Chapter 17

I think I promised to tell you about the freeing of the village and leaving.

When we are rested from the fight and finally decided on what to do, we leave the evil temple.

First we go to the mayor and I manage to free him from the control. Because it takes twenty minutes I start to worry that it will take us forever to free everyone in the village.

After releasing him we tell him shortly about the vampires and other events. He is grateful to us for the help.

Then I start going around the village and fortunately the other people seem to be under lighter control and it takes me less than a minute each to free them, but still it takes a long time to find and free everyone. As we free each we tell them shortly what happened and promise to tell the whole thing later when we get everyone freed.

It is really late by the time we get everyone freed and gathered to tell the story, so the villagers start some fires to give light.

Garis steps in front of the villagers and starts to tell about the events. He is a real showman and manages to make even our mistakes sound like heroism. Overall he makes us to be some sort of great heroes. He has definitely not followed his calling when he went to fighting instead of following the obvious bardic talents he has. Of course being a highman and of noble birth, he has a lot of things expected of him by his family, so I guess it is not totally surprising.

Once we are done with the story and the cheering from the villagers dies down, we retire for the night.

We leave the village in the morning and most of the villagers gather to wish us a safe journey.

It feels good to have helped that many people.

As we walk towards the academy, we discuss the village, what we did wrong and right.

The most obvious thing we did wrong was being surprised in the beginning, even when the village had felt wrong. Next time I will try to listen to my instincts about such matters.

The most obvious thing that we did right was the great teamwork we managed to display at some points.

Of course some of the discussion is on other matters, but overall we mostly discuss the events on our first real adventure, after all this is something new to all of us.

On way back we pick up the gigantic sword. Garis, Slanat and Anneli alternate so that two of them carry it at time, with the crosspiece on their shoulders and the tip trailing along the ground.

Along the way, we meet another group of adventurers.

They consist of two beautiful women and three men.

One of the women is clearly a wood elf and is the most beautiful person I have ever seen and she definitely dresses to emphasize it. She is dressed in a metal breastplate that looks mostly like it is decorative, instead of protective, protecting only part of torso and pushing up her breasts. She alsp has tight leather pants and high heel boots. She introduces herself as Neiia Ardant and indicates that she is a sorceress.

The other woman, who would normally expect to be the most beautiful around, is a short human and is dressed in a curious full plate that seems much better articulated than the one Garis wears. She also carries two light fencing swords. That combination seems strange, as anyone who is strong enough to carry a full plate would likely be at home with more substantial swords. After a few seconds I realize that she is also a Duranaki like Ertak and thus most at home with nimble weapons. She is introduced as Kieron Demilier.

One of the men is seriously hurt, but looks distinguished. He is also a Duranaki and Kieron's brother. Apparently he is a wizard, though he hardly looks the part with the metal breastplate and dual fencing swords, though his quiet and serious demeanor is fitting. He is introduced as Jaysek Demilier.