Laina walked back into her house and closed the door behind her.

Sam and Xander both heard what the village head said and started to relax. They assumed that Laina worked everything out, and they weren't in danger of being chased off the village by a mob.

Laina walked back to the bed and sat down. She was feeling tired. That conversation took a lot of energy out of her. She didn't know how to ask the two men to take her with them. She didn't even know where they were going or why. All of a sudden, she felt as if there was some pressure on her.

"So... how did it go?" Asked Xander. He thought that it went well but looking at Laina's face he began to have some doubt. The girl looked like she argued with her boyfriend.

"Good, very good," said Laina. She didn't really look like she gave that question much thought and just said it off the top of her head. She looked like she was thinking about something hard.

"What are you thinking about?" Xander asked.

"Do you... Would guys find it if I tag along with you wherever you're going?" She asked in a very nervous tone. She had already told the village head her decision, and she was not going to take it back, so she had no choice but to leave the village. If Sam and Xander said no, that would mean that she would have to go alone. The road towards Carthage has been getting more and more bandits recently, and it was not safe for a young woman like her to go all the way to the city all alone.

It was not totally safe with just the three of them, but it would still be a lot better than her going alone.

Xander looked towards Sam. Xander didn't have any objections but, even in the short time that he and Sam had been together, Xander felt that it was better to leave the major decisions up to Sam. Xander wouldn't have to stress out on it, and Xander felt like Sam made better decisions in general.

Sam didn't have any problems with Laina either. She didn't do anything that made him not want to trust her, and she looked like she could handle herself. Sam didn't exactly know the difficulty for a young woman to live all alone in a village, but he could guess that it was not easy. She also handled the villager head situation pretty well. He assumed that she didn't tell the truth since it would not have been too believable, so that meant that she lied about it, and it looked like she made up a pretty believable one.

It would also be very helpful for them to have allies in the future, and Laina could very well be someone that they could rely on in the future.

Sam shrugged his shoulder, and Xander saw this and looked back towards Laina.

"We don't mind at all," Xander said. He had a small smile on his face.

Laina was delighted when she heard Xander. A smile was put on her face, and even as much as she tried, she couldn't stop.

The rest of the afternoon passed by quickly. Laina took Xander and Sam outside to show them around the village. People still kept staring at them, but their gazes were a lot less hostile. Some of them even greeted Laina while they walked by.

There was nothing special that they saw while walking around. Just more of the same houses and more of the similar-looking people. People were doing all kinds of things. Some were making repairs to their houses, some were using a grinding stone to crush the grain from the Taking crops.

Overall, it was a peaceful environment. Everyone knew each other and were friendly with each other. Fights were extremely rare, and most arguments were settled with the village head.

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In a tavern, a meeting was taking place.

The tavern was filled with people, around fifty men sitting around, drinking, and chatting with each other. In a corner of the bar, two men were sitting across from each other.

The smell of cheap beer and bad food was lingering around the building. The tavern was quite loud filled with men who were half drunk. The waiters could be seen going around to each table to make sure that everyone paid for everything that they ate.

The two men neither ate or drank. They just sat across each other and silently watched the other. The two men had little similarities with each other. One of the men was big, he had large muscles and even had a large scar on his shoulder that was peaking out of his shirt. He was quite tall.

The other man was a lot skinner, he didn't have any muscle. His clothes were also a lot different than everyone else in the tavern. He was also shorter than the other man by at least half afoot. He didn't fit in the tavern and it was obvious that he knew it as well. He kept looking around himself as if afraid that someone would mug him or something.

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The skinny man started to speak. He didn't want to delay this any longer as he wanted to get out of here as quickly as he could.

"I assume that you already know what you need to do?" He said. He was trying to not be loud, but it was hard since he had to shout for the other man to hear him.

The bigger man nodded his head.

"And since you are here, I guess that you decided to accept?" He said. He wished that he could have his talk somewhere quieter, but the other man would only agree to meet here.

Again, the man nodded his head. He seemed to be a person that was quite loud but, surprisingly, he was a man of few words. He wouldn't talk unless he had to.

"Well, here's a hundred silver." He said as he reached to his side and pulled out a bag. The clinking of coins could be heard as the man put the bag on the table. The bag looked quite full and heavy. "As you know, you'll get the rest after you finish what you're supposed to do."

He didn't even wait to see if the other man took the bag or not and started to leave. He got up from the chair and walked through the small crowd to leave the building.

The big man watched the other man leave the tavern, and only after he saw him his leave, he reached out to grab the bag. He weighed the bag in his hands, and after a few times of lifting it up and down, he was satisfied. He stood up and started to leave the building with the bag in his hand.

Many people saw him coming towards them, and they moved away, making space for him. In no time at all, he was out of the building.

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Laina, Sam, and Xander all returned back to Laina's house. It was almost sundown and the sky was starting to get dark.

The village started to light a few torches on fire to make sure that there was enough light for the night. Most of the people had already gone inside and started to eat. The day was basically over for them and the only thing left was to eat and then fall asleep.

Laina opened the door to her house and Sam and Xander followed her inside. It was quite dark inside, the windows didn't provide enough light and the fire had gone out a while ago. Laina went to the fireplace and started a new fire. She also started to cook more food for them to have dinner with.

Stratus was also waking and walking about. It ran up to Xander and jumped on him when it noticed that the door was opening. Xander was slightly surprised when he saw a white shape running towards him, but he recovered quickly and pated Stratus.

They waited for the food to cook and when it did, everyone quickly ate and headed to bed. Laina slept on one of the beds and Xander and Sam shared one. The bed was fairly large, so as long as both of them stayed on their side of the bed, they wouldn't have to touch each other.

Laina put a piece of wood on the door so that it would not be opened easily. It didn't look like it could prevent anyone from coming in forcefully but the process would wake everybody in the house and the people around so it did its job.

Soon enough the fire was out and everyone started to sleep. Xander fell asleep soon after he hit the bed. The bed was a lot softer than a tree branch and he didn't have to worry about falling down.

Laina, Sam, and Stratus, on the other hand, couldn't fall asleep. Laina was thinking about everything that happened today and about what could happen in the future. Sam was having a hard time falling asleep as always and stared at the roof of the house. Stratus was sleeping the entire day, so it was definitely not going to sleep any time soon. It paced back and forth in the house. Sometimes it stopped and sniffed one of the barrels.

After some time passed, Sam and Laina were able to fall asleep.

Sam felt something pushing down on his chest which woke him up. It was several hours later and he was able to catch a few hours of sleep. Sam got up into a sitting position on the bed and looked around him trying to figure out what happened.

The house was mostly dark and Sam couldn't see much but he could see the white shape of Stratus sitting near his feet.

When Stratus noticed that Sam was up, it ran over to the door and started to scratch it.

'It probably wants to be let out' Sam thought to himself. Stratus probably tried to wake Xander up, but it most likely didn't work. Nothing could wake that man up in the middle of the night.

Sam stood up from the bed and walked over to the door. He remembered when Laina locked the door with a piece of wood so he was also to take it out without much trouble even if he couldn't see it clearly. He pulled back the door and let Stratus out.

'This is a mistake.' As soon as Stratus was out of the door, Sam started to regret it. He could not keep the door open for Stratus because it would also be open for everyone and he could not close it because then Stratus wouldn't be able to come back in. The only thing that he could do was to follow Stratus around and hope it came back in so that he could go back to sleep.

Sam sighed and started to follow Stratus. It was walking towards the direction they came earlier, towards the fields and the lake. It was very quiet at this hour. There was only the light that was coming off of the moon and the village was completely still.

Stratus sniffed the air a few times as it walked. It stood completely still and raised its nose up high. After a few seconds of holding that position, it moved forwards. Sam wondered what it was doing but didn't really care about it that much. He thought that it was mostly just playing around.

It was only when Sam passed the last few houses of the village and got a clear view of the lake and the fields, that he understood what Stratus was smelling.

There was a fire. On both sides of the fields, near the end. It was nothing major, just a few dozen cubic feet of field burning. There were spaces between the crops that made it easier for people to walk through and they were wide enough that even if a crop fell onto its side it wouldn't reach the other side of the pass. That would keep the fire from spreading.

Sam thought it was somehow naturally made and would burn itself out, but he was wrong. If it was natural, two completely different parts of the field that were separated by a large lake would not catch fire at the same time.