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Minho sighed as he approached the quest board for the third time that day. It wasn't as if he fully expected anything to have changed in the meantime, but he was bored and didn't have anything better to do.
It was all still the standard fare: escort missions, fetch quests, the occasional request to bring down some large monster terrorizing some bit of countryside or other. Most of them were either a waste of his time or something he wouldn't be able to accomplish on his own. He almost regretted, not for the first time, that he had never bothered getting to know anyone in the adventuring guild better so that he might tag along on a quest or two. He didn't want to ask perfect strangers, and they weren't likely to ask him, either.
So, he was stuck with what few mundane options there were. He was just reaching up to yank down a request for aid with a scorpion infestation when he heard a chittering noise and then felt the weight of something trying to climb up his ankle.
Minho looked down. There was a squirrel clinging to his pants. What the hell was a squirrel even doing inside the guild hall in the first place?
He was debating the possibilities of it being a familiar when a nearby voice shouted, "Has anyone seen Acorn?"
Well, that certainly sounded like an appropriate name for a squirrel. He casually glanced around the room and noted a human man frantically searching for something. Odds were good that this was both who had spoken and the squirrel's owner.
Minho lifted his leg where the squirrel still clung to his ankle. "Hey," he said, trying to catch the other's attention. "This yours?"
The human spun around to face him, blinked, then gasped and ran over. "Acorn! There you are!" He carefully removed the squirrel's tiny claws from the fabric of Minho's pants. Minho put his leg back down. "Why'd you run off like that? You had me worried sick!" The man was checking the squirrel from every angle now, as if assessing for injury.
Finally, he turned his attention to Minho. "Uh, thanks for finding him. Sorry about that."
Minho shrugged. He hadn't found the squirrel, not really, but there wasn't really a point in correcting him.
Then it seemed like the man really looked at Minho, taking in all the details--pointed ears, reddish eyes, slightly sharpened teeth. Minho waited for the inevitable commentary he received when someone realized that he was a dhampir.
He could pinpoint the moment it hit. The human's eyes widened, and he looked back and forth quickly between his squirrel and Minho with a scandalized look on his face. "Were you... were you going to eat Acorn?!"
Minho sighed and rolled his eyes. "Ok, first off, I don't even drink blood, and it's offensive that that's your first thought. Second, even if I did, your little tree rat isn't even big enough to make a decent snack, so why would I go out of my way?"
The man gasped again and moved one of his hands as if to cover the squirrel's ears. "He's not a tree rat! How rude! And he's not that small! He's a perfectly average sized squirrel, thank you very much! He's probably very tasty, even!" He paused, seemed to realize what he'd said, and blushed. "Not that I want him to be eaten, but you know what I mean!"
"I mean, you could give him a little nibble and test it for yourself," Minho said. He wasn't sure why he felt the need to provoke this guy, other than it was entertaining and he was still bored. He wasn't in that much of a hurry to go deal with scorpions.
The human sputtered and stumbled over his words until he finally settled on, "No one is eating Acorn!" The squirrel chittered, seemingly in agreement.
"If you say so."
The guy actually came up and poked Minho squarely in the chest. "Just because you're pretty doesn't mean you can get away with being rude."
Minho smirked. "You think I'm pretty?"
Cue the human beginning to stumble over his words once again. Yea, this was definitely more fun than dealing with some scorpions.
A voice piped up from across the room. "Yah, Jisung! We're getting ready to leave! Come on!"
The human that Minho was currently enjoying torturing--Jisung, he supposed--spun in the direction of the voice and waved an arm. "Be there in a sec!" he called out, then turned back to Minho. "That's my party. I gotta go." He seemed to hesitate, looking down at the ground. "I mean, unless you wanna come with us? I don't know if you're busy or if you have your own party or anything like that..."
Minho shrugged. "No party. No one ever asks."
"Well, I'm asking. So come on." Jisung grabbed Minho by the wrist and dragged him along.
This was unexpected. He hadn't even given Minho an opportunity to reject the offer if he'd wanted to. Not that he'd really been planning to reject it anyway--bigger parties generally meant bigger payouts than going solo, even if it also meant more danger. And Minho was getting pretty tired of doing the simple jobs over and over and over again. Maybe this might actually be a real test of his skills, for once.
It didn't matter that he didn't even know what the job was yet. Or how big the party was. He would probably find some way to co-exist with them, right? He could bring a lot of potential to the group, even without knowing their own capabilities. They'd find space for him.
Right?
Or they could take one look at him and reach the same assumption that Jisung had, that he would bite them in their sleep or something. Minho had never and would never feed from someone without express permission, but they wouldn't have any cause to know that. People just tended to jump to the same stereotypical conclusions that dhampirs were just as bad as vampires, as if they had no sense of morality.
Just another one of the many reasons Minho tended to go adventuring on his own.
But now here he was, with Jisung physically dragging him over to meet his party of however many people, with seemingly no fear that he was going to be attacked at any given point. He had been afraid for his squirrel's life, but not his own. Interesting.
"Sorry for the wait, guys!" Jisung said when they finally approached. Six others stood huddled in a loose group--already a huge number, as far as adventuring parties were concerned. Jisung and himself would make eight total. Assuming they weren't absolute novices, they could probably deal with quite a few different challenges.
He was also pleased to note that they had a nice blend of species in their group; he had half expected mostly humans. But there were only three, including Jisung: one was buffer and shorter than the rest, and the other had a discreet holy symbol hanging from his belt. One, standing a little further apart from the group, but clearly still included, had pointier ears that made Minho assume he was probably half-elven. There was a tiefling with pale skin, bright red hair, and elaborately decorated horns. One of them looked more or less human, but he had freckles that glowed slightly and that didn't seem like a very human thing to Minho. And the last was some sort of canine-adjacent shifter decked out in full plate armor.
The shifter spoke up in response to Jisung. "'bout time! Who's your friend?"
Jisung smiled. "This is.... uh," he glanced over at Minho. "What's your name?"
"Minho."
"Minho!" Jisung repeated. "We met over by the quest board. He doesn't have a party so I invited him to come with us, if that's ok?"
The shifter nodded. "Sure! The more, the merrier!" He stuck out a hand, which Minho shook. "I'm Chan, nice to meet you. I kinda started this group."
Minho had no response to that, so he said nothing.
"Well, if you wanna grab your gear or anything, we can wait a little longer for you."
Minho shrugged. "Don't need to. It's all right here." He held up a small bag strapped to his side.
Jisung stared at him. The squirrel, now sitting on his shoulder, also seemed to stare at him. "That's it? No armor, no weapons?"
Minho shrugged again.
"Alright, your funeral..." Jisung mumbled.
"Don't say that, Sungie, I'm sure he's perfectly capable." Chan smiled. "Sorry about him. It's almost like someone thinks he's better than everyone else sometimes."
Jisung proceeded to have a muted conversation with the squirrel. The others reacted as if this was a normal occurrence.
There was a quick round of introductions, which Minho promptly forgot because of all the overlapping voices and resolved to figure out later. Then everyone was gathering their things and heading out the door of the guild hall.
Conversation was lively. Minho stood at the back of the group and just watched how they interacted with each other. Who stood close to whom, who talked more, who talked louder, that sort of thing. He hadn't even asked what the job was yet, but it didn't matter. Anything was better than scorpions.
Jisung looked over his shoulder, then reached back and grabbed for Minho's hand. "Come on, don't fall behind," he said.
Minho accepted the hand and let himself be led along. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.