After the abrupt ending to their meeting with the king, Jarod and his group stood outside the entrance to the palace, looking out over the estate gardens. Just as before, Nikolao seemed to be the only one among them that wasn’t bewildered by the experience. Jarod, Basma, and Filgrin at least had the relief of knowing that they would receive some measure of support from the king’s army, even if it wasn’t to the level that they had hoped for.

  On the other hand, Davrick Temolere, the resident trifley expert, had the unwelcome surprise of being consigned to accompany those forces back to Blackpool Outlook.

  For a while, he’d just stood around outside the palace, staring off into the distance as the rest of the group discussed the development. When he remained unresponsive after Nikolao asked him a question, they realized just how out of it he was.

  “Davrick, you there?” Jarod asked, gently shaking the man.

  Davrick swayed at Jarod’s touch, but remained deaf to their words, staring out over the garden with his head slightly cocked. It wasn’t until Basma joined in the gentle shaking, and waved a hand in front of his face, that he finally came to.

  “I-I can’t go to Blackpool Outlook, there’s so much for me to do here. I have all my obligations to the university, and besides, I’m not a fighter. Does it look like I have a fighting bone in my body? I’ve never so much as raised a sword. And I’m no good at military tactics, I never even took a class in school. I wouldn’t know the first thing about directing the soldiers, or how I should be training them to fight these creatures. No, my place is back in the university. I’ll have to talk to the headmaster, or perhaps another advisor of the king’s. No, there’s simply no sense in me going all the way out to Blackpool Outlook, especially not when there’s soldiers already being sent to deal with the task at hand.”

  “Davrick!” Jarod grabbed both the man’s arms and turned him to look him in the eye. Davrick flinched, and his eyes went wide for a moment in fear, then turned to pleading.

  Jarod sighed. Maybe a less forceful approach was a good idea. “Look, it’s going to be okay. We already fought them off once, and now we’ll have even more people to fight for us. It might not be as many as we were hoping for, but that’s what you’re here for. We need your knowledge to know how to best fight the trifleys.”

  Observation (social) check (6)

  [2]+1

  Failure

  Jarod’s words weren’t seeming to have any effect on the panicked scholar, but at least he was listening now. Davrick looked around at the other faces watching him, taking in his situation once more. With a sudden shift of disposition, his body relaxed and the pleading look in his eyes faded. Jarod let him go, and he took a deep breath, straightening his back, and raising his head.

  “I suppose I should think of it as an opportunity,” he said. “After all, there’s no defying the king. I’ll just have to go back to my quarters at the university. There’s so much that needs to be done in preparation.”

  The group watched as Davrick gave a perfunctory wave and strode out through the palace grounds, suddenly untroubled by his fate. Jarod gave a puzzled look to Nikolao, but the surveyor was lost in thought as he watched Davrick leave, and didn’t seem to notice the eyes upon him. It was an odd change of tone, but he’d always heard those academic types were strange.

  “I’d keep an eye on him,” said Nikolao. “Academics tend to think too highly of their own work, and of the necessity that they keep pursuing it.”

  The four of them watched Davrick awkwardly arrive at the gates and stand there waiting, not realizing that they wouldn’t open for him on their own. Eventually, he threw his hands up, went and shouted something up to the guard tower, and the wrought iron gate swung open.

  “We’d best follow him out,” said Nikolao. “There’s one last place I’d have all of us visit before I have to leave.”

  Their group followed after Davrick in similar fashion, although with less awkward waiting as Maurice was still on duty. Jarod took one last look back at the palace, realizing that this would probably be the only time in his life he got the chance to visit with a king, and stepped through back into the court district of Chath.

  The sun had fallen noticeably since they’d entered into the palace to have their meeting with King Casimir. It hadn’t dipped low enough to cast the hues of sunset yet, but lanterns were already being hung from awnings and porches where members of the gentry had gathered for a pre-dinner drink.

  Jarod was struck by the amount of casual magic that they’d witnessed in the city. Gates to estates swung open on their own when carriages with the homeowners arrived, and piles of luggage, enchanted to weigh a tenth their true weight, were hauled inside with a single casual hand by house servants. Even most of the lanterns being hung outside were magical in nature, illuminated by either a spell which provided continual light, or which could be easily activated by the tap of a wand on the metal base.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  It wasn’t exclusive to the wealthy citizens of the court district either. As they walked out of the rich houses of the upper-class and into a more commercial district, everyday folks wandering the street showed evidence of this casual appropriation of magic as well. Street vendors stood on corners or meandered through the crowds, advertising necklaces that would provide shade on a rainy day, or coin purses supposedly impervious to pickpockets.

  It left Jarod feeling conflicted. There was definitely an element of wonder that went along with all the magic. In his haste during the last visit to Chath, he’d not really gotten a chance to appreciate just how commonplace it was, nor to see it in action. It was amazing what all could be done with it, and yet, Jarod couldn’t help but feel that it made the experience somehow soulless.

  He was sure that a pickpocket-proof coin purse was a useful invention, but was it really necessary? Pickpockets were never an issue in Cleftshire, so why was it such a concern in Chath that they felt the need to use a magical enchantment to fend them off. The magic might have been saving them time and effort, but was it worth it just to avoid having to lift a suitcase? It was work like that that made you stronger, that let you use your strength when you really needed it. Like when you had to fight trifleys.

  Jarod recognized that it was probably just him getting older, but at the same time, he couldn’t find the flaw in his logic.

  “Where are you taking us, anyway?” Jarod called out to Nikolao, eager to find a distraction from his philosophizing.

  “To the temple,” Nikolao replied. “After the beating we’ve taken over the last few days, I think we deserve some divine rejuvenation. Besides, I have expedition funds to work through still. It would be a waste if they just went back into the royal coffers.”

  “The temple?” said Filgrin. “They aren’t gonna try’n make us do penance or anything, are they?”

  Nikolao chuckled softly. “No, nothing like that. You’ll find the Temple of Kanthara to be very welcoming, as long as you have coin to show.”

  Jarod was familiar with Kanthara, but only in passing. Kanthara was the only god whose worship was sanctioned in the Kingdom of Excelsia. There were temples to her all over the kingdom, but there weren’t many practitioners outside of the cities. Their priests occasionally visited places as far off as Cleftshire, but villagers were mainly interested in their stories than their religion.

  Jarod had never worshiped Kanthara himself, but he had seen the work of her followers a few years ago. The priests happened to visit Cleftshire a few months after Warin’s daughter, Abigail, had broken her leg. It had happened from a fall off the top of the mill while trying to take the sails down before a windstorm snapped them off. It had been a pretty bad break, and it wasn’t healing properly, keeping her bed-bound for months.

  The priests showed up and Warin convinced them to take a look at Abigail’s leg. Just a few minutes later, she was running through town again, right as rain. Jarod had been working at the smithy all day, so he hadn’t seen the priests arrive. The first he heard of them was Abigail running through town, shouting her praise to Kanthara.

  Abigail had been so thankful at the experience that she converted to a devout follower right then and there, even agreeing to accompany the priests back to the city to join the temple. Warin was torn on it, and sad to see his daughter leave, but she was a young woman by then, old enough to make her own decisions. His sadness was probably helped by the fact that the priests agreed to waive their usual healing fee since Abigail was joining the temple.

  Jarod wondered if they might run into her at the temple. She usually visited Cleftshire every year when the priests stopped by, and he could swear she looked stronger every time he saw her. She would have made a good blacksmith if she wasn’t devoted to Kanthara.

  He’d missed her this last year. The usual group had come around, but there’d been no sign of Abigail. The priests said she was undergoing special training for the temple off in the city of Taeve. Maybe she’d be finished and back in Chath by now.

  “Thank you for taking us to the temple, Nikolao.” Basma interrupted his reminiscing as they continued their approach. “I’m feeling okay after the bathhouse, but the rest of you look like you need more than some soap behind your ears.”

  “Well, I’m hardly the one to thank,” Nikolao replied. “As I said, it’s coming from the funds for the expedition.”

  “Will Tex’ana be there as well?” Basma said. “The king sent someone to fetch him, but we got kicked out before he showed up. It seemed like he was even more hurt than the rest of us, although it’s hard to tell with him.”

  “No, I don’t expect the priests would be able to do anything for him anyway. Not to worry though, he has his own methods of healing that his… handlers will see to. He should rejoin you shortly though. I expect he’ll be heading back with you all to Blackpool Outlook.”

  “Wait, heading back with ‘you all’?” Jarod asked. “Aren’t you coming as well?”

  “No, duty calls elsewhere. I’ll be heading to our northern front with the Tildan Republic in a couple days’ time. Have to go where all the attention is if I’m going to make up for losing so many of my men along the way. Besides, I don’t fancy fighting those creatures again, and I’m sure you’ll be happier to have me out of the way.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’ll be easier to not worry about having someone thrown in jail.”

  Jarod joked about it, but it was a bittersweet moment. He’d somehow come to respect the surveyor after all this time, after all the battles they’d fought together. It wasn’t that he was sad to see the judge who’d sentenced him to prison leave for the front lines of what could devolve into a war, it was that he didn’t even think of Nikolao in that way any more. No longer was he one of the spoiled gentry that did nothing but make villagers’ lives harder. He could still be a hard-nose and out of touch sometimes, but Jarod had also come to respect the decisions he made and the motivations behind his actions.

  Jarod thought about it as he kept walking through the busy evening streets, the city of Chath providing all manner of sights to see. He kept thinking back through the battles he’d fought alongside Nikolao, about how he’d ultimately been convinced to descend into the brigand’s lair to rescue Esther.

  As he pondered, the hubbub of the city began to die away, fading to a quiet murmur. The crowded streets and storefronts expanded into spacious parks. People lounged among trees, flowers, and fountains, enjoying the warm evening.

  Their walk had taken them to their destination. Tall stone walls with stained glass rose before them, not as grand and large as the palace, but every bit as beautiful. Priests wandered in their plain white and red robes, murmuring pious greetings to one other in passing.

  They’d arrived at the temple of Kanthara.