We arrived back in Jewelston early the next day, having left late at night, and not wanting to stop on the road back. We were exhausted, dirty, and ready for a real meal. Aeolith went to the roost, where there was no shortage of people wanting to help give her a bath just to be near a real dragon, Zephry followed Aeolith, as he was not welcome in the inn, and we headed to the Dragon's Nest to see Patsy. When we arrived Patsy greeted us with a huge smile and then a deep frown as she smelled us.
"Get yerselves to the baths, I'll have a hot meal and fresh linens on yer beds for ye when ye get back," Patsy said, practically shooing us away from her customers and to the bathrooms.
After almost being tossed into the bathrooms, we all bathed and got ourselves clean. Our clothes were taken from us to be washed while we were in the baths and new clean clothes awaited us when we got out. We put those on and carried our armor to our rooms for now. We almost fell into the beds at the smell of the fresh clean sheets but knew we should eat while we were still standing, so we marched back downstairs.
Patsy was waiting for us with another amazing breakfast. A stack of what looked like some kind of pancakes for each of us with bacon, eggs, and more of the biscuits. The pancakes were not in fact pancakes as I knew them from earth. These were much denser. Likely to help with carb-loading before going on an adventure, but they were really delicious with some of the fresh fruit jams that she laid out on the table for us. Vokin showed me how I could slather one of the cakes in the jam, then roll it up and eat it without needing to use a fork and knife. That made eating so much faster. Stuffing my face with the flapjacks, the salty delicious bacon, the fluffy scrambled eggs, and the honey-coated biscuits was like heaven on earth. Dried rations kept you going and from being hungry, but left you unsatisfied and wishing for a home-cooked meal. Patsy never failed to impress us with her meals.
We finished the meal, thanked Patsy for it, and waddled upstairs with full bellies. We all practically fell into bed and I lost consciousness almost immediately.
When I dreamed I had terrible nightmares of the fight with the Shadow Beast general. The images played through my head over and over again as I watched my mentor and friend die again and again as I was unable to save him. The laughing face of the man that had been possessed by him loomed over me larger than he had ever been in life until he reached the size of the Shadow Beast itself, the features stretched and distorted into a terrible image that barely resembled a man anymore. He laughed maniacally at me and pointed at me.
"YOU WERE TOO WEAK TO STOP ME! YOU COULDN'T SAVE AL'DORAN, AND YOU CAN'T SAVE YOUR FRIENDS NOW EITHER!" The man yelled at me through razor-sharp pointed teeth.
"No! It's not true! I can! I'm stronger now!"
"YOU COULDN'T EVEN SAVE TRISTAN IN THE DUNGEON! IF RUTHERFORD HADN'T BEEN THERE YOU WOULD HAVE LOST HIM TOO!" It critically teased me.
"No...no I can't lose them. I saved that town. I can help. I am the one who has to save them."
"THE WORLD WILL BURN IF IT HAS TO RELY ON YOU! YOU'RE PATHETIC, YOU'RE WEAK, AND YOU CAN'T SAVE THEM FROM US!"
I woke up from the dream yelling. The rest of my team was up and out of bed in an instant after hearing me.
"What? What is it? Are we under Attack?" Vokin half yelled, axe in one hand, pillow in the other where his shield should have been.
"No, sorry guys. I had a nightmare. Go back to sleep. We are safe."
The others relaxed and slumped back into bed. Not long after I heard them snoring again. I had a harder time falling back to sleep and lay there as tears came to my eyes, the stress of everything that had been happening since I left earth overwhelming me all at once. I saw one more notice in the corner of my vision that I had apparently not noticed before. It was different from any other I had ever gotten and looked to be black-bordered.
Dragon's Rage:
You have dug deep inside yourself and found the power that not many can to do what must be done. Activating Dragon's Rage will cause you to go into a Berserker's Rage giving you increased strength and stamina. BE WARNED! The use of this skill does have negative side effects. The more it is used, the more it will control you and overuse of this skill will eventually consume you altogether.
This must have been what happened when I went off on the minotaur. I felt different when that happened and I don't remember being able to exchange blows with such a massive creature before I got so angry. That warning was really ominous though. I would have to be careful with this, but it could come in handy in a pinch. I dismissed the notification and looked at the one behind it.
Level Up!
You have earned enough XP to advance to the next level. You are now level 33! Continue to work hard and push yourself to gain more XP to continue to level up. As a human, you now have 5 attribute points and 2 skill points to distribute as you see fit.
Once again, some good news. These Shadow Beasts had been great for leveling up. I needed to put those attribute points somewhere so I looked at my stat sheet and decided to bump some of my stats to the next round number by adding three points to Strength, one point to Intelligence, and one point to Endurance.
Name: Callan Ryder
Race: Human
Class: Dragon Rider
Title: Estel - Hope
Level: 33
HP: 470/470*(+20 Necklace)
MP: 520/520 *(+20 Ring)
SP: 410/410
Total XP: 3,225,000
XP to Next Level: 384,000
Attributes:
Unused Attribute Points: 0
Strength: 50 *(+12 Title, Items & Skills)
Constitution: 45 *(+7 Title & Skills)
Dexterity: 45 *(+7 Title & Skills)
Endurance: 41 *(+7 Title & Skills)
Intelligence: 50 *(+12 Title, Items & Skills)
Wisdom: 45 *(+7 Title & Skills)
Charisma: 22 *(+7 Title & Skills)
Luck: 17 *(+7 Title & Skills)
Unused Skill Points: 6
Non-Combat Skills:
Combat Skills:
Inspect: Novice 11
Unarmed Combat: Beginner 9
Dragon Spirit: 1/5
Spears: Beginner 3
Dragon Scales: 1/4
Short Blades: Beginner 5
Dragon Armor: 1/5
Swords: Initiate 35
Stealth: Beginner 5
Dragon Slash: 1/5
Dragon Breath: Novice 19
Dragon Shield: Novice 12
Thrown Weapons: Beginner 7
I sorted through the other notifications letting me know I had leveled some of my skills such as Swords, Inspect, Dragon Shield, and Dragon Breath. Once I had finished that I lay there, trying to sleep but it continued to elude me. Not sure of what else to do, I got up and went downstairs for a bit. The bar area was quiet, but Patsy was still there tending out drinks to a couple of people.
"Patsy, do you actually sleep?" I asked.
"Aye lad, I sleep. It's just not that late yet. What are ye doin' down here anyway?"
"Couldn't sleep. Still having nightmares."
"About the shadows?"
"Yeah. It's always the same one. I can't seem to escape it."
"Well, how about you take some of this?" Patsy said, reaching into her apron to pull out a vial.
The vial was a small potion bottle that couldn't hold more than a few drops of liquid in it and passed it across the counter to me. The liquid in the vial was a greyish-blue liquid that was cloudy.
"What is it?"
"It's a sleeping tincture. It will help ye sleep with no dreams. Just put it in a drink and take it." She said this and passed me an ale from the bar.
"Is it safe?"
"I wouldn't have it in me inn if it wasn't safe. The last thing I need to do is put me customers at risk by giving them something that might hurt them. No, I offer a list of services that I have tested meself before offering them here. All of them be safe as can be."
"Thanks, Patsy. I'll give it a try."
I took the ale and the tincture and dumped the vial into the ale. I sipped on the ale while I talked with Patsy for another half hour until I started feeling really tired. I rubbed my eyes and excused myself from the bar to go back upstairs to bed. Once I got to the room and laid down I passed out again, this time my sleep was deep and dreamless. It felt as though I had only been laying down for a few minutes before I was being shaken awake.
"Come on Callan, we let you sleep way longer than we should have. There are things that we need to do." Tristan said standing over me and sounding a bit annoyed.
"What are you talking about?" I asked groggily. "I've only been asleep for a few minutes."
"Are you kidding me? You've been asleep almost all day. It's mid-afternoon."
"What!" I said sitting bolt upright in bed. "How could I sleep so long?"
"Patsy told us about the tincture and said it should keep you out for quite a while. But the mayor is asking for you. The rest of us need to go help with other things around town, so you'll need to meet with her yourself."
"Alright, thanks, Tristan. I'll go see her."
He gave me a smile, then headed out the door, leaving me alone in the room to get ready. I spent a little bit of time polishing my armor, which seemed to have been cleaned by someone, no doubt Patsy had sent someone to take care of that for us. They had done a pretty good job so I just wiped it down a bit and got dressed. I strapped on my weapons and headed out the door.
"Well, there's the sleeping beauty. Finally awake are we?" Patsy said with a wink.
"Thank you so much, Patsy. I feel so much better. The tincture worked like a charm."
"That's wonderful to hear. Ye definitely need the rest, lad. So I hope you are taking today off as well?" She asked almost as much as stated.
"Yes, I'm taking the day off. I was told Sandra is waiting on me. Do you have anything to eat on the go?"
"I thought this might happen," Patsy said, and bent over behind the bar and grabbed a brown paper package that she tossed to me.
"What's this?"
"Fried chicken sandwich. Hearty and yet something ye can take on the go. Now get yerself out the door, it's rude to keep the mayor waiting. No matter that ye be the hope of humanity."
Patsy came out from behind the bar and practically pushed me out of the inn. I stood there for a second in the street, a pang of sadness having hit me at being reminded of my role in this fight. I couldn't let that get me down. I would not let people die and I would save them. I unwrapped part of the sandwich and began to eat it on the way up to the mayor's office. It was delicious. The crunch on the outside was perfect when mixed with the juicy chicken meat in the middle. And Patsy had made the sandwich in the non-traditional way I liked these most of all. Not with mayo and lettuce and tomato, but instead just plain on bread with gravy. I actually stopped walking after I bit into it and someone ran into me.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
I apologized as they seemed really angry at first, then they got a really good look at who I was and their eyes went wide.
"Why don't you watch where you're...I'm so sorry, Dragonrider! I didn't know it was you." The man bowed in reverence.
"No no, it was my fault. I shouldn't have stopped so suddenly. This sandwich is just so good I couldn't help myself." I replied to him.
"Thank you, and again I'm so sorry, I am in a bit of a hurry though. I need to get to my family. It was an honor meeting you though." The man said as he backed away and then turned to go on down a side road.
I continued on my way to the mayor's office when I saw Madam Julie's Magical Mysteries out of the corner of my eye. The memory of not being able to help Al'Doran came flooding back to me. I wrapped up my sandwich up, put it in my bag of holding, and crossed over to the shop. I was determined to be sure I wasn't useless later on. I pushed the door open to the shop and stepped inside.
Emmit was standing behind the counter reading a book with a large pair of glasses on his face. He looked up at me and his eyes appeared several times larger than normal through the magnification of the glasses he was wearing. He blinked twice trying to make out who I was before he remembered the glasses and took them off. He smiled brightly at me once he could see who I was.
"Callan! My favorite customer! Welcome, welcome! What can I do for you today?" He beamed as he walked over to me and put a hand on my back.
"I am looking at the price of a couple of spells. I need to see if I have enough to buy them," I replied.
"What spells are you looking for?"
"I wanted to see how much Major Healing and Revival were. I want to be sure I can heal better in a pinch."
"Those are very expensive scrolls, my friend. Let me see what they are priced at."
Emmit walked back around the counter and reached under the counter for another much smaller book. He pulled it out and rifled through the pages.
"Ah, here it is. The life spells section. Major Heal is three hundred and twenty gold and Revival is one of the most expensive spells I sell, because so few people know it, at one thousand gold. So both would be one thousand three hundred and twenty gold."
My shoulders slumped and Emmit apparently noticed my sadness.
"I'm sorry for the price tags. I wish I could help make this better, especially since you are a Dragonrider, but these are very hard to come by spells."
"No, no, I totally understand, Emmit. I would not ask you to change prices for me. I'm just sad that they are so hard to come by. I guess I'll just take major healing for now. I can't afford Revival, but I will come back for it eventually."
"Certainly Dragonrider, but can I ask if you know what your spell limit is? You have purchased a lot of spells recently. and I wouldn't want you to spend money on them and not be able to learn them."
"Spell limit?" I asked, confused about what he meant.
"You don't know about spell limits? Well, every person born has a finite number of spells that they can learn. Usually, this is based on your spell affinity, which is not something that displays on your main attributes page, and then it can be increased by increasing your Intelligence. If you go to your attributes page, you can change to the secondary tab with the spells listed. At the top of the page, there should be a field that shows how many spells you have learned out of how many you can learn."
I pulled up my character sheet and looked at the top of the page. There was the spells tab that I had only looked at in brief detail before now. I opened it up and looked at the top of the page, above all the spells that I knew.
"It says nine of fifty."
"FIFTY?!" Emmit said looking incredulously at me. "What is your Intelligence at?"
I looked at him in confusion for a moment before he spoke again.
"I'm sorry, Dragonrider. I forget myself and my manners. You do not need to answer that. It is rude of me to ask for another person's attributes."
"It's fine. My Intelligence is fifty."
"Wonder of wonders. You should not be able to have that many spells. Most people with an Intelligence of fifty only have the capacity for between fifteen and twenty spells at the max, and that is with the assumption that the person in question was a wizard who had trained in the arcane arts. You are truly blessed to have such an affinity."
"I had no idea. Maybe it's because I'm a Dragonrider? Maybe it's because I'm the only one? Maybe it's some other factor that I don't know about?"
"Whatever the case, I will be happy to get you the spell."
Emmit walked over to a shelf and ran his finger along the scrolls staked in several spots until he found what he was looking for. There certainly were not very many of that spell compared to others. He came back to the counter and put it down in front of me.
"I sympathize with your plight, my friend. For today, I will only ask three hundred gold for the spell. You have been a loyal customer, and I appreciate your business."
"Thank you, Emmit. I will put this to good use."
"I'm sure you will, just remember that it does a lot more healing than Minor Heal does, including fixing broken bones. So it has a high mana cost up front and then a continuous mana cost that will pull until either the patient is healed, you cut off the spell, or you run out of mana."
"That is great info to know. Thank you. I will be sure to be careful when using it."
"Would you like to learn it now?"
"Yes I would, but I won't need the room, give me just a moment here, I've done this a number of times, as you know."
I opened the scroll and began to read it. A few moments later I found myself on the floor staring up at the ceiling.
"I tried to warn you," Emmit's voice said, coming from behind the counter still. "But you opened it too fast. That is an advanced spell. It will take longer to learn, take more out of you, and require more brain space to store all of the info on the spell."
I could feel my temples pulsing. I had a headache as well now. My mind was reeling with all the information that was flooding in as it tried to sort and stash all of it into the correct places so it could access it later. I put one hand to my head as I stood up slowly.
Congratulations:
Spell Learned: Major Healing
Casting Major Healing will heal a person for 300 points of damage immediately and then can continue to heal as long as you leave the mana channel open to continue to fix issues. This spell can also mend bones.
Casting Time: 5 seconds
Mana Cost: 250
Cooldown: N/A
Spell School: Life
Spell Range: 30 feet
Spell Level: 1
Spell Rank: Beginner
"I should have asked. Sorry, Emmit."
"No worries. No one else came in. Just be careful next time. He said smiling at me ruefully."
I caught myself as I almost fell one more time from the room spinning. It settled a moment later and I thanked Emmit for his time and then left to head on to the mayor's office. She would have been waiting a while now for me.
Once the town hall was in sight, I picked up the pace a bit to get inside faster. I entered the front doors and walked to the receptionist.
"Hello, I'm here to see Sandra, I believe she was expecting me?" I said looking down at the woman sitting at the desk.
She looked up at me and then noticed who I was and sat up a little straighter.
"Oh yes! She has been expecting you. You can go in and see her now."
I walked back to her office, having been there before, and opened the door.
"Callan, so good of you to come...finally," Sandra said greeting me as she looked up from the papers on her desk.
"Sorry, I was having trouble sleeping last night and Patsy gave me something to help with that. Unfortunately, it caused me to oversleep. And I needed to stop at the magic store, I had something of the utmost importance I needed from there."
"I see, well what matters is that you are here now. I have gotten word of a new location that needs investigating. Now I know that you just got back and you needed a little more time, but I've been told this one was urgent."
"Where is it?"
"It's a small town to the west of Jewelston called Willow's Well. It's only a few hours' ride from here. You can't miss it, since it's marked by a giant willow tree in the center of town."
"Do we have any more information?"
"Only that the Shadow Beast is being far more ruthless than some of the others had been. I don't know how much so, but the person who managed to sneak here seemed scared out of their mind about what was happening there."
"Fine. I'll head out now."
"OK. We will get your horses ready."
"No, I said I will head out now."
"You won't need your team?"
"I lost Al'Doran, I almost lost Tristan in the last place, and I'm not willing to lose anyone else. I have hardly been hurt by these creatures. I think it would be best that I fly fast and strike hard."
"Very, well. Then I wish you luck on this quest."
I walked out of the town hall and sent a mental signal to Aeolith to meet me outside the city. I felt her mental ascent and walked down the main street of town. I didn't stop at any shops and excused myself from all conversations along the way to ensure I got to the front gates as quickly as possible. I watched to make sure I didn't run into any of my team along the way, but they were not on my path.
I reached the gate and Aeolith landed outside waiting for me.
"It's time. We have a town west of here that is being attacked by a Shadow Beast and they need us fast. We have to go now."
"Without the others?" Aeolith asked.
"We talked about this. We will be faster, we can handle them, and we don't want to have them get killed fighting with us. This is for the best."
She seemed skeptical but agreed to go for the sake of speed. I pulled out the saddle and we got it attached and I mounted up to head out. Soon we were flying through the skies and headed west. I never felt so at peace as I did when I was flying with Aeolith. The landscape passed beneath us faster than any land animal could travel. We would likely be there in about a half hour at this pace.
Enjoying the wind on my face and the closeness of Aeolith, I relaxed into a state where my mind began to wander to happier times. After a while though, I was interrupted by Aeolith saying she found the tree. We began circling high overhead, then began to descend. We landed outside the city and I dismounted to walk. The city didn't have a wall to speak of out here and also seemed to be some kind of farming community like many others. What did make it stand out was that the fields were smoking ash ruined from fires that seemed to have destroyed all their crops. That didn't bode well.
I rushed to the entrance of the town, Aeolith right behind me. When we reached the road that led into town, I noticed that the buildings were not on fire, but many of them had been damaged beyond repair. Some were not standing anymore. We slowed down at the town entrance and I unsheathed my sword. Moving more slowly and watching for any movement in the town we began moving further in. Bodies littered the ground. Men, women, and even children lay dead on the ground. Some with missing body parts, and some were barely identifiable as people anymore.
I moved around the corner and heard someone make a grunting noise as though throwing something very heavy. I turned my head to look and was barely able to throw myself into a roll, out of the way of the Fireball that was chucked at my head. It hit a building about fifty yards behind me and exploded in a flash of fire that I could feel the heat from on my back, even this far away. Turning to look at who threw the Fireball, I saw a man in robes across the town square with a manic grin on his face.
"Hello, Dragonrider! So nice of you to come! I wondered how long it would take you to get here. Though I must admit, I had expected you to come with a little more backup. But no matter, I am happy to make short work of the two of you." The man yelled.
From behind him, a giant creature moved from behind a building and launched itself at us. As it flew across the space between us I could tell it was the shadow that we normally had to fight off. This was not going to be as easy as I had hoped. We hadn't encountered a mage before. No matter. Time to take out the trash.
Aeolith jumped to meet the Shadow Beast which looked like a tiger. It even had lighter and darker shades of shadow for the stripes of the tiger. They collided in mid-air and began to claw and bite at each other, rolling around on the ground, each one trying to get the upper hand on the other. I bolted across the open ground and cast a Shocking Bolt fast at the mage who seemed to be casting another spell as well. It hit him in the chest and he seized up for a moment losing concentration on his spell and taking some of the feedback. He howled in pain and rage and then looked over at me and his eyes went wide. He threw his hand out fast and cast up a shield just as I was about to bring my sword down on his head. My sword hit the barrier and an explosion from the collision of my light powers with his dark shield sent me flying back about thirty yards and into the wall of a building. The shield also shattered, but the mage managed to keep his feet.
He sent a set of missiles at me from a spell he cast that I assumed was magic missiles. I hurriedly got to my feet and used my sword to slice the missiles out of the air, each one exploding as they were cut out of the air. I sent Grasping vines at him to hold him in place. The vines crept up his ankles to about his waist before he used some kind of magic to stop the growth. He was trapped for now though so I charged again. This time when I got close he cast another barrier and I planted my feet to stab instead of slash so the explosion was at the tip of my blade instead of across it, putting it further away from me. The barrier cracked but didn't shatter this time because there was no explosion. Apparently, he used a different kind of shield. I began hacking and slashing again and again at the shield as the mage began casting something longer. I wasn't an expert on magic, but the one thing I knew about magic was that the longer the cast time, the more powerful the spell.
Trying desperately to get through the shield before he could cast the spell I used a Strong Blow and the shield shattered right before the mage finished casting his spell. I had about half of a second to throw up my Dragon Shield before the spell was thrown in my face. Suddenly a wind began to buffet my shield. I could see slashes across my shield in hundreds of places. Cracks began to spiderweb through my shield until it shattered and the wind blasted me off of my feet. Hundreds of tiny cuts sliced into my body all over all at the same time as I flew through the air.
When I landed I looked over at Aeolith and the Shadow Beast and noticed that both were looking worse for wear. They were circling each other like predatory cats. Aeolith was bleeding from several large wounds, the Shadow Beast was limping and parts of its shadow body were missing and shadows were leaking out of it. I turned back to the fight with the mage and began to stand up. He now had some kind of fire whip in his hand and was whipping it at the vines wrapped around his legs. He was free a moment later and began to move around to my right. I had managed to get to my feet though and moved with him. He whipped out at me and I blocked the strike with my sword. He whipped again and I sliced the whip with my sword this time and it cut through the fire whip. The Mage actually stopped and looked at the whip in confusion before letting the magic leave it. So apparently that was a spell as well.
He growled at me and charged me. That threw me off a bit, but I was happy to be in close range. As he got close I slashed out at him, he moved faster than I had expected and was suddenly to my right with some kind of knife, which he drove into my gut. A cold pain burst in my stomach and I looked down to see an ice dagger sticking out of my stomach. He smiled maliciously and yanked out the blade to drive it in again. I was not going to let that happen and I felt my anger rise. This pathetic excuse for a man who was so weak as to let a Shadow Beast possess him would not be the one to beat me. I activated the Dragon's Rage without even thinking and power flooded through me. We began to battle back and forth with our weapons. Neither of us could quite get the upper hand. He kept being able to leave marks on my arms or legs while still blocking my attacks. With one final yell of pain, I opened myself up to another attack to the stomach, which the fool took with glee, ramming the knife up to the hilt into my stomach.
As he did, I whipped my sword around, ignoring the blooming pain in my stomach once again to swing upward across his body. He saw it suddenly, and tried to angle his body to dodge out of the way, but was slightly too slow. The blade cut into his shoulder and an explosion ripped out between us. We were so entangled though, that we couldn't get away from each other and the explosion hit both of us. I could hear Aeolith scream in my mind as my health plummeted even further than it already was from all the strikes I had taken. The world was a blur as I tried to shake off the effects of the explosion. My ears were ringing, one of my eyes was swollen shut, and blood was dripping down into my other one, causing me to be almost blinded. I managed to wipe the blood from my one good eye and tried to start sitting up. I noticed the mage was also struggling to his feet and I did the only thing I could think of to delay him. I cast Grease underneath him. I watched as, since he had almost gotten to his feet, he began to pinwheel his arms around in an attempt to stay upright. He lost his battle with balance and flopped back onto his back smashing his head into the ground. He lay there stunned for a moment before he began to try to get back up again.
Unfortunately for him, I had managed to crawl over to where the edge of the Grease spell was and had started to cast a fireball, instead of letting it build and release, I kept it in the beginning stages where it was just a small pinprick of fire in my hand. I grinned a huge smile at him as he looked over at me, realization dawning on his face in horror. I touched the fire to the Grease and it ignited immediately. It spread across his body and he screamed out in pain. He was engulfed completely in the flames as they overtook everything the Grease touched. After a moment or two, he curled in on himself, burned to death. I rolled back over and lay there for a moment, passing it and out of consciousness. Aeolith came over to me soon after and pulled me out of the rubble.
"Hey, we did it," I said looking up at her.
"You complete idiot, you are about to die!"
I reached into my pocket and fished out a health potion, I pulled the cork and sloppily put it to my lips to drink, still half punch-drunk from the fight. I began to feel better, but I was still bleeding from multiple wounds. Aeolith wasn't doing a lot better either, with large gashes on her body from her own fight. I suddenly heard the thundering of hooves in the distance and swore to myself. There was no way I was going to be able to fight anyone else off in my condition. Hopefully, Aeolith could keep us safe until I could get around to healing us. Then I heard someone yelling at me.
"CALLAN RYDER YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!"
That was weird. Who did I insult to deserve that?
"You think you can just go running off and leave us behind? And here we find you nearly dead and barely hanging on! What would we do if you actually died!?"
"That sounds like Tristan," I said to Aeolith.
"It is Tristan. Vokin and Rutherford are with him. Their horses are half dead though. I wonder where Randal is?"
"What the seven hells is wrong with you?"
"I'm not really sure what you are getting at, but you all are safe because of me."
"Safe? SAFE?! You are the one who should be safe! Not us! You stupid, selfish BASTARD!" Tristan said, now crying.
"But...but I didn't want you all to get hurt because of me."
"And how do you think we feel," Tristan said kneeling over me.
He actually reached out and punched me in the face. It was a solid hit and I lost about a quarter of my remaining HP from it. Rutherford was there next with a really stern look on his face. He began casting healing spells on me and I could feel my wounds beginning to close up.
"Do ye see what happens when ye don't rely on us now lad!" Vokin said, taking his turn to yell at me. "Ye almost died on the one trip you took without us."
"Why didn't you yell at Tristan like this? He actually died on a trip we took."
"Because if he dies we are sad and go on saving the world. If ye die, WE WILL ALL DIE!" Vokin said, getting louder and louder until he yelled the final part. "We will all end up dead if ye die because ye be the only one that can take on the Shadow Beasts. Our lives are not worth the same as yers, no matter how much value ye put on us."
"Look, we love you for the amount of value you place in us. It's why we are willing to die for you, but you cannot think we are worth the same when clearly the world is going to end if you cannot be here to fight." Rutherford said, turning to Aeolith now that I was stable.
I was silent this time. I couldn't argue with their logic. But I couldn't just let them die, could I?
"Look, we aren't asking you to just let us die. We are just asking that you let us help keep you alive. We should be able to fight together to all stay alive," Tristan said through his tears. "If we fight together we stand a better chance of staying alive. It's when there is no one to watch your back that we end up dead."
"You're right. And I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I really was just trying to keep you all safe." I replied.
"We know, but that can't be for you to decide. You need us. And we need you. So promise us you won't run off again?"
I nodded. I began to sit up and Tristan threw his arms around me. I hugged him back. Rutherford finished healing Aeolith and reached out a hand to help me up. I looked around and the devastation was even worse than before. Aeolith and I had clearly made things worse. We decided to look around the town to see if anyone was alive. After all, we had found Randal in a town like this.
Unfortunately, after hours of searching, we didn't find anyone alive. We had even moved building rubble in case someone had been trapped underneath. Every time we found a body, it made our hope dwindle. Finally, we decided to call off the search and regrouped back in the middle of town.
"I think it's time to head back," I said to the team.
"I think so too, lad. We would have found someone by now if they were here and still alive. Let's head back to town," Vokin said. "We didn't bring ye a horse though, so you'll need to take Aeolith back or we are walking."
"I'll take Aeolith back. We were supposed to spend today resting anyways, so I will make sure we do that now. How did you find me anyways?"
"It was Zephyr. He saw Aeolith fly off and told Randal, who told us and we went to see the mayor. She told us what you were doing and why, so, of course, we ran here as fast as we could." Tristan said.
"Ah, yeah. Sorry about that. I thought I was making the right call at the time. Thanks for coming for me."
We walked back to the horses, and my companions mounted up while I jumped on Aeolith.
"I'll meet you back in the city and we will circle overhead to make sure you stay safe."
With that, Aeolith beat her wings and took off into the sky. We flew overhead watching for any threats that might come up on Tristan, Rutherford, and Vokin. The only thing we saw the entire time was a pack of wolves coming out of the forest, but a quick fly-by on Aeolith dissuaded them from doing anything foolish and they darted back into the woods. Once we reached the town, Aeolith landed near the roost and I dismounted. I gave her a hug, we touched foreheads, and I then headed over to the inn bidding her a good night. When I arrived the others were just getting there as well and we all went inside to clean up and have a nice hot meal before bed. I'm not sure I had ever been more tired than I was in the moment that my head hit the pillow.