Might as Well

The guy approaching them, with their hand on their weapon, looked like a knight from any movie about medieval knights. Their visor was up, and Sam could see the youthful face under it as they glared at him and his team.

Not even looking, he could practically feel Katie fidgeting. ’No doubt, she wants to murder all of them… That girl is off her rockers…’ he mused with some black humor.

Sam stepped forward, made sure that his face was set in a scowl, and he spoke up.

“Yeah, no… This is Silvercrest territory. You’ve as much right to be here as we do.” He fished out the token given to him and began playing with it nonchalantly. “Maybe less…”

The guard’s eyes were naturally drawn to the token in his hands, but in the end, he settled on glaring at Sam.

“Hah! As if some random coin will help you here!” he scoffed derisively. “Our guild is here for a quest, and you shall not disturb us!”

Several other players approached, some of them with their weapons already drawn. Sam saw several swords, battle hammers, halberds, and a few bows. The people not sporting weapons were obviously mages based on the mana he felt from them. Though why they were wearing heavy plates was beyond him…

Feeling Katie’s fidgeting increase, he spoke up before this ‘friendly’ exchange turned into a bloodbath. It was expected to get into conflict in this type of game, but he hoped to avoid them for a while.

Based on the looks of the Steel Lion members, he had a feeling that it wouldn’t happen…

Sam sighed.

“Just call your leader here. I would rather speak to someone with authority…”

In response, the man scowled even heavier and opened his mouth to answer, but before a sound could leave his mouth, they were interrupted.

“…that’s just not possible! It is a place that requires authorization to enter as I said! You do not have that authorization!” Came the yell from nearby, coming closer and closer.

Everyone looked in the direction of the sound, and they saw two people.

One of them was obviously the leader of the Steel Lion contingent, based on how he dressed. They were still wearing heavy plates, but thanks to his inherited memories, Sam could recognize that they were wearing armor that was at least one magnitude better than the rest of the mooks’. He was a handsome man, familiar to him from the Fracture Event, where he was with them at the base of the giant tree.

The other was a portly man, almost a head shorter than the leader of the wannabe knights, and was dressed in the clothes of people working at the mining outpost’s office. He was visibly sweating and was swabbing his head with an already-drenched cloth. No doubt, the situation massively stressed the man.

The good-looking man’s eyes were fixed on the short man, his expression rather flat.

“I understand, but it is still imperative that my group gains access to the caverns,” came the statement from the man, his eyes boring into the smaller man’s. Naturally, it was rather intimidating to the other man.

The portly official, desperate for an out, looked around and accidentally saw the token in Sam’s hand, as he was still absentmindedly playing with it.

The official’s eyes lit up, and with surprising speed, he began speed-walking toward Sam’s group, leaving a surprised knight behind.

He raised his hand in greeting and gave Sam a maniacal smile that reeked of desperation.

“Adventurer! Good to see you!”

“Good to see you, too, sir!” Sam answered, wondering where this was going.

The short man began nodding and continued to speak.

“I see Lord Silvercrest was wise to send you to help! It seems his wisdom is only eclipsed by the volume of his speech! Hahahaha!” he laughed awkwardly, while he reached out and awkwardly began shaking Sam’s hand.

Taking hold of Sam’s hand, he began to tug him toward the storage cavern, ignoring the leader of the knights who was watching the entire sequence with an incredulous look on his face.

Sam let himself move for a while, and as soon he was almost next to the knight making the weird face, he dug his heels into the ground and stopped all movement. The portly official continued to struggle for a second, then also stopped moving.

He looked back at Sam nervously, his eyes glancing at the knight.

Sam spoke up before the official could open his mouth.

“Excuse me, but what seems to be the issue? As a representative of the Silvercrest family, I want to make sure that there are no issues in their territory…” As he stated that, he kept an eye on the knight who visibly flinched at the information.

‘So, they don’t have equal backing from the nobles. Good to know…’

The official sputtered a little, but when he saw that Sam wouldn’t move before he got any information, he let out a soul-deep sigh and began talking.

“Well, good sir, it seems these… gentlemen… wished to access the North Storage Cavern. However, access is restricted to those who have authorization on account of the valuables stored there. I was just explaining to them that just because they have a quest, it doesn’t mean they can just walk in willy-nilly and do whatever they want!” As he spoke, his first hesitance to speak slowly turned into confidence as he began complaining about the knight.

“Understandable…”

“Right? RIGHT?” The man nodded heavily, jiggling his midsection, and Sam could see from the corner of his eyes as the Steel Lions members bristled at that. “I would like to ask you, as the representative of the Silvercrest family, to help me remove these… these ruffians from the premises!” He finished his speech, panting heavily, glaring at the Steel Lions, somewhat emboldened by the presence of Sam and his team.

‘Now, how to play this…’ Sam mused as he took in the situation.

After a few moments of thinking, he turned to the knight and smiled.

“Well, what do you think?”

The handsome man cast a look around, his eyes lingering somewhat on Sam’s teammates. Then he looked back at Sam and smirked.

“It seems it behooves me to introduce myself,” he said while offering his gloved hand for Sam to shake. Naturally, he accepted it. “Name’s SilverLion, leader of this bunch,” he introduced them while motioning to the other knights dressed in heavy plate mail. “I’m the guild leader of the Steel Lion guild.”

“Good to meet you,” responded Sam with a fake smile on his face. He knew SilverLion. A moderately talented player who somewhat embodied the values of knights, while also rather naïve for being born with a diamond spoon in his mouth.

If he remembered correctly, the guild was later absorbed by one of the mega guilds on the ‘good’ side, where they acted as one of the heavy platoons of that big guild.

Honestly, he didn’t know much about him. He was a rich fop, but he rarely acted like it, so next to the other loud idiots that advertised their wealth, he simply vanished into the crowd.

“Name’s Solar. These are my team,” he said while motioning towards his friends and then took a few seconds to introduce them, consciously ignoring how Katie was fidgeting and looked like she really wanted to take her sword and go through the people present amidst a rain of blood and dark laughter.

Smirk still on his face, SilverLion nodded. “With that out of the way, let us focus on the trouble at hand. We need to get into the Cavern Storage, and you seem to have just the ticket we need. Would it be possible to borrow it?”

“Impossible!” exclaimed the official. “That token marks this esteemed person as the direct representative of Lord Silvercrest, the owner of this outpost! No lending it out! I won’t accept it!”

Sam ignored the angry official and spoke up.

“Why do you need to get in?”

For a long moment, SilverLion looked at him, then sighed.

“It’s not like it is a big secret. Everybody is looking for them. But we think we found one of the fractures in there. We want to see if we’re right,” he finally said with a wry smile on his face.

Sam was pretty sure there was more to it, but it was stupid to expect the other guy to share more.

‘What to do?’

On one hand, he could say nothing, and just go on while leaving them high and dry, making an enemy. On the other hand, Steel Lions were one of the good and honorable guilds and one could count on the deals they made with them.

If he could somehow entice them…

‘Well, it’s worth a try…’

“Cool. We are the same. Got a quest to investigate the fractures and were directed straight here,” he fibbed, ignoring the surprised look on the official face.

SilverLion nodded happily and turned to look at his people. “See, men? No need to worry!”

While his back was turned, Sam looked at the official and winked.

The man froze and leaned a little closer.

Sam smiled and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Pretend to be angry and go inform the lord. He’ll know what to do.”

He glanced at the portly official and Sam suspected that the man was close to crying from relief.

The short man took a deep breath, then schooled his face into showing anger and exclaimed.

“Well, I never! I see what kind of man you are, adventurer! Rest assured the lord will hear about this! Hmmpf!” With his nose high in the air, the small man then speed-walked away as fast as possible without breaking into a run.

SilverLion only chuckled. “Won’t you get into trouble for that?” he asked Sam, glancing at the token.

“Nah,” he waved his hand negligently. “I’m good.”

Nodding in understanding, the knight posed another question. “What now?”

“Now you follow me!”

After that, they spent a few minutes collecting everyone, with SilverLion reassuring his people that everything was alright, they headed to the nearby entrance of the Cavern Storage. The entrance was carved into the mountainside, with giant gates barring any big incursion while to the side next to a small building – a booth really – was a person-sized door, probably for the personnel.

They headed there, with Sam at the front of the progression, his team following him, staying silent, in turn being followed by the Steel Lions. Thankfully, SilverLion had the presence of mind to send away some of his people while retaining his core group of a dozen knights. Three of them were holding giant shields and thick swords, while the rest of them were holding a variety of weapons, or were ready to unleash magic. One of them even had a white armband with a red cross on it, denoting him as a healer.

Sam wanted to have the knights leave even more people behind as he knew that the fracture would only take ten people maximum, but that wasn’t known yet, so he had no excuse to send them away.

He wasn't afraid of the knights. Their mana was rather underdeveloped compared to his team. Though he didn’t discount the possibility of them having something that could cause issues for him, for now, he felt that they had the upper hand. Not that the guild knew this, based on the arrogant and condescending look on some of the knights’ faces.

Approaching the door, he was met by one of the guards looking somewhat angry.

“You people? We told you. No authorization, no en–“

His tirade was interrupted by Sam simply holding up his token.

Afterward, their entry went as smoothly as silk.

They were let in and simply directed toward the anomaly with dire warnings about what would happen if they touched anything that looked like merchandise.

It took them almost ten minutes to reach the side room, which was only holding some old and dust-covered boxes, their heads on swivels as they took in the construction built into the mountain.

Finally, the entire group was in the room, staring at the green portal as it swirled merrily at the back of the room.

For a moment everybody was staring at it, then SilverLion spoke up.

“Alright, people! Take five! Do a gear check and then we start on the dungeon!”

Sam nodded, knowing that they also needed that, plus he wanted to give some instruction to his team, as well as explain himself if needed.

However, before anybody could do so much as sit down, Katie strode forward and brought one of her legs up and moving it through a rather magnificent arc, kicked SilverLion squarely in the family jewels.

“You asshole!”

The resulting silence was only broken by the sound the man made as he collapsed on his knees, his hands moving to protect himself.

“Ugh…”