Chapter 25

The line to the sign up was quickly shrinking as Zayne moved forward up the line at a brisk pace. Chris was currently holding his tongue from screaming out that this was a bad idea thus maintaining a good image. No one believed it for a second. Everyone in the line was giving disapproving glares at Zayne and his ill-kept squire but he could care less about what others thought. That didn’t mean that he was coping well to Chris’s outburst as they moved.

“Do you have any idea what its gonna mean when you can’t ride a horse properly, or the fact that you can’t even use a lance.” oh, the rage of the young. It was enough to make Foulness puke.

The plan that Zayne did have was simple, hit them hard enough with his fist to make their head explode was a viable option. He told this to his loudmouth squire.

“Yes, go for the head. No don’t kill them and for god’s sake don’t use your fist. They are important people that will give us money.” Chris over emphasized money to the point that it was down right disrespectful.

“What we want to do is win without incriminating us. I don’t even know what the punishment is for killing nobles but I can promise you this, it will not be friendly.” Through some coaching from Chris, he finally got through to Zayne on agreed upon terms that wouldn’t land them in prison. Or worse… killed.

Stepping every couple of minutes, they soon found themselves at the desk with to burly looking knights. The first was leaning back in a wooden chair with his helmet on, the colors that he wore was the same colors that lined the kingdom’s flags. He gave a kurt nod to them as the second took over formalities.

“Greetings fellow knight, I am sir Bartholomew. I am part of the royal order of knights who serve under king Simon the third.” He squinted at the two of them.

“I do not remember a knight such as yourself but you were the colors of sir Ogre, are you perhaps of the same order. But I don’t seem to re-” he was cut off by Chris.

“You see sir, my knight here got this armor from sir Ogre but never got the chance to apply his own sigil to it I’m afraid. There was this brood mother and-” Chris was then cut off buy the other knight.

“Are you saying that sir Ogre gave you” he gestured at Zayne. “His armor without taking his sigil and colors off. He did this to an unknown knight? Why that’s p-” Zayne decided he had enough of this and made that known to the other knight.

Zayne put his pointer finger against the knights’ helm trying to shush him. The knight abruptly stopped talking staring madly at the fool that shushed him. Zayne went on signaling with his hands telling Chris that the sigil was forgotten when they got attacked by beast. He hasn’t had a sigil yet but when he does he planned on putting it on.

The first and second knight both looked at the fingers firing off rapped shapes. “Are you using thieves’ cant in front of us? Are you mad!” Sir Bartholomew screamed. “What kind of knight uses that as a form of speech!”

“Now lets all take a step back and think about this calmly,” Chris droned on. “My sire here took a vow of silents and this is the only way for him to communicate with.” He seemed impressed with his own answer but that soon got shot down right after.

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“He can always use parchment and quill, and how does he even know that rouge language in the first place.” The knight paused, “Wait, how do you know that language?” by this point Chris was beginning to visibly sweat.

Zayne took the chance to interject again. He threw out more hand signs having Chris convey that this is a matter between sir Ogre and him and if they had a problem with it then he would fight them here and now. Well, not those exact words but Chris did his best to translate it where it didn’t come off as vulgar.

The men laughed, “So be it, for the honor of sir Ogre I will meat your challenge in the tournament. In fact, I’ll have you go against me in the preliminary that way you don’t get beet by another challenger before I get my chance with you!” he grabbed the quill before him and asked for Zayne’s name. he wrote vigorously as he told them to come back here at noon.

The first thing Chris decided to do was have Zayne vet a change of colors and sigil. After going through that, it became clear this was they’re top priority.

Walking away from the arena, Chris spoke to every person he could get his hands on about the information that he needed until he felt satisfied.

Grinning from ear to ear he looked to Zayne, “From what I could gather, there is a shop across town that we can go to that will be able to make a new sigil for you. The colors will be something you can pick out for yourself while we’re there.” Yep, he definitely had a smug look to his face Zayne thought.

Across town they went stopping at a few shops that were selling food to only remember that they didn’t have money. That was a fault that they couldn’t look over.

“We need money, and the o lyrics way I can think to get some is either steal it or we hire ourselves out. But with the tournament happening here soon there is no way that’s going to happen. Stealing g will work but we won’t know how much we need till we ask the sigil maker.” Chris fell silent as he began to contemplate the best corse of action.

Zayne on the other hand was busy watching a group of young kids making g their way threw the market district packing small bags from people’s sides as they ran off ad soon ss the bags fell on their hands.

He brought this up to Chris, watching what was transpiercing he came up with a quivk plan.

Zayne followed to children through the district as they made they’re appropriate what ever they were doing. He was just doing what Chris asked. The kids seemed to finish and were headed to one of the sewar channels. He was told to stop them before they got away, so I. The back alley were no o e could see, Zayne activated his skill ethereal chains snatching all the kids up before they could get away.

A few of the kids screamed but it was nothing off Zayne’s back. He was use to these kind of thing’s.

This is where Cbris came in, he was t proud of what he was doing but this was the fastest way he could come up with to get cash as soon as possible.

“Calm foen children, I’m going to make this easy foe you all you half to do is hand over the purses you collected and no one is going to get hurt.” The plan was simple, tale the kids and make off with what they stole.

Zayne twirled around causing Chris to turn his head as well. There were three me clad in tough leather, could covered they’re faces making hard to see them.

The one in the front took a few step closer to Chris and Zayne. “our boss would like to meet you if that’s not too much trouble?” The man chuckled darkly.

Zayne looked over to Chris to see what he would do, and wasn’t surprised that he was looking at him for leadership. Breathing out a sigh, Zayne gave a sure nod.

“This is exactly what I didn’t want to have happen. You were so close to not causing trouble and now your getting taken away by strange men.” Jiminy cried.

Foulness was all too exited. “No, this is exactly what the doctor ordered.”

They followed the men down the sewar going through twist and turns, deeper down they went as the three thieves followed. The one who talked was carrying a torch as the made small talk to Zayne and Chris though it wasn’t reciprocated.

“And at the end of it, I was like if I’m going to shit on his desk than the best thing I could do was make sure that the dogs watched. Am I right.” He joked as the came to another turn.

Zayne was sure that they had come to this same turn four times in fhe last thirty minutes.

The lead thief turn to regard the them both. He knocked on the wall three times pausing long each time before the hidden door finally opened.

“Here we are.” He smiled.