TS4: Chapter 42 (Patreon)

The murderousness in the look that the Guard Captain gave Wensted Jarl grew fiercer, and it was only after the Elven Merchant whispered a few hurried assurances that the Guard Captain finally relaxed. Unfortunately, Thorn's next words caused any comfort that the Guard Captain had derived from Wensted Jarl's words to crack.

"I'm sure the allies he has in the Challenger families will be quite interested to hear of this blatant disrespect," Thorn said. "But the good thing is that he has enough clients among them that he won't feel the sting of losing even a large organization like the Seekers' Alliance. Ah well, it really is a shame, but one can't argue against quality, so I understand your position. If you'd prefer to have weapons from the Golden Scale Alliance, what can I say?"

As he spoke, Thorn began to walk through the market, heading towards the edge of the Seekers' Alliance camp.

"It is a shame, though," he said, his voice growing in volume with every step that he took. "I had a whole new shipment of stock coming in. Staves, swords, sabers, axes, hook axes, maces, flails, whips, lances, halberds, bows..."

As he went through the list, he pointed at weapons that different warriors in the market were holding. By this point, his voice could be heard well outside the market, echoing over the entire camp.

"But since I can't set up in the market, I guess I'll have to find somewhere else to set up," he said.

The guards were trailing him, all of them with ugly expressions, and when Thorn finally reached the edge of the Seekers' Alliance camp, he stopped and turned, gesturing for the apekin guard captain to come closer.

"What about that spot right there?" he said, pointing to an open area a few hundred feet away from the camp. "Is that part of the market?"

"No," the guard captain said. "But remember, if you step outside the market, we won't come and help you if you're attacked. We don't enforce the peace of that area."

"Oh, no problem," Thorn said. "I just want to make sure that this isn't inside your territory. After all, I don't want to get in trouble for selling sub-par weapons inside the Seekers' Alliance market."

Without waiting for a response, Thorn strode out of the camp, calmly making his way over to the area he had pointed to. By this time, there were hundreds of people watching him from the edge of the camp, and a few, who after sharing glances, slowly began to follow him. Looking around, Thorn seemed to be checking the ground for something. And finally, he nodded to himself and tapped his staff on the ground, on the stone. A ripple spread as mana gathered, and with a crunching sound, an entire building rose from the stone.

It was a simple one-room building, with a low counter on one side and dozens of stone racks inside of it. It had a simple angled roof, and after looking at it for a moment, Thorn pointed his staff, and the roof began to shift, giant letters forming above it, reading, Weapon Emporium.

"Needs a bit more pizzazz," Thorn said, snapping his fingers as magic swirled around the stone letters, causing them to light up. “What do you two think?”

Sparky and Stello, who were standing nearby, both nodded their heads.

"I think it looks great," Sparky said.

"Needs more flames, but otherwise, pretty good," Stello agreed.

Under the dumbfounded eyes of everyone watching, Thorn began to set up his stall once again, a few hundred feet outside of the market, in an incredibly eye-catching building. He had just finished putting all of his weapons out when a group of armored elves strode out of the camp, straight towards him. Each of them wore the symbol of the Golden Scale Alliance, and it was clear that now that Thorn wasn't under the protection of the Seekers' Alliance guards, they were going to make their move.

Uh-oh," Sparky said. "Looks like you have trouble coming, Thorn."

Glancing back at the elves, Thorn slapped himself on the forehead.

"Ah, I knew I forgot something."

Lifting his staff, Thorn pretended to mutter something under his breath, and ancient runes popped up around him. The armored group of elves had just broken into a run when he unleashed his spell, and with a massive grinding sound, the earth in front of him began to swell. Unsure of what was happening, the elves screeched to a halt, their metal boots sending sparks flying as they scraped across the stone.

First, a giant hand appeared, rising up out of the stone and slamming down, crushing flagstones under it as it began to lift, followed by a shoulder and then a head. The stone golem that rose up in front of them was the size of a small hill, towering at nearly twenty feet tall. It glared at the elves and let out a loud roar that sounded like boulders being smashed together.

"Don't bother our visitors," Thorn snapped, and to everyone's shock, the golem quietly backed up. "After all, they're here to buy weapons. You are my first customers, aren't you? Don’t let my greeters scare you away."

As he spoke, a second golem began pulling itself out of the ground, its glare fixed on Thorn's would-be enemies.

The strongest of the guards appeared to be a warrior of the 8th tier, dressed in gleaming armor and wielding a giant war axe. Yet, even he paused in the face of the two giant golems staring at him. It was strange, but he couldn't quite get a grasp on the two golems' strength. Thorn was even more of an enigma, his strength entirely hidden. The guards behind him were equally nervous, but they had been given a job to do, and so they eventually stepped forward.

"Hand over all your weapons," the leader demanded, his voice carrying back to all those who stood at the edge of the Seeker Alliance camp.

"All my weapons?" Thorn said, his eyebrows rising as he glanced back at the store he had set up. "You know that's going to be like millions of points, right?"

It took a moment for the guard to catch up with what Thorn was saying. He was so keyed up from getting ready to fight against the golems that he missed it at first.

"What? We're not buying them," he said with a sneer. "Hand them over or give us your life."

"Oh, you're robbing me," Thorn said. "Got it."

Giving the man a thumbs up, he turned and walked back to the store, as the two golems both took a threatening step forward. Thorn seemed to pay no more attention to the would-be robbers, and they had no attention to spare for him either, as both of the golems suddenly lunged forward, letting out roars as their hands slapped down.

"Target their legs," the leader of the Golden Scale Alliance squad yelled, dashing forward and swinging his war axe in a wide arc toward one of the golems' knees.

Just before he hit, the golem suddenly crouched, causing his weapon to bite deep into the creature's stone side. This, however, also caused the distance between him and the golem's hand to shorten. Just before the golem's slap landed, one of the other elves let out a shout and lunged forward, attempting to block the blow with a large shield he carried. The sound of the stone palm meeting the metal shield caused the air to shake, and dust erupted all around them.

The other golem had gotten tangled up with the remaining three squad members, who were hacking away at its legs even as they dodged its attacks. The squad leader attempted to rip his weapon free to swing once more, but as he did, the golem's side began to mend, stone surging together to close the wound. Though he couldn't see him because of the dust, he could hear his squad member coughing up blood from the force of the attack, and a chill ran down the squad leader's spine. Two glowing eyes peered through the dust and locked onto him as another whistling attack slammed towards him. With a shout, the squad leader tried to block the giant fist, only to get knocked head over heels by the tremendous strength the stone golem wielded.

Lunging to its feet, the stone golem stomped down on the elf carrying the shield, attempting to crush him into the ground. At the last second, the elf managed to get his shield up once more, but the force reverberating through the stomp made him feel as if all his bones had been shaken loose. Before he could recover, a giant hand picked him up and lifted him into the air. Letting out a loud roar, the stone golem brought his arm back and hurled the elf into the distance. Horrified, everyone gathered at the edge of the camp watched as the elf tumbled through the air, flying across the camp.

"Is he heading for the Golden Scale Alliance building?" Sparky asked Stello.

"Yeah, that's what it looks like."

Sure enough, the shield-wielding elf tumbled through the air directly towards the Golden Scale Alliance building. But at the last moment, a figure appeared on the roof of the building, jumping down and catching the unconscious elf with a hand, completely stopping his momentum and bringing him down to the ground. Outside the camp, the fight was continuing to rage, with one of the stone golems attempting to chase down and pulverize the leader of the squad, while the other stone golem bashed their three remaining squad members around, to its heart's content. The entire time, Thorn sat behind his counter, watching the fight.

After a few minutes, he rapped on the counter and shouted to the golems, "Hey, clear a path. Don't block the customers."

Letting out roars as if they understood, the golems began to attack ferociously, driving the Golden Scale Alliance squad to the side, so there was a clear path directly to the Weapon Emporium that Thorn had set up.

"Weapon Emporium is open!" Thorn yelled, staring directly at Wensted Jarl as he spoke.

The elven merchant's face was a sight to behold, and he was clearly furious at Thorn's blatant disrespect. Catching a flicker of movement at the merchant’s side, Thorn blinked and an elven woman appeared. Thorn recognized her immediately as the figure who had appeared on the top of the Golden Scale Alliance's tower. She was clearly a ninth-ranked warrior, and her expression was grim as she stared at Thorn, who just smiled and waved.

"Are you looking to buy something, too, miss?" he called out. "That sword of yours is looking pretty scuffed, and you could probably use a replacement."

Her hand dropped to the pommel of the worn-looking sword at her side.

"What's going on?" she asked, Wensted, her voice hard.

Quickly bowing, he explained the situation in a low voice, and her face twitched with annoyance.

"Are you an idiot?" she asked, looking at him. "Why would you burn a bridge like that? Fine. If it's burnt, it's burnt."

Waving her hand as if she was dismissing Wensted Jarl, she strolled out towards the weapon emporium where Thorn sat, giving Stello and Sparky a curious glance. As for the golems, she didn't even look in their direction. When she arrived at the counter, she stopped and looked squarely at Thorn.

"The Golden Scale Alliance does not tolerate disrespect," she said. "However, out of deference to the Grand Master, if you remove this store and leave this place, we'll allow you to live."

"Tell me, are you the only ninth-ranked warrior in the Golden Scale Alliance? Because if so, you're going to have a really hard time backing up that threat. Even if I was alone, you by yourself wouldn't be able to do it. But the fact of the matter is that I'm not."

Turning to glance at Sparky and Stello, she saw Sparky give her a small wave, and her lips curled in a sneer.

"We have more than enough strength to destroy the three of you," she said, speaking plainly. "And if we can't, we have enough favors to call in to make it a sure thing."

Leaning forward on the counter, his head just about as high as hers, Thorn scratched his chin.

"Well, that leads to a problem now, doesn't it?" he said. "I guess we're at an impasse. I'm not going to let myself be bullied any further than I already have been. You're going to try to kill me if this store stays up, which means I'm going to have to end up wiping your entire organization off the face of this ruin. What a mess."

Thorn's casual conversational tone seemed to catch the woman off guard. Thorn's threats were delivered with a clear-eyed confidence that made her wonder for just a moment if he actually had the strength to back them up. That thought only lasted for a few seconds, however, and then her expression hardened. Just as she was about to draw her sword, Thorn sighed and lifted up his hand.

"Here, how about we do this? I'll stay out here, outside of your market, you continue doing whatever it was you were doing in there, and I'll even toss in a sword for you."

Reaching under the counter, he spent a minute looking through the pile of weapons he had brought, surreptitiously retrieving a sword from his dimensional ring.

"Ah, here we go."

Standing up, he held the sword out to the woman.

"I call it Nightfang," he said. "I mean, that's the name that the Grandmaster gave it."

Taking a hold of the handle, he unsheathed a few inches of the blade.

"Darksteel, Moonstone, and Starmetal. Incredibly sharp, flexible, and makes next to no noise in the air. Seven-inch handle, three-foot blade, double-edged, and perfectly balanced. Dual darkness-wind enchantments, one to speed up the sword, allowing it to bypass defenses, the other to speed up the wielder."

Staring at the sword, the woman drew in a breath. The sword that Thorn was holding was clearly worth more than nearly every other single weapon present, added together. In fact, she had never seen any weapon quite as impressive as the sword in Thorn’s hands. Furthermore, it fit her dual affinity perfectly, and the speed increases would match her fighting style as well. For the briefest of moments, she considered grabbing it and using it to cut down the giant in front of her, but that thought was just as swiftly banished. Stealing a weapon of this level would ensure that the Grandmaster Blacksmith never stopped hunting her down.

"What do you want for it?" she asked, her eyes rising to meet Thorn's.

With a simple smile, he sheathed the sword and placed it down on the counter.

"Not much. Just stand guard here for me when I'm not around.”

“That's it?" she asked, half-turning as she looked at Wensted Jarl, whose face was completely pale.

Realizing that she was asking him if he wanted her to do anything about the elven merchant who had been bothering him, Thorn chuckled.

"Actually, I do have something else," he said.