“Oh, Feisty. That reminds me, how much do I owe you for your shop? I said I would buy everything you had. I’m not sure, but it should be something like 3 gold, right? At least from the prices I was seeing.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You were serious? Do you have that kind of money? Uhm… Yeah, when we take inventory of everything to put it in the log book we can double-check, but that’s probably more than enough…”
‘If her reputation wasn’t ruined and people actually bought her gear she’d probably be well known by now… But she sells it for dirt cheap and has no customers…’ I let out a soft sigh. ‘I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to give her story a happy ending, so making a profit while helping her out is really the least I can do… I almost feel guilty about saying I’m helping her at all…’
Suddenly a shining black flash of light shot past my eyes and blood started dripping down her body from the side of her neck.
‘Wh-what…’
Her jaw dropped as her eyes slowly moved down and she began to fall from her seat, moving her hands to cover the wound.
I quickly ran over and caught her. “Plutia!” I screamed, invoking my saint's name. ‘You owe me remember… Devine magic. I don’t even need tier 3, just a tier 2 spell will be fine! Just heal her!”
I felt a burst of heat flow through me and into her, light tracing through her veins until the bleeding stopped and her body slowly began to seal the wound with stone. ‘Restoration… A tier two… miracle… Thank you…’ I felt my whole body growing colder until it became stiff and hard to move. ‘I need a minute to recover… Now what happened… Did I just get myself killed too?’
My eyes rapidly traced a shadow that moved inhumanly fast before I finally started hearing the clicking of heels again on the stone ground and saw a tall woman wearing full black leather slowly walk out from the darkness.
‘No… If she wanted to kill me she would have done it already… I just need a moment longer and I’ll be able to fight again… So cold…’
“So it’s you? You’re just a little girl… I can’t believe they’ve had so much trouble with you… I’m starting to think I get why Master finds it so amusing.” Her voice was deep with a rich tone that lingered in the air and almost felt warm in the humid air as I began to fully recover.
“Well… It’s safe to say you aren’t with them… Unless you were the leader, I’d believe that, but not really since you just called someone master.” I stood up, carefully laying Fiesty's head on the ground. “Ok… So if you aren’t with them, you are helping them… Because your boss finds it amusing? Well, how about this? You let me and my friend go, and we let all of these guys go, and then we all just pretend we never saw each other…”
She sighed. “Sorry kiddo, unfortunately, my boss is having me take orders from their boss for a while, and he won’t let you go until you give him all the money, which I heard has recently just doubled, good for you… Or I guess good for him… Anyway, if you give me the money then I can let you go.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“You want me to give you 17 gold… I don’t even have all of it yet…” ‘The guards will be here soon… Maybe if I can just stall for Finn and then–’
My own shadow yanked on my ankle and in the blink of an eye she was straddling me casually playing wither her nails. “If you just give me what you do have I think we can probably call that good.”
Her long blue tail slowly twisted her started dangling nearby like a scorpion ready to sting. “And if I don’t?”
She shot her tail straight towards my eye but I jerked my neck and caught it with my teeth biting into it. The skin was so tough I didn’t even make it bleed, instead hearing her moan, gave me chills as I quickly let go.
“You seem to be the stubborn type.” She said, her voice changing slightly, only giving me more chills. Before I began to hear voices coming from atop the hole in the cave. ‘They made it.’
As I smiled she covered my mouth, shaking her tail in front of my eyes, and with a sudden sharp pain under my right ear everything went black.
When I came too I was in a cell, head pounding, stomach aching, and vision refusing to focus. ‘Was I drugged? This feels horrible… How long was I out? Where am I?’
I slowly sat up, waiting for the ringing in my ears to calm down as I listened to the guards outside the cell, my brain was so scrambled I couldn’t do anything but ask questions and act on instinct.
“Did you hear?”
“Alden's trial right? I was off so I watched it. Sentenced to life in a labor camp and heavy fines… Not pretty.”
I let out a long groan from the pain, unable to stay quiet any longer. “How long… Ugh… How long ago was the trial?”
One of them turned, looking at me through the barred window in the door. “Looks like she’s awake, I’ll go get the commander.”
‘Comander? Who…’ “Where…” I groaned again, slowly falling back to the floor. ‘Am I dying? Is this what dying feels like?’
“The trial was just yesterday, as for where you are that’s a bit of a secret so I wouldn’t bother asking.” The other guard said casually.
‘He actually answered?’ I let out another groan, working my way to my knees before vomiting, only feeling better afterward. As my mind started to clear I began to fully comprehend my situation. I was locked in a dark cell made of stone, with no windows, barely any light, and one barred door. I had been unconscious for probably three days or so. Alden was found guilty, And because of my healing, Fiesty was probably all right as well. “Water…” I grumbled. ‘My head probably just hurts from dehydration… And my stomach aches from hunger… They haven’t exactly been taking very good care of me here…’
“There is some water in there with some bread.”
I looked around again, crawling over to a bucket and drinking as much as I could without feeling sick, splashing some on my face as well. ‘OK… For now, I’m alive… That’s all that matters… Now I just have to wait for help. Finn will come and find me, he’s already looking I’m sure.’
After a moment the door screeched open and in walked the same girl that had almost killed Fiesty, she was staring down at me silently. “Alright. Now let’s try this again.” She helped me sit up and started breaking the bread into smaller pieces for me. “Where is the money?”
I couldn’t help but smile. She’d feel so stupid knowing it was in my storage. “What money?”
She just sighed, helping to calmly feed me, and then left the room, eventually, I lost track of time completely. Every now and then the guards gave me more to eat, but I couldn’t tell if it was once or twice a day, furthermore, it was always drugged to sap my mana… So I couldn’t use magic. Even if I somehow got outside there was no way I could fight anyone in that state. After long enough I stopped waiting for Finn to find me… And sometime after that, I stopped expecting anyone to ever rescue me. All I could do to keep myself sane was lie was bed and imagine what I would do when I got out. ‘The first thing I’m going to do… I’ll make my own guild… Buy a nice plot of land and build a nice house… Get some nice food and a nice bed… And then stay inside for a whole week, eating, sleeping, and reading adventure stories…’
The door screeched open again. ‘How many times has it been… Should I just give her the money and start over? No… I’ve fought this long… It would be a waste to stop fighting now… I’ll never stop…’