by Edward Brody
“I—”
“No, wait.” Aaron held up his hand. “Let me guess. There was some weird quest that you had while you were in the Sands, and this guy is connected in some way, right?”
“Actually—“
“Just like your crazy Bloodletter story, right?” He tapped his foot and crossed his arms. “So what’s the deal with this guy?”
I chuckled. “He’s just a totally random Reborn. He had nothing to do with me or the Sands.”
Aaron scowled. “Well, then, what the hell, dude? Why would you resurrect him over me?”
“You’re a Reborn, Aaron. I knew you’d be back. And since the thief is a Reborn too, I wanted to have a little talk with him to let him know that he’s not welcome here anymore. Words of warning, I guess.”
“So he got killed, then rezzed, and immediately killed again?” Aaron turned to the dead body. “Is that your sword? Did you make that nasty mess yourself?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Damn, dude,” Aaron said, shaking his head. “A sword through the mouth, a busted up stomach and… you even a cut the dude’s arm off? That’s savage.”
“He actually cut my arm off first,” I countered. “I was lucky Rina was able to fix me up.”
“Oh,” Aaron moaned and swallowed. “Well, then, I guess… ugh. Just a little more blood than I’d expect you to spill is all.” He shook his head a little. “Doesn’t seem like you.”
“I figured if he really suffered the pain, he wouldn’t come back. I made it very clear to him that it’ll be worse next time.”
“Fair enough,” Aaron said. “So why leave your sword in him?”
“Just in case any of the mercenaries he hired survived and are still lurking around here. If they see what happened to him, maybe they’d think twice about trying anything.”
“Yeah, well, it’s fuckin’ gross dude!” Aaron rattled his head and twisted his lips in disgust. “Anyway, that ambush was crazy. I can’t believe how fast they killed me.”
“Yeah, and that’s why you need to train a little. I know you want to be a crafter, but you at least need to level up enough that you can defend yourself.”
“Man…” Aaron groaned and snarled his upper lip.
“Don’t be stubborn. Get out every once in a while, and do some hunting and a few quests. I know it’s possible to be a pure crafter in the game, but what if another attack comes? Do you want to die so quickly again?”
Aaron sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll make some time to train a little.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked back in the direction where he had died. “Anyway… I’m gonna gather up all my stuff. Let’s talk later.” He glanced back towards the thief’s dead body and then raised an eyebrow as he walked away.
I nodded to him before looking back down at the thief’s stash.
Jeremy hadn’t been carrying much other than his weapons and items, but he did have 200 gold and on him and a minor healing potion. His sword wasn’t as powerful as the one I already had equipped, his arrow and quiver weren’t as good as the ones we had in the shop, but his armor was almost as nice as it looked. It was all labeled as ‘heritage armor’, whatever that meant, but the leather outer appearance had a thin sheet of light, hard metal inside that gave even greater durability without weighing the armor down. The bracers and the gloves each had a large hole in them and were down to their last durability point, so I tossed them, but the rest of the pieces were fine.
I equipped the heritage armor and sorted through the items I collected from the Sands. I equipped the best pieces I had and saved the rest to put in the shop.
“Gunnar,” Rina said from behind me.
I turned around and smiled. “Everything okay? I’m so sorry about what happened. I know it must have been off-putting for that to occur so soon after we got here.”
“It’s…” Rina gave a slight shrug. “It’s okay.”
“You sure? I promise you it’s not something that happens daily. In fact, it’s the first time we’ve been attacked.”
Rina nodded.
“Good,” I said with a smile. “Hopefully, we won’t have to deal with something like that again any time soon. We can focus on making the village stronger. I mean, if those guys caused so much damage, imagine what’ll happen if the Bloodletters were to attack?”
“Umm… Gunnar,” Rina said timidly and lowered her head a bit.
I creased my brow. “Yeah?”
Rina swallowed. “It’s just… I hope you don’t turn into another Dryden.”
I jerked my head back and creased my brow even harder. “What? Why would you think something like that?”
“It’s just that the way you killed that guy. It reminded me of something that Dryden would do. I mean, he probably would have skinned the guy or something, but he would have gone out of his way to hurt him more than necessary.”
“Hey,” I said, waving a hand out in front of me. “I have no intentions to be anything like that asshole, but I’ll admit that I learned a few things while I fought with him in the Sands.”
“That’s terrible,” Rina said.
“No, it isn’t,” I countered, shaking my head. “One of the things he taught me is that you have to send a message at times. A harsh one. A little bit of fear can go a long way. I don’t want to be a menace like Dryden, but I do want to protect Edgewood.”
“A message?” Rina glanced at the body. “So first it’s a single message like this, and then next thing you know, there’s hundreds of stakes with body parts surrounding the entire village?”
I sighed and smiled. “That won’t happen, Rina, but I get what you’re saying. Let’s just hope we don’t have another random attack anytime soon, so we don’t have to worry about those kinds of things. In the meantime, I’m still Gunnar… and I’ll never be like Dryden.”
Rina gave a half smile, a nod and a slight bow. “Thanks. I believe you.”
“And thank you for everything. It’s your first day here, and you’ve already done so much for us. I might not have an arm right now if it weren’t for you.”
“No need for thanks, Gunnar. A day ago, I was trapped in hell. I can’t ever repay you for getting me out of there.”
“Then I guess we’re both thankful for each other.” I reached out and placed my hand on Rina’s shoulder. “But enough thanks for now. Let’s finish getting the camp back in order and do a few normal things for once. Eat, mingle, rest? Tomorrow is a new day, and we have a lot to look forward to. Oh, and um…” I reached inside of my bag and produced the Summoner’s Staff that I had looted from the mage in the Sands. It was way better than the newbie staff she had stolen on our way out and it had a +15 wisdom attribute. “I should’ve given it to you before, but all I could think about was getting the hell of Dryden’s keep. I totally forgot I had it in my bag.”
“Well, this is quite the step up, isn’t it?” I expected her to say something snooty or call me an idiot, but she didn’t seem bothered by my carelessness.
“And you should probably get out of that harem gear when you get a chance.” I looked down at the obscene amount of cleavage that was spilling out of the split in the middle of her dress. “Gerard will hook you up with a proper robe.”
Rina smiled and nodded.
We spent the rest of the day clearing the camp of any signs that there had been bloodshed, and I recovered my sword when Jeremy’s body disappeared.
By sundown, things had mostly returned to normal. No one had the desire to do anything overly intensive after the big fight, except Aaron, who insisted on trekking to town to get an estimate on building a castle foundation.
Thankfully, there were no other surprises the rest of the night.
Chapter Four
1/26/0001
The steel of my falchion clanged against Jax’s sword, and I immediately turned to switch my attention to Ozzy, who was already swinging his hammer at my chest. I adjusted my blade to intercept the blow, but Ozzy was strong. I took damage as his heavy ha
mmer pushed my blade back into my armor, and the corner of the hammer grazed my shoulder.
It was less painful than it would have been had I not been wearing the chest piece that I looted from Jeremy, but it was notable pain nonetheless.
“Argh!” I grunted and winched.
“Think fast!” Jax said, drawing my attention back to him. His sword was once again coming towards me, this time towards my knees, and I inverted my blade just in time to block.
You have gained 1 point of Dexterity!
I turned back towards Ozzy, even faster this time, and while he was raising his hammer in the air, I managed to lunge in and smack my sword against his chest, adjusting the pressure right before impact to cause the least amount of damage to his armor and him.
“Gotcha,” I said, as I swung back around to finish off Jax, but instead found his blade waiting calmly near my throat.
“Again?” Jax asked.
I groaned and stood up straight, wiping the sweat off my brow. “I’m spent.” I had sparred with the guild for at least two hours straight that morning. In the process, I’d managed to get an extra point in dexterity, a vitality point, and nudged my sword skill a lot closer to the next level.
Before going to the Sands, sparring hadn’t been high on my list of priorities when I was in the village, but since getting back, I wanted to make it a regular part of my routine—at least when I wasn’t questing, training magic, or inscription.
“I’m spent too,” Ozzy said. “I need a break. This hammer wears me out faster than when I was using blades.”
Rina, who had been watching on a log nearby with Keysia, raised her hand and cast a heal spell on me. The bumps and bruises I had acquired during the sparring immediately disappeared.
“Thanks,” I said blissfully. “I wasn’t injured too badly, though.”
Rina shrugged. “The more I heal, the faster I can improve my healing skills. No reason to hoard my mana right now.”
“Nope! Save some mana to heal yourself when we’re done!” Keysia said as she shot up off the log and pulled her staff from her back. “Gimme what you got!”
Rina grinned and joined her, readying her new staff. The men all sat down to rest on the log and watch as the two women went at it, swinging their staves at each other and dodging just the same.
“Looks like I’m missing all the fun!” Aaron yelled as he entered the clearing from the path that lead into Edgewood. He was sitting atop an average-sized, dark brown horse that paced slowly into our settlement.
“Oh, nice horse,” Ozzy said.
“Thank ya!” Aaron beamed a wide smile.
“We were beginning to worry about you when you didn’t come back last night,” I said. “What happened?”
“Well, uh…” Aaron hopped off the horse, gave it a pat, and slowly pulled it closer to us by the reigns. “I figured I’d play a little bit of Pig while I was in town, and the Sizzler was kind of on a roll.” He reached behind his head and scratched as he raised a shoulder a little. “The drinks were flowing, and I got a little tipsy. You know how it goes. Couple cute chicks around too, so decided to stay at the inn the for the night.”
“I figured,” I said. I noticed the saddlebags hanging off the saddle looked flat and empty. “Why’d you rent a horse?”
“Hmph!” Aaron huffed confidently. “I actually bought her.” He reached out and started petting the horse’s head. “When I woke up, I had a bit of hangover. Wasn’t looking forward to walking back on foot… So now, I have Betsy. Not the fastest horse they had for sale, but cost me just shy of 2000 gold.”
“Not bad,” I said, but in the back of my mind I was thinking of all the things that 2000 gold could have bought. It was a third the cost of another building for our settlement.
“Damn,” Ozzy said and got up to get a closer look at Betsy. “I really need to get a mount.”
“You can ride her if you need to,” Aaron said. “But now that I’ve got a horse—and I assume we’ll be getting others—we’re going to need to build a stable.”
“A stable?” I asked. “Can’t you just release her to the Otherworld when you’re not using her?”
‘Sure,” Aaron said. “But you already know that it’s taxing to release and summon creatures to the Otherworld. Betsy isn’t a ‘great beast’, so she’s even less tolerant to overly frequent summons. And… because she’s a normal horse, there’s nothing stopping anyone in the guild from riding her, but unless I completely transfer ownership, only I can summon her. So, it would be better for the guild in general to leave her on this side of the world—for community usage.”
Jax cleared his voice. “A stable would offer a nice place for visitors to drop their mount off when they come to shop as well.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “What’s that going to cost?”
“Around 8,000 if we supply the wood,” Aaron said. “And by the way, just the foundation for the castle is going to be at least 12,000. They couldn’t give me any exacts as it’s not every day that castles are built, so it could be a little more or a little less by the time we’re done.”
“Just for the foundation?” I asked.
“Yeah, and for the walls and everything else, it’ll be no less than 100,000, and that’s for something like a small keep rather than a castle. We’ll be looking at hundreds of thousands or even millions depending on the scale of our build.”
My jaw dropped. I knew that building a castle was going to be expensive, but hearing those kinds of numbers was a bit of a wakeup call as to how far off we were. “Well damn, maybe we should just save up for the stable before we worry about the foundation.”
Aaron smiled widely. “No need, my friend.” Aaron turned his head towards the new building that was currently on its last legs of construction. A group of three builders had been working on it all morning and had made significant progress in that short amount of time. I was pretty sure it would be finished by nightfall. “Hey you guys!” Aaron yelled. “I got something for you.”
The builders stopped and looked at each other a moment before sitting their tools down and scurrying up to Aaron. “Yeah? What’s the problem?” one of the builders asked.
Aaron reached into his bag, pulled out a rolled-up parchment, and held it out to the man. “A work order from the head builder in Thorpes. This is your next project after you’ve finished this one.”
The builder brushed his hands together and grabbed the parchment from Aaron’s before unrolling it. “A standard-sized stable, huh? And you’ll be providing the wood?”
“Yep,” Aaron said. “We’ll get you the wood.”
The man nodded and turned his head around, looking at all the trees around him. “The seal looks authentic. Just figure out where you want us to build and we’ll get started tomorrow morning.”
“Will do,” Aaron affirmed and held a big thumbs-up to him.
“What?” I asked as Aaron turned around. “Didn’t you just say a stable would cost 8,000 gold?”
“Yeah, and didn’t I just tell you—” Aaron slapped his hands together and raised his voice as he finished the sentence. “–that the Sizzler was on a roll last night?!”
“Hell, yeah!” Ozzy said, strode up to Aaron, and threw him a high five.
“You won 8,000 gold in Pig?” I questioned, finding it hard to believe.
“Around 11,000 actually. I went to town with a thousand and doubled up a few times on some high rollers. Enough for the horse, the stable, a nice night at the inn, and I still have around 1,000 gold in my pocket. Not bad, don’t you think?”
I shook my head and smiled. “Not bad at all, my niz—” I cut myself off before finishing the sentence.
“What was that?” Aaron asked, holding his hand up to his ear.
“Not bad,” I repeated.
“No, after that. Finish what you were about to say, Gunnar.”
“Nothing,” I said.
“C’mon man,” Aaron insisted. He held a fist out to me and bit his bottom lip. “Just let it ou
t.”
I took a deep breath, smiled, and bumped my fist against his. “Not bad, my nizzle.”
“Hell yes!” Aaron stepped forward and started throwing Ozzy, Jax, and I all subsequent high fives.
“But I hope you know you got lucky,” I said. “I don’t want you getting addicted to gambling or anything just because you had one big night—especially in a game like Pig.”
“Don’t worry. Don’t worry,” Aaron said. “I’ve had enough fun for a while. I know when it’s time to take my chips and run.”
There was a loud thunk, and we all turned around to see Rina laying on her back and Keysia holding the point of her staff over her.
“Owww,” Rina groaned.
“Not bad,” Keysia said. “You’re really quick, but we still need to work on your predictability.”
Rina pushed herself back to her feet. “I’m just rusty is all.” She raised her hand and cast a healing spell on herself. “Give me some time to get back in the swing of fighting, and I’ll best all of you.” She turned and winked our way. “Even you, Mr. Jax.”
There was a second of silence, and Ozzy and Aaron both turned their head and opened their mouths like they were little kids in middle school. “Ohhhhhh,” they howled.
Aaron punched Jax in the shoulder. “Damn, dude. Nice.”
I had to admit, even I wondered if Rina was openly flirting with him, and in a way, it made me feel a bit jealous. I hadn’t really looked at Rina in any romantic context before, but given that she was so attractive, it did stir up a little bit of shallow envy at the idea that she might be into Jax so soon after meeting.
“What?” Jax asked Aaron and visibly swallowed. His face was a little pinker than normal, but he wasn’t showing much expression. I couldn’t tell if he was blushing or just flustered after all the sparring we had done. He was definitely more uncomfortable than normal, though.
Aaron rolled his eyes. “Oh, nothing.”
“That’s a pretty horse,” Keysia said as she walked closer to us.
