Whitler swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed, the movement making it briefly press against the very tip of Alphonse’s sword. For a long moment, nobody moved.

And then, finally, Whitler lowered the crossbow.

“Put. It. Away.” Alphonse ordered coldly.

Closing up the bag of gold, Hiro stepped forward and put his hand on top of Alphonse’s, trying to gently force it down, “let’s all calm down?”

Alphonse was stronger than Hiro and easily kept his hand aloft until the poacher lowered his crossbow. Only then did he let Hiro push his hand down.

Whitler clicked his tongue and took a few steps back, “come on, Eli. Let’s go.”

He started walking away, prompting his partner to say a hurried, “sorry” with a short bow before following.

“Wait!” Suzie called after them. They both stopped, but only Eli turned back to look, “why don’t you hire us to deal with your problem.”

Whitler looked back at her with a sneer, “we don’t have any money left to hire a bunch of snot-nosed brats.”

Suzie’s armor clanged together as she crossed her arms, “we are fully qualified Dungeoneers. And you wouldn’t have to pay us.”

Alphonse made sure to sheath his sword with a rather loud noise, “I’m not doing shit without pay.”

Suzie gave Hiro and Alphonse a shit-eating grin, “we’ll get the Heroes Rock Guild to pay us.”

*

Even over the sound of her father’s hammer, Suzie heard the approach of a few armored individuals. She gently laid her doll down on the floor and popped her head up over the counter, already beaming a gap-tooth grin at the approaching customers, “welcome to the Samson Smithy! What do you need?”

A group of four adventurer’s stood around outside the smithy. Two, one a bald, dark skinned man, the other a woman with long blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail, were in gleaming heavy armor. The other two, hanging farther back, were clearly a mage and a priest. The priests body and face were obscured by huge loose robes and a hood but they stood tall and imposing, while the scrawny young mage with long, curly red hair clung tightly to their staff, their shoulders hunched.

The blonde woman gave Suzie a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and leaned on the counter, “we aren’t here for any weapons... we’re here to collect taxes for the Heroes’ Rock Guild.”

The hammer stopped.

Suzie’S father stepped up behind her, taking his protective work gloves off, “there seems to be some kind of mistake. Our smithy is under the protection of the Crimson Hawks Guild.”

The woman’s smile widened, growing hungry, “my apologies, I thought someone from the Crimson Hawks would’ve warned you already.... It seems there was a mistake years ago when the territory lines were drawn. Your smithy should’ve been part of our territory so now we are here to collect back taxes.”