Chapter 16

  Say hello to my little friend.

  He looked at me over his shoulder with a drunken stupor and answered with a sleepy slur, “Yeah, wh-who are yo…you?” He could barely keep his eyes open.

  “I’m here to send you home,” I said, with as much sincerity as I could manage—right before I stabbed him in the neck.

  It was over quickly, but it wasn’t without a lot of blood.

  On my way back out to the camp, I quickly dispatched George—the one with the broken arm—while he slept in his bed, then moved toward Tommy, who was supposedly bedridden with a fever. I approached cautiously, peeking into his room, and noticed he seemed to be asleep. As I walked up, I realized he was already dead. The fever must have been worse than they’d thought.

  After storing the bodies and collecting anything of value around the camp, I made my way to the cabin and knocked on the door. I’ll admit—it was a weird thing to do, more out of habit than any real expectation that someone would answer or as part of some clever plan.

  When no one answered, I slipped inside, scouting for threats, and saw that the bedroom door had a steel lock on it.

  Charles, the bandit leader—as I now knew his name—clearly didn’t trust his own men. I went around the cabin, gathering anything worth taking, and planned to bring my captive back later to see if there were any hidden stashes.

  Returning to the bedroom door, I used my air-cutting technique to slice through the lock. Before opening the door, I knocked, not wanting to startle the girl if she was awake.

  “Hello? I’m Jake. I just took out the bandits here, and I was told by my captive that someone was being held prisoner. Are you comfortable with me coming inside? There’s no rush. All the bandits are dead, and if you’d like to take your time, I’m happy to cook something up and send it in for you.”

  There was movement in the room and the faint sound of chains dragging across the floor.

  Deciding not to wait any longer, I cracked the door open and saw a young girl chained to the headboard of the bed.

  “Those evil bastards,” I breathed, the words slipping out as I took in her bruised, starved form.

  “I’m going to get you out of here, and we’re going to get you healed up. “ I Said feeling rushed. ”There’s a trading caravan about thirty minutes away waiting for me, and we’re going to give you a smooth, safe ride to the city. After that, anything you want to do with the rest of your life—you’re going to get to do it. I swear it. And I’ve got money to burn to help make that happen.”

  The girl was filthy, barely conscious, with a hollow, dead look in her eyes. By the look of her, she was maybe five feet tall and light enough to be carried off by a strong breeze.

  I pulled out a canteen of water and a small cup, poured it halfway full, then set them on the dresser next to the bed. Thinking better of it, I slipped them back into storage for now.

  Without another moment’s hesitation, I removed the cuffs from her wrists and ankles, gently picked her up, and carried her over to a chair by the table in the open space of the cabin.

  Pulling the cup and canteen back out, I placed them on the table and carefully handed her the small cup of water.

  “I want you to sip this very slowly, okay? If it starts hurting in your stomach, tell me right away. You can have as much water as you want, but you need to drink it slowly. I’m going to prepare something soft for you to eat. I’m not trying to be mean—it’s just that if you try to eat too much too fast in the state you’re in, you’ll end up throwing it up and feeling even worse. Don’t worry about hurrying. We have all the time in the world. There’s no rush.”

  I crouched beside her, speaking gently. “Once you’ve had some water, I’m going to go grab my… captive and see if he can help me find where they stashed their loot. And you’re going to get just about all of it, okay?”

  The girl’s voice was barely a whisper when she replied, “O- kay…” As if that one word had drained the last of her energy.

  My fists clenched involuntarily. I was furious, aching to bring those monsters back to life just so I could kill them again. But I forced myself to calm down. Showing that anger in front of her would only frighten her more. What she needed was peace, not rage.

  I turned my mind to what I could prepare for her that might sit gently in her stomach. Bread and milk came to mind—simple, soft, and unlikely to upset her stomach—so I started with those, offering only small portions.

  About an hour had passed, and I knew I needed to get back to the caravan before they started to worry or come searching for me. It was time to see where my captive stood on the “kill or spare” list.

  Softly, I asked, “Young miss… do you have a name?”

  It took a moment, and I saw the effort it cost her to answer.

  “I’m Jane.”

  “Well, Jane, I need to make sure you get all the help you can. Can you answer some questions for me with a nod or a headshake?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Good. Do you know if there was a man here being kept prisoner too, doing a bunch of camp chores?”

  Again, she nodded.

  “Okay, that’s good. Do you know if he was a good man or a bad man? Did he ever hurt you?”

  She shook her head, then in the quietest voice I’d ever heard, she murmured, “Never hurt me… but I don’t know if he’s a good man.”

  “Alright. Would you recognize him if you saw him? And are you comfortable with me bringing you over to the caravan I’m traveling with?”

  Another slow nod, and she went back to carefully sipping the water, pausing between sips, then switching to the milk.

  “I want to make sure you’re safe and get healed up,” I said softly. “We have an herbalist in the caravan—he probably has some good medicine for you, and they can get you to the city faster than I can alone.”

  Letting her finish the milk and water, I quietly put the cups back into storage. Then, as gently as I could, I lifted her into a comfortable princess carry and headed out toward where I’d left the captive asleep.

  When we reached him, I crouched beside him so she could see and asked, “Do you recognize that guy?”

  She looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes and murmured,

  “Camp… boy,”

  with a long pause between the words.

  “Okay,” I whispered back, adjusting my grip on her. “You can go back to sleep until we reach the caravan.”

  She was out like a light, and I left my captive on the ground, figuring he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. As carefully as I could, I made my way back to the caravan, where Olivia and Rebecca were pacing back and forth, worried expressions etched on their faces.

  Rebecca spotted me first and sprinted toward me, her eyes wide with concern as she saw I was carrying someone.

  Olivia, a step behind, called out, “Are you all right? And—who’s that girl? Why does she look so malnourished?”

  Taking another step closer, Olivia gasped, eyes darting over the girl. “Has she been… beaten?”

  I raised a hand slightly to head off the flood of questions and spoke calmly.

  “This is Jane. She’s been their captive for quite a while. I’m not sure of her exact age, but she’s probably at least fourteen. There were four more bandits at the camp—I had to deal with them. It took me some time because I wanted to get some water and milk into her before making the trip back here. She’s been asleep the entire way, and I’d really rather not wake her unless we need to give her more milk or water.”

  I gave them both a serious look. “Don’t feed her anything besides soft bread for now, and only after she’s had more liquids. At some point, she may lose her appetite altogether, so when that happens, we need to be encouraging but not forceful.”

  Turning to Gary, I asked, “Do you have anything that could help her? Medicine, maybe something gentle?”

  “I have several things she could take for the injuries,” Gary said thoughtfully, “but I’d hold off until she’s gained a bit of body weight. Right now, she needs every calorie she can get just to keep going. Everything I have draws on the body in one way or another to work, and it would be dangerous to heal her injuries if it ends up depleting the little energy she has left.”

  “Got it. Fatten her up first.”

  Smack.

  Rebecca slapped me lightly on the arm.

  “She’s not a prize cow, you dolt.”

  “You know I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, giving her a half-apologetic, half-amused look.

  “I know,” she admitted with a sigh. “I’m just stressed too—and hitting you makes me feel better. Also, we need to take a look at that cut on your shoulder.”

  I blinked, surprised. I had completely forgotten about the cut. I’d felt the pain but had just sort of… filed it away somewhere in my head.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I reassured her with a small grin. “I’ve got something to take care of that.”

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  Pulling out one of the extra steaks I’d set aside from the other night, I sliced into it and popped a big bite into my mouth, making sure to cover it with a generous helping of the still-steaming pan sauce. It tasted incredible—just the right amount of kick from the diced peppers.

  Not even two minutes later, I felt a warmth radiating through my body, and when I glanced at the cut on my shoulder, I watched in amazement as it began healing right before my eyes.

  Thinking it over, I turned back to Gary.

  “Gary, are you sure healing only draws on calories from the body and not from mana being applied?”

  Gary gave me a puzzled look. “Well, I don’t have any mana reserves, and most people don’t either. Healing can use mana, sure—but you’d need a steady, external source. Otherwise, it’ll just pull from the body’s energy stores. That’s why I haven’t given the girl anything.”

  That answered my question—and gave me a plan.

  “Okay, here’s how we’re going to do this,” I said, my voice firming with resolve. “I’ve got a large store of mana—more than enough for the job. We’re going to give her your strongest healing potion, tincture, or whatever you’ve got, and I’ll continuously channel mana into her so it draws on that instead of her calories or personal energy.”

  Gary just stared at me for a long moment, and then his eyes bugged out.

  “You can channel mana?! Do you know how rare that is? It’s practically unheard of!”

  I responded as calmly as I could, trying to bring down his excitement and focus on the issue at hand—getting Jane into a conscious, healthy state.

  “I know it probably sounds rare, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because the people who can do it tend to keep it hush-hush. After all, you see runed items for sale all the time. Who’s making those?”

  Unfortunately, my argument backfired.

  “All of those items come from dungeons,” Gary shot back, his voice still buzzing with shock. “There hasn’t been a rune crafter in close to sixty years—and even then, they were rare. Mages, or people who can channel mana, are incredibly rare. Not like a hundred years ago when we had sects eager to train armies of acolytes. You must come from a really remote village if you don’t know that.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, raising my hands slightly in surrender. “I’m just asking you guys to keep this to yourselves—and let’s get back to helping her.”

  I handed him a small bundle of chili from my mana garden. “Mix just a little of this into your best medicine.”

  Gary was still standing there, dumbfounded, so I gave him a light shove and raised my voice just enough to snap him out of it.

  “Go, go! Take care of it—we don’t have all day.”

  I waited as Gary went back to his wagon, rummaging through a bunch of boxes before he started grinding ingredients with a mortar and pestle.

  I was honestly impressed—he was done in less than five minutes.

  He came rushing over with a wooden cup, and together we gently roused Jane awake to get her to drink what I was sure was going to taste… not so pleasant.

  She surprised us by sipping it down without hesitation, draining the cup completely. As soon as it was empty, I began to pour mana into her, bombarding her system so the potion wouldn’t start pulling from her own reserves once the effects kicked in.

  And wow, was it a mana-hungry spell. I had to grab more and more mana materials from my storage, and it took the better part of seven minutes before the drain finally stopped.

  But when it was done, Jane looked like a different person.

  She was still filthy, still alarmingly thin, and still had a gaunt shadow on her face—but there was a new aura of health around her. We could all see the visible sigh of relief as if some massive weight had been lifted off her chest.

  She let out a quiet, stuttering laugh of relief—so soft that, if you weren’t paying attention, you might have mistaken it for a string of hiccups.

  Now that she was in a much better state, I felt less worried about leaving for a bit. I wanted to head back to the cabin, scavenge anything valuable, and wake up my captive. It struck me then—I still hadn’t gotten his name. I mentally shook my head. Not a great habit, Jake.

  Before I left, I turned to Thomas.

  “What are the chances there are bounties on these guys in the city? Think it’s worth bringing the bodies in to try and collect?”

  He answered stoically, “It’s a good bet there’s a bounty on all of them. If not by name, then at least for being bandits on this road. The city guards don’t get to patrol out here much—they’re more focused on protecting the farms and villages near the city. If the farms get hit, the food situation turns into a crisis fast. It’s not ideal, but it’s what’s kept people from starving these past twenty years. Sometimes all it takes is one bad harvest to push the whole system into disaster.”

  “Okay, I’m going to get these bodies into my storage ring and head back to the cabin. I’ll see if there’s anything valuable we can sell in the city to help fund her new life. I don’t know if anyone will be looking for her, but when we get to the city, she’s at least going to need the essentials—and I don’t want finances to be a concern for her after everything she’s been through.”

  Thomas just nodded, pointing me toward the corpses. I walked by, quickly pulling them into my personal storage, and then headed back into the woods where I’d left the captive.

  In my head, I kept wanting to call him Pete—mainly just so I didn’t have to keep referring to him as my captive.

  About twenty minutes later, I was standing over Pete and gently removed the stone from his forehead. It was still midday, with plenty of sunlight left, and he stirred, blinking hard against the glare.

  “Did you knock me out again?” he mumbled.

  “I just used a little trick to put you to sleep—so, no, not quite the same thing. There was no knocking involved.” I smirked. “Also, you’re partially cleared by the girl. You’re still not on my ‘I’m going to kill you’ list. Yet.”

  I crouched next to him. “Any idea where these guys kept their loot? Ideally, something resembling a treasure chest would be nice.”

  Getting to his feet, Pete brushed himself off and stretched his neck and shoulders with a few quiet pops. “I know roughly where they buried it in the woods—but not the exact spot. There are a few stashes inside the camp and maybe the cabin that I think I can find, but… let’s just say these degenerates weren’t exactly rolling in giant piles of gold.”

  He cracked his knuckles. “Let me try and find a couple of them.”

  As luck would have it, Pete managed to uncover several little stashes. None of them were huge, but each held anywhere from ten to fifty silver coins, along with a good number of large and small coppers. One stash, hidden beneath a floorboard in the cabin, surprised even me—it contained forty-six gold coins and twenty-six large silver coins. I figured that was probably their biggest cache… until Pete (yes, I was still calling him that in my head) spoke up.

  “Charles always walked into the forest at the same spot every time he added to their main treasure chest,” Pete said, pointing south. “He was always gone a good eight minutes in that direction, but no one ever followed him. He never gave any hint how much they had saved up or exactly where it was.”

  I rubbed my chin, thinking it over. It sounded like a perfect job for my little cheat tool—the Pathfinder ring—but I needed a better mental image before I tried it.

  “I’ve got this ring that helps me find things,” I told Pete. “But I need a rough picture of what I’m looking for. Do you remember anything besides the coins? What did the chest itself look like?”

  “That’s pretty easy,” Pete said with a shrug. “He brought it out once to pay the guys about three weeks back. That’s how I knew about all the stashes.”

  “Alright, what did it look like?”

  “Kind of a fancy job—a wooden strongbox, covered in dark leather, with polished iron banding. No mud or dirt on it, so I figure he kept it somewhere clean and dry. About… twenty by sixteen by fourteen inches, roughly.”

  I nodded, figuring that was probably as detailed a description as I was going to get. Focusing on the Pathfinder ring, I pictured the chest in my mind and let the magic guide me.

  After about twenty-five seconds, it still hadn’t activated, and I was starting to think it wasn’t going to work—until finally, a faint purple trail shimmered into view, winding its way into the woods.

  “Okay, I think I’ve got something. Stay behind me.”

  Pete just nodded, falling in step as we made our way deeper into the forest. We walked for about three minutes, weaving left and right around trees, until we came to what was, honestly, a laughably bad hiding spot.

  It was a pile of mostly flat rocks, about three inches thick and maybe a foot across, stacked into a little mound that surrounded what was obviously the chest we’d been hunting for. It was such a bad hiding spot that I was instantly suspicious—there had to be a trap, right?

  Circling the area, I looked for ropes, branches, or anything that stood out as part of a triggering mechanism. Nothing. I circled again, slower this time, activating my mana sense. There were no signs of life nearby, no hidden enchantments, no telltale ripples—just the faint signature of the chest itself.

  Shrugging, I moved in carefully, lifting a couple of the rocks one by one, half-expecting something to snap or click. But there was nothing—just the chest.

  Turning back to Pete, I said with complete certainty, “That Charles guy was an idiot.”

  Pete gave a tired shrug and a wry nod. “Yep. Yes, he was. And a cruel bastard who thought he was a real man. Pathetic.”

  I shrugged too, already pulling the chest from its laughable hiding spot.

  “Let’s open this baby up.”

  The whole lid popped off like a Tupperware cap, and inside was a lot more gold, silver, copper, and assorted valuables than either of us had expected.

  “Gundar’s beard, that’s a lot of money,” Pete muttered, his eyes wide.

  “I guess I have enough money for that yacht I keep teasing my sister about.”

  “What’s a yacht?”

  “It’s a really luxurious, expensive boat that you live on, usually with a crew of servants and all that. You’ve got to be crazy rich to afford the type I’m thinking of.”

  “Well, I don’t know the price of boats or big ships, but yeah—you could probably build one, at the minimum. Don’t know if I’d like having a bunch of people waiting on me hand and foot, though. Kind of takes the pleasure out of living, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, that’s why it’s a joke between me and my sister. That, and she’s known to squeeze every copper she has within an inch of its life.”

  Pete gave a knowing chuckle. “Yeah, I know the type. They love you fiercely, but in their minds, the rainy day is always just around the corner. Makes it hard for them to enjoy life. Still, it’s better than the opposite. I had a girlfriend once who couldn’t keep a copper in her purse longer than an hour before it had to be spent on something ‘important.’”

  “By the way,” I added with a grin, “I’ve been calling you Pete in my head this whole time. What’s your real name?”

  He laughed. “Ha! That’s hilarious. My name is Peter—but everyone in my family calls me Pete.” He kept chuckling softly.

  Then his tone shifted, a little more hesitant. “Listen… I don’t mean to be so direct, and it’s probably going to come across as selfish or greedy, but… if I’m not on your kill list, any chance I could get a handful of silver or maybe a couple gold and be on my way? These guys have had me literally chained to a tree most nights for going on three months. I want to get back to my family, and before they grabbed me on the road, I’d just finished a pottery apprenticeship over in the city of Seaside, far to the west.

  “They took everything I’d saved up—which, okay, wasn’t all that much—but I had tools and a wagon full of hard-to-get clay. It would’ve set me up when I got there. As it is, I’ll be lucky not to wind up as a beggar… if they even let me into the city. The entry fee for new residents is two silver; otherwise, they’ll kick me out at the end of the week after shelling out three large copper.”

  Everything he said sounded reasonable, and honestly, I didn’t have any evidence he was an active member of the group.

  When I’d seen him in the woods with the rest of the bandits, it hadn’t really looked like he was eager to fight—more like he was looking for a chance to run. The most telling thing? He didn’t even have a weapon on him. That spoke volumes in a situation like this, where everyone else had been armed to the teeth. And, well, he was by far the dirtiest, smelliest, and most malnourished of the lot.

  “I’ll make you a deal. When I get into the city, I’ll be going to the Adventurers Guild to try and collect some of these bounties and turn in some items that seem valuable. I’ll give you four gold right now, and you make your way toward Gauntlet at your own pace after resting up. When you get to the city, I want you to get yourself squared away—buy what you need to get your pottery business going—and then leave a message for me at the Adventurers Guild about where I can find you.

  If there are no bounties out for you and you get yourself set up like you said, there’s another gold or maybe ten waiting for you, depending on how things look.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal. And when I’ve got my shop ready, you need to buy five items—and I’m going to overcharge you,” he said with a grin and a little chuckle.

  We shook on it, and I left him food and a little extra coin besides what I’d promised, mainly so he’d have a better mix of coppers and silver along with the gold.

  On my way back to the wagons, I pulled up my status to see if anything had changed.

  Status – (to be completed prior to publication)

  Not a ton of difference, but everything helped. I was also pretty excited about the new title.

  After I made it back to the caravan, we continued on for another four hours until it was just too dark to go any farther. We found a good camping spot on the left side of the road. It was remarkably similar to the previous site, with the expected benches and stumps set up around the campfire. Apparently, it was tradition to use the firewood left by the previous travelers and, before departing, to replace it with fresh wood—based on the assumption that days or even months might have passed, and firewood in the area would have replenished naturally.

  Everyone was pretty exhausted, so they settled for some basic rice and meat, which I spruced up with a little of my own stockpile. We all went to bed soon after eating. I pulled out an extra tent for June and arranged for either Rebecca or Olivia to stay in the tent with her, just in case she needed anything.

  Falling onto the cot in my own tent, I was out the moment my head hit the pillow.