“I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but you made a huge mistake here today. You’ll quickly come to regret your actions.” Said the Leader
“The rest of you worthless fools that are still alive come with me. We are leaving. The Leader took a contemptuous look around and walked straight for the door, motioning for his people to follow. The remainder of the crew looked around in confused wonderment before finally ducking their heads and shuffling out the door after him.
You have gained 125 experience in Unarmed for your fight with Alex (Level 10).
You have gained 125 experience in Unarmed for your fight with Jeremy (Level 10).
You have gained 75 experience in Swords for the death of Jeremy (Level 10).
You have gained 75 experience in Swords for the fight with Alex (Level 10).
You have gained 250 experience for the death of Jeremy (Level 10).
Arthur turned to look at Rowan, “You alright, anybody hurt?”
“Couple of bumps and bruises but nothing major,” said Rowan.
Arthur turned to look at Allendria and was surprised at what he saw. She seemed to have a mixture of impossible emotions on her face. It was a mixture of anger, resentment, and shame all at the same time.
“Are you alright, Allendria? Arthur asked her.
She seemed she seem to snap out of her bewilderment, “Yes, I shall be fine, just rather surprised is all.”
Arthur looked back at Rowan and was concerned at what he saw. He told Arthur he was going to be alright, but the look on his face told a different story. Arthur wasn’t sure what was wrong with his new friend, but it had him slightly concerned.
Arthur turned to Daniel, “I was hoping we would have more time before any of those goons showed up to give us any trouble.
Daniel seemed to snap out of his trance. He had been staring at the body of Jeremy, who Rowan killed.
“I can honestly say we were not expecting to see them back so soon. This gang was not one I’m familiar with. It must be one of the newer bands. Lord Golgara likes to rotate in newer members and dispose of older members consistently. It’s common practice for him. It helps make sure none of his goons live long enough to gain the power needed to oppose him.
“Well Daniel, I’m sorry to say, but I think our plans are going to have to accelerate. I know we’re nowhere near ready to start trying to oppose Golgara, but this is going to end up forcing the issue. I have no doubt these guys are going to disappear and come back with more help.” Arthur stated flatly.
Daniel sighed, “I imagine you are correct. That will not change the unfortunate truth that this village is nowhere near prepared enough to face them.”
“I do not doubt your words, Daniel. I haven’t even met most of the villagers yet and can tell you that’s true. How long do you think we have before they return?” Arthur asked.
Daniel stared at the ceiling in contemplation for a few moments. “That depends on where they have to travel to go get reinforcements. Even if they take a direct trip to the closest city of Seora, it’s going to take them two weeks to get there another two to get back. That is their nearest gang hall. It looks like we have a month’s worth of time to prepare.
Arthur breathed a small sigh of relief with that news. They could accomplish much in a month.
Arthur noticed that Daniel’s gaze went straight to Allendria and settled on her.
“Daniel, allow me to introduce you to Allendria. We had the fortune of running into her out in the forest today and ended up assisting her in dispatching some goblins. She agreed to accompany us back to the village to help assist me with some training. Would you have an available room she could use?”
Daniel looked increasingly uneasy as Arthur spoke, “Arthur, I understand you are new here, but I’m not sure you understand what this decision could do. Her presence here could cause a lot of trouble with the townsfolk.”
“Daniel, I honestly don’t care how the townspeople feel about it. I’m here to help the town when they don’t even help themselves, so far I’ve been the only one other than yourself, Rowan, and the mysterious Vana even remotely interested in turning this town around. The townspeople don’t have to like it, but they will have to get used to her being here for the time being.” Arthur told him sternly.
“All right, Arthur, that’s fine, I will trust your judgment. You haven’t led me wrong yet. I am sure I can find a room for her upstairs. There are plenty of available right now. As much as you’ve done to help the city so far anyway, it’s not like I’m out anything. Speaking of your trip to the forest, you find anything interesting while you were out?” Daniel asked with a gleam in his eye.
“We did run into a few things that would be useful to us. I have a deer carcass out there that we need to get inside and get it cut up before it gets too hot. Don’t want the meat to spoil from the heat. The rest of it I can fill you in on, but first, we need to try to get this mess cleaned up.” Arthur said as he gestured to the dead body on the floor.
“Allendria can you show Daniel out to our cart in the back so he can start getting the deer together and get it inside? I’ll work on this gentleman here on the ground.” Arthur asked.
“Daniel, do you have anywhere we can use as storage? We found a decent supply of different materials, and I’d like to get them stored and out of the way before anybody sees them.” Arthur said.
“Of course, I am sure we can find a suitable spot we can use. With the lack of travelers, there’s always extra room in the inn somewhere.”
Arthur turned to look at Rowan and saw that he had taken a seat at one of the nearby tables. He decided to give the man a little more time to himself and instead bent down to examine the body in front of him.
Most of the man’s gear was utter garbage, but there were a couple of pieces that caught Arthur’s eye.
Item:
Supple Leather Boots of Silence
Durability: 55/75
Rarity: Uncommon
Quality: Well Crafted
Weight: 0.8 kg
Slot: Feet
Traits: A pair of soft leather boots. These boots have the following effect:
● Reduces chance you will be detected in Stealth by 10%.
Item:
Basic Iron Dagger
Attack: 5-7
Durability: 40/50
Rarity: Common
Quality: Well Crafted
Weight: 0.8 kg
Slot: Main Hand/Off Hand
Traits: A dagger made of iron.
Arthur was rather excited to see the pair of boots. He hadn’t gotten the chance to replace any of the gear he had been wearing since he arrived here, and most of it was looking pretty shabby. His current boots had practically no padding, and it felt like walking around on bare dirt the whole time. Worst of all, they caused him to feel every tiny little rock and pebble in the ground as he walked. Hopefully, these new boots, with some padding in them, would alleviate some of that.
More than anything, Arthur just hoped they would fit him. The boots didn’t say anything about size, so it confused him. He removed the shoes off of the dead man’s feet as well as his old boots and slipped on the new boots. Initially, they were too large for his feet by almost a full size. After a moment, the shoes seemed to shrink and contour to his feet until they were comfortable and snug. One thing was sure, though. They were a lot more comfortable than his old boots.
The dagger was nothing overly special, but it would be an excellent addition to their Arsenal that they were slowly building up. If nothing else, they can always reuse the metal by reforging it into something else.
Blood was starting to pool on each side of the dead body, so Arthur decided it was time to get it out of here before it made too much of a mess. He grabbed both of the dead man’s arms and slowly started dragging him toward the door, but before he made it to the door, he stopped. Arthur couldn’t just pull a dead body of one of the Lord’s men out the front door. He didn’t want to alarm them too much yet. It
would take some extra time to get a plan together before springing that on them. Instead, he decided to turn and start pulling the body toward the back door.
Once out the back, he noticed that Daniel managed to pull the cart over to the back door as well. It appeared that Daniel was going to unload the cart directly through the back door and into whatever storage location he decided on.
Arthur turned to Daniel, “What should I do with the body? Is there a place somewhere nearby that they usually bury people? Do we have any tools that could help with that?”
“Well, there is a shovel that you can use, but quite honestly, I don’t know where we would even begin to bury that man. He isn’t part of the village in any way, so I wouldn’t want him buried with the rest of the villagers.” Daniel said.
“I may be of some assistance with that,” Allendria told him. “I would suggest that we take the body a little way out of town though to dispose of it.”
“If that’s the case, let me help you get that cart unloaded. Once we get all this put in the inn, Daniel can start working on the deer carcass, and Allendria, and I can take that body out of town on the cart.” Arthur said.
They quickly got to work unloading the cart. The looks of amazement on Daniel’s face as they removed items from the cart, was priceless. They made sure to set the ore off to the side in a pile of its own. That would have to be loaded back up and taken over to the forge for use. Daniel looked downright giddy with the different things they had unloaded.
“Daniel, you good to start on that deer now while we dispose of the body? I can come to help you when we finish up.” Arthur asked.
“Not a problem. I’ll have it taken care of in no time at all.” Daniel said with a grin.
Arthur and Allendria loaded up the cart with the dead body and covered it in a tarp. They slowly pushed the cart out from behind the inn and toward the road. They didn’t want to alarm anyone by acting odd, so they took the path out of town as usual. A couple of people did give them strange looks, but Arthur was pretty sure it was from seeing a Dark Elf and not from anything they were doing. They finally passed a small hill outside of town, and Allendria motioned for them to stop.
“This should be far enough out of town, and that small hill we just went over will block the view of us.” She said.
They both unloaded the man and set him on the ground.
“Can you move the cart away from him a little further? Don’t want to damage it in the process.” Allendria asked.
“Sure thing.”
Arthur moved the cart to a spot a little over ten yards away. He turned to face Allendria and waited. He had a fair idea of what she was going to do and was excited to see her magic in action finally.
Allendria looked down at the body and seemed to be concentrating somewhat hard. The pretty lines on her face were starting to harden, and creases were appearing on her brow. Arthur saw flames begin to envelop her hands, and then she moved both hands toward the dead man with her palms up. Flames started to flow toward the dead man from her hands. At first, it looked like the heat that radiated off of hot asphalt in the summer, just a distortion. It gradually turned into a stable yellow flame and then morphed into a bright orange as she fed it power. Arthur could see the sweat beading on the woman’s brow as she continued to fuel the flames. To Arthur’s amazement, the fire changed again. They were almost hot enough to be the pure blue and white combo seen in a cutting torch.
Allendria had started to sway and looked like she might collapse. Arthur had started in her direction so he could catch her if needed. Before he made it there, the flames abruptly died. Allendria looked up with an expression equally pleased and a bit disgusted. Arthur looked toward the spot and saw nothing but ash. The bones disintegrated, as well.
“Are you alright?” Arthur asked.
“I will be fine. That almost drained me dry. I was able to learn a new spell, though. I’ve never needed to incinerate anything before. I was worried for a moment that I wouldn’t be able to finish the spell before I ran out of mana.”
“That is amazing. I know the situation wasn’t ideal, but at least you were able to learn a spell.”
“It was the least I could do since you and Rowan stood up for me in the inn. I didn’t want to use my magic unless necessary, though. It tends to scare people when they see it. Especially those who are not familiar with magic.” Allendria told him.
“I suppose I can understand that. It was rather amazing to watch, but I grew up fascinated by tales of things like that, so seeing it in person was simply breathtaking. That would be amazing to be able to do.”
Allendria cocked her head a bit and looked at him. “I swear you become odder the longer I talk with you. You have not seen any magic before, have you? Not only that, but none of it bothers you. Typically those not familiar with magic are scared of it.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that with me. I imagine I’ll be fascinated with magic for a while to come.” Arthur told her as he approached. He noticed Allendria’s breathing had slowed back to an average pace, and the sweat was quickly disappearing. “I do appreciate your help with this, though. Not sure how else we would have easily disposed of the body. We could have buried it in a random place in the forest, but that would cause even more problems. That and I didn’t fancy needing to dig a hole, so this worked out great.”
“I am glad I could help, and I just wanted to say thank you as well. No one has ever stood up for me like that before, and quite honestly, the last person I ever expected to do it was a human. I am happy that I decided to come with you so far. Now, if we can get you a bit more knowledge into magic, it would be even better.”
“Well, I am sorry to say I think we just lost a lot of time. I had originally hoped not to see any of the local enforcers for a couple of months, but this has just drastically decreased the time we have. I can still hope they will come back with only a small group hoping to deal with just the three of us. That will give us a good chance of making it through the fight without too much trouble. I want to prepare for the worst-case scenario, though. I want us to spend the next few weeks strengthening this place so it can withstand an assault from at least thirty.”
“You keep saying you want to prepare this place, but from what I can see, the process hasn’t even really started, much less is anything done. How do you intend to get anything accomplished here?”
“Well, we can try and come up with a good plan back at the inn with the others, but the gist of it will be to get this city fed, get the buy-in of the villagers, and get to crafting what we need. I think if we can get that started, it will greatly improve our odds and give us a place to start from.” Arthur told her confidently.
“Let’s get to the inn and get this figured out then,” Allendria told him.
Chapter 16
Planning for a Confrontation
Arthur and Allendria returned to the inn and parked the cart in the back. Arthur entered to a pandemic scene of comedy. Rowan and Daniel were both in, what appeared to be, a colorful argument about the butchering of the deer.
“Are you out of your damn mind? You have to cut the muscles away from the bones. I’ll keep some of the bones for stock, but we aren’t cutting steaks and chops with these.” Said Daniel.
“I thought you were an innkeeper? What innkeeper doesn’t know the meaning of a good steak? A true steak needs a little bone for flavor. There are some exceptions to that, but not the point. You must be a cut-rate innkeeper who makes stew and roast,” retorted Rowan.
“How dare you question my cooking abilities? You haven’t been here long enough to judge anything, and the few times you have come in here, we never had much of a selection for me to work with. I’m the one cooking this food, so I will dictate how it is cut.” Huffed Daniel.
Arthur decided enough was enough. “That’s enough of this conversation. Let’s put a foot down here and settle this before it goes any farther. Daniel is the one who will decide how it is cut and prepared since he will b
e cooking it.” Arthur waved away Rowan’s objections when he opened his mouth to talk. “I am not questioning your judgment or skills, Rowan. I am sure it is a sound plan, but Daniel also has more experience in stretching food to feed as many as possible. For now, we are trying to feed the most possible with what little we have and not trying to get the best cuts of steaks.”
“I can promise you as we get more supplies, we can shift focus on the types of meat we prepare. Until then, let’s stick with what feeds the most.” Arthur said. His eyes swept back and forth between Daniel and Rowan.
“How much is left to complete, Daniel?” Arthur asked.
“We are almost done. We are each working on a front shoulder, and everything else has already been cut up and salted as necessary. Let us finish this real quick, and we can meet in the inn. I sent a message over to Dalia to join us over here.” Daniel told him.
“Allendria and I will wait for you two upfront then,” Arthur said as he and Allendria walked forward through the doorway and toward the front of the inn. They continued down the small hall and turned into the main dining room. Arthur was shocked to see that Dalia had already arrived. He supposed it shouldn’t be a big surprise since it wasn’t a large town and it was a relatively quick trip to her house and back.
“Good evening Dalia, I’d like to introduce you to my friend Allendria,” Arthur said as he motioned to Allendria at his side. “Allendria, this is Lady Dalia Flamekissed.”
Dalia looked at Allendria, and a palpable tension settled over the room. Arthur could see the hormones swirling in the air between them at their contest of feminine wiles. After a few tense moments of silence, Dalia had the grace to stand and face Allendria. She extended her hand in greeting and said, “Pleased to meet you, Allendria.” She said as she gave Arthur a sidelong glance that told him he needed to explain what was happening.
“A pleasure to meet you as well.” Said Allendria as she took Dalia’s hand in a quick shake. Arthur swore he saw sparks erupt between the two but chalked it up to the imagination.
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