Chapter 35: Isekai Life & Victory Surprises

Despite, or maybe because of, our precautions when it came to protection against ambush, we were entirely unmolested on our five-day journey from the coast to Rhymer’s Cross. It was a long trudge, to be sure, but Voss, Yua and I had something that we hadn’t felt in weeks, since we first encountered the goblins that night on the road- a sense of victory.

Because of that, it was also an opportunity to get done some chores that I wouldn’t have had time for otherwise. Using my Mending spell to repair battle damage to my allies’ armour. Renewing my own Armour spell. Using Detect Magic to ensure that none of the gemstones I picked up were magic (they weren’t). Developing a new appreciation for Tenser’s Floating Disc every time we had to ford a river with our massive amount of supplies. It ended up being a fairly good exercise for the logistical aspects of my spell list, and I even ended up neglecting defensive and offensive spells entirely in favour of Mending and the Floating Disc. I became very popular among the old timers travelling with us for that- using the Floating Disc as an impromptu wheelchair when we were getting close to the end of a day’s march and wouldn’t need it for ferrying supplies.

Yua, in spite of being a certified lightweight, didn’t seemed too fazed by her brush with drunkeness. She was quiet the entire rest of the night, and in the morning didn’t seem hindered by any hangover or anything. She also just started following me around everywhere again, always a few steps behind. It was kind of nice, and made me feel safe. Not that I was feeling particularly unsafe, but I knew she was always there.

Voss, meanwhile, always seemed to have something else to do. He insisted on volunteering for everything, so he spent his days helping forge a path, kept watch at night, and when he wasn’t busy with any of those fell back to support the rear guard. It was almost dizzying, watching him go back and forth.

Razsil, for the most part, just tried to focus on keeping up. His shorter legs (and the lower base speed of the Gnomish race) meant that he always had to hustle to keep up, and by the end of the day he was complaining about how his legs ached. You’d think he would be using his cleric magic to heal these aches, but instead he used his spells to purify water for us all to drink, because if anyone actually fell sick on our journey, we’d probably have to abandon them in the wild. Instead, Yua would lay on hands, soothing his aches at the end of the day ... and being tended too by the beautiful dragon girl probably also factored into his calculus.

While our reception in Rhymer’s Cross was subdued, we were welcomed much more warmly. The people we sent upriver had arrived three days prior, and warned everyone of our coming, but they didn’t know exactly when we would get there so nothing was really planned. Estrid and the guards greeted us at first, but soon word got around, and people were trickling in to greet us all. There were many reunited friends and family between the ex-slaves and the people sheltering from the goblin raiders, and my hand was shaken so much that I felt as though it would snap off at the elbow.

What happened with the Mist Elves was even more remarkable. At first they were given the stink eye by the townsfolk, and someone even spit in their direction. But as ex-slaves and townsfolk reunited, the truth of what the Ravenwatch had done to protect the farmers, even if it was only a byb-blow of protecting their princess, came it. It helped that Kythaera shed her haunted look temporarily to put on a smiling facade, and do her best to look the graceful, gentle elven princess when speaking to people. She even went so as to curtsy to Estrid and thank her for selflessly protecting such fine people. You wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the animosity between the two races was shed, at least temporarily.

Big Dap and Ina once again offered to put us up, and while we didn’t have a massive feast or anything, this time there was a beef and barley stew, pickled vegetables, fruit jam, and a wildberry pie for dessert. Once news had arrived of our victory, the restrictions and rationing were eased up immediately, and while it would be a lot of hard work for the town to recover enough to survive the winter, for this special occasion there was enough food for everyone.

Late in the evening, Big Dap tapped Raszil, Voss and I, and said it was time for “men to be men”. That sounded really strange to me at first, but I didn’t want to baselessly refuse, so I went along. It turned out to just be sharing cider on the front porch.

“I shouldn’t have this,” the big baker explained, “All the alcohol was supposed to be taken in the rationing, but I hid a few things. After all, I make the bread in this town.”

There was a problem with what he said, but I didn’t say anything about it. Instead I patiently waited someone to pass the cider bottle to me, and noted, “We’re sure sitting around drinking alcohol a lot lately.”

“That’s what victory is like,” Raszil pointed out as he finally handed me the bottle, “You relax and enjoy the taste of victory.”

The cidar was nice and tart, and didn’t taste very strong at all. After Raszil’s moonshine or whatever that was, it was a welcome difference. “We’re not finished our primary mission, though.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Voss replied, “We couldn’t ignore this goblin situation, but it doesn’t seem like they had enough slaves to account for all the towns disappearing.”

“Sorry,” Raszil said, “Did you say you had a larger mission?”

It was easy to forget, after so long. “Yeah, Ricard and Mia Parett of Pendleton hired us to look into some villages that have vanished,” I explained, “We thought at first these goblins might have something to do with it, but Voss is right. It was a side mission, and I’m glad we did it, but...”

“The gods make fools of us all,” Raszil said with a note of wonder in his voice, “Theodore, would you believe me if I said I was present in the town of Birchen when it was attacked?”

I nearly dropped the cider in surprise. “That would be quite a coincidence...”

“Not at all,” Raszil said with a shrug, “I happened to be travelling from the north, and the lack of centralized law in the Lakelands appealed to me. I was cooling my heels for a few days in the Sparrow’s Rest Inn when the storm happened.”

Voss frowned. “A storm vanished a town?”

Raszil shook his head. “I don’t know about any vanishing. That storm wiped the town off the map. It started in the dead of night, after a clear day. The inn had a cellar, thank the gods, but even then I had to hide myself in an empty barrel when the cellar doors were ripped away.” He breathed a heavy sigh. “It was ... apocalyptic. The sort of thing you read about in scripture, not one stone standing on another. A town of hundreds reduced to a few dozen in hours.”

“You didn’t stay to help?” Big Dap asked.

Raszil shrugged again. “What can one small man do in that situation? I healed some of the worst injured, did rites over the dead, but Suleyar is not a god that builds. I did what I could and left them to their grief.”

Voss looked at me. “A powerful, magically-enhanced storm...”

I nodded. “Elven supremacists who called themselves storm elves.”

He sighed. “But ... they seem alright, those Ravenwatch guys.”

“It could be that they’re not in on it,” I replied, “The entire kingdom had a huge sea change, if what Haseth said was true. So, we need to find out for ourselves.”

“ ... And the princess is our ticket in.” Voss knocked back a big swig of cider. “Calliope, too, I guess. And then more conspiracies and liars. Well, I guess smashing gobbos was just a break from all of that.”

“You two have an ... interesting history, don’t you?” Raszil dryly asked.

“Rasz, you don’t even know the half of it,” Voss replied.

We were silent for a long while.

Eventually, we noticed a light bobbing towards us in the evening dark. Someone was coming up the road, andwe heard the jangling of metal against metal. When it got close enough to make out the shape of a lantern being held in a man’s fist. Big Dap got up from his seat and casually leaned against the rail of his porch. “Ho, there.”

“Ho, Dap,” came a familiar voice.

“Gull,” Big Dap confirmed, “How can I help you? Bakery’s closed til tomorrow morn.”

“Ain’t here for you, sir,” Boss Gull was finally closed enough that I could see he was carrying what appeared to be one of the sacks we rescued from the goblin tribe. “Need to speak with your house guests, there.”

I frowned and rose myself. “What about?”

“Well...” in the flickering lantern light, Boss Gull looked uncomfortable, even embarrassed. “We could use this for the town, you know. And that was my initial thought. But that girl Estrid ... No, no ... the Shire-Reeve, she is now, ain’t she? She made a convincing argument.”

“For what?” I said, getting a little annoyed with the old man.

In response, he sung the sack onto the porch, which landed with a distinct metallic ring. “When you and yours were recovering from that battle, me and mine were dealing with the dead gobbos. That’s pretty close to half of what we found, by weight. As thanks and bless yous for what you did.”

Voss crouched by the sack, undid the laces, and whistled, impressed. I leaned to peek over his shoulder. The sack- a good-sized flour sack- was filled with shining silver coins. In all the rushing around and battle, I had totally forgotten that goblins dropped 3d6 silver coins each.

“Th-Thank you very much,” I managed to stammer out after awhile. But that didn’t seem quite enough. I had much more gold stashed away in my large chest, but for people such as these, even this was a fortune. So, instead, I bowed my head. “It was an honour to help you in your time of need. I only regret that we couldn’t do more, sooner.”

Raszil coughed, for some reason- I guess the cider went down the wrong pipe when he managed to get a glimpse of the coin himself. Boss Gull just rubbed his head, looking chastened. “Well, now, that’s no fair. Now I just feel worse for trying to cut you out. Ah, I’m going back to my brother’s house before you get me again, Sir Theodore. Enjoy your evening.”

And like a strange fairy dropping off coins to good children, he vanished into the night.

Voss ended up elbowing me a little. “You know, men who are lucky with women shouldn’t be rich, too.”

“Theodore is lucky with women?” Big Dap asked, pressing the bottle into my hand, “How do you mean?”

“Well, I shouldn’t go into it, but he is,” Voss said with a sad smile. “Out of every lady in our whole party, there’s only one who doesn’t have a torch for him. He promised that if someone had their eye on me, he’s stay out of it, but...”