The sun of the new day after the ball held for the heroes had risen and the castle was already in turmoil. Apparently they weren’t all to happy with what had happened the last night, multiple who were caught sneaking around and stealing shit and a prison break including some dead bodies. No rumor of a Oni sneaking around though. Erin somehow managed to stay undetected. A hero specialized in sneaking was caught roaming around, but a two meter tall Oni in a red dress wasn’t. Other than that nothing noteworthy happened.

The commotion was to be expected. That’s what it entails to house some heroes, who didn’t want to be here. The only bad thing for me, was that I wasn’t allowed to sleep in. Right at dawn maids with some guards entered my room and searched through it to verify that I wasn’t a culprit and hadn’t stolen anything, except for the pieces of dishware I took at the ball.

If I can’t sleep in, because of others, I might as well wake them up. Namely Erin, who simply ditched me the moment she could and let me cover for her. She was one of the few, who could sleep in. From what I heard from the maids her room reeked from alcohol and nobody was brave enough to deal with a potential grumpy Oni due to hangover. What they didn’t know was that Erin definitely wasn’t drunk enough for a serious hangover, you at least need dwarven alcohol for that. Erin simply was crafty enough to cover her room in the stench of alcohol knowing full well that others would be scared of her and wouldn’t dare to disturb her, letting her sleep in. Not with me though!

I kicked the door to her room, opening it with a loud bang. Before I could even shout a good morning I had to evade a set of knives flying at me. With a loud crunch they buried themselves blade deep in the hallways wall.

“Rise and shine, my benevolent sun!!!”

Erin was wide awake. Standing on the other side of her bed, ready to jump and strike me with her sharp fingernails. The moment I had kicked to door in, she had rolled from the bed in one single fluid movement and thrown the knives, she got from the ball at me. All that while still waking up. She was now awake and glaring at me with murderous intend, her gray eyes sparkling and her teeth bared. It was definitely worth it to conceal my presence and sneak up on the door, but any more provocation and she would try to kill me for real before even being fully awake.

I opted for standing in the door frame and waiting until she was completely awake. After a moment Erin was awake and she relaxed, having come to the realization she wasn’t in danger and I was just messing with her. That didn’t stop her from glaring at me. Her glaring at me with her black messy hair, dressed in her bloody nightgown in the dimly lit room made her a terrifying sight. A curios maid that sneaked a peek recoiled with a shriek and hurried away. Erin glared at me gave me the middle finger and left for the bath to take care of herself without saying a word.

Half an our later she came back looking all fresh. She was no wearing her usual red kimono and her hair was freshly washed, her teeth hidden away and the stench of alcohol replaced with her usual pleasant smell. During the time she was in the bath I had opened the window to let the smell of alcohol out and had sat down on to one of the chairs in her room. Maids had come and searched her room for anything stolen and had simultaneously cleaned up. To nobodies surprise they didn’t find anything, besides some bottles of alcohol rolled beneath the bed. Before they left the room I asked them, if they could bring a breakfast for the two of us. Erin sat down on another chair opposite to me. She didn’t glare at me anymore.

While waiting for the maids to appear with our breakfast, Erin whipped out a deck of cards from her sleeve. So we played a few rounds of cards. The cards brought back some old memories, manly the beautiful and unique artworks on them. Each card instead of symbols and numbers is ornated with an artistic rendition of a person, each card being unique. I too once possessed such a deck, but had lost mine ages ago. If I remember correctly I was the one to give Erin this deck as a reward for helping, way back in the old times. The good old times, where the only worry was breakfast and lunch.

Speaking of breakfast the maids finally came back bringing our meal. We interrupted our game, which I was winning and Erin put them back in her sleeve. The meal was a lavish hangover meal and looked divine. For some reason the maids were really grateful towards me and stole some nervous glances towards Erin. They quickly left after serving us and left a bell, we could ring, when we were finished, so that they would come and clean up. We ate in silence, the food was simply to good to even think of having a conversation whilst enjoying the meal.

After we finished the meal I rang the bell to inform the maids that they could clean up. Before I could even start to speak Erin lifted her hand, having guessed my intention. Slowly magic flowed into her lifted hand and she began to construct a sigil. It took her some minutes, before she finished it. Then she lowered the finished sigil onto the table before activating it. With the activation a small sphere expanded engulfing us both. A sound blocking spell so nobody can listen in onto our conversation. Erin looked a bit exhausted, but happy, spheres and sound magic wasn’t in her repertoire. She had all right to be happy to manage to cast such a spell.

“So how much of this commotion is your doing?”

“I am innocent. In only stole things that wouldn’t be missed.”

“And what exactly wouldn’t they miss? Nobles are pretty thorough when it comes to their belongings. They double and triple check, if even the most useless and worthless things they own are still there. So tell me why wouldn’t they notice?”

“I took a dusty book with me, from a shelf you can’t look into from the ground. TH only other thing I took was some alcohol, from a chamber. Nothing more. “

“Well your right that won’t be missed…. probably….hopefully. Something else you did?”

“Visited the castles dungeon. I had to flame disinfect one overgrown vermin. Other than that I questioned the two Unicorns, before letting them roam around.”

“These are Oni, Erin! You should fix your attitude towards other Oni. Yes, they are smaller than you and have smaller horns and teeth, but they are still Oni. I know where you are coming from. Still treat them better and besides your the odd one out here.”

“I know. I just can’t take them seriously. They look like children to me.”

“To you.”

“Yes, but your right I should treat them accordingly.”

“Not according to your perception, but to what they are.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, but yes I will treat them more respectful. On another note, what is going to happen now?”

“I don’t really know myself, sometime in the future we will be fighting against the Demons as we decided. However until then its waiting I guess all those countries and nobles have to come to some form of agreement or another, for something to happen. So until then we are probably stuck here.”

“They won’t let us go until they need us after all we have done, in one night?”

“Yes housing a group of heroes is on of the biggest flexes a noble can muster and it will take some time until our actions outweigh the prestige they rack from housing us.”

“Nobles are weird.”

“Believe me, when I say that this is an understatement.”

I stopped myself before I could talk myself in rage about all the weird things I experienced with nobles. Neither did I want to think about it, annoy Erin with it or needlessly rage about past events. Not interested in staying her the entire day we decided to search for someone, who hopefully knew, what is planned for now. The moment I stood up the sphere shattered and Erins spell dispersed.

After some searching around we were led to a higher ranking butler, who assured us that we would get further information, this evening and that we could stay in the castle until otherwise decided. With that in mind I asked for a certificate that would allow me and Erin to work as highest ranked mercenaries in the local guild. Something to keep us entertained during our sty here. To my surprise the butler had a high enough authority to give us such a certificate. He gave it to us with one condition, which he also wrote down, we weren’t allowed to take any long term contracts. Considering the current situation, a reasonable demand, which I had no plan on defying.

The sealed certificate in hand, we left the castle and went out for a walk to the mercenary guilds building. I had already been there so finding it wasn’t to great of a challenge. We went there using the streets like every other normal being. We were in no rush and used this time to visit the many merchant that were presenting their wares at the streets. We were offered a lot of cheap jewelry and dubious potions, promised to heal any kinds of aliments. The merchants weren’t afraid of Erin and only saw her as another potential customer to exploit. The greed of merchant truly transcends all boundaries. All their efforts were in vain though, they didn’t have anything of interest for us.

On our way to the mercenaries guild Erin remembered that she wanted to visit a weapon smith. So we did. Finding a smith wasn’t as easy as it sounded and in the end we had to ask some locals to tell us the way. So we found our way to the artisan district. It was much less crowded than the main streets, but still busy filled with citizen going about their daily business. We found multiple workshops of smiths, some immediately disqualified themselves because it was clear that they didn’t forge weapons.

In the end Erin decided to go to the smith, who also worked with monster parts such as bones, horns and scales. He seemed to be a pretty good one too, has we weren’t the only ones, who came to visit him. The other visitors, where adventurers and mercenaries, some commissioning weapons other picking their order up. The weapons displayed in the shop made me confident that Erin would get a good result for her commission. My only worry was that it would take to long, because of this workshops popularity. I feared that they had so much orders that Erins order would take to long to be started and we would be already on our way in the Demons lands, even though there were multiple persons working at this shop. After a few minutes of waiting, the smith came to us, after taking care of his previous customers.

“How may I help you?”

“I would like to commission two custom made daggers of these horns.”

Erin said with her usual clam and deadbeat voice. Then she pulled out two horns out of her sleeve. Two small mostly straight, beige horns. Oni horns, where did she get these two from. They are definitely not from the two Oni she interrogated. Those two horns were much bigger, around as long as hers and both had the same length. Where ever she got them from, to her they were nothing more than a tool to be used. The smith took one of the horns and inspected it for a few minutes turning it in his hand looking at every angle of it.

“Sure we can make daggers out of them. You said you wanted them to be custom made, depending on what you want for these horns, the time and prize may differ great.”

“I what them to be finished quickly”

“That's a money question. What’s more interesting is, what you mean with custom made. If its something simple, we can greatly reduce the time we need, if you allow our apprentice to work with it. Well as long as the horns allow for that. I haven’t seen or worked with this kind of horn in my entire career.”

“I’ll let your apprentice work with them. Its a simple design and I don’t have much time.”

“If you say so. The price varies depending on the task and the materials involved. It will be at least some silvers. You have to pay half before hand. It will take at least 2 days more realistically five.”

“That should work”

“Glad we could settle that, without a problem. Let me call my apprentice before we discuss any further details. Astoria come here!”

The smiths loud voice rings through the shop. After some time a young voice answers and a young woman emerges from the back of the workshop. She was wearing typical smiths clothing, her muscular arms and her beautiful face was drenched in sweat from standing at the hot forge all day. Her beautiful blond hair was combed around her two bovine horns, so it wouldn’t be in her way when she worked. Erin sneakily stepped on my foot, to inform me that I was starring to much. I quickly averted my gaze form the beautiful apprentice and dedicated my attention to the weapons displayed in the shop. Beautiful weapons! I don’t remember how even one of them looks, but I remember clearly how the apprentice looked.

“Astoria this customer wants this two horns made into custom daggers. You can try to do it if you feel you are up to it.”

“Yes master. I will try”

“Good so what do you want to be done with the horns. Tell us your vision for them. Also tell us everything you know about these horns so we know what we will be working with. Tell us everything you know about them, there is no useless knowledge.”

“I simply want a metal handle to be added to the horns, with a ring at the end. The horns don’t have to be sharpened or changed in any way. You just need to stick a handle to them with a ring on the other end. As for the horns they are pretty durable and capable of conduction magic, although rarely used for this purpose. They don’t have any special property and aren’t used as a weapon.”

“Well that sound like an easy job. But let me repeat you don’t want the horns to be changed in any way. You just want a handle with a ring added?”

“Yes.”

“Any preferences for the metal used or should we go with the standard?”

“The most durable you have.”

“If you have no further request I would calculate the price.”

“No further request.”

“The price will be three medium and two small silver. Pay two upfront and the rest after the job ius done.”

Erin paid the two silver without batting an eye. Not long ago she didn’t even have a copper to her name and now two silver wasn’t much to her. In exchange for the two silver the smith handed her a small piece of wood with a number on it.

“When you come again in five days give me this piece and I will give you your daggers.”

With that said we exchanged goodbyes and parted ways. The smith went to another customer. Astoria disappeared into the back of the workshop and we left the shop, entering the streets. The day was still young enough so our plan to go to the mercenaries guild stayed unchanged. While walking we locked around for a foot stall, to get some snacks.

“So how were the swords displayed in the workshop?”

“They had swords?”

“The next time at least try to hide when you find someone hot. You were practically drooling over her.”

“Is there somebody jealous? Hm!”

“No. Stealing a look at somebody, who is hot is nothing bad, but you shouldn’t do it like a creepy old man. Besides my muscles are hotter.”

“Fair point. … Another question where did you get those two Oni horns from?”

“They were mine.”

“What!? How!? You horns are still there!”

“If you try hard enough with regeneration magic, you can regrow horns. Still hurts a lot.”

“And how did you loos them in the first place?”

“I foolishly engaged a giant, thinking I could defeat them only using my fists. Thy broke of when I got a hit in the face.”

“You’re an idiot!”

“I still won though.”