Jason had spent the better part of an hour at Kaelen's table, listening to the reptile's endless boasting, laughing at his terrible jokes, and nodding along to stories that seemed to grow more exaggerated with every retelling. But beneath all the noise, he had been gathering information. Every word about dungeon layouts, monster behaviors, guild hierarchies, and reward systems—he filed it all away in the back of his mind.
He learned that the Crimson Depths dungeon was located three days east of Eldrath, buried beneath an abandoned mine. He learned that the top fifty guilds had access to exclusive quests that paid in gold bars instead of silver coins. He learned that the Velveteen Watch—Thalion's old guild—had once been ranked number twelve before they went dark.
Kaelen, for all his brawn, was surprisingly loose-lipped around someone who actually listened to him.
