“We just think that you aren’t a good fit for the team.”

Andra von Ekko’s heart sank. She shifted on her uncomfortable wooden chair and shot a glare at the three people across the table. It was a quiet morning and the only other sound in the Adventurer’s Guild common room was a mage seated in the far corner turning a page in her book.

“You’ve worked, what, six or seven jobs with us now?” asked Friedrich, the team’s fencer, a slender blond man whose immaculate mustache was suddenly the most annoying thing in the world to Andra.

“Seven,” Andra replied, trying very hard not to pout. “Is this about the thing with that renegade mage’s pet owlbear? I told you, I thought it was asleep.”

“Its eyes were—” Friedrich paused, taking a deep breath. “Look, I’m just going to ask directly. When you registered with the Guild, did you randomly sign up as a thief?”

Andra could feel her face heating. Her sadness was quickly turning to anger. “Of course not,” she replied sharply. It was true enough. She had known that she would thrive in any role, but she had chosen thief because it was clearly the best one. Thieves could take whatever they wanted, after all.

“It’s just that you don’t seem to actually know anything about thievery,” said Aleph, the team’s mage and a bitter, wrinkled man who was perpetually frustrated with his inability to forge a strong reputation in all of his years of adventuring. “I mean, look at the way you’re dressed.”

“What? I wore black this time,” Andra replied.

“Yes, but you’re also wearing an awful lot of frills and lace,” Aleph explained. “It isn’t the most practical outfit for stealing.”

“I don’t see any problem with looking my best while adventuring,” Andra shot back.

The team’s final member, Bessen, was giving Aleph an incredulous look. She was another fighter, an enormous woman who Andra suspected had some orc ancestry. Her huge battleaxe was currently propped against the table.

“We, uh, didn’t really discuss your fashion choices when we were planning out this conversation,” she said hesitantly, “but you haven’t exactly demonstrated a lot of talent as a thief.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve succeeded every single time you asked me to do thief stuff.”

“What about when we were hired to recover that stolen figurine?” asked Friedrich.

“Yeah, I got it back,” Andra replied.

“You burned down the mansion it was in!”

“It wasn’t flammable! Finding it in the remains was much easier than sneaking around would have been.”

“What about when we were trying to ambush those goblins?” Aleph added. “You just marched out into the open and announced our intention to fight them.”

“And I’ve never seen a goblin so surprised! Also, we beat them, didn’t we?”

“You tricked me into opening that trapped chest!” Bessen said accusingly.

“Setting off the trap was the easiest way to disarm it. And you’re the toughest.”

“Look, this just isn’t how it’s supposed to be done,” said Friedrich. “Thieves are supposed to be subtle, sneaky, and quiet. And you’re none of those things.”

Embarrassment fought with frustration in Andra’s mind as she absorbed this. Frustration won. “You know what I think? If anything went wrong on our past jobs, it was because the three of you couldn’t keep up with me. You’ve been holding me back this entire time.”

She stood. “You’re worthless! You’re annoying! Aleph can barely even conjure enough fire to light a candle. Friedrich has broken like five different swords this month. And Bessen is more interested in playing with her friends than in actually finding a job.”

“Training,” Bessen said quietly, but Andra kept plowing ahead.

“I could do so much better without you. Why am I wasting my time hanging out with you wash-ups when I should be working big jobs? I am done with you three.”

She started to storm off, then paused at the door for one final word, “And a four-person party with two fighters is a stupid idea!” then left the room.

She made her way to the bathroom where she sank to her knees against the polished stone wall and cried for a few minutes. How was she going to keep going as a solo adventurer? These days, everyone wanted teams. A solo mage could always leave the Guild and start teaching. A priestess could return to her temple. But a thief’s only other option was to join the secret Thieves’ Guild, and Andra flat-out refused to associate with those low-lifes. She would sooner go crawling back to her wretched family.

She could try to join another team, but none of the idiots in this Guild seemed able to perceive her greatness. Like her former teammates, they sneered at her techniques and mocked her when they thought she wasn’t listening. The only other possibility was to try to start her own team. But that would mean joining up with unsigned adventurers, and those were usually the absolute dregs of the Guild. Of course, Andra realized, she really just needed them around so that she could get jobs. As long as they could follow orders, she could take care of the actual work, and once she had made a name for herself she could ditch them and join a real party.

But who to recruit? Andra remembered hearing that Fiona Atalan had recently been dropped by her party. If she was going to form her own, she might as well at least try to find worthwhile allies. Resolved, Andra wiped her tears, puffed her well-tailored sleeves, and stepped out of the bathroom, heading for the dorms.

As luck would have it, she didn’t have to go that far as she caught sight of Fiona in the training yard—if you could call the tetanus-ridden playground that—swinging a practice sword at a training dummy. There was an effortless beauty about her that was rare among fighters. If Bessen looked like she belonged covered in furs and huddled by a fire in a snowy wasteland, then Fiona looked like she belonged in a chainmail bikini fighting a dragon. Unfortunately, she was wearing a shirt and breeches that looked like they had been tailored for a man. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing multiple battle scars on her arms. Those, coupled with her immense height and muscles, made her an intimidating figure, leaving Andra to wonder why she didn’t last long on teams. She also had a pair of cat-like ears, an earring in one, a cut in the other. Part fairy, most likely. Maybe part demon.

“Fiona!” Andra called out as she got close.

Fiona yelped in surprise, dropping her sword. She spun to face Andra.

“Oh! Sorry. A-Andra, right?” she stammered.

“Yep! Meet me in the common room. I’m starting a new party,” said Andra, then she turned and walked off, leaving the confused Fiona behind.

She would need more than one person, so she continued to the dorm. Surely there would be a loser or two she could grab there. As luck would have it, as soon as she entered the building expletive-marred shouting echoed off the stone and timber walls and assaulted her ears.

“Fine! Drop me! We’ll see how you handle a job with no healer!”

A group of adventurers rounded the corner and brushed past Andra; one of them paused to shout back: “We’ve been working without a healer since you joined!” then continued out the door.

This was perfect! Andra followed the voice to its source. Around the corner she met the gaze of Kaylen Arac, standing in the hallway looking furious. She was a slender girl with tightly curled hair and dressed in the red and white vestments of whatever god she worshiped. Andra didn’t bother to keep track of which god was which.

“Would you believe that? I find a job and come all the way down here from the temple to tell them about it, only to have them kick me out of the party and take the job anyway,” Kaylen said with a groan of frustration.

“Believe it or not,” Andra replied, puffing her chest out slightly; “today’s actually your lucky day because those losers were nothing compared to the party you’re about to join. My party.”

Kaylen blinked. “You’re starting your own party? What, did you just get kicked out of yours and now you’re starting your own because you know no one else will take you?”

Andra could feel her face heating. “Just come to the common room, okay?”

Reluctantly, Kaylen followed Andra to the commons where the pair joined the bewildered-looking Fiona at a table.

Leaning back, Andra sized up her recruits. Fiona, apparently trying to rub a smudge out of her blade, had nicked her thumb. Kaylen, seeing Fiona’s now-bleeding thumb, frowned and gazed longingly at the door. 

Why weren’t they more excited? “Alright, any ideas of who could be the fourth member of our party?” Andra asked.

“Wait, is that what we’re doing?” asked Fiona.

Andra sighed heavily. “Yes, Fiona. What else would we be doing?”

Fiona winced, her ears folding down, a strange gesture from such a powerful-looking woman. “Sorry.”

“Hold on, I never said I’d join,” said Kaylen. “You don’t exactly have the best reputation around here.”

Andra rolled her eyes. “Your reputation isn’t any better. And at least you deserve what they call you, Kaylen the Fool.”

“I’d rather be Kaylen the Fool than Andra the Narcissist!” Kaylen shot back

“Uh…” said Fiona.

“You really are a fool if you don’t see what an opportunity this is. All you have to do is whatever I tell you, or are you so dumb you can’t even do that?” Andra shouted, leaning forward and causing her chair to slam down with a loud thud that punctuated her anger.

“I’m smart enough not to join a team with you and Fiona the Coward!”

“Um…” said Fiona.

Both of the others turned to face her. “What?” they shouted in unison.

“Sorry! Um…” Fiona pointed and the two followed her gaze to find another girl standing at the table. She was short and pale and dressed all in black with way too much eyeliner. A small pair of spectacles sat on her nose.

“What is it, Raven?” asked Andra, her voice dripping with irritation.

“It’s Riven, actually. Riven Circe,” the girl replied. “Did you say you were forming a new party?”

“Not with you,” Andra said firmly.

“Not with me, either,” added Kaylen, looking away from the other two which unfortunately meant staring directly at the increasingly-nervous Fiona.

Riven’s expression sank. “Too bad. I think the four of us have just about the worst reputations in the entire Guild. It would really be something if we joined up and discovered that we work together much better than we ever did with any of our old teams.”

Kaylen’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t think of it like that, but you’re right. We could discover that our flaws somehow balance each other perfectly and that together we’re the best party in the entire Guild. You know what? I’m in!”

Riven leaned close to Andra. “You have to know how to talk to her," she whispered.

“Hold on,” Andra said. “It’s one thing for me to team up with these two idiots, but there’s no way I’m working with Raven the Traitor.”

“It’s Riven, actually,” Riven repeated, carefully enunciating the name. “Riven the Traitor.”

“Well, if Riven’s not on the team, then neither am I,” said Kaylen.

Andra stared at Kaylen for a moment, trying to understand what she was thinking. “She’s betrayed her last three teams.”

“‘Betrayed’ is a strong word,” Riven interjected.

Andra slammed a hand onto the table. “Lina is still stuck at Giant’s Peak. Did you know one of them adopted her?”

Riven folded her hands politely. “I did not.”

“We need four people for a team,” Kaylen said, once again over Riven.

She wasn’t wrong. People expected a party to have four adventurers. No one would hire a party of three. “So? We can find someone else.”

“No, it has to be the four worst people in the Guild,” Kaylen explained. “That’s how it works in the stories. No one tells stories about three terrible adventurers and one pretty good one who start working together and find they balance each other perfectly.”

Andra blinked at her. “Are you talking about the trash they sell next to the cashier at the grocery store?”

Kaylen gave her a haughty look. “You mean the brilliant works of modern literature they sell next to the cashier at the grocery store.”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Andra could see on Kaylen’s face that she wouldn’t budge. It was either accept Riven or try to find two more unsigned adventurers. Stories of Riven’s betrayals were always muddled at best, but they didn’t happen on every job and she had never actually killed any of her allies. Rather, it seemed that occasionally, when facing down an evil witch or scheming alchemist, Riven would suddenly turn against her teammates and attack them, usually leading to confused chaos until the team managed to defeat their opponent or flee. Riven would then show up at the Guild the next day as if nothing had happened. Andra sighed heavily again. As long as she knew to keep an eye on Riven, it would be alright, wouldn’t it?

“Fine. But, Raven, you had better do exactly as I tell you and no betrayals.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Riven replied mischievously. Andra did not find it reassuring.

She stood up once more and re-puffed her sleeves. “Alright, let’s go register with the office.”

She stood and marched off, the others in tow.

“I never actually said I would join,” Fiona said weakly. 

Nobody heard her.