Friends in a Foreign Land

After a week of daily hunts the party went downstairs for breakfast only to find Guard Captain Christi waiting for them in the eating area of the inn. “Word is that you all have been hunting goblins,” Chirsti stated in a no nonsense tone. “Some even claim that you’re killing some absurd numbers of them. But I don’t trust rumors, I wanted to hear it directly. What have you managed, five? Maybe ten in the last five days?”

The party looked to one another and Arden cast [Message] and told Hazel what to do. With a smile Hazel took off her pack and walked over to about five feet in front of Christi and turned her pack upside down while thinking ‘Goblin’. Dozens of heads fell to the floor at the guard captain’s feet. Once they stopped appearing from the pack, Hazel closed the flap and walked back to join her family.

“Any other questions?” Arden asked dryly. “Or can we sit and eat breakfast?”

“You aren’t eating anything in my inn until you clean up that mess!” yelled Jacob from the kitchen doorway. “I can’t believe you just dumped that on my floor.”

Arden winced as he turned to Jacob, “Apologies, sir. Was simply trying to make a point to our honorable guard captain here. We’ll pick them all up and clean the floor as well.”

Putting actions to words, Arden retrieved Hazel’s pack and knelt down in front of Christi and started picking up all the goblin heads. Once finished he performed a few castings of [Clean] on the area before calling it done. As Arden took his regular seat, Jacob brought out the breakfast plates. As the party started to eat, Christi approached the table, “I don’t understand you all. My skills still tell me you’re rather weak first tier. Stronger than when I first met you but weak nonetheless. Yet you still managed to kill all those goblins? How?”

“Does it matter?” Nolan asked. “It’s obvious that you don’t care for us, but we’re trying to help make the town safe. Can’t you just be happy about that?”

Christi appeared to think on Nolan’s words for a moment before nodding. She then turned and exited the building without saying another word.

“What was that all about?” Willow asked.

Jacob laughed as he brought out a pitcher of breakfast ale, “She doesn’t know what to do about you. You claim the gods sent you and she hates that. Add to it that you’re having more success than she and her guard ever did. She doesn’t want to trust you. But she takes her responsibility to the town seriously and can see that you are doing good for the town. It’s creating an conflict that she needs to resolve. Now, how many goblin heads was that? And why do you have them?”

“I counted them as I picked them up. We’re at 47 in five days,” Arden answered.

“Averaging a touch over nine per day? That’s pretty good.”

“It would be if it wasn’t trending sharply down. We’re going to have to start going further south to find them. Or hunting far less. Yesterday we didn’t find any all day.”

“But that’s a good thing. That means the area around the town is safer. Maybe we could get the fields planted again?”

“That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about it from than angle,” said Arden right before taking another bite of eggs.

“You didn’t say why you were keeping the heads? Was it just to pour on my floor?”

“I want to put the heads on spikes!” Hazel exclaimed.

“She thinks it’ll scare the goblins.” Willow added.

Jacob paled a bit before responding, “Well, that would certainly make me think twice about attacking. Though you should probably get permission from the mayor before you do that.”

Arden and Nolan looked to one another before shrugging and nodding. Nolan responded, “That sounds like a good idea. We had already planned to stay in town today, so perhaps we can find time to meet her today.”

“Dad,” Willow started, “Oringo said that the goblins only had like 150 warriors. If we’ve nearly killed a third of them in one week, whomever is in charge is going to notice.”

“I’ve been thinking about that as well,” Nolan said. “I think that’s why we didn’t find anyone yesterday. I think they pulled them back to make new plans and things are about become far more dangerous.”

“We’ll just have to stay alert then. Maybe hold off on those plans to head further south for a while,” Arden suggested.

“Yeah, probably a good idea. What if we start trapping the area around here and we only move further south once we have enough traps near town. Then, if we get in over our heads we could fall back and let the traps thin them out?”

“Okay. Let’s plan on doing that. Maybe run it by Christi and Oringo and figure out how we can mark the traps so that the guards and hunters don’t get caught in them.”

“Good call.” Seeing Jacob heading back into his kitchen, Nolan continued, “Did anyone get anything for hitting level seven?”

“Heck no, I got gypped. I thought each level came with more skills and such?” Arden replied.

“Dad!” exclaimed Willow. “You can’t say gypped. It’s raciest.”

“How so?”

“Seriously? You know that that word derives from gypsy which is also raciest.”

“To the Romani, yes. But we’re in a completely different world. I doubt there’s any Romani here.”

“Doesn’t matter. What was it you use to tell us? ‘Manners matter’”

As Willow continued correcting her father, the door to the inn opened and guard captain Christi and another lady entered the inn.

“Okay. I admit you’re right and I’m wrong,” Arden conceded. “But back to the point, why didn’t we get any class abilities or spells for leveling up?”

“As you progress in levels, new abilities and spells are spaced out further,” said the lady with the guard captain. “Though, you can continue to learn them on your own.” Seeing that she had the party’s attention the lady continued, “Apologies for butting in. I’m Helen Baumgartner, the mayor of Wildemill. I’ve been hearing a lot about you and wanted to come and meet with you, if you have time.”

The party glanced at one another all of them to one degree or other feeling like they were about to be in trouble. Like they had been sent to the principals office and weren’t entirely sure why.

“Pull up a seat mayor, join us for breakfast,” Arden finally said. “Christi, you’re welcome to join as well if you can tolerate my company for a bit.” Once the ladies were seated Arden asked, “I assume you come with questions, mayor. What answers can we provide?”

The mayor looked over the party for a moment before speaking in a distraction tone, as if some answers just feel into place for her but they brought more questions with them, “Questions? Oh, yes. I’m sorry.” Looking toward the kitchen the mayor called out, “Jacob sir, can you bring me a drink, please?” Looking back to Arden she continued, “Guard Captain Christi tells me that you claimed to have been sent by the gods to help us. Is that true?”

“Technically, the gods simply told to help those who needed it. Your town appears to need it.”

Cutting in, with disbelief in her voice, Christi asked, “And exactly which gods told you this? Or did you just see them at a party and they decided to give you this order?”

“Sort of,” Willow answered.

“Not really,” Hazel said at the same time.

“Well which is it?” Christi asked, smiling like she’d tripped them up.

“Guard Captain,” Nolan started in a neutral tone, “I don’t think you’re going to believe anything we say. But the truth is that each of us has spoken with a different god or goddess. Each were told essentially the same thing and then we were sent in your direction. So, yes, I believe they did get together and plan this but I’m not sure if it was at a party. The order was communicated one-on-one. The god I spoke with was Robani. Arden spoke with Cilena, Hazel spoke with Viznen, and Willow spoke with Aservia. Please feel free to pray to any of them and ask for confirmation.”

“So what, you’re all priests or something?” grumbled Christi.

“No, none of us are priests,” Arden said with a smirk. “Nothing wrong with being a priest but it seems a bit too… passive for me. But I am a cleric. Nolan is a monk, Hazel is a sorceress, and Willow is a druid. My grandson doesn’t have a class yet, which I believe is normal? Now, I think it’s only fair to go tit for tat. What class do you have guard captain?” As Arden asked the question he saw the expression on the mayor’s face change slightly. Evidently he just gave something away.

“I have a variant on the solider class as do all the guards.” Christi responded, also a touch confused.

About that time Jacob arrived at the table with the drink the mayor requested but also with two more plates of food and a pitcher of breakfast ale for the table.

“Jacob,” the mayor asked, “do you have anyone else staying at the inn?”

“No ma’am.”

“Would you mind locking the doors to keep anyone else from wandering in. I think we’re about to start discussing some sensitive topics.”

“Of course Mayor,” Jacob replied, already heading for the doors.

“What is it mayor?” Christi asked, confused.

Looking back at the others at the table, Mayor Helen started ticking points off on her fingers, “You appeared out of nowhere. You claim the gods sent you. With the exception of the child, you all appear to be about the same age but supposedly Arden is the father of Hazel and Willow. You fight well above your level. You didn’t know that not every level comes with class abilities or spells. You didn’t know that guards always have a variant of the solider class. Do you know what all the points add up to?”

As the mayor worked her way down her list the party grew more and more on edge. Even Ewan looked up from his meal, sensing something was up.

“Mayor?” Christi asked, feeling the tension in the air and not being confident at all of being able to protect the mayor from the whole party she was just locked in with.

“Tell me, how long has it been since the gods brought you to Traum?”