A sound similar to a water bottle filling up sounds out quietly from the river. Before the guards can even realize what is going on the river rapidly quickens and expands reaching up past the top of the bridge within just a second. Within just a few seconds all the guards on the bridge had either fallen over or fallen off.

"Quickly, go!" I gesture towards my two friends to hasten their pace so we can cross the bridge as soon as possible. After thirty seconds the guards still on the bridge had gotten to their feet, but did not pursue us. This is either due to them not going until they regroup, or due to politics in the area, I hope it is the latter as they will be delayed for much longer.

"Zhuge Liang said 'A skilled attack is one against which opponents do not know how to defend', how can a simple guard defend against such an attack as the river washing them away. Such a simple thing as charging through them causes unnecessary tension and I will not fight head on without being provoked adequately." I begin quoting things from my art of war book which I have recently begun reading. The two seem slightly annoyed as they can see this making our travels rather boring.

"We know not what our future holds, and burning bridges is not a hobby of the smart." I nod at the wise words that I bestow upon the two, yet Maddy makes a rather disturbed look at me and Dylan just seems rather nonchalant about the whole deal.

"Do you know where we are going?" Maddy seems to be tired of traveling in a single direction and probably wants to visit a town since we have been camping outdoors for a few weeks.

"One cannot chart their path without a map, how should I know where we are going?" I am also rather impatient at the fact we are stuck moving based on intuition and using Ceres to scout rather than using a map to chart our course. After a few more hours of travel Ceres alerts us to a nearby village, however it's not quite what we expect.

Sitting in the middle of a vast marsh is a small village full of small huts made of woven plants. Rather than roads the houses were connected with raised platforms made of wood with rather rickety looking support beams. The type of housing on this other side of the river was exceptionally different.

"Well, I guess we found something." I lead the way to the village while the other two seem rather uninterested in the poor looking area.

As we approach the small village a group of five foot tall creatures exit out of the woven houses. The scaly creatures exit their homes and are visibly startled by us approaching. Covered in green scales these lizards with fin like crests on their heads, some on tails and backs, the lizards approach us cautiously.

"Hello, humans." The lizards lean forward readying themselves to charge away at anytime.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Greetings kind er- I apologize, but I know not of what race of being you are." I look over the creatures, but my knowledge of lizards is definitely low.

"Ah yes, we are known as basilisks. We welcome you reluctantly into our humble village." The lizard nods it's head lightly.

"Thank you, we have arrived from the neighboring human kingdom just recently. Thank you for taking care of us." I return a nod to the shorter green lizard. While shorter it's "length" was much longer, nearly two times longer than it's body.

"While we wish to be hospitable we are not currently able to house others for too long, we hope you umm understand." The lizard talks slowly trying to offend us as little as possible. It is quite possible that humans here previously were rather disrespectful to their hosts.

"That is fine, we should only be staying for a day or so. If possible do you have a map of the area we can look at?" Our situation can now change! As long as these basilisks have a map of some kind we can find our way to a place where these two aren't wanted, then find some way back to the tower after a bit of exploration.

While I was looking around and Maddy was rather entertained by the lizard people Dylan was acting rather suspicious. I look at the map and copy it to the best of my abilities. After which I take Dylan away and try to have a conversation with him about his strange acting.

"Why have you been so weird since we came to this village." I directly confront him to get to the center of the matter.

"Well you see, the reason my bounty is so high is because I purged a whole city of lizard people. I was told it was a city of monsters who were causing trouble in nearby areas, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it." There was no way to respond to this except giving him a blank stare. The look i gave held no emotion or thought, only a completely empty gaze on a slightly tilted head.

"I REALLY did not want to know that, and please don't tell anyone about that from now on. You never killed any lizards, you never attacked a city. Unless they already know you do not tell anyone, Maddy is an exception of course." I stare and lecture Dylan with my hands on his shoulder, if he were to tell anyone that at all during our stay in this kingdom we would probably be imprisoned. After our conversation I escort him back to the village hall, where we will be staying for the night. I instruct Maddy not to get too attached to the inhabitants here, but that of course fails as she follows them around learning about their town.

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that these two are going to cause me some major problems here in this village?