“What is it?” David asked, his eyes narrow with concern as he got off the couch. Too shocked to speak, Ethan passed the parchment letter to him.

“Morning everyone,” Alera came down the stairs, rubbing her neck. “Ethan, you owe me a massage.”

“I mean, it’s bullshit,” the Paladin said, after he finished reading the wrinkled letter and ignoring Alera’s entrance. “It was completely provoked. Alera and I were in the room when it happened.” He handed the letter to Sam, who immediately began reading with Miguel peering over his shoulder.

“I feel like I missed something important,” Alera looked around the room at the terse faces of her new guildmates as she sat down on the couch next to Leah. “Would someone care to catch me up?”

“No doubt,” Ethan agreed with him before turning to Alera, “Caleb filed a complaint against Leah and me, over his death in Anvasa. We have to go to court this afternoon.”

“You think Paul’s actually behind this?” Miguel looked up, having finished reading the summons.

“Has to be,” Ethan said, clenching his jaw. “I bet he sent Caleb just hoping we’d do exactly what we did.”

“Yeah, but how do we prove that?” Sam asked him, balling the parchment between his hands and throwing it across the room. “Did you guys take any video?”

“Of course not,” Ethan scoffed, “we had a guy tied to a chair. There was no way I would have recorded that, even if I had thought about doing it.”

“I’m sorry,” Alera spoke up, rising from the couch to join the conversation, “I’ve been out of the world for too long, I don’t really understand what exactly is going on. Is it really serious?”

“I mean, kind of,” David explained, “it’s weird. PvP is allowed, and in some places encouraged. But in other places, like Anvasa, it’s forbidden. And usually it’s kind of acknowledged that it doesn’t end in death. ”

“Right,” Sam nodded in agreement, “Raid Clan members are usually off limits too. Arianna gets pissed if people she’s counting on get ganked and can’t be there for progression.”

“Okay, so what happens then, will we be punished?” She looked between Sam and David for an answer.

“If they decide that we were at fault, yeah.” David said. “Usually a hefty fine is paid to the person who died, a fee to help them regain what they lost.”

“So then what’s the point of the PvP Clan at all then?” She still looked confused. “If players don’t want to die in player versus player combat, why even have a group to organize it?”

“Because people are assholes, they get caught up and take it too far,” Ethan said, trying to overcome his slight frustration at just how little Alera still knew about the game. “The PvP Clan organizes skirmishes and duels, and keep an eye out for any players who get killed but aren't trying to participate in PvP.”

“That actually makes a fair bit of sense,” she nodded, starting to understand the idea.

“Yeah, and like David said, keeps anyone who is actively in the raid clan and working to get us home safe.” Ethan said.

“So what do we do next, Ethan?” Leah asked, speaking up for the first time.

“I mean, we don’t have a choice.” He shrugged, “we go to the hearing and defend ourselves. Worst case scenario, the trial goes bad and we pay the fine.”

“That may be a problem,” Miguel’s voice had a note of despair. He’d gone to check the communal guild vault while everyone was talking, anticipating they may need some gold. “We’re pretty broke at the moment.”

“How much do we have?” Ethan asked, pretty sure he knew the answer. When he’d given Alera gold for her mount, he’d noticed their funds had been dwindling.

“A little over three thousand,” Miguel frowned, “a month of not working has really hurt us.”

“That’s not a little bit of gold though,” Alera said helpfully, “it’s way more than I’ve ever had. There’s no way a fine could be that much.”

“It’ll just depend on what the court decides,” David shrugged.

Great, now we have another problem. Can’t just find where Tae-Won is, now we may have to farm gold as well. Ethan thought sardonically to himself.

“Is there anything we could sell?” He asked Miguel, hoping his friend's skill at playing the auction house could help them out.

“Not really, we sold most of it already.” Miguel shook his head, “or we used it after we respawned last time.”

“Go ahead and start selling.” Ethan said, “we don’t know how much we may get taken for, better to be prepared.”

“You want it today or in a few days?” Miguel asked. “If I try to quick sell, we’ll make less but get the gold quicker.”

“Whatever you need to do,” Ethan shook his head again, “after the hearing we’ll figure out what else we can do for gold.”

“So that’s it?” Sam scowled and crossed his arms over his chest, “we just accept that we’re going to have to fork over what little gold we have on hand, no fight or anything?”

“No, Sam,” Ethan rounded on him, “that’s not it. Of course we’re going to fight it. But I don’t want to be unprepared. Paul is holding all the cards right now, I don’t want him to have this as something else to hold over us.”

“Still sounds to me like you’ve accepted defeat,” Sam continued challenging him, the Eldritch energy of his glowing eye casting disturbing shadows on his face.

“No I haven’t!” Ethan lowered his voice, “but taking this as a loss means somehow we get closer to getting Tae-Won back, I will gladly pay any fee. He is more important than gold.”

Sam scoffed and stormed off to his room, slamming the door.

“I, uh, guess I’ll go and start seeing what I can list.” Miguel said timidly.

“I’ll go with you,” David volunteered, stepping forward “safety in numbers.”

“Good,” Ethan nodded, still frustrated at how quickly Sam had gotten angry. “Leah and I need to get ready.”

Leah raised her hand as she started to say something, but stopped and turned back to her room.

“David, you all set?” Miguel had been rifling through the guild vault when Sam had thrown his temper tantrum, purposely staying out of the disagreement. “I got everything I think will sell quickly.”

“Yeah,” David nodded, swiping into his inventory for a small satchel to serve as a bag. “We should stop by the bank, I may have some old materials we could sell too. You going to be okay? Want us to make sure we’re back in time for the trial?” He turned back to Ethan.

“I think we’ll be fine,” Ethan gave him a half hearted smile and shook his head, “it shouldn’t take long, one way or the other.”

“You really think this will somehow help get Tae-Won back?”

“I have no clue.” Ethan shrugged, “Maybe? If nothing else it puts us in the same room as Caleb and we can bring up Tae-Won in court. He’ll have a hard time defending himself in front of Calder and whoever else is there.”

“Copy,” David nodded, “I’ll let you know how everything goes on our end. Be safe.”

“You too.”

David and Miguel hurried out of the building, making sure to gently close the door. A stark contrast to Sam’s slam a few minutes before.

“You alright?” Alera’s quiet question surprised him as she slipped her hand into his. “I mean really, not just trying to be the bad ass boss for David and Sam.”

“Honestly, no,” Ethan laughed softly. “We’re broke as fuck and I honestly don’t know how this is going to go. Paul taunted us into killing Caleb, but that’s going to be hard to prove.”

“Will anything else happen, if you lose, I mean?” Alera asked.

“We could take a reputation loss amongst the other players,” Ethan shrugged, “they might think we’re killers and stay away from us.”

“That might not be so bad, I always liked a bad boy,” she wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled at him.

“Oh you’ve definitely got the wrong guy then,” Ethan smiled back at her as he held her waist.

“I don’t think so,” she smiled again and kissed him.

“Sorry for waking you up,” he apologized when she pulled away. “Were you able to get any sleep?”

“A little,” she shrugged and winced from the crick in her neck. “I wasn’t kidding about the massage though.”

“I figured,” he laughed, “you hungry?”

“Are you finally going to cook something fancy for me?” Her face lit up in over exaggerated excitement.

“Œufs brouillés,” Ethan said in his own exaggerated French accent with a wide grin.

“Scrambled eggs are not fancy, Ethan,” Alera frowned.

“They are if they’re done right!” Ethan defended himself, “also, you speak French?”

“I’m Scottish, remember?” She said, forcing her accent thicker. “We actually take foreign languages in our schools.”

“That was low,” he said, grabbing a small pot and a whisk. “Aprendí español en vez de francais. Pensé que sería mejor para trabajando en restaurantes.”

“Y? Se ayudó mucho?” She answered him in Spanish, once again showing off.

“Mas or menos.” He shook his head and cracked four eggs into the cold pan with a generous slice of butter. Traditional French style scrambled eggs were never cracked into a hot pan or pre scrambled. It destroyed the bonds of the proteins too early, cooking the eggs like this was a much creamier and fluffier presentation.

“Be real with me,” she said, leaning on the counter next to him and watching him cook, “do you think you really have a chance? At court I mean.”

Ethan scowled and rapped the whisk on the side of the pot, shaking free the last few curdles of egg.

“I don’t know,” he said, pouring the buttery eggs onto a plate for her. “I’d like to think yes, but like I said, Paul has been playing us for longer than I think I realized. And we’ve only got a couple of hours to even figure out what we can do.”

“So Sam’s right, you have given up?” She asked before taking a bite of egg. “These are phenomenal by the way, you should do this professionally.” She teased him.

“Thanks, and no I haven’t.” He dropped the pan into the sink and ran water over it, trying to think about his words carefully. “I just, I am willing to accept a minor loss in the big picture. If he takes this as a win and gets confident and then slips up, the loss of gold won’t matter in the long run.”

“And you think you can win, long term, I mean?” She placed her fork down on her plate as she waited for his answer.

“I’m going to.” Ethan said firmly, his jaw set. “He has one of my family. Are you doubting me?”

“Not at all,” she grinned at him, “I was worried you were starting to doubt yourself, wanted to check and make sure you weren’t.”

“Paul is showing that he’s smart, I just have to be smarter.” Ethan took her fork and stole a bite of her eggs with a wry smile.