“Come on, old man. Do you actually expect to convert anyone out here? You’re peddling to the wrong crowd.”

The missionary—Fredrik—took all the abuse Will threw at him in stride. “I go where I am most needed. I hope to save at least a few frontiersmen before the Coming. I take no pleasure in the war to come.”

“War?” Will asked, frowning.

Fredrik lifted his soup down in one hand, sipped from it, and nodded solemnly. His face was alive in the light of the flames. “Yes. The Chosen One has been found. He who shall be Era’s consort upon her return. He who will bring this world in line, and save us from the fire.”

Now, that sounded like news. It was never easy to tell with resurrectionists what was pure delusional fantasy and what had some shred of truth in it. Suppose I'll have to push.

“This ‘Chosen One’, who might he be? We’re talking a flesh-and-blood person here, not just something from one of your stories?”

The missionary puffed up with prideful indignation at that, the first time Will had gotten a rise out of him. “He is called Leo, or the Lion of the West. He carries the patronage of Yara, the Flaming Brand, the chief general among Era’s angelic host. All of Thalia stands behind him. So I say, repent now, frontiersman.” He looked around the fire at each of them in turn. “If you wait, you will soon find that your time is up. And you will know that you have engineered your own doom, brick by brick.”

Nix snorted with laughter, dribbling soup down her chin. Will had to hold back a wave of laughter himself, stifling it against the back of his hand. The missionary’s blustering was especially funny with what he now knew about the goddess.

From where he was standing, it didn’t look like she was coming back anytime soon.

“You priestly types sure are good at swinging guilt around like a hammer,” Will noted. “It was the same old shit on Earth. Don’t you ever get sick of hearing it yourself?”

Fredrik said nothing, met Will’s gaze evenly. He did not move a muscle, but something menacing came over him, like he was about to snap. Maybe it was his complete lack of movement—an animal doing the calculations in its head, fight or flee.

I might have pushed a bit far.

But Fredrik relaxed with a visible effort, and a strained smile returned to his face. “Well, I see that you and your friends are not too receptive, so why don’t we talk about something else? Tell a story or two, maybe?”

“That’s all right,” Will said, standing up. “We were just leaving. Don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re going to continue on and find someplace else to sleep.”

Oatmeal looked reluctant to get back up and leave the soft embrace of a nice toasty fire, but he knew better than to argue. Him and Bee thanked the missionary half-heartedly for the food, and they all filed out, continuing into the dark.

Will felt the missionary's cold gaze bore into his back. He ignored it.

“Ever heard of this Leo character?” Will asked once they were out of earshot.

“Nope,” Mongrel replied.

“Yeah, me neither. Think it’s all bullshit?”

“Could be. Or it could be trouble.”

It did sound like trouble. The resurrectionists were a big joke in the Frontier, but they held an iron grip in Thalia. It didn’t sound so farfetched that they’d be able to put an army together.

Fucking zealots.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

*****

By the time they made it to Timbryhall, Oatmeal had reached Level 6, and he picked up a couple of points in Senses. If he stuck around a little longer, he might actually prove to be a good investment.

Once they entered the town, they found that their reputation preceded them. Word of Pigeon’s theatrics at Talltop had made it down there, and folk knew that Will and the others were tight with her. Her duel with that Farmer had taken on a life of its own. He heard several different versions at the local watering holes, each more fantastical than the last. She had killed four, no six, no eight men, all with a wave of her hand. Always gleaned through a friend of a friend, of course.

Will’s own involvement had been similarly twisted, and he was now made out to be an unabashed murderer who walked free due to Pigeon’s intervention.

He didn’t even bother arguing with them about it. They’d believe whatever captured their little imaginations best.

Furthermore, the townsfolk had somehow been informed that Will and the others had gone into the interior to hunt some big-time monster, the fact of their return confirming that they had succeeded. Some also remembered seeing them in the company of a troll on their way north, imagine that. For some reason, that seemed to be the part most folk had trouble believing, even though a fair number of them must have seen Gug with their own eyes.

Half of them were probably too piss-drunk at the time to remember a thing, I suppose.

With all that floating around, the townsfolk treated Will and the others with both awe and a heavy dose of suspicion. He had hoped to spin their local celebrity into something gainful, but in reality they were avoided like lepers. Not too bad at first, but once word of their arrival spread around and all the rumors gained new life, folk started crossing the street to avoid them.

None of the inns would take them, so they had to put up at a seedy flophouse on the outskirts of town. Which, in turn, only furthered their reputation as shady characters, like they’d had a choice in the matter.

However annoyed Will felt, he had to admit that he felt worse for Pigeon. It seemed her days of relative anonymity were up. After all the trouble she’d gone to, as well.

Maybe the missionary hadn’t been so far off. Maybe it was only a matter of time until somebody else found out about Pigeon’s secret past and did her in.

She’d put that target on herself while saving Will’s ass, too. Didn’t seem right. Then again, it wasn’t really his problem. And besides, if what he knew about Stormfort was correct, they had better things to do than deal in rumors. They were supposed to be all business up there.

After securing their lodging, such as it was, Will immediately went out to get his elixir identified. Having learned his lesson in Talltop, he bought an identification scroll instead of getting the Artificer to do it directly. There was a big convenience fee on that, and the seller upcharged him to boot, but Will paid without grumbling. Paying a little extra was worth it so he didn’t have to worry about getting shanked. Or anyone else finding out what exactly he had gotten his hands on.

There were all kinds of prying eyes and sticky fingers in the flophouse, so Will took Bee and went all the way out of town for the identification. It felt silly, the two of them sneaking around like mice, looking over their shoulders, but it couldn’t hurt to be safe.

Will wrapped the delicate strip of paper around the glass bottle. The paper burned up in a flash, leaving not a trace behind.

Elixir of resurrection

100% pure

Bee evidently saw the message too, courtesy of their mind link. “That’s a good one, right?” she guessed. “I mean, is it what it sounds like?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like,” Will was unable to keep a smile off his face.

Elixirs of resurrection were some of the most sought-after. It did pretty much the same thing as the skill, but hardly anyone used the skill since the requirements were so steep, so having a get-out-of-death free card was a big draw no matter who you were.

If they had known about it earlier, they could have used it to save Gug, spare him becoming that… thing. Part of Will was glad that he hadn’t been presented with that moral dilemma. In truth, he hadn’t been nearly close enough with the troll for using such a valuable resource to seem like a good trade.

There was only one problem. The elixir was too valuable. He didn’t want to sell it to Brimstone. He couldn’t place a value on having a free out in case Bee went and got herself killed on one of her suicidal escapades, which did not seem at all unlikely..

That meant he would have to cook up another elixir before his time ran out. A suitably mid-level one. Good enough for Brimstone to want it, but not so valuable that Will couldn’t part with it in good conscience.

He had made it out of their little expedition with far less reagents than he had expected. Most of it had gone into the elixir of resurrection, after all. He would probably have to use his share of the bounty reward to buy more high-rarity ingredients.

Always a problem, isn’t there?

Not that he could complain. He was a man drowning in gold.

In the end, he told Mongrel—and, by extension, Nix—about the elixir, but left Oatmeal out of it. He was an all right kid, but this was above his pay grade.