“I blame you for this!” Fredd shouted to be herd over the constant cries of the Night Larks. The small cloud of the tiny birds swooped and and pecked at the trio while they sprinted down the forest path. Individually the birds were nothing but there were over fifty of the black winged devils trying their best to murder them.

Krim windmilled his tentacles as fast as he could but only managed to knock a couple to the ground. “Can't you burn them?” Krim asked Bargus who shook his head while heaving in air.

“I'll catch the two of you in the blast!” he shouted.

The birds didn't give up until the town was in sight, small torches burned on top of the gates and at regular intervals along the wooden palisade. With one last peck at his bloodied tentacles the final bird retreated and Krim drew his Boon back into himself.

A guard on top of the gate checked there were no more monsters around and climbed down a rope to see them, after a quick glance at their adventurer tags he called for the gate to be opened.

The guildhall was still open despite how early in the morning it was. It was still dark but Krim could just make out a slight lightening of the sky behind the tall building.

Inside it was just as bright as when they'd left although the old receptionist was gone and a bored young man was reading a book with his feet up on the desk. He had a Bronze adventurer tag which surprised them. 'Didn't think someone at that level would take such a boring job.' Krim wondered but he let Fredd hand in the jobs. 'Knowing my luck, I'd insult him and get kicked from the guild.'

Fredd gave a light cough to get the attendants attention and slid the three complete jobs across the desk. “These are complete.” Fredd said.

The man barely looked up from the book and peered at Fredd through a curtain of long black hair. “Good morning.” his voice was deep and he almost sounded annoyed at having to do his job. He dragged the papers into his line of sight. “Yep, two deliveries and a clearance.” He dropped the papers and picked up a small crystal off of the desk before speaking into it. “Twenty one silver and eighty copper.” They all waited for a minute, silently waiting for him to continue.

A small black disk appeared above the desk and a small pouch of coins dropped from it, clinking as it came to a stop. “Not many jobs on the board just now, we'll put the new ones up in a few hours.” he turned back to his book dismissing Fredd.

Fredd scooped up the coins and they went to one of the tables near a warm fire. “I don't know about you two but I'm dead on my feet.” Krim said putting said feet up on a chair.

“I feel like I've been up for days. I've never ran so much in my life.” Bargus agreed. “How about we take the day to rest, we can meet up later and hit the market to find some cheap gear. Probably best if you hold onto the money.” He said the last to Fredd who nodded but Krim could see the apprehension in his face.

“I almost forgot, If there's any trouble with the whole leaving a letter thing just come to mine.” Krim said then turned to Bargus. “Are you going to be alright?” he asked

“My mum should still be at the healers for a couple of days. Doubt they've let him out of the cells yet either so I'll be fine.”

Krim slept through most of the day, briefly waking up to wave off his family and say he was fine. Even when he finally got up he felt completely drained, The previous day had been filled with more action and adrenalin than was healthy. He quickly peeled his blood crusted clothes off and bathed grimacing at the murky red and brown water. 'My bedsheets are probably a write off.' he thought.

He walked through the busy streets enjoying the feeling of fresh air and clean clothes. It was getting late but the market stalls were still selling anything they could and Krim decided to browse while waiting for the others to show up. 'Probably shouldn't of left all the money with Fredd.' Several merchants waved him away when it was clear he had no coin and he quickly grew bored of window shopping.

“Hey! Creep!” a familiar voice shouted

Krim despaired at the shouts, “What do you want Tarla?” he asked gruffly. His cousin was walking arm in arm with a man Krim assumed was her boyfriend. The guy was short and plump but had a strangely handsome face, some thing about it seemed off. 'It feels like I should think he's handsome but my eyes don't fully agree.'

One thing that was clear though was the man's wealth. His clothes were expertly tailored, made of soft looking silk and covered with superfluous golden buttons

“This is my pervert of a cousin. He worships Selaphos.” She said the last part far louder than necessary.

Most of the crowd were far to busy to care and he had no doubt a few of them were actual worshippers of Selaphos. Despite many flesh cults turning to crime, they weren't banned nor was it against the law to worship Selaphos. Krim was more than done with his hateful cousin and gave her a withering look.

“Just fuck off Tarla, I really can't be bothered with you today.” he said in his best attempt to avoid a confrontation. Unfortunately Tarla's meal ticket seized the opportunity to be her knight in shinning armour.

“Don't you dare speak to her that way, you filthy peasant!” he shouted drawing angry glares from the market filled with 'peasants'. 'This guys going to get himself killed before I can strangle him.' Krim laughed making the man all the more angry.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You dare laugh at me...At me?!” He was seething mad only encouraged by Tarla whispering something in his ear that Krim couldn't hear. “Do you know who my father is?” his voice cracked into a high pitched whine, drawing a few laughs from the onlookers. A few passers-by heckling him as the went.

“A Screamer!”

“Your uncle!”

“Why do they always ask that?” one baffled man asked the stranger next to him.

Krim shrugged and decided to prepare himself for the rapidly escalating situation. He extended his tentacles, making them thick and strong. The crowd became dead silent with more than a few making disgusted faces. “I've really had enough. Go away or I'm going to tentacle you.” 'That sounded way more menacing before I said it.' He sighed as a few people chuckled.

He edged the dripping tentacles closer to the rich turds face, forcing him to take a step back until he turned with a flourish and stormed off. Embarrassed but clearly not able to deal with the slimy situation in front of him.

Tarla was left standing by herself completely mortified shock, which quickly turned to outrage. “How could you do that to me! Everard was only being a gentleman, why do you have to ruin everything!” she ran after the swiftly disappearing Everard calling for him to wait.

“How is this my fault?” Krim asked to no one in particular.

“Put those away.” A large armoured guard demanded pushing through the crowd. “Stop causing a commotion and move away from here.”

'Typical guard, just in time to do nothing.' He didn't want to start another fight so did as he was told and returned to browsing stalls. Only a short time later a hooded figure bumped into him by 'Accident' and slipped a folded piece of paper into his hand before mumbling an apology and quickly walking away.

They had disappeared into the crowd before Krim could think of chasing them so he focused instead on the slip of paper. It was a messily written address in town close to the richer area where the merchants had their homes, with the words 'Join us' written beneath. 'Well this isn't suspicious at all.'

Krim wasn't a genius but even he quickly understood he was holding an invitation to a local flesh cult. He regretted showing his Boon in public and after thinking of the story Pat Fain had told them back in the village, Krim tore up the paper and scattered it across the street.

“What was that?” Bargus asked finally showing up with Fredd at his heels. Krim filled them in about Tarla and then the suspicious note from the stranger.

“And you just threw it away!” Bargus asked incredulous “But they have...”

Krim cut him off with a raised hand “I know what they have and what they do, I don't want any part of it. It's bad enough that everyone already assumes I'm one of them.”

“That's what I'm saying! You might as well enjoy yourself if they're going to be accused anyway.” Bargus said trying to hunt down the scraps of paper.

“How about we focus on our adventuring and less on joining cults.” Fredd suggested before heading to a weapon stall.

The merchant was one that had chased Krim off earlier that day for not buying anything and from the looks of it no one else had either. Displayed on the rough wooden table was an assortment of chipped and slightly bent swords, axes and knives. There was a bucket of spear heads in similar disrepair.

“Do you have any intact spears?” Krim asked while Fredd picked up different swords looking for the least bent.

The merchant looked disdainfully down his long beak of a nose at him and tapped his finger on the hard wood table. “Do you have any coin? I want to see it.” The man's accent was very thick and from his incredibly pale skin it was clear he was from the Skaln continent. 'How the hell did he end up here?' Krim wondered, the merchant wondered the same thing while waiting for the adventurers to produce some money.

Fredd jingled his coin purse but didn't show the coins inside. The merchant sighed and picked up two long spears from the ground and set them on the table. “Hard to find a good spear, makes them mighty expensive.” he lied through his teeth.

Krim had never been a great haggler but he knew that was complete rubbish.

“Its a stick with a bit of metal on the end.” he said dismissing the idiotic claim.

The merchant doubled down though. “The 'bit of metal' as you call it isn't the expensive part. Do you know how much it costs for a good shaft around here? Half the trees in that pathetic excuse for a forest are riddled with blight and the rest are soft wood”

That gave Krim an idea but he tried his best to keep it from his face. “I find my own stick then. How much for the bucket of scrap heads?” he asked 'I'm getting good at this.' he thought while the merchant looked in his bucket

“Ten silver.” the merchant said with a smile.

'Why can't they just offer a reasonable price first time?' “I don't want the actual bucket. Four silver for the almost unusable spear heads.”

They went back and forth until finally settling on six silver which was still unreasonable in Krims mind but the more he thought of his idea the better it seemed.

Fredd ended up buying a slightly bent short sword which was the only one with no rust on the blade and they each got a shield which were in far better condition than the weapons.

They gave Bargus his share of the coins since he didn't want to use a weapon that would just get in the way of his boon. Krims remaining coin totalled one silver and a handful of copper which he spent on a well used rucksack and some dried food that would travel well.

“I'm going to get some changes of clothes from home before we head out this time.” he told the others while they walked to the guildhall. They'd each gotten a bag but Fredds was by far the best find, it had dozens of little pockets where he could keep different seeds for his boon.

The jobs on the board were a little more interesting this time about. They ignored the handful of deliveries and dozens of manual labour requests. Instead they took a single job to assist the guard in hunting bandits.

The old receptionist was back and she was giving them a critical once over. “So. You killed some overgrown rabbits and think your ready to run off hunting criminals eh?”

Bargus pointed to the job request “It says any rank can join.”

She laughed and shook her head. “There's a reason they call wood ranks 'Fodder'. Fighting men, desperate men, is a far cry from taking out a few vesk.”

Bargus was resolute however and his friends knew better than to argue with him when he got like this. The rewards for the job were what had him so interested, they would keep any gear the bandits possessed and they would receive a twenty silver bounty for each bandit slain.

“We're taking it.” he said with a a certainty the receptionist had seen from a hundred young adventurers, right before they had gotten themselves in over their heads.