Adam stumbled on the first two steps on the flight of stairs, falling onto his bottom. His vision blurred as he tried to force back the man who was quickly approaching him with his arm extended. He knocked plates and cups off of a nearby table instead with his terrible, drunken aim, the mugs clanging as they bounced off of the floor of the inn.

The burly man grabbed Adam and lifted him up in the air with one hand, Adam had never felt so small and helpless, what was this insane strength he wondered?

Brian swung his axe at the man, just barely missing cutting straight into Adam’s leg. Adam knew what ability he had just used when a huge explosion was set off, the room filling with smoke. Somehow, the mysterious man in the coat didn’t drop Adam through the entire explosive strike making direct contact with him, he hadn’t moved at all.

“Take that.” Brian slurred as the smoke from his explosive strike cleared. “Ohh.” He looked on confused as he saw the large man still standing there perfectly still, seemingly untouched by the strike.

Adam flailed his limbs about, hopelessly trying to escape the grasp of this obscenely powerful individual. Who was he?

“Who are you?” Adam demanded in a deep, commanding yet slightly slurred voice. He used his truth compulsion, seeking out the mind of this man, trying to force his way in with psychic force, to hijack the brain and let true words flow out without a filter. It was like prying open the gate of the mind, he had to fight to open it, once he had it open, it was much harder, almost impossible from what he had experienced so far for the target’s mind to close it again until he was done. He had leverage and could hold it open with psychic force pretty easily after the initial burst of force and concentration required. This time was different, this time he pushed out the psychic force, searching for the entry to the target’s mind and found nothing. He wondered what was going on, did it not work when he was intoxicated somehow? Was this person so powerful they could completely mask their mind? He was sobering up pretty quickly now, at least he thought until he hit another dizzy spell. He ran the options through his mind based on the way the ability had felt so far, if he was drunk, he imagined it might just be harder to lock onto the gateway but he should still sense the presence of the mind in a general sense, if it was being masked, he imagined he would feel something there still, maybe not a mind or a way to access it, but some vague matter for his mind to graze over. This really felt like the person holding him had no mind at all. Completely non existent, but how would that be the case? He desperately pushed his psychic force around the head of the man in the trench coat. He even resorted to trying to spread it all over the body in case his mind somehow elsewhere. Nothing.

The room lit up with radiant bursts as Matilda threw them out, they were larger than he remembered, the triple split of the bursts made it confusing in his intoxicated state but they definitely seemed a little larger than he remembered, was it the intellect from her ring? The man stumbled from the bursts directly colliding with his face. After another few hit him around his body, he lost his grip on Adam. Falling to the ground, Adam scurried away, back near the stairs, standing up he got ready to try and help again. Standing with determination he noticed that no help was needed. Matilda kept pelting the bursts at him and she was gaining ground, he was getting knocked about and fell to his knees in pain. Why could she fight him off so easily? Was it some kind of unique weakness?

“You guys are so drunk, he isn’t even that strong. The menu says he is only level 3. Look, it’s kind of weird though.” She kept firing bursts but he was now crouched down on the ground, crossing his arms over his face to try to protect himself.

Looking down at his wrist he finally noticed that his menu was projecting out

Target: Creation

Class: Unknown

Level: 3

Quest: Defend The Foxbox

“If it so weak, why did my direct hit explosive blast not do anything to it?” Brian asked accusingly.

“Well, you actually barely grazed him with that hit. What type of creation is it?” Matilda stopped firing her spells, keeping a safe distance she tried to look at the target in front of them “Hello? What’s your problem, we don’t want to kill you.” The ‘creation’ didn’t respond, it just sat there with it’s arms crossed.

“When I tried to use my..” Luckily, before he spoke, Adam noticed that most of the people staying at the inn were watching from the top of the stairs, peering down to see what the commotion was. “When I tried using my ability, I couldn’t feel any type of mental presence there.”

“What do we do with it now? Just kick it out?”

Adam shrugged “I guess, I think we defended the inn now.”

Matilda corrected him “I defended the inn thank you very much.”

“Get lost, don’t come back or we will have to kill you, whoever created you, go back to them.” Adam shouted at the large man who sat there perfectly still. After around a five second delay, it stood up, turned around and jogged out of the door to the inn.

Quest Complete! 2000 exp granted (3200/6000 exp)

The innkeeper come out of his backroom that was on the lower floor. He was sickly thin, with a large elongated nose that was red on the tip. He walked with a hunch and his grey beard reached down to his navel. “Thanks for getting him out of here you lot, but why was he after you? We try to ignore people’s personal issues here and all but I can’t have crazy people coming in causing big fights every night.” He looked at the group suspiciously but he did sound thankful in his tone of voice still.

Matilda answered before Adam had the chance to make a fool of himself in his current state.

“We actually have no idea who he is, we didn’t want a bloodbath so we sent him running home, told him never to come back. We won’t cause any more issues.”

“Alright girl, alright everyone, I’m going back to bed, service has stopped so let’s be back to our rooms.” He called out as he walked back to his personal room on the ground floor of the building. The three of them made their way upstairs and into their room. The room only had two beds, Matilda took hers first, while Brian just rolled onto the floor of the inn, his head on a cushion he pulled off of an armchair in the room, both the armchair and pillow were stained with a mustard yellow. Adam crashed on the other bed, falling asleep much quicker than he was used to. Adam smiled to himself as he felt like he was spinning out of control as he lay with his back down on the bed, he had never drank back home, he was below the legal age and never had much interest to pursue it during high school.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“My head hurts, where do we get some water around here?” Adam woke to the grumbling of Brian’s croaking pain stricken voice.

“Already sorted it out for you two.” Matilda was already up, she had fetched some water from downstairs in the inn for them, they guzzled it down rapidly.

After a few minutes spent recovering and re hydrating, they began to speak about the upcoming day.

“What now? We could try and make more money but we should still be okay for a while, should we just spend the day tracking down Vincent?” Brian asked.

“Makes the most sense to me, Vincent is the only way forward towards, well, everything really.” Adam was keen to get out there and progress forward, despite the sharp headache.

“Worst case, we get to see some more of the city” Matilda smiled. “Parts of the east side remind me of home, more so than the west side anyway. I don’t mind it.”

“Homesick? That’s fair.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about how emotional it was, leaving home to get on the ship since I was one of the lottery drawn. My family didn’t think it was much of a win.”

“Of course not.” The two boys sat up, more alert than before at her sudden personal story.

“Well, yeah, it was really emotional, saying bye to them before I got on that military plane. Anyway, enough of that, let’s head downstairs, I think we all could use a good breakfast.”

“Yeah, sure.” Adam replied. They all got up, stretching their arms as they headed downstairs.

The Foxbox was full of people, every table was taken and people stood around, there was a hum in the air from the constant chatter. Adam wondered what was going on, was it always this packed, this early?

They stood around awkwardly on the crowded inn floor, Adam tried to listen in to the murmurs around him.

“What are the city patrol doing about it?” From one stranger right next to them.

“They don’t usually care about a murder over on this side of the city.” Another voice a little further away.

Adam looked around the room concerned, a murder? Was it linked to that creation from last night with no mind? Before he could make up his mind on what to do next to find out about this, Tob burst into the inn, the door swinging open quickly, followed by four other patrol guards. Their red and black tabards flapping in the breeze from the outside.

Adam crept into the corner of the room, next to the staircase as Tob entered into the centre of the room, trying to stay out of sight while he figured out what to make out of all of this.

“Official Declaration from the City Patrol.” He read out aloud, in a booming voice for the entire inn to hear. He was reading off of some kind of large flat piece of paper with a large amount of tiny text printed on it, he stuck his face into it closely to be able to read it.

“A woman was murdered here on the east side of the city, only about five minutes walk from this very inn.” He added the part about the locations proximity as he looked up, looking out at the room, luckily glazing over Adam, Brian and Matilda.

“We have investigated through the late night and early morning hours and we were fortunately able to find the culprit. Vincent with an unknown surname, the famous healer who stays at The Cats Cradle has been found guilty of a single count of murder of this woman who will remain anonymous now at her families request.”

The crowd broke out into a loud, obnoxious mess of murmurs as the crowd took in what the Patrol Captain, Tob was saying. Adam stood there, jaw open, mouth agape, purely in shock.

“As with all murder cases and executions, we are obligated to let you know that Vincent will be executed tomorrow at the crack of dawn. He is currently being held in the city prison awaiting his execution. If you know him, you can visit the prison and request to see and speak with him before he is removed from this world and his body passed into Oak. Please spread the word around your local community, there will also be some notices pinned up at key locations throughout the city. Thank you, that is all.”

Tob turned, walking towards the entrance of the inn.

“Vincent wouldn’t hurt anyone, he wouldn’t even touch them let alone kill someone.” Brian shouted out. Because of course he did, Adam thought to himself.

Tob turned quickly, facing in their direction. His eyes sharpened as he laid eyes on the three of them. He walked back towards the centre of the room and spoke at them.

“You would have been better off laying low here. Many people in this city aren’t happy with you, especially now with what Vincent has done, hiker sentiment is at an all time low.” He scratched his ginger beard in contemplation.

“Well he didn’t do it, so we will help prove it!” Brian was shouting.

“Calm down, you’ll do no such thing, you won’t be approved to see him before his execution, you are best to find somewhere quiet and stay out of things like this. Or things might get messy.” He said that as a definite thread in Adam’s view.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Matilda snapped back.

“It means what you think it means, lay low or face the consequences, you are already on thin ice from rumours I have heard, between men in my own patrol and the church.”

“What do you know, Tob?” Adam pushed himself now, he wanted closure on his unease with Tob.

“You. Don’t worry about who knows what. Everyone knows too much already, that’s your answer and your final warning. I’m leaving, if I see you causing trouble again this will be escalated. If we didn’t fight together I might already be dragging you into this case with Vincent, we still might. Take your one chance and leave.” Tob kept his composure well all things considered, but he was getting more heated compared to the mood he had started off with.

Adam gulped, thoughts and possibilities racing through his mind. Tob turned and walked out of the inn, leaving them be for now. “It’s stuffy in here, let’s go out and get some fresh air once the patrol is gone.”

The innkeeper they had seen last night was standing nearby. Hunched over with his long grey beard hanging there. “I won’t force anyone to do anything but I’d really suggest you lay low until this execution is over, it’s not good out there for your kind right now, people tend to get into a bit of a frenzy when these things happen, you’ll get caught up in it and swept away in the chaos before you know it.”

Adam nodded at his friends as he climbed the staircase, they followed suit. Entering the room they breathed heavily at the intensity of the situation, still trying to fully process what they had

just witnessed.

“What now? This is just terrible.” Matilda started.

“Simple. We make a game plan to find out who really murdered the girl before tomorrow’s dawn, we rescue Vincent from execution, we move along.” Adam explained.

“How do you do that?” Brian asked with genuine confusion in his voice.

“Do what?” He asked.

“Just. I don’t know, the way you take it in and come up with the efficient way to move forward. Don’t you take time to process things. Don’t you stress and worry so much you can’t even think? That’s what happens to me.” Brian looked quite strung out.

“I have all the time in the world to process things, action first, reflection later? No, that just sounds stupid and reckless. I’m not sure, I feel things and I’m still thinking about right now but, we are on a time limit, I had to also come up with our next plan.” Adam explained his thought process. He found thrills in these high intensity moments.

“Okay, so, murder mystery time?” Matilda asked.

“Murder mystery time.” Adam confirmed.