1 A Lowly Porter

"Keep up, you worthless mongrel!" shouted a mage to Alex.

Alex huffed and puffed as he trudged his mud caked boots uphill, straining to keep up with the group of robed magi ahead of him.

On his back was an enormous pack specialized for carrying mage weapons and tools with pockets for wands and staffs, hooks to carry detonatable mana crystals, and, of course, space for general survival stuff like water bottles and food.

"I'm…trying," muttered Alex. The pack must have weighed close to forty kilograms, and he had been acting as a porter for these mages for the past two hours now.

"Try harder!" the mage growled from the top of the hill. "The boss room is right ahead of us. We need our supplies!"

The mage thrusted a finger towards Alex and looked to the other mages in the group with a shake of his head. "Absolutely pathetic. Why are we relying on a Dud like him?"

'Because all of you are low ranking mages in a low-ranking Rift with no money to afford proper porters' was what Alex wanted to say, but he just gritted his teeth and let it go. Speaking up would only cause more trouble.

Dud.

A word Alex had heard many, many times throughout his life as someone who possessed no mana in a world where mages had become a near norm.

He especially heard it now that he had tried to go into the business of Rifting, clearing out Rifts – pockets of space where monsters and environments from legends bygone appeared - of danger for money and fame.

Most of the time, proper Guilds fielded high end mages to clear Rifts, and the porters there were their disciples who were also capable mages in their own right, acting like a backup force in case something went wrong.

But in cases like this, where a group of no name mages too lowly to get hired by even the weakest guilds gathered, they had to rely on people desperate for cash and without any magical talent like Alex.

The desperate flocked to the desperate. Guess it was true that misery did love company.

Alex made his way up to the top of the hill and went down to his knees, sweat pouring out from his forehead and pattering on the overgrown grass below.

He felt himself almost knocked around as the mages around him started to tear into his pack like hungry vultures, taking mana crystals to charge themselves, replacing broken weapons, getting their summoning stones for their familiars, and so on.

All without caring that Alex was beneath them because both figuratively and literally, they thought him beneath them.

As Alex barely held on balance, buffeted this way and that like he was in the middle of a hurricane, he thought about why he wanted to do this.

Why he endured so much abuse to be a porter.

Why he was crazy enough to try and go into Rifts with no mana.

People cleared Rifts for fame and money.

The fame, he could do without, but the money, he desperately needed.

Without it, he could never afford to pay for his sister's treatment. She would fade away in her coma never knowing. Never knowing how-

"Get up." A pair of hands grabbed Alex's shoulders and roughly stood him up. Thankfully, the pack was much lighter now. He looked at the group of mages in front of him.

Six of them. All of them dressed in differently colored robes, some of them wearing rings and wielding staffs or wands. The mage that had shouted at Alex before was the one grabbing him.

The man was tall, gaunt, and his hooded head scanned Alex up and down with thin, suspicious eyes. He had a faint accent that Alex could roughly place as Eastern European.

"What is it now?" said Alex weakly.

"Take off your clothes. Show us you're not hiding any loot. Manaless rat like you carrying for mages like us, you probably want to steal from us, don't you? I wasn't born yesterday. I've heard of this happening."

Alex sighed.

Why were all mages like this? So stuck up, so presumptuous?

No, Alex knew why. They had this attitude against him because of one difference: they had mana and he did not.

"Stop it, Ivan," said another mage. He grabbed Ivan by the shoulder and pulled him back, prying the mage off of Alex.

Finally, some kindness, thought Alex.

The new mage gestured at Alex and smiled. He had typical good-looking features. Chiseled and sharp. And eyes that showed not even a single hint of genuine compassion. They glanced back at the other mages, specifically eyeing the two women in the group.

"Mule here is well known in the east coast Rifter community," said the mage. "An honest porter, he is. Puts in twice the work for half the money because he's a Dud. He won't be cheating us, or else he loses his rep, and without it, nobody will ever hire him again.

So, let's cut him some slack. Show a little kindness to the poor, and maybe karma treats you well later, right?"

The mage flashed a bright white smile to Alex, and then back to the women, trying to show that he probably was 'not like other the other guys'.

Mule. That was Alex's nickname in the Rifter community. So called because of his diligent pack carrying.

He almost spat at the ground. He did not want to carry stuff for other mages. He wanted to fight and make real money and take real loot.

But what could he do?

Alex looked down at his hands. They were bandaged up in wrist wraps meant for fist fighting.

Magical bandages that boosted strength minutely. This was the only thing his mother had bequeathed him when she had been killed Rifting herself almost five years ago. A magical item worth barely nothing.

Maybe a hundred dollars at best where even remotely useful magical items sold for thousands.

That, along with barely enough money to keep afloat.

He had always wondered why she could never have left behind something more for her two children, where she could have spent all the money she had made, especially when they were all alone with a deadbeat dad who had never been part of their lives, but he had swallowed down his bitterness and gotten to work.

It was well known that Rift creatures could not be killed without magical weapons.

The bandages counted as magical weapons even if they were basically useless, so he thought that even without mana, if he trained his body enough, he could get strong enough to be a proper Rifter.

A stupid pipe dream.

With no mana, no sane team of Rifters would ever accept him.

Guild regulations would never let him be anything more than a porter.

He was reduced to using the tiny strength boost from the wrist wraps to help him carry packs.

This was all he could do to make money, because at the least it made more than a minimum wage job, and with only a high school degree, he could not hope to get any other job.

Ivan glared at Alex. "Good point. I still do not like dirtying myself in his presence, but so be it."

"Enough arguing. The boss room is right ahead of us. This may only be a Grade 5 dungeon, but we still have to keep our cool for a boss," said the mage at the head, a shorter, older man with distinctively thick moustache and round glasses.

A man Alex knew as Tom Gunnarson, though beyond the name, Alex had barely spoken to the man, nor had he ever wanted to speak to Alex.

Alex had carried for the mage before, and he was not so bad, comparatively speaking.

Tom basically ignored Alex's existence, treating him like a walking suitcase, but at least there were no insults. This was the best treatment Alex could ever hope for.

Alex looked ahead at the boss room. The Rift they were in manifested as a tiny pocket dimension filled with forestland.

There were only weak creatures here like wolves and goblins, and the mages, all of them ranking around 1-2 stars, could easily dispatch nuisance monsters with fireballs, shards of ice, gales of cutting wind, and the like.

But the boss room, a set of large stone double doors inlaid in the side of a rocky hill, would be more of a challenge. An ancient air emanated from the doors, vines overgrown across their surface and obscuring much of the patterns carved into them.

Patterns of weapons.

Swords, spears, shields, axes, and so on.

Nothing too out of the ordinary for Rifts.

Rifts seemingly held miscellaneous objects and creatures from mythologies of all cultures and varying points of time, so it was not unusual to see a magical sword embedded in a random tree by some ancient warrior from ages past, a shield dropped in the grass, or even a door like this.

In fact, this indicated that there was probably good loot within. Not just raw materials, but actually crafted items that could be used or sold for a pretty penny.

"Double check the mana levels," said one of the mages as she eyed the doors and licked her lips in palpable greed.

Another mage tapped a wooden staff to the doors and nodded. "Grade 5. Nothing out of the ordinary. Probably a Hobgoblin inside, judging by how many goblins we've dispelled so far."

Alex sighed and sat down by his nearly empty pack, grabbing a water bottle out of it.

He knew the drill. He would sit outside the boss room until the mages were done blowing up whatever sorry creature was within, and then they would get out as the Rift collapsed without the boss to support its existence.

Then they would take everything precious inside and give Alex the tiniest cut possible, arguing down his contributions until he came out with pennies comparatively.

"Good. Then it is time to hunt!" Ivan smiled eagerly as he pressed his hands into the double stone doors, causing them to slide inwards.

But as the doors broke open, darkness flooded out, engulfing everyone.