“Welcome to Morgans armory, how can I-” Morgan starts her greeting, thinking me just another customer.

She doesn’t get to finish her greeting as Lily runs up to me, yelling “Grant!”

I stumble back as she hugs me around my waist, forcing me to put weight onto my hurt leg. I wrap my arms around her as I hide a wince “How is your business coming along little [Apothecary?”

“Grant, how did it go, who is your companion?” Morgan asks, putting her tools into her jumpsuit.

“This is Kara,” I introduce her, eliciting a small wave from her.

Lily looks up to Kara but tightens her hold on me as she introduces herself “Hi Kara, I am Lily!”

“Uggh,” she replies.

I did not think that she’d be this bad with kids, She is barely eighteen herself.

“Kara. Lily is a good friend of mine and she will become one of the best Sheriffs around the Hunters plains, please treat her well.”

Kara stiffens up before leaning down like a puppet, tugging a strand of hair behind her ear. “I am sorry,” she says, a forced smile spreading across her face, “Hello Lily, nice to meet you.”

I can feel Lily shiver as Karas smile widens, revealing fangs instead of incisors.

Morgans voice turns a threatening tone “Lily, go into the backroom.”

Lily looks up at me with wide eyes before running behind the counter, past Morgan, and into the back.

“Why the fuck,” Morgan growls, “Did you bring a Slave into my shop?”

“The Slave has a name.” Kara reminds her.

I can’t help but feel like I am caught between two lions as I try to defuse the situation “Relax, both of you. I need your help with her, she has an Open Contract and I didn’t know what to do.”

“So you freed a slave and came to me because you didn’t think about it before accepting her contract?” She repeats.

“This was a mistake,” Kara says, turning to the exit, “She obviously doesn’t want me around her kid.”

“Sorry, I just didn’t expect to accept a Slave Contract today,” Morgan sasses.

I grab Kara by her arm, stopping her from leaving without even giving this a try. “Yes, I don’t know anyone that I’d trust with someones life. It still sounds outrageous when I say it out loud.”

“What exactly did you think I’d do, Grant?” Morgan asks, “I have enough to do with Lily and Jack, I don’t even have enough room for her.”

I let go of Karas arm and wander over to the counter “I thought she could help out around the shop and she isn’t half bad as a cook if you treat her well.”

“Not half bad?” Kara asks, raising her voice as she follows me, “You were eating burnt jerky and stale hardtack until I made you some food two days ago! You wouldn’t recognise a good cook if she hit you.” She smacks my arm.

“I am pretty sure no one can recognise a good cook by how they hit someone,” I argue before turning back to Morgan, “Ok, she is a good cook but what else was I supposed to do?”

Morgan turns to Kara with a hint of a scowl on her face “He already has your contract, why aren’t you just going around with him?”

“With him?” she asks, “I am not running around like some discount bounty hunter, I can’t even fight, only fling around a few spells.”

“Hey,” I defend myself, “I wouldn’t make you fight if you didn’t want to. I can take care of the bounties myself.”

“You got hit by a [Fireball] because you didn’t kill the mages first! You snuck into the tent and shot the first bandit you fought,” she yells at me, completely ignoring Morgan.

Stolen story; please report.

“I killed four before you alerted the bandits, shrieking around like that!” I retort.

“Oh,” she taunts, stemming her hands into her waist, “Why would I scream if an armed guy, covered in blood and deadly silent, sneaks into the tent and towers over me? What did you think I was going to do?”

“Enough you two,” Morgan cuts in, “Go somewhere else if you just want to bicker like children. You are scaring away my customers.”

I look around the empty shop and give Morgan a disbelieving look. “What customers?”

“You wouldn’t know what they are,” Kara says, “I doubt you ever had one.”

“My point is that you either continue arguing about nothing until I throw you out or fuck off and pick up a Bounty like you usually do.” Morgan says.

I reply “What about Kara? I can’t just take her with me.”

“Why not?” Morgan asks.

“Because…” I say, “I can’t just force her to come with me.”

“You could ask me like a normal human being,” Kara says, rolling her eyes.

I scratch the back of my head, feeling rather awkward that I actually forgot that. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Yeah, it seems like my only choice either way."

Ohh.

That was easy.

"There," Morgan says, frustrated by the complicated way we took, "was that so hard?"

Kara pulls out a cracker from nowhere. "Apparently."

"Okay," I say, curiosity overwhelming me, "What's up with the Spatial Skill, how do you have a Skill like that at Level 4?"

She glances over to Morgan before getting up. "I've got [Cook] as a Subclass and I got the skill [Pantry] which allows me to store food in a pocket dimension where it stays fresh for longer."

That is incredibly useful for travelling around.

I go to say goodbye to Lily, leaving Kara and Morgan in the front room. I don't think I'll be able to come back here for a while, Kara will slow me down enough so I won't be able to build much of a distance from Idanu.

I knock on the door of Lily's room before entering, finding her sitting on her floor with a mortar and pestle. The Mortar is full of herbs and nuts that she has been grinding to a paste, preparing a potion. "Heyy, whatcha doing?"

"Making a healing potion for you," she replies.

"Thank you but I can't accept another free potion."

She looks up at me with a disbelieving expression, speaking slowly "I never said that it was free, you'll have to pay."

"Ohh, sure. I'll have to leave for a while and I don't know when I'll be back," I explain, "So I wanted to say goodbye."

"You'll visit again, right?"

I sit down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Of course, I'll try my best."

She pulls me into a hug, sobbing into my shoulder "Don't die, I'll kick your butt."

I chuckle dryly, wrapping my arm around her, silently enjoying the company for a few minutes.

Kara and I go over to the Sheriff's office, immediately getting greeted by the sheriff "Hey, who is your companion, kid?"

"Someone I picked up during the last Bounty," I quickly explain, moving on to the reason we are here, "Do you have any bounties towards the north from here?"

He grabs a stack of posters and rifles through them, picking out two of them "There is something that caused three caravans to go missing with no survivors in the swamp, or a necromancer who raided a cemetery."

I turn around to Kara, asking her "What do you think, Swamp or Graveyard?"

"Can't we take both? It's in the same direction."

"No, I can only take one bounty at a time," I explain.

She looks at the sheriff, asking "Can't I just take the second one?"

The Sheriff looks at us, checking my class, "Don't you have the Skill [Contract list]?"

I should have it as a [Bounty Hunter] but I don't actually have the class after all. "No, I've got a weird variant of the class."

"Alright," he says, "she can take the second [Bounty] and everyone in the party gets the experience."

I pick up both posters and look over the details while asking "How do I add someone to my party?"

Both bounties pay 150 coins each, which speaks volumes of what they expect to be lurking in that Swamp. The Necromancer raised most of the Cemetery before retreating into their lair, a Tower, full of traps and Undead.

"I can do it for you, it's a skill [Sheriff]s get at third level," he explains, "Summons and Slaves are automatically added with their controller while Constructs can't benefit from it."

"No thanks," I quickly say, "we're already in a party, I just forgot how to add more."

He looks at me disbelievingly but activates his skill either way, allowing us to accept the two Bounties without any further trouble. "There you go, take care."

"Thank you, you too," Kara and I reply before walking off.

We quickly get some supplies, mainly food, and sell the loot from the Bandits before departing north.

With the Loot and reward, I got 86 coins from this bounty, leaving me at 119 coins total after buying supplies.