I woke up with a mouth as dry as the Mojave desert and a headache like someone was bashing on my head with a rifle butt. I let out a small groan as my mind registered the pain I had inflicted on myself from overdoing it on the drinks last night.
“Christ, Took you a while to wake up, here take some water.”
Alexei held a canteen out towards me. I grabbed it and took a swig. Alexei looked at me expectantly like I had a plan or something. ‘Well, I’m in charge so I guess he’s right to expect a plan. But, I’ve just been fucking winging it the whole time.’ I thought as I sipped at the water.
“We’ve been out of radio contact since we got to this side of the mountain yesterday. But, I checked our magical kill counter over there,” I use a hand to gesture towards my radio which was attached to my vest that was sitting on the floor, “we’ve got enough to call in a vic (slang for vehicle) and another drop.”
I was kind of worried about Walter and Bunden. Yes while they both had guns and knew how to use them, I was in the ‘Rifle may not be good enough for a dragon, but that’s what RPGs are for.’ camp, and I knew that they didn’t have anything bigger than a precious few hand grenades.
“So how many kills have we racked up over the short amount of time the hog was in the air?”
“77, I think, I don’t need to remember perfectly. Just look at the side and you can see for yourself.”
Alexei reached over and grabbed the handheld radio off my vest, spun it around, and gazed at the glowing 77. I let out a sigh/groan and started to massage my temples in a vain attempt to get rid of a growing headache.
“Alright, let’s go back to that ‘guild hall’ and see if Les and his boys are still there. After that let's get us some wheels and get the rest of the guys.”
Alexei offered me a hand up which I took. It only took a few minutes to get packed up and ready to go. The hangover didn’t affect me all that much, drinking till 4 then waking up at 5 for PT will do that to you. After we were finished packing up me and Alexei marched down the stairs. The sound of our boots crashing against the creaking wooden boards of the stairs caught the two people at the bottom of the stairs attention.
The barkeep was behind the bar, leaning back in a chair with his rough leather wrapping that counted for shoes propped up on the bar. The other person was Kazamir, who was looking at both, me and Alexei with starry eyes that I don’t remember seeing before. ‘But, that might just be because I wasn’t seeing him in the right light.’ I thought as I dropped off the last step of the staircase and thudded onto the stone floor.
The barkeep swung his feet off the bar and asked,
“What can I do for you?”
“Well, we are heading out. Also, did you hear anything about what happened with the Iron dragon?”
My response seemed to relax the barkeep as he leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh.
“I’ve heard some stuff, apparently the iron dragon raised the goblin camp with high-tier fire magic. While that’s great for the city. It’s not so great for the adventures and mercs that were planning on getting some head-hunting money. I heard there was a bounty of 2 gold per goblin head. Ah well, it’s not worth the breath to talk on the subject any further.”
The last sentence had an accompanying hand wave as if to dismiss the thought.
“In any case, the guard was paying for the rooms of any mercs or adventures that happened to come into town during or before the siege. So your good to go.”
I thanked the barkeep, then we walked out into the streets of what? I stopped for a moment ‘what’s the name of this place? I guess that’s what I’ll ask Les when I see him next.’ I walked casually down the street towards the guild hall but unlike last time. I took my time to take in the architecture, which was a mix of medieval/renaissance and western Europe, east Asian, and Middle Eastern.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
the buildings seemed to use brick, mortar, and hardwoods like oak. But they seemed to be topped with traditional Japanese/Chinese roofs. This style was broken up by large obviously more important buildings having the more middle eastern style of rounded roofs and arches. Most windows weren’t glass but instead looked like paper laminated with wax or something like that.
It also seemed like there were a lot of street vendors with stalls lining the streets with citrusy-smelling fruit, the mouth-watering smell of sizzling meat, and the metallic-oily smell and gleaming sight of newly forged blades, hoes, and pickaxes. I don’t remember this many stalls being out in the streets the last couple of times I walked down this street.
Kazamir must have seen the half-bewildered, half-confused look on my face because he started happily explaining that markets happened every Thursday. Farmers and villagers from surrounding small towns make a trip to the city in order to pay taxes, trade, and get news. Kazamir had this smiling expression like a kid showing his dad around his favorite candy store.
Kazamir’s explanation came to an end when we got to the front door of the guild hall. When we were about to enter two shady-looking guys brushed past us. Both of them had dark brown cloaks with hoods pulled over their heads. Alexei must have seen something because he pulled back from them and reached for his rifle. But, just as fast as they had appeared they opened the door and pulled it closed behind them.
I quickly sidled over to Alexei, placed a hand on his shoulder, and whispered in his ear.
“Watch your trigger finger, we’re out in public.”
“Those guys give me bad juju.”
Alexei growled back at me.
“Just don’t shoot them, yet.”
I said as I removed my hand from his shoulder as I strolled confidently up to the door, I could feel both Alexei’s and Kazamir’s eyes on my back as I swung it open. I walked inside at a relaxed pace, but my eyes were darting around to take in the situation inside the guild hall. A few people were sitting around tables, and a larger group of people was gathered around the job board in the back of the room.
I glanced around the room one more time trying to spot the guys we ran into at the entrance. I couldn’t see their dark brown coats but I did see Les, Mc’cullen, and Xavier. They saw us as well and started heading over. When we got close I started getting down to business. I talked to Les as he seemed to be in charge of the small group until I got here, about his supply situation such as ammo count, rations, and other consumables. Les told me that for rations they still had a few MRE’s each, but everything else was basically gone.
“That’s not great. But we’re going to get resupplied today. Speaking of which, let’s get going. I’ll explain on the way.”
All of them exchanged worried glances at my words, but after a second or two Mc’cullen shrugged, hefted his pack, and started walking towards the door.
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Bunden, Walter, and Snow had made it back to camp. With a few more bruises, scratches, and scrapes than they’d like but still relatively unharmed. Tired and beaten up they all had kind of just collapsed once they had gotten into the cave. Snow still slightly annoyed with the other two, had just told them to keep watch, then went straight off to sleep. And after a game of rock, paper, scissors, Bunden joyously unrolled his sleeping bag and climbed in, leaving a grumbling Walter to sit and wait.
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It took about 20 minutes to get an open field that was close but still at least slightly hidden from prying eyes. Unfortunately, it was the same one that the goblins had used for their campsite. The ground was littered with dropped weapons and scattered shards of metal, bones, and rotting flesh. The field itself was torn up by lots of small holes and a couple of larger bomb craters.
All this matters because when I tried to call in our rides, the bastard on the other side said
“Well, could you clean up the landing sight?”
So we spent an hour just cleaning up all the large pieces of metal that at one point might have been shining swords and glistening shields. But now they were just rent hunks of steel and iron. After a few more hours of cleaning up and repairing the makeshift runway, I finally managed to call us in some wheels.
“Alright, can we finally get something that goes vroom vroom down here?”
“Whatcha want?”
“Could you get us a technical (a civilian truck with a mounted weapon) with all the bells and whistles? Since budget isn’t really concerned.”
I said somewhat sarcastically.
“Yea, that wouldn’t be a problem.”
While the guy on the other side of the radio tried to keep a professional tone. I could hear the smile coming through the radio. Oh no, just what are we going to end up with?