The heroic party wandered through the gates to the guards and citizens cheering.. Or so Jake thought it should have been, if he hadn’t smelled as bad as the Red Square nightclubs toilet on an early Sunday morning, gastric juices and unidentified substances. Outside of his 1m contamination zone, the group acted more like a body guard service than a party. Lamenting his fate as the bottom to the worlds dick, Jake kept it moving in the hopes that the faster he got to the public bath house, the faster he would actually reclaim his status as part of the public.

After scrubbing every inch and orifice, Jake emerged from the bath a new man. While he was cleaning himself, the rest of the group went to hand in the tongues of the Fuzzy Frogs and sell what they could of the bodies. Seeing that Jake had another hour or so before they all met up again for dinner, he decided to scope out the local blacksmith of the area in hopes of purchasing some scrap metal to enhance his own personal alloy.

1 hour and a lot of disappointed sulking later, Jake was waiting out the front of the local pub named “The Ale Way” or as the locals apparently named it, just “The Way”. Ximing and co. spotted the dark grey cloud of depression hanging around their temporary rogue and decided sublimely amongst themselves that discretion being the better part of valour, ignored it in hopes of cheap beer and food.

> Beer and stew combo for 10 credits.. well at least I’ll be broke with a full stomach. I really need to finish that weed quest and this group one. I’m running so low that my credits are a measly 8! Wait, nope it’s 20 after the take on those extras Ximing sold.

“So guys” Ximing said. “We should be finished with the quest early tomorrow morning. I think we should try out for one of the clans solely for the monthly allowance. What do you think?”

Amy and Anna simply supplied a nod as confirmation while Stuart, sitting with his arms crossed trying to look intimidating merely scoffed at the thought. Upon further negotiation however he was led to see that while they could keep questing without a backing, they would soon run out of credits when rent on top of food and equipment costs started to pile up. Jake, upon realising that his penny pinching would be seeing dark days ahead, still adamantly refused joining a group of people. University was bad enough when he actually had to go to classes but at least lectures in this day and age were all online.

> I’ll just blend into the background while they talk about their futures. I mean its not like this group thing is long term anyway. After I'm done with these guys I should try and survive a night outside the walls. I need to get serious if I don't want to be some rich assholes errand boy.

Having made his stupidly stubborn mind up about his imminent demise, Jake wolfed down his meal, chugged his drink and then silently ghosted the group.

“What are your plans Ja… Where the shit did that ninja go?”

…

Early the next morning, Jake arose from slumber in the zombie manner which was quickly becoming the norm at roughly 4:00am. Stretching and moving around like a 90’s aerobic film instructor, Jake set off for a morning run which in no way was for his continued spree of garbage bin reposition. Suffice to say, the local patrols and street sweepers were awaiting a new and improved, line of trash cans to replace the obviously outdated missing ones. A lonely city budget accountant wasn’t as optimistic however, as they now had an expenditure that didn’t make sense, “Who bloody steals a damn trash can!”.

Upon seeing the group waiting near the now opening gate, Jake plodded along figuring that the bath tonight would feel so much better and that 2 in a day would be unreasonable. Getting a wiff of their solitary rogue first thing in the morning for the group though wasn’t the greeting they were expecting. Thankful that the scout usually pissed off on their lonesome, Ximing was able to avoid all confrontation by addressing the elephant in the room.

“So, a couple more and then we are done. Let’s finish this off by midday then and get paid!”

It goes without saying that the first command was for Jake to scout the woods, something he took with a little more prep in his step because in his mind, he was scouting for his free abode as well.

> Men can totally multi-task.. if it saves them money. I want a nice thick tree that has bottom branches at least 6 feet from the floor, maybe with a nice forest view and oh, Fuzzy! Need to report back.. WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T WE JUST EXCHANGE BANDS! I could have saved so much time!

4 hours and one pissed off rogue later, the group ended the quest.

“Want to come back with us to turn the quest in or are you going to stay out here and finish that other one you were up to?”

“I’ll stay here.” Jake replied in his usual gruffness when the group was in ear shot. He didn’t know why, but as soon as his audience exceeded 2, verbal communication suffered. Thinking he must have some hidden trait of ‘Loner-ness’ Jake spun around and went off in search of his weed.. The legal kind. After finishing collecting his remaining buddies and on the way back to the gate an hour or so later, Jake received a notification of 30 credits being transferred to his account. Realising that the 150 credit reward was split 5 ways almost made him shit blood.

“30-0-3-0…30 fucking credits! Wasn't it supposed to be 150! Fucking tight ass guild! No wonder assholes gather into a douche-dom! Clan members get salaries per week depending on their completed quests and the Clans themselves get all the credits from quests, so the higher guys must carry the lower ones a little then. I’m sure they get ‘taxed’ though but still, who the fuck can afford this shit! Maybe I should take up Tailoring… Nah I’d be too tempted to stitch a dick into some pompous guys suit jacket or something. /sigh best go turn this weed in and get me my welfare payment.”