When our meeting and meal were over, Moriah, Alec, and Calvin left and I worked on a plan. I had time because I wouldn’t move to the next step until noon the next day. According to my update on the current date from the others, Charles and his family would be back in town by then – and I needed them to be in town to make my gambit.

I needed more information, but then again with the system having a data compendium, I did not need to carry books after reading them a few times. I simply had to stay in here and pull up my data prompts, so I did. Firstly, I checked the data compendium entries on the customs of nobility within Hekatondrona, and the relationship between the Church of the Octahedron and the nobles of Hekatondrona.

Charles had not been entirely honest with me about that, either. While the Octahedron did have an almost oligarchic reach as a religious organization, it was simply because they held a monopoly of control on the Outworlder Lottery.

The Church of the Octahedron was one of the strongest religions because of its association with the so-called Eight Saints, and their foundation of the rules which solved disputes between outworlders, nobles, and other powerful figures in the lands of Hekatondrona.

Duels were sanctified and considered holy. An expression of battle in a controlled format; they provided benefits and a way for disputes to be solved. They were a way forth to stop a war when they were chosen; and better than that challenges and terms that were made in front of a clergy member of the Church of the Octahedron were irrevocable.

If I got Edbert to accept a duel with me or challenge me to one; I could fight him and do so without worrying about interference from the Darvilles. I could solve the issue with Eris and provide a message.

I’d probably be burning my bridges with the Darvilles in the process, but that didn’t matter. There were other methods to power than being adopted by a noble’s family and even if my welcome in Strongbridge was ruined by helping Eris, I had a backup plan formed in my mind. It was risky, but any decision was and I couldn’t abide Eris being indentured to the Darvilles in the way many other noble houses did to their outworlders.

If it wasn’t something I would accept for my children, I wouldn’t accept it for anyone else’s. As I read and re-read over the information prompts and did mental math, I let myself fall asleep in the darkness of the Tipsy Tauracean Tavern’s basement.

Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

***

When I woke, it was to the irresistible siren song of fresh baked goods. Its olfactory dominance led me up the steps as if I were a hound after wild game, and soon I was on the landing of the main floor of the Tipsy Tauracean Tavern.

I was greeted with a “Don’t forget to load the rest of the Church’s fresh bread for tomorrow’s ceremony. We need to deliver it soon, and get it going up the hillside before the Darvilles stop by the tavern for pastries on their way up.” To anyone paying attention it sounded like she was listening to one of her nephews, but it was clear she meant the words for me because it was accompanied by a quick movement of her hand to stop and a gesture toward a cart within the shop that had a blanket over it. She mouthed, “Hurry.”

I knew how to take a hint and follow instructions without argument, so climbed into the cart and pulled the blanket over me. True to her word, there were sacks of bread also in the cart, and just before the sounds of the door creaking open could be heard I had a canteen and a small sack shoved against me. Inside, were sugar-glazed and fruit-covered pastries. On earth, they’d have been called danishes of various varieties.

As I tore into one, I could hear the Darvilles chatting with all the joviality that they seemed to mask themselves with despite being a family which wasn’t much better than mobsters back on Earth. With the deep-bellied laugh of Lord Charles Darville, I had to fight the urge to pop out of my hiding spot and go on the attack right now.

I tore into the pastry with the silent ferocity of a savage instead, and as Megan and the other workers in the Tipsy Tauracean talked to the Darvilles I felt the cart begin to move.

***

When we were at the top of the hill, pushed up the ramp that accompanied the stairs with the sheer stubbornness of the Tipsy Tauracean’s namesake Tauracean, Kenneth and Kieran pulled back the blanket slightly and began to slowly unload the sacks of bread which were meant for the church services on the next day. As they did, Kieran gestured a finger to his lips; demanding I keep quiet.

I did, even as I heard them talking first to Marlie, then to others I did not recognize; and then heard the voices of others. The cart stood where it was, and I waited until my prey came into earshot.

It took time, but a trumpet – for goodness sake a trumpet – sounded.

“His lordship Charles Darville, the Baron of Tidewarren, returns to Strongbridge. Who receives him?” came the voice of one of Charlie’s guards who also doubled as a herald.

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“His nephew, Sir Edbert Highwater, lieutenant of the Tidewarren Guard. Welcome back to you home, Uncle.”

He was formal with Charles, but more warm and friendly with each of those that followed as the herald announced Charles’ wife and each of his children. At his aunt’s announcement, Edbert seemed the most friendly and warm. His use of “Aunt Maggie.” after it was over made me assume that she was the one biologically related to Edbert.

She had to be. Charles was after all an outworlder.

When it was over, I channeled my greatest Erroll Flynn impersonation and threw the blanket off. Glancing around to see that Marlie the high priestess had not wandered off from her church and was here to witness this, I projected my voice.

“Edbert Highwater, you have wronged me and attacked my pride. You assaulted my party on the completion of the Tidewarren dungeon and our defeat of its boss, and you seized all treasures and goods that we were due from that dungeon’s completion and the defeat of its boss. I call you a coward for not simply challenging it yourself.” Even as the chestnut brown-haired and hazel-eyed noble guardsman looked as if he was going to murder me with his eyes, I spoke without slowing or allowing intersession. “Instead, you attacked a nine-year-old and his party after they were already weakened by defeating a level ten, boss tier cobliath.”

While he didn’t charge at me, he did shout out a “Why you!” at me. He did not do more because of his uncle and aunt’s presence and a motion for him to hold from his aunt.

Instead of Edbert speaking up, Charles did. “And did you have my clearance to enter my dungeon?”

I didn’t even keep my eyes on him, I had after all expected that argument, but I had read history and also a few tales from the eight-fold way, the holy book of the Octahedron Church.

“High Priestess, is it not scripture that anyone who has the ability to open a dungeon is authorized to enter it and gain whatever spoils it might provide, without tarry from others? This is based on the decree of the ancient King Hannibal of the Desert, and the doctrine of the Church of the Octahedron?”

She made a face, “It is, and I’m surprised you remembered that parable – I thought you were only pretending to read during the church services you have attended.”

I flashed her a smile and gave a slight bow. “I thank you for your guidance.”

Then I turned back to the Lord of Tidewarren. “I am capable of opening the dungeon. This means it is my right to visit it and utilize it for my purposes when I have the time and ability to. You were gone and did not invite me; so you cannot challenge or punish me for doing it – and all of the spoils which were taken from my party and I must be returned. Without doing so, your nephew broke religious doctrine.”

Charles pursed his lips, and his jovial mask almost looked ready to move for a second but he steeled himself.

“So be it. He will return it.”

“He cannot rectify his damage to my pride with a simple return of goods.”

“Rectify your pride? You have no pride! You attacked me in the groin!”

“And the stomach, and anywhere else I could, but that too is a parable that the Church of the Octahedron pushes. The Hymn of Angry Mouse of the Woodlands, no? I am younger than you, smaller than you, and newer to this world than you. And more than that, I attacked you after you attacked my pride and my friends.”

With my words finished I turned back to Lord Darville.

“The only solution is a duel. If I win, it will return my pride and correct Edbert’s overestimation of himself. I challenge him to thus, and more than that I challenge you to a bet. If I lose the duel, Edbert gains all of the treasure that he wrongfully seized from my party and me in the woods. You will gain eight years of my service and half of my experience gains per month, as bound by oath. If I win, my treasure is returned to my party, and more than that you free Jose Porter and Eris Porter from any debts and contracts of service you currently have. Further, you will use one of your entry slots to allow me and any of those I choose for a party, entry into the Mooncrawl tournament that is meant to occur when I turn ten.”

He went from angry to suddenly perfectly calm. He thought he had me on a hook and I had put myself upon it. It was about to be the other way around.

“High Priestess Marlie Lowbridge, have you witnessed this?” I asked, and the friendly old woman looked to be ecstatic. “I have, and as my right as the mediator and proctor of this duel, I assign the following terms. First, it will be in twenty days with both combatants allowed to prepare without impediment from any other. Secondly, it will be.” she stopped to look firmly at Edbert. “Non-contact from the likes of the human combatants unless the smallest of the two strikes the first blow.”

Edbert was not just a bully to the likes of me but others as well. I knew this not just from Eris, but from others – and that was likely why Marlie had decided such terms. I had counted on it; because while I was not sure I was ready to drink the communal punch from the Church of the Octahedron, I knew that they were firm in some pillars. You didn’t become a far-flung religious organization with great dominance over public discourse without it, or at least the perception of it.

Oddly enough, fair play and compassion were cheap among them for the Church. I had to count that I could use those pillars to my advantage.

Marlie looked at Charles and spoke up. “As the due representative of the Barony of Tidewarren, do you accept the terms of the duel and the wager provided by young Master Wade Calhoun?”

With a grin like a fisher reeling in his catch, Lord Charles Darville answered. “I accept the terms of both the wager and the duel.”

As Marlie gave a nod, she pulled her staff as if from nowhere, and slammed it to the ground. “So the terms are set. May the eight strike down any who does not abide by the letter of this agreement.”

Her Cadecoatl let out a call that both sounded like a serpentine hiss and a bird’s call at the same time and then it flew around her staff.

With a grin that almost demanded to be accompanied by a chin stroke, Lord Charles Darville added. “Of course, this does not mean I am required to provide any aid to young Mister Calhoun, either. Wade can find his own way to prepare in the next twenty days.”

I was counting on it.