After aimlessly walking down various streets playing a game of hot and cold with the source of the power, Shade found himself at the center of the town. Four roads came together and formed a large cobblestone roundabout, with a 10-story brick hotel in the middle. He closed his eyes again and focused. “It’s definitely coming from somewhere in there.” He whispered to himself, then stumbled his way up the marble walkway that led to the hotel from the roundabout, wondering to himself about how inconvenient and expensive keep up for the lavish walkway would be; while passing numerous fancy carriages whose well-dressed coachmen all raised an eyebrow at the drunk walking past. When he got to the front door, he squinted while trying to read the name of the hotel that was above the glass doors in large gold lettering, but after a few seconds of trying to patch blurry letters together in his vision, he shrugged and gave up.

  “Can I help you sir?” A somewhat irritated voice said from next to him.

  “Huh?” Shade said, having been so focused on finding the singular power he was looking for, he hadn’t noticed anyone else around him. He looked left, then right, but didn’t see anyone, then something poked his leg and he looked down. A dwarf wearing a full purple velvet tuxedo was standing beside him, hands now behind his back, and a face that was trying to be professional, but was clearly annoyed that a drunk had wandered to the hotel front door. Shade tilted his head at the shorter than usual Dwarf, no more than 3 feet tall, then pointed inside the hotel. “Yea, is there some sort of important secret meeting going on in there?” He asked, assuming whoever was giving off the feeling of echos had to be a knight or noble of some sort, he just wasn’t sure why they would be in this random town.

  The dwarfs face instantly turned from disdain, to that of a man trying to put on a good poker face after going all in, but revealing to everyone with working eyes he had a 2 and 7. “Secret meeting, no I’m not aware of any secret meeting.”

  Shade narrowed his eyes at the dwarf, but then nodded. Even if there was a secret meeting, of course they weren’t just going to tell him. “Alright, well, it’s pretty late and I don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight, all the back alleys were already taken. Can you believe that? Not a single little cozy, dark, damp and cold alley was free. So, I’m gonna go inside and see if they have any vacancies, I hate paying for something free like sleep, but what can you do.” He then opened the glass door and began to walk in. The dwarf opened his mouth and began to reach his hand out to grab him, but stopped when something shiny flew over Shades shoulder. He had taken a gold coin from his pouch, and flicked it behind himself to the doorman. The dwarf caught the coin out of the air and stared at it, mouth to the floor, then looked back up and watched the homeless looking human who smelled of the cheapest booze money could buy enter into the lavish lobby of the hotel.

  Shade swayed back and forth as he stood in the lobby, taking in the ridiculous sight. The lobby had all red velvet carpeting, with a gold diamond pattern embroidered into it. There were a few brown leather chairs surrounding marble and glass tables strewn about the room. The walls were plastered with some sort of golden wallpaper that someone must have thought looked fancy, but in reality, looked tacky, while hanging from the 25-foot-tall ceiling were pure diamond chandeliers. The ceiling was so tall because of the main draw inside the lobby, a fountain. An actual fountain was at the center of the lobby. The circular, three-tiered fountain had a marble statue of a wolf he didn’t recognize at the center of it. The wolf had been, or still was, a knight of some sort apparently. His marble visage was wearing full armor besides a helmet, and was holding the standard knight sword with a cross for a hilt to the sky, which is where the water was shooting out from.

  He shook his head at the absurd interior while wondering again about how expensive this all must be. How could a hotel in such a random tiny town afford to be this lavish? Was this town secretly a getaway place for the who’s who of society? He thought back to the bartender at the back-alley bar, he was dressed rather nicely. If that’s how they dressed at the worst of the bars, maybe this was secretly a ritzy town?

  He pushed that thought out of his mind, the lifestyles of the rich and famous weren’t a concern for him, even though he was kind of both. He closed his eyes once more and focused on the massive amount of power, then tilted his head in confusion. “What?” He said as he looked down at the obnoxious red carpeting. “It’s below me?”

  He looked around the room seeing if there were any doors that clearly led to a staircase, but the room was littered with more doors than a woodworker’s shop. Going to, and opening each door just to see what was inside would take forever. So, he did the one thing that every introvert fears, asking an employee for help. He made his way past the fountain, giving it side eye as he walked by, to the concierge desk. The tall desk that seemed like it was made out some sort of stone, was painted bright gold, and behind the desk was a young-looking blonde female elf wearing a short sleeveless purple dress.

  While watching Shade approach, the woman originally had on the fake plastic smile all retail employees have, but as he had gotten closer, and she could smell the scent of booze on him, the smile began to crack. By the time he had gotten to her, and leaned his elbows onto the counter, she looked more like a nervous criminal in an interrogation then a receptionist. “Can I help you sir?”

  “I’m hoping you can.” He replied with a toothy smile. “I’m trying to get to whatever’s happening below this hotel, can you help me with that?”

  “Below?” She replied nervously, taking a few steps away from the counter. “I’m not sure what you mea…” Then paused. “Oh, you mean the basement? Sorry sir, but that’s a private event.”

  “I imagine it is.” He said, his smile turning more into a wry smirk. “But how would one get into this private event?”

  The receptionist looked around her desk nervously wondering how to reply. She wasn’t supposed to talk about the event at all, but she also didn’t want to deal with this drunk. How did he even get in here? Wasn’t the doorman supposed to stop any unwanteds from entering? She took this job after having been a bartender as she specifically didn’t want to have to deal with people like this anymore. After a moment, she decided to do what all great professionals do, pass the problem onto someone else. She turned and pointed to a door in the far back left corner of the main lobby, a door being guarded by a minotaur. “You see that door over there, that’s how you get to the basement. And you see that man over there? He's security for the event, he’s the one who would have to let you in.” Then without even waiting for a response, she turned and walked back into the office that was at the back of the front counter, and closed the door.

  Shade took a quick peek at the door and the minotaur. Just like the dwarf out front, he somehow hadn’t noticed the minotaur when eyeing up all the doors in the room. After a moment, he shrugged, and figured his lack of awareness was probably just from how drunk he was. He then looked back to the door the receptionist had disappeared behind. “Thank you!” He yelled, but no response came from inside the room. He shrugged again, then turned and began stumbling his way over to the minotaur. He studied the dressed for a fight guard on his way over, a habit from his old days. The minotaur was rather tall, probably 7 feet he guessed. He had the standard brown fur with long bull like horns and red demonic eyes. He was wearing brown leather armor on both his chest and legs, with hoof shaped leather boots on his feet. He had a sword of some sort sheathed on his back, but Shade couldn't get a good look at it from his current angle.

  The minotaur was looking down at a clipboard in his hand when he noticed Shade approaching. He raised a confused eyebrow at the whiskey bottle holding human stumbling his way over, looked to the now empty front desk, then realized what had happened and groaned. “I signed up to be security for a private event, not a hotel bouncer.” When Shade was about 25 feet from him, he held out his hand for him to stop, and Shade did. “Sorry sir, if you’re looking for the stairs up to the rooms, it’s the door directly on the opposite side. For anything else, please ring the bell on the counter, and I’m sure the receptionist would be more than happy to help you.” He said, hoping to drop the man right back into the lap of the piece of shit receptionist who sent him his way.

  Shade though, shook his head. “I’m not trying to get upstairs, I’m trying to go downstairs, to the basement, to the private event.”

  The minotaur narrowed his eyes, wondering how the man knew about the event. Did the receptionist tell him? But why? What would prompt her too without him asking about it? “As you said sir, that event is private. It’s invite only, and I don’t see you holding any invites.” He replied, pointedly glaring at Shades hands.

  Shade began exaggeratedly patting his pockets, pretending to look for an invite, causing some whiskey to spill from the bottle. “Invite, invite. I just had it. What did I do with it? Ah shit!” He said, slapping his forehead in a demonstrative manner. “A group of wolves jumped me in a back alley on my way over here, I thought they only took some money, but they must have taken the invite as well. You may want to go in there and make sure nobody’s gotten in who wasn’t supposed to.” He said, gesturing with his head for the minotaur to go inside the door.

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  “What a convenient story.” The minotaur replied, rolling his eyes. He then sniffed a few times and his eyes narrowed again. “Hmmm, I do smell wolves on you, as well as an exorbitant amount of alcohol. If I were a gullible man, I could believe you went drinking before the event, went to piss or something in an alley and got jumped. But I’m not that gullible, I know you’re lying.”

  “Oh, and how is that?” Shade asked with a smirk, while continuing to pretend to look for the invite he never had.

  “A few reasons. First.” He said pointing at Shades black robes. “This event has a dress code, one that you are clearly not following. Even if you just lost the invite, if you had it at any point, you would know what you were meant to wear.” He then began pretending to shake a bag of coins in his free hand. “Two, this event is not some party, nor is it a social event of any kind. It’s one where you need some coin. If you got robbed, there would be no point in coming here.” Finally, he started tapping on the clipboard he was holding in his hand. “And lastly, because I lied. There were no physical invitations, everyone who was invited is right here on this list.”

  “Oh, I see, I see. What a genius you are.” Shade replied sarcastically, tapping his finger to his skull. “Pure genius actually. I mean it’s not like I could have had more money in my hotel room or anything.” He said, taking off his actual pouch of coins from his belt and shaking it so that the coins made loud clanking noises, making it clear there were quite of few of them. “And it’s not like my outfit for the event could have gotten torn up by the wolves, making me have to change. No, that totally couldn’t be the case.”

  The minotaur looked to Shade with narrowed eyes once more, then down at his clipboard, then back at Shade. “That all seems reasonable enough, but you conveniently didn’t touch the part where everyone’s name is on the list. Let’s skip the stories, what’s your name human, and I’ll check if you’re on here.”

  Shade had hoped the minotaur wouldn’t notice him completely ignore the part about the names being on the clipboard. He stood there looking rather dumb as he tried to think of a common human name. “Chris.” He finally said with fake confidence, puffing out his chest.

  “Chris, huh?” The minotaur replied, then started mockingly and sarcastically going through page after page on his clipboard. “Let’s see, a Mr. Chris with no last name. Hmmm…. Chris, Chris, no I don’t see a Chris. Wait a minute, I know why I don’t see your name. That’s right!” He said, slapping his hand on his forehead. “This list isn’t all the people who were invited. It’s all the people who showed up here. You see, I lied again, there is no list, they were physical invites. Now get the fuck out of here!” He screamed, pointing towards the entrance to the hotel.

  Shade though didn't move an inch. “Oh, I know that.” He replied with a smirk and the same fake confidence. “You see, I was testing you. We need to make sure the guards for our events don’t let any unwanteds in. I bet you didn’t even consider that, did you?” He said, waggling his finger in mock disappointment.

  The minotaur looked up at the ceiling and sighed loudly, clenching a shaking fist, trying to calm himself down, before he looked back to Shade. “Look man, I don’t know how you found out about this event, I don’t know why the hostess told you where in here to go to get to it, but you aren’t getting in. So we can do this the easy way, and you walk out the front door yourself, or, if you would prefer, I can drag your lifeless corpse out for you.” He said, with pure bloodlust in his voice, taking a threatening step towards Shade and placing a hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Shade replied, putting his hands up and slowly starting to back away. “No reason for this to get violent. Let’s just think about it for a second.” He then smirked and shrugged. “If you’re looking for the easiest way to resolve this, I mean, really, wouldn’t the easiest way be letting me in that door?”

  “Not. Happening.” The minotaur replied, growing visibly angrier by the second. He quickened his pace towards Shade, and with his long legs that led to long strides, he closed the distance between them in mere moments, then got right in his face and stared down directly into his eyes.

  Shade once again didn't flinch. He stared right back, and they stared at each other in complete silence for over 30 seconds, before finally, the minotaur blinked. “You lose.” He said proudly.

  “What?” The minotaur growled, anger beginning to boil over.

  Shade jumped back a few times, creating a safe amount of space between the two once again, then aggressively pointed at him. “You blinked first, so you lost. Now you have to let me in.”

  The minotaur turned his head to the sky again, shaking his hand even more in a desperate attempt to calm himself down. He then looked back to Shade with pure anger in his eyes, his attempt at calming down having failed. “You are really testing my patience human. You think we were playing Blinks? This isn’t child’s play; I’m not playing any games. If you don’t get out of here right now, we are going to have some real problems.” He said sharply, as he began to slowly approach Shade once more, this time with real murderous intent oozing out of him.

  Shade, undaunted, began laughing hysterically while slowly walking backwards in an attempt to keep the distance between himself and the minotaur. “Who the fuck calls it blinks? Blinks, really?” He paused to wipe some tears from his eyes, then continued. “Though that’s beside the point. Clearly, we were playing a round of it. I mean, why else would you stare so meaningfully into another man’s eyes?” He then smirked and winked. “Unless, you go that way. I mean, I don’t judge, I just don’t think you look like a man who would.”

  “You are getting on my very last nerve.” The minotaur replied, tightening the grip on the hilt of his sword as white smoke began to come out of his snout and veins began to bulge and pulse in his neck. “I don’t have time for your games, or your jokes.”

  “Oh, are you busy?” Shade replied sarcastically, turning and motioning towards the completely empty lobby.

  The minotaur pulled the sword out of its sheathe and pointed it at Shade. It turned out to be a basic steel sword, the type most low tier warriors used due to how strong, yet cheap they were. “I'm going to give you one last chance to leave.” The minotaur snarled, using his sword to motion towards the front door.

  Shade, once again completely unmoved by the threat, tried to think of how he could get in without fighting. He could definitely take this minotaur, but just like the wolves, he didn’t really want to. As he looked at the cheap sword, he thought there was still one way left he hadn't tried. “Listen, uhm.” He realized he didn't know the minotaur’s name; he looked at his chest and noticed a rather convenient name tag. In huge letters, GREG was spelled out. “Greg…. Greg? Your name is Greg? That’s a human name? Why does a minotaur have a human name?”

  Even more Smoke began to billow out of Greg's snout. “Now you make fun of the name my parents gave me?” He snarled, quickening his approach, now walking faster than Shade was backing up.

  “Not make fun of.” Shade replied, though he did have to hold in a laugh. “I uh, you know, I like to know the name of my opponents I fight, so that’s why I wanted to know your name. You see, I uhm, I just find your name interesting for your, uhm, your species you could say.”

  “Oh, you like to know the names of your opponents, do you?” Greg said with an irritated, yet somewhat amused giggle. “The lost drunk is a man of honor, is he? Wanted to know my name before I killed you? Ok, I’ll play along. You want to know why I have a human name? My parents are humans.”

  “How does that work?” Shade joked, putting his finger to his chin while looking at the ceiling perplexed, all while continuing to slowly back away. “Science really is a mystery, isn’t it.”

  Greg shook his head as his anger and annoyance was reaching critical mass, smoke continuing to pour out of his snout while his muscles seemed to get larger like they were ballons being filled with air. “I was adopted by human’s you drunk, moron, after my real family abandoned me. Happy? Now are you leaving, or do you truly wish to test your mettle against me Mr. Honorable warrior?” He said, once again pointing the sword directly at Shades chest as he was now mere feet from him.

  “Listen Greg, let’s get down to business.” Shade replied, trying to put on a serious face while taking on an intimidating fighting stance, but not being able to do either due to his severe intoxication. “I’ve dealt with people like you before. What’s your price? How much money would it take for you to look the other way while I go in?” He said, once again shaking the coin pouch.

  “A lot.” Greg replied, though almost instantly his face turned from anger, to contemplation and curiosity. “The people who run these events would gladly make me disappear if they found out I let some random outsider in.”

  Even with how drunk he was, Shade didn’t miss Greg's clear interest in the coin pouch. “Well, name a price, everyone has a price.”

  Greg stopped his approach and looked at the pouch. He scratched his head with his sword, considering what to do. “Toss me one.” He said. Shade complied and took a gold coin out of the pouch, tossing it over to Greg. Greg's eyes went wide as he watched the coin fly through the air. “Gold?” He said as he caught it. He inspected the coin closely, holding it up to the light and turning it over again and again, biting into it, and then putting it back to the light. “It’s…real, are they all gold in that pouch?” He asked, eyebrows creasing in suspicion, slowly turning his attention from the coin back to Shade. Shade simply nodded with a wry smile. “How does a human like you have so many gold coins?”

  “Honorable warriors get paid for doing honorable deeds, don’t you know?” Shade replied proudly, standing tall and putting his hands on hips in a mock hero pose.

  Greg let out a snort. “Honorable warriors don’t attend these sorts of events.” He then looked around the lobby making sure it was empty. “But this job barely pays anything at all, and I’ve got many children at home. So, I don’t really care where you got them from, as long as they're real.” He put his sword back into its sheathe and looked at the coin one more time, then around the lobby one more time. “I’ll tell you what human, you give me, let’s say, 4 more of those coins, and I’ll look the other way while you go in.”

  Shade pretended to ponder the offer, finger to his chin in fake contemplation, even though he planned on accepting pretty much any price as money was no problem for him. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” He finally said, then reached into the pouch and pulled out 4 more gold coins. He walked up to Greg and placed them in his hand, then began to walk past him.

  Greg stopped him and put his hand on his shoulder, then leaned in closed and whispered into his ear. “You create any sort of problems in there, it was the hostess at the front counter who let you in, got it?”

  “Sure thing boss.” Shade replied, giving Greg a sarcastic salute, then continued to the door, opening it and walking in.