The Trials of a Modern Paladin 1

by Kevin Culp

  I hated to see her sad, but it seemed at the very least I was out of trouble, and we were back on track for her coming with me. This had been a roller coaster of emotions we worked our way through, and I really wasn't sure if it was me or Archaeus' diplomacy rolls that had gotten us through it. I would like to think that at least some of it were me.

  Christina suddenly looked up into my eyes and had a nervous look on her face, “Uhh... Umm... Archaeus... would it be okay if I slept in here with you tonight?”

  That was unexpected. “Oh well, sure I suppose I can sleep on the floor, and you can have the bed.”

  “Well, actually, I... Umm... was hoping we could share the bed. I'm not asking you for anything. I'm just kind of sad and really nervous, and I think being close to you would help.”

  That really took me by surprise. I mean, first of all, the bed is tiny so any attempt to share it will result in some close cuddling at least. Secondly, even if I tried to say yes, Archaeus would probably shut that down. Sleeping in the same bed with someone that wasn't his damsel he saved and fell in love with was a definite no. However, I did care about Christina, so shouldn't I accept if it would make her feel better.

  “Well... Uh... sure, of course, we can share the bed.”

  Out of sheer curiosity, I decided to look at my notepad to see how Archaeus had decided to turn her down. I focused on it, and it popped up. There on the last line was “Well... Uh... sure, of course, we can share the bed,” that was very shocking. I guess even Archaeus is an overall good guy and would try to help friends. Still, I was a little disappointed. Not that he hadn't turned her down, but the fact that the line was exactly as I had said it. This man was a master of diplomacy, so he could have at least have made it sound cooler. Maybe even Archaeus got nervous in circumstances like this.

  I could see that Christina was severely blushing as she got up. “Okay, thank you. I'm just going to finish packing and change into my nightclothes. Give me like ten minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  About thirty minutes had passed, and I was getting extremely nervous. It's not like I had never shared a bed with a girl before, and I definitely wasn't a virgin, but this felt different. What if I did something wrong, and Christina stopped liking me? The door opened again.

  Christina was standing there in what looked to be an old school plain white nightgown. I definitely never would have used any appealing words to describe one of those, but the look worked for her. It was the first time I had ever seen her with her hair down, and it was longer than I expected. It came down to probably the middle of her back and was somewhat wavy. She had one side swept behind her shoulder and the other was falling over her face. She was carrying another pillow. She climbed into bed.

  She sat her pillow down as I slid mine over and turned her back to me. As I said, the bed was very small, so I didn't have much choice, so I put my arm around her. I really couldn't even tell if she was scooting into me, if I was pulling her into me, or if the size of the bed just kept forcing us to scoot closer together, but our bodies were very close.

  Christina let out a slight sigh, “goodnight Archaeus. Sweet dreams.”

  “Goodnight Christina.”

  Chapter 10

  The next morning did not get here anywhere near fast enough. I had barely slept spending the night in bed with Christina. Feeling her body pressed into mine with my arm around her, I became acutely aware of how delicate and feminine her body really was. To make matters worse, I kept feeling like I was doing something inappropriate so I kept trying to move my hand around to stop but just ended up basically feeling her up.

  About an hour before sunrise, I got out of bed, which actually didn't seem to wake her. I went to pray so that I could prepare my spells, and before I actually prepared them I said an actual slight prayer to whatever god was in this world asking for forgiveness for all my thoughts and actions throughout the night.

  Around the same time I finished my spell preparation, Christina woke up. “Good morning, Archaeus. Oh no, I didn't kick you out of bed did I?” She seemed to be really concerned.

  “Absolutely not, I just had to make sure to wake up early, so I had time to do my prayers and finish packing before we left. I slept well.” It appeared as though Archaeus actually let that last little white lie slip by.

  “Good, I would have been sad had you not. I actually had great dreams all last night it was wonderful. We should really do this more often.”

  “Oh, ya definitely.” I gulped remembering the night and wondering what kind of dreams she had had.

  “Let me do a quick change into some clothes for travel, and then I should have time to make us a quick breakfast before we go.” She said as she got out of bed.

  “That sounds great.”

  She left the room, and I was exhausted.

  I didn't have much, but I packed up all my gear in my backpack and headed downstairs. By the time I got there, Christina was already making breakfast. She had changed quickly. She was now wearing a pair of pants and a tunic.

  I went through the kitchen and outside through the backdoor. Like normal Zeus was laying there.

  “Hey Zeus, I'm going to be heading to the capital for a few days, and I would like it if you would stay here. You know I can summon you if I need you, and I feel you would be more useful here. Rin did agree to look after the village in my absence, but you are far more powerful than her so help her out.”

  He looked at me with enormous puppy dog eyes like he was wounded by the fact I wasn't taking him with me.

  “Don't give me that look. I love you too, buddy, but I really need you to stay here.”

  He walked up to me and rubbed his face over mine as if to say, “I'm going to miss you.”

  “I'll miss you too,” I said. Then I sat there for a little while longer and pet him until Christina called me inside for breakfast.

  It was a pretty basic breakfast, but it was delicious. The meat went by pretty quickly around here, but Zeus had hunted us another boar, so we had bacon, eggs, and some bread.

  Christina said goodbye to her father, and we set out for her uncle’s farm. When we reached it, we explained the circumstances to him, and he agreed that he could help out Christina's father while we were gone. Of course, all of this couldn't transpire without him making comments about how we should have a big noble wedding while in the capital.

  We got to the front of the blacksmith's shop, and the knights were gathered there looking like they were prepared to leave. There were five knights in total, including the one I had spoken with and one coachman. They had a horse-drawn carriage that looked to be of high quality. It was still mostly made of wood, but it had some gold trim and filigree on it as well as the royal crest. The knight I had spoken to gestured for us to get in the carriage and followed us in afterward. The inside was just as nice as the outside with soft velvety cushions and intricate patterns filling out the décor.

  Once we were all inside and the carriage began moving, the knight spoke, “I'm glad that you were both able to join us for this journey. Perhaps it's time for formal introductions. My name is Leovald Charles Henry Varnelion, and I am the second prince of the kingdom.”

  “It's very nice to meet you Prince Leovald. My name is Christina,” she said as she bowed her head. I was kind of surprised that Christina had been so quick to respond. I would think that a commoner like her would be taken aback speaking with royalty.

  “It is indeed nice to meet you, Prince Leovald. I had assumed you were someone more important than a knight but didn't imagine that you were royalty.”

  “Well, obviously it's best if we Royals travel incognito. Otherwise, we draw too much attention to ourselves, which can be bothersome.”

  “Well no offense, but if your goal is to travel incognito, leaving the carriage at home and the helmet on would be better,” I commented.

  “You are correct of course, but it would have been rude of me to introduce myself to you with a helmet on, and we didn't want you to have to t
ravel on foot the whole way to the kingdom if you did seem noteworthy.”

  “I do agree with the fact that approaching me in a full plate helmet probably would have been awkward, but I would have had no problems marching my way to the capital. Your soldiers are doing it, so I am perfectly capable.”

  “Even so, while we may not have known this ahead of time, I'm sure you wouldn't have wanted this young lady to travel on foot,” he said.

  “That is certainly true.”

  Christina blushed a bit while we were talking about her but didn't say anything.

  “I have a map of the kingdom but can't really discern too much from it. How far away is the capital?” I asked.

  “Well, since we have footmen that we have to match pace with, we should arrive within about two weeks if all goes well.”

  Assuming that we were judging this by game terms that would put the capital just shy of three hundred and fifty miles away. On foot, it was assumed that a person could travel three miles per hour and eight hours per day without forced marching. That being said, it put it at about twenty-four miles per day of travel. Given that the capital was pretty well centered on the map, and we were in the southeast corner, that made this empire what I would expect to be pretty large I would think with respect to the means of transportation available. I kind of wonder though, if it was a two-week journey how he had gotten there for my duel that happened with only a weeks’ notice, but I decided it wasn't really important.

  “Once we get there, how long do you expect us to stay?” I asked.

  “Well, that depends on how everything goes, and I guess it depends on how much you enjoy yourselves. There are plenty of things to keep a man entertained within the capital that they don't have in these small towns such as casinos, plays, brothels, and a whole lot more. If you enjoy yourselves, you may decide to stay for a short while.”

  Christina definitely turned red at the mention of brothels, but she tried to hide it. I mean brothels were illegal in Kansas, so I had never been to one of course and even if I wanted to here, Archaeus wouldn't let me. I'm not sure if Archaeus would go to a casino or not, but it would be interesting. I've only ever been to a casino once, and it mostly had slot machines which I'm sure they didn't have in this world. I would guess it was a lot of cards, roulette, craps, and other games like that.

  “It could be interesting, but I would actually like to get back to Freid as soon as possible,” I said.

  “Understood. Some of the formalities may take a bit of time, but if things go smooth, I'd say you could be gone within a few days. If things don't go smooth... Well, let's just hope they go smooth.”

  “I guess bureaucracy being a pain is the same no matter where you go,” I said as I let out a sigh.

  He nodded.

  Most of the trip went pretty uneventfully. The scenery was actually really nice for the most part. The prince said we were skirting all the major cities to avoid drawing attention, but we stopped a few times in smaller towns to pick up some more rations.

  We had a decent breakfast every morning, stopped for a while at lunchtime, and then stopped again right around nightfall. Every evening, the prince's men would set up tents for us, Christina and I had to share a tent, but she didn't seem to mind. I was afforded the time to prepare my spells in the morning given that the prince actually said prayers in the morning too. The first morning on the road, after I noticed he had prayed in the morning as well, I noticed the holy symbol built into the hilt of his sword around where the guard would be. Religion was the only knowledge that Archaeus did have training in. I decided to talk to him about it while traveling that day.

  “That symbol. You are a follower of Lisara, goddess of valor?” I questioned.

  He looked at the symbol on his sword. “I'm surprised that you know that. Unfortunately, in our kingdom, Lisara is not a well-known or worshipped god. Honestly, my parents probably never would have taught me of her, but I learned many tales of her from the person that I guess would have been considered to be my nanny growing up.

  I've always respected the idea of valor. Having the courage to stand up for what's right in the face of great danger. In that regard, I must say I quite admire you already. Obviously, you are very powerful, so I know that duel was not dangerous to you, but I also feel you are intelligent enough to have realized the implications of your actions, and the troubles it could have caused you.”

  “Or maybe you are just giving my intelligence too much credit,” I commented with a chuckle.

  He is right though; I did expect that my actions could have some political fallout. Maybe not this exactly but for there to be lash back among the nobility in the kingdom based on my actions. Truthfully, so far this has been a much better scenario than what I had expected.

  “I have seen from your abilities that you are a paladin of a level of power that this world probably hasn't seen in a long time. However, I haven't actually seen a holy symbol on you. Do you not follow a deity?” He asked.

  I was kind of surprised he knew I was a paladin, but I guess any level 2 paladin could use healing hands which he had seen me use. That also implied, however, that he probably knew someone else who could use healing hands, so I was somewhat curious as to who that was and how he had met them.

  “I honor and respect many of the gods including Lisara. I do not, however, subscribe to the belief that any individual god is superior to or more important than any of the others. Also, I feel that honoring the ideas those gods represent is more important than even the gods themselves. Valor, justice, courage, and good in general are what are most important. Are you a paladin as well by chance?”

  “Me? No, I'm actually a cleric. I'm not going to say I'm an extremely experienced one given that I get so wrapped up in political affairs that I rarely get to focus on my obligations as a cleric. It's disappointing, but it's the world I was born in to.”

  So he is a cleric meaning that he can use healing magic. This might actually be a good opportunity to see how my game knowledge actually translates into this world. I had thought about that after waking up the spell caster that had tried to use compulsion on me, but by the time I had the thought he had already left.

  “So, I come from an area very different from this one, and I was actually kind of curious as to how terminology I know would be viewed here. Can I ask you a few questions about that?” I asked him.

  “I may not be the best person to ask, but I'll try to answer your questions.”

  “First of all, depending on a person's overall abilities we have what would be considered a level system. Do you have anything like that?”

  “Hmm well not exactly. We do have a system for judging spell casters kind of like that. For instance, a spell may be first tier, second tier or so forth, but there isn't really anything like that for someone who isn’t a spell caster that may be of equal power.”

  “We used that system in addition to our general level system, but can you tell me a little bit about how yours works?”

  “That can get a little complicated on a few levels because it also varies by the type of spellcaster, and typically only applies to commonly known spells. For instance, it takes an extremely powerful paladin to cast a second tier spell, but an equally powerful cleric could potentially cast a fifth tier spell. However, the same spell may not even be the same tier for two different types of spell caster because the way it is cast might simply change the power needed to do so.”

  “That is true of my system as well, but could you give me a few examples?”

  “Okay, so cure III is a third tier spell for a cleric, but a paladin can't cast it, of course. While basic restoration is a second tier spell for a cleric and only a first tier spell for a paladin.”

  “That is actually all accurate by my own system of rating with one exception. Paladins can cast cure III. It is a fourth tier spell.”

  “What do you mean? How could a paladin even cast a fourth tier spell that takes an extremely powerful cleric, and paladins can only go up
to second tier spells?”

  “I guess that's probably just a difference in power standards. As a cleric, have you ever heard of the spell cure allies IV?”

  “Well, I've heard that gods can cast higher tier spells, and I'm pretty certain I've heard stories of them being able to cast the fourth tier spell cure IV as a heal spell that affects everyone around them.” He responded.

  “That is actually just an eighth tier cleric spell. I did not gain my power alone. I did it over years of traveling with several other individuals, including a dwarven cleric named Kraxis. He could cast up to ninth tier divine magic. We also had a kitsune sorceress with us by the name of Lyra that could cast ninth tier arcane magic.”

  His eyes got wide. “There is no way power like that could even be possible is there! I mean I saw you fight Rin, and they say she is one of the best warriors in the kingdom potentially rivaling someone who can cast fourth or fifth tier magic, but ninth surely you jest.”

  “Well, you can believe what you want. Maybe it is an error in translation, but based on everything you have told me, I don't think that is the case. Everything you have said makes perfect sense to me.”

  He actually got kind of quiet after that and seemed to be lost in thought. I guess it's always hard to believe when your world gets that much bigger. I was kind of surprised that it let me use my game knowledge of clerics, but I guess it was acceptable since Archaeus had traveled with a cleric for what amounted to almost a decade in game. When we started the campaign, he was eighteen years old, but after playing weekly for two years and all the in-game time that had passed, he was twenty-seven years old.

  We arrived at the capital right around sunset on the fourteenth day of travel, making the trip pretty much exactly what the prince had said it would be. Though with some of the detours we had made, the distance probably wasn't quite what I had estimated but relatively close.

  The sight of the capital was truly spectacular. There was a stone wall probably at least twenty feet high that went as far as the eye could see in both directions. As we got closer, even with it getting dark, I could tell there were a ton of people still manning the top of it. The gate going into town was a huge metal portcullis that was currently closed and there were giant statues of what I realized were supposed to be Faromir, god of Law, standing on either side.