"Tristan!" My voice echoed off the dungeon walls. "Do the thing!"

My quarter-elven lover pressed herself to my side. "Got it!"

[Holy Light]

A beam of pure white light erupted from the end of her large two-handed mace, striking one of the dozen-or-so rats that had cornered us after we'd taken a wrong turn. It let out a final squeak before evaporating into hundreds of motes of light.

"So gross..." Tristan murmured.

"It's not great," I said as I swung my sword at another, cutting its head off in a single strike. "But money's money, and this job's done for in about three months. Four at the most. No complaining."

"I'll complain if I want to!" Vral said behind us. She'd been tasked with guarding the people we were escorting to Khozad'Thar.

"Yeah! Don't stifle her!" Tristan stuck her tongue out at me.

"I'm outnumbered all the time now," I muttered as I kicked a rat back.

"That's what you get for bringing home strays," Tristan giggled.

"I am not a stray!" Vral's footsteps sounded from behind us. "And I hate rats!" The goblin leapt over both us and the rats. Landing behind the furthest beady-eyed monstrosity, she drove her daggers into its spine. It gnashed its teeth and snarled as its body slumped to the ground.

"Me too!" Tristan said mid-swing. She just barely missed the rat she'd attacked.

The rat she'd attacked jumped back, emitted the closest thing to a roar a rat could shriek, and leapt for her throat.

[Intercept]

The world around me blurred. An instant later, I was in front of her, shield raised and ready to catch the flying rodent before it could bite my companion.

[Rampart]

My [Guardian] talent triggered, creating a second ghostly shield that hovered in the air to our left, protecting our flank. When the rat slammed into my shield, I punched forward, catching it in the throat and sending it hurtling through the air. Before it could land, Vral's daggers skewered it. A breath later, it was nothing more than chunks of meat.

"Thanks," Tristan breathed.

"Of course." I looked over and winked at her.

She rolled her eyes. "You think you're soooo smooth, Mr. Hero of the Pit."

"Don't act like it doesn't work on you."

Vral snorted from across the sea of rats. "Yeah, elfie. We all know what happens the second we get to anywhere that has a bed. Those cheesy lines of his make your panties drop."

"Excuse me?!" Tristan's voice was shrill as she swung at the nearest rat, turning its head to pulp.

Taking two more down with a double slash, Vral batted her eyes and, speaking in the sultriest voice she could, said, "Alex... would you help me with something up in the room?"

Tristan's face was getting redder by the second. "I wanted a massage!"

The goblin cackled. "Yeah, an internal massage." Leaping over the remaining rats, which were beginning to lose their fire now that it was clear they'd lose this fight, she landed beside me. "That massage took four hours! I had to sleep in the lounge!"

I figured it was time to salvage whatever I could of Tristan's modesty. "She was really tight after that trip. It took a while."

Vral's head whipped around. She was pretending to glare at me, but her grin and the twinkling in her eyes told me she was enjoying the banter. And the shaming. And the love. She loved lovingly shaming Tristan. "I bet she fucking was!" She stabbed a rat in the eye. "But we both know it didn't take her long."

"Vral!!" Tristan's face had turned beet red.

I laughed. "You're not wrong. Maybe a minute for the first one? Three for the second?"

"Alex!!!" Tristan was tea kettling.

"Oh, shush. You're not exactly quiet, Tris." Vral vanished, then reappeared on the other side of Tristan, intercepting an attack the priestess hadn't seen. "It's natural, though. Remember? Why be embarrassed?" Vral was using Tristan's words against her.

Tristan groaned. "I hate you both."

"You love us." When another rat jumped at Tristan, I slammed my shield into its body and felt its ribcage crunch.

"Thanks..." The quarter-elf murmured. "And yeah, I do."

As strong as Tristan had gotten when we were apart for six months, Vral and I were much, much stronger. She was doing her best to keep up, but we made sure to keep her safe when she got in over her head.

Behind us, the people we were escorting to Khozad'Thar, seeing that they were clearly in no real danger and picking up on our banter, started laughing and speaking among themselves.

"... really live up to the stories..."

"... that's the Sentinel for you..."

"... those girls are gorgeous..."

"... he's easy to look at, too..."

"... wouldn't mind a round or three..."

"... think they'd go for it if we tipped them well?..."

I shook my head at the conversation. Every time we escorted people from Galden above, through the mines, into the dungeon, and out into Khozad'Thar below, the commentary was the same.

Look at them fight!

He's massive!

Look at that priestess's body!

What about that goblin?

She's the Slasher!

I wouldn't mind a romp with those two!

Him either!

Come on, people. We were right there. Couldn't you keep the commentary to yourselves? At least until after we'd made camp?

It didn't help that Tristan, the beautiful raven-haired, sapphire-eyed, quarter-elven priestess from Light's Hope Temple, and I had been an item for, oh, something like a year, and best friends for two. Ever since she'd found me broken on the side of the road, all courtesy of my being ripped from Earth after getting struck by lightning a couple of times, we'd been inseparable. And, after we'd admitted our feelings to one another, we'd been crazy about one another. Most of that was due to our incredible compatibility. The other part was related to something I didn't understand about elven culture. Something about miráns and aranáns and the change, whatever all that meant. All I knew was that I loved the shit out of her. She was my woman, and I'd protect her from the Dark Lord Himself if I had to.

"Alex, you're up!" Tristan jumped back.

"Prove your worth, boy toy!" Vral vanished, then reappeared next to me.

The giant rats were panicking now, doing their best to flee. If they did, they'd just end up trying to sneak attack us when we made camp tonight. Nasty, beady-eyed things. "Alright, girls. Your hero has arrived."

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"Idiot." Vral was shaking her head.

"Alex..." The disappointment!

"Sorry." I laughed and readied my next skill.

[Provoke]

Mid-step, all of the fleeing rats were forcibly turned so that they were facing me. "Okay, get 'em, girls."

[Holy Light]

Tristan's magic evaporated another rat.

"Try and keep up, girlie!" Vral rushed forward, her blades glinting in the glowstone light as she made short work of the remaining beasts.

As I watched the goblin finish off three rats in a second, I couldn't help but grapple with my feelings about her. My relationship with Vral, the fiery red-eyed, green-skinned goblin who was as good with her tongue as she was with her twin daggers, was in some weird pergatory at the moment. After our experiences in the Pit, she and I had become close. Then, when we fought, we fell into some kind of flirtatious situationship that neither of us knew what to do with. While it wasn't physical or exactly romantic, Vral and I were definitely more than "just friends," regardless of what the little goblin liked to claim. To make matters worse, I'd learned a few weeks ago that I'd kind of... sort of... proposed to her at the end of our fight in the Pit.

So that was an elephant between us.

How was I supposed to know that helping a goblin woman up after a fight was the same as dropping to one knee in goblin culture?! I thought the whole "taking her hand" thing was a metaphor!

I didn't know how to eat that elephant either. Vral's love language was fighting. It was also her art, her passion, her hobby, and her career. We trained together constantly, and that was great and all, but it didn't exactly help us deal with our dilemma. I could feel the unspoken words every time our blades crossed. But, while her trust issues had improved a lot since I'd first met her, she was still guarded a lot of the time. We generally didn't talk about feelings, and any time they came up, she redirected into something more comfortable for her. Mostly by picking on Tristan's blossoming sexuality.

What was worse, I didn't even know exactly how I was feeling.

It wasn't like complicated relationships like these were the norm back on Earth. Hell, despite everyone in Reial telling me not to overthink things, that being around a dozen sentient races tended to complicate what I used to think of as traditional relationship dynamics, I still felt weird about it. How did one juggle that? Still, between Greta, the powerful connection-seeing witch who'd once been a part of the Hero's party, making it clear that we were destined to have not only Vral but another woman enter our lives too, and Tristan's elven nature making it effortless for her to make connections with the people her aranán connected with, I'd have to figure it all out, and soon. Luckily, besides the unspoken stuff, things were going great between us three.

Which was good, because our quest to find the elusive alchemist sure as hell wasn't.

"Boy toy, take care of the last one."

Seeing the final rat trying to slip away, I pulled my shield off my arm and threw it.

[Shield Throw]

My metal shield hummed through the air as it flew at the thing. When it dodged, the shield bounced off the nearest wall and struck it in the back of the head.

With a final squeak, the rat's head crunched, and it was still.

"Good thing you had Jorn teach you that before he left," Tristan said next to me.

"Hot..." Vral whispered.

Okay, our relationship wasn't that ambiguous. We were probably just being wimps about it.

Behind us, the dozen travelers we were escorting began clapping.

"What a show!"

"Great fight!"

"There's a tip with your name on it!"

Yeah, I was sure there was.

Turning, I took a bow. "Is everyone alright?"

The guy who'd commissioned the trip, a short, balding man of maybe fifty named Oran, stepped forward. He was smiling, but he wasn't looking at me. Instead, his eyes lingered for far too long on Tristan's ass. "Excellent job, Sentinel. I'm glad to see that my hard-earned money is going to such a reputable man."

I took a breath and shook off my irritation. If I lost my head over every man—or woman, for that matter—who stared at Tristan's ass, I'd have to fight half the damn city off.

It was a great ass.

Shit, if I included Vral's curves, too, I'd have to fight the entire city. Her hips didn't lie. Not one bit.

"Monster activity is high right now." I looked at each of the travelers. Most were wealthier merchant types who were traveling with Oran. The three that weren't with him had asked us for the escort separately, promising to pay us when they got the money. Having a soft spot for those in need, I declined and told them I'd do it for free. So, Oran was funding their trip, too. "Make sure to stay close to one another, and if you see anything, yell. If you don't speak up, we're not responsible for what happens to you." Galden's dungeon wasn't a high-level dungeon, but it was enough to wipe out most commoners and non-fighting types. And, since the lift Elise and Khadrel were building was still at least three months out from being finished, this was still the best way for people to travel.

"... So commanding..."

"... He can command me any day..."

Suppressing a sigh, I turned back to the girls and saw that they were picking up the few crystals that had appeared around the monsters' corpses. That was something I'd had to get used to. Monsters, and creatures like these rats that had been mutated by the dungeons, mostly faded away when they died. When they did, they left crystals, which the people of Reial used as currency. That and the money we made from escorting people to and from Khozad'Thar had been our source of income these past three months.

"Let's move out," I said when the girls finished their work.

"Okay!" Vral chirped.

"Coming!" Tristan said in her melodic voice.

I took the left path, which I'd learned was the fastest route down to Khozad'Thar. We were less than a day away.

***

A day later, my wallet was three hundred crystals heavier, and the three of us were sitting at Khadrel's dining table wolfing down the best stew I'd ever had.

"Damn, man. This is good!" I shoveled the third bite of my second bowl down. "What kind of meat is this?" It was amazing.

"Yeah, what is this?" Tristan asked through a heaping mouthful.

"It's great!" Vral added.

Khadrel, the count of Khozad'Thar, puffed his chest out. "I'm happy to hear you enjoy it!" His face beamed with pride. "We had an excellent first harvest! Once we got them out of the dungeon, it only took a small amount of magecraft to keep their meat from fading away after we slaughtered them. I think this'll be a shining example of our great city's ingenuity moving forward!"

Tristan's face turned green, and Vral's spoon slipped from her fingers.

"What is this meat, dwarf?" The goblin asked.

"Goddess preserve me," Tristan murmured.

"Giant rat!" Khadrel's smile grew. "Isn't it wonderful?"

"We're eating rats..." Tristan slid her bowl away.

"Ew," Vral said under her breath.

Shrugging, I ate another bite. "Tastes good to me."

Seeing me continue eating, Vral took a long, hard look at the bowl before picking up her spoon and resuming her meal.

"Guys..." Tristan's eyes told me she was disgusted with us.

"Eat. It's rude." I pointed at her spoon.

The Count laughed his rumbling laugh. "I know it's a little odd, but it's damn good meat. It only takes a little purification magic to make it edible."

This time, all three of our spoons clinked into their bowls.

"What?"

Elise, who'd been sitting at the table and quietly watching us eat poisonous rat meat, cleared her throat. "So, tell me: how is your quest going? Have you found out any more about this Farvad fellow?"

I looked at the bowl of rat stew and wished Khadrel hadn't said anything. "Not well. No one knows anything about him."

"It doesn't help that he doesn't have a new entry in the business registry." Tristan picked up a glass of water and chugged it.

"Yeah, and our only lead turned out to be a dud." Vral started swirling the rat chunks.

Light's Hope Temple had been sourcing its potions for over a year from a gnome named Farvad who lived in Galden. When we'd snooped through the chief of Goodfield's things, we'd found out that Farvad had also been sourcing the Cult of the Fallen their potions, too, and he'd also been working on something important for them. So, we thought it'd be easy to find him since he seemed to have both a well-known shop and was a prolific alchemist here in Galden.

The problem was, when we'd gone to the shop where Renard had purchased the potions, we found out that the entire district in the outskirts of Galden had burned to the ground. Worse, no one was left who knew anything about him due to the small war that had been started by two barons competing for Galden's empty throne. So, we were left searching for one half-sized gnome in a city of over a hundred thousand people, and that was assuming he hadn't gone down to Khozad'Thar, which had another fifty thousand souls living in it. Luckily, we knew was that he was in the city somewhere. Greta had been insistent that her visions were accurate.

"You know, you three would make more progress if you'd just let us fund you." Khadrel had taken a bowl of his own and was shoveling it down.

"Thank you, but we can stand on our own. You're already doing a lot for us by letting us stay in the manor when we're down here." Plus, the whole right place at the right time thing was fresh in my mind. I didn't think Greta was full of shit; not fully, at least.

In an attempt not to be leeches on the two counts, and in the hope that we might run into Farvad if he decided to travel between the cities, we'd decided to become escorts for people who wanted to travel through the dungeon. Considering that Vral and I were mostly meat heads with few marketable skills, it had also been the easiest way for us to make an income without completely leaning on Tristan's healing.

Also, Elise's manor up in Galden was absolutely destroyed. Baelgrim, the guy who may or may not run the Hands of the Fallen, had done his best to make it unlivable before he fled. All of her money was going to the escorts and to fixing the manor, where poor Davik had been working and managing contractors for weeks.

"If you say so." Elise pretended like she wasn't happy with my answer, but I knew her pretty well now. She was relieved we'd found work.

As fun as it was to pretend to eat more rat soup, I was filthy and ready to sleep. Standing up, I pointed toward the baths. "Well, if no one minds, I'm going to take a long, hot bath."

"That's quite alright," Elise said with a smile. "Rest up, you three. I have faith that your next trip to Galden will be the most fruitful yet."

"Of course it will! He's the damn Hero of the Pit! It's only a matter of time!" Khadrel's beard was soaked with rat broth at this point.

"Ugh, a bath sounds amazing." Vral stood up and stretched her arms.

"Um..." Tristan's face turned red as she stood up. "Mind helping me work out some kinks while we bathe, Alex?"

Elise blushed, and Khadrel chuckled.

Tristan had been working me like a prized stallion lately. The girl was insatiable. "Sounds great."

With a huff, Vral sat back down. "I'll wait."

"You don't have to—"

"It might be better if we were alone." Tristan's eyes locked on mine.

Vral mumbled something I couldn't hear; then, ripping her spoon from her bowl, she cut the air with it. "Fine, but don't take four hours this time!"

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