Chapter 27: Chapter 26

The group they passed as they walk down the path eyed them, the state they were in and the shield Jackal carried, talking among one another as each group continued in their respective directions. The two adventurers at the bottom eyed the shield, but didn’t comment or do more than raise an eyebrow.

The adventurer behind the table had a sword at his hip and smoky dark gray eyes. He took the three copper coins each of them handed over, as well as the two silver and copper Geoff handed him.

“We’re not done,” the adventurer said as they turned to head to town. Tibs wanted the horrible tasting potion so he’d feel better, and Geoff couldn’t stand without Pyan’s help. He reached for the shield, but Jackal was faster, stepping away. “It’s guild property,” the man said.

“Bullshit,” the fighter replied. “It’s dungeon loot that we earned defeating the boss.”

“Everything found in the dungeon is guild property,” the adventurer repeated, looking bored. “You’ll all get recompensed, minus the guild cut, of course.” The smile wasn’t quite a smirk. Tibs hurt too much to ask what the R-word was.

“Is that how this guild works?” Jackal yelled, loud enough for anyone all the way to the waiting area for the dungeon could hear. “They swindle us out of anything we earn properly?” He outright smirked at the adventurer as people moved closer. “Us dying for the dungeon’s not enough for you people? You expect us to line those fat rat’s pockets too?”

Four teams worth of people were close enough Tibs heard their grumbling. Don was on one of them, eying the shield greedily. More were coming from the direction of the town, with one dressed in green running toward it.

“Listen here,” the adventurer ordered. “I don’t make the rules, and neither do you.” He didn’t look as worried as Tibs thought he should. Four teams weren't to be taken lightly, and more were on the way. One adventurer couldn’t be that strong, even three, if he included the two by the path.

“Oh, you clearly make them enough to do whatever you want with us,” Jackal replied. “You want a shield like that, go in there and get one yourself. You're powerful enough I doubt it’ll take you more than five minutes to get in, kill the boss and get back here.”

Even Don was paying attention to the conversation now, Tibs noticed. Although he had a calculating expression on his face rather than an angry one.

Now the adventurer seemed to notice how many people were around Jackal. His expression darkened, and he opened his mouth. But a man behind all of them spoke with an authoritative tone.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded.

Everyone turned, except Jackal, who froze and paled. If Tibs hadn’t been injured, he might have turned too fast to notice. People moved out of the way of the approaching man and Tibs saw him properly and immediately knew he hadn’t been anywhere on the field when he’d looked around.

“Well?” the man asked. His eyes were bright and white, his black hair cut short. He was massive, with a sword at his belt, a shield on his back, and a dented and tarnished armor. The man was a fighter; and the kind who had no issue stepping in the middle of a fight when needed.

“This fighter,” the adventurer put as much disgust as he could in the words, more than Tibs thought should be possible. “Seems to think he’s too good to hand over the loot he found.”

“We get to keep the loot,” Jackal said, not turning, and voice cracking ever so slightly. Tibs tried to understand what was wrong with him.

“Turn around, boy, when you speak to me.”

Jackal swallowed and did as he was told, slowly and looking at the ground.

“That’s not where I am.”

Swallowing again, Jackal raised his head and looked at the man. If Tibs hadn’t been looking for something, anything to explain his friend's behavior, he would have missed the tightening of the eyes. The man somehow recognized Jackal.

“Is that so?” the man asked.

“That’s what they said,” Jackal replied, voice cracking.

“Really? And just who is this ‘they’ you speak of, boy?”

Jackal swallowed again, but his voice was firmer. “After graduating, when we came out, they said the guild took ten percent of the coins. They never said anything about the loot.”

“That’s not true,” the adventurer said, “no one said anything about what was and wasn’t covered.”

“If the loot counts,” Tibs said, fighting to keep his voice steady despite the pain. “How come everyone here’s wearing a piece?” Only a little focus and he could see too many letters to make them out.

The man looked at Tibs, lowering his white eyes; no, they actually glowed. If he was surprised at his short stature, he didn’t comment. His eyes narrowed, then he looked around.

“The boy’s right, just about everyone here has something magical on them. Has the guilt let the merchant start selling the stuff ahead of schedule? Where did these runners get the gold to pay for all this?” He stared at the adventurer. “Are the merchants here generous?” he asked in dismay.

“I—” the adventurer began.

“That’s what they get for using rejects like you.” He turned and looked the crowd over. Mumbling something about the boy always being trouble. “You lucky bastards get to keep whatever loot you find; because these idiots weren’t competent enough to impose the right rules, and I can’t change them yet. So you better not miss your turn at the dungeon if you want to try it!”

As the crowd broke to return to where they’d stood before all this, the man turned and fixed his angry gaze on Jackal. “If I’d known you were in the middle of this, I’d have let this reject deal with you, Jackal. You get to keep your loot too, but know this.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I don’t care.”

Jackal nodded. Was he trembling?

“Get out of here. Find a merchant before word of that spreads and I find you in the middle of another commotion.”

Jackal ran off without waiting for the others. Tibs looked at the satisfied expression on the fighter with the glowing eyes and had the sense Jackal was running more for his life than to sell the shield.

* * * * *

Two electrum coins.

Tibs held two electrum coins, and they were his.

He was rich.

He had no idea of the numbers, but electrum was the step above silver, so it was worth a lot.

The merchant had given them ten electrum coins, sixteen silvers, and four coppers for the shield, going on about the quality of the workmanship and how he could get a king’s ransom for it if he found the right buyer. If a king was worth ten electrum coins, Tibs understood why they had so many soldiers protecting them.

Even Carina had been amazed, and Tibs sensed she wasn’t Street. He hadn’t met any sorcerers who had the feel of a street about them. Maybe having access to books required being rich or something.

“Tibs?” Jackal asked, nodding to Carina.

“What?” Tibs rubbed the coins together. It was a much more satisfying action than doing it with silver.

“Put the coins away; we’re discussing having Carina join our team.”

Reluctantly, he put them in the pouch, running a finger over the amulet at the same time.

Kroseph placed a tankard before each of them. “I hear congratulations are in order. You brought back loot. Can I see?”

“We sold it,” Jackal said softly, looking at the table.

“Why? You know I wanted to see what dungeon loot was like.”

“It was that or start a riot,” Carina said, raising the tankard in thanks before taking a sip.

“Really?” Kroseph asked Tibs.

He took one of the electrum coins out of the pouch and showed it off to the server. “I got two of them each.”

“The three of you?” Kroseph asked, awed.

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“Five,” Jackal said. "The other two went their ways afterward."

“Ten?” the server eyed the coin and Tibs put it away before he was tempted to take it.

Kroseph leaned closer to Jackal’s ear. “Don’t you dare get rid of yours before you let me touch them, do you understand?” Then he returned to the kitchen.

“At least he isn’t angry anymore,” Tibs said.

Jackal drank half his tankard in one swallow. “I’m not sure if that wouldn’t have been a better thing.

“You said something about helping Tibs, what with?” Carina asked.

Tibs tried to understand how Kroseph being angry at Jackal might have been the better thing.

“First,” Jackal said, eying Tibs and nodding to Carina. Right, this was the current thing. He’d ask Jackal about the other later. “You have to agree to be on our team. You handled yourself well in the dungeon, so I’m for you joining. But there are responsibilities that come with the privilege.”

“Privilege? You think highly of yourself,” Carina chuckled.

“I’m not the privilege,” Jackal protested, “I’d kill to be on Tibs’s team.”

“You already are,” Tibs said.

Jackal sighed in relief. “Oh good. I don’t know if I’d be able to hide a body in this town, it’s so small.”

“Just throw it in the dungeon,” Carina said. “I get the feeling that depending on who it is, you could even ask the adventurers for help carrying it.”

Tibs chuckled. He could think of one person who had to have pissed off the adventurers, considering previous behavior around them.

“We divide the room cost equally among ourselves. I’m hoping we’ll have two other members before the week’s out, but otherwise, it’s going to be the three of us who pay.”

“That’s not going to be a problem,” she replied, “if we get one run a month that pays this well, money isn’t something we’ll ever have to worry about.”

“It’s what the people who aren’t Street call coins,” Jackal said.

“I know that,” Tibs replied. “I’ve been here as long as you. Most merchants call it money.”

“I wasn’t sure, you’re so Street, you might not have—Ow!”

Tibs added a glare to go along with the kick to the shin.

Carina chuckled.

“It’s not funny. He kicked me in the knee. That hurts.”

“I have cousins that behave like you two.” Her face fell, and she became quiet.

For a few seconds the table was quiet, then she took a breath and looked up. “So money, coin, isn’t going to be a problem.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Jackal said after draining his tankard. “We got away with it this time because Hard Knuckle Harry can’t stand breaking an agreement, even one implied by actions or lack of them. Like the adventurers not enforcing this, ‘the loot is the guild property’ thing on stuff like Tibs’s shoes and belts, your bracelet, and the things everyone in town wears. But you heard him, he doesn’t have the authority yet. As soon as he gets it, I don’t think we’ll see loot again.”

“And this might have been our last run,” She said, pensive. “The adventurer said something about things changing before we went to the dungeon. Is this what you think he meant? That Harry person?”

“I don’t know,” Jackal replied.

“He meant the dungeon,” Tibs said. Bardik had looked in that direction.

“Okay, but even without the loot, I’ve gotten a silver and a few coppers, so We’re still good, even if, as you said, money might still be a problem.” She sipped her tankard. “What else?”

“Don’t die,” Tibs stated.

“Tibs’s lost a lot of people to the dungeon,” Jackal said at Carina’s raised eyebrow. “We all have, but he’d gotten close to most of them in one way or another.”

She nodded. “I’m not planning on dying. This isn’t how I’d planned on doing it, but I will become a master sorceress. I hope that’s enough of a promise.”

Tibs nodded, his stomach loosening.

“The last one is loyalty,” Jackal said. “I don’t know what your story is, and I’m not going to ask. It’s yours to tell when and if you want to. But me and Tibs, we’re Street. Him more than me. He had nothing before this. What I did have isn’t worth talking about. This team…” He trailed off. “This team is the first thing I’ve had I’m proud to call family. For us Street folks, family don’t mean the same thing as for the city folks. Family is something you make, not born into. I don’t know if you noticed, but the guild doesn’t seem to care about us all that much.”

Carina gave a wry smile. “I have been here as long as you. I noticed.”

“It means that us, we need to come before the guild. I wasn’t completely certain until today, but now I know the guild is going to use whatever trick it can to use us in whatever way we let it get away with.”

“It means secrets stay secrets,” Tibs said, “No matter what.”

“Yeah,” Jackal nodded in Tibs’s direction. “Because we have one big one to tell you.”

Wait until you learn the rest, Tibs thought.

“I have no loyalty to the guild,” Carina said, “but you don’t know me, and I don’t know you.”

“Trust’s got to start somewhere,” Jackal replied, then smiled. "And I have a nose for those things.”

“I trust you,” Tibs stated.

“Alright. You didn’t have to take me in, so I’m not going to let you down. We’re a team. We’re a family, the way you mean it.”

Jackal looked around. The closest tables were empty, and after the stories of the loot they’d brought out, a lot of the runners had left for the field to see what else came out of the dungeon.

Tibs saw Kroseph approaching and shook his head. The server headed for a different table.

“You can go for it, Tibs.”

He considered them, his family, and decided he needed to clear one thing before they addressed what he was trying to accomplish. He lowered his voice and told them about how the guild was charging them for the training they received; would demand payment in full once they reached Epsilon before they’d allow them to go free.

Jackal excused himself and returned with three bottles of wine. “I’m going to have to be drunk, to process this.” He said, filling their tankard.

Carina looked shaken, but only sipped her wine, so Tibs told her about his need to gain an audience with air and fire to obtain his element. At her suspicion, he looked around, then produced dirt in one hand and water in the other.

She stared for a few seconds, then drained her tankard.

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