BT - Book 1 - Chapter 77

“I think they’re coming along nicely Micah,” Trevor was slumped slightly in his seat, the sounds of a rough night at the Jolly Porker filling the air around them.

Micah just glanced at his brother, taking note of the slight flush on the man’s cheeks.  Apparently he’d snuck a drink of juusht while Micah had been using the bathroom.

“Thath Sarah girl is still a bit prickly,” Trevor slurred.  Maybe it was more than just a drink.  “But I’m beginning to think she’s jush like that.”

“I’m literally right here you oaf,” Sarah glared at Trevor, an almost untouched glass of wine on the table before her.  “The least you could do is wait until I’m not actually here to try and gossip about me behind my back.”

Drekkt returned to their table, weaving past a handful of dancers with two mugs of ale in his massive hands.  Grinning broadly he set one down in front of Trevor before taking his own seat.

“I think he’s done,” Micah shook his head before taking a sip of his own water.  Technically he could have ordered a mulled wine, but he didn’t really see the point in drinking wine without a noticeable alcohol content.  It just left his mouth tasting sour the next morning.

“Nooooooooo,” Trevor grabbed for the mug even as Drekkt whisked it away, a look of concern on his face.  “I just want to have a sip baby.”

Drekkt made a face at Trevor as Micah’s brother reached shakily for the drink.

“I think your brother has a point Trevor,” the big man rumbled, “you’re beginning to look ‘throwing up in your shoes when we get home’ drunk to me and the gods know that I’m always the one stuck cleaning it up.”

“Oh?” Micah perked up, a half smile on his face.  “I didn’t know that the two of you were living together.  Last I heard Trevor was still staying at Mom’s and Dad’s?”

“Nooo,” Trevor smiled, the flush of alcohol warming his cheeks.  “We’re rooomates.  Mom likes Drekkt.  Toldsh him to help me find a girlfriend.”

Sarah snickered, while Micah did his best to keep a straight face.  Drekkt on the other hand just offered up a pinched smile.

“I’m sorry that you can’t be more open about this,” Micah offered, slapping one of Drekkt’s massive biceps.  “We’ll find a way for Trevor not to be your superior on paper soon so we can put all of this behind us.”

“Wait,” Sarah covered her mouth with a hand, a rare smile on her face.  “Trevor is our superior?  Your drunk older brother?”

“He was the first of us to join the Lancers and he’s managed to accrue some acclaim with them, yes,” Drekkt responded uncomfortably.  “As for the secrecy?  It’s hardly anything new.  Mostly, I’m just worried about Trevor getting into one of his states again.  He looks like he’s two drinks away from making a mess.”

Micah leaned over, casting refresh on his giggling brother.  Almost immediately, he doubled over clutching his head and groaning.

“Serves you right for sneaking an extra drink,” Micah shook his head, standing up.  “I’ll get you a water.  Once you hydrate a little bit the headache will go away.  Probably.”

He wove his way through the crowd of people, the noise and clamor of the bar closing in around him. In the corner, a woman strummed a lute and sang about her lost love while a man beside her followed along on a kettle drum.

One or both of them clearly had a blessing.  The swelling music instantly improved Micah’s mood and filled him with energy, his earlier dour thoughts forgotten.  Men and women danced with abandon together in front of the musicians swaying to the hammering of the drum.

A short stop at the bar later, Micah tipped the bartender, an overweight man, disgruntled that he was only picking up two waters rather than something more substantial.  Working his way back to the table, Jo burst out of the crowd next to him, her eyes bright and her chest heaving from her time on the dance floor.

“Micah!” She called cheerily, grabbing a mug from him and snaking her arm through his.  “This place is absolutely great!  I can see why the three of you come here after missions.  Between the music, the drinks and the food it's the perfect place to unwind.”

“We uh,” Micah blushed, taken aback at her sudden appearance and attention.  Intellectually, he know that he was being dumb.  He’d faced down monsters from beyond reality as well as entire armies without blinking, and here he was reacting like a schoolboy to the simplest of physical contact.

Still, even if his mind was advanced, his hormones were those of a teenager.  Even with all of his knowledge, Micah found himself growing distracted at the curve of a hip or the smile of a pretty girl.  It was silly and it was a weakness, but it was part of the body he was trapped in.

“Don’t tell me that the three of you would just show up here and drink morosely in the corner?” She chided, a half smile on her face.  Winking at him, she took a drink from the mug she was holding only to frown slightly.

“Water, Micah?” She clicked her tongue, barely audible over the din of the tavern.  “There aren’t any monsters in Basil’s Cove.  You can cut loose a little.”

“I guess we do just kinda sit in the corner,” Micah recovered slightly, reluctantly extricating himself from Jo as he pulled out his chair and put the mug he was carrying in front of Trevor.  “It’s mostly a nice place to go and relax after a tough day in a dungeon.”

“As for the water,” Micah smirked as he cocked his head at Trevor, “some of us had a little too much to drink.  Plus, as I’m sure you’re aware, we have enough secrets that being drunk and talkative isn’t a great idea.”

“But that’s no fun,” Jo flounced into her seat next to Sarah, ignoring her sister’s judgmental look.  “If you come to a place like this you need to keep your ear to the ground.  We might hear rumors about new monsters or missions.”

“For example,” Jo snagged Sarah’s glass of wine, taking a sip before she leaned in conspiratorially.  “Did you know that Baron Hurden is raising the bounty on the men who’ve killed his son?”

Trevor snorted, spraying the water from his mug across the table much to everyone else’s chagrin.  Quickly, he grabbed a napkin and began to dab the wooden counter down.

“Are you sure?” Micah asked, his eyes narrowing.  “I thought there weren’t any leads on the killing and that the Baron had given up on it.?”

“Nah,” Jo took another sip of the wine, utterly unaffected by Sarah’s glare.  “Kylie, that’s the lady with the lute, hears a lot of things.  Apparently the Baron never gave up on getting justice for his son, but for a while there he was pursuing it with his own experts.  Apparently he got some fancy ritualist to come out from the capital.”

Micah’s mind raced, his eyes meeting Trevor’s bloodshot gaze.  A ritualist wasn’t good.  Depending upon the caster’s skill, so long as they found the right dungeon they would be able to find any number of hints as to their identity.  Trevor began to open his mouth only for Micah to kick him under the table.

“Apparently the Baron was able to find his son’s diary and figure out which dungeon he’d been raiding,” Jo snorted.  “He was hitting dungeons at night without a reservation, but because he was nobility, I guess he just assumed that nothing would happen.  Served him right I say.”

“Jo,” Sarah hissed, her eyes flashing around the crowded tavern.  “Don’t mouth off to nobility.  Usually they don’t care, but Baron Hurden has been really touchy about this.  I’m not exactly keen for you to get hauled off as some sort of dissident or a potential witness.”

“I’ve been stuck out in the woods,” Micah tried to keep his voice calm.  “What’s happened in the last couple of weeks with the Hurden investigation?”

“Well,” Jo stuck her tongue out at Sarah.  “The Baron identified the dungeon he’d been in, some sort of undead themed crypt or something.  He didn’t even reserve it, just took over the entire place for a week and filled it with his household guard and researchers.”

“The Lancers weren’t thrilled about that,” Drekkt nodded slowly.  “Many of the midlevel teams would run the Crypt of Rot at least once a week.  It really threw their routines out of sync.”

“I know,” Jo flopped back into her chair.  “The Baron didn’t even offer to buy out anyone’s reservation.  He just kicked everyone out.  Apparently they found something though.”

“The Baron has been openly recruiting subjugation teams for the last week,” Jo shrugged.  “They haven’t disclosed any information about who or what they’re subjugating, but most of the blessed that aren’t under contract with a guild have signed on with him for the time being.  He’s paying good attunement from what I’ve heard.”

“So can we sign up with the Baron?”  Sarah asked thoughtfully.  “I know we’re under contract with the Lancers but so long as we pay them back, I don’t think they’ll mind so long as our team leader is okay with it.”

“Pffff,” Jo pursed her lips and blew a raspberry at her sister.  “Rumor is that they found traces of daemons in the dungeon.  Whoever they’re going after has enough levels to kill the Baron’s son and to summon daemons.  Even if we wanted to, I don’t think the Baron is going to want to hire a bunch of beginners like us.”

“Plus,” Jo pushed her chair back further, crossing her ankles and forcing Micah to dodge slightly as she crossed them on the table.  “Why would we want to?  The Baron’s an asshole.  I’m not touching a contract from him without three blessed scribes going over its terms and loopholes.  He’ll find some sort of way to screw those people over, just you watch.”

“Stop saying things that will get you challenged to duels,” Sarah hissed, slapping her sister’s feet off of the table.  “I don’t mind you being a little uncouth, but everything has its place and its limit.”

“Tell me about the daemon,” the words sounded strangled to Micah even as they left his lips.  He did his best to ignore Drekkt squinting at him, but he didn’t particularly mind if the big man knew.

Unlike the girls, who had only been with the team through one fairly straightforward dungeon, Drekkt was inextricably linked with them at this point.  From his training to his enchanted equipment to his rapid levels from frequent dungeon runs with the Luoca, almost everything he had was from working with the party.

His experience and honor would prevent him from ratting them out to the Baron even if he knew for sure that Trevor and Micah were involved in the killing, even if he and Trevor weren’t an item.  As is, if Trevor were taken in for questioning, in all likelihood Drekkt would be standing in the cell next to him as a material witness.

Sarah, in Micah experience, would sell out anyone but Jo for a cracked glass bead.  The woman wasn’t a monster, but she only valued her family.  If she connected the dots, Sarah would turn them in to the Baron for extra resources in a second.

Once she learned that Micah, between enchantments and leveling assistance, had more to offer than whatever attunement the Baron would provide an informant she would become more trustworthy, but at least for the moment the woman was clearly looking for an excuse to sell them out.

“I don’t know about the daemon,” Jo scratched the back of her neck uncomfortably.  “It’s just a rumor at this point, but everyone knows that the Baron must be close.  He wouldn’t be gathering that many blessed otherwise.”

For a second, they all sat in silence, the music and shouting of the full tavern washing over them.  Micah took another sip of water, thinking over the situation.

“Hey Micah,” he turned to look at Trevor as his brother spoke to him, an unusually troubled expression on his face.  “I’m not feeling super well, would you mind walking me home.”

Micah looked at Drekkt, noting that the huge man shared Micah and Trevor’s concerned looks.

He just nodded to Trevor, pushing back his chair and standing up to leave.