Our new place was quite nice. it was a four floor brownstone with a full basement. I couldn't even imagine how much the rent on such a place would be in Portland. Surely not less than a thousand Cass, which would be damn near three thousand US dollars a month. You know, this deep dive is starting to look more and more attractive to me.

Nathan had claimed the third floor as his, which was fine as far as I was concerned. When Laurel and I arrived, I hauled her up to the second floor, and immediately passed out as soon as I found a bed to flop her onto. (Thank goodness she's not terribly heavy, plus my STR stat definately helped in that regard.)

The next morning, I woke to a light knocking on the bedroom door.

"Sir?"

My eyes slowly opened, and I looked over to see that I was alone. Laurel must have woekn early and gone exploring. The bedroom door opened, and a girl leaned in and peered at me.

"Sir?"

I looked at her, frowning for a moment, as I struggled to place her.

Aha! I knew!

I sent a PM to the party.

Babe, who was that girl we rescued from the guild?

Uhm... Laurel replied.

Her name is Beatrice. Nathan interjected.

Thanks.

"Good morning, Beatrice. Do you mind if I ask what you're doing here?"

Beatrice opened the door further and entered, revealing a maids' uniform. "My father and I were hired by the city Lord as staff. He's the groundskeeper, and I'm in charge of Maidery."

She curtsied and shook her head as she remembered something.

"Oh! I'm here to tell you breakfast is ready. Come down when you've prepared." She curtsied again, clearly unused to it, and left, the door closing behind her.

I nodded and took stock of my state. My clothes stank from the previous days excitement and I certainly didn't help the matter. I was definately whiffy. I ran my left hand over my chin and felt a solid few days of stubble scratching back at it.

Well, it couldn't be helped. I'd clean up after breakfast.

I wandered down the left hand side of the large stairs that followed the walls, like arms hugging the room reaching the ground floor, I followed the sound of the others to the dining room.

Laurel and Nathan had squared off against each other, and were working on plates of thickly sliced, streaky bacon. The scent was heavenly.

"Hey guys, I see the breakfast of champions is on the menu."

Both of them grunted in agreement and continued devouring their breakfast.

"Beatrice, can I get some of that?"

"Sorry, master. They have it all, the larder is low. I was going to buy some sundries this afternoon."

I sighed, "Bring me whatever there is then. Just, ah. Not quite so much."

That statement earned me glares from the others, but I ignored them and sat at the head of the table.

"Did you two explore the house?"

Laurel nodded enthusiastically and mumbled around a large slice of bacon as Beatrice returned with a plate of cheese, a heel of crusty bread and a small pot of butter.

"Thank you, Beatrice."

She blushed and retreated to the kitchen, her tray clutched to her chest.

Nate elbowed me and snickered as he started working on his final piece of bacon. "I think she's weak to attention from men."

"Psht. Sure she's cute, but I have the best here," I jerked my head towards Laurel who leaned in and gave me a greasy, bacon-flavored kiss.

"You sweet talker,"

***

The three of us had left Beatrice with a pouch of money and a list of things that we'd like to keep around the house (clearly bacon was on the list) which she cheerfully accepted. While the place (I hesitate to call it a mansion, but it's pretty nice) was nice, apparently some of the household items had been sold to pay the estate taxes. So there were quite a few empty rooms that needed to be redecorated. Nate had spent a few hours sketching out how he wanted to decorate his part of the house, and I shouldn't have been surprised at how good his plans were, as he was a civil engineer back in the real world, so had a good sense of asthetics.

As we entered the shopping district, Laurel brought to my attention that the NPC's were acting strangely. Since Nathan's discovery the previous night, we had agreed that shutting off pop-up notifications was for the best, and this, I thought, was exactly why.

A group of three players were cruising through the marketplace, clearly looking for trouble. It was clear that they were players, because they had the mix-and-match equipment look that new players have when they find a decent drop but it does not match thier outfit. The group suddenly stopped and one of them pointed to another player, a young man, in his early twenties that had much the same piecemeal style who was inspecting the wares of a street vendor with care.

Confident that we didn't stand out from the crowd, because we had purchased our outfits from a merchant, which helped us blend in.

Laurel elbowed me, as the group made a beeline towards the other player, who was oblivious to thier approach.

"Oh shit, they're going to PK him." Nathan said, glancing my way.

"We gotta stop them. They don't know that it's real." Laurel said, storming off towards the lone player.

I sighed heavily, she was right. We couldn't just let a murder take place in front of us. I trotted over to the lone man andstood beside him, pretending to look at the wares as well.

"Excuse me," I began.

"Hi! Are you a player?" He replied.

"Yes, but Im trying to warn you about a group of people approaching with weapons drawn. If you want to take off, my goup will block them."

"What?" He started to glance back, but I grabbed his shoulder.

"Don't. I don't want them to realize they've been spotted."

He looked me in the eyes an nodded, "Thanks."

He took a bottle of something from the display and handed the merchant few coins and turned to leave.

I'm behind them. Nate messaged.

Good man. I replied.

I turned, and saw the group approach, then veer off to follow the young man. I took this moment to step in front of them.

"Gentlemen. I think you need to reconsider what you're about to do."

This earned me their full attentions.

"If you don't want to play with us too, you better get out of the way." The lead man said, pointing his sword at me.

I smiled and nodded, "There's something you don't know..."