Chapter 13: Companionship

Chapter 13: Companionship

After some more time resting, I got up and asked the man in front of my cell where the captain was. He said he’d take me there, so I got up and followed him through the small complex. My prediction that we were underground turned out to be true, as we climbed a narrow staircase up into a much more standard looking brick-and-wood building.

The old man spoke into a crystal necklace hanging around his neck as we walked, “Boss, th’ guy you wanted to see’s awake. I’m takin’ him to the interrogation room now.”

We walked into the room – the interrogation room, apparently – and he asked me to sit in a chair, then promptly walked out, leaving me alone. The place itself was plain, a small square room with simple wooden walls, and a stone table in the middle. I sat there, wondering what kind of trouble I was in – if I was even in trouble. They clearly weren’t worried about me escaping, what with how I was currently completely unguarded, unrestrained, and in a room with the door wide open, so I had to assume that nothing serious had happened.

After about a minute, I finally heard some footsteps, and the gruff guy from earlier came in. He wasn’t wearing his plate armor anymore, but it didn’t make his large frame any less imposing. His dark skin glistened with sweat, making me wonder just how hot he got, standing in that thick armor all day. He sat in the wooden chair across from me, the feeble furniture creaking suspiciously but holding strong under his weight.

“Alright, son, you’re not in legal trouble – yet – but I still got a few questions for you about that whole Banestinger incident.” he spoke in a much softer voice than the yelling he was doing before, but his voice was still deep and hard. “First off, just to make sure I don’t get in any trouble here, you do know what a Truth Stone is, right?”

“Uh, no, I don’t. Is it some sort of Enchanted item?”

“Yeah, it is. It’s somethin’ we here in the guarding business use to make sure people’s tellin’ the truth. Only works for the simpler sort of statements, so if I ever wanna make sure you ain’t lyin’. I’m just gonna bring it out, and ask you a yes or no question. It’ll light up if you lie. But I’d hope it don’t come to that. You understand now?”

“Yeah,” I leaned back in my chair. I was from a small enough village that crimes weren’t committed with enough frequency to justify something so serious – and probably expensive – ever being used. “So, why exactly do you have me here? What’d I do?”

“Son, you brought a Level 30 monster to our town and you’re gonna sit there and ask me what you did? I understand you didn’t break a law, but your actions were reckless and selfish and I think you need a stern talkin’ to.”

I squinted incredulously. “Oh? All due respect, but I’m not sure that I had a choice there. Would you have preferred that I just let it kill me?” I understood that this definitely wasn’t the best way to handle the situation, but I’d just fought my ass off to stay alive, and I’d walk through every hell in the Underworld before letting some asshole scold me for it.

“No, I wouldn’t prefer you let it kill you. I would prefer if youngsters like you would stop wanderin’ your ways off into the wilderness and expectin’ us adults to save you when you realize what a mistake you’ve made. Especially when you’re goin’ into Banestinger territory and bringin’ one of them back for us to fend off.”

I set my jaw, waiting for him to finish. When he did, I said, “I don’t think you understand my situation, and I’d prefer it if you’d let me explain myself before lecturing me over something I didn’t do.”

The man sat there for a moment, eyes glaring at me, before nodding. “Fine. Go on.”

“First off, I’m not from here. I hired a pair of adventurers to help me get my Class about five days ago. They took me into the woods, and got killed by a monster during a fight. I finished it off, but ended up lost with no guide. During these past five days, I’ve been stranded and wandering to find civilization, surviving constant monster attacks and trying my best to keep from being mauled from a stray Wood Wraith. Found a road, started walking down it, got ambushed by the scorpion thing on my way. Now I’m here.”

The gruff man looked at me for a moment, took a breath, and then reached over to place an unassuming stone on the table – I imagined that was the Truth Stone he’d mentioned earlier. “Place your hand on here.”

I did.

I turned around, finding myself face-to-face with the red-haired woman I’d run from the Banestinger alongside. Now that I wasn’t fleeing for my life and got an actual good look at her, I saw that she was actually pretty attractive. She was a bit shorter than me, and had sharp features that included blue eyes which contrasted heavily with her red hair, but in a good way. Also, those blue eyes were glaring angrily at me.

“Uh, hey,” I said, still a bit caught off-guard from being confronted unexpectedly, “were you looking for me?”

“Yes, of course I was. I expect you weren’t planning on ignoring that promise you made me?”

“...What promise?” I didn’t think we’d said a word to each other after the thing died, much less promised each other anything. I’d pretty much passed out immediately, if I remembered correctly.

She rolled her eyes. “You promised you’d help me get my knife back! The one you threw?”

“Oh...” I did sort of remember taking her knife and throwing it at the scorpion’s eye, when I thought about it. “Yeah, I guess I did do that. Sorry about leading that thing to you, by the way. I really didn’t mean to put your life in danger like that. My name’s Arlan, by the way,” I put out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

She took it and we shook. I was glad I’d taken a bath; my hand was so caked in dirt and grime before that I was sure it would’ve left a visible handprint on her when she shook it. “It’s fine. I mean, the situation sucked,” she laughed, “but you’re fine. It’s not like you knew I was there, and you didn't really have any choice in it, anyway. My name’s Erani. It’s nice to make your acquaintance,” she nodded and smiled, then seemed to get focused again. “But seriously. You are going to help me get that knife back, right?”

“I- yeah, sure, if it’s that important to you. Just, can you do me a favor in return?”

“That’s not how promising to help someone works,” she laughed. “You can’t start retroactively demanding payment after you made the promise.”

“No, no, I don’t want payment or anything,” I reassured her, though I was pretty sure she was just joking. “I was just trying to find a job on here, something relatively quick that could make me a decent bit of money? I’ve tried looking around, but it’s hard to even find anything in the mess of requests.”

“Why don’t you just do Alfo Arcian’s Collection Quest?”

“...What?”

The woman – Erani – laughed. “Okay, I guess the name’s a bit silly, but here,” she fished around in the many papers nailed to the board until she found the one she was looking for, and pointed it out to me. It had a big ‘Do Not Take Down; Repeating Request’ stamped on the top. “It's a request by this guy, Alfo Arcian. He runs an alchemist’s shop downtown and sources materials from the surrounding forest. So, if you just go out and grab a bunch of the plants and monster parts he has written down on here, he’ll buy them from you for a set price. They’re all listed here,” she tapped the paper. “Rimelotus petals, Trimp tails, that sort of thing. Local adventurers love the guy. I was actually doing this very request when you ran up to me with your monster pal.”

I let out an involuntary chuckle at ‘monster pal.’ “Well, yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what I’m looking for. Thanks. You wanna do this with me when we go out to grab that knife? We can both gather the ingredients and just split the profit, if you want. Hopefully sticking together we can fend off any more forest friends that might attack us.”

She chuckled back at ‘forest friends,’ which made me feel nice. Being isolated in the wilderness for so long made me forget how much fun it could be to just talk to people. “Yeah, that sounds good. As long as we get my knife back. You busy now? I’m good to go if you are.”

It was a bit soon to go right back into the woods that I had been so desperate to get out of, but it was voluntary, now. I had a companion. I smiled, “Absolutely.”