Chapter 13 - The Peacemakers

The guard unlocked the door and opened it wide before stepping to the side to make room for us to pass.

"Follow me," he said.

And so we did. We walked behind him, up the stairs and into the station. From there, we walked up another floor where there was a wooden desk and next to it, a weird white scythe and my wooden stick.

The guard sat behind the desk. He took a deep breath before he started addressing the situation.

"Jack," he said. "You cannot keep doing this. I know, justice and fairness and righteousness and all that. Caring about these things is great, but you need to step on the breaks a bit. Call the guards - that's what we're here for. Or at least try to stop fatally wounding people. This is the last time I'm letting you go like that."

He then turned to me. He gave me a weird look for some reason and then I felt him using his [Identify] skill.

"You are new here, aren't you?"

"Yes, I arrived in the City of Prosper no earlier than two hours ago," I replied.

"That would explain why you chose the unconventional way of throwing an apple to stop the thief," the guard continued. "We analyzed the situation and we have decided that you are not guilty for assaulting the Dwarven man."

"Thank y—"

"However," the man interrupted me. "You are guilty for damaging the seller's reputation and crop. You can't just put a slab of rotten meat on top of the apples he was going to sell."

"Oh." Everything made sense now. So that was the reason I was arrested. Maybe it was not that unfair after all.

"I'm sorry. This was not my intention," I apologized.

"Intentions don't matter, Anthir," said the guard. "Only results. And your actions resulted in damages you need to pay. Do you have the coins to pay for the apples?"

Coins? I did not have any coins. What even are these coins? How would I find them?

"I do not have any. I don't know what are these coins you are talking about."

"Well, you will have to pay with something of equal value, then."

I thought about it. Something of equal value? Maybe the potions would be good enough, maybe throw a violet bead in there if needed. I could wash some dishes if worse came to worst.

Then, I glanced at my weapon, sitting next to the scythe. I had an idea.

"How about I give you this thing?" I said and pointed to the branch with my head.

Alfred looked at it, puzzled.

"What? You want to give me this branch? Are you kidding me?"

"This is not just a branch. This is the slayer of many fearsome foes. Slashed through [Fanged Orangutans] and [Lion Boars] alike, as you can see from the blood that has stained its edge. It means the world to me, but there is no world to live in without freedom. If that is what I need to do to get rid of my chains, I shall do it. You can have it if you wish."

Alfred started thinking about it, while Jack was looking at the branch with awe.

"Fine," he said after a couple of minutes. "I shall keep your weapon and you shall regain your freedom. Consider your debt paid." He gave me his hand and I shook it, confirming the deal.

"You can both leave now," Alfred said and returned to a few pieces of paper he had on his desk. Probably cases that were still open.

Jack picked his scythe up and put it diagonally on his back. Then, we both headed out, finally free.

Status updated: Neutral

Heroes' status will turn to [Rogue] after attacking you.

Oh right. I had forgotten about that. Thankfully, it resolved by itself, probably because I did not hurt anyone for a good amount of time. It would be an issue if people started randomly attacking me for [Coins] and [Exp].

Now, it was time to go... I did not know where to go, though. I decided that the best course of action would be to walk around the city and explore some more.

"Alright, Jack. It was nice meeting you. Take care," I said and started walking away, but I was immediately stopped by Jack's hand on my shoulder.

"Wait-o friend-o, where are you going-o?"

"Uhhm... I don't know yet," I said. "Probably a walk around the city."

Jack nodded negatively.

"No, friend-o! It's-o getting-o late! We are going-o drinking-o - celebrate our-o freedom-o. Justice has-o prevailed-o!" he said lifting his fist high in the air as if he came victorious out of a really rough battle.

I did not really have anywhere else to go, so there was no reason to decline his invitations.

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"Wine it is, then," I said.

"No," he disagreed. "Ale!"

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Since Jack was the one from town, I let him take the lead and I followed. I was initially trying to keep track of the path, where we turned, and how, so I could easily go back if I needed to. But the city was so beautiful I quickly lost track of the path as I got too absorbed into admiring the architecture.

I did not know how far we had walked, but we eventually reached a huge inn. Just like everything else in the City of Prosper, it was white, but this one had a lot more gold on it. Every door, every window, and every roof tile was golden. Even the bricks that made the chimney were painted gold. I was almost surprised the smoke that came out of it actually had a normal, dark gray color.

Over the entrance door, there was a big sign that said 'Peacemakers'

Huh, that's a weird name for an inn.

Jack noticed that I was weirdly looking at the sign and patted my back.

"Let's-o go," he said.

I let him once again take the lead and I followed behind him.

The moment we opened the door, I almost had to cover my ears with my hands - this was the loudest room I had ever entered thus far.

There were bards in the right corner, playing a bunch of instruments like lutes and flutes and telling stories about heroes. Some songs were happy and talked about epic tales of mighty heroes that returned victorious from their battle. Every lyric, a new praise. Other songs were sad and talked about mourned heroes that had fallen on their path to glory.

A particular song piqued my interest, talking about a group of adventurers running head-first from dungeon to dungeon until they found their demise trying to fight Bastildon, the Demon King.

Fools, how could they be so careless? So unprepared? I would make sure I did not have the same fate as them. I would end up in one of songs from the other group.

I could barely listen to the songs though and that was if I utterly concentrated on the bards, since there were dozens more people inside, sitting, drinking, laughing and mostly yelling.

We walked up to the innkeeper and each ordered a tall tankard of ale. The whole smell of beer in the room really put you in the mood to drink until you fall down and I could hardly wait for the ale I ordered.

The innkeeper finally arrived with the two tankards and a big smile on his face.

"Hey, Jack! Glad to see everything turned out alright," the innkeeper said.

Jack opened his mouth to talk but was interrupted by the innkeeper's yell.

"Hey! You two back there! What do you think you are doing!? Not in my inn, you're not throwing no punches!" He rushed off to stop two guys, drunk as can be, from starting a fight with each other.

"You are gonna cause damages!" He yelled and grabbed the two drunk men in a headlock, one with each arm, leading them outside. "You can do what ye want out there!" he said and dusted off his hands.

He then promptly walked back behind the counter and came back to us, ignoring a young Goblin that already was on its sixth tankard of ale and asking for a seventh when she clearly should have gone to sleep a couple of hours earlier.

"Sorry fellas, what were you saying?"

Jack finished his tankard in one sip and slammed it down, asking for another one.

"Justice always-o prevails-o!" he said.

I was still drinking my ale when the innkeeper asked, plus I did not know what to respond to that question, coming from a man I had never seen before, so I just gave him a 'thumbs up'.

"Fiiine, keep your secrets then," the innkeeper said and went back to bring us more ale.

He came back with more of that pungent drink, which both me and Jack promptly drank while the innkeeper kept the questions going towards Jack.

"I've seen you doing all sorts of wild things, heck, you just left a few hours ago holding the jaws of two punks on your hands, but still, I did not expect you to bring an Anthir with you. An Anthir of all races? How did that happen?"

Jack laughed from his belly and slapped me in the back, making me almost spit the ale I was drinking before he said,

"This-o guy right-o here is-o just-o!"

"Just what?"

"Just-o just-o! He stopped-o a thief-o from-o running-o away"

"You did?" the innkeeper turned to me. "Were you faster than him? How did you do that?"

"I-I threw an apple at his head," I said and looked away.

"Wow, that's pretty weird."

"I know, right-o?" Jack agreed. "And-o he beat-o up-o his-o cellmates-o. I bet-o that-o Human-o is-o still-o stuck-o between-o these bars-o, traumatized-o. You are crazy!"

I laughed awkwardly until the innkeeper said "He is an Anthir - what did you expect?"

That last remark left a bitter taste in my mouth.

"I have to go," I said and got up, ready to leave.

"Wait-o," said Jack. "You didn't-o pay for-o the ale."

"I thought you were going to pay."

"I don't-o have any coin-o"

"Well, what made you think that I do? You saw I did not have coins to pay for the apples and you still invited me."

"I thought-o you would-o find-o something-o else to trade for-o the ale. Sell-o it-o like you sold-o the stick-o. Maybe you have a rock-o with-o sentimental-o value, too."

I sighed. I should have clarified things earlier. Now I ended up in quite the fucked up state.

"Listen, I'm sorry, but I don't have the coins to pay you," I said. "How do we solve this? Who do I fight? You?" I looked at the innkeeper who had been badmouthing Anthiri all night long. "I'll gladly fight you. My right hand is kinda itching right now, you know?"

"No, not me. Anthiri are always so eager to get in a fight... Well, I guess we could take advantage of that. You will be fighting spiders probably," the innkeeper replied.

Jack turned to the innkeeper.

"Are you serious-o?"

"Deadly," replied the innkeeper.

Jack drank the rest of his ale and, hit his fist on the wooden counter and let out a joyful squall.

I kept looking confused at the two men. What was going on?

Jack noticed that I was looking at them the same way a Dwarf would look at someone handing him a dagger for a weapon and tried to explain the situation.

"You are coming-o with-o us-o tomorrow."

"Where? Cleaning up the attic?"

"No, no! You are joining-o us-o in-o a dungeon-o crawl-o"

I felt a weird rush of excitement when I heard about the dungeon crawl. Although I did not really know what it was, I had a rough idea based on the name and for some reason I felt like this would be something really fun.

"I'm not sure what is it that you refer to as a 'dungeon crawl', but you have my attention - tell me more."

"Right-o, you are new," Jack said. "We will-o go together-o at-o a dungeon-o not-o too far-o to the east-o. It-o has-o lot's-o of-o spiders-o. That's-o all-o you need-o to know for-o now."

"We? Who's 'we'? You, me, and the racist geezer?"

They both burst in laughter when they heard what I just said, while I had to wait, annoyed, until they were done so I could finally get some answers.

"That-o was-o a good-o one!" Jack said while still chuckling, trying really hard to stop laughing. "The master-o is-o not-o going-o on-o missions-o anymore."

"Missions? Master? You understand you are doing a terrible job at making things clear, don't you? And who the fuck is 'we'?"

Jack slammed his fist on the counter. I did go a bit too far, but he was not really helping either. Turns out he did not mind, though. He just wanted another tankard of ale.

"As-o I said-o, everything-o will-o be clear-o tomorrow. But-o, 'we' means-o the people here."

He made a gesture with his arm, showing me all the people sitting on the different tables of the inn's ground floor.

"The Peacemakers-o," he added. "We are a guild-o."

I suddenly liked this idea way less than I did just a minute ago. Now that I had time to rest, relax, and drink, going into another dungeon sounded good to me. I would be able to get some levels and practice my skills, getting me one step closer to him. But I did not want to bring a bunch of people with me. The more people I brought along, the higher the chance of some of them getting hurt, or, even worse, dying.

"No, I don't like this. This is too many people. Let me go by myself - I don't need your help."

"You will-o get-o it-o anyway," Jack said. He looked more serious than before.

"Well, I guess there is only one way to decide this - let's fight!"