41 Gaining a foothold

The halflings were sent to go try and contact a merchant who works under the Goddess of Honey and try to get a trading deal with them.

This way they would be connected to the Goddess, and garner her attention after some time, while at the same time they would also not be directly seeking her out. Able wanted the Goddess of Honey to investigate them first.

This way she felt she had the upper hand in the deals they would be making and would feel much more secure about the whole thing. This was all part of Able's plan to eventually overthrow the Queen of the Hill from her current position, as he needed the Goddess of Honey's help to do it.

Able was currently back in Zalfari. He wanted to try and get a foothold in this city, as it was the nearest one to both his dominions. He was with Mary and he was looking around trying to find somewhere he could be influential.

They were walking down the street looking at all the shops and people selling goods. There were people shouting trying to attract customers to their store yelling out their deals.

Able sighed in frustration looking at all of this. They were so oblivious to the inner workings of the city.

"What about taking control of one of the powers already here?" Mary asked him in confusion as she evaded some street peddlers.

"Well, I don't see who we should try and win over." Able said "There is the Baron of the city, there is the leader of the adventurer guild, there are the Flash Mercenaries and a few other mercenary teams," said Able as he began to think of the possible candidates.

"We should take control over the whole city instead," Mary said as she was eating a lollipop.

"We will eventually, but I want to do it over time, so there are fewer suspicions from the Ruler of whatever kingdom we are in" Able sighed. He knew almost nothing about the current world he was living in, and this drastically affected his current movements. He did not know if he was in a kingdom, or if there was just a bunch of cities and dominions scattered about.

"Alright, then let us first take over one of the Mercenary bands, and have them unify all the mercenaries and adventurers," Able said as he rubbed his chin.

Mary agreed with him because she had full trust in him. They began walking towards the adventurer guild, so they could ask for information on the whereabouts of the mercenary bands. They would usually take over a building and use it as a base, or have a tavern as their base of operations.

They headed through the streets and arrived at the adventurer guild in a short while. They went inside and sat down ordering a few drinks, and a slice of pie for Mary.

There was currently a big burly man who was standing on a table telling a story of one of his adventures capturing the attention of all the other adventurers in the room.

Hearing just the end of his story made Able know it was either Bull Sh*t or it was exaggerated to the max.

"How much was the reward?" One of the adventurers got up and asked with his eyes glittering in admiration.

The man had a smug smile on his face as he puffed up his chest and said "I would have gotten fifty gold coins, but I have to pay ten percent of my earnings to the Anchor Mercs" the man said.

Hearing this Able shifted through his memories before he recalled that this was the third strongest Mercenary band in the city. They had a big reputation and were considered as the most respected Mercenary band due to their protection of their members.

There was one time when one of its members got his arm chopped off in a scuffle with another group of adventurers and the Anchor Mercenaries eliminated that group of adventurers. After this happened few people dared to mess with the members of the Anchor Mercenaries.