Sam and I get back to the village square after having dealt with most of the sick people in the area. The only thing that’s really left is to disinfect the well with my magic and that would fix most of the problems. As Sam and I stand by the well and I start channeling my poison cleansing magic into it, Hilda and Lise walk up to us.
“Did everyone stay calm while we were gone?” Sam asks.
“Yes.” Hilda nods. “With Carol, Max, our team and your wolves here, no one really didn’t want to make a move.”
“And first and foremost they probably didn’t want to piss you off either. But the wolves and your friends definitely helped.” My sister then leans in a little. “I got to say, I am really really envious of the wolves though. They are so fluffy.”
“They are.” I smile as I feel the magic taking effect on the poisoned well down below. It will take a couple of seconds though for everything to be completely cleansed as there is quite a lot of water down there.
“And how did it end with finding a representative for the adventurers?” My girlfriend continues.
“We found a couple.” Hilda replies. “We actually also managed to get a discussion going too but Ami will probably not like what the discussion ended on.”
“I won’t?” My cast has finally managed to clean the entire well.
“Well…” My sister leans on the stone edge of the well and then looks at it. “No pun intended, that was by accident.” It does manage to get a chuckle out of the three of us though. “The army guys and the adventurers really want to clean up shit properly so they have asked if you would be willing to hold some kind of tribunal where you will be the judge. As you are somewhat know to be a Goddess of Justice after all.”
“W-what? They want me to judge over them? About what exactly?”
“They want a verdict about who is the most at fault and maybe also about who you think did all the sabotage.”
I immediately start groaning. “How should I know who sabotaged stuff? And why do I need to decide who is at fault for the other garbage?”
“Is there not another way to fix this?” Sam asks.
Hilda shakes her head slowly. “Not that we could think of. If we are going to ask them to just drop it, no one will agree to that, not even with your authority I’m afraid.”
“And we really do need to clean this shit up fast, according to Max and Carol this bandit stuff is bigger than we thought?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” Sam nods.
“Pfff…” I sigh. “I am really tempted to just teleport out of here but then nothing will get solved.” I look back over my shoulder in the direction of the kid’s house from where we came and then turn back to look at my family again. “Alright, but I want you two to be judges together with me.” I specifically look at Hilda and my sister.
Hilda smiles and gives me a nod. “I’d not mind that. In fact, we were planning to propose it anyway. We think we could definitely help you with figuring out who is lying and who is not considering our abilities.”
My sister gives me a nod too together with a happy thumbs up.
I then look at Sam. “I hope you don’t mind that I didn't ask for you…”
My girlfriend smiles and puts her arm around my waist. “Nah, I’m not that good at those kinds of things anyway. In the meantime I’ll go look around the settlement to see if I might be able to find some clues. I’ll send you messages if I find anything of use.”
“Thanks babe.”
“No problem.” My girlfriend smiles and pulls me in for a kiss. Gladly kissing her back of course.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“U-uhm, are we interrupting?” A group of people approach us with Nikki following close behind. She’s chuckling quite profusely to herself.
Sam stops kissing me and smiles. “Just a little but we don’t really mind.”
“Have you thought about our question?”
“She will do it, but only if Hilda and I are allowed to be her co-judges.” My sister replies. “Do you agree with that?”
“Of course we do.” One of the army men replies.
“Yes, that would suffice.” One of the adventurers also agrees.
“Then we should make ready for the tribunal as fast as possible I suppose.” My sister nods, puts her hands on her hips and then looks around the little square. “It’s a shame we don’t really have a big building to hold the tribunal in, and the weather is kind of shit so it’s not going to be nice to hold it in the open.”
“I think we can provide a canvas tent to span the square.” The same army guy replies and looks at his comrades who all give him a nod in return.
“And we will provide plenty of seating.” The adventurers are quick to add to that as well.
“Do you think we can start in an hour or so?” Hilda asks.
The two groups quickly discuss between each other and then the both sides give us an affirmative nod. “That will be doable.”
“Alright, then we shall start within an hour from now.” Hilda says and then the two groups move off in their separate ways. Quickly followed by a rush of activity from both big groups.
“Looks to me they can work fine together like this…” I say, watching the activity unfold in front of us.
“It’s definitely not a lost cause, and it does mean that talking helps.” Lise nods as she wrings her hands.
“I think it's most important that we manage to reestablish the trust between the parties so we can lay a solid foundation for cooperation in the future.” Hilda comments. “And I think that finding the saboteur might be pivotal to that.” She looks at Sam.
“Don’t worry, I’m on it.” Sam smiles and then brings her fingers to her mouth, giving a loud whistle.
I hear a bit of commotion from around the corner as Sam’s wolf comes rushing over to us with his tongue hanging from his mouth, looks quite happy that Sam called on him.
“Alright, I’ll be off, as I said, I’ll let you know something if I find anything.”
“Be careful, okay?”
“Careful is my middle name.”
“Hmm, that doesn’t sound very spanish too me.”
“It’s a local dialect.” Sam chuckles and then jumps on her wolf, giving me a quick wink before she rushes off in between a couple of the houses.
“So darn unfair, I want a wolf too.” Lise is laughing to herself.
“Yeah, we got kind of lucky with them.”
“Maybe we can find a pegasus or something for you, nothing’s lost yet.” Nikki puts her hand on my sister’s shoulder. She’d stayed behind when the adventures and soldiers left.
“Oooh, I do like the sound of that.” Nikki is directly playing into my sister’s knight in shining armor aesthetic and she is fully aware of it.
“Or another winged dinosaur dragon chicken.” Hilda smirks.
“.... I don’t think I like that quite as much.”
It may be silly to say as we’ve only been apart for a day and a half, but I already had started to miss my family quite a bit. Especially their shenanigans.
We joke around a bit more before Max and Carol come walking over to us as well, asking about what the actual plan is for the moment. We quickly explain what’s happening leaving Max and Carol only with a couple of questions.
“So if Sam is walking around doing some investigations, Carol, Nikki and I should probably work on security, right?” Max asks. “If we are trying to get things fixed between the two groups, the person, or people, who sabotaged it in the first place might try to do something about it.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” Hilda replies. “With the three of us somewhat occupied by the tribunal, it might be easy for someone to do something we wouldn’t want them to do. So having some eyes in and around the crowd could really save us a headache.”
Max really looks proud of herself getting praised by Hilda. She doesn’t really know her very well but she has already realized Hilda is quite competent in anything she does.
“And maybe it’s a good idea to let our wolves guard the perimeter of the village too, because we want all the people present at the tribunal, someone still needs to guard that in case the bandits decide to attack. Sam might be around and about but you can’t really cover the entire area all by yourself. Having our three remaining wolves around the perimeter can cover quite a bit.” Carol’s comment also makes a lot of sense.
I give her a nod. “I’ll try to explain it to them. I’ll tell them to start howling and then run back to the center of the square if they sense any danger.” And like that we actually have a plan going. Am I very happy with the situation? No, not really, but at least it’s progress and can help these people in need. And push comes to shove, at least I hope Hilda has some degree of law knowledge… Fingies crossed!