The entrance of the house was as beautiful as the exterior, the smell of wood was hypnotizing, a mixture of oak, cherry, pine and maple. All across the hall a hand-made wood furniture, well, all furniture in the medieval era was hand made, but this one was so well crafted that would put modern woodworkers in awe. The closet next to the entrance had carved names on it’s nooks and fitted perfectly our shoes on the ones carved “Guesses”, a sponge sat next to a water stone so we could wash our feet and put some kind of slippers made out of wood, it was extremely comfortable, I confess that I wasn’t expecting this. Next to the shoe rack there was what looked like a school locket, with the same names carved plus extra guesses, I don’t know how he did that, but it was perfectly sized for our gear.
After the weight of the travel literally out of our shoulders, we follow the smell of fresh cooked meal. It was something I could’t pin at the time, but it smelled sweet with a tang, it made me curious of what could boil to expel this scents. Maybe a rabbit with some cole sprouts with a orange deglaze? Or maybe duck with chocolate? Did they even have chocolate here? I digress… The smell was amazing and I kinda get it why so many novel characters that I’ve read in the past were so eager to learn how to cook. Maybe a projection of the author onto the characters, or maybe, because this smell was so incredible intricate that I haven’t found words to describe it yet.
It was easy enough to find the kitchen, and the sight was something else, where everything else on the house was made of wood, the kitchen was a sea of Marble. The floors, the counter splash, some kind of kitchen island that wasn’t exactly that, all framed by a perfectly coated white cabinets. It was a masterpiece, especially with the brown contrast from the rest of the house. We must have looked shocked, because the old man had a friendly smile when he spoke. “It was my late wife request.” He said, still stirring the pot. “She said that she wouldn’t cook on a brown kitchen. I don’t see why not, but we do what we must to keep our partners happy. Please, take a seat, the lunch is almost ready, in the meantime, why don’t we introduce ourselves? My name is Amadeus Braunde, I’m a woodworker at heart and a lumber miller by trade, owner of this lands. And may I ask who you fellas are?”
He spoke slowly, but with a firmness that we hadn’t encounter before, it gain us time to recoup ourselves. “My name is Doc, sir, I’m a paladin sent from Jhorn to investigate your report of missing persons. This are my party, Ghimli, Amanda and Bea” I gestured to each as I said their names. “And I thank you kindly for your hospitality.”
“Oh, dear, missing persons? I don’t know anything about that.” He said taking the pot out of the fire and serving out in wood bowls. “I guess I must be too old for being kept in the loop, my foreman didn’t tell me anything about missing persons.”
“May we speak to this foreman?” Bea said. “He must be the one to notify the kingdom, I’m sure he didn’t tell you to not worry you, and there was a troll nearby, he couldn’t search himself.”
“A troll, you say?” Amadeus sounded amused “That’s a huge deal, the kingdom already sent someone over to take care of them?”
“You’re looking at them.” Ghimli said with a grin while the stew was served, we all started to salivate.
“Oh, my, you must be a strong bunch to defeat a troll, they are huge creatures, 6 meters tall and so strong…”
“Six meters? That one was only about three…” Amanda chimed in, she was the only one without food in their mouth.
“Oh, it must be a young one, I’m glad you took care of it before it grow too much.” He said with a genuine smile “Now, eat. I’m sorry that this was the only thing I had hand, I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“Are you kidding me? This is delicious!” Ghimli said. “We spent a week eating rations, even the stale bread in the tavern was a welcome change, but this is a delicacy that we’re not worthy to receive. Tell me, is it boar that I sense in the end?”
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Amadeus chuckle. “Yes, it is. But there’s no more boar meat in them, I used the broth of the Boar carcass in a Duck stew. I used some sweet shrooms to break the smell and pair with the duck that I just caught. My doughtier-in-law that teached me that.”
“She must be an amazing cook and an amazing teacher, this is delicious” Amanda said.
“Thank you sweety. About the foreman, He’s guiding the newbies today, we had a huge order and needed more hands on deck, but you’re welcome to stick around, he’ll be back tomorrow.”
“I really appreciate, sir. Where we can set our camp?” I asked.
“Nonsense. I have this huge empty house with spare bedrooms, you can stay here.”
“We can’t possibly accept…” I tried to speak.
“Yes you can. I’m a old lonely man that only talk about work with my employees, I need someone to talk to. If you want to repay me for the stay, you can help me move some furniture around, my back isn’t as strong as it was back in the day. What do you say?”
I looked around and saw the pleading eyes of my friends, I too wanted to sleep in a bed, so it was not much of a discussion. “Okay, Mr. Braunde. We’ll be happy to stay and help you around the house. Amanda here is also a great cook. I’m sure we can help each other.”
With that, Amadeus showed around our houses and led us to our rooms, they were next to each other in a large corridor on the second floor, they were all decorated with different kind of memorabilia. We found out that it was their children’s rooms, but we didn’t ask further when he looked somber while showing us around. He pointed out closets that needed to be moved and lumber to be chopped to the fireplace, Ghimli was really excited for this last one, and Amanda was showed the pantry and the cold room. It was a huge mansion and there was a lot to do, and we wanted to repay our host. So, we started to move things and organize, and shuffle, and clean, until it was dinner time. The day went on a blur of welcome mundane activities, the soft bed awaited us for a good night of sleep.
***
Fabio
I was almost sleeping myself when I saw the shift on Hector’s body, the snoring stopped and a loud yawn followed as the pale skin giant stretched himself out of slumber. I glanced around my side, not a lamp in sight. I cursed myself to not look before and just sat on the first comfortable chair I found. So, I casted light on hands to illuminate myself. The giant let out a shriek and put their fists on fight position.
“Good morning, Hector” I said, with a grin expression. “I always wanted to do that, I guess I should do it more.”
“Fuck, Fabio. What the hell, man. What are you doing here? You scared the shit out of me.”
“Oh, I called early, but your secretary said you were in a meeting. I waited for her lunch break to came talk to you.”
“How the fuck you pass my alarm trap?”
I looked over my sunglasses. “Really? I was a rogue.”
“Yeah, I forgot about that.”
“Anyway… Tell me something, Hector, do you know the diference between Four and Ten?”
“Of course. I may be of a race of fighting driven giants, but I too am from earth, and went to pre-school. Same as you.”
“Good. Now that we stablish that you, in fact, know the diference between Four.” I lifted four fingers on my hands. “And ten.” I lifted the rest of my fingers on both hands. “tell me, WHY THE FUCK BRAUNDES IS MARKED AS LEVEL FOUR?”
“Oh, I bet that is. See, I believe that the GM’s agreed on a level to the quests and you were put in charge to enforce this level guidelines, so our friends and families didn’t die for our mistakes. It was a cute move to call ‘DM in Distress’ because we were all panicked when we found out we had to keep bring more people over, and you hadn’t fucked up this bad. So, why?”
“Fabio, I don’t know what to say… I… ”
“Don’t say, just fucking do. ” My words were covered in poison. I could kill him and he knew it. It wouldn’t even be a fight. “Pull out the contract before anyone else get hurt.”
“Sure thing, Just doing it… Wait, anyone else? Don’t tell me someone took the job.”
“Yup.”
“And it was…”
“Sure thing.”
“Oh… Fuck…”
“Yeah.”
Hector started to pound on his tablet, his eyes darting from one side to the other until he stopped. His expression tensed and he looked at me. “They’re already there. There’s nothing I can do.”
I was already expecting that, those little overachievers fuckers defeated the young troll withing two days. I was pissed that the time dilatation weren’t the same on both dimensions, it was only a couple of hours for me, but I get it… If it was the same, other DM’s would interfere too much. I could only pray that they didn’t trigger the Braundes quest too early. So far, they were only helping a old men, hopefully it was all they do.