Grant brought me to his table where the rest of his party was waiting. There were two women and two men, as I’d noted earlier. They looked decently young to me, though I was all too keenly aware of how they must see me. Even the two women were taller than me. Grant made his introductions.

“This is Vince,” Grant told the group. “The chip guy.”

“The rich chip guy, yes?” one of the men asked. He saluted me with a dorito, then popped it in his mouth. “That’s what everyone is saying. You are rich, aren’t you?” He had a close-trimmed beard and wore his ear-length wavy dark hair loose around his face. His chest was protected in the front by plain brown hardened leather armor and he had a bristling quiver sticking over his shoulder, along with a flat pole of wood that looked like it might have been an unstrung bow, based on the way it curved at the end.

“That’s Jay,” Grant told me. “He’s our scout. And you don’t have to answer that.”

“Yes, he does,” Jay said. “If he wants to join, we should know what resources he’s bringing to the table.”

“Enough for him to roll better than you,” Grant informed Jay.

Jay raised an eyebrow. “That little shrimp? Dice must be going dun.”

I coughed. “I, uh, just bought a few new Brands this morning.”

The man sitting to Jay’s left giggled. “And you bought one that makes food? You must have more money than sense!” This other man wore his hair pulled back in a bun, with just a few strands in the front hanging down to cover his full cheeks. His amiable smile took the bite from his words. Like Grant, he wore the thick, scaled hide of a pursuer beast, though unlike Grant, his armor had metal spikes worked in at regular intervals and signs of wear. The handle of a long sword stuck out over his shoulder. Grant was the tallest of the group, but this other man looked to be the strongest by a fair margin. His arms were as thick as my legs.

“Actually, no,” I said. “That’s not real food. I tried to tell everyone. I used Manifest Inspiration for that, and it can make a lot more than food.”

“That’s Torra,” Grant supplied. “He’s handy in a fight.”

Torra shrugged. “Course you’d say that,” he said. “I’m the only one willing to get in close while the rest of you stand back.” He nodded at me. “What’s the point of fake food?” he asked.

I held out my hand. “If you want real food, I can summon a potato.”

“Seriously? Yeah, man. I’ll take it free food.”

“Take two,” I said. I pulled two potatoes out of the air and handed them over.

MP: 378 >>> MP: 370

There was still a long way to go before I’d burn off the rest of my excess MP. Ingratiating myself to a new companion seemed as good a use for it as anything else. Torra dropped the potatoes into a bag at his feet.

“Since she doesn’t seem to want to say anything herself,” Grant said, “The brooding one there is Victoria.” I remembered Dealla saying Victoria had rolled the most weals for the upcoming mission, so I was interested in learning more about her. She was seated at the end of the bench the others were occupying, doing her best to appear disinterested. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun and she had a thick band of black eyeliner around both eyes. The armor she wore appeared form-fitting, coming up to her neck. I couldn’t tell if it was made of triangles of black leather cut to impersonate the texture of scales, or was actually some type of scale that was simply painted black. She barely acknowledged either me or her own introduction, only deigning to glance up at me for a moment before returning her attention to the steaming mug of liquid cupped in her hands. “She’ll take a while to warm up to you,” Grant said by way of apology. He nodded at the last girl, who was seated between Victoria and Torra. “But Alloha won’t.”

The last member of the party gave me a little wave. “Hi, Vince!” she said. “You seem a little young to be adventuring, but we’ll try to keep you safe.” After me, she was the shortest member of the party and didn’t look nearly as rough around the edges as the others. Even Victoria had some muscle on her, but Alloha was slender, with delicate features that might have been carved from glass or something equally fragile. She had a complexion so clean it made me second guess if she was naturally like that or if she maybe had access to something equivalent to modern Earth skincare products. Her hair was tied back in the front, but allowed to hang freely down her back. She was the only one of the group not currently wearing armor of any kind, though she had a wooden spear propped against the bench next to her.

“I’m actually older than I look,” I told her. “I’m, uh, a sub-species of ogre. We call ourselves humans and most of us don’t get as tall as rissians at full height.” I was tempted to make a crack about her name sounding like the infamous Hawaiian word for both hello and goodbye, but held back. None of them would have the context and explaining it would just kill any comedic potential.

She smiled at that, like I’d said a clever joke. “A short ogre? How delightful!”

“Long as he pulls his weight, he’s welcome here,” Grant said. He gave me a pat on the shoulder. “I think little Vince here is more dangerous than he looks.”

Victoria snorted. “A die roll doesn’t make you dangerous.” She looked away from the table and took a sip of her drink, letting her challenge hang in the air.

“I guess I’ll have to change your mind,” I said.

“It’s probably just his money,” Torra said. He looked at me. “I’m surprised you didn’t roll in here with a buster blade and a suit of dragon mail after everyone was talking last night about how you dropped a king’s ransom on the table to pay for your admission fee.”

I shook my head. “You’ve got the wrong idea. I’m not the rich one. I just told my aunt I was signing up for the Adventurer’s Guild and she sent me my admission fee in Marks instead of Crosses. I wasn’t trying to overpay.”

“Sounds like a rich kid to me,” Jay grumbled. “Only rich kids don’t know what money is worth.”

“Actually,” I said. “I’m a foreigner. Those chips were food from my home world.”

“Did you say home world?” Alloha asked, stars in her eyes.

I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. “Uh. Yeah. I’d rather not go into that right now. It’s a long story. The important thing is only that I’m still new around here and I’m trying to rank up as fast as possible.”

“And your aunt came with you from this other world?” she continued. “That’s so cool! How did you—”

“You can do that later,” Grant interrupted. “There’re other things we need to learn about him. Things actually relevant.” I was glad for his interjection. I hadn’t realized that mentioning getting money from my aunt would imply a familial relationship that was impossible. I’d have to come up with some kind of explanation for that before Alloha asked me about it again.

“What else do you need to know?” I asked. I already had a story ready to tell them when they asked about my Skill.

“We need to know what kind of combat training and equipment you have, as well as your Skill and—in your case—what Brands you bought. If you want us to trust you in combat, we need to know what you’re capable of.”

“What do you mean ‘in my case’?” I asked.

“Do you think everyone can afford Brands?” Grant asked. “Most of us are still saving up for our first Brand. We’re all wood tier. It’s pretty rare for wood tier adventurers to have any Brands, let alone more than one. It’s not till bronze tier that multiple Brands become commonplace. Sometimes rich dandies decide to slum it here at the guild, but that’s far from usual. Most figure out pretty quick this isn’t just fun and games.”

“Aye,” Jay grunted in support.

“I’m not rich,” I insisted again. “It was a onetime thing.”

“If I had an aunt who was wealthy enough to make a mistake like that, I wouldn’t be here,” Grant said. “But sure. A simple mistake. I heard you went straight to the Brokers this morning. So? What did you get besides the chip Brand, and what else can you do?”