The worst. They were the worst adventuring party in Moonloft. Bottom of the barrel, just joined, not a single quest under their belts. Cassius needed that to change and he needed it to change fast. How could he ever be worth anything if he was at the bottom? Maybe when they were all at higher levels, Ethan and Ruth could find a different druid. They’d finally be rid of him. Could he form a solo party? Cassius wasn’t sure. If he couldn’t, he’d likely just become an adventurer for hire. That might be better anyways. Then people wouldn’t have to put up with him for as long. He would find a way to make it up to his party. They would definitely deserve something for dealing with him for so long. For now, he kept on the mask of cheerful optimism.

  Everyone else was already up in the morning. After prying far too much into Ruth’s personal life and making everyone drink tea, Cassius had fallen back asleep. Great. It was their first day and he was already slacking off. How useless could he be? Ethan was polishing off the last of his breakfast and Ruth was sharpening her axes. She damn near cut her hand off when Mary walked by and waved at her. If nothing else, it was pretty funny to watch an eight foot tall half orc be nervous around a human who was three feet shorter than her. Then again, he shouldn’t have teased her so much. Ruth probably hated him. Ethan probably did too.

  No use hanging back any longer. He had already held them up long enough. Plastering his usual grin over his face, Cassius stepped out and over to the rest of the party.

  “Mornin’ guys. Didn’t think I’d be out for so long. Must be some nice beds, huh?” He joked, mentally kicking himself for making light of his own laziness.

  “Hey, Cass.” Ethan greeted, setting his now empty plate aside. “We got you breakfast.”

  Ruth, as if on cue, set down the plate in front of him. Roasted potatoes diced into little bite sized cubes stared up at him expectantly alongside a warm, fluffy pancake. The smell of sizzling bacon reached his nose before he had even seen it, making his mouth water slightly. Some of the syrup from the pancake had run over onto the bacon, giving it a nice maple glaze.

  “Your breakfast, my good sir.” Ruth said, doing her best to mimic the accent Cassius had used the previous night. It wasn’t a very good impression, but it got a chuckle out of him.

  “Alright, alright. You guys sure know how to wake me up in the morning.” Cassius relented, sitting down to eat with his temporary companions. “So what’s the plan? We gonna go kill a cryptclaw?”

  Cassius knew immediately that he had annoyed them with that joke by the way Ethan tensed. The human warlock was clearly trying to calm himself. He was probably trying to refrain from punching Cassius. Ruth seemed a bit confused as to why Ethan was so upset and raised an eyebrow at him.

  “... No. Those are for higher ranked parties. We’re still rank D. You’re not even allowed to accept those quests until rank A. Those things can shred through B ranks like they’re nothing.” Ethan answered. After taking a deep breath, he calmed his tone and continued.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Since we’re still so low, we’ll get something simple. Getting a cat out of a tree, escorting people from one town to the next, dealing with less threatening monsters popping up in shops, that kind of thing.”

  “Eh, fair enough.” Cassius mumbled, trying to keep his casual facade intact. “So we all go get quests and see what we like best?”

  “I like that idea.” Ruth agreed, looking between Ethan and Cassius. “That way we can get a few done at the same time. Maybe we’ll rise in the ranks?”

  “Alright.” Ethan agreed. “Everyone meet back in our quarters in ten minutes.”

  With that, the party split, each going to different quest boards to look for anything that caught their fancy. Rather than immediately looking for something, Cassius’s thoughts drifted to Ethan and Ruth. He wondered if they were actually looking for a quest together, but without him. It would be a convenient excuse to lose him for a bit. They didn’t need him, so surely they wouldn’t want him.

  It was only after several minutes he remembered he was supposed to retrieve a quest. If he didn’t, they’d be onto him. They’d know he knew. Left scrambling and low on time, Cassius scanned the different quests offered with excessive efficiency. Deciding it didn’t matter that much, he reached out and grabbed the closest quest, pulling it off the board and running back to the suite.

  “Sorry I’m late, guys. You know how it is. Quests were just too juicy to choose one.” He laughed, setting his chosen quest down next to the others.

  “Let’s see what we have to work with, then.” Ethan said, flipping the three quests over and casting some sort of spell to shuffle them into a random order. He did lots of little magic things like that.

  “Whichever one comes up first is our first quest. I know just as little as either of you as to which one’s coming up.”

  With that, Ethan flipped the first paper back over, revealing the quest written upon it. It seemed to be a simple escort quest. Help an old lady named Lorraine move from Wyrmroost to Kingport. Apparently all of her belongings were already there, so all they would have to do was make sure she didn’t get gobbled up by some beast or robbed by a bandit on the way to her new home. Easy. It couldn’t possibly go wrong.

  “Oh hey! Mine was first!” Ruth remarked in a cheerful tone.

  That made sense. Of course Ruth’s quest would be simple and helpful. From what Cassius had seen from her, she seemed to enjoy helping people. It was a noble quality and it always threw him for a loop when she didn’t ask for anything in return. That was how it worked, wasn’t it? Nothing was for free. He knew that. But here was Ruth, just giving handouts to everyone.

  “Ah, figured.” Cassius agreed, looking between his two party members. “Looks like she’s expecting us tomorrow. So we’ve got the rest of the day to just hang out, huh?”

  “It would probably be a good idea for the three of us to get some training in. I doubt anything’s going to happen tomorrow, but it’s still good to be prepared.” Ethan proposed, gesturing over his shoulder at the window facing the guild’s sparring area.

  “Bit of guild sponsored kicking each other’s asses, eh?” Cassius chuckled, inwardly cringing at his own joke.

  Ruth also laughed, probably out of pity. She clapped her two smaller teammates on the back and grinned.

  “Yeah! Let’s see what you two nerds can do! I’ll try not to break anything on ya.” She taunted, although it was clearly more playful than threatening.

  “It should be fine.” Ethan shrugged. “It’s best to go all out. If we do get hurt, there are plenty of healers to help us recover faster.”

  “Ruth’s about to hit herself just so she can go see her girlfriend.” Cassius quipped, earning an indignant shove from a very red half-orc.

  “AM NOT!!” She protested, looking away to hide her face.

  “Cass, she’s gonna break something on you at some point.” Ethan commented, helping the druid get up.

  “Eh. Worth it.” Cassius laughed, accepting the help.

  “We’ll see if it’s worth it when I beat you with your own arm.” Ruth mumbled, joining her friends as they made their way out to the sparring grounds.