The walls of Emberwood were around 10 feet or so tall with a couple people visibly posted on top and a couple more in front of the gate. While the guards didn’t seem to be lazy or slacking there was a lethargic feeling of peace. Like no one expected anything serious to happen.
“Why do they seem so relaxed shouldn’t guards be more aware?” Kai asked
“What do you know about the Terell and Lorthen empire?” Thane asked him
“What are those?” The 6 of them stepped into line behind 3 other groups waiting to be admitted into the city.
“We are currently in the Terell empire. The Terell empire is made up of 6 kingdoms each of which are made up of 3 duchies. The closest human empire the Lorthen empire is made up of 3 kingdoms each of which is made up of 3 duchies. The Terell empire currently has a tentative peace with them. With no major conflicts having happened in the last couple of years.”
“Names and purpose?” the guard asked them boardley. It was finally their turn to enter the town.
Thane, Bear, Nixie, Tome, and Sarah each held up a small green rectangular piece of metal. “Just returning from a couple quests,” Thane said, answering the guards' questions. The others seemingly content to let Thane do the talking.
“What about the kid?” the guard asked, his voice just as bored as before.
“We found him lost in the woods after losing his mother. We wanted to help him out.”
“That’s fine though you’ll need to pay his entrance fee.”
“ Here you go.” Thane said handing over 10 copperish looking coins. With that they walked into the town. It wasn’t run down like Kai would have expected based on various books he had read in his past life. But at the same time it didn’t seem to have been well taken care of. It was also fairly devoid of people.
“Where were we?” Thane asked before seemingly remembering on his own. “Ah yes, a tentative peace. That peace is only tentative and most people are prejudiced against the Lorthen empire. If we were truly at peace or further into the empire the guards would have been far more lax. But since most beasts know better than to get too close to the city and those that do are easy enough to kill. That is why the guards are relaxed.”
“Oh ok” Kai said, content with the answer. It took 10 minutes or so for them to come to a large building taking up nearly a block of space. In a nicer and more crowded part of town than where they had entered.
The inside was sectioned into two parts. To one side were a couple people working at a desk and four sets of boards with paper pinned to them. The other side was some kind of bar slash restaurant. Tavern. Sitting at the tables was an eclectic group of people in clothes ranging from heavy metal armor to robe-like clothing to normal everyday shirts and pants. Though most of them were men and had a rougher feel to them. There were also three sets of stairs two of which went up the other one going down.
“Who are they?” Kai asked, not afraid since he was certain that if he used Seth or maybe even just end clad he could kill them all but still wary.
“This is the Hunters guild.” It was Nixie who answered this time. “The Hunters guild is a neutral organization that manages quests, commissions and Hunters. The quests and commissions are requests from the government and people. They are usually things like dealing with troublesome beasts requests for resources or protecting someone for a time. The Hunters are registered people that do these things in return for money. The guild of course also takes a portion of the money in return for their services.” Together they walked up to a younger woman working at the desk.
“Hello Olivia, how are you doing?” Thane asked her.
She smiled back at him. “I’m doing good Thane, how about you guys?” She peered at Kai, curiosity obvious on her face. “Would you like to turn in your quests?”
“Not yet, any chance Baldwin’s around?”
“Yes he’s up in his office he should be free to talk if you need to.” Olivia said, nodding at a set of stairs behind the desk.
Thane took them up the stairs to the third floor where they entered an office at the end of the hall. Inside was a desk stacked with various papers. Off to the side was a couple of shelves holding books and other objects that seemed to hold some importance.
Kai found his eyes drawn to a strange electric blue and crimson red orb. It gave off a strange feeling of coursing and explosive power. Kai took a step towards it, his body wanting no, needing it. Kai started to reach out.
“What is it Thane?” Kai was startled out of the strange need that he had felt by a man sitting behind the desk. He was large and powerfully built with tattoos of storm clouds covering his arms.
“Baldwin, we need to talk.” Thane said, stepping forward. “You felt that magic from a couple of days ago?” Thane asked rhetorically though he waited for Baldwin to answer.
“Yes I did, even sent a high Tier 5 team to investigate it.”
“Your team won’t find much if anything at all.” Thane stated confidently. “We also felt it and decided to investigate it. We found a partially collapsed illegal experimentation base.”
Baldwin’s face darkened and his fists thighted in anger. “Did you learn anything about their experimentations?” His eyes turned to Kai and realization passed over his face.
“Once we figured out what was going on down there we immediately started burning everything. After some more investigation we found Kai. He is the only survivor. He also had to do with the magic we felt and what caused the mountain to partially collapse.”
“What kind of experiments were they performing? Or do you not know?” Baldwin asked his eyes trained on Kai.
“They were experimenting with forceful affinities implantation. Since we just got into town we haven't been able to test his natural affinities but we do know that they gave him both the binding and death affinity.”
“Well shit, that does explain a lot. Is there anything that we should be worried about?”
Thane shook his head. “I don’t think so. We have been traveling with him for around a week and we have not seen any adverse effects from the experimentation.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Well that’s good, what are your plans for him now?” Baldwin asked, his gaze growing curious.
“We told him that he could do whatever he wanted to do and we would help him where we could. He told us that he wanted to get stronger so we are going to train him to fight.” Thane answered.
“Well in the end I can’t do anything about it no matter what you guys decide to do so this is probably one of the better options. And at least with this I’ll know where he is while you are still around. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help and I will.” With that Baldwin started to turn back to his work.
“Hey Baldwin, any chance you could get us an affinity stone? We want to see what kind of magic he has.”
“Yeah sure I should be able to get you one by tomorrow.” With that they left heading back down to the main room.”
“Ok Sarah can you take Kai to Eseld we’ll handle the rest.” Thane said, turning to the others when Kai spoke.
“Why didn’t yo-”
“I’ll explain it later.” Sarah said, laying a hand on Kai’s shoulder and guiding him out of the guild.
When they got out of the building Sarah grabbed Kai’s hand and started guiding him further into the town. Slowly the buildings began to shift and the streets began to fill up until they were in what looked like some kind of market area. Sarah ended up taking Kai to a small but nice shop that only had a couple of people around it.
When they entered Kai saw that it was a clothing store with a couple younger girls moving around looking at things and helping a couple other customers. As he was looking around, an older woman with white aged hair came over.
“Hello Eseld, this is Kai. Thane sent me over to get some clothes an-”
“Yes yes girl I know why you're here.” the old woman said, interrupting Sarah. “Why is this boy wearing Thane’s clothes that have been horribly stitched together?” Despite her question she didn’t give Sarah even a moment to answer.
“You’ll need some clothes for the boy, he will also need a bath as do you girl. Really I know that you were in the woods but you should take better care of yourself. Is that blood? Why is this boy covered in blood Sarah? You know what I’ll deal with this. I have a couple sets that should fit him just fine and tomorrow you can come and get some more. In the meantime I need these items now go get them for me.” With that the old woman handed Sarah a piece of paper and shoved her out of the store.
“Come with me boy and we’ll get you cleaned” Eseld said, taking him further into the store towards the back of it. “Alys” the woman shouted and a young girl that looked about 17 came around the corner.
“Yes mam”
“Take this boy into the back and help him get cleaned up. After that get him some fitting clothes, nothing too nice. Something similar to what your brother wears should do.” Eseld said before turning around to start yelling at some other girls. Even though she was constantly ordering people around it felt more motherly than anything and strangely Kai found it a bit comforting.
“Come on” Alys said, breaking him out of his thoughts. “We have a tub in the back” Like Eseld her voice gave Kai a strange comfort and he found himself following her with no objections.
Alys left Kai in a room that had a large metal tub in the center with a mirror to the side, a small closet and a bench against the wall. Kai sat down on the stool, took out the medallion and started looking it over. At first glance it was the same as always. A scythe in the center bound in chains that reached out to the sides. Yet Kai couldn’t shake off the feeling that something had changed.
The door banged open and Kai’s head jerked up to see Alys and another girl bringing in a couple buckets of steaming water.
Seeing them struggling with the water Kai ran over to them and reached up for two of the three buckets that had been brought in.
“No no these are too heavy for yo-” Alys was startled when Kai lifted both of the buckets with ease. “Oh thank you for the help.” She watched as Kai brought the buckets of water over to the tub and dumped them in, filling it almost a third of the way.
“I can help with the others.” Kai quietly offered.
Alys smiled down at him. “That would be nice”
With that Kai helped them haul in the final buckets. With that done Alys got to work. She had Kai take off his clothes and then get in the water. Where she spent the next 40 minutes or so attempting to scrub years worth of dirt and grime off of Kai. Along with some of the newer blood that they had failed to wash out. Once she was finally done Alys gave him two sets of clothes.
They were a pair of nice enough work clothes, a brown linen shirt with matching pants.
“Miss Eseld should have more clothes ready for you in the next day or two.” Alys said, opening the door and getting ready to take him back to the front.
“Thanks for helping Kai Alys. we're going to use this room to talk for a minute if you don’t mind.” Sarah said from where she was standing in front of the door.
“That’s fine.” Alys said before leaving them alone in the room.
Sarah led Kai over to the bench where they sat down.
“Kai you asked about why Thane told Baldwin it was affinity implantation instead of Bond Armament experimentation. The reason for that is simple. Bond Armaments are very rare and very powerful things even the weakest of them are in high demand. There are five different tiers of them and only Bond Armaments of the highest 2 tiers have actual beings living in them. This means that you possess two very powerful weapons that anyone would want to get. While the empire and the imperial family is fair and just there are many people in it that are not. So to make it so people would not be tempted to kill you and take those armaments. Thane lied to them since they would be unable to steal an affinity from you” Sarah told Kai her voice deadly serious.
“Oh that makes sense.” Kai said.
“Now why don’t we go back to the others and get something to eat.” Sarah said her voice far lighter than before.
With that they left the shop heading back towards the Hunters guild. The sun was just starting to set when they finally arrived. Inside they found Thane, Nixie, Tom and Bear sitting around a table with two unoccupied chairs laughing and drinking.
“Wow, couldn't even wait till we got back before you started drinking.” Sarah said, her voice dripping with false disappointment.
Bear just laughed at her words. “You would have started drinking if you could have. So stop complaining and start drinking.”
Kai went over to one of the open chairs that was in between Bear and Nixie. Though Kai found a small problem when he sat down.
Bear’s laugh boomed out. “Seems you're a little too little for that chair.” Bear said look at Kai’s head that could only just peer over the table. “Olivia, any chance you can help us out here?”
“Sure I can.” Olivia called back to Bear.
It was at this moment that Kai belly chose to speak up, letting out a loud rumble. That caused their table to quiet for a moment before everyone started to laugh good naturedly.
10 minutes later Kai was sitting on a pile of books enjoying a steak the size of his plate. That was barely smaller than bears and a second plate piled full of mashed potatoes and gravy.
It was like this that they spent the meal eating, laughing and simply enjoying each other's company. It was a little while into the meal when Kai was starting to feel tired. Tom got up and went over to the bar only to return a couple minutes later with 3 plates. He set one down in front of each of the girls and gave the last one to Kai.
Sitting on Kai’s plate was a large slice of something that Kai had never seen before but was fairly sure that he should recognize.
Nixie grabbed Kai’s fork and sliced off a piece of it. “Try it Kai I’m sure you will like it.”
Kai grabbed the fork and popped it into his mouth. He instantly recognized what it was
“Chocolate cake” Kai exclaimed through a mouthful of said cake. He quickly swallowed it, reaching for another one.
Everyone started laughing as Kai devoured the cake in minutes, not even leaving crumbs behind. Slowly they all started to wind down and Kai’s eyes started to droop as the sweet lul of sleep called to him.
“Come on, why don’t we go to bed.” Sarah said her voice soft as she offered Kai a hand from where she stood behind him.
“Ok” Kai murmured as he sleepily accepted it. They hadn’t even gotten to the stairs when the black of sleep took him.