“Unless we find someone there we can really trust, you probably don't want to tell them everything.” Bertrand explained.

“Why is that?” Richard asked. The morning sun was shining brightly on them as they were walking down the main street towards the adventurers hall.

“These are adventurers. And we're not hiring them. Some of them would just leave town if they found out how many monsters there are. Others, if we told them where the monsters were, would probably just walk into the warehouse and stir them all up before the town guard are ready to deal with them. Or gods know, they might try to set a fire or something. Adventurers are unpredictable, and half of them are bloody idiots.”

Richard smiled. “You're an adventurer, Bertrand.”

Bertrand chuckled. “So, I would know, wouldn't I?”

“So, what do you think we should tell them?”

“Unless we find some we really think we can trust, we should just let them know that we have reason to expect another Warped Man attack in town later tonight. You were there for the last one and people know you were investigating, so some of them will take you seriously, and at least armor up and be ready. There's a bounty on Warped Men, so they'll probably stick around and see if they can bag a few, at least if they don't know how many there might be.”

Richard nodded. “Is that really going to be enough, though?”

“Enough to stop them all? Of course not. We're mostly counting on the town guard to deal with this. But if anything goes wrong, having a bunch of adventurers alert and prepared could help, maybe chase down a few stragglers before they find civilians.”

Richard nodded.

When they got to the Adventurers and Mercenaries Hall, Richard spent a few minutes talking to the person at the desk, asking him to spread the basic tip that there was likely to be another Warped Man attack somewhere in town later today or tonight and that adventurers should be prepared. As he finished talking, he heard a soft cough behind him, and Richard turned around. With a sinking feeling, he saw standing behind him a familiar man, tall, walking around in full plate armor, with a giant sword on his back.

Teodric, the knight and acolyte of Toran. The one who hates me. Shit.

Richard quickly began backing away and reaching for one of the knives strapped across his chest, when the main held up his right hand away from his sword.

“Peace.” The man's voice was deep, but loud. “I'm not here to fight you.” The man hesitated and looked over his shoulder. The elf woman Richard had seen before with him nodded at Teodric, and he continued. “I'm here to...apologize. I accused you of being a liar, and I was wrong.”

Richard’s eyebrows raised. That is not what I expected. He pulled his hand away from his throwing knife and stopped moving away, “...I accept your apology.”

The elvish woman spoke up. “If I may ask, what did happen when you found those warped men in the canyon? We went down there to check out your report, killed a few more of them, and purified the area.”

“I was in the gully, and they cornered me, surrounding me on both sides. I'm...my main combat class is skirmisher.” Of course, it wasn't yet, but I still don't want these guys knowing how low level I am. “I can deal with enemies like that if I have room to run and throw weapons and keep my distance from them, but I don't do well when I'm cornered.”

Teodric spoke up. “That makes sense. I heard about what happened in the Inn. It sounds like you saved lives there, at risk to your own.” It clearly hurt him to say that, but he didn't hesitate.

“Thank you. So...rather than try to fight them head on, I climbed up the side of the canyon to get away from them. They almost caught me, they climb better than I expected, but I managed to get up to the top and then throw rocks down at them until I had killed four. The rest escaped, back into a hole in the ground.”

The elf nodded. “That explains what we saw.” She looked at Teodric. “Cleaning those things out might have been easier if we had spoken to you before, but someone decided to start a fight instead...”

Teodric nodded slowly. “I know. I dishonored myself. It was not like me...”

“It...was not entirely your fault.” Richard wanted to tell him about the low glory but thought better of it. “I could have been less hostile myself.”

“I heard what you said, about more monster attacks happening later today, and I heard you were investigating. Were you able to find this 'Evelyn' that the guards believe is responsible for summoning these monsters, do you know where she is?”

Richard tried to keep emotions off his face. “No.”

A faint darkness was visible around Teodric, and the man suddenly put a hand to his sword.

“Do you know the corrupted summoner?” He asked, much more quietly. The tone had changed, and Bertrand also had his hands on the hilts of his swords.

What just changed...wait, there was a strange glow around him...

Richard made the connection, “Do you have...a lie detection spell?” The man's brow furrowed farther. “That sounds...incredibly useful.”

“Answer the question. Do you know the corrupted summoner?” The elven woman behind Teodric had pulled an arrow out and had rested it against the notch of her bow string; not drawn back, and not raised, but she was ready as well.

Richard spoke, quickly but not emotionally, choosing his words with precision. “Me and my group encountered the corrupted summoner last night, as we were investigating. It was the first time I or any of us had ever seen him.” Richard put a slight emphasis on the word “him”, and Teodric nodded slightly. “We were not able to stop him, and he and his...allies...are even more dangerous than we had expected. We are trying to gather allies right now to try to stop him and keep this town safe.”

Teodric relaxed and took his hand off of his sword. He nodded back to the elf, and she put her arrow back away. “All that was true. It does raise many more questions, however.”

Richard nodded, and looked back at Bertrand for a moment, before turning back to Teodric. “I will be glad to tell you more, but...not here.” By this point they were the center of attention in the adventurers hall, with a number of armed adventurers watching the exchange. “If we can go somewhere we can talk alone, I would be glad to tell you what's going on.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Fine. But quickly; the spell of detect untruth only lasts for 15 minutes, and if you are telling the truth about the nature of the threat we face I am loath to waste another divine spell today.”

Teodric went and talked to the man behind the desk of the adventurers hall, and then he quickly led Richard into a small room in the back. This was a room where richer clients who wanted to hire adventurers and mercenaries for more private missions could meet with them discretely. It had a large map of the city and all the city streets on the left wall, a map of the surrounding area on the back wall, and a map of the world on the right wall.

It was the first time Richard got a look of a map of this world, and his brows raised with surprise. It looked a great deal like Earth, in rough outline, but somewhat different. After a moment, Richard realized what the biggest difference was; for some reason, the oceans seemed to be somewhat lower on this world. Europe and Asia were clearly visible on the map, but there was a land bridge across the west side of what should have been the Mediterranean Sea, where Spain would be on Earth, cutting the sea off from the ocean and creating a western land bridge to Africa. On the map, this giant landlocked sea was just labeled “The Southern Sea”. It was also a little smaller than on Earth, with land extending farther from the north and south, and the shape of what should be Italy connected to Sicily. Currently the town they were in was in an area of the map that Richard guessed would be somewhere in southeastern France if they had been on Earth. Richard vaguely remembered that there was a river in a similar place on Earth that corresponded to the river Bromwich was located on (was that the Rhone river, or am I thinking of something else?) but the river on this map seemed to be longer and didn't seem to have quite the same shape.

Great Britain was also connected to the mainland, but there was still what looked like an island labeled “Erie” on the map, although there was something on the map labeled “The Rainbow Bridge” that seemed to stretch between it and Britain.

In northern Eurasia was a huge stretch of poorly mapped out woodland labeled “The Orcish Wastes”, and there seemed to be a land bridge from Siberia across to North America. The Americas were on the map, although they didn't quite seem to be the right shape (Richard wondered if some guesswork was involved), and there was something labeled “The Empire of Blood” across much of those continents.

Teodric coughed politely behind him, and Richard realized he had gotten distracted. I need to learn more about this world, but later.

“Forgive me, I was just gathering my thoughts for a moment.” Teodric nodded impatiently, and they sat down around a long table in the center of the room.

“Ok, first thing is first,” Richard said. “We were investigating to try to discover who had summoned the warped men and found that it was much worse than we had expected. There is some kind of large plan involved, which includes not just a corrupted summoner, but also a very dangerous high-level enchanter who is an expert at mind magic and charms people to do her bidding, as well as at least a handful of soldiers. Significant resources as well, they were able to rent or buy at least two warehouses and had the time to summon hundreds of warped men. They seem to be planning to unleash them all on the town tonight.”

Teodric's hands clenched into fists so tightly that his knuckles went white as Richard spoke, and he turned to the elf sitting next to him. “All of that seems to be true, unless this man can fool truth spells. Corruption magic and forbidden mind magic.” He turned back to Richard. “Do you know who is behind this?”

Richard nodded. “The whole operation seems to be run by Duke Walter De Rudhale.”

The knight nodded. “I've heard rumors about him meddling with forbidden magics. Do you have proof of his involvement?”

“One of the soldiers working with them, protecting their warehouse, is a man I saw in the Duke's uniform just four days ago. I...the man is dead now, after a fight with them we...left his body in an alley by the warehouse.”

Teodric's face grew grim. “You killed a man. And left his body in an alley. Have you informed the guard about this?”

“The rest of our group is trying to do that right now. The problem is, we know the enchantress charmed at least some members of the town's guard, and we don't know who is compromised. My friend, the priest Jehan, should be making contact with a sergeant of the guard he trusts right now, while the two of us came here to try to let some adventures know about the danger.”

Teodric nodded slowly. “I see. So, you think the Duke had some master plan that involved charming at least some of the guard, and letting loose several hundred warped men in the town? What was he trying to accomplish?”

“I don't know that yet.”

“I have one more question I need you to answer before I can trust you. Earlier, before you knew I had a spell of detect untruth, you lied to me about something, when I asked you about the corrupted sorcerer. And you knew you were lying. What were you lying about?”

Richard glanced at Bertrand. Bertrand shook his head, which Richard took as a sign not to tell any more here, but Richard didn't see another way out.

“I was lying when I implied I didn't know where Evelyn is. I do know where she is, she is a friend of mine, and she is not mixed up in this business at all. She fought at our side against the corrupted sorcerer and the enchantress, she is trustworthy.”

“Are you saying she was falsely accused of being involved in forbidden magics?”

Richard sighed. “No. She is primarily a fire mage, but while at the Magelight Academy, she also found some ancient books in the back of their library and learned a little bit about wild magic. That was enough for them to have her killed, if she hadn't managed to flee as soon as she was discovered.”

“Wild magic. She is a wild mage. And she is a friend of yours.” Teodric's eye twitched, as his face went stony.

“She's...she's a fire mage who knows, uh, I think only two wild magic spells, and almost never uses them.”

“Wild magic is forbidden FOR A VERY GOOD REASON!” Teodric's voice came to a shout by the end of his sentence, and he slammed his hand down on the table.

Bertrand spoke up for the first time. “I agree with you. But she's a good kid, and she'll be a good adventurer, someone I'm glad to have with me in a tight situation. She's not a high-level mage, but she's quick at casting fire bolts, good in a fight, doesn't panic under stress. And she's careful. I only saw her cast a wild magic spell once.”

Teodric looked at Bertrand. “Her casting a wild magic spell once could have killed you all, you know.”

Bertrand laughed. “And it very nearly did. She managed to set fire to the building we were in while we were all paralyzed under a hold spell. Still, I don't blame her. If she hadn't done anything it's very likely all six of us would have ended up charmed and working for the other side. I'd rather burn.”

Teodric sighed and spoke again in a softer voice with less anger. “She's going to get herself killed, and probably her friends as well. Even if she only uses the wild magic when she thinks she absolutely has to, if she keeps adventuring she's going to keep ending up in situations like that, and sooner or later it's going to go badly. It's a roll of the dice each time, and nobody gets lucky forever.”

“Maybe. But we're adventurers. Sooner or later most of us are going to end up dead, one way or the other. You've been doing this long enough to understand that.”

Teodric nodded slowly. “I'm guessing that us cooperating with this wild mage is a condition of us being allowed to help you on this mission?” He asked, looking at Richard.

Richard nodded. “It is.”

Teodric stood. “Then I give my word. For at least as long as we are working together on this, I will take no action against her, and I will not try to arrest her or give her to the authorities, I swear. I cannot swear that no one else will.”

Richard nodded. “Then we have a deal.”

Teodric stood up, and started walking back and forth, pacing. “I have connections, I can bring this right to the mayor. But first, I need proof, I need to see this with my own eyes. Even with a truth spell, your word is not enough. Can you take me to this warehouse with the warped men?”

Richard looked doubtful. “We have to be careful. Even if my friend was able to warn the guard, they're not going to be ready yet, we can't do anything that will make the warped men move early.”

“It's probably something we could manage, if you just want a peek.” Bertrand said. “We got in ourselves, after all. I don't think you're going to be sneaking around with that armor on though.”

Teodric nodded. “Of course, I'll leave my armor here.”

Richard sighed, “I think this is a bad idea, but I guess we're going to do this.”

Quest updated! Recruit Teodric to help protect the town by providing him proof that the threat is real.