It was as if the air in the room had been sucked out by a vacuum, the atmosphere becoming instantly more palpable, an air of apprehension, tinged with fear.

Morgrim’s hulking frame filled the doorway as he stepped inside the tavern, his footsteps tapping against the wooden floor as the room fell silent. He was not alone either, the woman who we had noticed doing the rounds with the merchants followed just behind him. She was smaller than Morgrim but she was of a powerful build her self. She wore leather pants, and a sleeveless, studded leather vest with metal spikes poking out of the seams. Her platinum white hair was short, with the sides shaven, her right eye was completely white with no pupil, with a zigzagged scar ring from above her eye to below it. She was more intimidating to look at than Morgrim.

As she stepped through the door she simply sneered at everyone, she didn’t need to say a word to voice her displeasure at being here.

Morgrim continued forward, towards one of the merchants table, where there was one stool free. He slid the stool back before taking a seat, leaning forwards onto the table.

“You have summoned us here for a meeting,” He growled, his voice was low and deep, it practically vibrated through the ground.

The woman stepped behind Morgrim, dead-eyeing each and every person sat around the table. They all sank back into their stools, terrified to speak.

"Does no one care to speak?” Morgrim said, interlocking his fingers as he rested his arms on the table.

There was a moments silence before one person spoke up, he was of an average build, thick head of blonde hair, his voice quivered slightly as he spoke. “W, we have all had issues this last day.” He started, a slight stammer to him that I couldn’t figure out was due to nerves or some kind of speech impediment. “All of us have had items stolen by us.”

“Is that so,” Morgrim sneered as his eyes circled each of the merchants sitting at the table. “And…” he waited for someone to fill in the blanks.

“And, I can’t afford to pay you protection and have my bread stolen.” Luca spoke up, standing from the table of merchants behind where Morgrim was sat. “We have no choice but to pay, you make that pretty clear, but what toy did promise is that we would be under the Godsfather’s protection, that we wouldn’t need to worry about thieves.”

Morgrim looked over his shoulder to the corner of the room, there was a man sat there who I had not noticed, he was usually in a guards uniform but not tonight. He was wearing a simple tunic and pants, he had hold of a tankard of ale in his hand, which wrapped around it. It was the same guard who had taken my sword, one of the two guards who had kicked Galahad into the dirt, one that Galahad had warned was dirty.

He cleared his throat, “There has been a stranger in town,” he started.

My chest thundered straight away.

“I confiscated his blade when he first arrived here. I last saw him a few days ago. Judging by the description you have all given, we think this is the man responsible from stealing from you supplies. The guards have been alerted to keep a look out for him and if we find him, he will face punishment for his crimes.”

I could feel myself shrinking into the wall and I wanted the ground to swallow me up.

Unfortunately for me it didn’t, they were talking about me and unbeknown to them I was standing in the corner of the room.

If ever we needed confirmation that the guards were dirty, this was it, the guard was standing side by side with the very goons that were extorting all of these merchants for their hard earned money.

"Once more we are offering ten gold pieces to anyone who may know his location.” The guard said.

I looked down at the comatose Galahad and I was grateful he was asleep, if he wasn’t I was sure that he would have given me up in a heart beat and used the gold to buy some more ale.

My eyes met Geovana who shook his head and continued to watch the conversation going on between the merchants.

With Luca and the other merchant already spoken out, the rest of the merchants voiced their concerns, one by one around the thefts that Silas had carried out methodically through the day. Their voices were becoming raised, their discontent made clear, all the while Morgrim’s face became redder and redder as he simply sat and listened.

With a thundering fist he slammed his fist onto the table so hard that it was a miracle that the whole thing didn’t collapse from the force.

The room fell silent again as Morgrim spoke once more.

“You have made your concerns, do not imply this is on us however, this is petty theft at best.”

“Then what are we paying you for?” A voice called out, it was the man with the stammer. All eyes landed on him as he looked around his surroundings awkwardly, the instant regret dripping down his face in beaded sweat.

I swear I could see a thick vein throbbing in the side of Morgrim’s head. He looked to his other side.

“Helga,” he said before nodding in her direction.

Helga walked towards the out spoken merchant, his posture became almost childlike as he frantically looked around hi for support. I wanted to step in but that would have been madness, that didn’t make me feel any better for sitting back and letting what happened unfold.

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Helga grabbed hold of the merchant by the back of his head and slammed it into the table. Luca stood up, in protest, but Helga gave him a dead stare while she forced the other merchant’s head against the wooden surface of the table.

“Do not interfere,” she said in a cold, harsh tone.

Reluctantly, Luca sat back down, visibly frustrated but understanding that he was powerless.

The merchant continued to squirm underneath Helga’s grip but she was simply too strong for him. Leaning forward she spoke slowly into his ear. “This is what happens when you imply we are not doing our job.” She rubbed her hand down the top of his arm only stopping when she reached his wrist before stretching it out over the table. Then with her other hand she brought a small hatchet down on his forearm, blood oozed out across the table, stopping when it reached the gaps, and dripping through onto the floor.

The tavern was filled with the merchants screams before she pulled him backwards off his stool and he collapsed on the floor. Luca and some of the other merchants were quick to tend to him.

“Be thankful that it was not your tongue.” she said as she stared at the rest of the merchants. The colour drained from all of their faces as she exited the tavern. Morgrim stood up and laughed to himself.

“Do not question what the Godsfatehr does in your town, he has much bigger plans and you all have your part to play. He will not tolerate, insubordenance from anyone. He gave the corrupt guard a menacing look, “From any of you, especially those who he pays out of his own pock, captain.”

The captain nodded his head and followed Helga out of the door with Morgrim leaving soon after, “Consider the Godsfather displeased.” he said before finally leaving.

The room fell into chaos as the merchant started talking to. One another, trying to come up with their own excuses.

“Well I wasn’t blaming him.”

“I never said it was the Godsfather’s fault”

One by one they all made their excuses and fell back into line.

It was something I had seen time and time again in the office at work, people being strong armed into doing things for others, things that they didn’t want to do but had no option to, for their job, or their career. Say for the part where people had limbs cut off. I had never seen anything go to that extreme before but the politics were the same.

Luca and a few other merchants were still busy tending to the merchant who had just had his hand severed, his motionless hand still sat on the table, his fingers, curled inwards.

“Everybody out!” Geovana boomed.

He shot out from behind the bare with a piece of rope, passing it to Luca, “ here use this, it will help with the bleeding.

“Elva, fetch a torch from the back.” The barmaid who had been working did as she was told and disappeared through a doorway behind the bar. “Luca hold him still.”

Luca finished tornicating his arm before grabbing hold of him.

“Hold his legs,” Geovana told another man, “You grab his other arm.”

Elva returned, with a torch and hovered it over one of the lit candles, the end of it burst into flames.

“This is going to hurt.” Geovana said. He searched around him and placed a piece of wood from the broken stool into the merchants mouth. “Bite onto this.” he said. The merchant was now a ghostly shade of white, he must have been close to bleeding out as Geovana brough the flame towards the merchant’s arm.

His muffled screams only stopped when he passed out from the pain.

I stepped forward to help but Geovana shook his head, I felt powerless. The urge to help was overwhelming, this was my fault, if I hadn’t stolen form them all today this meeting wouldn’t have happened. Morgrim and Helga would have had no reason to turn up. A knot in my stomach formed and I just wanted to vomit.

A little while later the tavern was empty, once again. Geovana had closed up for the night, Elva had left, Galahad was still asleep in the corner. Luca had taken the injured merchant back to his house and had told Geovana he would keep an eye on him over night.

Once the tavern was empty I had removed my cloak and added it to my inventory, it had certainly worked in helping keep me hidden. Myself and Geovana had moved the tables to the outer edge of the room, blood was splashed everywhere in the centre of the room, so much so that the merchant was lucky enough to be alive. Geovana had told me that his name was Eric and that he was the fish monger. I think that was the sixth place that we had taken from, but given the smell once I had taken the fish I had dumped it on the back streets, not wanting to keep it in my inventory.

The guilt had not subsided, ad I didn’t think it ever would. I still blamed myself for what had happened.

I was standing over the blood with a mop in hand, sloshing it around in the congealed mud. This was the fifth bucket of water that I had used and the stains were still there. I was determined to clean the mess up though.

Geovana pulled up a stool from the side and took a seat, letting out an enormous sigh as he stared into the wet floor in front of me. His usual jovial and friendly demeanour gone, he looked exhausted. He wiped a bear like hand wearily over his face.

“I would ask you if you were ok, but that seems like a stupid question.” I started, dipping the mop in the water before continuing to mop the floor.

“I am just tires Silas,” He said with a sigh, “It is getting hard to have to fix the tavern up, it used to be once or twice a month there was an issue. But recently, it is becoming more frequent than I would like. Frankly it is exhausting.” He let out another deep sigh before clicking his neck. “I am getting too old for this shit.” He said.

“You mean since I got here?” I added, it didn’t take a genius to figure that out.

“Things have certainly ramped up since you and Raven got here but don’t kid yourself into thinking that these issues were not here before you came, the side effects are well,” he paused for a moment before saying, “exhasibated, to say the least, but the issues would still remain if you were here or not.”

“With Eric’s injury, you seemed to know what to do straight away, to help him. Have you dealt with injuries like that before?” I asked, I had no doubt that if Geovana had not reacted as quickly than he did, that Eric would have bled out in the middle of the tavern. “You were incredible.”

“Unfortunately I have seen it hundreds of times,”

“What here?”

“No,” Geovana laughed to himself, “I would have packed things up long before now if that had been the case. You see I used to be a battle medic, a little strange given I don’t have any healing spells, or the ability to wield magic but still it was something I was passionate about.”

“What brought you here,” I asked.

“There is only so much blood that you can deal with, I have seen things that no person should, had to watch people recover with life debilitating injuries. I wanted to put all that behind me with the coin I had earned over the years. That is where this Tavern came from. This was meant to be my escape from all of it, now it just seems that violence is destined to follow where ever I go.” Geovana got up from the stool and grabbed a near by brush and started sweeping the floor along side me.

“These bastards have to pay Silas, they have to be stopped.”

As much as we had a plan we had not foreseen what had happened tonight, happening and I would be lying if I had of said it hadn’t affected me. It had and in a really bad way. I wanted to make amends, I wanted to do what I could to help, but in a way that wouldn’t put the merchants at risk. Tomorrow I needed to ramp things up a little.

Tomorrow, we were going to focus on the grunts working for the Godsfather and the corrupt guards while we were at it.