We arrived back at the town where I began to fight back the worst of a fever. I was disappointed I never grabbed a helmet to bring with me, as covering my face would likely keep the others from becoming concerned about me.

The thief and I approached a house with leather tanning equipment set up outside of it. An older man was scraping a deer hide tied to a rack. He looked at us and pointed to a workbench with more tools on it. I could appreciate a man who knew how to communicate without speaking. I left speaking to our thief, given I still didn’t understand why he thought I angered others before.

“We got the pelts you asked for, one brown one gray. Mind checking their quality and giving us the reward?”

The man looked at the two pelts. “Clean kill, decent skill skinning. I’ll give you a leather bag. Worth more than the rabbits, but I’ve owed the soldiers. Debt repaid.”

Logan, looking at a well-made bag near the table, gave a very merchant-like smile and parroted him. “Debt repaid indeed.”

Logan and my eyes wander over to the new leather bag he had sitting by the work table. Logan’s smile faltered when he saw the old man reach behind the other bag and grab an old brown leather bag hidden behind it that was likely going to be thrown out. It had scratches everywhere and some of the stitches were coming loose for the strap.

The older man gave us a smirk. “Pleasure doing business with you”.

We walked away from the house while looking for the prince and saintess.

“Logan, I don’t believe my vision has gone bad, we got scammed didn’t we?”

“No, the bag is a little more than the value of two unprocessed rabbit pelts most likely. If we get it fixed by a seamstress it will work well and last us for the entire trip. I may coincidentally forget to tell the soldiers that he considers the debt repaid though.”

“No complaints here.”

As we neared the well, our teammates looked up at us.

“We have a small problem. I found something shining at the bottom of the well. It is likely the amulet, but Frederick mentioned that people don’t lose amulets in wells provided they are worn properly. Most people don’t bend low enough to have it fall off their heads. Especially something they nonchalantly ask strangers to find. So we have been debating if it is cursed.”

I think for a moment about the previous assassin that attacked. “Let’s go to her and interrogate her. Better to question a villager and be wrong than lose a knight as they say.”

“NO! We are not going to interrogate a potentially innocent woman. That’s cruel! Are you guys not going to think about what other reasons could have gotten it down there? We don’t even know if that is the amulet.”

The thief looked at the saintess while deep in thought. His hand resting on his chin. “Then we do nothing.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The prince looked at him with his brows furrowed. “Explain.”

“We do nothing. This isn’t a very important side job. It isn’t time-sensitive while our main goal is. We don’t even know what we would get and can very easily say we failed to find it.”

“You could be leaving a cursed item in the town well” The prince prodded.

I watched as the thief grew a devious grin. “Then they would know where they left it and that we were all standing in front of the well it was left in. We should be able to see a reaction from them of some kind given this and we can get a bit forceful with questioning. Besides, the reward would likely be worth less than taking the amulet to a fence anyway.”

The saintess looked appalled either by our decision or the idea of stealing an amulet, her unblemished face turning the same shade of white as her hair.

The thief shrugged and I remarked. “You know, I am concerned with how much I have been agreeing with a thief.”

He turned to me with a hardened stare. “Mind leaving that last word out next time? Kind of hurts my chances of talking with others.” He waited until I nodded. “Also I’m just that awesome. No need to worry about coming to that realization.”

The obvious false bravado helped to break the tension in the air.

The house for the amulet side job was small and unassuming, much like the old lady who walked out. She was in dirty clothes and looked so thin I doubted she could draw water from the well to begin with.

“Why hello adventurers. Have you found my amulet yet? I really must get it back.” She gave a very kind smile.

The thief stepped forward to speak but the saintess spoke up before him.

“Miss, would you have any idea where you would have lost it?”

“Haven’t you guys already begun looking for it?” She gave us a very strange look as if she didn’t trust we were here for any good reason.

“The two of us started looking around the village, but we realized we forgot to ask you for information about it.” The saintess looked a little on edge talking to this potential assassin, but I couldn’t fault her for trying to speak up and participate.

“Hmmmm. I don’t recall what I was doing when I lost it. Perhaps you guys can ask some of the other villagers what I was doing and retrace my steps.”

The thief stood in front of the saintess, nodded to do so, and dragged the saintess away by her arm. We didn’t learn much about the old lady, and after everyone but the saintess agreed to ignore the amulet for now, we decided to leave her to her problems for the foreseeable future. She was suspicious, but I doubted the saintess would forgive us for doing something under mere suspicion.

As we walked back to the apothecary’s house we were waylaid by a man with a woodsman axe. “You guys have been trying to help people right?” On his face was a very worried expression. Despite his tall and well-toned body, he displayed no signs of confidence. “Do you think you could find my brother? He went into the woods yesterday and hasn’t come back yet. I’m beginning to become concerned.”

We all looked at each other trying to decide our answer. The prince shrugged. The saintess nodded. I nodded. Then the thief nodded. We nodded to him and got the relevant details about where he entered the forest from.

Continuing our journey to the apothecary house, we waited outside for the monk. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. We discussed going out to look for her, but we didn’t know where to start looking for her tracks. I offered to start tracking her, or at least doing the best I could, but the others shut it down on the excuse of my poor health.

After arguing for quite a while, she returned with twigs stuck in her hair and an ice-cold fury in her eyes.

“That old lady lied. They were not ‘common weeds’ at all. It took me two hours to find these medicinal herbs. Never again. My patience is gone. If doesn’t give me a fair return for my time, I will break her arm as well. I will never fetch weeds again.”

That was a lot to process for me. The gentle monk not only was threatening to break an old lady’s arm but had broken someone else’s before. I wonder if I could ask for any pointers from her.