The adventurers sit at the table closest to the tavern's entrance. In the event that there was a sudden need for egress, they would be in the best position to provide assistance to whomever was being attacked by monsters or had a broken wagon wheel or what have you. A longer wait for drinks was well worth the possibility of being on the outskirts of a tavern fight, where the odds of getting involved were significantly reduced. Granted, they had gotten in late enough drinks had stopped being served some time ago, and about every patron other than their group had already headed upstairs to sleep for what remained of the night.

As a result, it was the three adventurers sitting in a nearly empty room, eating food left over from the supper served hours before. Accompanying them was the waitress of the tavern, presently occupied in the time honored tradition of asking how the food was whenever someone takes a bite and inquiring about the events of the day in pursuit of a higher perceived level of intimacy to transfer into an increased tip.

“So we get back with the bag, and when the guy opens it there's nothing inside!”

“Oh! What happened then?” the waitress pushes, leaning over the table down to dwarven eye level. The ranger does his level best to keep his eyes on his food, as the cleric continues on about the day’s events. As the other two were quickly coming to learn, stereotypes were as they were for a reason. Once the stout had a stout in hand, it became impossible to shut him up, particularly with an audience.

“Well, he refused to pay the bounty he’d offered for the thief, lacking as we were both the kobold and the goods. The elf nearly cut my beard off at that point, but this guy here,” the dwarf smacks the ranger on the arm, making him lose concentration on his task for a moment before returning his gaze more statically upon the food, “managed to get between myself and the lasses sword. Intercepted the sword with his torso, which was right decent of him. I can heal cut flesh, but not cut hair. That’s necromancy, you know.”

Being the only one of the group not distracted from the food in one way or another, the elf finishes her stew. Eying both of the bowls on the table, she determines the dwarf’s is the one under less scrutiny. Sliding the empty bowl over, she swaps her food with his, and continues eating.

“She was so distraught she only tried to stab me two more times before I could use Hierarchy's power to heal his wounds. Fortunately she was aiming for the non sensitive bits at that point, like vital organs, so no harm done. Unlike humans, a dwarf will always have good armor on, even during mundane shopping events.”

Expressing interest of a somewhat less feigned variety, the waitress asks, “So why aren't you wearing it now?”

“I'm going to be getting to that, don't you worry. See, once my man here was no longer leaking, he spoke with the person who offered the reward in the first place, and convinced him to give us another job, seeing as how he was still short on the chicken that had gone missing in the first place. What was that you said anyway?” questions the dwarf to his companion.

The ranger leans in to the dwarfs personal space, and says quietly, “I noted to him that the elf stabbing us for complicity in lack of payment, and that it might serve his health to keep her from realizing he was the primary factor in not having more money than when she got into line.”

The dwarf nods sagely. “That would do it. Anyhow, our new team had a task, and it was as trivial as it was profitable. We were to head down to the agricultural section and speak with the man in charge about getting some meat.”

“Mr. Swiftrip? He usually does his work in the morning and disappears until evening,” the barmaid interjects.

“We found that out after we got down to the fields, when we asked the farmhands about him. They wouldn't give us anything without either payment up front or authorization from their head farmer, neither of which we had. We were just there to set up a delivery, not make it ourselves, you see. The human tried to use the advance he negotiated this time to set one of them to send some of the chickens, but a whole gold coin would only pay for five birds, or four with delivery. His face looked like an elfs after that, all dull and unsmiling, and we then found out that the guy would go into the forest during the day. So we charged in blindly, as is the dwarven way.”

“The way I remember it, you were the one who charged in blindly, and I had to catch up after getting a description what he was wearing and the general area to look,” submits the human, done with his food and needing a new distraction.

“Aye, but you did catch up and the elf was with me, so as a group we charged in blindly.”

With that said, the dwarf leans back in his seat with a smug look on his face, clearly feeling superior thanks to his deft win of the dispute. The human sighs, leans back as well, and gestures for a continuation of the tale.

“Now where was I?”

“Entering the forest,” reminds the waitress helpfully.

“Right. After charging forward valiantly for almost a minute, our erstwhile party member caught up and started leading the way. Even with the lead we had, he was able to both catch up and start tracking down our target.”

“Not that hard,” contributes the ranger, “stubby legs lead to a slow pace, and I had plenty of time to look around for tracks. He was hunting himself, so I could just follow those tracks.”

“As it happened, that didn’t work.”

“There was no way to know that a bear crossed the original path.”

“The tracks should be different!”

"I’m telling you, they weren’t!”

“There was a bear?” interjects the waitress, once again redirecting the adventurer focus from pointless internal conflict back to attempting to gain social standing.

“Oh yes.

We got to the start of the trail, and start hearing footsteps. So, we charged forward, as that is the only thing to do.”

“Again, it was you two who charged forward. I heard a bear.”

“Regardless of how cohesive the charge was, the fact of the matter is that the result was all of us running into a bear.”

“I understand why you saw a bear and decided to shoulder check it info a tree, but I still have no idea why she did the same. It's not like she only had a split second to decide on a course of action, considering how far behind she was staying.”

The elf looks up from her bowl. “I thought that was what we were doing.”

Putting his face in his hands, and also his elbows on the table, the human said in a pained tone, “Even if the plan is to bodily slam a bear into a tree repeatedly, that does not mean slamming into the one in front of you to slam their body into the bear.”

Looking a good deal more serious than typically, the dwarf looks the human straight in the eye to say, “Boy, that's dwarven army tactics. The heavy armor gets pushed forward by everyone behind them. That's how you take down giants. They hit hard, but only have so many arms. You have to get inside their reach, keep them off balance, and never stop pushing onward.”

He takes a drink, and is all smiles and cheer again.

“Impressive form, by the way. If you were a bit lower to the ground, you might have the density for a line pusher in the mountains,” the dwarf directs toward the elf.

She looks down at her bowl momentarily, which is entirely empty at this point.

“And if you had the armor of a Thorn, I might consider practicing the technique a little. We seem to be out of food waitress person. Please bring more.”

“Of course!” the barmaid replies bouncily. She slides away from the table back to the kitchen area, around the bar and past the closed back door. With the other party out of earshot, the human sits up in his chair, a sudden sharpness in his eyes.

“Today was a disaster, but we still have options to make the best of our situation. I don't think I need to emphasize how we need to stick together lest we die in a corrosive mess as we're picked off one by one, right?”

“Aye,” replies the dwarf. “It takes more than one dwarf to match a dragon.”

They both look expectantly toward the elf, who glares back defiantly.

“I am barely involved in this,” she says, “and at any point have the option to just leave and spend a few years in the Elven forests for the hunt to die down.”

As the human starts to protest, she raises a finger.

“However, that would be boring. I'll help you until my interest wanes.”

“Good enough,” replies the human. “We need gold, and we need it fast. Any ideas?”

“Shifting goods is always profitable,” suggests the dwarf. “There's a mine downriver we can resupply, and bring the ore up here to sell to the local industry.”

“Good suggestion. Any comments on the plan?”

“It's slow,” says the elf. “Taking down supplies is easy, and we could probably raft down without any issue, but the way back would be upriver and laden with tons of rock. Additionally, trade routes are usually profitable ventures because of their repeatability, not because of the massive gain from each trip. Safe, but slow.”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“There's a church in this town. The dwarf can do what clerics do, and charge people money for healing and other miracles. Meanwhile, there's probably some sort of extermination mission that could be done by two people with stabbing implements, or rumors about some dungeon to loot.”

“Good suggestion,” says the human. “Any comments on the plan?”

“Well, for one thing clerics don't take the money directly,” responds the dwarf. “That would be a donation to the church in exchange for healing. If I were to do that, not only would I be needing to undercut the local prices, it would be directly taking funding away from the local economy. Not only that, but I have a relatively small supply of that type of healing available, so at best it would only bring in a few hundred pieces of gold at the expense of the church's enmity. Furthermore, in the event you are injured while fighting a horde of monsters, there would be no lifeline. As such, I simply reject the proposed course of action for myself. It would be much better to have me alongside the rest of the group.”

“Noted,” states the human. “Ah, here come food.”

The waitress comes out from behind the bar with three bowls of reheated stew. She kicks the back door shut as she passes it, not letting the bowls tip even slightly before she reaches the table and places one in front of each of the adventurers. A moment passes and the ranger goes back to starting at the bowls in front of him, unwilling to discuss plans with an uninvolved party listening in. Without any ado whatsoever, the cleric dives back into his story.

“So we slam into a bear, but the human doesn't capitalize on the guy being off balance, so it gets its footing back. Without the element of surprise, it would be a hard fight to take down a bear with only three people, and when it reared up the human started working on resolving the situation peacefully.”

“That's sure a change of pace,” the waitress notes, “Wouldn't him working to do exactly the opposite of what you were trying make you angry?”

“Nay lass,” the dwarf laughs, “there is an essential part of battle I've needs to recognize if they want to live. If a course of action is failing, it's best to do something else.”

“Anyway, I had them back away without turning away from the bear. Once they were behind me I did what I could to communicate that we didn't mean any harm and had run into it by accident,” the human says, shooting a glare at the cleric. “Apparently I'm an accomplished liar through body language, because it dropped down and walked off.”

“I count that as a successful bit of combat,” states the dwarf serenely. “Once we got past the first encounter of the forest, the ranger had no problems tracking down our quarry. However, the guy was busy when we find him, so we decided to wait until he was finished to bother him.”

“Aww, Mr. Swiftrip is a sweetheart. I'm sure he would have stopped to listen to you,” the waitress states optimistically.

The ranger sighs. “He was in the middle of slaughtering an owlbear.”

“Ah ok. That would be time sensitive.”

“Not what I was getting at…”

The human goes back to staring at the stew, poking at both the bowls in front of him with a spoon.

Undeterred, the dwarf picks up the story. “So we go off a bit to give him some space. That's when the elf gets twitchy.”

“I do not get twitchy,” said elf says between shovels of stew into her mouth, “that's a physiological reaction to creatures with a high mana concentration.”

“Alright. So that's when the elf starts quivering in terror-”

“Also wrong! I don't get scared. At most when the shaking starts up I have a reasonable apprehension toward whatever is causing the effect.”

“Alright. So that's when the elf starts quivering in reasonable apprehension. We checked around ourselves, but the first sign of anything happening was when a tree exploded, crushed under nothing's weight.”

“What was it?” asks the waitress breathlessly.

“We don't find out for a bit, but it turned out to be a black dragon under the effects of an invisibility spell. Judging from how immature and unintelligent it was relative to its size, it was a dungeon born. That's also how I lost my armor, but it was a worthwhile trade for our lives.”

Blinking in surprise, the waitress asks, “Are you saying there is a dungeon nearby that grows dragons?”

A serious look on his face, the dwarf simply states, “Aye.”

From his bowls, the human says quietly, “I don't think we need to impress on you how much might be at stake here.”

There's a rattling noise near the kitchen, but no one pays it any mind. If the inn burnt down, it burnt down. This was gold they were talking about.

“Every dragon in a dungeon would have a hoard a real dragon of that size would have acquired, but without the actual ability of one that had to live to grow that large. If the true dragons were to learn of this, the entire region is forfeit,” he states gravely. “Secrecy is key here, but there's no way to shut up a drinking dwarf.”

“Nay,” states said dwarf confidently, “dwarven bartenders discovered the secret years ago. You just need a hammer enchanted to only knock out.”

With a quick mental note to check the market for something matching that description, the human continues, “As we want to deal with this as quietly and quickly as possible, we need to get a pile of gold to use as bait. Taking down one dragon is all well and good, but a dungeon that is releasing them is a much bigger threat. Since you are slightly involved now, any ideas to get bait?”

Slightly stunned, the waitress thinks for a moment. “You could try putting in for a loan?”

The human looks at the other two. “Cost benefits?”

“Quick, easy method of getting funding. Potential for getting specialized equipment for confronting this specific type of dragon. In the event of failure, almost certain to have some second group come and take over,” leads the elf.

“If we go through official channels, that's a potentially huge number of people who know about a nearby dungeon full of dragons. Taking a loan means paying it back, with interest. That interest would probably be significant, given the risk of the venture. They may even try and get a percentage of the gross. We wouldn't be able to shop around effectively, due to how many people would be point of failure for the operation. As such, the person approached would have us over a barrel. We would also be on a time limit from the moment we take on the debt; that could lead to us taking more and more dangerous risks, directly increasing the chance of failure.”

The waitress blinks. “Huh.”

“Don't worry about it,” says the human, “it's a good idea, and we can use it at the end of our preparations. Anti-dragon equipment on loan is a great idea.”

With the ranger distracted from the food for the moment, the elf moves to swap the empty bowls in front of her with the full ones. As soon as her hand touches the full bowl, the human has it in his grip. His grip around her wrist was casual, just enough to state he knew exactly what she was trying. He lets go as soon as the elf starts pulling back her hand, and continues speaking without looking away from the waitress.

“An outside perspective is useful for anything you do. Odds are that I don't think of everything, nor will the other members of this group. We all have blind spots, overestimate ourselves, and sometimes fail,” he says, confidence building as his spiel grows longer. “What makes us succeed, what makes us adventurers, is teamwork. Working together, covering weaknesses, that’s the way to stay alive. Regardless of what comes-”

“Let’s not have a power of friendship speech before we even know each other’s names,” the elf interrupts.

“Fine,” states the human, gritting his teeth.

“Whammersteel Forgestepper, named so for how absolutely shite I am at hammering on an anvil and how often I almost fell into the slag as a child,” introduces the dwarf, “Preferable for humans and elves to call me Forgest, somewhat less embarrassing.”

“Estra'ye'thus Ceeni'El'Aru Crya'na'thel,” states the elf, “meaning ‘a river of femininity blinding the eyes to the sword stabbing like ice into the liver’. I earned my title in a duel.”

“I’ll call you Ecky,” mentions the cleric offhandedly.

“Gnaw,” says the human.

The three look at him expectantly.

“My parents were idiots,” he explains.

“And I’m Susan!” announces the waitress.

“We know Susan, you introduced yourself when we walked in. You’re a beautiful ray of sunlight and, more importantly, you’ve kept my mug full,” Forgest replies.

“That being said,” Gnaw mentions, “we should probably get at least some sleep before heading out in the morning.”

“I’ll support the motion in exchange for your food,” Estra’ye’thus bargins.

“Fine,” responds Gnaw, “but I also will call you Ecky.”

“Deal,” says Ecky, grabbing the bowl and devouring its contents.

The three adventurers make their way up to their respective rooms, leaving Susan to clean the table. Clearly she had the best backstory out of all of them. No one asked though. Her work was interrupted quickly by three shouts from upstairs, all with the same basic template.

“Where did all my stuff go?!”