Months passed as they settled into a new routine. Many party members regularly went out to Stinburough to take quests. But despite the turmoil in the country, the pickings were small and the rewards bad. The best paying quests were hunting and gathering quests, as food was getting ever more scarce with the flood of refugees coming in from Lynvera. The problem was, while Brythorne was rich in minerals and monsters, it was always poor at producing food. More fishing ships had been produced than ever before, but that was not enough to cover the large population of refugees. Brythorne had been relying on Lynvera for a large part of its food supply, and now had to scramble to find more places to buy food and offload the large numbers of ores and monster parts they produced. All in all it was a bad time to be an adventurer.

Worse, there were rumors of pirate activity to the west of Brythorne attacking and destroying private and military vessels alike. Of course that is what you heard when you spoke to the sane people. Old men and women screamed and cried on the corners of streets and from the roofs of buildings, all saying one name. Skullshadow. Yeah, Will had a hard time not laughing when he heard the name. Especially when he heard his title. Skullshadow, The Darkwater Reaper. Seriously, the guy had to come from a comic or something. Of course his laughter which he failed to contain earned him a lecture from Amalise. She informed him that he was the most terrifying dark lord that had been seen in over a thousand years, and only through the heroism of Arken Silverwraith was he finally slain.

Except the old fogies around town kept on saying that he was back, and it was seriously putting people on edge. King Arken Silverwraith continued to assure everyone that this was just a copycat, but faith in the king was dropping by the day, to the point that official heralds couldn't make it through town without rocks being thrown at them.

Fortunately for Will, none of the unrest seemed to make it to the fortress. That said, they were now subsisting almost entirely off of bear meat. Unseasoned bear meat. While Will was grateful to have anything at this point, bear meat was not the most appetizing to begin with. The problem was, monster meat was poisonous, and few natural animals survived on the island. Will was tempted to try farming in the courtyard around the castle, but it was already approaching mid summer and he knew nothing about farming. The lack of variety left people a bit testy at times, but since there was more than enough space in the castle, people had more than enough space to go off and do their own thing.

Will for his part spent most of his time training. He wasn’t able to get a hold of an inscriptionist that was willing to train him, but he was able to locate a few primer manuals that could help him along. With that his proficiency in his inscriptions slowly progressed. When he became tired of that he moved to working on his concept and aura control. In that, he was quite happy with his progress. He had started to work his earth and air concepts together. It was not very well controlled, and had some rather wild secondary effects he couldn’t predict. However what it meant was that he could use a low chaos and low order concept at the same time. It was one step on the way to being able to properly control his two more powerful concepts.

He did spend some time with the System Relay Node as well, slowly upgrading the keep. There was a water collection device on the top of the castle now that also acted as a water tower feeding his bathroom, the main baths, as well as a faucet in the kitchen. The problem was that the stock of copper which was used in the pipes had been all used up. Will had seen this ahead of time and had put in an order with a man in Stinburough who had been so grateful for his order that he gave Will a massive discount.

That of course led to the current problem, where the man was wringing his hat in his hands and stammering an apology. Will wanted to be annoyed, but the look of distress in the man’s gaunt face was too genuine for Will to be too angry.

“Start at the beginning, please.” Will said as he massaged his eyes.

“I had gotten the copper loaded up on the cart for delivery when Lord Slimebrook came with five of his knights and confiscated it for the war effort.” The merchant gulped. “I apologize for the delay, I am sure I will be able to get you some copper in a week or two.” The man ended with a sickly smile.

“A week or two?”

“Yes, that is if I can delay my own payments to the miners, but they tend to walk out fairly quickly. As other merchants have been missing payments as well, I am concerned that the entire mine will be shut down.” Will could see the man’s hands shaking. He was gaunt and his skin had the definite pallor that came from malnutrition.

“Take this.” Will said, and he put a small purse of coins in the man’s outstretched hands.

“I can’t!” The man said. But he didn’t give the money back. Instead he clutched the bag like it was a lifeline.

“Look, I can’t afford to have the mine shut down. I am going to need more of that copper in the future. Just get me the copper as soon as you can alright? And next time, don’t load the bars out in public. Better, I will come pick them up from your warehouse directly.” the man bowed his head in gratitude and scurried away.

“Will sighed and pulled a coat out of his inventory. It was nice, the kind you might expect a noble to wear while out about town. It came from the wardrobe of the revenant Lord, and fit him surprisingly well once he had used a resizing enchantment on it.

“Will, what are you doing?” one of the followers asked. He had two with him today, a swordsman and an archer.

“I am going to retrieve my property.” Will saId as he started out. As he walked he questioned people and soon found that the noble, Lord Slimebrook, had left out the eastern gate of the town. Will was surprised, he had expected it to be taken somewhere else in town, but headed off nonetheless.

“Are you sure that this is a good idea?” The archer asked. “He has five knights with him.”

“Are they gods?” Will asked.

“No, probably not at least. But they could still be cultivators. Don’t underestimate them!” Will turned to look at the archer.

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“I am not scared of five people who can't complete the trial.” Will let out a sharp whistle once they were out of sight of the city gates, and Koma came bounding up to them. The two followers continued to accompany Will, if a bit hesitantly.

They walked for about an hour before getting a look at what they thought was the group they were looking for. Five knights and a noble were harassing a group of refugees. Will took to the forest, sneaking around with Koma and the followers. They found a spot they could observe from and they watched as several younger women and children were forced into the cart while the men of the refugee group were held back by sword point. Will turned to the hard faces of the two followers and laid out his plan.

…

Lord Slimebrook sneered at all the unpleasantness going on around him. Really, the men should be grateful. Life as a refugee must be a hungry one. They wouldn’t need to worry about feeding their women and children anymore. It was a win-win situation. Lord Slimebrook wasn’t a slaver, but he knew a number of people with a taste for the fair dark haired Verans. They wouldn’t go hungry, and the men wouldn’t have to worry about having so many mouths to feed. Finally, one of his knights ended the conflict by breaking the arm of one of the more aggressive men.

“Can we finally be on our way?” He yelled over the weeping of his new slaves.

“Yes, my lord.” One of the knights responded, and they headed off. They still had a ways to go before they made it to the estate, and he wasn’t willing to miss dinner for this errand. Father should have just sent the knights to get the copper, but he was happy to add the payment to his own pocket, so no real loss. Suddenly a man stepped out from the forest ahead of them, holding a rapier in one hand while wearing a long white fur cloak. Lord Slimebrook sneered at the man. Even bandits were adopting that horrid style brought in by Galespire. Really, these new rapiers should be made illegal.

Then again, the man looked to be a foreigner, so maybe he was from Galespire. Wouldn’t be the first time galespire had sent bandits into their territory.

“Halt.” The man yelled, leveling his rapier at Lord Slimebrook.

“Knights,” The knights came to attention as Lord Slimebrook suddenly paused. “Wait, you are that William fellow with the bounty! Knights, take him alive!” The four knights rushed forward on their horses. Wait four? Lord Slimebrook looked around to find one of the knights had collapsed to the ground with an arrow in his neck.

“Behind us!” He screamed, but it was too late. Another arrow sank into the gap between shoulder and breastplate of one of the guards, crippling his right arm. Damn bandits always come in numbers! He had let his greed overcome him. He pulled his own sword. He had to kill the archer or they were all dead. He spurred his horse toward the trees and called upon his concept. Swift Sword was a simple concept, but effective nonetheless. It gave him stamina powered reflexes far beyond what he should have. He made use of every bit of those reflexes as he rushed toward the Archer knocking arrow after arrow out of the air. As he was about to cleave the archer in two, a longsword parried his attack. He galloped in a large circle coming around for another attack. There was a swordsman standing there, blade held in a perfect stance. Suddenly Lord Slimebrook regretted not taking his training seriously. Still, he had his horse, which would have to be enough. Except it wasn’t enough. Not to stop the arrow from taking him in the head.

The damn archer.

…

Will watched the four knights galloping toward him. He knew he couldn’t take them all on by himself. But that was the point, he was just the distraction. He frowned as he saw the noble going after the archer, but he had left the swordsman with her, so they should be fine. As the Knights approached, Will got ready, and sent the signal to Koma. Koma leapt out of the trees, and landed behind them. His gray summer coat gleamed in the sunlight as he growled at the now panicking knights and horses. Will lunged forward in an awkward thrust, catching one of the knights below his breastplate and running him through. Surprisingly, this did not seem to faze the panicking knight, as he tried to gallop away. The horse certainly noticed when Will cut across the back of its legs however. The knight and his horse collapsed in a heap, both screaming in pain. Will turned back to the fight, but it was already over. Koma had torn apart the other knights with ease.

Koma shrunk to the size of a small dog and jumped into Will’s arms. Will scratched his head as he approached the cart. The mule that had been pulling it had been killed in the battle. Will guessed from the bite marks that it was killed by an overeager Koma. That was unfortunate, but it could be handled. He would just be ditching the cart anyway after putting the copper in his inventory. The only problem was the group of some fifteen women and children that had been piled in and around the copper. All of them were crying in terror, and Will sighed.

Without Warning, Koma leapt from Will’s arms, and into the lap of a little girl. Screaming ensued. But Koma wasn’t having any of it, proceeding to beg for attention in every way he knew. Soon, he was being lavished in the coos and pets of all the women and children. Will could only laugh when one little girl asked where the big mean doggie went. Apparently they couldn’t accept such a huge change.

“My Lord,” Will turned to one of the men from earlier. The man approached carefully and deferentially, but he didn’t cringe or cower.

“My name is Will. No need for the title.”

“Yes sir, Will.” He steeled himself. “May I ask what you intend to do with them?” He gestured toward the women and children.

“Nothing. They are free to go. I was only here for the copper.” The man let out a breath in wary relief.

“Then may I make a request of you?”

“I suppose, if you must.” The man fell to the ground, kneeling.

“Please! Let us join your bandit company!” Will was stunned for several seconds. Though he quickly realized that a bandit was exactly what he looked like at that moment.

“Look, you have the wrong idea. We aren’t bandits. We are just adventurers who had our stuff stolen. If anything, these guys are the bandits.” Will said this, but knew that he wasn’t believed.

“Are adventurers held in such high esteem here?” The man asked hesitantly. “You did kill a noble.”

“No, they aren’t.” The archer follower said, glaring at Will. “Seriously, I thought we were going to hold him up, not kill him. We need to get out of here.”

Will sighed and massaged his eyes. He turned back to the man.

“Why do you want to work for me anyway?”

“You have food, and our children are starving. We will do anything you want, just please, help us.”

“Look, just butcher the horses. Eat some and sell the rest. That will get you plenty of money to live on.” Will said, gesturing to the dead horses. While the two followers grimaced at the idea, the refugees simply looked at the horses hungrily. Including the man Will was talking to. But then his shoulders slumped.

“Those horses are yours by right, but I would be willing to work for them, and for all future provisions.” The man straightened his back and looked Will in the eye. The gesture was undermined by the man’s gaunt appearance, but Will respected it all the same.

“Why are you so dead set on this?”

“Because, Sir Will, those horses would feed us for a week. Working for the right man will feed us through all these troubled days.” Will sighed.

“And why do you think I am the right man?”

“Just a feeling, Sir Will.”