“What in the world happened while I passed out.” He whispered. Not wanting to lay here without some context he gently shook Su’s arm to wake her up. When the confusion that accompanied that transition from sleep to wakefulness passed he felt it was time to ask. “Where is everyone Su?” She looked around, and then said “food.” Then she went back to just sitting there seemingly lost in her own thoughts. A moment later she pulled at his shirt, and when Wyatt looked down she said “thank you.” He understood what she meant. She was clearly very intelligent despite not saying much. Wyatt just hugged her. “You don’t ever have to thank me for that. You should be able to be safe.” Wyatt stopped himself there for some reason he felt a lot more emotional than he expected, and he didn’t want to break down and cry.
Wyatt and Su then sat in silence for what he estimated to be about an hour. Wyatt was starting to get nervous as the others were still not back. It seemed like a long time to leave him, and their young daughter alone in this back alley. He didn’t want to leave for fear they would return right after he left. Ultimately, he decided continuing to wait was the right move for now. More time went by, and still they had not returned. He realized there were several issues with leaving the area when he considered it again. He would need to bring the cart with them if he left, and although he was mostly healed he wasn’t sure how well he would do pulling the cart.
Finally he couldn’t hold in his concern anymore. “Su they seem to have been gone a long time. Do you know when they will be back?” He looked at the little girl hoping for answers, but she just shook her head no. As he looked closer he realized she was also worried. For some reason he let himself believe she was this cool in control person when in fact he knew she was a young child, it was a strange cognitive dissonance. As more time passed without any word Wyatt became certain he was going to have to search for them. Now the only questions were should he bring the cart or not. He wouldn’t leave Su alone, and he knew their family wasn’t wealthy. The cart seemed like it was a large amount of their net wealth.
Wyatt made his decision. Su would stay in the cart, and he would strap himself in. He would have Su do her best to direct him to where they had gone. Just as he started to move he heard a commotion from nearby. He disconnected himself, and peaked around the corner. It wasn’t clear what was going on, but it was clearly something important. There appeared to be a few people who he assumed to be guards of some type standing there with swords drawn. As he watched he saw them dragging up Argana, Ugrand, and Ugrand the 2nd all of whom were chained together in manacles. Wyatt didn’t understand what was going on. He had no idea what type of crime they could have committed, but it was clear these people thought they had done something bad.
Although he hated it, Wyatt had no choice but to wait and see if he could get some answers. Knowing the full extent of the situation would make it much easier to plan his next move. Finally the man on the platform started speaking. “We have before us the criminals responsible for killing the esteemed Egrand Windchild, and his retinue. We have incontrovertible evidence, and when questioned under truth elixir they confessed. They are to be executed 3 days from now at dawn.” As he finished the crowd went wild cheering Wyatt presumed for the anticipated blood shed rather than for justice. He knew there was a time in his life when he might have cheered for a public execution especially if he believed the person was a murderer.
Wyatt was at a loss for what to do next. He had assumed there may be consequences from their fight when the family told him he was a noble, but certainly not so quickly, and he assumed the consequences would be for him, not the family. How did the information make it back here so fast? Regardless now that the genie was out of the bottle there was no putting it back in. Somehow Wyatt would need to determine a way to rescue them from their current predicament without making the situation worse. If these people truly had used some sort of truth elixir then they really didn’t care about justice as far as Wyatt was concerned otherwise he would have been taken into custody. If they truly had a truth potion 2 or 3 questions would have seen him waking up in manacles.
How was he going to pull a jailbreak in a foreign land he knew very little about with a small child in tow? What a hero he was turning out to be. Getting a nice family executed for something he did. He could turn himself in, but it seemed likely they would just execute the family and him if he did that. He was forced to abandon the cart so he could follow as they took the family away. Once he knew where they were being kept he could try to form a plan of some sort to get them out. Luckily it ended up being rather close, and he was able to get back to the cart which was thankfully right where he left it. Since he knew where the building was it was time to make preparations. He would do some more scouting later, but for now he needed to make some plans so that they would survive after. Any plan he had involved fleeing the city for that he would need food, and water.
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They would have to leave immediately once he made a move to break the family free. He didn’t imagine these people would be likely to let them go easily. Not because of justice, but more so letting a family without any real cultivation escape from their custody would make them look incompetent. He wanted to keep the cart, but he had no other potential capital to use for gathering supplies. Part of him considered trying to steal what he needed, but he was fairly certain he wasn’t nearly skilled enough to do that safely. Instead he found someone willing to buy the cart for what he believed was a reasonable price. He used the money to buy 3 bags, as much travel ration style food as he could and several water jugs.
He also found a shop that sold staves. He had felt a strange pull towards the shop not even knowing what the shop sold initially. The man he met inside gave off a very mystical old master vibe and his behavior further supported that assertion. The man appeared to be Truan, but with a slight orange tint something he hadn’t seen in anyone else so far. The man seemed to stare into Wyatt’s soul, and after almost a full minute of staring without saying anything the man just nodded and said “you can pick any staff in my shop for free as a welcome to the world gift. I will also offer you some minor assistance in your endeavor this evening. Although the main portion will be up to you I can make sure they don’t feel the need to look for you.” Then he just went back to what he was doing like he hadn’t read Wyatt’s mind or future or whatever mystical thing he just did. Wyatt after his initial alarm wore off searched over the shop, and none of what was available felt right. He thought about just leaving as taking the wrong staff worried him in a strange way especially if it was free it shouldn’t be that stressful of a choice. As he was struggling with forcing himself to choose he felt a strange pull unlike anything he had felt before in his life. He walked over to a wall of the shop, and then as he searched out that feeling he felt it again. There was a fold down drawer that seemed to be built directly into the wall. “Is there something in this?” Wyatt asked when he had tried to open it to find it locked.
The mysterious old man’s eyebrows looked like they were going to rise right off his face. All he said was “interesting.” He toddered over, and unlocked the drawer. This entire time Su had been standing beside him silently. The old man seemed to pause, and consider her for a moment. He walked into the back, and what he came back with was extremely interesting to Wyatt. It looked like a hidden blade from the popular video game back on earth. The man handed it to Wyatt, and then looking at Su said “I believe this will suit you well, but you are not quite ready for it. For now we will let your guardian hold onto it for you.” Su just smiled
Wyatt had forgotten about the drawer momentarily, but when the man had gone back to the counter he turned and opened the drawer, and took a look at what was inside. He was surprised to see that it was a spear rather than a staff. Momentarily he thought something must be wrong. He had very little practice with the spear, but when he touched it he knew that he had some sort of connection with this weapon. “That spear is called the Frozen Slaza claw.” The man started laughing at Wyatt’s surprised reaction. “You have had an interesting time since coming here. I can tell your heart is in the right place, and this wonderful little one tells me all I need to know about her family. Plus that arrogant waste of space deserved to be removed from the population.”
After a brief pause the man continued on. “You have virtually no cultivation, and the guards are all near the precipice of the formation realm. In a straight fight there is no way you can win even with assistance from… Joy, what an interesting name for a slaza.” Wyatt had to ask even though he sincerely doubted he would get an answer “How are you doing that? Are you reading our minds? Is it something else?”
Giving his best mysterious old master smirk the man gave the most vague answer he could. “Sometimes information ends up where it needs to be. How it gets there is a mystery perhaps even to me. Or maybe it is not a mystery, and I know exactly how I get the information. Either way I think right now it makes little difference.” With that he turned away as if the conversation was at an end. As Wyatt was about to walk out the door with Su the man spoke again “whatever plan you decide on I will provide you with cover. As long as you have left the city by morning the following day nobody should go searching for you.” That seemed like a very strange thing to be able to accomplish, but Wyatt didn’t really have a lot of options for help at the moment, and he got the feeling that if this man meant him harm he couldn’t really do anything about it anyway. “I guess it is time to plan a jailbreak.” He whispered as he walked out the door.