The deal was codified by the guild, Tom stamping the contracts with their tags, before also handing over their reward.

Quest Complete: Trouble in Cherry Wood

XP Gained: +200

XP: 10 200 -> 10 400

Stamps Gained: +2

Stamps: 15 -> 17

Adam looked at the gold offered to them. After the fees from the guild, they were left with eight hundred and ten gold. “We can split it eight way, and you can have the ten gold.”

“You should keep the ten gold, since you paid for the gate fee,” Rose said.

“That’s a fair point,” Adam replied, accepting the coin. “Since we’ve completed the request, we should head out for the post quest snack.”

“The post quest snack?” Rose asked.

“We slew three ertas,” Jurot said, while Adam placed down a gold coin to pay for the bread.

“Three ertas?” Pam asked.

“Elementals of earth,” Jurot explained.

“Oh!” she gasped, still unsure of what they were. “They sound dangerous.”

“They are. They can kill Experts.”

Pam tilted her head slightly. “Aren’t you an Expert?”

“He’s an Iyrman,” Adam said, before quickly snatching up the bread and buns. “I’ll leave Jurot here to tell the story.” Adam caught the sight of Pam’s father, exchanging a nod of the head, before taking the basket outside.

He stood outside, his ears twitching as he listened to the tale from outside the bakery. He smiled, eating his fill for both his stomach and his heart.

“Do you come here before and after every quest?” Rose whispered.

Adam nodded. “You know how Iyrmen are. They want a good death, a good story. Sometimes, I have to remind my brother that not all of us want to die, and there’s a reason to live for. Our sister isn’t here, so I had to choose the next best thing.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yeah,” Adam replied, trying not to smile. “She just turned two recently, and she’s quite the Iyrman already.”

“She’s an Iyrman?”

“Of course she is.” Adam paused. “Oh, right. Well, she’s Jurot’s blood sister, but she’s my sister too.”

“How did you become an Iyrman’s brother?”

“I spoke with his mother.”

“Is she your mother?”

“No,” Adam replied, smiling sadly. “My parents are dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Lanarot’s waiting for us back home, but I’ve also got a few kids waiting for me. Five.”

“Five?” Rose asked. “You don’t seem that old, even for a Half Fae.”

“I just turned twenty, like Jurot,” Adam said. “We have the same birthday, actually.”

“You’re twenty?” Rose asked, though her companions looked more shocked than she sounded. “The Iyrman too?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you were both older.”

“How old?”

“Twenty seven or so.”

“How old are you all?”

“Twenty,” Rose replied.

“Oh? Same age, then.”

Rose had been trained quite harshly to become as powerful as she was, but to think that Adam was this much stronger than her, all the while being roughly her age, it was ridiculous. “Are your companions as strong as you?”

“Kitool’s about as strong, and so is Jaygak, I think,” Adam replied. “Jonn, Lucy, and Mara, they’re all about as strong too.”

Rose slowly nibbled on her bread, thinking about how ridiculous it was that this Half Elf was still only twenty years old, and yet held so much power. ‘This is madness! Pure madness!’

“You’ve slain Dragons?” Kadija asked, recalling their previous conversation.

“I mean, I helped.” Adam shrugged his shoulders.

“What else have you done?”

“Let’s see. We defeated Balrog, but that was mostly the Iyrmen. Oh, you know the forest down south?”

“The Awakened Forest?” Rose asked.

“That’s the one.” Adam smiled. “Do you know the story behind that?”

“The Iyr killed the soldiers there and claimed it as their own,” Rose said. “It was not right, but the Shen decided against fighting the Iyrmen, out of respect for that they had done.”

“Uhuh,” Adam said, smirking slightly. “So that’s still the story?”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“The story? Is it not the truth?”

“Well, I mean, it depends. From a certain point of view, it’s true.” Adam chuckled. “I heard there was a tournament after. Lion King Ashmir, he beat the previous Elder Wrath, right?”

“Yes. The Lion King was able to earn his freedom, and I believe he’s at the Iyr.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Adam said, nodding his head. “Actually…” Adam paused, deciding against telling them that Dunes was his son. “He’s having quite the life in the Iyr.”

“You know of Ashmir?”

“Know him?” Adam raised his brow. “He invited me to his wedding.”

Rose wasn’t sure if she should believe him, but it wasn’t the most surprising thing about him.

“Ah, right. Speaking of the previous Elder Wrath. You know Bavin? He’s one of the the younger Iyrman we brought with us, with the axe?” Adam asked.

“I recall the young Iyrman,” Rose confirmed.

“His grandfather was the one who lost to Ashmir.”

“Oh?” Rose replied, shocked. “He is?”

“You can ask Jurot when he comes back,” Adam said, before wondering if he should have revealed that. “Anyway, that was quite the tangent we went on. What were we talking about? Right, the Awakened Forest. Actually, you’re partly right. Aldland and Aswadasad tried to claim it, but the Iyr claimed it first.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I say that because I was there. The Awakened Forest, oh, and Jurot was there too, but it formed around us suddenly when we were travelling through it. Actually, it, uh…” Adam paused again, realising he probably couldn’t tell them about how Mara was used to power the Awakened Forest like some kind of battery.

“Anyway, yeah. Jurot and I were there. The Aldish and Aswadians came. Your Aswadians, they ended up torturing a few Iyrmen, and then when word was sent to the Iyr, they brought some of their older Iyrmen. I was there when they slaughtered the soldiers. It was a blood bath.” Adam sighed, shaking his head. “In fact, and don’t tell her I told you this, but Lucy is still afraid of the Iyrmen because of it. She was there too. She had no idea what the Iyrmen were like, and that was one of the first things she saw.”

Rose blinked, exchanging a glance with her companions. She had no idea whether to believe him, considering what he was trying to tell them. He seemed to have so many great connections within the Iyr, and yet, somehow, there was one major reason as to why they could believe him, and that reason was currently inside trying to charm a baker.

“Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of monster,” Adam said, chuckling.

“You’re far too strong at your age,” Rose replied. “What else can we think?”

“We made our way to the Awakened Forest last year for some business,” Adam said, smiling awkwardly. “I, uh… I had killed two Dragons personally. I mean, I helped, yes, but I wasn’t a slouch. I mean, you’ve seen the way I fought. Apparently, ertas are quite strong, enough to even make you pause. I was about that strong when I fought the Dragons, give or take a little, you know?”

Adam cleared his throat. “Anyway, we made our way to the forest, and we were just outside Red Oak. The day after we had left, we found this guy. Handsome old man. He wore lighter clothing, even though it was duskval at the time. He walked alone, like he owned the world. I don’t know what made it so that we met, probably Fate, but uh… He had a problem with some of us. Never met us, but he had issues with some of us. The two Iyrmen with us, Mithril Ranks, they fought him and we ran.”

‘Two Mithril Rank Iyrmen?’ Rose thought, wondering why he had two Mithril Rank Iyrmen with him.

“We got away safely. Then, there he was. He stalked after us, no Mithril Rank Iyrmen in sight. He even let us prepare, and let us get in free hits. I fought him with all I could.” Adam snapped his fingers. “I woke up a little while later. I blinked, and I was down. He had defeated us. Jurot, lasted the longest against him. Managed to draw blood, I heard, but…”

Adam shook his head. “I might seem like a monster to you, but just know that I’m a nobody. There are monsters, real monsters, who travel through this land. Beings of unimaginable strength and power. Do you know Lord Stokmar?”

“The Lord of Earth?”

“We actually met Lord Stokmar too, Jurot and I,” Adam said. “I hear she’s strong, very strong.”

“They say she is as powerful as the Gold Dragon who protects the capital of Aldland.”

“I’ve heard she’s a little stronger, but that sounds about right,” Adam said. “That old man that we met was probably about as strong as that Gold Dragon too.”

Rose began to sweat. She could see the darkness on Adam’s face, but it was not the darkness that caused her to sweat, but the pure, utter defiance in Adam’s eyes.

“I know the Iyr’s greatness,” Adam said. “You’ve heard the tales, I’m sure, but trust me when I say you have no idea how understated they are. These guys are crazy. Jurot and I, we met that guy again. He was apparently a friend of a friend, but that’s a long story. Anyway, he tried to touch our sister, and we were about to get beaten up by him again. Jurot’s mother told us off, and then do you know what she did?”

“No?” Rose replied, confused.

Adam leaned in. “She told him off. This guy, who could go against Lord Stokmar. She told him off. You have no idea how mad he was, and you know what he did?”

“What?” Rose asked, swallowing.

“He tried to threaten the Iyrmen, and-,” Adam quickly stopped himself from saying too much about the random old woman who smelled of death. “They didn’t care. These Iyrmen, they’re crazy. I mean I know I’m crazy, but that’s because I’m stupid, but these guys are genuinely mad. You know why they killed all those soldiers in the forest?”

“Why?”

“Jurot and I were there. We called for the Iyr to help us, and they came. We went out to speak with the captain, and they had a bunch of soldiers trained on us, ready to fire. We tried to explain the situation, peacefully, trying to tell them that the Iyr had claimed this place. They fired on us. Jurot and I. The Iyrmen came out from the shadows. The Chief and Elder Peace, they were dropping some bars, let me tell you. Holy.” Adam rubbed his eyes, recalling the scene.

“Two thousand soldiers and a hundred Iyrmen. The captain didn’t want war, but the Chief didn’t mind. Man, I remember how terrifying it was. The captain tried to step back multiple times, but the Chief wouldn’t let him. The captain tried to release the prisoners, the Iyrmen that had come with us, but the Chief wasn’t having it. The Iyr wanted one hundred lives from the captain, before anything else was resolved. Then, he set free the Iyrmen. One of them was a Shaman, who had the same tattoos as Elder Peace. They had been tortured. The price went from one hundred to two hundred because the Iyrmen had been tortured. Do you know why it increased to three hundred?”

“The Shaman was Elder Peace’s relative?”

“No. It wasn’t because the Shaman was Elder Peace’s daughter, but because she was a Shaman. You should not lay your hands on a Shaman of the Iyr, for they are precious to us. That’s what she said. Damn. Then I watched them. Three hundred soldiers, all adorned in heavy armour, great weapons. They didn’t seem like nobodies, either. Even so. I watched them being slaughtered before my eyes. Jurot was there too, and he was grinning. He was having fun watching them die. You know what happened next?”

“No.”

“Elder Peace wrote a letter to the Shen using the captain’s blood. The Iyrmen were all Mithril or Gold Rank. One hundred of them. Man, I can’t tell you the other things I’ve seen, but I’ll say this. It’s not the most impressive thing I’ve seen the Iyr do. Not by a long shot. The Iyr is the second scariest thing I know that exists.”

“The second scariest thing?” Rose asked. Even now, when Adam spoke, it seemed to unbelievable. Yet, from the tone of his voice, to him looking to the past, she knew he was there. He wouldn’t lie, not when they could just ask Jurot.

“The first scariest thing doesn’t exist,” Adam replied, smiling. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

Jurot stepped out of the bakery, biting into the bun in his hand for the first time since he had held it minutes ago. He saw the looks of horror on the Aswadians’ faces. “Did you tell them about your children?”

Adam narrowed his eyes. “No, I was just telling them how scary the Iyr is. Do you remember the Awakened Forest, and the soldiers that shot at us?”

Jurot chewed slowly, recalling the bloodbath which had happened because they had shot at him and Adam. His lips formed the smallest of smile. “Yes.”

Adam raised his brows and pointed at Jurot, as if to prove his point. He mouthed the word to them all, but they already knew it.

The Iyrmen are crazy.