‘Wait, what?’ Lan asked as he stepped back. ‘There is no way that’s fair.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Lan,’ Vasha sang as she bumped him with her shoulder. ‘You did just get captured and needed rescuing, which puts you on the same level as that dummy Sora, but he is not making a copper for his stupidity, so I think that is punishment enough. Plus, he couldn’t pay anyway.’

  ‘And joining the party is a big deal. We were all the winner the day we joined.’ Vulk said with the biggest shit-eating grin.

  ‘Congrats Lan.’ Sora said with a look that managed to be both smug and sheepish.

  Lan looked around at the gathered jackals he had thrown in with. They weren’t trying to hide the fact that they were making it up on the spot, but there also wasn’t much he could do about it. He thought before something hit him.

  Knowing he had lost this one, Lan dropped his head and nodded, hiding his smile. Clearly not grasping what they had just done, they were going to hate this.

  Lan leaned over the counter at the inn, telling Leah the story as the others called for him to hurry up.

  ‘So… they were waiting for you to ask to join their party, and you almost took that as them not wanting you when all you had to do was ask.’ Leah recapped what he had told her with a sigh over the full swing of the inn’s merriment. ‘who would have guessed?’ she asked with a proud smile that said, “I did.”

  ‘You did…’ Lan sighed playfully.

  ‘Honestly,’ she shook her head, ‘There is a reason I never asked you to join my party. I knew from the moment I saw you fight with those idiots you were meant to be with them.’

  Lan smiled. To him, that was one of the better compliments he had gotten.

  ‘Well, and one other reason.’ Leah added with a shrug as she placed the last glass on the second tray.

  ‘Anyway, it looks like the pack is all together.’ She said, looking over to their table, which was full for the first time in a while.

  Lan smiled at the sight before looking back to Leah, only to find her staring at him.

  ‘What?’ Lan ask.

  ‘Nothing,’ she shrugged before filling the last glass.

  ‘And before I get too drunk to say it, Thanks again for the advice.’

  ‘You’re welcome, although I think you would have found your way to them no matter what.’ When he just looked at her, Leah smiled. ‘Don’t worry. You will find out what I mean soon enough.’

  ‘Wait! Are you saying I am an idiot, too?’ Lan joked, only getting a challenging raised eyebrow from Leah before she grinned, howled softly like a wolf and picked up one of the trays.

  Lan just stood there, watching her go, before he laughed.

  ‘Lan! Get over here already.’ Vulk shouted. ‘We are dying of thirst here, man!’

  Lan smiled as he picked up the second tray and walked over to the table to the cheers of the others.

  Working with Leah, the two placed a cup in front of each of his new party members before Leah gave him a knowing look and walked away.

  ‘I just wanted to say once again how glad I am that I get to fight alongside all of you. And I can’t think of a better way to say that than with a… drink.’

  The moment the keyword was said, all of them dove for their cups. Sora was the first to reach his cup, lifting and taking a pull before letting out a strangled cry, almost falling out of his chair. The others didn’t react fast enough to save themselves as they all took a drink before the sourness hit them.

  All at once, each let out the same strangled cry, all but Cassandra, who frowned and set the cup back down.

  ‘What by the light is that?’ Drevin cursed with a shudder.

  ‘I feel like my jaw just got wired shut.’ Vasha said as she rubbed her cheek.

  ‘What is this, Lan?’ Locke asked as he winced.

  ‘It’s lemon sap.’ Lan smiled innocently.

  ‘Lemon sap?’ Olivia coughed. ‘but that’s-‘

  ‘Alcohol, yes.’ Lan finished for her with a nod. ‘One you physically can’t drink in one go, but alcohol,’ he added with a shrug. Although lemon sap was considered a rather enjoyable tonic, it was often drunk, even by people who did not drink it for its health benefits, just very slowly. The drink had the odd ability to target the jaw muscles, making more than short drinks painful.

  Lan explained this for those who didn’t know, watching the colour drain from their faces.

  ‘Unless you have some sort of tolerance to tart things, you are in the same boat as us.’ Vulk challenged a little too enthusiastically as if mentally building the strength to win anyway.

  ‘Hmm, you are right, well almost.’ Lan nodded, picking up the small glass of rum and adding it to his sap before downing the drink in four long pulls. ‘Refreshing.’ He grinned like a wolf.

  Only at that moment did the full weight of what they had done by making Lan the winner and loser seem to hit them.

  The only bright side to losing was that you got to make the next morning hell for the winner and make the game harder for them, but there was no rule that said he had to make it harder for himself.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Sora tried. ‘It has to be the same drink!’

  ‘Does it?’ Lan tilted his head. ‘as far as I have been able to see, it has to be alcohol, but nowhere does it say it can’t be two different drinks. If anything, the rum is stronger than the sap,’ Lan countered, which seemed to kill any protest from the others as they all thought about it.

  ‘Well, it’s implied to be the case. It’s the spirit of the thing!’ Vulk tried weakly.

  ‘Just like there being a different winner and loser?’ Lan smiled, noting to himself that it wasn’t a good idea to play a game of rules with a former merchant apprentice.

  Realising they had lost, each looked at him with pale faces before Sora quickly picked up his cup and started to drink, getting two pulls before letting out a gargled cry. Olivia reached for her cup, taking a drink before wincing. One by one, each seemed to remember it was a race. Cassandra finished first, followed by Drevin and Vulk, but only by a second.

  In the end, Vasha was the last to finish. Lan almost felt bad as she looked at him with a betrayed look, yet this was the game, he told himself as he poured her a shot of a red sap, undiluted.

  With a determined look that didn’t last until she reached the shot glass, Vasha picked it up and downed it, not giving herself a chance to think. A high-pitched squeal followed as Vasha shook and almost fell out of her chair, shivering as she let out a. ‘Wha!’

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Lan smiled. The shot was stronger but for a shorter time. ‘This should help.’ Lan said handing her a mug of ale before giving a mug to the rest of them. There was no point in torturing them the whole night.

  As they drank and chatted, Lan noticed Vulk, the red-haired dwarf, spent the whole time smugly upbeat after seeing what the punishment was, and when the time for the next round started, he didn’t even try to be first. Lazily sipping at his drink until only downing it at the end.

  ‘Oh no, it looks like I have lost,’ Vulk grinned at Lan. ‘Looks like I have to drink.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ Lan nodded and stood to fill Vulk’s shot glass.

  ‘Thank you,’ Vulk said with a bow as he picked up the glass and smelled it. ‘Oh, I wonder if I will be able to handle this,’ he sighed dramatically as Sora leaned over to Vasha.

  ‘How was it?’ he whispered.

  ‘It is the sweetest thing I have ever tasted before. It almost hurt.’ Vasha sighed. As she did, Vulk had the shot glass to his puckered lips still taunting Lan with is act.

  ‘Sweet?’ The dwarf asked in a voice as tiny as the little sips he took from the air above the shot glass.

  ‘Oh, did I not say?’ Lan ask sweetly. ‘Well, seeing as the lemon sap is so sour, I thought it was a good idea to chase it with something sweet.’ Lan explained, letting on that he had known from the start what Vulk was playing at. Just as they couldn’t stand sweet things, sour things had little to no effect on dwarfs. The strawberry sap was considered too sweet for a human even when diluted, and what Vulk had in his hand was very much not diluted.

  ‘Uh, Lan…’ Vulk laughed nervously.

  ‘Drink up. And don’t worry, you won’t forget this anytime soon.’ Lan grinned. Much as all of this was a punishment for all of them, this part was meant solely for Vulk and that wretched poison he had made Lan drink for his punishment in the first game.

  ‘You think a little sap can break me? Bring it on!’ Vulk roared, meeting Lan’s grin with one of his own before downing the shot. ‘Nothing at all.’ The dwarf managed as he fought to keep a straight face, even as a single tear rolled from his eye and he began to twitch.

  A sight that put the others over the top as they burst into uncontrollable laughter, which only got louder the harder Vulk tried to hide it making his eye twitch even harder until even Lan couldn’t hold back.

  And that round of laughter seemed to signal the true beginning of the night as more rounds followed the ramping chaos in the inn.

  After the third round, Lan found himself dragged onto the dance floor again as Olivia got into a dancing mood, which he happily let her do this time, the singing and playing of the bard was as much a part of the inn as the smell of chestnuts, and Lan had grown a fondness for both even though he had never seen her face.

  Even after rigging the game in his favour, Lan ended up losing when Olivia snatched up the shot of rum in the fourth game.

  ‘No one said which drink I had to have. I just need to have one.’ She cooed as she licked a drop from her lip. After that, it was a battle to see who could get to the shot first until Lan added a shot to each glass, meaning he went back to needing two drinks.

  By the sixth round, Lan found himself at a table with Vulk, Sora, Cassandra and two other adventurers and, with Vulk’s lecture, came to an epiphany that there really wasn’t a problem that a big enough hammer couldn’t fix.

  Along with Locke and the others returning, some of the other larger parties had also, meaning things quickly became more rowdy than the previous night.

  Why that was a problem quickly materialized at the same time Lan found himself held upside down over the bar top chugging a beer at the behest of two Goliaths whose names he never got and Drevin, who was only there to make sure they didn’t drown him.

  Just when the Goliaths declared Lan was now one step closer to being a real man, the doors to the inn were kicked open, and a horde of guards stormed in, much to the protests of the adventurers.

  ‘Shut your mouths.’ The guard captain barked.

  ‘Oh, what the hell are you doing here? Isn’t there a door somewhere you should be standing in front of?’ Someone shouted to a round of laughter, and the guards frowned.

  After a moment, the guard captain’s scowl shifted into a wicked smile.

  ‘New restrictions due to the upcoming campaign, excessive drunkenness is prohibited. As the city guard, it is up to our discretion who we lock up.’

  ‘Here we go.’ Drevin sighed as he pulled Lan to his feet. ‘No doubt he is twisting the law again like last time.’

  ‘Look at you.’ the guard snarled, spotting Lan. ‘I should arrest all of you,’

  ‘Me? I never had a drink in my life,’ someone heckled.

  ‘But I will let you pick who comes with us.’ He offered, But when no one made a move to offer themselves up or pick another, let alone stop drinking, the Guard captain frowned. ‘You, you and you.’ he said, pointing seemly at random. ‘You are coming with us.’

  With that, guards marched towards the guard captain’s intended examples. Instead, they were met with a wall of adventurers.

  Only then did Lan’s head stop spinning long enough for him to notice that more guards and even soldiers were waiting outside.

  ‘Hmm, four to one.’ One of the Goliaths cracked his neck.

  ‘Hopefully, more show up,’ the other nodded with a worried look before a wet towel slapped him in the face.

  ‘They better not!’ Leah huffed as she grabbed a new towel.

  With neither the adventurers nor the guards backing down, it was only a matter of time before the fight broke out. Even the bard, who had not stopped playing, had changed to a slow, suspenseful song. One Lan was sure came from a play in which everyone died at the end.

  Then, as if in slow motion, someone threw a chair, and as if guided by the Hunter himself, the chair sailed over the two lines and hit the guard captain right in the face.

  Even before the guard captain hit the ground, the two lines crashed. Fists, kicks, and people flying as the more skilled and levelled adventures tore into the guards, but another took their place with every guard they dropped.

  ‘Come on, Lan, we need to get back to the others.’ Drevin said, patting Lan on the shoulder before fighting towards the table where Olivia, Sora, and Vasha, the party’s backline, still were.

  Having just been upside down and drinking, Lan found himself still trying to work out what way was up when he locked eyes with a walking wall in guard armour.

  With a target, the large man started towards Lan like a charging bull, picking up speed with every step as he raised his fist, ready to crush Lan’s head.

  The guard planted his foot, pulled back and with a powerful roar set to the test of caving in Lan’s face.

  The moment Lan registered the danger, he was hit with a sudden wave of déjà vu as the fog lifted, and he moved, slipping the punch and landing a counter that would have made his father proud. Having done nothing but make Lan’s blow land harder, the large guard crumbled, almost dragging Lan down with him.

  A shout from his left took Lan’s attention as he turned and brought his forearm up just in time to catch the punch. With the same hand, Lan hooked his arm around the guard’s neck and drew his right elbow across the man’s chin, dropping him as he stumbled back against the bar top.

  This gave him a moment of breathing room before Tyr sent an alert, and he turned a second before he was hit with a blinding, fast jab. Never once stopping, the thin man in scout armour circled Lan. Darting in and out with jabs that Lan could barely block.

  The man was faster than Lan, so Lan didn’t try dodging. He dropped his guard long enough for the man to land a solid right on his cheek, and Lan withstood the blow as he landed his counter punch.

  Lan turned to meet another larger guard, who he danced around before taking down before the man could lay a finger on him.

  Maybe it was the drink in him or the organised chaos all around him, but he realised he finally knew his path. Talking to Art Lan felt like he understood, but only when he face so many different opponents and had his body adapt to each, seemingly without thinking, did he get it.

  The Guards couldn’t have been a better opponent for him, each of the guard combat classes: Scouts, Bulwark, and Spear Point, were meant to work in groups or with both of the other combat classes, but it meant they had weaknesses alone that Lan could take at vantage of even with at least four levels of difference between them.

  Don’t fight their strength. Target their weaknesses.

  Tyr sent an alert, and Lan spun only to freeze with his fist in the air as he found Sam, the young gate guard, mirroring him with his fist once he noticed who he had almost hit.

  The two stared at each other for a long moment while fights raged around them. Someone flew over the counter, and Leah’s father picked them up and threw them back.

  After another moment, Lan shrugged as if to say, “What do you want to do?”

  Sam looked at Lan as if wondering who would win between them before thinking better of it and sighing. With a resigned look, Sam shrugged as if to say, “No hard feelings, right?”

  Lan shrugged back, and the two charged. Sam threw a wild hook that Lan ducked under, landing two body blows and an uppercut that sent him toppling over a stool. Lan moved to check on him but jumped back as someone tried to tackle him.

  Looking around, although the adventurers were getting the better of the guards, they were outnumbered, with the guards dragging their unconscious friends out so more could pour in.

  ‘Having fun?’ Leah asked, leaning on her hand.

  ‘Yeah,’ he breathed. ‘You?’

  ‘Can’t.’ she shrugged. ‘Not only do I not want to encourage this. It wouldn’t look good for staff to get involved.’ She sighed as she caught a bottle someone had thrown. ‘Funny. Who would have guessed that the man I saved from a brawl would end up in the next one.’ She smiled in a way he was sure only she could.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, Lan.’ Sora shouted from where he and the others took on a large group of guards while each wore wild grins. ‘Get over here.’

  Lan looked at Leah.

  ‘Go on.’ she sighed before smirking.

  Realising he was grinning too, Lan turned as he wondered what his old self would have thought if they had seen him. Ready to join the fray again, he knew his old self would be glad he had been stupid enough to believe he could be one of them and charged in.