Daily life and lethal danger
It had been three months since our little skirmish with the posse of thugs, after our beat down on them they had stopped harassing [the resting road] (the inn at which Tom was apprenticing at), about 2 weeks after the incident they all showed up at the church door; not to demand compensation or anything like that mind you but for the free healing drive that the church launches every 3 months for a day.
Poking and prodding with the help of the younglings us 3 learned that they had no idea who beat them and why, there best guess was an Dwarven adventure group, ’well considering our height and me beating 4 of them in less than 3 seconds it makes sense.’ While most of their injuries had been healed the guy that lost his eye missed the best time frame to get tit healed and hence was now blind in that one.
While Henry expressed guilt for beating them up so bad, I had a different opinion probably due to the influence of dragon-blood or may be due to my past life ‘strength isn’t everything but it is very important, them harassing the inn just show they are weak of character and them being unable to defend themselves shows they are weak in martial prowess as well’, while Tom just said they got their comeuppance, knowing Tom it is probably true.
Waking up earlier than usual today, I went to the kitchen after finishing my morning routine, were I saw Tom had already started preparing the breakfast, through the window I could see Henry chopping firewood.
Feeling thirsty I went to the water drum next to the pantry and directly poured water into my mouth through the ladle “Al, use a glass won’t you?” “But I don’t wanna increase your work, besides I’m not touching the ladle with my mouth anyway.” Hearing my reply Tom just sighed and shook his head and carried on with chopping up onions.
Feeling refreshed I went and cleaned the statue of the gods with a cleaning miracle and went back to wake up the other kids, waking up the kids is a pain in the ass, cause these little brats would sleep again and again and again after waking them up and I had to wake each of them up at least 3 times.
After setting up the plates and having breakfast (omelettes with some toasted rye bread and milk), Tom and I went to the yard where Joel was playing with the smaller kids in the sandbox, looking around for Harold we happen to see Henry and Jill playing with dolls together ‘they gotten a lot closer, huh.’ Not finding Harold, Tom and I decided to spend the rest of the morning underneath the shade of the trees in the yard.
“I am going to miss you Al.”(Tom)
“What’s up with you, talking like that all of a sudden?”
“You know that I am gonna leave next month right, and I know that it isn’t like we won’t see each other again but I’ll miss seeing all of you guys every day, specially you and Henry.”(Tom)
“Look at you getting all sappy; but I’ll miss you too Tom” (Alfred)
With that little conversation, both of us just sat there in the gentle breeze as smell of grass and the chirping of birds took us to a gentle slumber.
*ring**ring*
Waking up to the chime of the bells, me and Tom walked to wards the common hall where we had our lesson along with Henry but during the lesson all I could think of was, ‘it’s been a little over half year since I awoke the memories of my past life; I’m 13 now only 2 more years till I leave the orphanage, and considering that Henry is about 6 months older than me only 18 months till I’m the only one of us three left’. Perhaps sensing my dark mood after the lesson Lynn jumped up on my lap and rubbed her head gently on me as if saying ‘I’m here for you’ feeling a bit better I couldn’t help but mutter “Thanks, Lynn.”
After that little pep up from Lynn I went to the adventure’s guild to earn some more money for my current goal, hiring a magician to teach me magic. Along the way I noticed little, whispers and laughs behind me, turning around I saw Lynn following me and the surrounding people looking and smiling at the sight of a boy being followed by his cat.
“Lynn!” feeling a bit embarrassed I lifted Lynn and started running towards the adventure’s guild. The adventures guild was the same as always save be the sight of some of the older dudes looking at me and Lynn and smiling, with doting eyes and muttering gibberish like “too precious”, “must protect” that kind of nonsense.
Reaching the board titled [f rank requests] I happen to see a request with a reward that is kind of unusual, curious about it walked to the counter and placed the request along with a couple others.
Instead of the usual receptionist; this time it was a young girl about 15 or so with the usual guy looking at her from the back.
“Would you like to take these requests?”(Girl)
“In a min but 1st I would like to ask about why the remuneration for this one is much more than the other ones” saying that I showed her the request where the reward was listed as about 15 times the normal amount.
“Ah, that is because 2 things, one being that the recommended amount of people is about 4 times the normal and the other being an inconvenience fee; since it’s the request to clean the sewers it’s gonna I meant it is going to smell very bad especially considering that it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time.”(Girl)
“That so” thinking about it I decided “I’ll take it, oh and these too” gesturing to the other request that were on the counter.
“Yes, please give me your guild card” (girl)
Handing the women my guild card she completed the formalities and handed me back my card, as I was about to leave the girl asked me “excuse me, but could I pet your cat.” Looking at Lynn who was now hissing at her I replied “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
Seemingly understanding the girl made a sad face and resumed her work, prompting her superior (from what I could put together) to sigh and write on the clip board in his hand.
Starting with the smaller request which were cleaning a store room, drawing 50 buckets of water from a well and finally chopping down firewood for an old man; I finished all the requests except for the last one.
Seeing that there was still about 5 hours till sunset I walked along to the sewer entrance that was near the northern gate.
Showing the guards the request they gave me the key to the sewer gates, taking the key I walked about 10 min to a metal door on a building just adjacent to the city wall. The metal door was kind of dilapidated and rusty with it almost coming off its hinges when I opened it.
Not wanting Lynn to get filthy I told her to stay near the door and not go in, as for me the cloths I was wearing were already pretty worn and I was completely fine destroying them, by wearing them in the swears.
Entering the door was a set of stairs leading downwards in a cramped space, after some time descending down the stairs I reached another door; this one was in much better conditions made up of steel bars similar to a stereotypical cell door, an interesting thing about the door however was the placement of a ward on its frame.
These wards were shimmering with a holy light similar to the ones that I used when casting miracles, thinking nothing of it entered the sewers. ‘They weren’t kidding about the smell, but still it is much cleaner than I thought it would be’ as these thoughts were going through my mind I had already started using a cleaning miracle to finish the job.
Suddenly hearing a voice I happened to see a bunch of rats jump up and pounce on another one and devouring that in seconds, sensing me, there they turned towards me and started charging at me.
‘Undead rats, fairly common in sewers they prey upon other rodents and only form when a rat dies of old age along with other specific conditions’ recalling the details in that I read in a book. Seeing them charge at me I causally casted a healing miracle over them which in turned them into corpses.
“He, piece of cake” carrying on with my job I entered deep in to the sewers, during which I encountered undead rats 4 times more, when it was just 1 or 2 I would just crush them beneath my feet and if there were more I would use a miracle. After carrying on for about 4 hours I checked the guild card to see if I had cleaned enough, seeing it read [sewer cleaning ✓] I turned around and started walking towards the exit.
Suddenly hearing a loud scream, alarm bells went off in my head; I protected my head and other vitals as I felt something hit in my left arm that I had raised to the side of my head, as I went flying and crashed into the wall, putting a crack on the wall.
Looking ahead I came to see woman of about 20 looking straight out of R*ng look at me as with unkempt jet black wet hair covered her face and the night dress she wore almost in tatters, from the parts of the face and body I could see, there were deep black wounds that were oozing black pus.
The only thought I had before the woman flung herself at me again was ‘zombie’
FIN
