and maybe if he starts working out he’d even be attractive, but for me… I tease too much, maybe. I enjoy his reactions, yeah. But not that. I’m… not ready. I haven’t been. Not since…” Reese trailed off. Letting go of Rose’s arm, she quickened her pace. “I’m going to get changed.”

“Reese!” Rose called after her but was met with the sound of her door closing. “Shit,” she muttered. “Stupid, Rose. Stupid. Stupid!”

Reese leaned her back against her door, fighting the urge to give in to her tears. She shook her head at Rose’s self-chastisement as she continued down the hall. “I know you’re trying,” she said quietly to the room, “but it’s not that easy, hun.” She walked over to her dresser and pulled out the framed picture she’d had tucked away. The four of them hanging out at the guild bar, smiles and alcohol all around after a successful quest. Before the dark days. Before The Order. The one order he’d given that had changed her life forever.

She threw the picture back into the drawer and slammed it shut, sniffing back the tears she wouldn’t shed. Not today. Today she needed to escort her new party leader. She needed to be there for him now. He was like a child in a new world and needed her. Needed all of them. Mindful of the warning she’d given him about the guild not wanting to be kept waiting, she quickly changed into slightly more professional wear than the shorts and t-shirt she currently wore.

Shortly she joined the rest downstairs. Phil had beat her downstairs, and she appraised his look. Cargo pants and a polo shirt. Not bad, but… “A bomber jacket? Really?”

He shrugged. “It’s the only cold weather jacket I have, and it’s freezing out there.”

She looked at the other two women. “You didn’t tell him?” Rose kept quiet, avoiding eye contact and staring at the floor. Brittany just shrugged, clearly not giving a shit. Phil looked on in confusion.

“Tell me what?”

Reese rolled her eyes. Turning this into a team is going to be harder than I thought. “Come on,” she said, and led them towards a recessed wall panel. Placing her hand against it, a small square lit up. It scanned her hand then shut off. The wall panel clicked and slid open, the wall disappearing into the floor. Phil’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“Is that a fucking stargate?” he blurted.

“Where do you think they got the idea?” she said, shrugging. The portal wasn’t as large as the convoluted hoop seen on the tv show. It looked like calm water in place of a door, and it only went one place. “Come on,” she said. “Security’s gonna be a bitch today.” She stepped through first. Mostly to show him it was harmless, but also to see if he’d come through on his own. He’d made some progress while at the house, but this was his first real experience with the new world he found himself in. Well, second, if you counted the attempted murder by his friend a couple weeks ago, but that was before he’d accepted his new life, so she didn’t. Rose and Britt quickly followed her through and stepped to the side.

A hand tentatively reached through the portal and she had to stifle a giggle. She saw Rose do the same thing while Britt simply rolled her eyes. The hand disappeared back through and she could imagine him staring at it in disbelief. It was only a couple seconds later she saw him step through, his eyes closed and a look on his face like he was expecting some sort of impact. When none came, he cracked one eye and looked around. Reese shook her head and waved him forward.

“Come on, you nut. We need to get you a guest pass before we can enter the guild proper.” Reese started walking and was joined by Britt and Rose. She heard Phil jogging to catch up and whisper under his breath.

“It’s like an airport.”

She smiled and looked around herself. She’d been here so many times she never really paid attention to her surroundings anymore, but she could understand a newbie’s reaction. The high ceilings and tiled floors. The security checkpoints and various desks spread throughout the expansive building awed most people their first time through. She chose not to tell him that it actually was an airport. An old discarded airport in a secret location that even she didn’t know. The guild had claimed and renovated it, turning it into the administration headquarters for guild activities in their part of the country. The portal they’d just exited was located in the old check in area, and the security was essentially the same, although it was less concerned with shoes, belts, and liquids and more concerned with magic items, concealed weapons, and harmful spells a party might have cast on them. Most of the time a party wouldn’t worry about passing through security, since their business could be taken care of at one of the old check-in desks, and even those didn’t get used that often these days. Most just used the guild’s website to find jobs.

Today, however, they were forced to endure the paperwork for requesting a guest pass, and the pat downs at security. Britt bristled at the large man who insisted she needed to be searched more thoroughly, and it was only the man’s supervisor that saved his life.

“I’m terribly sorry about that, Miss Hughes,” the supervisor said, bowing deeply. “He’s new. He’s not had the honor of meeting you before.”

Brittany continued to glare at the large man, who returned the glare. “Might want to get that little power high fixed, Bluto. Orcs are not known for giving second chances.” The large man, whose nametag did not say Bluto, suddenly went pale.

“Orc?” he squeaked out. He bowed deeply. “My most sincere apologies, ma’am. It’ll never happen again.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Ma’am? Do I look like an old lady to you?” If the poor man had gone any paler, he would’ve been transparent. Reese was about to speak up when, surprisingly, Phil stepped in.

“Um, Britt? Shouldn’t we get going? Important people are waiting for us, aren’t they?”

Britt raised an eyebrow at the timid man, looked back at the now trembling security guard, then sniffed in contempt and continued her way through to where Reese and Rose waited, one shaking her head at the show, the other releasing the healing spell she’d been conjuring. A pretty heavy duty one, if Reese was correct in identifying it. Phil joined them a moment later and Brittany rounded on him.

“Listen, you little twat, if I wanted someone to interfere, I would’ve asked one of these two! Who do you think you are!?”

Phil shrank into himself a bit. “Th-th-the p-party leader?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You can’t even say that with confidence, but still have the nerve to interfere in my business? These two may think you’re the new party leader, but to me you’re just some spineless asshole squatting in our home and staring at us for your jerkoff fantasies!”

“Please, Britt,” Rose said. “He was just trying to keep the situation from getting worse. Can we go now? Everyone is staring at us.”

Britt glanced over at Rose, then gave Phil one last glare before stomping off, cracking some of the floor tiles in the process. Rose followed while Reese idly wondered where Britt got her boots from. They must be pretty high quality when the floor gives way before they do. She walked over and looped her arm into Phil’s, pulling him along in the others’ wake.

“Come on, hero. She’ll get over it. We’ve got a meeting to get to.”