Free Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion by Stephen W. Gee Page B

abilities?” said Mazik. “Look, you’re exactly right. We only have one life to live, so I’d rather live it than drift along clinging to boring mediocrity. Besides…”
    Mazik reached out and took Gavi’s hand in his own, holding it gingerly. “Do not worry, my lady,” he said, his voice suddenly deep and husky. “I will protect you.”
    Gavi snorted. “Yeah, right. You’re not good at protecting anyone, yourself included. I’ve heard all of your stories from college and in the service, and I’ve been in more of them than I’m comfortable with.”
    “That just proves my I’m-good-at-blowing-things-up point!” said Mazik quickly. “But all right, you got me. Rae will be the one protecting you.”
    “And you. And maybe myself, if I have time,” said Raedren.
    “Good thing you’re so good at multitasking!” said Mazik. He released Gavi’s hand and settled back. “Here, I have a question for you: if you could do absolutely anything, what would it be?”
    Gavi had been asking herself this exact question for months now.
    “I don’t know, to be honest,” said Gavi. “Having people trying to kill me isn’t high on my list though. What about you? Is adventuring it, or is that just a means to an end?”
    Mazik shook his head and grinned. “I have no idea. I honestly have no idea what I would do if I could do anything. Here’s what I do know, though—what I’m doing isn’t working. What you’re doing isn’t working. What Rae is doing is only barely sort of working, if that. We need to do something else, and I think this would give us a lot of freedom, pay us more, we’d get to work with our friends, and we might even do a little good for other people in the process.”
    “I don’t buy it,” said Gavi. “You don’t like people. Why do you want to help them out all of a sudden?”
    “Not true,” said Mazik. “I don’t like customers . People are fine, especially when they’re happy with me. That means they’re more likely to buy me drinks or listen to my bullshit stories.”
    Before the others could respond, Mazik pressed forward, keeping them on the back foot. “Look, this is extremely possible. I’ve even got a plan. Tell me—what would we need to become adventurers?”
    Gavi thought about it. “We’d need good armor and weapons, for starters. Oh, and good sense. We’d need to not have any of that.”
    “Training? We already know how to cast, but we’d probably need to practice fighting together,” said Raedren. “Though I guess we did get some of that in the service.”
    “I could probably use more training in general,” said Gavi. “I’m still not convinced I have any business being in this conversation.”
    “You’re more than good enough,” said Mazik. He waved them on. “Come on, what else?”
    The two of them thought for a while.
    “We’d need to know where to find the good quests,” said Raedren.
    Mazik pointed at Raedren energetically and nodded. “Right, right. And that means…?”
    “Oh. A guild,” said Gavi.
    Mazik pointed at her. “Right!” he said, and then his grin became wolfish. “And fortunately, I have a plan to get us into one.”
    “…I’m listening,” said Gavi carefully. It was beginning to dawn on her that this was the first time in a long time she had seen Mazik so excited, so alive . It was … interesting, what it did to him.
    “Most quests are offered to the guilds first, or are only open to guild adventurers, but not all of them,” said Mazik. “Some of the really small and really big ones are available for non-guild adventurers as well. Now the small ones are useless to us because they won’t impress the guilds, but the big ones…” Mazik paused, an evil grin sliding onto his face. “But the really big ones…”
    “Uh oh,” said Raedren.
    Mazik leaned forward conspiratorially. “There is one such quest available at the moment, a quest that anyone can attempt. And it’s a big one.”
    “The kidnappings,” said