That night, when Denaria visited them, Lucas was the one to break the news to her that he wouldn’t be staying after all because her brother was too chicken shit to do it himself. She was crestfallen, and though Lucas thought that such an emotion would show itself in a self-centered sort of way like her brother’s had, she only seemed concerned with his well-being.

“Well… you be safe on the high road, okay?” she cautioned him. “I’ve heard it from the ladies in my sewing circle that there’s been a lot of bandit activity this season. Maybe find a caravan you can travel along with to make sure no one decides you look like easy pickings, alright?”

The spoiled young 19-year-old was always cute, but she was doubly so when she talked to him like she was the voice of experience and wisdom to a guy like him. He kept his sarcastic comments to himself, though, and promised that he’d do just that.

They talked a little while after that, and she expressed some concerns about her brother. “I’m sure he’ll land on his feet somehow,” she said in a tone of barely repressed exasperation. “He always seems to somehow.”

Lucas wanted to dig further into that, but he left it alone, and eventually, after they finished discussing the two different color healing potions, and she went off on how she much preferred the pink Sagethorn root blend to the red Elderberry one, she left him sitting there on the porch alone in the gathering dark.

Later, Gerwin came to fetch Lucas and asked, “It would seem that the Viscount had gotten himself a touch too inebriated in the barn this evening. Since no one else is supposed to know of his presence, could I impose on you to help me fetch him and bring him back here so he can sleep it off?”

“Sure, Jeeves. Happy to help,” Lucas said.

It was even true, but only because he welcomed any distraction from what was going on in his head right now because some small part of him was conflicted. Yesterday, he’d been like ninety-nine percent sure that he should bounce, but today it was only like seventy-five percent.

Leaving would fix a lot of problems, but it would create some new risks and deny him the chance to fuck up Brog or the Guard Captain for the way they’d treated him. There was also this whole mess with house Parin. It wasn’t exactly his problem, of course, but he knew he wasn’t getting the full story.

“Listen, Gerwin, I want to apologize for the night we met,” he said finally, breaking the silence and doing his best to butter the old guy up for what was coming next.

“That’s quite alright, Mister Sharpe,” Gerwin nodded slowly as he walked with his hands behind his back. “It was an emergency; these things happen. All that matters is that it’s ended well.”

“Has it, though?” Lucas responded. “Because… and you tell me if I’m out of line here, I get the sense that you thought that your mistress was better off with her brother removed from the equation.”

“Out of line,” the old man said, pausing there in the middle of the darkened field they were traipsing through to reach the barn. “But unfortunately, quite correct. Even if he manages to evade arrest, his impacts on the family can be quite… Chaotic.”

“Hey, every family’s got one,” Lucas nodded. “But the way Adin told it, it was his dad that fucked everything up, and all this was just a misunderstanding.”

“Oh, the former Lord Parin was many things, but at least he ensured that his daughter’s marriage prospects were well provided for with a handsome dowry; sadly, her brother’s efforts to regain the family fortune will make that quite impossible, I would think.”

“Wait, is that for financial reasons, or more like… reputation?” Lucas asked as his stomach started to sink. “What are we talking about here?”

“I’m afraid I’ve said too much already,” the old man said with a stiff expression. “Let’s focus on retrieving the Parin’s prodigal son for now, and then tomorrow, you can be on your way.”

Lucas nodded at that, and together with a wheelbarrow, they were able to make light work of the drunk man. He’d gotten fresh clothes the other day to replace the bloody ones he’d been wearing when he arrived, but these were halfway to ruin as well and looked no better than the raggedy outfit that Lucas wore.

After the Viscount was dumped into bed, Lucas spent several hours convincing himself that none of this was his problem and several more trying to decide where to go next. Niv and Heinen weren’t supposed to be so far away.

Both would be large enough to guarantee a certain type of clientele. The reputation of the former said that he’d almost certainly end up paying one of the rival gangs some kind of protection racket, and the latter, being so full of non-humans… Well, he didn’t know how blue would react to a gnome or a dwarf. He knew for a fact that slants and half-orcs liked it well enough, but other customers… well, he might have to do a little reformulation. Time would tell.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

In the morning, Lucas decided to enjoy a little of the Elderberry jam he’d made yesterday once they’d finished knocking out the potions. It was good on cold bread but not as good as it would have been if the primitive people of this world would invent a damn toaster.

Once that was done, he loaded his saddlebags with his meager supplies and said goodbye to a hungover Aidan, who waved him off. Then mounted up and said goodbye to the Parin household. All that went according to plan. After that, though, he deviated almost immediately.

What I really should do is stop by my place and grab my notes, he told himself as he veered back toward the Greenwood. That wasn’t where he was going through, some little voice in his head told him that Lordanin wasn’t safe for him yet.

He’d learned to trust that little voice, of course, but since it wasn’t saying shit about the Greenwood, he figured he’d better stop by and grab more supplies. After all, the biggest threat to any of his plans wasn’t the legal climate or gang politics. It was what he could find locally and how much it would cost him to import everything else.

It was Lucas’s understanding that none of the ingredients were especially rare. Witchgrass blossoms could only be harvested seasonally, but it was a weed found in or around most wheat fields. Wizened Gnome Caps were wrinkly gray mushrooms that looked like brains to Lucas; they were hallucinogenic on their own, but they were found on fallen trees anywhere where it rained often enough to make them sprout. That just left the dwarf berries, which were cultivated widely but only near dwarvish settlements, goblin bile, and Blue Esper Willow sap.

Wizened Gnome Caps: Endurance 3, Poison 2, intelligence -1, 50% chance of vivid hallucinations for the next 4 to 6 hours. Maximum mana increased in proportion to soul or int for 6 hours.

Technically, he didn’t need all four ingredients and the catalyst, but just two would produce something hopelessly mild, and three - well… no one was going to write home or tell their friends about a high that was missing goblin bile or Wizened Gnome Caps. Hell, he could probably find ways to make his blue even stronger; he just didn't really need to. A euphoria rating of 10 or 12 was about as high as he thought most people could stand anyway.

So, instead of getting on the road and heading east, he headed to the area of the Greenwood where he’d had the best luck with willows in the past. He already had some of the other two tough ingredients, after all, and he could kill goblins or pay someone else to do it pretty much wherever. They were a universal pest.

In fact, they were so common that he hadn’t been at all surprised to see goblin shit on his last foraging run the other day with Adin. This trip, though, he was a little more concerned, not only were the tracks he saw fresher, but it was still early enough that he might run into…

Even as Lucas had that thought, he heard the sound of a branch breaking underfoot not so far away. He tensed for a moment while he harvested the vine he was after, but he forced himself to keep moving and act natural.

Goblins were weak, cowardly hunters, and as long as one thought it was undetected, it would try its best to get as close as it could before it struck. So Lucas moved and hummed to himself like he didn’t have a care in the world, but he’d already reversed his grip on his knife, and as soon as he could stand the tension no longer, he lashed out at however many of them were sneaking toward him with the vine he’d been winding up like a rope.

Blue Esper Willows weren’t a species of tree; they were a willow that had been colonized by parasitic vines. They could eat other trees too, but depending on the tree it feasted on, the sap would have different properties, and Blue Esper Vines were by far the most toxic, which suited his purposes.

Blue Esper Willow Vine (raw): Perception 3, poison 2, endurance -2

The vine might drool evil looking goo, but it was hardly usable as a weapon or anything. The stupid goblins didn’t know that, though, and all three of them scattered widely, giving him a chance to breathe.

Lucas didn’t hesitate. He walked toward the first one and kicked it hard enough to send it bouncing across the clearing. The second one raised his spear but wasn’t fast enough to stop Lucas from plunging his knife into the thing’s skull all the way to the hilt.

He let go of the blade and grabbed the goblin’s ugly spear as its grip loosened, and turned to face the final attacker. This one was cagier and made a few half-hearted thrusts as it yapped and growled at him in its ugly, guttural language. Lucas ignored that and focused on the thing’s weapon. It was just a crooked spear with a knapped stone point, but he was sure it would still be enough to murder him if it got him somewhere vital.

They went round and round like that for a moment, but ultimately, Lucas waited for it to bring its weapon too low, and then he stomped on it. That held it in place just long enough for him to thrust forward without any fear of reprisal and impale the final goblin. He used his weight and bore it to the leaf-covered ground, letting it wail and scream until it finally stopped moving.

Lucas dropped the gore-spattered weapon and waited for the third goblin to stop moving and whining piteously before he bent to wrench his knife free from the second goblin’s skull. He had no intentions of harvesting goblin livers for their bile today. He wouldn’t even if he’d had a jar for it. It was too disgusting, and he didn’t want to smell like that for days on the road.

Still, even though he wanted nothing more than to be rid of these corpses so he could gather his vines and move on, the blade didn’t want to cooperate. This isn’t a huge problem, he told himself as he struggled to work the blade free. That was true until he heard the sound of something crashing through the brush toward him.

After that, he worked faster. He tried to convince himself that it was just a deer or perhaps another hunter, but that was a lie. The way it was stomping through without a care in the world meant that whatever it was, though, was at the top of the food chain and didn’t have a care in the world.

Once the knife finally came loose, Lucas was torn between whether or not to make a run for his horse at the edge of the woods or make a stand here and collect his supplies. After a moment's thought, he chose to stand and fight, switched his knife into a reverse grip in his left hand, and picked up the nearest unbroken spear in his right.

He was ready for whatever it was that had been attracted by the violence and was about to burst through the foliage in front of him. As long as it was something he could manage, he’d stay and fight, and if not… well, he just hoped he could run faster than whatever it was.