Looking around, I saw the crowd of people had grown significantly, and not wanting anyone else to try rushing the inn, I went back inside and closed the door. Lily was still present.

  But now there was silence as all eyes were on me—well, except for Liane’s and Lily’s, who were both watching Liam. He straightened himself up, realising the eyes were on him.

  “Well, I guess I should introduce myself properly then,” Liam began.

  “I am Liam, Captain of the Royal Guard. I have learned that you’ve not had the best run-in with leadership to date; however, I wish to extend you an invitation to have a conversation with the King,” he said, bowing slightly.

  I looked at the others, who didn’t say anything, before asking, “Why?”

  Liam looked around, his eyes landing on Lily. “You have unique and powerful friends. I can’t tell you exactly what the conversation would be, but from my understanding, he wishes to have good relations with you.

  “Especially after word reaches him of today’s encounter. Adding the mythical phoenix to the list of friends will only escalate his desire for positive relations, I’m sure.” He looked at the others as well, but they all had very passive looks.

  Except for Liane, who clearly was not sold.

  “I don’t know if I’d call Alira a friend just yet…” I said with a chuckle.

  Liam shook his head. “Trevor, until today we did not even know the name of the mythical phoenix—only that it had once blessed the King’s ancestors.”

  I looked at Liane, unsure how to respond. Internally, I wanted to say yes, of course! But I couldn’t trust that this wouldn’t be another attempt at servitude or something—only on a greater scale.

  Liane seemed to catch my drift, appearing instantly at my side. “We’re adventurers, and normally we would not ignore an order from the King. However, someone has already tried to force Trevor into servitude, so excuse our hesitation,” she said.

  Liam let out a deep sigh. “The Lord of this very town—yes, I discovered that. He has been sent to the capital to face punishment for those crimes, as well as many others, and I can only apologise for the way you were treated. But I don’t believe the King has the same intentions.”

  Hari spoke up, stepping forward. “As I understand it, the Royal Guard in particular value their promises and oaths above all. Can you promise today that Trevor would be allowed to visit the King and leave without an attempt to trap or imprison him?”

  Liam seemed conflicted for a moment before resolve came over his face. “I can. I promise that I will personally escort you in and out of the castle.”

  Hari nodded. I didn’t value their word very much, but apparently Hari was satisfied with this.

  “We will make our own way to the capital, as that was our goal anyway. Once we arrive, we’ll make contact to organise the meeting,” Hari said.

  Milo spoke up. “We’d also appreciate if you could keep the swarms of people outside from disrupting our sleep tonight. We have some very shaken inn staff and a merchant with her guards right now, and we don’t need people waking them up all night.”

  Jen nodded behind him.

  Liam looked around, now practically surrounded by people unintentionally. “Yes, I can do that. Very well, I shall take my leave and pass on the message to the King that you are on your way. If you have any trouble at all, send a messenger.”

  He again bowed slightly before heading towards the door. He paused as his hand touched it.

  “Tha… thank you for allowing me to witness tonight’s events,” Liam said, looking at the floor where several footprints had been burnt into the wood. “I should speak with the proprietor tomorrow about securing that piece of flooring.” He then opened the door and left through the front.

  There were some commands shouted, but I couldn’t clearly make them out over the noise of the crowd calling back and the shuffle of armour.

  I looked at Lily, who was sitting next to Crisplet with her head tilted.

  “Welcome back, Lily,” I said happily. She immediately reappeared next to me again, bumping me with her head. I reached down, attempting to scratch her head, finding like before that the tips of my fingers felt like I had hit solid fur, but the rest was just hazy.

  “Was Alira a friend of yours?” I asked curiously.

  She turned around to look at Crisplet, who shot off a single ember. No?

  I decided now probably wasn’t the time to go into it, as the others were staring in my direction.

  “Well, that was an eventful get-together,” I said.

  Hari just sighed, and Liane snorted out a laugh.

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  Looking around the room, I asked, “Is everyone else okay?”

  Jen nodded. “Some of them are a little shaken, like Janette, but she’ll be fine in the morning. The others just couldn’t move, so I moved them out of the room to relax a little. They are likely still there.” She then raised her voice. “Geo! Larry!”

  And sure enough, both men came back into the main hall, and despite the brief hesitation when they saw Lily, they carried on to their seats. Larry commented first,

  “Now I’m going to have to deal with all the phoenix pilgrims, you know. Especially with that,” he said, pointing to the burnt floor.

  Geo laughed. “Don’t pretend like you won’t be putting your prices up from tomorrow and commissioning a sign saying the phoenix visited—or just selling that piece of floor directly.”

  Larry waved the comment away, but even I could see that was exactly what he was thinking.

  Milo took a seat with them and pulled out a drink.

  Hari looked around. “I think it’s best that we leave tomorrow. We’ll let everyone have a sleep-in and leave just before lunchtime.”

  ***

  And that’s exactly what happened. Crisplet and Lily spent the night in discussion, and as such I ended up in a room of my own. The beds upstairs were so much nicer than the floor in the storage closet I had originally slept in here.

  The next morning I saw the perimeter the guards had set up around the inn—they were not messing around.

  Geo had made us all breakfast, which consisted of scrambled eggs on top of crusty toasted bread. It tasted great, both buttery and salty.

  He even made some for Lily, who picked at it slowly before vanishing.

  The only thing I wanted to do in town before we left was take the offerings to the goddess, and today the entire adventurer party insisted on escorting me there.

  I felt like it was a bit of overkill, especially since the crowd around the inn was no longer there besides the guards, and I didn’t know how many people had seen me anyway. I hadn’t exactly stepped outside much.

  But I went with it. Micca, Darren and George stayed behind at the inn; they had a few other things they wanted to do before we left.

  Making our way into the temple, we were greeted by an acolyte, but we all made our way towards the statue in the middle of the room. Walking up to the plinth that held all the donations to the goddess, I first pulled out the regular roasted chicken and placed it and the stone plate down.

  I got a couple of looks from people around me as the smell wafted in their direction, but no one said anything.

  I pulled out the second chicken and placed it next to the first. Taking a couple of steps back and about to turn towards the pews to say my prayer, I blinked—and both chickens were gone.

  There was no fanfare or flash. One second they were there; the next there were two empty stone plates.

  I wasn’t the only person who noticed, with several people looking at me with wide eyes.

  I even felt Jen’s hand tighten on my shoulder.

  Did the goddess take it? Could she?

  Or was someone else playing a prank on me? I looked around the room, but other than the few people also putting a donation on the plinth—now staring at me—there was no one else paying attention.

  Then, there was a breeze that blew through the entire temple. The breeze itself was odd, but the smell—like flowers—was heavy on the air. And this time everyone seemed to smell it, because they all began looking around for the source.

  I noticed while we were looking around that Crisplet had created a statue version of the chicken and was placing it on the plinth as well. That too vanished a second later, Crisplet letting off a burst of embers while looking up.

  I couldn’t help but smile as the breeze turned warm.

  Deciding to continue with our plan, I knelt down at the closest pew.

  Dear Goddess, I hope you like the offering. I’ll remember to bring you more the next time I visit. I don’t know if it’s something you do, but I hope you continue to look out for me.

  Looking around, I saw everyone except Liane was saying a prayer, but the temple itself was chaotic. Priests were rushing from the back corridors into the main hall. I even caught sight of Elder Peter, who caught sight of me.

  I just waved before deciding it was a good time to leave. The breeze stopped for us the moment we stepped outside.

  “Well, that’s not something you see every day,” Jen commented with a chuckle.

  Milo returned the laugh. “We’ve been saying that a lot recently.”

  ***

  The rest of the morning was spent preparing the wagon. I took the three boar bellies and stored them away so I could smoke them later—and to stop the curing process. I got the dunder from Larry, who was more than happy to provide it. He also gave me advice on how to make other drinks, mostly alcoholic.

  Wine, mead and cider. He also pointed out that Geo often turned the cider into vinegar and used it for cooking.

  The one that really caught my attention was mead. I could use my rare honey and make a rare alcohol. There was a heating process, and you could add spices or even fruit to it—so I could stack some buffs in it.

  Geo gave me a small gift of kitchen utensils and a smoking rack.

  “Using Crisplet and Milo is all well and good, but you need to have a smoking rack. You can’t lose your meat because they need to run off and kill something, after all.”

  Looking at Larry, I asked, “Is Janette okay? I’ve not seen her today.”

  Larry nodded. “She’s still sleeping off the shock of last night, but she’ll be fine—don’t worry about it.”

  I shook my head with a smirk. “I mean, you were going to fire Micca for being sick and dying that one time…”

  Larry gently clipped me on the back of the head. “What’s said during service time doesn’t matter! I wouldn’t have fired my best barmaid.”

  “Only barmaid,” Micca’s voice came from around the corner.

  She appeared with George and Darren, all carrying sacks of items, before throwing them into the wagon and standing in front of myself and Larry.

  “You look after her, alright? She’s a good one,” Micca said in a stern tone.

  “Since when did you get all mature and bossy?” Larry laughed. “But don’t worry—Janette will be fine. I might even need to hire new staff members to handle the pilgrim traffic after today.”

  With that, we all mounted up. I gave Geo a hug before I left—I was hoping I’d see him again before long.

  Mounting Sable, I waved to them as we made our way out of Dunhearth for the second time in my life, this time heading towards the capital.

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  Now! to the shout today is for another cosy story, and I'm always happy to support the fellow cosy authors :D

  ? The Wandering Archmage ?

  by A Random Turtle

  Verloren of Lineage Gruen lost his way. His death is meant to serve as a means to atone for the sins he committed, but that changes when he wakes up in a world he does not recognize, alive and still in possession of all the magic he had honed for three centuries. A new path is offered to him, a chance to figure out that there is a lot more to life than magic, and Verloren is determined to make the most of it. Hopefully, nothing will force him to burn down another world like he’d done his.