When they walked through the main doors into the guardhouse it was a flurry of activity. Uniformed guards and plain clothed civilians were going every which way throughout the building. They stood there watching the chaos for a few moments before the gnome guard pushed her way to the front and started to direct them forward. She led them through one of the side doors and down a less busy hallway. From there she led them to a set of stairs leading up and then around a corner and opened a door.
Directing them inside they were in a small room filled with chairs, around half of them were filled with civilians who looked similar to Bjorn and his friends. Out of the twelve chairs in the room, 7 of which were filled with people. Two held humans, one was an elf, there was a dwarf, a hob-goblin, a sprite, and lastly a gnome.
They eyed the newcomers as they filed in and each took a seat. “Wait here, someone will come talk to you shortly.” the gnome said as she closed the door. The action looked a little funny, as the door was made the dimensions that would fit a human comfortably, she had to reach well above her head to grab ahold of the handle to pull the door shut as she left.
They sat in silence for a good 10 minutes before one of the humans decided to speak up. He was large, brawny, and knotted with muscles. His dark skin was on full display as he wasn't wearing much in the way of clothes, further emphasizing his intimidating statue. “So were you guys drafted too?”
Three separate people answered the question. One was the dwarf, Meira and then the sprite. The hob-goblin who was sitting off to the side of the room said nothing. The chairs were arrayed in a rough half circle around the middle of the room, with the open end facing the door. The hob-goblin had picked up his chair and moved it into the corner of the room, where he sat with his back to the corner, not meeting anyone's eyes.
“What do they want with us?” the sprite asked.
“It's obvious.” the other human remarked. “They want us to join the fight between Escar and Cronkrum. Why else would they bring us all here? And while locking down one of the largest trading hubs this side of the kingdom.”
Tayla laughed at that. “We will be fighting a battle, just not for Escar or Cronkrum.” Her outburst made the others turn their eyes towards Tayla. “I guess you haven't heard yet. Well two days ago the city guard made their way into the sewers below the city to try and wipe out a spider infestation. But they were met with defeat. They brought us all here to bolster their numbers to try and attack the spiders again.”
The sprite spit on the floor between her and the hob-goblin. “No matter what they want, and how they ask or tell me to. I will not fight side by side with a hob-goblin.”
“Why? What is wrong with hob-goblins?” Bjorn asked?
The hob-goblin in the corner of the room spoke in a quiet voice. “I am just a trader, I don’t want to fight.”
The sprite didn’t acknowledge that the hob-goblin spoke. Instead she turned her angry sneer towards Bjorn. She looked him up and down and by the look on her face she was left wanting. “If you don’t know why hob-goblins should be hated, you are too naïve to be in this room. They are vile, hateful, and despicable creatures. You should consider yourself lucky that you never had to learn the hard way why they should be hated.”
Her rage-filled xenophobic struck a cord deep within Bjorn. His anger started to build quickly as she spewed one racist thing after another directed at someone who didn’t want to be in this situation as much as the rest of them. In a low growl Bjorn spoke. “You better stop talking before something happens you will not like.”
She was oblivious to Bjorn’s tone, or his threat. Instead she continued speaking. “The whole lot of them are no good, their only use is to kill or to enslave. Which is what we should do to this one.”
That last sentence was enough. Bjorn flew out of his chair and crossed the distance between himself and the sprite in a matter of seconds. As he flew he drew back his hand and when he was in front of her he swung at her head with all of his might in a heavy backhand. The blow connected with a resounding crack as the sprites diminutive body was sent flying a few feet away and came to a stop as she skidded on the ground.
Unfortunately the distance that she got from Bjorn was not enough. As she came to a stop Bjorn vaulted over to where she lay on the ground raising his fist he brought it down on her. There was a resounding crunching as his fist came in contact with her body.
You have dealt 49 blunt force damage to sprite woman.
Raising his hand for a second swing, he was stopped by the two human’s in the room. They came flying out of their seats once the shock of what was happening wore off. They caught Bjorn and drug him off of the sprite's body.
The one who spoke earlier spoke once again. “Be still, I have no love for what she was saying. She was out of line with her words, but you also were out of line with your actions. She has gotten more than what she deserved. Let it go.”
Relaxing a bit. “I believe our group has more reason to hate hob-goblins than any one in this room. One was the source of our torture and strife for months. He beat me, he beat Alaric, and he raped Meira there for who knows how long. It didn’t stop when we were captured, and who knows how long it happened before we were captured. I hold no love for hob-goblins, but she had no right to try and belittle our experiences. I know what kind of atrocities their kind can cause.”
“I hear you, and I understand, but let it go. She was an intolerant ignorant fool, it isn’t worth taking her life over that though.”
After a bit Bjorn nodded and relaxed the rest of the way. When he did, the other two human’s relaxed as well. Looking down on the sprite's unconscious body he turned and walked back over to his seat. As he left Meira took his place, she shot him a worried look and then took a knee beside the body. A warm golden light covered Meira’s hands as she cast her brand new healing spell for the first time.
The golden light coated her hands and formed a small ball in between her hands. When it was the size of an apricot it dripped off of her hands and onto the sprite woman. When the light came in contact with her skin the ball took on the look of water as it coated her entire body. After a few seconds of the coating on her body it sank into her skin and they could see her labored breathing slowly start to become steadier.
When Bjorn got back to his seat he sat down. Alaric leaned over to him, “I would give you a solid 8 out of 10 on the first back hand, and then a 7.5 out of 10 on the follow up swing. It was a little sloppy, try rotating your hips more when you strike into your foe, that should give you the strength you need to finish the fight easier. All in all I’d say it was the best hit I have ever seen you make. It’s too bad it was actually a sucker punch of sorts, and that it was against a woman two thirds of your height.”
Standing back up she walked back over to where the other two were sitting, taking her seat next to Bjorn. “Are you okay?” She asked
“I'll be fine, I don't know what came over me, it was like all of the pain and rage that we had to put up with while under the thumb of Olvog came back to me. I never thought I'd hit a woman, but for a second I was back in that camp, and instead of doing nothing I felt like I had to do something.”
Just then the door opened and they got a nice view of an extremely large chest. Then the person ducked and they saw Gram as he ducked through the door.
“We will talk later.” Meira whispered to Bjorn.
When Gram straightened up, his eyes panned across the room, and came to a stop where Bjorn, Meira, Alaric, and Tayla were sitting. As his eyes fell on the group he looked to have aged 5 years in a matter of seconds. His easy smile lines looked like age wrinkles, and his posture became a little more slumped. His eyes then drifted down to where the unconscious sprite lay.
“What happened to her?” Gram asked.
“She talked shit, she got hit.” The smaller of the two humans said.
“Which one of you was the one who hit her?” Gram's voice was one of a clipped officer dressing down his soldiers.
The dark skinned man stood up. “We all did, she was saying something rather unladylike to the hob-goblin in the corner. So we decided to teach her a lesson.” His posture was daring Gram to challenge his story. His dark eyes locked onto Gram's and held steady.
“Well no need for all of this, someone get in here and remove this sorry excuse for a woman.” Gram called out. Two guards came into the room, one grabbed her by her arms, the other by her legs. They then carried her out of the room rather unceremoniously and closed the door behind them as they left.
Gram stood there looking down on his new conscripts and took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Oh well, so as some of you already know there is a spider menace that is plaguing our city. We need to take care of it before the entire city is lost.”
The dwarf spoke up. “Our city? I am not from here, my partner and I are just traders, why are we forced to help?” When he said my partner he made a gesture towards the hob-goblin sitting in the corner with his eyes downcast.
“You enjoy being able to trade here don't you? Do you enjoy the services we provide here? You enjoy the fact that we provide access to the glistening sea and all of the trade that flows through there don't you? We have provided you with income, and sheltered your kind in times of need. And today when we ask for your help in return you balk. Ha! Your selfishness makes me laugh.”
As Gram spoke the dwarf sank further and further into his seat, at the end of the tirade he wouldn't even look at the mountain of a man.
From there Gram gave them a brief rundown on everything that they knew about the snatcher spiders and a brief explanation of what happened so far. “When we attack the spider's nest we spend the majority of the day searching for the nest. When we thought we found it we decided to make an attack. That was a mistake, we weren't prepared. Up to this point we thought that there were no more than 15 to 20 spiders. Our assumption was dead wrong.”
Gram paused for a second before continuing. “We quickly made our way into the nest of the spider's. They put up a token effort in stopping our advance. When we made it into the first open cavern there were only a few spiders. Their resistance and the small amount of them we saw emboldened us. So we followed them further into the nest, our confidence was what led us into their trap. When we broke into the second cavern they sprung their trap. The second cavern used to be used to get to different layers of our sewer system; we were on a catwalk that was large enough for 4 or 5 of us to stand abreast at the same time. They hit us hard.”
Gram had started to pace halfway through his explanation. “The spiders fell on us from above us, they also attacked from below us. That wasn't the hard part, they also came spilling down. The tunnel we had just traveled down. They effectively trapped us. Our ranks were in shambles, our magic casters were almost useless, our archers were useless in the close quarters combat we found ourselves in. One thing we found out is that a single bite is enough to immobilize the area but. Their venom devolves bones, so you will feel the area a bit, it won't hurt much, but you will quickly lose control of the area or part of your limb.”
Gram held up his arm, the one that had been in a sling when Bjorn last saw him. “We quickly realized that we were in a losing position and we needed to get out of there. My men were falling like flies, so I made a snap decision and ordered them to protect the front while I moved to the rear to try and clear a path for us to retreat. In the fight one of the bastards sank its fangs into this arm. Within 5 minutes my entire forearm bones were gone and my arm became useless. Fortunately for us, by the time I lost control of my arm I had cleared a path back to the first room. By that point we probably had lost a third of our entire force. That was when they sprung their second trap.”
“We burst into the first chamber and as my men were running for the exit spiders came raining down from the ceiling again, sinking their claws into our flesh. That was when we were really in trouble. We were losing men left and right as we ran for the exit. It was chaos, when the spiders would drop down in the middle of our ranks any sort of defensive line quickly fell apart. We were saved by the quick thinking of one of my mages. He gave himself potion sickness and crippled himself to get us out of there. He cast a spell he called scorching ray, which allowed him to channel mana into the spell to spray a torrent of fire from his hand. He drank three mana potions so that he could keep up the constant stream of fire allowing us to escape. With his flames burning the spiders on the ceiling it slowed them enough for us to dispatch the spiders in our midst and retreat. Once back in the tunnel heading towards the sewers I was able to hold the spiders back until they stopped coming at us. We retreated from there.”
“How do we beat them?” Alaric asked after an uncomfortable pause.
Gram picked his face up looking at Alaric. When he did so they could see the anguish on his face. “There is supposed to be a snatcher spider queen and she is supposed to be significantly larger than the rest of the spiders. Before you ask, no I didn’t see anything that matched that description.”
The hob-goblin spoke up for the first time in a surprisingly deep voice. “You said that these spiders feed on your bones. How are there so many? How do they get the necessary amount of food to grow?”
“We don’t know the answer to that fully, by our count before this failed attack they had taken at most 36 people, between the murders and people who have been reported missing in the last month. That shouldn’t be enough to support the numbers of spiders we saw yesterday. What we think happened though is that they came up from underground. This city is old, and there is no telling how extensive the sewer system is. It would not be surprising for the spiders to have found a way into our sewer system and make it their home. I know for a fact that there are large areas of the sewer system that have been abandoned.”
This entire story Bjorn was transfixed by a single part of Gram’s story. “You said you were bit on your forearm, and when I saw you back at the palace your forearm looked like a wet noodle. How did you regrow your bone?”
Smiling Gram replied. “I believe you have met the mage responsible for healing my missing bone, or bones as he said.”
Bjorn just gave a puzzled look back.
“Kronk.” Seeing the puzzled look deepen. “You know the little bit of an asshole dwarf mage who taught Meira how to cast life magic.”
Understanding dawned on Bjorn’s face. “Little bit of an asshole? That is the understatement of the century if I’ve ever heard one.”
“It still makes no sense, how are the spiders surviving and by the sound of it thriving on such a small amount of food?” The hob-goblin asked, more to himself than to anyone in particular.
Sighing Gram looked back at the orange skinned monstrosity of a humanoid. “We don’t know, but I have my suspicions. There was a warren of kobolds that had taken up residence under the city years ago and have been a nuisance for the last 5 years. I think that the spiders might have taken over the warren and fed on the kobolds exterminating the issue. Once their food source ran out they made their way into our sewer system to start all over again. I don’t know for sure but that is my guess. By the end of today we should know for sure though, as we sent scouts down to the warren to see what we can find.”
“When is the next attack on the spider nest?” Tayla asked.
“We are spending the next two days finding everyone who can fight and then we are making sure they are equipped for the fight. On the morning of the third day we are going to attack the spiders. So you will have two days to get prepared, equipped, and any last minute training you want to get in.”
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“I have a question.” The large dark skinned human said. “Why are you the one giving us this briefing? You are the captain of the guard, I would have thought that you had more important things to do instead of telling us what is happening and filling us in.”
“Simple.” He pointed to where Alaric, Bjorn, Meira, and Tayla were sitting. “It’s because of them.”
“What?”
“They were the ones who found out about the threat the spiders posed so when I was given a list of names of the people brought in for trying to leave town I decided to give you the story of what happened and give you the best information I can.” He turned to address the four friends. “I can not stress enough how grateful I am for your contribution. Unfortunately I will have to ask you to contribute once again.”
Alaric looked at Gram skeptically. “What is our role in this fight going to be?”
“I am going to assign the 9 of you to aid one of our pinning forces. What I mean by that, we have a good idea of the total area the spiders have taken so far. There are 6 different passages that we know of that lead to that area. We have 5 smaller forces set to make sure that the spiders don’t get out and attack us from behind or are able to get away. Your job will be to help one of those 5 forces. You shouldn’t deal with the brunt of the attack, but you will still most likely see action. I will pass you off to one of my corporals and they will decide how it will be best to deploy you. Luckily for you, I will assign you to corporal Jenkins, he is the one I trust the most. He won’t carelessly throw your lives away.”
“When can we leave?” The dwarf said.
“When the spider menace has been dealt with. Not before, we need all hands on deck to give us the best chance to quash this incursion.”
“Will you provide us with weapons that we can use against the spiders?” Tayla asked. She pulled one of her wicked looking daggers from behind her back. “The last time we fought one of these spiders my daggers were basically useless. Their armor is made out of bone, I need a weapon that can do crushing damage to be of any use in this fight.”
“Although this city is better stocked than most cities. We still only have a limited supply of weapons that can crush. I will see what I can do, but you should make plans to provide a weapon that is usable, just in case I can’t provide you with anything that will help.”
Gram looked around and saw that there were no other questions he continued speaking. “With all of that out of the way, I will leave you to it. You will have access to the training grounds. Wait here and I will have someone from your assignment come and collect you, they will provide you with identification that will give you access to the training grounds, as well as the armory. If I was able to provide you with a weapon that would work against the spiders, go there and the armorer will outfit you the best he can. Now if you’ll excuse me as I said I have somewhere I need to be.” With that he turned and walked out of the room leaving the 9 newly minted soldiers behind.
They sat in silence for a minute before Alaric decided to break it. “Well I think you all have figured this out by now, but my name is Alaric, I am a close quarter fighter who specializes in defense.”
“I am Meira, I am a spell caster who is proficient in Air magic, I also am decent with water magic, and just recently learned how to cast life magic.”
“I’m Rick, my friends call me Rickie.” The large chocolate colored man said. “I am also a decent front liner, I specialize in dealing damage quickly. I am a professed Barbarian.”
“My name is Chase. I mainly carry stuff for Rickie, but with our travels I have picked up a few things about fighting. I am no good with a bow, but I can hold my own with a shield.” The other human who had been sticking close to Rickie.
“Well I am not much of a fighter, but I am a halfway decent alchemist. And an alright shot with a bow. Not quite a professed alchemist yet, but I am able to make some interesting potions, I can try and make us a few that will give us an edge over the next few days. Oh, my name is Alya.” the elf said.
“Tayla. I am a professed rogue, and as such I specialize in quick kills and stealth. This type of situation is actually what I struggle with the most.”
Meira nudged Bjorn. “Alright, you can cut that out. I am Bjorn, I am a bit of a jack of all trades, but master of none. I don’t have any specialization, I do make up for it with utility though. I can handle myself in close quarter combat, I am a rather decent shot with a bow, and I have access to earth, water, dark, and light magic.”
His list of available magics made Rickie give a little whistle. “That is an impressive range of capabilities you have for yourself.” Bjorn nodded in thanks.
“Hi, my name is Laurel. I honestly have no idea why I am here, I am not a fighter by any means. The only thing that I am halfway decent at is setting traps.” the gnome said.
Lastly the dwarf spoke up. “I am Bente, and this is my trading partner Rypley. We really have no idea why we were drug here. We are food traders who were caught in town at the wrong time. The only thing we have going for us is that we are level 10 and 11 respectively.”
Rickie stepped towards the dwarf and set his heavy hand on his shoulder. “Not to worry, we have a pretty wide range of abilities, so you should have nothing to worry about. On top of that it sounds like we won't be near any of the major fighting. So that is more of a reason we will be fine. I think the 7 of us who can fight plus the guards will be able to take care of you.”
The dwarf looked up at the large man and smiled. “Thanks, I think I needed that. You're right, I think I'm worrying for nothing.”
From there they broke into speaking tactics, and finding out how everyone fights. They spent hours breaking down their actual skills, what they can provide to the team, and how they will be able to contribute.
After everyone got a feel of the specifics of what everyone is capable of they broke into their smaller groups. The exception to that was Bjorn, he went over to Alya the elf and they sat together and talked about alchemy. This continued for a while until the door opened again and a small human entered with his head held high.
“Hello I am Corporal Jenkins, you will be assigned to my section of the assault. We will meet back here in three days' time, until then you are free to do what you will to get ready.” he took 9 small badges from his pocket and handed them to the closest person, who was Laurel. “These badges will get you access to the training grounds and the armory to outfit yourselves. Don't forget to do that, no matter what you do don't be late, we will meet at 9 in the morning. The operation is supposed to start at 11 in three days.”
“What will happen if we aren't here in three days?” Chase asked.
Jenkins turned towards Rickie's shadow and spoke directly to him. “If in three days you are not here the guards will be given a likeliness of you and then they will have strict orders to capture you and imprison you. Where you will rot in our dungeons for either 10 years or the rest of your life. Needless to say I wouldn't go missing. That is all, you are free to go.” Finishing his statement Jenkins turned and walked out of the room leaving the rest of the group sitting there in silence.
“Well, I guess we will see everyone in the morning, shall we just meet in front of the guardhouse here?” Rickie asked.
A chorus of agreements spread through the rest of the group. Nodding Rickie and Chase were the first to leave. With Bente and Rypley following not too far behind them.
Bjorn turned back towards Alya. “There is an inn called the Glittering Goose, if you want to meet us there I am sure that the owner will let us use the kitchen to make some potions. If you are looking for a place to stay you can go there and the entire place is empty.” Bjorn said the last part of his speech to the rest of the room.
“I have a few things to get before I go, but I will meet you there.” Alya said before she too left the room.
“Well I guess let's go.” Tayla said and stood up and left the room. They said their brief goodbyes and followed after her.
With nothing else to really do or anywhere to really go they made their way back to the Glittering Goose. Kent was surprised to see the group and let them have their rooms back without having to pay. If Kent had been surprised by their story of how they got roped into fighting for the city he sure didn't show it. What he did do though was offer to let them stay for free if they came back from their mission.
A few hours after they got settled in Alya came through the door and she and Bjorn made their way back to the kitchen. They were right Kent had no issues with them using the kitchen. So the two alchemists spent the rest of the day slowly brewing potions.
The next morning they got up early, at some point during the night while Bjorn and Alya were brewing potions Laurel found her way into the inn and she and Alya ended up spending the night. So when everyone was up the 6 of them made their way towards the guardhouse to meet up with the rest of their party.
When they got there Chase and Rickie were both standing there waiting. This time Chase had a large tower shield in one hand and a small gladius style blade strapped to his hip. Rickie was dressed nearly the same with bulging muscles standing out on his bare chest. They only had to wait half an hour before the hob-goblin and the dwarf joined the.
Once everyone arrived they took off through the streets towards the training grounds, which was on the far side of the commercial district. It took them a while to make it there, only getting lost once.
It was a stark difference from the days before. The streets were abuzz with activity again as the citizens of Blackrock Bay prepared to go to war with the spiders. The quiet city was instead filled with people trying to make some last minute preparations. There were many parties happening, townsfolk trying to send off their family members who were going to fight. The weapons, armor, potions, and enchanting stores were packed with people trying to find that edge that will let them come out of this alive.
As the ragtag looking group finally found the city training grounds they approached what looked like the main entrance. It was an open air field in the middle of the commercial district. Surrounding the field was a wall around 5 feet tall. Patrolling around the outside were retired guards or retired soldiers. They were the trainers keeping an eye on the flurry of activity that was happening on the other side of the small wall. The field was around 400 by 500 feet across, and the entire area looked to be full with people training.
There were people drilling on how to wield and swing a weapon. There were others in one on one lessons with their own personal trainers. Others were in group lessons. Finally there was a large section of the field dedicated to sparing. There were many one on one fights, and then there were large brawls as one group took on another. The largest of the brawls was at least 40 people strong, with multiple trainers circling the chaotic brawl.
“Well this looks like a wagon wreck.” Alya said.
“No, not at all.” Rickie said. “It looks like home.” As he said that last part he had an extremely creepy smile on his face.
They made their way through the front gate. When they told the worker that they were a newly assigned team and they were there to work on their teamwork, the worker directed them towards the sparring area. As they pushed their way through the assembled crowd they often had to side step to avoid training groups or people running through the chaos. That changed when they made it to the sparring area, instead of side stepping training groups they had to side step around bodies being thrown back and forth across the field. There was even a point where Alaric had to intercept a flying man that way his body wouldn’t slam into Laurel. The woman who sent the man flying was beaming as the trainer started to berate her for her lack of control.
They eventually found a relatively quiet area in the training field and lay claim to the spot. After a few minutes a trainer pushed his way through the crowd and walked up to the group. “Well what are you standing there for? Drop down and give me 30 pushups! Don’t just stand there looking at me, you heard me! GET YOUR ASS ON THE GROUND!”
There was something in the confident tone and the cadence of the voice. All 10 dropped down to the ground and started doing push ups. The similarity to all the videos Bjorn had seen of drill instructors working his new recruits made Bjorn let out a little laugh.
“Oh you think this is funny do you? Well sissy boy, why don’t you tell me why your sorry asses are in front of me.” The trainer said as he squatted next to Bjorn.
Taking a page from earth Bjorn yelled back. “Sir, we are here to give us a better chance to not die in our fight versus the spiders the day after tomorrow sir!”
“Well I’ll be, I think I can help with that.” The instructor dropped his commanding tone as soon as he heard Bjorn’s response.
The day that followed could either be described as tortuous hell or the best day they ever had, depending on who you talked to. For Bjorn, Rickie, Alaric, Chase, and Tayla the day wasn’t too bad. For the other five the day was grueling, but for Meira it wasn’t near as bad. Her months hiking and going through the wilderness had shed any fat she managed to gain over the winter and lean muscle replaced it.
The day started with the trainer talking through their various combat abilities, which took less than 15 minutes, each question was short, clipped and left no room for any flowery speech. He was able to get all of the information that he needed as rapidly as he could. From there he set up various sparring matches so he could see everyone’s fighting capabilities. That took another hour. Bjorn managed to land himself right in the middle of the pack, losing to Alaric, Rickie, Chase, Tayla, and embarrassingly Meira. He was able to beat the others surprisingly easily, except for Laurel. She was a little menace, she was surprisingly hard to get a hold of, his only saving grace was her small statured made it so she couldn’t produce much force and as such couldn’t really do much.
After they spared The trainer called another one over and they broke down into smaller groups and talked about the shortcomings and where they could improve. Then they drilled, and then they spared again. The cycle happened countless times, at least who would count how many times they lost to the girl they had a crush on? They only stopped the training because the sun was nearing the horizon. The trainers wouldn’t even let them stop to eat. Every so often a child would come by with a bucket and a ladle, passing out water to the tired fighters. This was the only reprieve they got. When they finally thought they were free the trainers made them run three laps around the entire training field. All while yelling at them for being pathetic.
Exhausted and starving they made their way from the training grounds. The suns were close to setting so they decided to take the long walk back to their inn. This time only Bente and Rypley split off going their own way. All 8 of the party members ended up at the Glittering Goose that night. Flopping into tables Kent quickly got them food and drink. He told them that seeing how he had no idea when they would be back he just made a stew. Letting them eat their fill they all sat around talking. Meira was so worn out from their day that she fell asleep right next to Bjorn. Smiling, he carried her to her room and put her to bed before making his way to his bed and falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
The next morning Bjorn got up and made his way into the taproom. Being the first one up he decided to not waste any time and made his way into the kitchens and started working on brewing some potions. He started by working on brewing some danger sense potions. The last time he and Alya brewed they had made 4 doses of the potion. It was a slow process, so by the time Alya joined him in the kitchen he wasn’t even halfway through the prep stage. Having her skilled hand at alchemy made the process go that much faster. Instead of taking most likely the entire day it only took half.
When they were starting to titrate the ranarr extract into the dwarf weed tea Alaric poked his head into the kitchen. “Hey some of us are going to try and hit the armory today. Is there anything you’d like for me to get you while we are there?”
Bjorn thought for a moment before replying. “Yeah, if you can get some sort of basic shield I think that would be awesome. I would like to have a thick piece of wood in between me and those fangs if at all possible. Also I think if you can find some kind of arrow with a heavier tip that would be helpful. That way my bow might actually be useful in the upcoming fight.”
“I don’t really have anything that can keep me out of the fight, and I don’t have much skill with a bow. If you could somehow get me a crossbow that would be great. If not some arrows like what Bjorn described would work.” Alya said.
“Alright, I will see what I can do.” Alaric said before leaving them to their alchemy.
Once they finished making their newest dose of danger sense potions Alya and Bjorn split off. They both made another batch of healing potions. By the time they finished it was late evening. Washing up and cleaning the kitchen they made their way into the front room. Upon seeing them vacate the kitchen Kent made his way back there to make dinner.
Most everyone had made it back by the time Bjorn and Alya finished. Meira, Alaric, Chase, and Laurel were still missing. But they weren’t missing for long and a half an hour after they sat down the 4 came through the door with heavy packs. They were able to procure a crossbow and multiple bolts for Alya, they found light leather armor for Laurel. Unfortunately they weren't able to get Bjorn a shield, and they got Tayla a set of small heavy hammers. They also produced 2 bundles of arrows that had heavy blunted tips. Each bundle held 100 arrows. Bjorn quickly opened the bundles and put them into his portable pocket. Every 25 arrows took up a 2 by 1 slot inside his inventory, taking up a sizable chunk of his remaining space.
Tayla scrunched her nose up at the brutishness of her new weapons but she put up with them. Soon Kent brought food out for everyone and they ate their fill. Just as some were about to head to bed Kent brought out a small cask he had behind the bar.
“This is a special drink, I don’t have much. It is a mead from my home. 10 years ago it was ransacked and Codley who brewed this stuff died. I have never tasted its equal. I have three left, and I want to share one with all of you. Tomorrow you will go fight a horde of spiders, and I hope that all of you will return. In case you don't, I want tonight to be a night worth living.” With that he tapped the cask and poured out a rich burgundy colored mead. He filled a tankard for everyone before pouring one for himself. “Here is to your continued survival!” Kent cheered before taking a drink of his cup.
Everyone echoed Kent’s statement and drank from their cups. A rich taste of fresh mountain strawberries filled Bjorn’s mouth. The taste was such a jolt that he had to stop. It had been over two years since he had tasted strawberries. The sounds of joyous laughter and stories filled the air around Bjorn, but he was lost in his own world. The taste of his favorite fruit was enough to dig up memories of home that he had pushed down.
“Are you okay?” Meira asked him.
Her soft voice brought Bjorn back to the present. “Yeah, I am okay.” As he said that he wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye. “I just miss home. This mead tastes like home. It brought back memories I hadn’t thought about in years.”
Reaching out, Meira put her hand over Bjorn’s where it sat on top of the table and she squeezed, leaving it there on top of his. Her show of support touched Bjorn and the two of them sat quietly while everyone else enjoyed their night.
A few hours later people finally decided to turn in for the night, deciding they needed to get some rest before tomorrow. They started to trickle out in ones and twos. Bjorn and Meira left in the middle of the pack making their way up the stairs slowly. When he made her stand she withdrew her hand and moved to join him. On the second floor landing they slowly made their way down the hall in companionable silence.
Meira’s door was closer to the stairs than Bjorn’s was, so when they got to her door they stopped. Reaching out tentatively she brought Bjorn into an embrace. Her warmth and soft body pressed into his. They stood there holding each other for a few seconds before withdrawing. “You know I am here for you right?” She said.
A half smile crept onto his lips. “I know, and I am grateful. I don’t think I would be this good without you. Thank you.”
A heartfelt smile spread onto her lips. “Good night Bjorn.” She then turned and made her way into her room. Bjorn lingered there for a while before making his way to his room and fell into bed. Darkness quickly overtook him as he fell asleep.