"Can you cast a message spell, I want answers for why we were given incorect information at the guild." Embrda asked Tea wanting to get to the bottom of this deception. Bad info could and would get all his friends killed.
If someone was deliberately giving false information on request they could kill a lot of people. It wouldn't even take that long is the bad part, just saying the wrong thing and any preperations that are made in advance are rendered null.
"We need to know what is going on and see what the guild wants us to do about it." Smithy added after some thought.
"It seem that some merchant and his guards did not want to pay the toll that ogre demanded for safe travel. They were left to go on their own and ended up runing into a pack of dire wolves." Teamasa started to explain.
"They blamed him for not protecting them when he was riight there watching and now we are here wasting our time. It looks like a classic case of too much money and not enough brains. Idiots being idiots and blaming others for their own misfortune, getting good people killed for no reason." She added.
"So we can not kill him for not wanting to work for free. Right?" Drassisa asked.
"No we can't. There goes a good bit of out profit." Smithy said with a frown.
"We should see if there is any other way to make money off of this clusterfuck." Tess said after a moment of silence.
"I will ask around." Tea told her now rather pissed off friends.
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Back in the town half the guild was in an up roar after finding out just how dumb this idiot was. Even with the whole waged war on the Dragonlord thing the ogre was not hurting anyone and the mountain pass did not belong to anyone either. It was all free teritory if you could defend it and he could. It was his until someone took it from him and no one wanted to deal with it anyway.
This was going to be a headach and everyone knew it. Beyond that was the fact that a team had already taken the mission and was in the area. They had prepared acid and fire, frost and poison for the job. They had sunk both time and money into it. There is nothing that adventures hate more then wasting their money on a hunt that went nowhere. They would probably kill the damn merchant when they got back if nothing was done about this.
They needed something to do in the area to make everything they would have to deal with when they returned worth it. That was not even counting the loss in reputation they would take for this. Not that anyone minded at the moment if the moron bit the dust but adventures tended to go for overkill above everything else. They would burn down half the town just to be sure the manchild died.
Well the area was dangerious so prehaps it could be a good testing ground for spells and anything else they could come up with. merchants did come that way when they were daring enough. And if the ogre was willing to see that they were safe on his mountain pass, well why not employ him to look after a traviling lodge that they could put in the area. At least if they could pull this off it would off set their bad mood when they got back.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The only problem was that the guild would have to persuade the Dragonlord of it. He would need to invest something into it for this to go anywhere. Just a bit of his attention to the problem would solve everything, now just to go and tell him of what was going on.
That and you know, avoid being rosted alive for angering him. No big deal.
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"Wake him if you want to talk but I would be careful if I was you. Only fools and the desprate would dare to wake a sleeping Dragon." The Guard at the door told the guild representative that had been sent to negotiate. He was having a bad day and was now concidering killing the damn merchant himself.
"I have to if the guild says there is a need and they do. It could be that serious." He told the guard who was cloaked with enough fire magic resistance items to outfit an army.
"Then you had better have some good news to go with all that bad." The guard replied.
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"Excuse me sir. Can I have a moment of your time." He said to the sleeping Dragon.
One eye peaked open and the man stared into eons of history only remembered by the Dragon. He stared into the depth of time an immortal could see. Into the eye of a being that could never forget anything and had lost so much that even if you used all the stars in the night sky to count. You would never be able to finish.
The eye looked at the man and knew instantly what he wanted to say. It was the eye of a Dragon and it's gaze had seen his very soul. His reflection would spend untold eternitys caught in the mind of the Oldest Dragon in the entire world. He would never escape.
"Granted. Your request is granted. Throw that damn merchant that caused all this mess off the walls naked. If he lives banish him from ever returning to my city." The Dragon spoke and his word was LAW. It would be obeyed, that was just a fact.
"Find out what this ogre wants in life and git it for him. I shall personally pay the adventures fee from my own coffers. They will want for nothing." The Old Dragon told the small man.
"Let this team know that should they simply return with nothing I will be most displeased." He added with fire on his maw.
"They will report back to me on their return before anything else, is that understood. Make no mistake on this matter." The Dragon said while for the very first time sense the conversation started, raising up to muster.
"You're will be done." The mortal man said before exiting at just shy of a run.
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"Send word that our plan is a go." He said the moment he entered the guild.
"And find the merchant, strip him naked, and throw him over the walls. Preferably head first." He added before looking up at everyone. They were stairing at him like he just grew a second head.
"Dragon's orders!"
Everyone in the guild that was curently annoyed at the damn merchant ran to comply. Freedom to do what they all wanted to do was not something they were planing to pass up.
"I need a drink! Preferably a very strong one at that." He told his co-worker.
"At least if anything will push you to be a better negociater it is this. You could even grow in power from it. The gods themselves recognize how difficult that Dragon is to deal with. I mean how many of them has he killed with his fire?" His co-worker, a female gnome stated.
"Maybe you are right." He acquitted.
Maybe you're right.
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"I just got the word of the day. We have our orders and we have to complete them no matter what." Teamasa told her friends.