Chapter 7

The three of them arrived back at the in with Tyriel locked deep in thought, about a block away from the bank Tyriel had been approached by an older elven man wearing very elegant clothing, walking with a silver-tipped cane. He introduced himself as Alinhidri of House Colanthia with a polite bow, when Tyriel didn’t offer his name back, he frowned then smiled again saying he just wanted to meet a visiting noble to inquire about news abroad.

Tyriel apologized introducing himself as Tyriel of House Drache, he continued with he only knew that the roads appeared safe though he couldn’t comment on cities as this was the first one he has been in for a while, with that he excused himself saying he had an appointment he was late for wishing the old man a good night.

As they walked away he was wondering why the man had approached him especially from the point of inferring he was noble, he didn’t remember seeing the fellow in the bank though he wasn’t really looking for that kind of thing, just getting his business done. When they got to the inn he still couldn’t figure out the angle the old guy was going for, dismissing it he went to the front desk to arrange for the new rooms.

Harold was still at the desk smiling as he approached “Hello mi-lord do you need my help with something?” Tyriel sighed he was just going to have to get used to that kind of address. “Yes, please. I have some of my people coming here in a bit, so I will need some more rooms. One single room, then a larger room that can sleep four. Do you have that available?” Harold pulled out a book opening it to check what was available. “We do mi-lord a larger room on the second floor, then the single on the third. Will those include meals or stabling?” Tyriel thought a minute “I’m not sure about the meal but no stabling, um go ahead and plan on the meals if they don’t need it when they get here we can adjust if we need to.”

"Yes, mi-lord. That will be twenty-four Knuts for the night. Do you wish for us to reserve the rooms past tonight in case you decide to stay longer?” “How much is it to hold the rooms?” Harold smiled saying no charge as they wish to establish a better relationship with the lord. Tyriel thanked him then said to at least hold them for two more days possibly a week. He would let him know better in the morning once he talked with his people.

Giving Harold a description of Kasric and the boys he told him to give them his room number then have them come to it once they got situated in their own rooms. Harold assured him he would pass on his request and see to their comfort, then wishing Tyriel good night he hollered through the back door for someone named Mirriel. The little girl from earlier poked her head out then Harold told her to grab someone else to go make sure the rooms had been cleaned.

They went on up to his room showing the other kobolds their new clothes then filling them in on what all occurred. Listening to them talk while he put his own new clothes in the closet and drawers, he thought of something. “K’rick I have a question?” the kobolds stopped talking with K’rick looking over at him expectantly. “Can you only communicate in your language or can you speak common? I’m asking cause though I know you understand it you will need to be able to communicate with the others if we are to make this work.”

“We can, we just don’t like to do it except in emergencies as it would endanger the charade we put forth to others. But for the greater good of our future, we can do it for them as long as we don’t have to do it in public. Is that acceptable to you mi-lord.” then gave a little bow which the other four mimicked. “Hah Hah you little sarcastic assholes!” he had a put upon face though he did laugh with them in the end.

He finished getting his things arranged putting the map case on the big table along with the pouch of money he had from his earlier adventures. Tomorrow he could go deposit it in the bank, then he thought he never really counted it all so he poured it out onto the table. Hearing the jingling of coins the kobolds came over to see what he was doing, “Look K’rick! Our dragon lord is already compiling a horde. He produces money out of the air better than a wizard does water.” T’raim quipped to the others.

K’rick laughed “Aye! Our dragon seems to make gold and silver come at his call!” Tyriel swatted his hand at them which they both ducked while laughing, when they turned their attention back to the table the other three kobolds were counting the coins putting them in nice neat piles. K’siss looked at them telling them there were one hundred and eighty-eight Knuts, seventy-three Laurels, and twenty-one Staters which was the equivalent of one ducat six Laurels and thirty-eight Knuts.

Not a bad haul, but not really enough to go back by the bank to deposit it, he would just pass it out to the rest of them to help buy the things they would need. About then they were interrupted by a knock at the door, Sk’irre ambled over to answer it, opening the door showed it to be Kasric and the rest of the party, they all stood there looking down at SK’irre then him. “You already taught them how to answer doors and dress up?” Tyriel watched them laugh then their stunned expressions when Sk’irre replied “Why do you think that’s impressive someone taught you to talk? Now that’s quite a trick!”

Laughing at their stunned faces, Tyriel told them to come inside and he would explain everything to them once everyone got situated, shaking off their surprise they all came into the room still staring at the kobolds. After they were all seated in the same area by pulling the chairs around the table over to the sitting area Tyriel addressed them all from in front of the fireplace. “First things first, I’m offering to change your contracts to three years working for me for a share in forty percent of the profit from any dungeon crawl we make which will be at least two a month. If we don’t do any dungeon crawls you will receive a share in forty percent from any profit our guild makes in that month, if there is no profit you will be paid one Stater a month instead. You will also have to agree to keep all my secrets to yourselves neither telling nor alluding to anyone else the nature of those secrets for as long as you live or I give permission.”

Tyriel paused to see how they were reacting to his little speech, they appeared to be raptly attentive to his words. “It would also include your loyalty to me and the others in the guild, meaning you could do no harm nor knowingly allow any harm to come to me or any others in the guild. If you can agree to this I will change the contracts now, if not I will just ask for your silence with a contract on what you already know then release you from your debt contracts wishing you well in your future endeavors. How would you like to proceed?” with that he finally took a deep breath as he said the last fairly quickly as he wanted to get through that whole part since it made him uncomfortable.

To his surprise, it was Rory who answered him “Not to spit on your offer, but I have to ask, why would you do this for us? You barely know any of us, so what’s in it for you?” Tyriel blinked but answered “I need people I can work with. All of you already knew a secret about me plus you didn’t use it against me, so while we don’t have total trust we do have a step on the way to that. Verses me having to start over with unknown people plus I'm keeping sixty percent of the profits to build up the guild and me, so if you need a monetary reason there's that.”

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Kasric spoke up “I’m in for better or worst. He could have screwed us with the contract or just left us stuck with Kraim, but he’s offering us a better deal, plus a chance at real wealth with the shares which is more than any other guild ever offers, so I’m willing to give him a shot. I will add this to the contract though.” she looked Tyriel in the eyes “That if you betray us or attempt to harm any of us the contract is void.”

“Sure we can talk about adding clauses for your protection, I’m willing to work with you that’s the whole point of this. The reason I’m using the contract is not to force you to follow me, but to keep my secrets so I’m not hunted down or taken advantage of.” They discussed it among themselves then agreed to stay on if Kasric’s clause was added.

After changing the contract he started in on his plans for the future, “Okay so first, as you have seen the Kobolds” he was interrupted “Tor-Khoth! We are called Tor-Khoth! They call us kobolds because our hides are cobalt colored along with thinking we are animals” K’siss spat out “Okay the Tor-Khoth are actually more intelligent than others believed plus have special abilities we can use to help us with our plans.”

Garris tilted his head at them “What can they do? No one has ever mentioned them being useful just little thieves. No offense!” he hastily added when they hissed at him. Tyriel tried to soothe them “Well for one, three of them can carry about twice what you hauled in those wagons, the other two are a mage and a healer priest. This will give us a full working party.”

K’rick interrupted here “To be fair we just got these abilities again after ages, we will have to work to improve them just like you do skills. So Sk’irre will need to get access to spellbooks so she can learn more plus I need books on anatomy and healing so I can improve my ability, the more I know about the body the better I can heal.” Kasric spoke up “That is definitely helpful, plus I know where we can bargain for some books. They are regular books though not skill books no way we can afford those right now.”

Tyriel coughed getting everyone's attention again, “That brings us to this, I have six Ducats in the bank plus what is sitting on the table roughly another Ducat in coins. I want to use that to gear everyone up, plus arrange some supplies for a salvage trip to increase our funds. These funds will then help us establish our guild and future dungeon runs which will further fund a future venture for what should be a very great financial windfall for us.”

Kasric and Rory looked stunned “Where did you find salvage and get all that money? You have only been on your own for what, not quite a month according to the story you gave us right?” Tyriel managed to look embarrassed “Well I left some things out of my story, I found a shipwreck along that river that I met you besides. I don’t know how it got there, it's way too big for that river, but nonetheless, it was there. I managed to salvage some jewelry from it but the cargo was still there in magical crates that I had no way of hauling.”

“I sold the jewelry, so that’s where the money came from, there's more to the story but I will wait to tell you that till we get out in the wilderness so I‘m not worried about prying ears. For now, I want to talk about what we need to get to the ship.” The Lupins were excitedly talking among themselves, through all of it, Tyriel only picked up sky-ship, helm, and the word Lorska which sounded like a name.

Talking to Kasric “What’s got them so excited?” Kasric also sounded excited “They think you found the Lorska! It was a ship owned by the guild called the Black Wolf-pack members of House Kavar, it was lost about twenty years back no one knew what happened to it or its crew.” Rory included them in the conversation “It has to be! The Lorska is the only ship to go missing that hasn’t been found yet. Now it appears that's because everyone was looking in the wrong place, it was believed to have disappeared further up the Ormrin Mountain chain.”

“Either way, it's a sky-ship if we can find the helm along with the core-stone plus salvage the better timber, we could build our own ship or sell them for a considerable sum.” T'raim slapped K'siss on the back "See gold from the air!" Tyriel injected in real fast “That’s well and good, but let's not get too ahead of ourselves. Let's discuss what we need and how we can work together, it's not ours til we collect it and get it back safely to sell.”

Kasric started “Fair enough, so you have brought us three porters, a mage, and a healer/buffer. Where do you see yourself fitting into the party?” “As you know I have some sword skills I just haven't sparred with anyone yet so I have no idea how good I actually am plus I am still learning about my mana. I won't know more till I get my level activation with the experience I hope to get from this trip.”

“Speaking of which, How do quest actually work, the one I had for finding civilization never awarded me anything even though we are in town?” Kasric chuckled “For it to count you have to be in the place for a day so about mid-day tomorrow you should get your award that’s when we entered through the gate.” Tyriel sighed in relief it had been really bothering him, he had worried that the quest meant something else or just failed.

“Anyway I wanted to ask, when I was watching you spar on the trip you used the guys as a shield wall, did you use swords and small shields because that's all Kraim gave you or could afford or for another reason?” Kasric cocked an eyebrow which is funny on a giant tiger “It’s all he gave us why?”

“If we get tower shields for them along with Roman pilum we could improve them into a true shield wall plus use the pilums to give reach and slow down attackers, Add in some good chain-mail and boots I think they would be formidable especially after teaching our porters to shoot crossbows past the shield wall. What do you think of that?”

They all looked at him again in puzzlement “What exactly is a pilum and tower shield or for that matter who is Roman?” Tyriel shook his head of course they wouldn’t know who the Romans were he would have to remember to catch himself when he referenced things from Earth. “Sorry I’ll explain Roman later but let me describe to you the other two and you tell me if you know them by another name.”

He describes to them the pilum and how it was used, followed by the tower shield, when he was done they had never heard of anything like the pilum just regular spears or javelins, but the shield was called a bulwark shield and used the same way they just were expensive which is why they didn’t have any. They liked his idea plus they went through how to use everyone in the combat formation which they could practice on the road. Then they went over what to get for the trip, Tyriel told them they could get a faster carriage or wagon as the kobolds could haul everything so the only weight they had was themselves so they could save time on the road.

Cerble raised concerns about leaving a wagon on the road since they could drive it along the rocky river shore. T’raim let them know if it wasn’t too big they could store it, then all they had to do was walk the horses with them being careful they didn’t sprain a leg. All five looked at him funny showing they still doubted the ability even if they hadn't said anything about it earlier, which then led to T'raim demonstrating again with the bed which shocked the hell out of them quite frankly.

“How has this never been found out? You could change everything for transporting goods with that ability!” K’rick answered “First we can only do that now because of lord Drache also we hid it so we wouldn’t be oppressed by all of your races. They would have just turned us into a beast of burden, not caring about us in general, just their profits.”

Tyriel had to explain that his race and theirs were bonded so when the Khoth disappeared the Tor-khoth lost much of their abilities. They finished up with a plan to buy two weeks' worth of food, camping gear, salvage tools, plus better fighting equipment. They would split up tomorrow to purchase everything, giving the Lupins the funds to go purchase a wagon with horses plus the supplies, while he, Kasric, along with SK’irre and K’rick would find the fighting stuff plus go by her bookseller.

With everything settled Tyriel said it was time to get some rest and that they would roughly plan to leave in two days depending on the time it takes to acquire the equipment. Phoebus stopped on the way out “So what are we going to name the guild?” Tyriel thought for a minute and something a friend use to tell him came to him looking at them “We will be Farreaches Trade and Exploration.” he smiled his best friend Kyle was always telling him he was reaching too far with the projects he would take on, he was definitely reaching with his current endeavors.

“That’s a mouth full, but you're the guild master plus it’s your money Lord Drache. Umm, so what does House Drache mean we’re not familiar with the word?” Tyriel had a big toothy smile when he answered “It means house of the Dragon.”