Eric glared out at the white tier grasslands whipping by their velimobile, air rich with the scents of autumn grass and wildflowers, with only the tiniest taste of potency tingling in the air. With his friends now miles away and increasingly feeling the pressure of the confrontation to come, did Eric allow his smile to slip, and his ire to show.

“That drink you handed me two weeks ago was mickeyed. You tried to set me up with all three of them, the second I returned from Hope.”

His mother said absolutely nothing, hands shifting the gears of a vehicle so dizzyingly complex he didn’t even know where to start.

“Going to keep mum? Great. I guess drugging your son and his would-be harem is just one of the duties of an elven queen.”

His mother gazed at him for long moments.

“Correct.”

“Why?” His voice was a dry rasp.

His mother flashed a bitter smile that left him unexpectedly chilled, the look in her eyes hinting at pain he couldn’t even imagine.

“Because it’s been the way of our people long before mankind ever discovered meed, wine, or any drink save rotting fermented fruit on the forest floor. Because Elves have synergized elements of both Tournament and Pair-bonded species, just as Terrans have. Because alpha males securing harems of the most eligible females available, assuring as strong and potent a bloodline as possible, is a sacred part of our heritage, culture, and yes, Eric, our power as well.”

Her gaze hardened. “And you’ll never know the risks those girls took, literally putting their lives in your hands. Because however strong you are, or think you are, partying with those fragile darlings in an orange tier territory as your first hunting ground was absolute insanity! Had you made one mistake, had you not come to Jinni’s aid in time after forcing her to confront so many fears you can’t possibly understand… she would have perished. And where you have been then, my impulsive, headstrong son? No elf has dared those wild lands before, and for damn good reason!”

Eric winced. “And still, knowing all that, they chose to adventure by my side. For a whole damned week.”

Aurelia nodded. “They did.”

Eric lowered his head. “Sure, it was a rush beyond belief, for me, but I was terrified of making one wrong move the entire time we were hunting, knowing their lives were in my hands. And just one mistake...” He sighed. “Now, having finally stabilized Sufia, I can finally admit to myself that what we did was madness. Why the hell did they follow where I led?”

His mother smirked. “You still don’t understand. No matter how much I try to explain it.”

Eric scowled. “Understand what?”

“That you’re only half human, and they are entirely Sylvan.” His mother flashed a bemused smile. “Haven’t you heard of falling in love at first sight?”

“Of course. Who hasn’t?”“

"Among our kind, it is a very, very real thing. Of course it also accounts for pheromones, social standing, and the taste of your potency crackling in the air. But once the right synapses fire, their affection for you is as fierce and potent as six months of falling head over heals for the Terran girl of your choice.”

Eric blinked. “But all we did was train together. Fight together. Forge what might be the foundational bedrock of a school that will give humanity a sorely needed edge. We never did anything more than...” he flushed, suddenly recalling so viscerally how close he and Jinni had come to becoming far more than friends when they had been so unexpectedly interrupted.

A truth his mother’s bemused gaze made all too clear that she had instantly understood.

“My greatest regret, Eric, is that too many spies are growing suspicious of Ashland’s potential. None truly understand the nature of your delves, not yet, for any who have dared them are already bound by your oath. Nonetheless, if I could have held off this meeting for a few days without our enemies putting the pieces together in ways that would have absolutely jeopardized everything, I would have.”

Eric felt his cheeks blaze. “Because you knew that I’d eventually cave.” He shook his head. “Even without that love potion you tried to slip me, after that last fight...”

His mother smirked. “How glorious it was to see all of you innocent darlings so high on the rush of battle and victory. Had I showed up even an hour later, Eric, I have no doubt I would have found you happily consorted to all three of those girls.”

Eric gazed at his mother for long moments. “Why are you trying so hard to hook me up with them?”

His mother closed her eyes, and it was beyond shocking to see the silvery tear running freely down her right cheek. Alike, yet utterly alien to the blue tears shed by the girl who had come so close to claiming his heart, in a dream that never was… until he had willed it so.

“Because what you did was absolute madness. Because not even I thought you’d be stupid enough, foolhardy enough, to take on a seventieth level Delve when you were solo adventuring in your thirties, Eric Silver!” Her gaze froze him where he sat, and for just a second Eric felt the heartrending grief of a mother who had lost absolutely everything that had ever mattered to her to the malice and treachery of the most callous and vindictive of foes, left so bitter and broken that her howling fury had frozen an entire world. An atrocity that had somehow served as the ultimate catalyst for the most bitter of Silver ascensions imaginable, the courts of Summer and Winter at each other’s throats for countless years after, until an uneasy truth ruled the local sector centuries later.

But Winter’s mistress never forgot the bitter lessons learned at the hands of her foes, and would always morn sweetest innocence lost, no matter how desperately she strove to freeze all regret from her wounded soul.

Eric wheezed for breath, for just a second feeling as if his lungs had been frozen shut.

Before blinking away his surge of unexpected panic, like jolting awake after nodding off, not even knowing why he had been so alarmed as his mother’s words continued to wash over him.

“Heaven’s mercy, that was beyond foolish, Eric. But look at you. Level 54 in a Master Class, just days after your daring, having tapped into such glorious transcendent power that you’ve brought back the very Towers of Zor in a pristine environment so filled with spiritual and arcane energy that no other territory in this entire world matches it, save the ones you alone have forged!”

She shook her head with awe and wonder. “Yet, you did. The farthest thing from following the prudent path that any other Contender in your situation would have followed.”

Eric smirked. “And that would be what, exactly?”

His mother sighed. “That you even have to ask. After blooding your sarissophoroi, you should have been slowly working to cleanse the surface of multiple territories with the army at your back to rush in as you do your utmost to master your weapons, spells, and legions while your infamy, Contender status, and fate itself draws worthy champions to weave their tales with your own. Heroes, villains, and rogues of all stripes who would form a band of sworn brothers and sisters to forever fight by your side.”

Eyes the color of frozen sea foam met his own. “Only then, after countless adventures embraced and challenges endured over at least a year, perhaps far longer, would you dare to take on Terra’s orange tier depths, and only with men and women you would trust with your life by your side!”

Aurelia sighed, shaking her head, before stopping the vehicle and gripping him in an unexpected hug that choked him up in ways he never expected as she sobbed words he never thought to hear. “As to why I ultimately consented to allowing those three silly, beautiful girls to try forming a pride with you at their heart, its's because I’ve had countless sons just like you who touched my soul more deeply than you can possibly imagine. And all I had left to remember them by, when their glorious mad dreams of ascension eventually turned to death and ashes, were the children they left behind.”

Eric felt his cheeks flush under his mother’s red-rimmed gaze. Because there was nothing he could say that would refute her words. What he had dared had been the height of stupidity. Even now, long before his mother’s pitying look of condemnation, he had been revising a dozen plans to better himself on the orange tier plains, in plain sight of his legions, and only when he felt he was truly ready, would he ever again dare the madness that he had, just a couple of weeks ago.

His mother’s lips eased into the same gentle smile she had blessed him with so many times during his roughest moments as a boy. Times when he felt the entire world was out to get him, or at least, that he had committed yet another unforgivable fuckup, however good his intentions had been.

“Eric, you were given less than 20% odds of survival. By corrupt bastards who still run a very clean gambling den. It’s their business to forecast such things, worshiping as they do the god of profit, valuing predictability and prescience above all else.”

Eric flushed. “Well, fuck them. Clearly they can’t see whatever happens once I’m inside a delve, because I had 100% odds of survival. What’s my proof of that? I’m fucking here.”

His mother nodded, blinking away what neither would acknowledge as tears. “And that’s why the stonewalling bastards are now so desperate to come to an accord. Knowing just how terrible a threat you, your revenants, and your cannon, truly are. And they’re willing to sacrifice any number of delicious cards to make sure you’ll never be a threat in their eyes again.” Her bemused gaze hardened.

Eric laughed at that. “And we’re going to take full advantage of their desperation. Aren’t we, mother?”

“You know it, son,” she said with a glint in her eyes Eric recognized so well from the very few times he had actually felt less like an utter failure as an actor but rather a son she could be proud of, having her back whenever they analyzed a new property deal, Eric playing the naive goofball kid with too much money and not enough common sense being humored by an indulgent mother until the coldly smiling men at the other end of the table all but swallowed their own cigars when corrected ledgers showed evidence of fraud, malfeasance, and foul play. In addition to proof of infidelity, trafficking, and a dozen other crimes that so often included murder that would be presented in neat manila documents with cold smiles from Eric, Aurelia, and the pair of bodyguards Eric now knew to be completely unnecessary, guarding them.

How many times had Eric and his mother been able to leverage their opponents to sell out their assets for pennies on the dollar? How many times had he savored seeing the smoldering looks of fury in those hate-filled eyes? Before half of them paled and flinched before Eric’s hungry grin, the other half silently promising to get back at Aurelia and her brat at all costs, desperation writ so clearly on their thuggish countenances that Eric and his mother couldn’t help but sense it.

Then the two of them would share a look with their henchmen, just knowing that the loose cannons among their enemies wouldn’t be firing at all, thanks to a conveniently arranged accident or two at the end of the year.

Eric sighed and rubbed his temples, forced to accept that whatever his heroic aspirations, his adolescence had been every bit as fucked up as his sister’s had been. When not nerding it up online, flubbing morning rehearsal, or working out with Vince to redeem himself during the fighting scenes, he’d been spending countless hours as his mother’s right hand man, savoring the dark games they played, just as much as she had been. The only time she had ever complimented a single clever stratagem or move he would propose. How strange it was that all those memories always blurred when he’d wake up bleary, fatigued, and completely unable to remember his lines in the morning, only for a late afternoon nap to allow ice cold clarity to come over him before engaging in what really mattered once more.

And how many times had a half-drunk Elonia sobbed that it was hard for her to be alone when he and mother were out half the night, and he’d look at her like an idiot who had no idea what she was talking about? He shivered with the odd feeling that he was somehow two people at once, now slowly waking up a bit more to his true self, whatever that might be.

Eric spent long moments searching his mother’s gaze for something, he knew not what, before handing her the letter now burning a hole in his heart. “I’m sorry I am only giving this to you now. I pray the delay won’t cause any undue hardship.”

His mother paled, eyes widening with shock when hands that should never tremble dared to glance at the contents within.

Eric couldn’t bear to watch, immediately turning his back on his trembling mother to gaze out at the rolling fields all around them, noting a pair of spear throwers in the distance, celebrating taking down a boar no larger than what would have been expected, even before the world had transformed.

“Eric...”

“No!” His voice was harsh, raw. “You know the creatures we’re up against. Best we say nothing on the origins of any of the prizes I retrieved from the deep.”

His mother gazed at him for long moments before clasping him in a wordless hug, eyes streaming with silent tears it broke Eric’s heart to see.

She smiled at the storage ring he handed her with all his greatest prizes, besides his already claimed mithril armaments and cultivation tomes. “And what, exactly, do you expect me to do with all this?”

Eric smirked. “Whatever you like. Let it be a gift to Elonia. I already gave a similar stash to Jinni to help fund our own academy operations.”

He then solemnly handed her a chest constructed of beast hide and bone within his ES Storage space, filled to the brim with his dungeoneering treasures, including exotic cuttings and priceless seeds and beast cores Bun Bun had helped him claim in the dungeon that had come so close to killing him, more pleased than he wanted to admit by the awed sparkle in her eyes. “I take it you see a few pretties in there?”

His mother chuckled. “I most definitely do. Shall I consider these a gift?”

Eric laughed. “You know what? Yes. I already shared some cuttings with the girls that should turn into some wonderful gardens at the very edge of Hope territory, right where it adjoins Ashland. Everything else is for Elonia and you to use as you see fit.”

His mother’s smile turned genuine, even heartfelt. “Thank you, Eric. With the way things are looking… we’ll need every scrap of resources we can get our hands on. But you can’t go to the meeting poor as a pauper, or our foes will understand that we’ve already read their next move.”

Eric smirked. “Well then, let’s kit me up right! Your finest saber and armaments of my size. We’ll call it my totally non Contender affiliated birthday present from mummy dearest.”

His mother winked. “We will indeed.” She gazed at him for long moments. “And you will bring all your cannons, Eric. You do understand why, of course.”

Eric winced, but nodded.

At a hoped for thousand elves per cannon valuation, he could appreciate why Aurelia wanted to unload each one. Especially since Elonia’s own recent territory enhancements meant that their enemies seers had finally been countered, and they had no real idea as to the extent of the resources Eric had actually brought to bear.

Or so they both hoped.

Within minutes Eric was ready after stepping out of the car, he and his mother hidden in the waist-high grass, Eric taking the time to pull a few training pells out of storage after kitting up in a masterwork hauberk of silvered mail that could easily be mistaken for mithril to the uninformed. His mithril dachi had been replaced by a silvered blade that did indeed look very much like a two handed Swiss cavalry saber, the killing tool in his hands balanced to allow for any number of fighting techniques, with just enough of a curve to allow for wicked slashes and cleaving blows, along with a clip-back point that still allowed for a devastating thrust.

Yet the terminology he associated with his forms was strongly rooted in European tradition, and when his mother called out various strikes for old time’s sake as much as anything else, his blade cleaved through the air in the literal blink of an eye.

“Underhand cross-cut!” His mother snapped, and the pell covered in multiple layers of rawhide and glue suddenly sported a pair of overlapping slashes that would have torn a living man from hip to chest on both sides of his body so deeply his organs would have spurted out a gaping wound that only steel armor could have saved him from.

“Zwerch!” Eric’s blade whipped back and forth in a tightly controlled arc at neck height, hips and wrists shifting just enough to slip through the defenses of an opponent of equal strength and skill, the dummy’s reinforced neck cleaved cleanly through with the first blow, the second assuring death, even should his opponent have successfully parried the first.

“Overhand double cross!” His mother called out a second later, Eric’s blade now flashing in a double moulinet that cleaved downwards from shoulder to hip and back again, just as fast as his iado fast-draw had disemboweled his first imagined foe.

His mother smiled. “Your skills continue to improve, for all that it’s absurd even to think Earth has more than a handful of Adept skill users, let alone any of Elite tier, showing our friends and foes just how powerful a boon Earth’s first bloom will be to all embracing her ascension.” She blinked upon closer examination of his blade.

“Is this your Elite tier perk evolution, Eric? That no damage will come to any blade in your hands?”

Eric smirked. “Sounds like kind of a waste to me.”

“I assure you it’s the farthest thing from it.”

Eric laughed. “Well if you ask me, Cultivator’s Fury is a far better use of an elite tier perk. As far as my blade goes, if you look real close, you’ll see the runes for Dominion and Resilience, like a maker’s mark on the hilt of the blade. A blade that is now bound to me, body and soul, after a final kiss of the whetstone to assure silk-cutting sharpness even if it lasts for just a single battle, because I can repair it in the blink of an eye, the moment I put it back into storage.”

His mother gazed at him for long moments. “You dared to soul-bind a blade we use only as a bluff?”

Eric flashed a grim smile. “Yes. Otherwise they’ll know it’s not a bluff. As it stands...” Eric snapped his wrist, his sword windmilling through the air to stick into a stalking shadow cat just over twenty yards away.

You have critically struck your target!

Minimal experience earned for prey less than half your level!

His mother gazed at the quivering sword that had ripped the shadow cat wide open. “Unorthodox… but if your foe isn’t wearing steel, say a cut-purse running off with ill gotten gains… that will certainly put the rabble in their place.”

Eric snorted. “Yes, that’s a nice hit. But that’s not the point.” Eric clenched his fist, still gazing at his mom as his sword instantly reappeared in his grip. A frozen moment in time as he caught sight of the reflection in his mother’s bemused gaze, in perfect sync with his 360 heat perception and the blinking light in the corner of his map interface.

Frozen stillness became furious action when he sensed sudden movement behind him, a predator’s coordinated leap crumpling in midflight as a vicious flurry of cleaving blows whipped through the air.

Eric turned to gaze at his mom as the remains of a second white tier shadow puma collapsed in a splatter of ruptured flesh and shattered bone at his feet. “That is.”

His mother gazed at him for long moments, then smiled. “I trust you aren’t tapping into your life force?”

Eric laughed. “Just the tiniest sliver of my level 54 experience pool to soul-link this blade which, not surprisingly, is a much deeper bucket to fill than 9 levels as a basic Classer.”

Aurelia gave an approving nod. “A sword marked by both runic and blood magic, and our finest silvered mail, with my top marksman’s second favorite bow and a hundred clothyard shafts, tipped with fine steel broadhead and bodkin arrowheads both. There’s no way our foes won’t take your kit as serious battle weaponry indeed, because that’s exactly what it is. Even better, rumors of mithril prizes will be discounted as a fool’s excitement at what is, after all, merely silvered steel.”

Her brows furrowed at the ochre-colored leather belt he was using to secure his mail shirt tightly around his hips, just one trick soldiers used to spread the weight of their hauberks to rest on hips as well as shoulders.

“Let’s hope they don’t understand the true significance of your belt.”

Eric grinned. “Considering that slingers have been using their slings as belts, bandannas, and straps for over 4,000 years, it’s got solid precedent, and I’m betting they won’t suspect a thing.” He smirked at his mom. “I mean, seriously. Can you tell the difference between an orc and a goblin dressed fashionably horrid or horrifically fashionable? Beauty or beastly to their eyes, its all an awful mess to ours.”

His mother chuckled. “A surprisingly astute point.” She took a deep breath, locking gazes with him. “Are you ready?”

Eric nodded. “And the backpack full of survival gear was a great touch.”

His mother flashed a sad smile. “Let’s hope you don’t need it.”

Eric laughed. “If things go according to plan, I’ll be back soon enough, assuming the negotiations aren’t a complete farce, or they hit us with wildcards we weren’t expecting.” -And then I collect my shit, and I am fucking out of here! No Sylvan shotgun weddings for me, thank you very much.-

His mother gazed at him for long moments, looking for all the world like she was reading his mind. But all she did was nod and turn to the velimobile.

“Come, Eric. Freetown awaits.”

Eric smirked at her smile, before entering the car and enduring the longest, most nerve wracking ride of his life.

Because as the end of what he feared would be a very, very bad day, he just might be stripped of far more than a modest handful of cannons and revenants.

Even the blasters that had been used in their enemies’ desperate attempts to kill him and his sister both were in his ES Space, per his mother’s insistence, after making it painfully clear that the administrators were absolutely adamant about them being up for negotiation, no matter their status as prizes of war, or Eric’s perks freely allowing use of those highly restricted instruments of death.

Eric grimaced when his mother patted his hand as his stomach continued to churn, doing back-flips by the time they approached the walls of Freetown, a city so filled with bittersweet memories for Eric, even now.

How odd it was that, just months ago, he had been fleeing from his mother for all he was worth… and now was returning by his mother’s side, ready to give up his most precious treasures for her faction’s benefit.

He couldn’t help but give a rueful shake of his head, wondering if his mother had charmed him after all.

He suspected she had. At least to the extent every mother could cut through even the most jaded and cynical son’s defenses.

And with his family’s faction in dire straights, most of her people slaughtered by vastly superior forces, with less than a thousand survivors forced to defend multiple territories as the world itself entered ever more perilous times and outright beast tides Eric now knew to expect in just a decade, he couldn't blame his mother for making every move possible to secure her people’s safety in a world now on the brink of being overrun.

Even if it might cost Eric every scrap of wealth he now claimed.

Every cannon at his command.

Every dinosaur he had raised, every one of the sixteen thousand spearmen, his sarissophoroi, that had fought in glorious formation by his side.

Though Eric hoped like hell they were only prepared to take the tiniest fraction of his prizes.

But one thing was for damn sure. Clipping his wings in whatever way they could seemed to be goal number one on both goblin and administrator agenda, counting his legions as being an auxiliary force of the Sylvan Alliance. Clearly, they weren't taking his Independent status seriously at all.

They obviously understood the threat his forces represented, even if they had no real concept of just how many troops he was able to bring to bear. His mother had delighted in sharing a sense of their frustration, and fear, that not one orc or Bloodtear agent that had witnessed his blitzkrieg strikes had made it out alive. Or so Eric could easily deduce from the replies to the furious administrative messages his mother had CC’d to him. Messages that thankfully had no legal or contractual binding on him at all.

Because sure as shit, at least a couple of those administrative fucks had done everything they could to see Eric in chains and his resources lining their own bank accounts before claiming his head.

Nearly the exact words his mother whispered into his ear, sending icy shivers down his spine, the moment they pulled up to the Freetown gate.

“And that is why you will clamp down on your foolish pride and allow me to take the lead, Eric. Because this arena is one I’ve danced within many times before,” Aurelia said as they stepped out right in front of the Freetown entrance gate, just in time to be met by a pair of rough-shaven and very human guards kitted out in cast iron orc-made chainmail clearly refitted to be used by humans, with a gladius and dagger strapped to their waists and seven foot pilums they was holding like a spears.

The pair pinged as Javelineers to Eric’s interface, and the pair of guards actually took the time to sneer at them both. Which worked for Eric, since it gave him a chance to use his way too low ranked Identify skill against opponents that were both hostile, had already taken offense to his very existence so they couldn’t say shit about his probing, and were obligated to stay still long enough for him to get away with it.

Tim Rhoads / Class: Javelineer / Level 21 / Strength 25 / Vitality 20 / Finesse 20 / Quickness 17 / Perception 15 / Appearance – Ugly

Reese Williams / Class: Javelineer. Level 22 / Strength 27 / Vitality 20 / Finesse 25 / Quickness 15 / Perception 16 / Appearance - Pimply

“Hey look, it’s an elven bitch and her servant.”

The face of the one named Tim twisted in a snarl as he spat on the ground. “Get out of here, Elf. No one wants your kind in Freetown. This is goblin orc territory now.”

Eric smirked. “Really? And here I was, thinking that the Blackfang Alliance had been completely snuffed out. Or was that Interface announcement wrong? Silly me.”

The guard’s face turned beat red, using his beefy body and six foot 5 inch size in a vain effort to intimidate Eric as he encroached in Eric’s space. “I don’t think I like your attitude, you elf-loving bitch! Blackfangs were good fighters, taken out by a Bronze tier off-world cultivator who broke the rules and was drawn and quartered by the administrators, asshole! And you think they’re the only alliance of orcs? Ha! The Red Butchers will be wiping your pansy ass friends completely off the map. Just you wait!”

Eric yawned, turning back to his mother with a tired sigh. “Clearly these idiots were deliberately stationed here to provoke us. What, are our supposed hosts who so clearly promised free passage within Freetown for the duration of our negotiations and a full 24 hours before and after, now going to use an altercation as a pretext to try to arrest us and squeeze us for all they can in these bullshit negotiations?”

Aurelia nodded. “Correct. They are pawns to be sacrificed, and don’t even know it.”

“Hey! Don’t talk about me like I’m not even here!” Snapped the now furious-looking Tim Rhoads.

The pimple-faced one named Reese began to look worried. “Um, you know what, Tim? It’s too hot for this bullshit. I’m going for a drink.”

“Reese! What the fuck are you saying...” Tim’s piggish features twisted into a scowl, glaring Eric’s way. “And what the hell are you losers talking about? I’m no one’s fucking pawn! And who the hell are you, anyway?”

His mother flashed a cold smile. “His name is Eric Silver, though you might know him as Eric Orcbane. You know, the one responsible for wiping your former masters completely off the map?”

Her smile grew cruel as winter snows when Eric quit holding back, glaring at the pair of buffoons and letting then taste the slightest hint of the aura he now called his own, the wrath and fury he had felt, pushing him beyond his own limits, fighting for his very life against a dragon of all things, was now almost a physical pressure he could summon at will.

The pair of Javelineers turned deathly pale, illumination and horror dawning on their rough-shaven features.

“In case you fools haven’t already figured it out, your new employers, who I assume are the Snicklit Faction? Care absolutely nothing for your wellbeing. They are more than happy to use you as the tiniest, most insignificant pawns for my son to viciously rip the life from, in the hopes that it will earn them even the tiniest of concessions on the negotiation table.”

The pair of men visibly paled. Eric could smell the stench of fear on them. And for all that they were clearly Orc affiliated, or had been, kitted up in Orsinian armaments with a javelin throwing class, he couldn’t help recalling that Erica had had the same start that they had. That any human who didn’t want to perish with a slave collar around their neck had, almost a year ago. Back when the invasion had first started and humans were utterly powerless, countless townships and cities overrun by 600 pound behemoths with oversized muskets that hit with the force of a twelve gauge shotgun, and the humans with no working guns at all. It was either swear yourself to an orc faction and pray for a decent class, die in an orc fire pit, or live as a slave. Save for not being a pretty girl, how would Rica’s fate have been any different from theirs?

Eric’s killing intent, which had already sent the idiot Reese stumbling to the ground, gazing at Eric the way a child would his executioner, immediately drained away. All they were was a couple of survivors who harbored bitterness to the ones who had crushed the only faction they had known. Now they were drifting with no real purpose or identity, probably on no one’s friend list, easy prey to goblin propaganda or enticements. Because setting up desperate humans to kill one another for the sake of factions that would see them all dead would fit the cackling goblins twisted sense of humor to a T.

Of course their sheet-white complexions didn’t turn rosy with Eric’s best attempts at an understanding smile. He could only hope they might reach an understanding regardless.

“If you gentlemen don’t mind me asking, just how long have you been working for the goblins?”

If anything, the pair of men looked even more alarmed. “Just, well, shit. Just today, actually,” Reese said, earning a glare from his partner.

“Shut up, fool!" Tim hissd. "That’s shit they don’t need to know!”

Eric nodded. “You’re right, Mr. Rhoads, it isn’t.” His smile widened as the man blanched.

“Wait, how the hell do you know my name?”

Eric sighed. “Maybe because you’re being set up?”

The pair swallowed, exchanging glances. “Shit, Tim. We’ve been scrounging for work for a week, and you know the guilds want nothing to do with former orcers. And that fucking dungeon...” The smaller man, Reese, shuddered. “Fucking death trap, even if all the shit was level 15, and we barely felt any potency from those kills at all. Then we’re walking away from the third fucking stand where the leatherworker are saying, ‘no thanks, no one’s buying Shalker hides below pristine level,’ and those fuckers are completely inedible! So we were risking our lives for nothing!”

Tim sighed, rubbing his face. “Of course, that’s when that pair of goblins is offering us ‘honest work.’ came along.”

The man gave a bitter chuckle. “And all they did was laugh when we said we weren’t stupid enough to sign any of their contracts. No, they say they’re just looking out for a couple fellow orcers, the only humans worth hiring. Didn’t insist we sign a contract or anything. Acting like they cared about a couple of Javelineers like us, our whole class now pariah, in case some Orcbane asshole comes along and decides to fucking wipe out an entire guild for harboring a single orc-lover.”

Both men suddenly went all quiet, furtive grey eyes gazing into Eric’s smirking sapphire orbs as if rabbits suddenly spotting a snake. Reese nervously licked his lips. “Um… when you all said Orcbane… that wasn’t just some monicer you came up with to sound badass, was it?”

Aurelia’s tinkling laughter echoed past the still nearly abandoned gate, and through the city beyond. Eric swore he saw countless shoppers and adventurers hurrying between the brownstone buildings in the distance shiver before gazing their way with wide, frightened eyes.

“I think you two already know the answer to that.”

Tim swallowed a whimper, forcing a bitter smile. “Those fuckers. Hyping us all up about elven spies here to wreck their counsel. They were just setting us up.”

Reese groaned. “I knew we shouldn’t have taken that silver. And why thirty pieces? But my belly’s grumbling like fuck. I knew we were better off just living off the land. At least we can hunt.”

“But it’s getting cold,” Tim said with a despairing sigh, before chuckling bitterly. “Well, I guess this is the end of the fucking line for us, huh? You here to kill everyone who ever worked for the orcs?”

Eric stared at the man for long hard moments. “Do I look like a fucking psychopath to you?”

A speechless Tim just stared at him.

Eric sighed and rubbed his face. “Look. My grudge was with the orcs who were enslaving and butchering our kind. Not the people just trying to survive without getting a collar seared around their necks. And I know damn well you didn’t exactly have a lot of class choices. Because if you picked a class that the chieftain didn’t approve of, all you got for your trouble was an agonizing death while the shaman tries to rip out your soul and devour it for himself.”

The men paled, exchanging a quick look. “Well fuck, he actually gets it,” Tim whispered.

Eric nodded. “I do." He gazed at the pair for long moments. “And if I were actually out for the blood of men and women whose only crime was accepting a class that let them feed their families and not end up dying in fire pits or with slave collars around their necks… then I would have had to kill my own girlfriend. And since I’ll kill anyone who so much as touches my girl, clearly, I’m not the psychopath those yellow-bellied cowardly shitheads running the guilds here seem to think I am. So kicking people out into the cold, people who probably have families and are just trying to survive in the zero resources shit-tier dungeon the goblins made for you sorry saps, isn’t going to earn them any points in my book. Quite the opposite.”

Eric forced a smile to the pair of men who, for some reason, didn’t look that assured. “So feel free to pass that around. Except maybe not the insults. But the rest, yeah. I don’t care about your past, I don’t want to know your past. If you’re just trying to make ends meet in any sort of productive fashion today, then your history is your own, and I’m far more concerned with your future.”

Eric tilted his head, staring at the pair of anxious-looking Classers consideringly. “How would you boys like a job?”