Chapter 20 — A Decision
Warnel hugged his daughter closer and squeezed his eyes shut and raised his face toward the ceiling.
“Dad…?”
After several breaths, the hatter reopened his eyes and lowered his gaze to Toren. “If you help us…”
While the man had been wrestling with his situation and the remnants of his pride, Toren had been wracking his brain for ‘least bad’ ways to resolve the situation. Paying the ransom-takers was unlikely, and fighting a criminal gang by himself was a non-starter. That didn’t mean there weren’t options worth attempting, and he had an inkling of a plausible plan forming.
Toren’s own sense of self-preservation really didn’t like attempting anything without real knowledge of the local situation, but even a chance at any of the ‘best case’ outcomes currently required quickness of action and the right kind of allies.
“From what the captain guy said, I can think of two immediate actions that would improve the chances of recovering your family, [Haberdasher],” Toren carefully advised.
“The captain…?” Warnel’s brow knotted before coming to a realization, “The shrine of Eshem`Zel!” and knotted again with a different emotion this time. “But they might kill my wife and child to hide the evidence from the priests!”
“Not if the ones with your family don’t find out,” Toren calmly stated, slipping out a knife from Yana’s bandolier and checking the sharpness of the blade before putting it back.
Falma’s eyes were getting wider by the moment, and the girl’s knuckles were turning white from the strength of her grip on her father’s arm.
“How…?” Warnel breathed out, his expression wasn’t much better than his daughter’s. “How can you ensure that?”
Toren meaningfully held the man’s gaze, keeping silent long enough to give the impression that it was better for the man not to know. “The other action we can do to improve the chances of their safety—it can be undertaken right here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you already know? That steaders and their tenants get extra protection? That’s why you demanded your family become tenants, isn’t it?” Toren wanted to roll his eyes—and would have if the hatter’s situation wasn’t so desperate. Wasn’t the guy just threatening him for exactly this?
Warnel’s eyes widened with surprise and growing understanding, and the man looked to the dwindling line for the services counter they had yet to avail themselves of before returning to meet Toren’s gaze with an expression of acceptance and grim determination.
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Toren left the government building alone and unhurriedly walked to the job board. His heart was beating fiercely with the risk he was taking, but none of that showed on his face or in his manner.
It wasn’t all risk, though. Warnel had agreed to his terms with only token concessions, and by adding a family of four as tenants, Toren had not only solved his enlistment’s tenday obligation for the foreseeable future, but—assuming they succeeded—he would have a 50 credit per tenday surplus that he could put toward his debt obligation to Gazam. He didn’t even have to promise wages. He just agreed to train the daughters as Warnel had demanded and to give Warnel a cut of the profits generated from their labor.
That, and help rescue his ransomed wife and daughter.
Which Warnel was sure to owe him for. One of the postings inside the governance hall had been listings of the punishments for crimes—and murder of non-steaders had a 100 rod fine plus confiscation of any skill-detected stolen goods. For steaders, it was the full 1000 rods of the enlistment bonus. Likely the difference was what motivated the ‘Conclave’ to act so quickly against new arrivals.
Toren used his [Mana Sensing] to keep track of the surroundings. There were a few others loitering nearby. No one higher than tier 1 though. Probably looking for party members to hunt bounties with.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The glances sent his way were quickly dismissive and condescending, which was fine with Toren. It was one less thing for him to deal with at the moment. At least, purchasing the claim stakes had taken long enough that the dangerous chucklers seemed to have already found their marks and were no longer loitering around.
He was immensely pleased with his new awareness Skills which were all too happy to synergize with [Mana Sensing], in effect, feeding him a sense of everything happening around him without him needing to visually see it with his eyes. At his current beginning proficiency, [Combat Awareness] was mainly providing him more awareness of distances and footing related to weapon reach and advantage. It was a lot of information to understand at once, so he didn’t focus too hard on staying aware of each person at the same time, rather relying on [Danger Sensing] to ping his attention to possible threats.
Others surely did the same, making it better for him to not lean into [Combat Awareness] too hard and really test it, as things like actually thinking about optimal weapon reach to attack someone ran the risk of pinging other people’s own danger-sensing Skills and Abilities. Still, even just this level of observation was good—if mentally tiring—practice that was helping him get a feel for his new capabilities.
Toren didn’t have to wait long before Warnel and his daughter came down the stone steps and passed by, but he continued to leisurely peruse the tacked up notices and found the one he was looking for. The coarse brownish paper readily tore free when he tugged on it hard enough, and after folding it, he tucked it into a pouch.
He was careful to not directly watch the father and daughter, but couldn’t help noticing one of the other job-board loiterers that was less discreet and soon moved to follow the pair.
Got him!
Growing up in the slums of Greenvale, Toren was familiar with how the ‘hustles’ were run—that someone involved with the ransoming would discreetly tail Falma. There wasn’t always a tail. Especially with better-off children and parents, sometimes the threat of consequences was enough to trick the mark into following through, but in this case, there was another reason to have the girl followed: what better way to put the entire family into indenturetude than to have the father robbed on his way to delivering the ransom?
Thus the plan for him to pretend to peruse the postings—well, mostly pretend, thanks to Kesta being aware of the posted task to cull the drain-worm infestation at the abandoned stead he just purchased the rights to. That the alchemists would purchase the drainworm corpses was cream on top of sweet berries. Toren had to grudgingly admit that the bullied girl had been more useful than expected.
The only question now was whether this group of abductors would use one or two tails. Toren made a show of stretching his arms and shoulders while quickly looking around at the roofs and scaffolding nearby. No obvious spotter made himself known, and his collarbone felt sturdy enough for the coming tussle.
With enough of a delay to not be as obvious as the rough-clothed teen that was currently following the hatter’s daughter, Toren set off in the same direction, his [Stealth] Skill aiding his movements and timing.
When a wagon full of construction materials moved past, Toren stopped at a fruit stand, slipping his pack and cloak off. He bought two korts from the woman working the stand and nodded to the burly teen boy whose job it was to deter theft.
Cloak now in his pack, Toren resumed the chase. He slipped one of the korts into a pouch for later and took a bite of the one in hand.
[Stealth] has increased to 17.
The notice twitched the corners of Toren’s lips upward. Half the trick to staying unnoticed in a city or town was not being conspicuous. Not only had he used the wagon breaking line-of-sight to change his appearance in a casual way, he had engaged in an activity that gave purpose to him being there. It was probably excessive, but that it earned him a Skill increase made it likely that someone had been watching him.
Whether that someone was with the abductors or not, there was no way to know.
Regardless, getting Skill-up notices as they happened sure seemed to have the potential to be useful. Whether as warnings of danger or to confirm successful methods, it was a welcome change he could get used to. He said another quick prayer of thanks to Horevi for sponsoring him.
Ahead, Warnel suddenly glanced back and jerked to a stop upon noticing the teen following them. With wide eyes, he grabbed Falma’s hand tighter and pulled the girl into a narrow space between two buildings.
Once the spooked pair were out of sight, the teen hurried to the edge of the near building and, leaning against the shoulder-height cobblestone foundation, peeked around the corner.
Heart thudding enough to trigger [Burning Blood]’s passive, Toren caught up just as the teen was about to slink into the alley and called out, “Hey.”
The teen spun around, quickly reaching beneath his shirt from underneath. The fabric was loose and coarse enough to hide the edges of a hidden sheath and its leather or string straps. Smart.
“Kid, want a kort?” Toren offered with an easy smile and lobbed the half-eaten fruit to the boy.