”See? I told you it was fine.” Emilia said, punched Gilbert in the shoulder to get his attention and pointed at the necromancer and the simulacrum wandering among the other people on the street.
Anastacia stopped to look at the buildings around her every few steps. Inside its walls, Merfall was nothing like Valor, the streets were narrower, the buildings higher and it made the whole area seem a lot more crowded than even the guild office was on most days. The whole city had a certain odor to it that wasn’t present in Valor as well, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t get over quickly enough, especially after passing a bakery that radiated out the scent of freshly baked bread. After a bit of wandering around, Anastacia noticed Emilia’s bright white cloak in the crowd and the party was able to regroup without an incident.
“Well done, Anna, you actually didn’t get lost this time.” Gilbert congratulated the necromancer.
“I’ve never gotten lost, you’ve just misplaced me.” Anastacia commented and pulled on the rope around her. “So now that I’ve proven that I can do this, you’ll take the rope off, right?”
“The rope stays.” Both Gilbert and Emilia said bluntly at the same time.
“Anyway.” Gilbert continued. “I’ve spoken with the boy here and the shop they own is only a few streets away, so we should probably go there together so we can use it as a rallying point for later. I paid the stables to keep our horses overnight, so we have the rest of the day to see the city. Personally, I have stuff I’d like to check on my own, so you three can figure out what to do with your time.” He explained and stared at the sky, partly to gauge how many hours of daylight they had left, and partly to avoid Emilia’s sour, disgusted stare.
“You’re the fucking worst.” The priestess grumbled disapprovingly.
They figured that it was better to leave that discussion there and followed the boy to his family’s shop. Along the way they passed many different stores that seemed interesting to Anastacia. Unlike in Valor, where every shop was there to serve adventurers and deal with their equipment, in Merfall there were far more shops that sold items for regular everyday life. Furniture, bedding, cutlery and raw ingredients were all things most adventurers didn’t even need to think about, as they were handled by the many inns working in the city, while the adventurers themselves were busy beating up things and making sure the guild had enough income to keep the whole show running. Watching the people working inside the shops and unloading merchandise from carts by the side of the street made Anastacia realize that despite being free from her old life, she still had absolutely no idea what normal life was like. She had just jumped from a strange one into another odd lifestyle – not that she was complaining about it.
“What the…” Emilia said, interrupting the necromancer’s thoughts and ran to a stone fence at the end of the street.
On the other side of the fence was a massive gorge into what seemed to be the abyss. Roughly a hundred meters across and five times as long, the seemingly bottomless gap in the middle of the city felt really out of place.
Anastacia leaned over the fence and stared down at the darkness, some thick mist had gathered into the crevasse and the bottom wasn’t visible, even in direct daylight with the sun right above their heads. She went through her pockets to find something she could throw in and settled on a coin. Just as she was about to toss it, Gilbert grabbed her arm.
“Better not, you can be fined for it.” He said and let go.
“Why? It’s right there, just asking for stuff to be thrown in.” The necromancer protested.
Gilbert glanced down at the mist. “Because no one knows what’s down there, besides Mer.”
“Mer? From the city’s name?” Emilia asked.
“Yup. This city used to be a town called Mer’s fall, named after the creature that fell from the sky and made the hole there.” Gilbert explained. “But that’s all I know, ask the locals if you want more detail. We should probably get the boy back to his folks before stopping to see sights. Or we could just split up now. I can go and get the reward and so forth, while you three get the most out of your time here? It’s not my first time so I’ve seen what I want to anyway.” He suggested.
Emilia scoffed. “So you’ve found the brothel then?”
“Multiple actually, but yes.” The old adventurer shrugged. “So how about it? I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff for you to see too.”
“Fine, works for me. I want to check out that place anyway.” The priestess said and pointed at a large cathedral at the end of the ravine. “What about you, Anna?” She asked and looked where the necromancer had been literally seconds ago, but that wasn’t ne case anymore.
Neither the necromancer nor the disguised simulacrum were anywhere to be seen. Once again, she had disappeared into the thin air in mere seconds when no one was watching her. Gilbert and Emilia checked the nearby streets quickly but weren’t able to find them and decided to give up on the search for the time being.
“This happens literally every time! How does she do it?!” Emilia exclaimed. “It’s starting to be more impressive than any of her other powers.”
“Relax, at least King is with her this time and that lad won’t even let a bug sting her. I’ll do a quick sweep around this area when I’m done with the boy, you can just do whatever you were going to do anyway.” Gilbert calmed her. “The worst that can happen is that she’ll sleep outside, and she already does that willingly from time to time, so let’s just agree to not tell Rosie that we lost her again.”
They agreed that there was nothing they could do at the time. Anastacia and King would probably pop up at some point or be waiting by the wagon in the morning, and more than likely the two were having more fun than they would with Emilia. Thought they would have to ask a guard later in case Anastacia had been arrested at some point.
Before splitting up, they made some rough plans about where to find each other in case something came up and where to meet up in the morning.
“So how’s about we get you home?” Gilbert said and turned to the boy after Emilia had headed off. “Appreciate you keeping your mouth shut about King by the way, means a lot to Anna even if she doesn’t say it.”
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Micah nodded.
Gilbert had learned to not expect an answer from him, even if the boy wasn’t normally shy, a lot of things had happened to him in a short amount of time and near muteness wasn’t a rare thing to see in people he had previously rescued while working with other people instead of his current party.
They walked up to a storefront of a general store that seemed to be empty at the moment. Gilbert pushed the door open and ushered the boy to enter first. He had been through the same situation countless times and knew exactly how things would proceed. He then counted to three in his head, and exactly on the third beat, an excited scream could be heard from inside the shop. After a few more seconds Gilbert stepped in and found exactly what he expected: a mother in tears, squeezing the air out of her son that had been kidnapped.
“Excuse me, I’m here for the reward in behalf of the guild.” Gilbert said and knocked on the doorframe but failed to get a reaction from the mother. He cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Excuse me.”
This time the woman turned to look at him but didn’t release her grasp on her boy – probably wouldn’t for a few days. “I’m sorry but we’re closed at the moment, please come back in a while.” She said and squeezed Micah even tighter.
“I’m not a customer, I’m here in behalf of the guild, our party rescued your boy and per the contract you made with the guild, you owe us money.” He stated bluntly. Gilbert had been an adventurer long enough to know that the best way to get people to pay the reward was to be direct. Even incredibly thankful folk sometimes had some trouble giving up the gold, since hiring an adventurer was not a cheap thing to do.
“OH! You’re the one who saved my Micah?! How can we ever thank you enough?! Would you like some tea and biscuits?” The woman asked, grabbed Gilbert’s arm and shook it. “My husband is out at the moment, but he’ll come back soon enough, if you could just wait for a while.”
The adventurer sighed. “No, all the thanks we require is that you pay the agreed upon price. I have things to do today and I’m sure you do as well, so how about we just get this over and done with?” He said. This was one of the reasons he often handled that part of the quests, both Anastacia and Emilia were still far too green to make sure people actually paid them, not to mention that people were far more likely to pay up if it was him asking, simply because of his considerable size. Even if they were there to help people, business was still business and Gilbert wasn’t exactly convinced that the rest of his party had understood that completely.
“But-“ The woman tried once more but was interrupted.
“Ma’am, the money.” Gilbert kept insisting.
Hesitantly, the woman went behind the counter and opened up a safe under it with a key she had on her. She placed a large sack of money on the counter and took out some coins, many of them extremely valuable; they were clearly not struggling to pay the reward, but neither were some of the most difficult clients Gilbert had dealt with over the years; if anything, wealth made people harder to deal with.
“If possible, make it divisible by four.” The adventurer said while watching the storeowner count the money. “Looks like that’s everything. The guild thanks you for your business and hopes you’ll rely on us again if the need arises.” He continued once the transaction was made, bowed slightly and left before the woman had a chance to say anything else. On the way out he waved at Micah briefly and wished him good luck.
With the matter of the reward settled, it was time to make a quick circle around the nearby streets and look for any signs of Anastacia and King. By then they were surely further away already, but they weren’t exactly inconspicuous, so plenty of people should have seen them go by. Gilbert stopped by some of the stalls to ask if the merchants had seen the odd-looking duo go by. To get answers, he had to separate with a few coins along the way, but eventually that resulted in a decent idea of the direction they had ran off to, apparently in quite a hurry. At some point they had been seen talking with a nearby guard and seemed to be in some trouble.
“I swear she’s never going to come with us into another city if she has already gotten herself arrested.” Gilbert muttered and looked around for a guard. He had already decided that it was as far as he was going to follow their trail since he’d never catch them at that rate, and if they had indeed gotten in trouble with the guards, they would simply spend the night in a cell and would be easy to pick up in the morning. After a bit more looking around, he found a couple of guards, taking a break in the shade under a balcony. “Excuse me, but has either of you seen a girl that was tied to a golem? I hear she was running around nearby.” He asked from them.
“Aye, we were just talking about that actually. The lass was being danger to everyone by running around with a bunch of spears and those horns of her. She could have taken someone’s eye out, so I made her slow down a bit.” One of the guards laughed. “She a kid of yours?”
“A friend, she’s prone to going missing, but if she wasn’t in trouble I might as well leave her be.” Gilbert shrugged. “Any idea where she went?”
“Seemed to be heading into the lower city, there’s some shady folk there but the thing she was tied to seemed more than enough to keep her safe from thieves and muggers.” The guard remembered and pointed down the road. “Now that I think about it, I think she said something about a ghost before storming off, but I have no idea what she meant.”
Gilbert thanked the guards and wandered towards the red-light district. He had heard about the lower part of Merfall being slightly rough, but the guard was right about King, it was nothing he couldn’t handle. The search had taken slightly longer than Gilbert had hoped, and he figured that it was a fine time to stop by a stall or a tavern to get something to eat. Even though meals were available in where he was going, they tended to slip off one’s mind for obvious reasons, so refueling beforehand was not a bad idea. He settled on a cute little movable stand that offered cuisine from one of the few places in the world he somehow hadn’t gotten the chance to visit, and while he didn’t end up regretting it, he still found himself craving for the usual grub served in Rosie’s inn. Perhaps he just had a taste for the more common and plain food, since that what he ate growing up. Luckily some of the innkeeper’s cooking skills had rubbed off on Emilia at some point and the overall quality of the meals they had on the road was steadily improving from the charred lumps of meat and boiled carrots he had often made.
Choosing the establishment he was going to spend the night in was considerably more of a pickle. He was familiar with five different ones, all of them with their own pros and cons. Gilbert spend a while walking around the district and chatting up the girls who were advertising whichever house of ill repute they happened to be working for. A few were easy to rule out for one reason or another, but the final choice between the last two had to be settled with a coinflip. “Tails, huh… That means ‘The Den’. That’s pretty nice actually, they have a great bar too.” He muttered and made his way there.
As soon as Gilbert opened the door, he was filled with confusion and a dash of regret, when Anastacia pointed at him from behind the counter and grinned widely. He briefly considered just walking out and never mentioning it again but felt like he had to make sure Anastacia was fine. “Anna, can you please tell me why I’ve ran into you in a place like this more than zero times?” He asked and walked up to the counter.
“There is a small chance that I lost my coin purse and now have gambling debts, so King and I have to work the counter here for like two weeks to cover it.” The necromancer explained and looked around awkwardly.
Gilbert sighed. “How did you even manage that in like three hours? Well whatever, we’ll pay the debt with your part of the reward money and then we’ll never speak of this to anyone, okay? Not to Emilia and especially not to Rosie.” He said and grudgingly gave up on his plans for the night, now that he had found Anastacia, it was better to just head to a regular inn, lock the necromancer into her room and have a good night’s sleep.
Suddenly the brothel’s door opened up again and Emilia stepped in, she kept her eyes on the floor and only noticed her friends when she was at the counter. “This isn’t what it looks like.” She said and leaned against the counter. “Honestly, I’m just really disappointed in all three of us right now.”