Put it on my tab.

Here you go, chapter 10

Name: Lee Race: Human Class: Herald - None

Level: 9 Health: 190/190 EXP: 1333/2000

Primary Stats:

Power 19(20) Toughness 19(20) Spirit 19(20)

Secondary Stats:

Charisma 8 Courage 5 Deceit 2

Intelligence 48(50) Honor 1 Faith 26

Personal Faith 39

Skills:

Unarmed Combat Initiate Level 2 Swordplay Initiate Level 3

Sneak Initiate Level 3 Cooking Initiate Level 1

Trap Detection Initiate Level 1

Divine Skills:

Golem Sculpting Initiate Level 5

Appreciative Drunk Initiate Level 9

Faith Healing

“Are we done here?” Lee asked. He had needed the extra time to come up with a plan, and Ling had needed to hear the rant in order to fully understand the betrayal, but more empty words didn’t mean much at this point to Lee. He didn’t care why Ramon had been the bad guy: he just cared that he was and that he was the only one who knew where the other herald was. But all this talk was starting to get worse than those movies where two people were about to fight to the death and the hero and the villain always felt like they needed to have a ten-minute monologue first. If one of us is going to die, what the heck is the point in wasting so much time? He looked around the room and realized that it was empty except for Ramon. “Do you have anything else you want to say? Like, last chance to tell me where your boss is.” He added the last bit sarcastically, unable to help himself. Wait, is he stalling? He’s stalling so that the messenger can get out. There’s no one here because the messenger has already left!

“Oh, we’re done here,” Ramon laughed. “This is exactly where your tomb lies.”

“Then how about we get the show on the road?” Lee smiled as he jumped over another rather obvious floor trap and rushed forward to shield-slam Ramon.

In the process of avoiding the obvious floor traps though, he had missed the possibility of a remotely activated one. As soon as he got within five feet of Ramon, the barkeep kicked over one of the chairs.

Click.

The sound was as obvious this time as it had been before, and one of the floorboards moved away less than a second later to reveal another sharp spike hurtling toward Lee. Thankfully, he had transitioned into a bit-more-cautious, tank-oriented, sword-and-board style of fighting, so instead of impaling him, the spike slammed into his shield at just the right angle to change direction and continue its path upward.

“Tch!” Ramon clicked his tongue in anger. “Clearly, you haven’t read the ending of a good book yet: the bad guy always loses. Prepare to die!” The clichéd villain shouted as he lunged forward and swung his flail at Lee.

Lee clung to his protective wooden treasure for dear life after it had just saved him from certain death. He instinctively shoved it forward to block the spiked ball at the end of the long flail, only to have misjudged the trajectory completely. Instead of being blocked, the chain hit the surface of the shield, and the fat five-pound ball wrapped around the front and slammed into his shoulder, the spikes digging into his flesh.

Great, ten damage already. Lee grimaced as he tried to retaliate with a stab. Unfortunately, the weight from the flail had taken away his momentum and sent him sideways at the same time, knocking him into the bar and sending his sword thrust into the empty air.

As he was knocked around, however, he caught sight of a spear hurtling past him that plowed right into Ramon’s chest. It clearly didn’t do enough damage to cause a fatal wound, but it was enough to relieve the pressure off of Lee and force Ramon back. For a moment, the spear seemed like it had gone through Ramon entirely, as the man was pushed back into the wall behind him, but that thought was quickly dispelled as the weapon fell away.

“Hahahaha!” Ramon chuckled, wiping a few drops of blood from his mouth as if he were the hero of a typical Asian martial arts movie. “I saw this scene playing out a few ways, but I never would have imagined this idiot’s stupidity would reach this level. Throwing away your weapon just because you think it’s safe to do so? Fool!” Ramon shouted, quickly turning to the wall and hitting another switch.

The ceiling over the doorway collapsed, burying a girl and sealing off the entrance in the process. At the same time, a seemingly harmless closet door opened up and three Leprechauns walked out.

“They don’t look so tough,” one with red hair observed.

“Tough or not, we get paid the same either way. This ain’t part of our usual orders,” another with brown hair and yellow eyes added.

“I’m expecting a pot of gold for all our work,” the green-eyed one cackled.

Miller finally lost his cool as soon as they finished their little introduction. “Easy?! Idiot?! There is nothing stupid about hitting an enemy when there is an opening! You’re the idiot for thinking that I would only carry one spear!” he yelled, pulling five spears out of his inventory. “Let me show you the power of a man who has no scruples with buying victory in this game so long as it is purchased with evil blood!”

Welp, Ramon, this is on you. You ticked off the bloodthirsty giant. Before the thought had even entered Lee’s head, Miller slammed one of the spears into the ground and released his drunken shout, changing all of Lee’s stats over to their drunken version. Miller immediately hoisted that very same spear into the air and chucked it at the redheaded Leprechaun closest to him. Unlike before, where the spear failed to pierce, this one nailed the guy right into the wall and left him pinned against the wood.

Ling fired off two arrows, sinking one into each of the green eyes of the other Leprechaun, leaving only one remaining. Before the remaining Leprechaun could even scream in shock or respond to the rapid death of his buddies, he was hit by both an arrow in the eye and a spear right in the middle of his sternum.

You have killed Bubblywink. Your party has been awarded 85 copper and 109 experience. Your share of this is 43 copper and 55 experience.

You have killed McWoozy. Your party has been awarded 4 silver, 32 copper and 124 experience. Your share of this is 2 silver, 16 copper and 62 experience.

“Well, that didn’t go as planned . . .” Ramon frowned for a moment before turning to run up the stairs. “But there’s always tomorrow!”

“Careful when you follow!” Lee yelled out, but he didn’t heed his own advice as he charged up the stairs after the fleeing barkeep. When he reached the top of the winding staircase, he realized the entire upper floor was dark--not exactly pitch black, but rather dark in a way that a room with poor blinds near street lamps gets at night. Lee was suddenly super conscious of his surroundings and extremely wary as he tried to avoid any traps Ramon might have set. And, no more than a second into trying to find a hint of a rope or loose floorboard, he heard a click.

Crap, did I step on something? He looked down at his feet only to have a bolt from a crossbow strike him in the arm for 25 damage a second later. The sound of laughter echoed from the end of the hall, and Lee glanced up to see Ramon illuminated by the small amount of light that had snuck in from outside.

“I love making traps and setting up plans, but it’s so rare for me to actually get to see them in action . . . to see how the story plays out.” Ramon broke into that awful cackle of his again. “That’s why this is such a pleasure. I had been so worried that you would die in a boring fashion, that the tale they would tell would be this: Two idiots charged the barracks and were stabbed to death. Who would have thought that it’d be so vibrant instead! Back from the dead, quest for revenge, killed by the friend he trusted! What a perfect twist ending.” Ramon punctuated this final part by firing and missing another bolt at Lee, who was more concerned with searching out the floor for traps at the moment.

It’s too dark, Lee grumbled as he debated making a charge at Ramon. The downstairs layout of the bar had left him wary of booby traps, and unfortunately, Ethan hadn’t managed to make it through the door before the ceiling collapsed. Using the golem would have been an easy solution to both of his lack of sight and his need to discover the traps Ramon had set. Still, as a habit, he peered through the rodent’s eyes as soon as he struggled to use his own. What he saw, in great detail, shook him.

David and the young girl who had been buried when the ceiling collapsed were dying. The young woman couldn’t be a day over twenty, yet she held onto David’s hand and simply smiled at the others as if this were a welcome and expected outcome. A few in the group were crying, but she didn’t seem to be bothered by her fate. Instead, she gripped David’s hand and put on the best face she could despite the pain she had to be in from being still buried from the waist down in debris.

Some of the others were trying to remove the debris, but David just shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve seen a temple of the god with Lee. I know it’s real. It’s all real. They have their own language and everything. He didn’t exaggerate at all,” David continued.

“Just hang in there! You’re not going to die yet!” a woman of roughly the same age as David assured him as she held his other hand. “You’re going to make it. We didn’t put up with all of that together for you to just die on me.”

“You don’t get it,” David continued. “I’m not going to just die. I’m going to the better world, the world where Lee will take care of us. I’m a believer, and he promised.” He coughed a bit of blood then continued. “He promised it’d be a better life than this.”

“Don’t say that! You can go there later,” the dejected old lady insisted. “Come on, Davey, you’ll pull through this.”

“Just . . . promise me.” He coughed again, his eyes starting to droop.

“Yeah?” She answered pleadingly.

“Just promise me that you’ll believe . . . that you’ll be meeting me on the other side when you go too . . .” The light faded out of his eyes, and a part of Lee died along with him.

Lee was torn between the part of him that felt like his con had taken away the man’s will to live, his desire to fight, and the part that was satisfied he had given the old man some small semblance of peace on his deathbed.

The more difficult part was that he was still fighting for his life as he watched David’s death. The entire time, he had been rolling from side to side as he dodged Ramon’s crossbow bolts--bolts that were somehow aimed rather well in the dim light and reloaded at an even more impressive speed.

Ethan, can you understand me? Do you know what you must do? Lee asked the mouse, hoping that this communication between the two wasn’t just words but also intention.

When he felt Ethan nod, he knew that the rat understood, so he switched off his vision through the mouse’s eyes so that he could focus on his struggle against Ramon.

“Come on, oh herald of the end of times! Proclaim my doom to me! Tell me how this story ends!” Ramon’s cackle wormed its way through Lee’s head as he laughed between each sentence.

Screw it. Lee pushed all of his energy into his feet and charged down the right of the hallway toward the lunatic at its end. Right before he reached him, however, Ramon kicked the wall next to him, and two small ankle-high blades popped out from both walls and started rotating toward Lee.

With a reaction speed much faster than he remembered ever having, Lee leapt over the two blades with the grace of a seasoned hurdler before landing and ramming into Ramon shoulder-first. The blow was hard enough to send Ramon through the wall and down a full story onto the ground. Lee quickly pulled out his stashed bow, readied an arrow and shot Ramon in his leg while the other man was still moaning and writhing on the dirt. He had truthfully been aiming for a gut shot, but he was still relatively unpracticed with the bow and his aim was still a bit off.

“Hey!” he called out toward the front of the bar. “Hey, he’s over here! Restrain him until we get the map!” Quickly, the injured Ramon was surrounded by five of the former slaves grabbing onto his limbs.

“We have him, Lord Lee!” a middle-aged man called up after they successfully managed to restrain the barkeep.

Lee couldn’t help but sigh as he stared at the incredibly poorly-made wooden wall that Ramon went through. Man, they just don’t make walls like . . . Lee paused, his brain wanting to say ‘they used to,’ but at the same time, he remembered that this was technically what his society would count as the ‘used to.’  . . . Like they will? He finished the thought before shaking his head and making his way down the stairs back to the storefront.

The first thing he noticed when he arrived downstairs was that the doorway was mostly cleared. He also felt a good deal of relief when he saw that the legs of a young woman weren’t sticking out of it. Does that mean she made it? Lee realized he was hopeful that she had as his feet stopped and his eyes fixated on the spot where she should have been.

“Victory?” Miller asked Lee, interrupting his thoughts. “I didn’t see a kill message for him. There wasn’t any EXP. Did he run, or did we get him?”

“Yes, did we succeed? Did we get him? Did we make that bastard pay?” Ling asked with a mix of anger and excitement in her rushed words.

“He’s outside on the ground and heavily injured,” Lee answered. “The others have him secured so that he can’t run away, but I don’t want to wait too long.”

Lee checked in with Ethan as he made his way to where Ramon was being held. He intended to have the rat start searching the bar for any traps that they might not have found yet, but he held off on that request as soon as he saw what his mouse was doing. The little, winged mouse was in one of the alleyways with one of its tiny little paws on its chest spitting out tiny pieces of wood. When it noticed that Lee was paying extra special attention to him at that moment, it scowled long enough for Lee to understand before it went back to pushing the pieces of debris out of its body.

The command he had given the mouse while he was fighting off Ramon wasn’t to chew the girl free--rather, it had been to crawl into the pile and help the villagers identify which pieces of debris could be removed safest so that they could excavate her more easily. He hadn’t been happy about having to let Ethan act where others could see, but if it came to a choice between saving the girl’s life and keeping one of his powers and abilities a secret, he wasn’t going to regret his decision.

He didn’t know she was okay, however, until he saw her bandaged up and leaning against the wall next to David’s corpse. He was actually worried that she might be dead at first until he saw her chest rise and fall a few times. Well, with the way this world works, it’s not like she has to worry about a permanent injury so long as she doesn't die, he thought to himself as he rounded the corner and came face to face with the pinned-down and crying Ramon.

“Come on, Ramon. Don’t do this.” Lee frowned when he saw the clever, manipulative villain snot-faced and bawling his eyes out like a punched baby. “You’re supposed to be tough and defiant. The daring antagonist that laughs in the face of death,” he continued, feeling rather let down by this development. It had felt like a knife to the metaphorical gut as he endeavored to reason the madness behind such a colossal betrayal of his fellow friends and neighbors when he first realized that they had been duped by Ramon. He had subconsciously shifted Ramon from being the jovial information guy into a cold, calculating demon . . . and that image was once shattered again just as quickly as it had been created.

“Let me go, please! Please, let me go,” Ramon begged between tears. “It hurts so much! Just . . . just let me pull it out! Let me go!”

“Ramon. Ramon, Ramon, Ramon. This is just pathetic. It’s disheartening to see you embarrass yourself like this. It’s just plain cruel.” Lee’s frown turned into a scowl. “These people . . . You betrayed them and sold their lives away like livestock, but you can’t even act like a man about it. You can’t even accept any responsibility for your failure. What happened to your laughter?” he asked as he walked closer. “I guess that all the edgy life-doesn’t-matter crap falls out the window when it’s your life on the line, doesn’t it?” Lee knew his speech was probably stupid, but he felt he deserved at least one monologue. He had taken a bolt in the arm and had been forced to reveal one of his trump cards, so the least he could get out of this was a moment to feel like the cool guy while he ranted on.

“But I’ll tell you what,” Lee continued, now close enough to kick Ramon’s face without moving his foot more than a few inches. “Why don’t you help me out? You see, like you said, I’m stupid. I’m the unimaginative idiot who relies on technology to create complacency. So, I need your help after all. I need a professional storyteller: someone who can help me figure out an end to this story where I don’t kill you slowly. As slowly as possible. Can you do that for me, Ramon? Can you tell me an end to this story where I don’t chop off one of your fingers every few minutes? Followed by your toes, your legs, and your arms? Can you stop me from having to whittle away until you’re nothing but a stump? Can you do that for me, Ramon? Because, right now, I think everyone here kind of wants to see that ending. It’s their happily ever after. Am I right, guys?” he turned to the group and addressed the last question to them. It was met by a series of emphatic affirmatives. There wasn’t a single person who didn’t sound excited about that ending.

“I . . .” Ramon paused to suck the snot and drool back up his nose and mouth respectively. “I don’t know. Please, just let me go.”

Lee almost felt some bit of pity for him, but then he remembered the condition that he had found the villagers in, and it instantly vanished. He took a moment to look at Ramon’s injuries, making sure that he could survive what he had planned, before leaning over and pulling one of his swords out. “I was really hoping you’d say that.”

“Wait! Wait! No, what are you going to do?!” Ramon pleaded, his voice passing any metric that might be used to gauge a scream by a mile as it pierced the air. But Lee ignored it. He blocked it out of his head and did his best to keep his stomach down as he used his sword to follow through on his promise, slicing one of Ramon’s pinkies right off of his hand.

“GODS NO!!” Ramon’s scream reached a decibel level that made the stomach-churning act of taking off a man’s finger feel that much worse. The only thing that helped Lee follow through the action was when he thought about what type of hell on earth this monster of a person had put so many people through.

How is killing so easy when torturing is like hell on me? Lee didn’t understand himself at all, but he still had to do his best to steel his nerves. He needed Ramon to be afraid. Terrified. I got to look up more about this. This can’t be the best way to do this. Lee closed his eyes and put the act out of his head for a second. “Alright,” he began again after calming himself enough. “Now, you’ve only got nine digits left on your hands before I have to start moving to the toes. Why don’t you tell me that story? You told me that you love stories. Surely you weren’t lying to me. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” Lee asked.

“No, no of course not,” Ramon insisted over and over again. “I can tell you a story! I can tell you a story!”

“Well, good. Now, why don’t you tell me the story I want to hear, or I will have to make sure your right hand matches your left.”

“The . . . the valley in the east. His temple is in the east,” Ramon said, pausing to suck more snot back into his nose. “If you follow the path toward Middlefart, just . . .” He paused again, devolving back into a whimpering mess.

“Ramon!” Lee slapped him after a minute. “Stick with me. Where is it off the path?”

“T-take a left after the first signpost. The trail is easy to find. Follow the trail . . . I-It’s in the valley,” he finished.

Wait, how can I trust him? Lee suddenly realized the error of this method. The chances of Ramon handing over accurate information were just as high as the chances of him leading them into another trap. This sad sack routine could be another ploy to make him more believable. He could just be wearing another mask. “Okay, Ramon, do you have a map in the bar?”

“I . . .” He paused. He paused long and hard.

“Ramon, my blade is getting antsy. Do you have a map, or do I have another finger? I can’t trust you without a map, can I?” Lee asked, levying his blade against Ramon’s next pinky.

“It’s . . .” Ramon had stopped crying. It was evident that his earlier assumptions of him were wrong. This was a ploy. Ramon knew exactly what he’d ask for. “It’s in the dark liquor bottle labeled Quester’s Fury under the bar. There isn’t anything in the bottle. I just painted the inside so it would look like it’s full,” Ramon finally said.

There. “Ramon, I’m going to let you in on a secret. I have a method of scouting, one that lets me see a place without ever having to go there. I can know if you’re lying to me before any traps are sprung,” Lee said, referencing Ethan as indirectly as possible. “If I use this method, by the end of the night, I’ll know if you’re lying. If you are . . . Well, I can’t help you then. But if you’re not, then I’ll let you live in this town without fear of death for the rest of your life--until you die of something other than beating or stabbing or general weapon and fist related injuries.”

Ramon stayed frozen for a long time. “There is a trap on the way. You have to spin the signpost to disarm it.”

Lee patted his head patronizingly. “That’s good, Ramon. That’s good.”

“Are you going to keep your word?” The now-once-more arrogant face of the villain was back, much to Lee’s actual joy. He couldn’t take the crying. His face was still mucus-covered from his play earlier, however, destroying any ability to take him seriously or treat him like the actually ominous evil character he was.

Ethan, can you fly over there and check it out for me? We’re going to need to do some planning. He sent the directions to his little mouse friend who had just finished heaving the last piece of wood out of his gut.

“Just take this scum into the main room, get the map, and we’ll deal with him in a bit,” Lee ordered the villagers. Between all the murdering, the torture, and the bossing around of villagers that now somehow felt like henchmen in the back of his head, he was really starting to feel less like a prophet, demigod, savior, hero or whatever else and much more like the wicked, evil boss. The only thing he was missing was a permanent base.

Though, I do now own a tavern . . . Lee looked up at the building, only to see the hole Ramon had left. He spent so much time installing trap after trap in his bar, but in the end, he was done in by cheap corner-cutting during the building process. That wall might as well have been thatch the wood was so thin. He let out a hollow laugh at the irony.

“Umm . . . ” The lady Lee had seen holding David’s hand at his last moments came up just then to Lee and meekly lowered her head.

“I’m sorry about David. We’ll do everything we can to make sure he’s buried and treated properly,” Lee said as soon as he realized who she was. “He’s gone to a better place now,” he said with certainty, even though he had no idea if David actually made it to the upstairs or the downstairs of his own conceptions of the afterlife. He wasn’t even sure this world was connected or watched over by the god he actually believed in, but saying that wouldn’t matter now. Lee was going straight to the worst punishment imaginable for all this blasphemy and paganistic teaching as far as his own personal religion was concerned, so he might as well at least do it right and console people and make them feel better along the way.

“Will . . . Will we be together there when I die?” she asked with a level of love and determination he had not come face to face with before. It wasn’t just in her voice or her near-mute-but-determined words that confronted him with a level of adoration he was unfamiliar with. It was in her every gesture: her eyes were swollen and sparkled from as-yet-unfallen tears, and her lips were pressed together so tightly after she spoke that they vanished into each other. It was visible, and it was touching, and it made Lee feel all the more awful that David had died because of him.

“Of course you will. And it’ll be a much better life than this one was,” he assured her, placing a hand on her shoulder and trying not to be a creep while he comforted her--a talent he had no experience with.
She looked him straight in the eye, wiped her eyes dry with her arms, and then pulled out a knife.

“If you live a good and full life,” Lee quickly added as he stopped her blade. What the hell?! You can’t do that! There’s a difference between faith and stupidity here! “If you live a good, honest and long life, you’ll definitely be with him in the afterlife. As one of the first true believers, he was so determined and faithful, going so far as to die in battle for a cause within such a short period of time, that I promise he’ll have one of the highest positions in the afterlife. You need to work hard and earn a seat next to him.”

He wasn’t sure if he stopped her suicidal impulses, but at the very least he had quieted them. She pursed her lips as she stared at him before she nodded and headed into the bar on her own, leaving Lee alone.  He couldn’t help but worry as he watched her go. He sincerely hoped that she wouldn’t off herself because of her faith in his charlatan antics.

“How is it that you’ve actually met a god, yet you view this all as blasphemous, Charlatan nonsense?” Augustus’s voice pierced his mind with familiar background noise that often accompanied voice chat servers in video games. “I mean, come on! I’ve heard of people having trouble believing in a higher power because there is no proof, but you’re tangibly living in an entire world of proof after meeting the very god himself. It’s not like I’m asking you to preach about some spaghetti monster in the sky.”

“But I still have faith in someone else, you know?” Lee said. “First come, first serve. Literally.”

“Your mother would be so disappointed.” Augustus let out a hearty laugh, and Lee could swear there was the sound of a beer glass hitting a table in the background.

“Yeah, she would.” He nodded at the thought and then put Augustus out of his head completely as he went back into the battlefield of a bar, noting the potentially suicidal girl sitting next to David’s body where the injured teen had been moments ago. I guess they took her somewhere to rest, he thought, the whole scene still feeling too chaotic to grasp the full picture.

-----

While Ethan was out searching for the spot that Ramon had mentioned, the group found the map and laid it out on one of Ramon’s tables after dragging him into the bar. After they searched the bar, they had found not only the map but also several other unequipped traps and gadgets, making Lee thankful that Ramon hadn’t had the time to finish setting them all up before they arrived.

“So, do we actually let him live?” someone asked.

“Who needs a beer? Come on, people! Free beerrrrr!” Miller shouted from the bar as he started pouring glasses. “We don’t even have to pay! What a loot haul! Am I right, Lee?”

Lee’s face scrunched up as he looked at his overexcited paladin. Yes, you’re right. This has been a great loot haul, but can you maybe learn to read the mood some? Everyone other than Miller was either sober and somber or drunk and depressed. There wasn’t a cheerful face to be found anywhere in the room. It hadn’t been a clean victory, and as much as Lee hated to admit it, he missed the talkative guide already. Even though he had only known him for a day, he was already starting to miss David’s particular sense of humor.

“Here’s one for David,” he said, hoisting the glass in front of him and chugging it.

“Oh, are we drinking for the fallen?” Miller piped up, talking around a mouth full of food.

“What are you eating?” Lee asked, noticing for the first time that his friend was munching away at something.

“Fried chicken? Seems the cook finished making a few batches before he was killed,” Miller responded, not even bothering to chew his food properly as he talked.

“He killed Jeffrey?” someone asked.

“That’s horrible,” the girl on his right said as she jumped up and went to the kitchen.

“Look at the bright side: it means he wasn’t in on it.” Miller could really be an insensitive jerk when he wanted to. “Wait, I got it! Let’s have another drink for him too!” he offered, likely because he saw her horrified expression. “I mean, Lee did it for David, right? It has to be a religious thing for Augustus. He is a god of alcohol, after all.” With marked enthusiasm, Miller poured several beer glasses as quickly as possible from the tap.

“Yeah . . . to David!” the table said in unison before chugging a round of beer just like Lee had done. When they finished, they grabbed the fresh brews that Miller had poured.

“And to Jeffrey!” Miller shouted, and they downed that round before grabbing another.

Lee was caught between his fascination with how quickly a ‘religious tradition’ had started and how much he wanted to smack some sense into Miller so that he would stop acting so happy-go-lucky. He glanced over worriedly at the tables of morose people drinking quietly next to the Leprechauns’ corpses. The Firbolg really didn’t seem to have any clue as to how to act appropriately.

“So . . . what do we do now?” one of the younger girls asked. They were all on their third beer, and her eyes kept darting between the entrance, where a few of the regular townsfolk were, and back to Lee. The few individuals poking their heads in weren’t the first group of people to pass by, stare, and then leave without saying anything. It was a small town, and Lee and his followers had already caused an uproar in the middle of the day. If there was someone who hadn’t heard about what had happened already, Lee would be surprised. He was sure that at least a few of the onlookers were parents or loved ones of the kidnapped victims, but for some reason, none of them intruded on the scene.

“I don’t know,” Lee answered, looking down at his cup. They had been drinking for half an hour, and no one had really said much during that time. Miller poured drinks and handed out the chef’s last batch of fried chicken, Ling stared at the table as if there were some great secret to be had in it, and Lee just watched. He studied the face of each and every person in the room. There were quite a few women and some older men, but there weren’t any guys younger than David. It was as if they just hadn’t found the men necessary. Or maybe they were worried that the men would have been strong enough to fight back, making them harder to kidnap and then control.

The first thing I’m doing when I get back home is donate to foundations that stop human trafficking, Lee decided. He had plenty of money saved up from the fact he wasn’t a socialite but had a very well-paying job. That decision untied the knot in his gut for a minute until he realized how rarely he followed through on these type of things. He was the type of guy who constantly thought ‘let me give my first class seat to that soldier on his way home’ or ‘I should let that old lady take my seat on the bus,’ but then he’d always waffle until someone else did it instead. Whatever temporary good he felt would be erased by the shame of not actually doing anything.

“I’m tired,” Ling sighed, the first one to put forth any semblance of a direction.

“I am too . . .” a girl in her twenties agreed. She had just come downstairs after helping move the doorway-collapse-victim to a bed, and she picked up a beer from Miller before sitting down.

“I could drink more.” Miller’s voice came in much louder than the others’ like it was an advertisement on the radio. “I could also go for more killing. Lee, if you’re not tired, we can go hunt down and butcher some wolves while the women rest. I wonder . . . How do you think they would taste if you fried them like this chicken? I bet they’d be delicious! Fried wolf, fried deer . . . I want to try fried cow!”

“You know, you can fry other foods too. Like vegetables.” Lee laughed. The absurdity of Miller’s train of thought may have been out of place, but it provided a comedic relief from the tense atmosphere.

“Really? You have to show me how to do that. Can you make some right now? Better yet, can you make that fancy fried coating around an egg?” Miller asked with wide eyes.

“We can’t take everyone with us,” Lee responded, switching topics. The diversion was nice, but he didn’t want to get carried off on Miller’s train of thought. As he glanced around the room, it finally occurred to him what had been bothering him. On some level, he had known it the entire time and had been puzzling it out, but it hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind. Compared to what was coming, the fight through this trap-laden bar was probably only a minor scuffle. In a way, it might have even been a blessing.

“I don’t care what you say, I’m coming with you. I want to make him pay, and I don’t want anything to happen . . .” Ling started off rather vehemently, then she trailed off midway through. “I’m coming with you.”

Lee tried to nix the idea again.“But, what if--”

“I’m coming with you,” she repeated again with even stronger resolve.

“Okay, we got one person that will come with us. Miller, you’re definitely going to be coming with us to kill the other Herald, right?” Lee didn’t feel like arguing with Ling again. She had essentially saved his life by coming last time, so if she insisted, what could he say? She had bailed him out the last time he was in a tight spot, and she had shown that she could hold her own.

“I’ve been thinking . . . if we need a sacrifice, I could beat someone to death with their own limb.” Miller’s gore-heavy sense of devotion was rather disturbing to watch, but Lee had no doubt that he planned on realizing his idea. He had always been faithful to his word in that regard.

“Don’t change the subject. I’m coming too,” the girl who had just walked downstairs added.

The old woman who had held David’s hand during his final moments stood up. “Like Porter said, I’m coming as well. I don’t care if I die, and I want to be of some use. I want to make sure no one goes through what we did.”

“Henslee . . . ” Porter looked at the older woman pensively. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Henslee, as she was apparently called, was now void of everything but hate. That she was ready to die.

“I . . . I want to help if you need me. But . . . but I really just want to go home. I want to see my dad. I want to . . .” another girl at a table in front of Lee started trying to speak, but she just couldn’t get the words out. She had been looking sad for hours, and opening her mouth caused the dam to break and she burst into tears. One tear fell, slowly rolling down her cheek, and then a flood. The sobbing was soft and quiet, and whatever bravado the others had built up was washed away by that flood of tears.

“I want to go home too,” an older man in the back said. “I’ve been away for so long.”

“Wait, stop,” Lee said loudly, silencing the group. “I won’t stop you if you insist on coming, but we’re all tired. We’ve been up all night, and life hasn’t been kind to us either. So, why don’t those of you who want to go home just head on home? It won’t make you any less of a man or woman. You’ve done everything above and beyond, so just get some sleep. I’m sure most of you have lives life to rebuild, so you might as well get started now.”

“But are you going to be okay?” the older man asked. “Are they going to be okay?”

“We . . . might need more people. Tomorrow, we’ll try to recruit able-bodied men and women who are used to fighting--not people who need to be with their families. If you need to go, go now. Take a beer for the road, and we’ll hopefully see you all when this whole thing is over.” No one moved at first, but eventually, they started leaving one at a time. When all was said and done, four women and two men remained.

“You know, the chances of us dying aren’t exactly low.” Lee looked at those who didn’t leave. They didn’t appear to have any muscles, and they had held their weapons like they were first-time LARPers playing around with Nerf bats. They didn’t have the smooth, skilled archery that Ling did.

“What do we do about him?” Amber asked, pointing toward Ramon. She was one of the women who had stayed behind and appeared to be around the same age as Porter. Ramon had been bound and gagged in the corner the entire time the group was lugubriously drinking, and someone would go over and kick him every now and then, but no one had killed him yet since Lee hadn’t sentenced him.

“Would you feel better if we killed him?” Lee asked.

“Yeah, absolutely. Let’s do it slowly!” Amber shouted with more enthusiasm than a girl talking about killing someone should have. “Make him suffer on the way out!”

“I say we go with your original idea: We take a digit off every day until he dies,” Henslee chimed in, giving Lee the chills.

“We could hang him or cut off his head . . . maybe be humane about it. We’re better than him, aren’t we?” one of the two men gave his own input. “I wouldn’t feel right about that other idea. It seems like it would make us worse than he is.”

Something, something . . . forgiveness. Wait, if I make them forgive him now, then that would ruin me. I can’t lose more followers! Lee had checked to affirm one of his suspicions when David died, and he had been proven correct. He had only lost one personal follower, and he hadn’t gained any zealots. In fact, he hadn’t gained any faith since the fight started. So they all want vengeance, but they all want it to differing degrees. I could say something about how he’ll suffer some horrible fate in the afterlife, but I don’t want them to think this religion is all fire and brimstone, even though that is clearly the direction Miller wants to take it.

“How about we think about what he did to you all,” Lee said after a moment. “I think that would be the best way to punish him.”

“What do you mean?”

Lee felt that the plan he was slowly forming would easily be accepted. He just had to lead them to it. “Well, for the past few months, he’s been sending you all to a hellish camp with little food or comfort to mine away nonstop, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah. He did, and they treated us awfully! They . . . ” Amber bit her lip and swallowed whatever she was going to say further. “They just treated us like tools to be used at their discretion.”

“Then, that’s easy. Why don’t we give him back exactly the same punishment he gave you,” Lee said.

“What do you mean?” Ling asked, lifting up her head.

“Well, between the lot of you, there couldn’t have been more than sixty. We add in the two or three months you all served at maximum, and that’s at most one hundred and eighty months or fifteen years,” Lee continued. “So in order for him to fully suffer as much as you did, he needs to suffer for at least fifteen years--if not more. He needs to suffer in the same way you did, with no fewer arduous and painful experiences. But his punishment will be worse than yours.”

Lee smiled. He felt a joyful dichotomy as his scheme seemed both evil and vindicated of evil at the same time. He was going to make someone break, make their life awful and torture them, but he wasn’t going to use torture by the definitions that he imagined. Rather, he was going to make him go through exactly what he put others through. That was why he felt vindicated even though the whole thing reeked of wickedness.

“How will it be worse?” one asked.

“Well, we’re going to put him through worse labor. We’re going to use him until his body breaks, day after day, but he won’t have companionship. You all had each other. You had families to think about returning to. There were those that cared for you, but he will be alone. He will suffer alone, day after day, with barely enough food, no free time, no guests, and no god to watch over him after we kill the Herald and last bastion for the lord he chose.” Lee stood up and stared directly at Ramon. “Fifteen years minimum. We need to make sure he doesn’t die a day sooner.” The punishment might not exactly be the same as what the women went through, but the pain of solitude would normally break a normal person by itself. Hermits existed, but they were rare.

The others looked at Ramon, and even the man who was against torture nodded.

“It’s cruel,” the man said, “but it’s no less than he deserves.”

“Indeed. If he had made a point of understanding how his actions affected others, how they would feel if he was the one they were done against, then we wouldn’t be here today. We’d all be drinking in this bar, enjoying delicious food, and exchanging stories. Lee had to stop himself from smiling. Great ones, too. There’s about a thousand LitRPG and Fantasy books you would have loved, idiot, Lee cursed at him silently.

“That seems fair, but can I stab him once?” Miller asked. “He made fun of my spear. I really want to gore him just once.”

“No, but you can slap him a few times if it makes you feel better.” Lee had to shoot down the stabbing idea right away. He’d normally be all for it, but if each of the people who suffered because of Ramon stabbed him, he’d be dead before nightfall.

Miller seemed perfectly fine with the idea, so he put down his beer and walked over in front of Ramon. He reached down, picked Ramon up with one hand, and then slapped him so hard the man was sent sprawling two feet to the left. “Oh, man, that was a blast. Come on, everyone, get a slap in! It will make you feel so much better. I think I’m going to have to slap him a few times tomorrow.” He picked up Ramon again and dragged him over to the table, where the girls and the guy at the table actually did just as he suggested. In fact, Amber slapped him three times.

“Well, does anyone else have an issue with the punishment?” Lee asked. “I know it might seem light, but trust me: he’ll suffer worse than you did.”

Porter frowned at Lee then slapped Ramon so hard that even Miller wasn’t able to keep ahold of him, sending him to the floor once again. “Fine. But I want to be able to hit him whenever I feel like it.”

“Could they do that to you at the mines?” Lee asked.

“Yes, and they did,” Porter retorted, spitting on Ramon at the same time.

“That’s fine then. Whatever they did to you, feel free to do to him. But I think we have more important matters to discuss now, like the battle ahead.” Lee returned to his table but didn’t sit down.

“Are we heading over there right now?”

“No.” Lee shook his head. Since he was able to fly, Ethan had managed to reach the area relatively quickly, but Lee didn’t trust Ramon’s word about the number of traps that might be hidden along the way. He wanted to make sure the area was thoroughly searched, and even Ethan seemed eager to double and triple check the pathway. The small mouse had started working his way back on his tiny little mouse feet while looking for levers, ropes, pitfalls, or loose earth. He was even using his extremely acute mouse nose to sniff around for possible poisons or odd smells. Fool me once, Ramon, good on you. But you won’t fool me twice. “We’re not ready yet. I need you all to do me a favor, something that will help me greatly.”

“What do you need?” Porter asked, slapping Ramon again before Miller dragged him over to the other table.

“Well . . .” Lee looked at the remaining group. “I said we needed to recruit able-bodied people, but I’m just a stranger to these lands. I know that the others I’ve rescued are probably with their families or sleeping, and they’ll bear witness to my story, but it’d be better if you all went out ahead of me. Before I have to say anything tomorrow, I’d like it if you all can go door to door and recruit the best warriors and hunters so that we can put an end to this blight before it reappears. Tell them to meet here an hour after sunrise tomorrow. We’ll serve breakfast and make sure everyone is well geared before we head out. After you’ve done everything you can, just try to prepare yourselves. Try to say goodbye to anyone you meet tomorrow,” Lee finished.

“I’ll get my brother. He’s the best swordsman in town,” Porter said.

“What about your brother, Bock? Isn’t Eim supposed to be a hunter?” Amber asked, looking at the man who had reservations about torture earlier.

“Yeah, he is. I’ll go find him. You should come with me, Brandi. He’d jump off a roof if you asked, so it’s a sure thing with you along,” Bock answered.

“Okay.” The oldest woman still remaining, around forty at the least, nodded. “But I need to also talk to my father and sister. They’re both great at fighting.”

The five girls and two guys talked about who they were going to recruit and then eventually left. One of the two men carried Ramon along with him to ensure that he wouldn’t escape while they went out. The town didn’t have a jail, and even if they did, no one wanted to trust someone else to watch over him. Even the people they had talked about recruiting were either friends or family of victims, so it was obvious that there was still some real concern that one of them might betray them just as Ramon had done.  

Miller went into the kitchen to mess around with the food, leaving Lee and Ling alone. She turned to him as soon as the Firbolg was out of the room, and with the same sharp tone she had earlier, she said, “I don’t want to drag my dad into this.”

Why is she so terse? Did I do something to make her mad? “I understand.”

“Good.” She scrunched up her face and went back to staring at the beer glass in front of her.

Lee looked at her, then looked away, trying not to stare as he wracked his brain for what to say. This all felt more awkward than a blind date with a vegan at a steakhouse. “Do you want to at least see him before you leave? I’m sure he’s worried about you.”

Her voice seemed even tenser when she answered. “No. I’m not going home.”

“Okay . . .” Lee looked to where Miller had disappeared into the kitchen, hoping to be rescued from this. They had been just fine in the mine shaft and even on the road back to the town. He wasn’t entirely sure what had changed, but something was definitely different. “Mi--”

“You’re going to go out again. You’re going out killing again, aren’t you? That’s why you want me to leave.”

“What?” Lee was starting to see why she was behaving the way she was. “Well, yeah, but just some wolves around town. We need food for breakfast, we need practice and . . . experience.” He was constantly lost about what was and wasn’t an okay topic for NPCs, so he didn’t just say EXP.

“Invite me to the party then,” she said. “We’ve been traveling together for a while. Invite me.”

“I can’t . . . It’s technically Miller’s party,” he admitted. And I’ve been stuck in it without a choice for a while, and I’m not even sure how to leave.

“Miller! Invite me to the party right now, or I won’t let Lee cook you any fried chicken! And I’ll bust every beer keg in here until you have to go to the tavern next door for your drinks!” Ling demanded.

Miller popped his head out of the kitchen, a giant drumstick between his teeth and a mystery barrel in his hands. “Can do, boss lady,” he said--or at least that is what Lee thought he said. He couldn’t be certain since it was hard to make out anything with the food blocking most of the sound.

“Good.” Ling’s stern face cheered up a little. “Now, don’t leave me when you go training.”

“Me or him?” Miller asked, his voice now clear as he had somehow managed to devour the entire drumstick in that incredibly short amount of time.

Ling looked over at him, rolled her eyes, and then looked back to Lee. “So, are we going now, or are we resting first?”

“Well, I think we’ve all pulled all-nighters before, so let’s head out now and then come back to get some rest before the sun sets. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

“Hey, if I throw a wolf on top of a sword you’re holding, and that counts as the finishing blow, would Augustus give me or you the credit?” Miller asked as he put away the mystery barrel. “I mean, it’s a serious question. I need to figure out what counts as a good sacrifice to Augustus, and since I’m your first Paladin, does that mean I need to worry about a crest? A symbol of sorts? Are there some fancy colors you want your order of Paladins to wear?”

Lee had little to no talent in artistic design despite apparently being the heir to a God of Alcohol and Crafts, so he had no idea what to do for the symbol. Colors, on the other hand, he could actually do. “Are dyes cheap around here? Is it easy to dye armor?” he asked, wanting to pick colors anyone could use.

“Oh, yeah. Dyes come in from the city of CowTip all the time. I want to dye every piece of armor I have. BLACK! Just really black. Super dark black. Then, when I stab people, the blood will wash over my armor, and I’ll look awesome.” Miller went full goth for a moment, making Lee cringe.

Ling pouted.“No, that won’t do at all. Black is a very expensive dye. I can’t afford it.”

Well, that’s two reasons not to use black. I’m from the modern era where we specialize in war, and no one uses black unless they’re sneaking in somewhere at night or starring in a spy thriller. Instead, they’d always wear the color of their surroundings. “Green. That’s my color,” Lee said.

“But you’re supposed to be the god of burney burney--”

“And rebirth. And what burns better than leaves or symbolizes life more than nature? The colors of nature are my colors, but green specifically.” He knew Miller really wanted black, but he’d also probably accept red, yellow, white or even blue since they all were related to flames, which he no doubt thought were ‘very cool.’

“Green is cheap.” Ling nodded her approval while doing the math on her fingers. “Green is very cheap.”

“Do they make the dye from local grass and leaves?” Lee asked, hoping it was the case so that it would act as the perfect camouflage.

“Yeah, they use a lot of the local grass and leaves to make the dye,” Ling responded as she continued to go through some numbers on her fingers.

Lee watched her go from a frown, to normal, to pouting, to a deep frown, to normal and then back to pouting in the course of two minutes while counting on her fingers. “Miller, check around the bar for Ramon’s cash stash. Give enough of it to Ling so that she stops worrying about the money.”

“Sure, and if she doesn’t have enough, it won’t matter. I know a good spot near here with dozens and dozens of wolves. We’re going to be swimming in blood!. There are big wolves too! Dire wolves! And I’ve heard there is even a Gan Ceann King near there too. It’ll be a blast, and we’ll leave swimming in cash and blood and blood and cash!” Miller’s grin was ear to ear as he rambled on for another few minutes. He seemed to be incredibly happy with himself as he made hand gestures and used his spear as a prop to talk about all the butchery they’d be able to do.

Lee laughed, cutting him off after a few minutes. “I’m sold. Let’s head out now.”

“Wait, wait. I haven’t even told you about the best way to kill a--”

“Just show me,” Lee chuckled. Even Ling seemed to be amused by it all.

-----

The entire process was a lot easier than before. Whereas previously had Lee struggled to kill a single wolf, the swords he had obtained as loot were much higher quality and the shield provided a lot of defense, so he barely took any damage while still being able to deal it out.

One thing he noticed about the fights was that armor made the importance of hitting weak spots far more valuable as it got better and better. The armor seemed to create a flat reduction and not a percentage. This meant that, when a wolf went to bite him for six damage, his armor, which had seven points of armor, completely canceled out the damage. On the other hand, his natural armor was very low, so if a wolf ever bit him on any of his skin, he’d take the full damage. Even with the regular starting sword that only did four damage, he was able to do nine more damage than when they started. Armor was a flat increase, and so was damage. Each point of power seemed to offer exactly one more damage to his weapon, regardless of what the weapon was. Lee knew that this meant skill with how to take a blow and where to strike would become increasingly important as he gained levels in this world.

For this reason, while Miller just went about his usual carnage with seemingly little care for grace or style, Lee spent the entire time focusing on his sword skill and doing his best to direct blows he couldn’t dodge onto the armored parts of his body. He went three fights in a row without even taking damage due to this.

During this time, Lee was also focusing on how to tap into Ethan’s senses and movements more finely without breaking concentration. It was at this point that he got a full understanding of the area they were going to. It was a stone fort in the middle of an open field by the river. The stones were placed in such a way that the whole thing completely lacked any mortar. While the size of the fort wasn’t exactly up to castle standards and didn’t tower more than twenty feet off the ground, it was easily as large as a small mansion. Considering the fact it had been built in the last 2 weeks, Lee knew without a doubt that the Herald had to have been using slave labor or have a ton of people working for him. Neither case was particularly good news.

Before Ethan even got a chance to scout inside the fort, he noticed a few of the guards on the wall pointing at him. One of them even shot an arrow, which missed horribly, but the attempt was still made to let Ethan know that his encroachment wouldn’t pass, and that they had guards on the walls. They had five to be exact: one on each wall and two at the main gate. The gate was large and wooden, and Lee hoped it was made as cheaply as Ramon’s bar, but he doubted it.

The only good news to come from to the whole stealthy venture was that there weren’t any traps leading up to the fort. The little autonomous golem had been incredibly thorough, and he couldn’t find a single booby trap.

Lee had the rodent return home once the report was done, which took didn’t take long at all considering how fast the winged golem flew. The mouse wasn’t the only one being productive and making great headway. Thanks to Ling’s arrows never missing a vital weak spot, Miller’s shout continuously causing incredibly tough and coordinated beasts to act like drunken idiots at the start of each fight, and the general fact that Lee was no longer running around with the worst gear imaginable with no idea of how to fight, they were able to slaughter their way through several mobs of enemies without a problem. At one point, it was even going so smoothly that Miller stopped using his weapon altogether and simply ripped the arm off of a giant, twelve-foot-tall corrupted sloth and beat it to death with its own arm. When Lee asked what he was doing, he only replied: practice.