The opening in the ceiling turned out to be a circular metal grate above them. Elliott dismissed his [Illuminate] as he peered through the gaps of the grate, where he could make out the grey walls of buildings huddling close to each other. He listened out for anyone nearby, but hearing nothing, he used a tiny portion of mana to push the grate up and across.

  “Sir,” Isabel said to him. “We need to keep a low profile until we understand what we’re dealing with.”

  He nodded, though he was very much aware that neither of them were easy figures to forget, especially dressed as they were. Isabel in her black bodice and a black skirt styled like an oversized cloche, that fearsome axe strapped to her back. He in his leatherlike trousers tucked into knee-high combat boots, and two layers of tops beneath his trench coat.

  His clothes alone weren’t unusual but he couldn’t say the same for the various orbs pinned to his belt and hidden about his person. Bombs of his own making. Then there were the dozens of swords, daggers and who-knew-what-else strapped to his back. There were so many weapons back there, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d used some of them.

  [Mirage]

  A more complex spell than the others, he moulded the mana sigils to bend light around their weapons, so they were invisible to anyone looking at him or Isabel. He scrubbed out the pentagram scar on his forehead too. No need for anyone to see that just yet.

  On Earth, changing between his public image of a CEO and his alter ego was just a spell away, but it required inventory slots to store the gear and weapons. Inventory slots he now didn’t have.

  The priority was clear.

  Money. Inventory. Gear.

  And find the advanced magic user.

  He jumped out of the sewer and landed on grey cobblestone streets, a slight drizzle in the air. He looked down at his waist, making sure Elsie was there. He drew his coat over her, wrapping it around her small frame before her patchwork dress of autumn colours became wet. Isabel popped through the opening a moment later.

  They were in an alleyway, tucked between two five-storey buildings. The cobblestones had a slick sheen to them and small rivulets of water wound down between the brickwork of the walls to either side. The overwhelming stench of the sewers below was replaced with the musty hints of rubbish thrown haphazardly along the length of the alley.

  He had a quick glance in both directions. The alley continued on through a bend in one direction, but it opened out into a street in the other. He nodded to Isabel to head that way, but as he did so, mana flowed beneath the opening to the sewers, drawing a smile to his lips. He peered down to see Rose staring back at him as she floated upwards and gently stepped down to the cobblestone floor.

  “So, you’ve chosen to join us?”

  He saw the apprehension in her eyes, the tightness in her lips.

  “Will I be allowed to leave later if I want to?”

  “Of course,” he replied cheerfully, and followed after Isabel. Then he shouted over his shoulder. “Will you be allowed to leave alive is the question really.” The corner of Isabel’s lip twitched slightly but as they walked towards the opening of the alley, he could hear the soft footsteps of Rose following from a distance behind.

  They emerged onto a wide street with four and five-storey buildings to either side. Sparse crowds walked by, parasols raised against the drizzle. Though it was dying down, the sky remained dark as evening settled in. A few of those walking past gave them curious glances.

  The town centre would be the best place to go. Maybe there was an…inn , or some sort of quest hub. It was a System world, after all. There had to be a quest hub. He just needed to find out where.

  A well-to-do man and a woman were headed in their direction, the man holding an umbrella above their heads. He wore a silk coat, a coat of arms on the breast of two stags facing each other with interlocking horns. Elliott walked over to them.

  “Sorry to bother you, my Lord. Could you point us in the direction of the town centre?”

  They gave him a frown and looked him up and down, taking in his companions too. The man’s eyes settled on Rose’s house crest – a symbol of an ancient tree, its branches spreading far and wide within a gold circle – and his frown only deepened further. He carried himself with an air of arrogance, weathered hands stroking a silver-lined beard.

  “I’m not familiar with your House, Lady…?” the man asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, my Lord,” Rose answered, a smile on her lips. “This is just decorative.”

  “Decorative, you say?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Right,” the man replied, eyes still focused on the crest. He turned his attention to Isabel, then to Elliott. “And what is your business in Tarnov?”

  “We’re merely adventurers,” Elliot replied. “New in town. If you could direct us to a place where we could have a meal and freshen up. My companions and I have been on the road for a while.”

  “Of course,” the man replied, frowning again at Rose, hand still stroking his beard, “where are my manners?” He turned and pointed down the street. “If you walk for ten minutes, you’ll find the Adventurer’s Tavern in the town square.”

  “Thank you, my Lord.”

  The nobleman nodded and the pair walked away.

  “Good deflection,” Elliott whispered to Rose.

  The walk took almost ten minutes, just like the nobleman had said, the street becoming increasingly more crowded. Eventually, it widened into a grand circular town square, interrupted by other streets that converged on the centre like spokes in a wheel.

  Various establishments lined the outer circle, and in the centre of the square, on a large plinth, was a ten-foot tall bronze statue missing its head, and part of an arm. The pieces lay at the bottom of the steps leading to the plinth, the head staring at the sky as if asking what it had done to deserve such a fate. There was an inscription on a bronze plaque at the base of the statue.

  By the Blessing of The Twins, to commemorate the transcendent achievements of the Hero of Tarnov, Solaris the Untouchable, Champion of the Kingdom of Rhian, Honourable Member of the Covenant of Heroes, who set forth with his companions to defeat the Devil King and seal him away for all eternity.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Elliott noted some of the lines had been defaced, especially the mention of The Twins and Rhian Kingdom. From the looks of it, it had been a while since the vandalism. Given the state the statue was in, it wouldn’t be long before it was taken down or replaced.

  The crowded square was emptying as night drew in, shops packing away their wares one-by-one, extinguishing the oil lanterns hanging from their ceilings. There was one place open across the square, light streaming onto the street from its windows, a wooden sign swinging above its door, depicting a sword, a staff and a halo.

  They made a beeline for the Adventurer’s Tavern and walked into an empty room. There were several wooden tables, with chairs neatly tucked in, but not a single person. There was an unmanned counter across the wooden floor with a noticeboard on a wall next to it. They walked over to the counter and as Isabel dinged the bell, Elliott had a look at the noticeboard.

  It was rather quaint and old school. They had this sort of thing when he’d grown up but with the rise of modern communications, everything could be done by an app these days. Various competing organisations had risen, offering fortune and sometimes fame in return for the quests on offer. Some were quite brazen with the assassination quests they offered. There were no ‘Adventurers’ on Earth anymore. They were all ‘Independent Private Contractors’ now.

  The noticeboard was barren. Not a single quest was pinned – only an advertisement for The Adventurer’s Guild, and an explanation of the ranks and how to obtain them. Ten ranks – Iron; Copper; Bronze; Silver; Gold; Platinum; Mithril; Orichalcum; Adamantite and Starforged, with each having a corresponding coloured, oblong medallion. The first five were easy enough to attain from quests alone, but the last five required testing, exams and tournament wins.

  He glanced over at Rose, standing beside Isabel, eyes firmly on the counter, though she kept stealing glances his way. He wondered if the attunement system here would match his expectations. If Isabel was Starforged, Rose shouldn’t be much stronger than Platinum, maybe Mithril.

  From behind the counter, a door squeaked open and a small plump man appeared, sporting a big bushy beard, a bald head and small black eyes behind spectacles hanging on the end of his nose. Business might not have been booming but this fellow didn’t seem to have noticed.

  The little man waddled up to the counter, and up a short ladder before taking a seat on his stool. He took a look at each of them, bushy eyebrows twitching until his eyes settled on Rose’s house crest as the nobleman’s had done before. He raised a questioning glance at Rose.

  [Walls of Silence]

  “Hi,” Elliott said, drawing the man’s attention. “How should I address you?”

  “Korin is fine,” the man said, his voice deep like the sound was emanating from within a cavern.

  “What’s with the empty tavern? And no quests?”

  “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “What makes you say that?” Elliott replied.

  “Bizaynian nobility aren’t adventurers,” Korin replied, pointing at Rose’s house crest. “And only Bizaynian nobility or military are allowed to wear their coat of arms on their clothes within the Empire.”

  Elliott said nothing. Isabel and Rose glanced towards him as he kept his eyes on Korin. The exchange with the noble earlier made so much more sense to him now. The frowning and suspicion at Rose’s crest. That would most certainly come back to bite them, but that problem could be dealt with later. Or maybe he could just track the man down, kill him and take his money. No, no. Gather information first. No need to start a fire without knowing how much wood there was to burn.

  Korin looked into his eyes like the man was trying to search his soul, then he glanced between the three of them.

  “Who are you? The Empire’s military deals with the thing adventurers normally would. They don’t have need of us.”

  “Why are you here then?” Elliott asked.

  “I’m waiting for someone to buy this place so I can leave.”

  Elliott stared at Korin. “We have a tiny bit of a money problem. In that we don’t have it. You don’t have quests, but is there perhaps some way to earn money from you?”

  Korin stroked his bushy beard as he looked between the three of them.

  “I could draw on the Guild’s funds if you had something valuable to sell.”

  “Perhaps there’s something nearby we could get for you?”

  “The only thing nearby that would be worth my while is star metal ore but that’s out of the question.”

  “And why’s that?“ Elliott asked.

  “Well, you’d need to kill an Elemental Lord. It would take one or two Starforged to take one down.”

  “What happens when you kill an Elemental Lord?”

  “They leave behind their cores. Pure star metal ore. Each is worth several hundred gold easily.”

  “Just out of curiosity…where would one find one of these Elemental Lords?”

  “In the mountains to the north, but you can’t possibly be thinking about it. Just the three of you? You don’t even have weapons.”

  “There’s four of us,” Elliott corrected and pointed at Elsie. Korin frowned. “How far away are these mountains?”

  Korin looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns. He looked at Rose, then Isabel too as if wanting to know whether Elliott was an escaped hospital patient. In the end, he answered with a sigh. “It’s maybe ten, fifteen miles straight north.”

  “Anything between this town and the mountains?”

  Korin shook his head. “Flat land for a mile or two, then the Forest of Shadows the rest of the way.”

  “Do you have a bag I can borrow?”

  Korin nodded at him. “I can give you a sack.”

  “That will do.”

  Korin stepped back down the small ladder and disappeared into the room he had emerged from earlier, before returning with a brown fabric sack. As he handed it to Elliott, he asked again, “Who are you, really?”

  “Let’s hope you don’t have to find out,” Elliott said as took the offered sack and made it disappear in his trench coat. He headed for the door, Elsie holding on to his waist, Rose and Isabel following behind.

  Outside, the town square was modestly lit by several street lanterns hanging outside the shops nearby, including above their heads outside the Adventurer’s Tavern. The square was empty except for a few stragglers.

  A man was bent over the statue as if he were reading the plinth, though he was positioned in such a way that he had a direct line of sight to them. There was a couple several shops over to the left, the woman pressed against the wall, the man doing his best impression of devouring a meal. It might have been convincing if the woman didn’t keep casting furtive glances in their direction. Then a group of boisterous men to their right, drinking mugs in hand, one or two peeking at them every so often. Another man walking into a side street nearby, eyes flickering towards them as he did so.

  Elliott led his companions into the street to the left of the tavern, gently nudging Rose ahead of him. The occasional candle in the windows to either side cast a faint light across the otherwise shadowy road. As they walked further in, Isabel stayed by his side while Rose remained a step ahead.

  [Walls of Silence]

  “You saw?”

  “So much for keeping a low profile, Sir.”

  “Are you blaming me?” Elliott glanced at Isabel from the corner of his eye. Her mouth twitched like she was struggling to keep a smile at bay.

  “Of course not, Sir. Obviously, it was the girl and her dress. Nothing to do with approaching a nobleman in the street.”

  “I was only asking for directions! How could I have guessed they’d have a stupid rule about the coat of arms?”

  [Conceal]

  They were several metres into the side street when he cast the spell across himself and Rose. Isabel and Elsie both had [Stealth]. He supposed Rose might be able to cast a version of [Conceal] herself, but now was not the time to test her capabilities. There’d be plenty of time for that later.

  They cleared the back end of the Adventurer’s Tavern where a seven-foot tall wall lined the street for several metres until the next building. That must be where they would usually process the animal skins, or maybe it was just a beer garden. He stopped to lift Elsie up onto the wall.

  “Keep your eyes on the tavernkeeper.”

  Elsie cocked her head with a smile before running along the wall and into the area behind the tavern. Elliott turned around and faced the opening of the street. Isabel was slightly ahead of him, whilst Rose – standing beside Elliott now – followed their gaze though she was clearly confused. She was so oblivious to the spies, he wondered how she’d made it so far and why she ever thought she was good enough to play at assassin.

  It wasn’t long before he saw what he expected to. A shadow in the opening, peering in their direction. The silhouette waited a few seconds, moving their head this way and that as if trying to see through the darkness, before waving colleagues over to join them. Several entered the street, walking two-by-two.

  “Isabel. Find out what you can about this town. I don’t think it’s coincidental that it’s been recently conquered and we were summoned here.”

  As soon as she had her orders, Isabel leapt from the street and onto the roof of the five-storey building to their left.

  He dropped a [Portal Node]. It would make it easier to get back and he was in a hurry.

  “Rose,” Elliott said, looking at her, as he put his hand behind her back and grabbed a handful of her dress. The girl met his eyes. “We’re going hunting.”

  “Wha–”

  [Titan’s Step]