I surrendered to the hot water, sinking down into the tub up to my neck. The comfortable, relaxing water rippled and two others joined me. I cracked open an eye to see Rolada copy me, with her chin barely above the water. Lin was half out of the water and reaching for a lopsided cupboard. The inside was full of small, hand sized clay pots with strange letters covering them.

“Damn it… Rolada what do these say?” Lin asked. She sniffed at one and held it up for our foxie girl to see. “Burn labelled them in goblin.”

Rolada begrudgingly looked at the pot and pursed her lips in thought. “Mint and strawberries. An odd combo, but I’ll take it.”

Lin cracked open the seal of the pot and dumped the contents into the large pool. The bright bubblegum pink coloured liquid made contact with the water, a second after, a mushroom cloud rose out of the water and I was hit by the strong scent of mint. It made me tear up and after the blast cleared up we were left with a pink bath full of bubbles.

Lin’s ears stood up and her eyes were a mile wide. Her shocked blank expression remained until she recovered a few seconds later. She flicked her fingers in the water and looked at her wet hands.

“I’m going to hope that it doesn't have any lasting effects.” Lin said.

Knowledge Arcane : Failure!

“He wouldn’t make something that hurts us, right?” I asked.

“Ah!” Rolada squeaked.

She clutched her tail in her hands and at first I couldn’t see what was wrong. I moved a hand towards the ceiling and the dungeon lights grew brighter. Rolada’s deep red fur had changed to bright, bubblegum pink. Lin stuck her tail out of the water and hers was much the same.

“It's…ok…” I said, petting Rolada to calm her down. I fought back against my own laughter as I saw my wet hands change her ear colour to pink too. “It should wash out, right?”

“I’m going to kick that goblin straight back into whatever hole he crawled out!” Rolada screamed.

Thankfully for the girls the colour change was rather short lived. After a minute the pink colour of the water died out and the scent became stronger. The girl’s fur and hair turned back to normal too and their desire to beat the snot out of Burn died down.

“This is certainly nice.” I said, running my hand along the smooth tiles. “At this rate we can have all kinds of creature comforts and feel like we are in a modern city.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had something this nice before.” Lin said, staring out into space. She knit her brow and sighed, seeming exhausted. “I would never have thought living out in the middle of nowhere with a keeper would be my ticket to a safer, better life.”

“This is safer?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “With the amount of times we nearly got killed?”

“Pfft. Par for the course, and I rather deal with some stupid undead baddies or idiotic gnomes. When you get chased out of your own home at the edge of a blade, live in the streets and then get hunted down by the leader of your hometown… yeah this is safer.” Lin said, her tone firm and serious.

“Lin, I had no idea.” I said, reaching out and gently squeezing her hand. “Well I’m glad you're here with us, I feel safer with you around.”

Lin shuffled over and sniffed at my neck. After seeming pleased with what she found she leaned against me and let the hot water soak into her. She kicked out her feet and stretched across the bath. Her legs ended up beside Rolada who grabbed onto Lin’s foot and meanicingly wiggled her fingers at the cat girl.

“No, no, no. Rolada, don’t you dare.” Lin said.

Rolada stuck out her tongue and let go. Her silly face broke the tension in the room and Rolada followed it up with a soft wordless tune. The humming melody made Lin tear up and she sang along, matching the tune. Once the brief song was over I felt hollow, wishing to hear more of it. Whatever it was had worked its magic because Lin’s mood had greatly improved.

“What about you foxie, what was your youth like?” Lin asked.

“School, school and more boarding schools. My mother was a religious leader and was far too busy for direct teaching. She pulled every string she had to make sure I always had the best teachers I could get. In truth they were like the second best teachers, just as smart but not politically tied to any noble house.” Rolada said, waving her hand in front of her and summoning a bubble from the bath. “It was rather boring, but it was good to learn about the world.”

The bubble had images flash inside of it showing off what Rolada wished to show us. Lin and I sat up and watched the visions, it showed a young adorable fox girl going through school, growing up and pulling pranks with her friends. But as the years passed she had less and less friends until all of a sudden her human friends turned on her, leaving her alone.

“The mayor.” Lin hissed.

“It wasn’t safe to be friends anymore, I don’t blame them for ditching me.” Rolada said, unbothered. “Sten stuck by me and that's what matters, because it led me to meeting you guys.”

“I'd rather get my head out of the past myself. Winter is just around the corner and we need to know what we can work with. Hey Josh, you don’t have the experience boost anymore, but are you close to levelling anyways?” Lin asked, flicking water at my face.

Current Experience

850/900

“Pretty close I would say. Maybe I can still squeeze out a level up in the next week if I’m lucky.” I said.

With the minions hard at work and the battle I had banked a ton of points. The little gains from experience would become even smaller which meant I would have to work harder or find a better way. Making magic items might be a safe bet since making that first heating crystal had gotten five points alone.

The vast amount of things I had to keep track of started to build up pressure in my head. I needed to level up, as did the crystal because a quick glance told me we were at max capacity for power right now. We needed to secure more food supplies and maybe even a way for long term water storage. There were so many things I never would have thought of preparing for back home and I was regretting having a rather relaxed lifestyle.

Did I regret it? The strange thought perplexed me. Here I was having nearly died to a garden ornament riding a petting zoo rabbit with horns taped to its head and I was wishing I had a harder life. I had opportunities my new friends would have died for back on earth and I was wishing I was more like them. Perhaps it was the challenge, or the constant stream of discoveries that had won me over.

A small part of me had always hoped to find a way back home, away from all the danger here. If I did find a portal, or gateway to freely return, perhaps I could take Rolada and Lin on a vacation there before coming back to Ewyernar.

“You look like you're going to burst into flames if you keep thinking that hard, Josh. Lay down a bit and relax.” Rolada said.

She pulled me into a hug, laying my head down on her chest with her arms wrapped around my shoulders. Her soft touch could only be topped by the hot water, and the embrace enchanted me with its spell, driving my eyes close. Even after hibernating for the better part of three days I was already falling asleep.

Unknown people are approaching the dungeon, the keeper’s presence is requested by Scout 1!

I sank further down and hovered at the water's edge. “Oh for the love of…”

…

I leaned against the wall facing the steady stream passing by our home. Pulled up to the bank was a low sided river boat with three goblins and two dwarves on it. They all wore rough spin clothes, layered on to protect against the cold. The goblins had necklaces around their necks and finer jackets setting them apart from the nervous looking dwarves.

I already missed the bath and Sten seemed to share my sentiment. I hadn’t managed to convince the girls to come with me, with them saying unless it was life or death they were going to enjoy their soak. I didn’t even try to push the issue, they more than deserved their rest.

“Those are no warrior caste men. My guess is unskilled workers, farmers or the like. Must be with the refugees and jumping at any work they could find.” Sten said, nodding at the dwarves approaching us.

“They only have daggers and hatchets, I doubt this is a raid.” I said.

“Could be a warlord demanding tribute, or worse.” Sten said bluntly.

One could only hope Sten couldn’t set fate in stone. I tried my hardest to appear relaxed while leaning against the meager defensive wall. I tried to watch the faces of the approaching strangers but they were stone faced or scared offering little insight to what was about to happen.

The lead goblin brushed her long black hair aside revealing several piercings above her brow. The punkish goblin held out a smooth glass orb the size of my fist and inside it was none other than the snarling face of Rodney.

“Josh, I think you owe me some money.” Rodney said, through his teeth. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

I flattened my hands on the wall, showing I was currently unarmed, like Sten had suggested. This eased the tension from the goblins and dwarves, like we had hoped. I shrugged my shoulders at Rodney and looked bewildered at what he meant.

A static filled recording played on the orb showing me taking the sword out of the bin and the dust cloud destroying the shelves. Rodney returned after the play back and a second goblin held out a paper. Sten took it and whistled, passing it to me.

“Two hundred gold, are you out of your mind?” I blurted out, seeing the total at the bottom. “Those shoddy shelves couldn’t have cost that much.”

It was a total bluff, I had no clue how much they were. All I knew was we were in need of money and couldn’t afford the loss. Rodney for his part looked almost impressed with me. His smile returned and this time it had a cruel edge.

“A little birdie whispered around the market that you are a keeper. Now I know that means you are a man hoping to make a mark on this world, which is good for my business. So tell me how we are going to make this work out, Josh.” Rodney said, stressing my name.

“Josh, a word.” Sten said, pulling me aside.

Rodney waved his hand, giving us the go ahead while his goons backed up out of ear shot. Once they were out of range Sten started to wiggle his fingers and mumble numbers to himself.

“Hear me out, I have a crazy plan. The minions can make things quickly and cheaply, better than a clan of starving artists. That goblin is the kind of man who only cares about his own pockets. Offer him a deal, he can buy stuff on the cheap from us, and flip it quickly at his store. Four, maybe five months from now we can foot the bill. If he already has diviners in his pocket to pull up info on you, then we are on the back foot.” Sten said, sounding grim.

“We get money, he gets money, everything is always about money.” I said, shaking my head.

“Gold makes the world go around lad, even makes your fancy pants mages spells work too.” Sten said.

“Let’s try to play ball with him then.” I said.

Sten looked bewildered at the expression and just gave a tentative shrug. He got back on his box at the foot of the wall and I returned to my starting place, calling Rodney back over. I just hoped his greed focused on the long term and not on beating me senseless for my lunch money today.

“I’m hoping to hear the clinking of coins falling into my hands soon.” Rodney said with a forced smile.

“About that… would you be willing to take…future payment?” I asked, putting my hands together and doing my hardest to draw on Rolada’s charm.

“I can have a group of adventurers kicking down your door within the day, start speaking.” Rodney said.

The greedy goblin tossed a silver coin high into the air, the shiny coin was distorted in the glass orb and when Rodney caught it, it changed into an hourglass. The sands rapidly depleted and I tried my hardest to extract every ounce I could from my charisma stat.

“I got minions, I can make you products to sell. I make it cheap, you sell it cheap and we can move it fast. If you kill me then that revenue stream goes out.” I said, summoning a burst of sparks into my hand, only to snuff it out. “That would be bad business.”

The use of an arcane trick grabbed the goons attention and now they were more leery of me. Rodney on the other hand was thinking hard, made all the more apparent by the hourglass beside him rapidly vanishing. He tipped it over to stop it from ticking down, a sign I could continue.

“How would we move the product?” Rodney asked. “It’s a half day of marching from Wyrmbreath to you.”

I coughed, I didn’t think of that. “I…can come up with something-”

“I got connections.” Rodney said, raising a hand to cut me off. “I also happen to know where a cave connected to this stream is, that also just so happens to have a minecart trail directly to Wyrmbreath.”

“That's great then. Should I get them to bring what I have on offer?” I asked.

“Then there's the issue of employees. Slow moving river barges are easy pickings, and I rather not risk my people.” Rodney said, then he got an evil grin. “The refugees here think highly of you, why don’t you recruit a few boat men from them. The honest coin in their pocket can go a long way to help them move into Wyrmbreath.”

I rested a hand at my side, hiding it on my side of the wall. I clenched it into a fist that was so tight I felt heat radiate off it and scorch the bricks around me. Those people were in dire straits and he wanted them to be in the danger zone, just for a paycheck. Worse, he wanted me to make it happen for his benefit.

It was like when Dan made me fire that kid, that damn kid I ran into at Paul’s pawn shop. The boss just kicked back and watched the money roll in while the people down below busted their asses off. It was the same story on earth as it was here in fantasy land. I was a wizard, a keeper, with a growing circle of friends and a growing legion of minions. Yet I was destined to play second fiddle, always.

“They will be getting a fair wage.” I said.

I didn’t like it, but knowing guys like Rodney I was low on options. He knew it too and worst of all I kind of agreed with him. The refugees couldn’t get into Wyrmbreath because they were penniless and while I was putting them into danger it was better than starving. Maybe I could even find a way to have that minecart trail connect closer to the town, letting there be direct shipments instead of exposing them on the water.

Rodney shrugged, barely registering what I had meant. He picked at his teeth with a toothpick and said. “Still need to settle your debt before we become business buddies. There’s rules in Wyrmbreath. If you come down I can put a word in for you at the bank.”

“Who’s running it?” Sten asked.

“Stone’s Bank of Dastow, or something else dumb like that. They opened a branch here years ago, doing quite well. Run by dwarves, so if I was you Josh, I’d bring your little friend here.” Rodney said, his voice dripping with boredom. “Now if you will excuse me, I have an appointment to get my nails done. I think I’m going with gold today, courtesy of the money I expect tomorrow Josh.”

I was taken aback. “Tomorrow? That doesn’t leave me any time-”

“Bye my little keeper.” Rodney said, waving first before turning to the punk girl. “Minx, get the damn boat back to the cave”

The goons took off in a hurry to appease their master and I was starting to get the sense Rodney was far more dangerous than he let on. The silly attitude and attire was just a ploy, and now I was in the deep end. I turned to Sten to see if he was ready to crack a joke, but found him as white as snow.

“Sten, buddy?” I asked, moving my hand across his vision. “Are you doing alright?”

“Yeah, just… you might need to go to the bank without me.” Sten said.

“But they are your people right?” I asked.

Sten gulped, and steadied himself against the wall. He took out a flask and downed it in one go. When the liquid courage hit him he spat on the ground, tightened his belt and smoothed out his beard. Once he was looking more presentable he put his hands on his hips and broke his silence.

“They are. My uncle runs that bank, and I’m out two thousand gold on my student loans. I fled with Rolada because his loan sharks were hunting me down to break my knee caps and sell organs for cash.” Sten said, delivering it like he was on the stage. “Woe is me, to have the noose of my family come to haunt my friends.”

I took out my possibly cursed sword and held it up to the light. I tapped it against the wall and asked Sten. “Think I can use this as collateral?”

His expression didn’t fill me with hope.