Xangô POV: Day 46

Current Wealth: 2 silver 42 copper

[Appraisal]

* Class: Emperor

* Level: 10

* Condition: Fine

* Modifiers: +5 Toughness, +1 Strength

* Statistics: Strength 6, Speed 5, Dexterity 6, Stamina 5, Toughness 9, Alertness 8, Charisma 9, Intelligence 8

* Inventory: Jeans, shirt, jacket, hatchet

* Class abilities: Appraisal III

* Current Experience Points: 133/160

* Unspent Skillpoints: 0

[Appraisal]

* Class: Dragonknight

* Level: 6

* Condition: Haggard

* Modifiers: +2 Strength, +1 Speed, +2 Toughness

* Statistics: Strength 11(8), Speed 9(7), Dexterity 8(6), Stamina 9(7), Toughness 10, Alertness 8(7), Charisma 6, Intelligence 5

* Inventory: Jeans, flannel shirt, spear

* Class abilities: Beloved II

* Current Experience Points: 110/150

* Unspent Skillpoints: 0

10 experience points, apparently, were our reward for trudging across miles of snow and killing ten times our number of undead.

Well, truth be told I wasn’t entirely surprised. We’d clocked a while ago that difficulty, and particularly risk, exponentially increased the experience rewards for killing something even if it was magical enough to give experience. With that in mind gang-initiating mindless zombies of roughly average human physicality was hardly going to benefit us much no matter what. Still, I’d checked. If we’d been levelling quickly from the hunts, it might’ve been worth sustaining them for a while, seeing how strong we could get…Seeing if we could head over at night.

In any case, it was an irrelevance. We weren’t levelling up at any appreciable speed from killing them, so we had no reason to continue doing it save for the money. And the money was quite wanting, too.

We were sitting together in the same tavern we’d met Argar, eating- and not drinking- some roasted chickens with a few carrots and potatoes thrown in. Hot meals were still a luxury, it’d been that recently that we’d started regularly indulging them, but this one had set us back a further 12 coppers in total.

So we were down to 2 silver and 30 copper.

It was progress, still, no matter what. But after our night’s sleep in the inn that progress would be reduced by a further 9 copper from rent. And it was already small enough.

Expensive to live, painful to die, miserable to go on. But we had no choice in the matter, and so I pushed the observation behind me like so many others.

Solitaire leaned back, groaning with the motion.

“My ribs are on the mend.” He noted. “I’ll be fit as a fiddle tomorrow.”

The lying bastard. I didn’t have the energy to answer or argue, but he kept on talking regardless.

“Which brings us to our issue of funds. Seems to me, we need a way of overcoming two limiting factors on the undead hunts. Time required to get there, and actual weight of the…” His lip curled slightly. “Loot.”

Evidence. We’d needed evidence, otherwise any idiot could just claim to have killed a hundred rotters and walk out of the merc tavern with ten silver in his pocket. Apparently, that evidence had been required in the form of severed heads.

So we’d watched Argar haul back about two hundred pounds of stinking, decaying skull and brain matter for twenty miles. If nothing else, the weight didn’t seem to bother him that much.

“We could get a cart.” Beam suggested. “A hand-drawn one, at least.”

Solitaire sighed.

“Carts cost money, if I’m remembering our notes correctly a decent one would set us back about ten or fifteen silver.”

I considered another way, then gave up.

“Either way, we still have the issue of travel time, I don’t see that going away until we’re rich enough to afford a horse. More than one, actually, to carry all of us.”

Solitaire grinned that evil grin he had, the one that promised he was about to say something very very clever, that would make me extremely upset.

“I’ve thought of a solution for that.” He declared, and without realising it Beam and I leaned in to hear. He continued, apparently enjoying the attention.

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“We build a shelter next to the woods. A small one, mind, densely made with nice thick walls and boarded windows. That marks our base of operations, and while we hunt through the night, we can do so knowing we have a defensible position to retreat to.”

Beam was thoughtful, but I was instantaneous in my answer.

“No.” I snapped. “Absolutely not, it’s ridiculous, we’d be torn to shreds during construction.”

“We’d only build during the day.” Solitaire countered. “And, actually, I was thinking we could take out a loan to hire some workmen to do it.”

It was incredible. Somehow my friend had taken a plan so awful it almost made my eyes water, and, with just a few extra words, managed to make it even worse.

“You want to put us in debt again now?” I snapped, disbelieving that he could be so stupid. Solitaire only shrugged.

“Either that or we risk a night attack without some defensive fortifications. Way I see it, we need to increase our power here- both politically and literally- as quickly as we can. I want security here, I want to know that I won’t wake up hungry tomorrow, I want-” His voice became strangled, for a moment, by emotion. And I realised why.

I’d always known I’d be okay, that I wouldn’t starve. So had Beam. But not Solitaire. In our old world he’d spent his life crawling up to a position as stable as the one we’d occupied right before being dragged here.

And then he’d been dragged here. We’d all lost everything, but everything he’d lost, he’d worked for, too.

But even knowing how much he wanted it back, I couldn’t just roll over for an idea like this.

“This could fuck us, permanently. If we keep going as we are…We’ll get where we need to be eventually.”

“Unless something unlucky happens in the meantime.” Solitaire countered.

We argued a while longer, both of us digging our heels in and refusing to back down. Eventually it was Beam who we turned to as a tie-breaker.

And he refused to do so.

“I’m sorry.” He groaned. “I just don’t know, you…You both have points.”

I scoffed, Solitaire snarled, and all of us were forced to agree we’d come to a more final decision tomorrow. Sleep came like a rag of chloroform, harshly felt but quickly succumbed to, and then it was a new day.

We were out of the inn within half an hour, having scoffed down a quick breakfast, and made our way down the streets quicker still. Our rendezvous point with Argar was the tavern we’d met him at. None of us had exactly decided that verbally, it had just sort of happened around the second time we met him. On our way there, however, something very interesting caught our eye.

Well, it caught our ear. It was some old man on the road, shouting about ten or fifteen things seemingly at once, his words barely intelligible. We closed in slightly, as we walked past, to make them out better.

“Please, anyone! Anyone?! There’s a hundred children there, and women too, we can offer coin if that’s what you demand, but we need aid! Please!”

The panic in his voice would’ve made it clear enough that the man was talking of death, even if it hadn’t been patently obvious from his actual words. We listened a while longer, managing to unravel that he was talking about saving his village.

I turned to my friends, and was halfway through asking what they thought about the prospect when Solitaire cut me off with a grin.

“Ask him how much he can pay.” He pressed, and I felt my skin crawl. Sometimes the bastard was too cold-hearted, even for my tastes.

Regardless of that, though…We did need money. I cursed, and approached the man.

He was short, even for a native of Redacle. Normally I looked down on short people, literally. But being tall back home made me a giant here, and my chin was almost touching my throat as I tilted my eyes down to meet his. The man was withered by age, hair white, skin wrinkled, body shaking and unsteady beneath its own weight. He looked like he’d just crawled out of a famine, then staved off a case of bubonic plague and been locked in a sensory deprivation tank for half a century.

“Excuse me,” I began, then ground my teeth as the idiot kept on shouting over me. I had to raise my voice and almost contest his own volume just for him to hear me.

“EXCUSE ME,” I roared, then lowered my voice once he turned to me, “My brothers and I are mercenaries, what exactly is it that you need help with? We may be able to assist.”

The man might have had a heart attack then and there, with how shocked he looked. To his credit, though, he recovered quickly, and spoke more quickly still.

“I come from a small village to the west of here, Rinchester, it’s perhaps ten leagues from the city.”

My blood ran cold. If I was remembering how big a league was, that would put the place deep in undead country.

“It’s being attacked by rotters?” I guessed, he confirmed it with a nod.

“Bloody hundreds of them, every night. They come like rats, swarming the streets, climbing over each other’s bodies to get at us. We had guards, but most are already dead, and those that are left have started barricading themselves indoors to protect their own families. We lose someone else every night, I…” His voice turned into a quiet croak, and he choked on it for a second while we all stared and listened. “I lost my daughter the week before, and I’m not sure if her children have survived the days since I left for Grolney.”

That explained why the old man was having so much trouble finding someone willing to help. Mercenaries were a practical bunch, if they’d been told they’d be facing down hundreds of undead, let alone hundreds every night, they’d be more likely to run away with their tails between their legs than lift a finger and help.

And if professionals who killed things for a living were smelling a lost cause, who were we to try and make it anything different?

I turned to Solitaire and Beam, saw the looks on their faces, then braced myself and glanced at the old man.

“Give us a minute please.” I asked him. “We need to make a decision.”