For the next day and a half, V limited himself to resting at the inn, and a few walks around town. Not only did he want to give his arm proper time to heal, he figured it would be a bad idea to get involved in anything major before L recovered. He had checked in with the church this morning to inquire about L's condition. Supposedly she had woken up a few minutes prior to his arrival, and was being examined by the head priest. According to the women he spoke with, the governor had spoken with the church about the celebration that was being held a bit later in the day, and that she believed L would probably be able to attend, but only for a short time. She would not let V talk with her however, as she did not want to interrupt the head priest. Not wanting to push the issue, and not in a great hurry, V left the church to prepare for the celebration being held later today. 

As V meandered toward the town bazaar, he flexed his hand, testing his arm. The pain was mostly gone, but he could feel that it still was not fully healed, it just did not feel quite right. He was not entirely sure how exactly the church had accelerated the healing of his broken bones, other than "obviously magic." It was nonetheless impressive, in his world a wound like this would have taken at-least a month or two to heal. Given that it had only been around two days since he was treated, it was rather impressive. V figured he could probably do simple tasks with his arm at this point, but would rather play it safe, so he kept it as immobile as he could for the time being.

The celebration that the governor had invited him to was not to start for another few hours, after the majority of the work day was over. However, the bazaar was already approaching a riotous level of noise. Examining the situation, it seemed as if they were constructing a small stage, a bunch of decorations, and a strange booth of some sort, it looked to V to be a cross between a food cart and one of those library trucks that sells books to kids. He vaguely remembered a friend of his using one of those in some scam he was running... Even though he had only been here a few days, his old life seemed so far away, like a distant memory. He wondered if that was because his old life, was in fact, impossibly far away in every sense of the word, or because of some trick of the Gods, don’t want your game pieces to be bemoaning their past lives all day after all. He watched the preparations in the bazaar in quiet contemplation.

After a few more hours, the bazaar had been transformed from a small-town market, to a small-town celebration. Various shopkeepers, mostly food and drink related, had set themselves up, some using their own stalls, others using impromptu stands or carts. People had started to filter in, filling the place with noise and cheer. That strange booth they had installed was as of yet unused. V wandered the place, looking at the various foods and listing to the gossip. He was only here because he had to be. He would rather not be at a celebration where he was part of the main focus, but he figured it would have been an even bigger problem if he did not show up, and the governor had to coerce him to come, V doubted he would have been allowed to dodge this event. After a small period of aimless wandering, he spotted a small crowd of people who had congregated toward one of the streets leading into the bazaar. After a few moments of investigating, V realized that the guard, who he had yet to learn the name of, had arrived. his face from the nose down was still fully wrapped, but it looked less for medical reasons, more for atheistic. V was thankful that, for a short time, he was able to avoid this sort of attention. As he understood it, no one knew exactly what he looked like, being mostly referred to as "the out of towner." V was sure the guard would not want all this attention, but there was little to be done about it.

Milling about the crowd, V listened in to their words, he was curious what the word around town was concerning him, L, and the guard. A group of already drunk men were arguing, "I heard his face was torn off! Right off his own head!" With a blank look, his companion responded "Are you stupid? He has a face. Look, right there!" the drunk man pointed toward the guard as his fellow responded, "Well...sure, but the church might have been able to put it back on..." A little further away, a group of young ladies were whispering rather loudly, as it was too noisy to hear a proper whisper. "You know, I used to buy bread from his wife. Did you hear what happened to her? No wonder he went after the giant woman...."  one of her friends responded, "Actually I was going to ask you if he was single!" Looking scandalized, a third responded "Oh how awful! why would you want to know that? You heard what happened to him right? They say the bottom of his face is gone!" The women who asked about his marital status waved dismissively "Oh who cares about his face? He is going to be famous! He might even be next in line to be head of the guard! I hear that you make loads of money in that position..." V shook his head, he extremely doubted the man had even the vaguest interest in romance.

While he listening to idle gossip, a man in a well pressed outfit tapped V on the shoulder "Sir, your presence is requested behind the stage, as is your companions. Although, it looks like I will need to escort him, he appears rather beleaguered at the moment..." The man looked at the crowd as he spoke "The governor will greet you there, he intends to award the three of you sooner rather than later, before everyone is too drunk to remember anything." the man smiled to himself at some memory or hidden joke. V nodded "Yes I suppose you should help him, thank you for the message." V sighed; he had hoped his anonymity in the small town would have been longer lived. He started toward the back of the hastily built stage. The town guardsmen who stood watch let him pass unquestioned. Behind them he saw a small party of people, the governor, someone who appeared to be an aid of some sort, a guardsman, and a few other people dressed slightly fancier than the average citizen, to V's eyes, they looked like people who were not important, but thought they were. He had seen enough of those in his past life, but he supposed they are on every world. Slightly offset of the group, stood L. She looked worse for wear. Even with the churches tending, she seemed to be recovering slowly. She could barely stand, and was very obviously in pain.

V walked over and nodded to her "Glad to see you're standing up. I trust the Captain of the guard informed you of the... aftermath?" V wanted to make sure L was on board with the "official" story of O's death, but was unsure if the Governor knew the truth, so he kept his question vague in case he was overheard. L nodded slowly her voice was weak and low "Yes I heard the...story." L did not elaborate, but V figured that meant she was going along with it. She was not one to hide her objections, should she have them. She looked at V with an expression alternating between pain and a cold detachment. "Nothing new there", V thought to himself, nice to know her disposition has not changed, he wondered if she checked her status since she woke up, although, he assumed someone would have pointed out the change to her. "I know now is not the time, but we need to discuss the... situation... as soon as we have a moment." With little emotion she responded "Yes, we can speak once we return to the room." She seemed to desire no further conversation. Not wanting to "prod the bear" so to speak, V turned to speak with the Governor. V's attention however, was caught by the guardsman who had arrived, and was walking over to him. V nodded to him, "It’s nice to see you up and about, I don’t see your writing tools, are you able to speak?" The guard hesitated for a few moments before speaking, his was awkward, stilted, and hard to understand. "Yea, I can talk. It is not easy. Most of my jaw is mangled. The priest fixed enough to speak. And eat. With difficulty." V raised his eyebrows, "That is kind of impressive." even in his old world, missing a lower jaw was difficult condition to deal with. The guard shrugged, "Maybe. I do not know what I will do now. I will keep my wife's memory alive. But beyond that. I don’t know."

V's response was cut short by the Governor coming over, "Hahah! Nice to see all of you are up and about!" he looked at L for a moment, "Are you alright? I thought for sure you would be doing better than this, given the church was dedicated to getting you back on your feet. If there is anything you need, let me know!" an awkward pause hung in the air for a moment before he continued, "I hope the three of you are ready! In few minutes the whole town will know of your heroic deed, and if that does nothing for you, maybe the money will!" The man laughed, unphased by the grim and pained attitudes of the trio. V was curious if the man was either oblivious, or if he just did not care. Regardless, V and the others followed the Governor onto the stage, along with a few of the other people who had been milling about. As they stood on the hastily built stage, V noticed that the strange booth now had a few of the town guard protecting it, yet still had no apparent use or meaning. A small booming noise issued forth from the stage, V assumed it was some form of magic, as he did not see a mechanical cause. The noise quickly gathered the attentions of most of the citizens in the area, enough to satisfy the governor anyway. "Greeting’s citizens! I trust you are all enjoying yourselves, although I hope not as much as you did during last year’s harvest festival!" scattered laughs and a few wry looks traveled through the crowd. "I’m sure by now, all of you have heard why we held this impromptu celebration. For a little over a week, our town had been plagued by a curse! At first, we thought she was merely a lone bandit, troublesome, but nothing the town has not seen before! Little did we know, she was sent by the heavens themselves to plague us!"

V thought on the governor's words, O had not been hiding her status, it made sense that the town knew of her Divine Class, but he was curious if they knew which God she belonged to. Perhaps a more important question than that; Was every god accepted in this world? The women at the church said certain mercenaries followed the God of Slaughter, but V wondered if they were seen as pariahs? Or just as a follower of a different God. It would also be smart to figure out if the religions dedicated to specific Gods had rivalries or other affiliations. For all he knew, The Mother Goddess was despised by every other organized church on the planet.

Continuing his speech, the governor pulled out a list of names and read them off one at a time. "These are the names of the citizens of our fair town who fell to the madwomen. Let us have a moment of silence for them, and for any travelers she might have killed while prowling the outskirts of our town." All but the most intoxicated of the crowd bowed their heads for a few moments before the governor continued, "However! Just as the Gods cursed us, they also sent us a blessing! Our patron, The God of Honor, sent his very own champion. In our time of need she arrived!" The governor gasped L's hand and lifted it up, L's eyes fluttered with pain as the man continued, "Known only as L, she arrived in our towns darkest hour! Even so, the foe was too great for her to conquer alone. With her, five champions stood! Unfortunately, three were struck down by the lunatic, we thank them for their sacrifice. But now is not a time to mourn, but to celebrate those who survived. One of our very own guardsmen! Amara!" Finally learning the man's name, V wondered if there was any sort of naming convention in this world, in his own, names often had hints as to where someone originated. "And a traveler who arrived only a few days ago, and immediately set himself against the murderer!"  V figured it must be common for travelers to hide their names, he had not been asked once this whole time, or perhaps this town was so isolated, they really liked the idea of a "man with no name" rolling into town to save the day. The governor raised both V and Amara's arms up for a moment. The crowd clapped and cheered. Someone extremely drunk was shouting something unintelligible. After the noise died down, the governor continued. "As the leader of our community, I could not let their heroic deeds go unrewarded. First, to each of them, ten gold pieces!" One of the other men who had come up onto the stage, handed each of them a small bag, with what V assumed was the town or governors crest embroidered on the front. "Secondly! To our brave Amara, I have commissioned a statue of his wife, to be raised over her grave-site out of marble, so that her beauty, and the tragedy of her death, will forever be honored by our town! To the Champion of Honor, I offer this sword. It was given to me by my father, but it will do more good in her hands then it ever would in mine." A man brought a sword wrapped in cloth to L. She took it and offered a strained word of thanks. "And for the traveler! The best reward I could think of for a wondering stranger, I have arranged for his room and board to always be provided for by the Lanced Luskit! He will always have a place to lay his head in our town!"

V smiled to himself, the innkeeper had basically already had given him a free room as long as he was with L. The Governor was shrewd, if nothing else. After the Governor shook hands with the three of them, he spoke of the fallen and how he intended to honor them or their families. After a few more words of thanks and congratulations the Governor concluded "One final announcement before you get back to the festivities, we have acquired the services of a novice enchanter! For the next hour, he will be enchanting household items with minor convivence magic, free of cost!" V was not entirely sure what this meant, but based on the people’s reactions, this was quite a hit. It also explained the booth, as people immediately started heading over toward it. V also noticed that a few merchants had set up with generic household items for sale, clearly having been forewarned of this event. The Governor thanked L, V, and Amara one more time before allowing them to leave. As they went back behind the stage, L all but collapsed into a bench, no longer able to hold both her and the swords weight. If she was still this bad, she must have been basically dead when she was taken to the church. His arm had almost fully healed in two days, and she could hardly even stand up.