Ethan trudged up the steps leading to his guild hall. Night had fallen, bringing with it a steady rain, as he made the arduous walk back from his sister’s house. He’d chosen to accept the rain as a sign from Vewa, a comfort in the hard time he knew was about to come. As such, he was drenched.

He sighed and wiped his face with his hands, trying to build up the courage to enter his home and tell all his friends the bad news. The visit from the Vættir had bolstered his spirits, but the long day had slowly worn that away.

Ethan closed his eyes and sighed again as he reached for the door knob.

Sam, David and Miguel were lounging in the common area when he entered. They all jumped up as he walked into the room.

“Dude, where have you been?”

“What happened?”

“Leah didn’t say, what’s going on?

His friends' voices were jumbled as they all talked at once.

“Let me go change,” he said, holding his hands up to calm them down, “I’ll tell you everything as soon as I’m dry.”

The three of them nodded patiently, seeing that something in his demeanor was off.

“Alright,” David said, “just don’t be too long.”

The climb up the stairs seemed to take forever as water continued to slosh out of his boots. I shouldn’t have walked. He grimly thought to himself as he dripped a puddle outside of his bedroom door. Now I’ve got a huge mess to clean up on top of our other huge mess…

Alera was relaxing on his bed when he stepped through the door of his room.

“Hey, I hope you don’t…” he cut her off by swiftly walking to the bed and rolling onto it, cuddling close to her “Oh god, Ethan! You’re soaking wet!” She quickly moved away from his drenched body, with the extra space he rolled over onto his back.

“You’re soaking the sheets!” She explained, shocked that he had just laid down where they were going to be sleeping in just a short time, dripping with rainwater.

“It was raining.”

“Yeah, but usually one changes their clothes before they get into bed,” she got up and went to his closet, retrieving a set of clean dry clothes for him. “Here,” she tossed the fresh clothes onto the bed next to him.

“Thanks,” Ethan swung his feet over the side of the bed back to the floor and sat there, not making a move towards the proffered dry clothes.

“Are you okay?” She asked hesitantly, stepping closer to him.

“No,” he snorted out in a laugh with a pathetic half smile, shaking his head.

“Court go badly?”

“You have no idea,” he continued staring at the floor.

“It’s going to be okay,” she took another step towards him and began rubbing his back over his soaked shirt.

Ethan grabbed her with his wet arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. “I don’t think it will be.” He said, tears forming in his eyes. “I let everyone down.”

“Hey,” she grabbed his face in her hands and pulled his head to look at him, “it doesn’t matter what happened, the people down there love you. They’re going to be with you no matter what.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said, releasing his hug on her waist and wiping away his fresh tears, his damp sleeve leaving his face more wet than the tears. “Because it’s really bad.”

“Get dressed, and come with me downstairs.” She said tenderly, “we’ll face it together.”

“Alera,” he paused, wanting to consider his next words carefully. “I… I think I love you.”

Alera smiled at him and passionately kissed him, holding his face in her hands again.

“I know,” she said when she broke away.

It wasn't the response he’d been hoping for. and he immediately felt foolish. It hadn’t even been a week since the late night in the inn on the way back from Anvasa. In the real world, she would have probably laughed in his face for making such a proclamation so quickly.

“I’m getting there too, Ethan,” she quickly said, seeing how his shoulders had slumped in her two word response. “I’ve just… just been so alone since everyone got her, I’m scared of getting too attached too soon. I don’t want you to hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t…” he began before she interrupted him with a finger on his lips.

“I know,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean I know it yet. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding slightly. It did make sense to him, he knew he was going to get Tae-Won home, and he knew he was going to fix their problems with the raid clan, but that didn’t mean he knew how it would all work out.

“Get changed, I’ll see you down stairs.” She kissed him again and walked out of the room, leaving him still soaking wet on the bed.

Ethan sighed and stood up. It didn’t take him long to change into dry clothes, his wet ones and the now wet sheets he stored in his inventory for quick cleaning and drying. As he was stripping the sheets off the bed, he noticed a watercolor painting of a green dragon now hung over his bed. It made him smile to see Alera had taken her comment about redecorating to heart, even if the image of the dragon reminded him of his nightmare the night before.

His guild had taken their usual spots in the living room for a guild meeting. Alera sat next to Leah, her arm around the Druid, still trying to comfort her as Leah chewed on her fingernails. Sam, David and Miguel all looked tense. Leah’s nervousness and Ethan’s long disappearance had them on edge as to what had happened in the trial.

“So,” he announced, standing in front of his regular chair. He didn’t want to sit, this wasn’t a relaxing conversation with friends. The news he was about to deliver would be earth shattering.

“First thing,” he continued, “the ruling was against us.”

“How much?” Miguel spoke up, Sam and David remained quiet. They had all assumed correctly that the verdict had not gone in their favor.

“Ten thousand,” Ethan said grimly.

“Fuck man, we aren’t even close to that.” Miguel sucked air through his teeth in a whistle. “How long do we have?”

“One month.”

“Okay, I can make that work,” Miguel said, trying to be optimistic. “We may all have to chip in, but I’m assuming you already have some sort of plan on how to earn it?”

“I do,” Ethan confirmed with a nod. “We can sell mount runs on the first floor for 750. It’s less than the cost of training and the mount itself.”

“That’s a lot of work,” David said leaning forward, “and there’s a good bit of coordination that’s going to be required for it. You really think people will go for it?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan shook his head and shrugged. “Possibly, even if we only do four or five, we’ll be close.”

“You need to tell them the rest, Ethan,” Leah spoke up, her voice hoarse from spending most of the afternoon crying. “Don’t hide it from them.”

“What’s she talking about Ethan?” Sam asked, his voice starting to take a panicked tone.

Ethan closed his eyes and breathed out in a heavy sigh.

“The gold is only part of the punishment,” his eyes flicked around the room to the stunned faces of everyone gathered. “The Blood Dragon representative agreed to a lower sum, in exchange for us receiving a ban on joining the raid clan.”

His words fell on the room like a ton of iron. For a second, no one said anything as his announcement sank in.

“Heh,” Sam laughed sarcastically, “you’re joking right?”

“How long?” David leaned forward, his voice cold and calm.

“I’m not,” Ethan shook his head sadly, looking at Sam before turning to David, “Indefinitely.”

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” Sam roared, hurling a pillow across the room. Purple cracks formed across his skin as the Eldritch energy inside him struggled to be released. “A fucking indefinite ban over one death? Christ! How fucking bad did you fuck it up, Ethan?”

“It’s not his fault!” Leah pleaded, reaching for Sam’s hand. “The woman they sent, Kalinda something, she twisted every word he said into something horrible! She somehow knew Calder and used that against us!”

Ethan couldn’t find it in himself to say anything in his own defense as he looked around the room at his friends. Miguel had sunk lower into the couch, completely deflated, his arms rested palm up beside him. His usual smile, always so heartwarming, completely evaporated.

David leaned forward, his hands covering his set jaw as he took in what he’d just been told.

“Kalinda who?” Alera sat up, twisting to look between Ethan and Leah, “was she Indian? Long black hair, absolutely gorgeous?”

“Yes,” Ethan nodded, his confusion at Alera’s recognition of the woman who’d manage to hurt them so badly overtaking their horrible emptiness inside him “why? Do you know her?”

“Yes,” she sank back into the soft cushion of the sofa, “she replaced Murmur on the Silent Council. That’s how she knew Calder.”

“Oh, even fucking better!” Sam threw another pillow, knocking over a small vase on the table they rarely used. “We have the gorram House of Whispers working against us!”

“What did Arianna say?” David asked, his voice still even and calm.

“Her hands are tied,” Ethan shook his head. “Apparently, Junpei reamed her out over the Blood Dragon guild being kicked in the first place because I reported them. He said it was overreach based on family.”

“This is just getting better and better!” Sam threw his hands in the air. “So we have absolutely no hope of ever making it into the raid clan now.”

“No,” Ethan said, remembering the only hope his sister had been able to give him. “She said that if we could rescue Tae-Won and prove that Leah’s killing Caleb wasn’t unprovoked, she’d go to bat for us and make sure the ban was overturned.”

“Was she able to tell you anything about them? Where they might be, or anyone they might know?” David looked at Ethan.

“No,” he shook his head again.

“So we’re at fucking nothing, working towards something harder than what we were before, with almost no fucking hope!” Sam shouted, the Fel purple energy flaring as he yelled.

“Sam, shut up!” David yelled back at him, his stare glued to a sobbing Leah. “You aren’t helping.” His own eyes began to emit a golden aura as his own holy energy coursed through his body.

“Oh,” Sam had followed David’s gaze to the hurting Druid. As mad as he was about the raid clan situation, even he wasn’t as cold to forget that her missing husband was the much more serious issue. “Leah… I’m sorry…”

Leah sniffled as Alera held her head against her chest, trying to comfort the sobbing red haired woman. “It’s okay, Leah.” She whispered repeatedly in a soothing voice.

“So what do we do now?” Miguel asked weakly, the color had drained from his face. “Where do we even start?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan admitted, finally collapsing into his armchair. He always planned two or five steps ahead for everything. But now he found himself completely lost with no idea even where to start.

“We need to focus on the gold,” David said, standing up. “We have a month, right? Who knows what will happen if we don’t have it ready when it’s due. We don’t want to even be near that bridge to cross it.”

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed weakly, glad that David was there to help. He’d thought countless times he wouldn’t know what to do without David trapped in the game with him, now his best friend was stepping up to help get them through this.

“I can do that,” Miguel smiled sadly, “that’s easy enough.”

“Tomorrow I’ll post on the community message board offering mount selling services,” Ethan said.

“We should stay vague about the how,” David added. “We may only get a few runs before the word gets widespread about how to accomplish it.”

“I don’t think so,” Sam said. He’d been pacing the area surrounding the couches, stopping occasionally to rub Leah’s shoulder as he tried to calm down. “The players who will vastly out gear and level the first floor, which will probably be most people, will have already bought their mounts. We’re going to get the scrubs who can’t progress on their own.”

“We can figure that out when it happens,” Ethan said, rubbing his brow. “Miguel, what do you think you can get for what you’ve already listed?”

“We’ll be lucky if we can make two thousand, to be honest,” Miguel answered darkly, his color coming back to his face as he’d accepted their fate.

“Great,” Ethan paused and did some mental calculations. Miguel said we had three and possibly another two, that’s five thousand. So we need, like, seven people ran through the castle and we’re at ten. “Looks like we need to do at least seven runs, probably eight. In one month, that shouldn’t be too bad.”

“It would be a lot easier if we could scout floors,” Sam said from across the room. He’d gone and inspected the guild bank, looking for anything Miguel might have missed on his first pass. “Did they say if the ban included that?”

“Not specifically, but we won’t know until we try.” Ethan said wearily.

“You look beat,” David commented to his slumping guild leader.

“I am,” The entire long day had caught up to him hard. His entire body felt drained and heavy. He hadn’t eaten anything in hours, and it wasn’t that late, but he wanted nothing more than to sleep this awful day away and wake up fresh in the morning.

“Get some rest, you can’t do anything else tonight,” David jerked his head in the direction of the stairs.

“I don’t think that’s a bad idea,” Ethan said, struggling to get to his feet. “Are you going to be late?” He asked, offering his hand to Alera as he walked between the couch and the small table.

“Ethan, it’s like seven thirty,” she said with a weak smile as she squeezed his hand.

“Oh.”

“I’ll be up sooner rather than later though,” she squeezed his hand again, “but you get some rest.”

He smiled back at her and continued squeezing his way through the sitting area. He made it only a step further before Leah reached out and grabbed his hand.

“Ethan, I’m sorry,” she said through her tears, “for all of this.”

“No,” he replied, perhaps more forcefully than he intended, as he squatted down to her eye level. She’d been particularly quiet ever since they’d found out about Tae-Won’s abduction, the stress of everything was weighing heavily on her. “It’s not your fault, none of this is. But somehow,” he paused, “somehow, it’s all landing on you. Paul is trying to hurt me, but it’s all coming down on you. I am sorry, Leah.”

“Leah, no one here blames you for anything,” Sam said, walking back to the common area. The three of them went back the furthest as a unit, David and Miguel had been Ethan’s friends that joined them, but originally, it had just been Sam, Leah and Ethan. “And we’re going to get Tae-Won home. I promise.”

“Sam’s right,” Ethan reaffirmed. “Tomorrow, we’ll figure out something else.”

“Maybe if I had just said something at the trial…” Leah started, before Ethan interrupted her.

“It wouldn’t have helped,” he shook his head, “you heard Alera, Kalinda used her influence to make everything go her way.”

Leah nervously chewed on her lip, as if she wanted to say something else, but remained silent.

“I’m sorry everyone,” Ethan looked around the room, “I need to sleep. I can’t process anything else tonight.”

“Get some rest, jefe,” Miguel stood up and embraced him, “all our problems will still be here tomorrow.”

“That was somehow less than helpful,” Ethan laughed softly, “but good night.”

He once again trudged up the stairs to his room, the weight of everything that had happened that day pressing down on him. When he entered his room, he remembered he’d removed the wet sheets from his bed before he’d left.

“Fuck it,” he swore in annoyance as he grabbed a spare blanket from his closet and laid on the bare bed.

He rolled over onto his side, fully intending to fall asleep, but he couldn’t get Leah’s words out of his mind.

She had been especially quiet since they’d returned from Anvasa, he assumed it was because of the weight of the entire situation. He hadn’t realized she was blaming herself.

The only person who is to blame for this is me. He thought to himself. I should have just let Paul go back in the Planes. We wouldn’t be in this situation at all if I hadn’t had to be the hero.

He tossed and turned for what seemed like forever, unable to find a comfortable position as he berated himself for letting his guild get in the position they were in.

Finally, sleep overtook him and he slept deep and without dreams. He didn’t hear Alera when she snuck into his room, didn’t hear her climb into bed, and didn’t hear her as she leaned over and kissed his cheek before whispering something into his ear.