Chapter 23: Isekai Life & Planning Session

“I don’t understand. A... parradin?”

“Um,” I said, scratching my cheek, “Try this- make an ‘r’ sound, like you’re growling, and them tap your tongue on the roof of your mouth.”

“Rrrrrlllllrrrrrlllllrrrrrlllll....”

“See, you’re got it! That’s how you make an ‘L’ Sound.”

“...Palradin?”

I smiled. “Well, it’s a start.”

She looked puzzled. “What’s significant about a ‘palradin’?”

“Well, it’s like you said, it’s a difficult path to walk,” I replied, “That’s what makes it special, there’s maybe one paladin per every one thousand regular warriors.”

That seemed about right- although we had only two or maybe three fighters in our core party, we’ve met hundreds through city guards, knights, friends and allies like Shire-Reeve Estrid and Lord-Knight Hawkins. Well, maybe not hundreds, but there were a great many of them.

The paladin class also had some of the harshest requirements in order to join. No wonder Yua was filling out so well- with her quiet and reserved personality she would have to be gorgeous in order to justify that minimum Charisma of 17.

It also required the character to follow some pretty strict requirements, including only owning so many magic items and tithing a great deal of coin to their temple. I suppose that Sixfold Way she was talking about was some kind of code of honour, and she only “owned” the one magic sword that I gave to her, but I don’t know how we were going to tithe on her behalf....

“Yes, I suppose that makes sense,” she replied quietly, breaking my train of thought, “The way of the warrior-monk is difficult and challenging to tread, and most fail. But... I don’t know if they are truly the same.”

“How so?”

Before Yua could answer, there was a sharp knock at the door. Raszil’s voice filtered in from the hallway, sounding annoyed. “Hey, Theodore, I know you’re buried face-deep in your new girl, but didn’t you want us to get your last one back?”

I sighed, and looked over to Yua. “We’re needed downstairs,” I told her in her own tongue. She flushed with embarassment, and I hastily added, “Uh, don’t worry, I don’t think that he thinks you slept with me.”

I tried to hide it, but I was wincing internally. Making a habit of lying to a paladin like this couldn’t end well.

Yua seemed to accept it nonetheless, and we headed downstairs together. Voss and Raszil were silent, and as soon as I didn’t have Yua to distract me, I returned to my gloom. Calliope was gone, her body being flown to a strange city on the other side of the Lakelands, and there was a chance that she’d be dead for good, all thanks to my stupid mistake. The bread, formerly a tasty, flaky treat, tastes dull in my mouth.

It had occurred to be, with a growing feeling of dread sliding into my gut like an icy knife, that because Ashryn could not pinpoint how Calliope fit in with her prophecy, Calliope might not be coming back at all. Surely, Corgiel or Dog or whoever was in charge of this roll hadn’t already determined Calliope’s resurrection chance result... could they?

I barely noticed Ina sliding into the room, dusting her hands off on her apron. “The bath is ready, if you’d all like to partake.”

“Oh, don’t mind if I do,” Raszil said immediately, hopping up from his oversized (for him) chair.

To try an distract myself from the gloom that came over me, I busied myself with copying Stinking Cloud from Calliope’s new spellbook to mine. Properly copying all the glyphs and diagrams could take a very long time, and, well, if Calliope got raised successfully, I’d have to make sure to return her spellbook before she found out....

Before I knew it, Voss clapped me on the shoulder.

“Hey, Theodore, the bath’s yours,” he said, his skin flushed with a fresh scrubbing, “Even Yua’s gone through.”

I shook my head. “No, thank you,” I replied as I tucked my spellbooks away in my pack, “Moruca and Haseth are probably already waiting for us, we should get moving.”

“Alright, sure,” Voss said, sounding concerned, but I brushed it off. Despite the chance of Calliope failing her resurrection roll, I wouldn’t get her back at all if I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain and help Haseth get back whatever the goblins stole from the elves.

When the four of us arrived at the reeve’s office, Moruca was already waiting for us. Haseth was still locked in his cell, but when he saw me walk in, he unlocked the bars and hurried over to where we were gathering around the desk. I fetched the map that Ricard had supplied us with what seemed like ages ago, and spread it out so everyone could see.

“So, for this operation, we will be be attacking the goblins in their lair,” I said, as I put out heavy objects- my spellbook, Calliope’s dagger, etc- to weight down the four corners of the map. “We have four objectives. One, find the item that the goblins stole from the elves, and complete Haseth’s mission. Equal to that is our own mission- defeat the goblins and destroy their nest, to make the area safe for the local farmers again. If we can safely do so, freeing the captured goblins slaves so they can help us is objective number three. Fourth, goblins have been known to accumulate enchanted objects and treasure, and even if we fail all three of our other objectives, raiding their treasure horde could help us prepare for another foray.”

Raszil barked a laugh from where he was standing on the office’s only chair. “Just like an adventurer to think of treasure in all situations. Oh, don’t give me that look, Voss, he’s right, besides, I wouldn’t mind getting paid one of these days.”

I looked across the map at the elven soldier. “So, where are we headed to?”

Haseth glanced about the map for a moment, to get his bearings, and then tapped the fortress that was sitting on the coast. “This is where they’re hiding. It used to be a tower overlooking the harbour used by the hill dwarves, centuries ago, but the harbour has long washed away. The tower has half fallen into the ocean from disrepair, but it’s still solid enough. We suspected that the slave labour was being used to repair it.”

Moruca snorted. Just as she suspected, the goblins were holed up there. I shoulder have been more certain- it was the only place around that looked like it could be a dungeon.

“Alright,” I continued, “So unless anyone objects, we use the plan Moruca outlined for us a few days ago. We local the goblins’ landing spot on this part of the Lakelands, steal one or two of their boats, and head downriver to the coat, before moving towards the tower. Depending on how long it takes, and how secretive we have to be, we may have one more day of camping ahead of us. Once there, we’ll sneak in at dawn. Goblins and wargs are nocturnal, so they should only have guards out to watch for us. If we can quietly take out the guards and penetrate the tower, we’ll only have a relative handful of goblins to deal with.”

“Aye, makes sense,” Moruca replied, “but you’ve failed to take into account that tis’ a fortress made for dwarfs. Most of us are on the big side for that, right? And if the halls are that narrow, I won’t be able to use my bow, I’ll just be half-assing it with my hatchet.”

“Ah, yeah, good point,” I said, “Well, Voss is a spear expert, so he shouldn’t have any problem making thrusting attacks.”