Chapter 174

Baker's square was, in fact, a square. Shops lined all four sides of the giant square which was itself covered in a finely manicured lawn of green grass, bright annual flowers, and comfortable looking benches that dotted the paths that wound through the square itself.

“I pictured cobblestones, not grass, when you said baker's square.” Jay pointed out.

They all climbed out of the cart and M'redith thanked the driver before the cart pulled smoothly back in to traffic.

The air was thick with the smell of baking bread, pastries, and fresh dough. People wandered the shop lined streets along all four sides of the grassy square and carried various wrapped bundles of sugar coated donuts or freshly fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar.

M'redith happily led them through the grassy square, past benches, some occupied, some not, and through to the opposite side of the square. They walked to one shop that M'redith seemed especially interested in and got in to line.

“Four please,” M'redith asked when it was her turn and she handed the shop owner a coin who then gave her back some change. M'redith then handed some of her change back to the woman who had just sold her the food. The woman smiled and thanked M'redith for the tip.

M'redith was handed four wax lined paper bags. She thanked the woman again and left the shop with her friends.

“Come on! What did you get?” Aiden begged M'redith who grinned playfully.

“Here, look for yourself,” she said and handed each of them a wax paper bag.

Jay's bag was longer than it was wide and he opened the top flap. Inside he found three fat sticks, each coated in chocolate and sprinkled with salt.

Aiden had already bit in to his and chewed with his eyes closed. He made happy noises as the others watched him in amusement.

“Well?” Jay finally asked.

Aiden nodded and finished chewing. “Delicious! Chocolate covered salted pretzel sticks. Thanks M'redith! I really needed this,” he said as he took another bite and chewed happily.

M'redith grinned and looked pleased. If Aiden liked it then it was good. While Aiden ate a lot and ate quite often he did not eat food if it wasn't tasty. Except in Ashagi. He had eaten some truly gross food in Ashagi but he hadn't had much choice at the time.

They walked through the grassy square as they ate until Aiden had finished all three of his sticks. He licked his fingers clean and let out a big sigh.

“Ready to sit for a bit big guy?” Jay asked Aiden.

Aiden nodded and guided the group to a nearby empty pair of benches. He lowered himself heavily on to a bench and peered at Jay. “What's with all the big guy comments lately?”

Jay looked surprised, “Aiden, uh, I don't know if you've noticed, but you've gotten a bit bigger since I met you.”

Aiden laughed, “You calling me fat?” He wasn't offended at all. He too had noticed his growing weight.

Jay smiled and shook his head. “You were practically a stick when I met you compared to now. All you needed was some good food it seems.”

Aiden had really filled out over the last month and while he was shorter than Jay he was quite a bit wider than Jay. Aiden wasn't fat – he was solid. If Aiden were a shape it would be a short rectangle. Thanks to their constant and daily workouts his weight was mostly made up of muscle.

Norri hugged one of Aiden's arms as she sat down next to him. “Aiden is fine just the way he is!”

“I never said he wasn't!” Jay said with a grin.

“Hey – you guys want to go throw some axes?” M'redith asked as she finished her last pretzel stick.

Jay sat down on a bench next to M'redith. “Axes? What – you do that?”

M'redith shrugged, “No – but how hard can it be?”

Aiden peered at M'redith. “Is it close? And how did you find out about it?”

M'redith nodded. “It's in walking distance. I heard one of the fighters talk about it behind us in line at lunch. Should be just south of baker's square.”

Norri smiled. “Let's do it! I want to try!”

Their paper bags went up in to motes of light as they quickly disappeared in to nothing. With a shrug Jay got up and the others stood as well.

“Lead on,” Jay said and waved to M'redith to go first.

She smiled and the group headed out from baker's square and south along one of the wide main roads. M'redith counted off streets and took a right on to a narrow looking alleyway.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Norri asked hesitantly.

“No,” M'redith said and shrugged. “Should we stop?”

Norri shrugged uncertainly. “I don't know, should we?”

M'redith smiled. “We should be ok. Right?”

Norri looked down the alley way and then back to M'redith's smiling face. “I guess so.”

They turned down the alleyway and Jay thought maybe they had made a bad call.

The alley was dark, and immediately the sounds of the rest of the city seemed to fade away. The alley stank of trash and sour milk and the group picked their way through carefully. From what M'redith had heard the axe throwing place was at the other end of this alley.

They could have walked around two entire city blocks instead to reach the axe throwing shop. Instead they had taken a short cut.

Their group stood closer to each other without meaning to as they sought comfort from the presence of the others. The alley did not appear to be a great place to visit.

Ahead of them they could hear a group of people laughing and talking loudly in marked contrast to Jay's group, who had been walking along carefully and quietly. The group was getting closer.

Jay thought back to Warren's earlier admonition to learn how to hide. Fat lot of good that would have done him now. He could have hidden if had that ability, sure, but what about the rest of his group? Hiding didn't seem like such a great idea when he thought about it that way. He didn't realize that he was missing something in that calculation but that was for another time.

M'redith could just make out a group of people approaching them in the darkness. She quickly got the rest of her group's attention and had them spread out just as they would have back in Ashagi.

The other group wasn't paying much attention to what was in front of them and were surprised when they came up on M'redith. Norri was a step behind her. Aiden and Jay hung back a few feet from Norri.

“Well what do we have here? Children out past their bedtime?” called out a drunk sounding older man. They were all older men. Compared to them Jay's group really did look like children.

“Make them pay a toll!” cracked one of their group in the back who finished his sentence with a loud and wet sounding burp. The others next to him agreed and thought that was a great idea.

The men weren't well dressed but they were armed and carried swords on their hips and knives on their belts. There were five of them, enough for a full group, but these men didn't have the feel of a Guild group to them. They were more of a robbery group. They had a hard time turning down robberies of convenience, and here in front of them were four kids ripe for the picking.

Jay hadn't really had any trouble in K'tharkle before and had assumed it was a safe city. Like an idiot. Now that he thought about it he realized that he had just stayed in the good parts of town and had rarely been out late at night, in the dark, and in isolated alleyways.

“One silver each!” one of the men in the back demanded and the others laughed and pushed him.

The man in front had been steadily walking towards M'redith and had stopped when she stepped forward as well and in to a pool of light. Her collar device sparkled a shimmering rainbow of colors. When it had still been attached to a live Glimmerhide that glimmer would have been a warning – and a naked threat.

The drunk man in front paused for a moment as something rattled around in his brain. It was important but it was such a tiny detail he had trouble chasing it down in his alcohol addled state. Something about a dungeon. Rumors. What dungeon?

He peered at M'redith again but she hadn't moved yet. What was he missing? He remembered something about a dungeon. Kruger? Krup? What was its name? Kagan! It was Kagan's Dome! Why was that important right now? The drunk man looked again at M'redith.

She had yet to move, or even speak. She stood with a sword at her hip and was dressed in thick leather armor. The armor looked new though, as if it had never seen combat. Probably some rich kid, the drunk thought to himself.

The other men had begun to holler at the others behind M'redith and were making demands for various coin amounts. The drunk in front still wasn't sure about this. Something was still bothering him.

“Are we going to get paid or just stand around?” one of the drunks said crossly as he fumbled to draw his sword.

M'redith watched his sloppy attempts at drawing his sword with an emotionless and detached face. Behind her Norri moved her staff from the one handed standing position to the ready position, staff held out with both hands at an angle in front of her.

Aiden held his staff in one hand and raised his other, palm up, his forefinger pointed towards the drunkards.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Jay, as usual, was stuck in the back with no ability to contribute to the combat.

“I really need to get a ranged weapon,” he muttered to himself as he readied his staff – which was all but useless at that distance from his opponents unless he threw it at them.

The four men behind the drunk in front all drew their swords. It was a mess and one of them dropped it before he picked it back up and pointed it towards M'redith.

The drunk in front of M'redith did not touch his sword. He was looking at the shiny device on M'redith's collar. No, it wasn't shining it was.. what was the word? Glittering? Glowing? Glimmering.

The word acted like a key in a lock and sent a cascade of signals throughout the man's brain and connections were slowly made thanks to the alcohol. Suddenly the man remembered. Kagan's Dome had been transformed by a group called the Glimmerhides. Rumor had it that they wore a patch of actual Glimmerhide hide on their armor collar.

M'redith's collar device glimmered dangerously again, and as the man's eyes flickered from person to person in front of him he realized that they all wore the patch on their collar. Four collar devices glimmered dangerously at him. That was the moment he realized he might be in trouble and his brain triggered his fight or flight response. But he was trapped.

He couldn't run and he wouldn't fight them – he was sure that he would die. The drunk and his friends were unclassed and lacked any Combat Abilities. They relied instead on picking helpless targets.

He was so drunk that what he ended up doing was freeze in place. He stood motionless and refused to draw his weapon with a shake of his head just as his 'friends' all rushed the group in front of him.

He shook his head and said “No! STOP!” loudly but he was too late.

One man in a red tunic rushed forwards towards Norri. He had seen her swollen coin pouch and had decided that he wanted it for himself. Had he known that it was full of copper coins he wouldn't have bothered.

Norri lurched forward in a blur and struck the man three times in quick succession, almost too quickly to be seen. The first blow caught the man as he was about to place his front foot on to the ground. Her staff swept the foot out from under him and the man began to fall.

As he fell she struck him twice more before he even hit the ground. The first strike was to his throat, her staff shot out and poked the tender cartilage, hard. His throat immediately began to swell and close off his airway.

As the man gasped for air he dropped his sword and clutched at his throat. He still had yet to hit the ground and Norri pulled back the end of the staff and twirled the staff violently through the air before it came crashing down on the back of the drunkard's head. He was knocked out cold and collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Another man in a cream colored vest rushed M'redith and made wide sweeping motions with his sword. M'redith stepped in front of the man and just as his sword was about to strike her she disappeared.

In her place was left a shimmering field of glitter that hung in the air in front of the man. He had just enough time to look surprised when M'redith appeared behind him. She angled the sword in her grip so that the blade wouldn't hit the man and clubbed him brutally in the back of his head with the sword's pommel.

The man fell to the ground in a heap as if he had been a puppet and the strings had been cut. He did not get back up but lay as he had fallen. His body only moved when he breathed and he did not stir.

Aiden's hand had begun to glow and a green swirling orb had formed in his palm as he tried something new. Instead of trying to shoot his Physician's Blast ability he held it in his palm, let it swirl and grow as he refused to allow the ability to fully trigger.

The two men in back had just realized that things were not going their way and appeared to be thinking things over. The sight of Aiden's bright green glowing orb being aimed in their direction was too much and they both dropped their swords and held their hands up in the air.

M'redith moved towards them and kicked their swords outside of their reach. As she did so one of the men lowered his hands, pulled his dagger from the sheath on his belt, and attempted to stab M'redith. She turned just as he did so and took a superficial cut on her arm.

Aiden didn't even have to consciously trigger his ability – his bolts reacted to his intention and streaked out from his upheld hand in three bright lines. The first two struck M'redith's arm and melted in to her skin, fully healing her. She let out a sigh as a feeling of cool relaxation washed over her limb.

The man with the knife did not fare as well. Aiden's final bolt struck the man's hand and began to eat away at the flesh. The man screamed and dropped the knife as he clutched at his hand with his other hand.

“Everyone ok?” M'redith asked without taking her eyes off of the drunk men in front of her.

Each of her three group mates called back, “Good here.”

“My hand!” cried the drunk man who continued to clutch at his injured hand.

“Take their weapons.” Jay said darkly and M'redith nodded and collected everyone's weapons. She took their swords as well as the knives at their hips.

Aiden had his hand held up once again and had begun to summon another glowing green orb which he aimed at the men in front of him. The men still standing stood very still – they did not want to trigger Aiden's ability after seeing what it had done to one drunk's hand.

They let the man in front keep his weapons as he had refused to draw on their group and had stayed out of the combat entirely – if one could even truly call what had taken place combat. They stacked up the swords and knives on the side of the alley. They didn't need them and did not need what little coin they would sell for.

“We didn't kill any of them, did we?” Aiden asked. He sounded worried. “I mean they were just drunks. They couldn't really have hurt us.”

“Don't give me that CRAP. They would have killed us if they could have!” Norri said furiously as her staff waved dangerously in the men's direction. They shied away from her as she did so.

“We're sorry! Please don't kill us!” the man in front begged. His hands were raised as if he was trying to put as much distance as he could between his hands and his weapons.

Aiden chuckled, “You're sorry alright. Grown men acting like idiots. You're lucky we don't take your weapons!” he finished darkly.

The man shook his head, “We're sorry! Please!”

The group all looked at Jay as if to ask what now.

M'redith was the group leader but that didn't mean they wouldn't all look to Jay on occasion. This seemed to be one of those occasions.

“I've no interest in murdering drunks, no matter how much they might deserve it,” Jay said to the drunk in front emphatically.

The drunk nodded thankfully but didn't speak.

“Put your hands down – collect your friends weapons – you're carrying them. You lot got coin for a cart home?” Jay asked.

The man in front nodded stupidly, still refusing to use his words.

“Well, get a move on!” Jay said and the man hesitantly moved from drunk to drunk and took off their scabbards and sheaths. He brought all of those over to the side of the alley and stored all of the weapons stacked there correctly before he swept the bundle of swords and knives in to his arms and stood up.

“This way,” Jay said and walked with the drunk and Aiden to the end of the alley. Aiden released his bolt in to a wall before they exited the alley.

The bolts melted harmlessly in to the material and faded away. Combat Abilities were a big no-no in K'tharkle City. Walking around with one held in your hand waiting to be triggered is basically begging to be arrested. Aiden really did not want that. They'd already had enough excitement for one night.

The end of the alley was far busier and more crowded. Jay was easily able to flag down a cart and helped the drunk man put all of the weapons in to the cart before he guided the drunk over to the driver to give his destination as well as pay for the ride.

Aiden stayed with the drunk man who he helped in to the back of the cart. The man looked terrified and did exactly as Aiden asked. He couldn't figure out why he was still alive. They had tried to ROB a group of children and somehow ended up unconscious and disarmed. Except for him. They had allowed him to retain his weapons as if to say he was harmless, even while armed.

The insult was brutal and the man stewed in his impotence. He reminded himself that his impotence might very well be the only reason he was still alive. Had he attacked and landed his strike on M'redith he could only imagine what Jay's group would have done to him. To all of them!

She had moved like a ghost though – she hadn't moved at all – she was just suddenly not there. How could a man fight such a thing? There was a reason his group carefully picked out their victims and never attacked those with Combat Abilities. It was impossible to fight them without Combat Abilities of your own.

Jay returned to M'redith and Norri who were watching over the other four. The one that was still conscious was allowed to exit the alley by walking in front of Jay, who escorted him to the cart.

“Get in. Don't touch the weapons. Stay put.” Jay instructed the man who carefully obeyed his commands.

Jay returned once again to M'redith and Norri. Jay managed to pick up one of the men with M'redith's help and carried him to the cart where he lay him down none too carefully. He returned to the alley and carried the last drunk back to the cart where he dropped him unceremoniously aboard.

One of the men still awake cradled his injured hand and whimpered. It was a grisly injury, and the pain from the lack of skin on his hand sent tears down his face.

“Aiden – heal him up,” Jay said and Aiden looked up.

“Seriously? After what he did?” Aiden scoffed.

The injured man nodded and begged, “Please! I'm sorry! We didn't know who you were! Please forgive us! My hand – it hurts so much, please sir! Please?”

The man whimpered more than spoke and Aiden finally sighed and shot a look towards Jay. “This is ridiculous, you know that? Healing someone that just tried to rob us?”

Jay nodded, “It is, but I think it's still the right thing to do.”

“What if they attack us again!” Aiden pointed out.

“Then we kill them.” Jay said darkly and stared at the man who clutched at a skinless hand that had turned an angry shade of purple.

The man was in tears from the pain and Aiden finally relented. “FINE,” he said grumpily and grabbed the man's injured hand in his own. None too gently he grabbed the hand and caused the man to shout in pain – which caused the driver to look back in confusion.

The driver saw a drunk with a nasty looking injured hand have that hand suddenly grabbed by Aiden. Aiden cast his first Combat Ability on the injured limb and it was quickly covered in a series of patches as Aiden triggered the ability again and again until the hand was entirely encased in patches.

“What did you do!” the man asked in shock.

Aiden shrugged and explained. “It's my first healing ability. They'll fall off once your hand is fully healed. It should at least feel better now.”

The man nodded in thanks and looked as if he was going to cry. “Thank you! It feels so much better already!”

Aiden peered at the man oddly and said “Sure.” What should he say to a man that had just attacked his group leader? “You ever do this again and I'll make sure there's nothing left to heal,” he said to the man as he leaned in and looked at him in anger.

The man shook his head, “Never again! Never!”

All of the drunks had been loaded in to the cart and truth be told they appeared to have sobered up a great deal since their idiotic attempt at a robbery.

Jay waved at the driver, “Good to go, thanks for being so patient.”

The driver nodded and flicked the reins twice before the cart slowly pulled in to traffic.

The group of friends watched them go.

“Throwing axes sounds boring after fighting off drunken robbers.” Norri pointed out with a sigh.

“I don't care!” M'redith said crossly. “I'm not about to let that lot stop me from doing what I set out to do!”

She turned around and headed back in to the alley where they had just fought. M'redith was going to throw some axes, one way or another.