ROTLE- Chapter 184- Or Very Rich (Patreon)

“Master?”

The creature that was a man but was not cocked its head to the side in confusion. Ted stood in place, staring it down. For some reason it seemed very familiar. He wanted to reach out and touch it gently. It was like a lost child, a sad child.

He almost pitied it.

The urge to reach out to it in comfort crossed his mind, but he did not. If his guess was right, and he was following the things that Aiden had told him, then this was a creature that had probably served him in his past life, the future that Aiden had undone. The first one, not the second one that he had undone by like two days where he’d fought a man that was impossible to kill.

He almost chuckled. His baby brother was certainly living an overactive life. His ex, Tasha, had grown from liking his introverted personality to thinking he was boring. If only she could see how not boring he was.

Time traveling and all the chaos he was up to.

The idea still blew his mind sometimes, but he knew the kinds of things Aida lied about, and time travel was not one of them. It still was hilarious, though.

There was movement to his side, and he held his hand out to halt Oncot without looking. How foolish was the man to think that together they could even handle the creature in front of them. Perhaps it was its naked appearance, like a man with a line running up from his navel to his neck.

Or maybe he’s just battle hungry.

Aiden did say that he was from a tribe that reveled in death in battle. Maybe it did not matter the opponent as long as it was a fight difficult enough to kill them.

The thing leaned in once more, confusion on a human face while its real body slithered in the dark beyond seeing.

“Master?” it asked again.

Ted cocked his head to the side, not scared at all.

“Maybe,” he joked.

He couldn’t help himself. It was like spending time with your dog when it was busy wondering why you smelled different.

“Two masters?” it asked.

That wiped the comfort from Ted’s mind. These things were only supposed to have a single master. They could not have two masters.

And how do you know that?

Things were getting serious now. The creature’s false face twisted in a frown. It was angry, but not at Ted, at something else. Ted did not know what.

Elami moved now, approaching slowly with a still unconscious Valdan in his arms. He had promised Aiden that Valdan would be fine a few days ago.

Valdan was not yet fine. He was not yet conscious.

Elami looked up at the thing, into its face, with marvel. “[Life Eater],” he said with restrained awe. “In these lands.” He looked at Ted. “This is unprecedented.”

Ted bit his teeth. “You think?” he muttered through shut teeth harshly. “Now back up before this thing changes its mind.”

Elami nodded at it. “It already is.”

The [Life Eater] backed up, still confused.

Then it turned and vanished into the night.

For all the Jack and Jills he’d read growing up, he knew one simple thing.

This was not a good sign.

Two masters.

He had an idea who the second master was.

Aida.

…

With hope in his heart but doubt in the air, Tanor walked through the sea of trees and bushes and shrubberies. As he did, hope dwindled slowly from his heart.

Lord Lacheart, though young, knew his father. And why not? His father was no stranger to raising child soldiers. From a very young age he would dedicate them to grueling and torturous training. The man was no monster, not by the closest definitions of the word, but he was no saint.

He did not torture the children, but he did not instill loyalty with love. Tanor had learnt the true meaning of subtle and subliminal brainwashing from his time being trained—not like the children, but close enough.

What was it his father liked to say?

Truth or lie, if you are told enough times, you will believe it. You must.

There was always a level of vehemence to the last part, as if the rest was true but he needed to declare it to be so. Tanor had eventually figured out why the vehemence existed. It was for people like him, the outliers. Those with too much self-awareness to believe just from constant reminders.

Every morning, the children pledged allegiance to his father, not the family. For every victory or achievement from the moment they could walk and move their limbs they were praised for being worthy of the father’s love. When they failed, they were scorned, informed of how disappointed the father would be.

It molded minds in ways that torture could not to have these words instilled in their heads from before they could even think.

A low hanging branch almost hit Tanor on the head. Lost in thought his awareness of his surroundings had dwindled. That had been foolish of him. Pushing the branch aside, he tried to make as much subtle noise as possible. The kind you would expect from someone simply walking in the night, not sneaking about—someone cautious not malicious or secretive.

It would help his case.

His mind went back to Lord Lacheart as he walked.

The title had to be some kind of alias, right? His father had most of these children grow up to become spies in different kingdoms, in noble houses, in churches. Anywhere that had any kind of power had a spy in them.

His father’s problem had always been the shadow organization that had fueled the creation of such a program: the Order. There were too many days when the anger of his father could be felt through the corridors, vibrant in the rooms. Every time it was some complaint about how for all his networks, he could not track down the location of the Order. And every time he got close enough his spy or agent would turn up dead.

Once upon a time, Tanor and his sister had snuck into their father’s study. Why? He could not remember. Perhaps they were just children being children. Sometimes he still saw the severed head on his father’s reading table, its tongue lolled to the side like some caricature painting made to mock the powerful.

‘Try again.’

Those had been the words carved into the forehead. They had been mocking his father, proving to him that his trials and errors only served to entertain them.

Then there was the time he had actually captured an agent of the Order. His father had been ecstatic with joy then. Tanor could not remember a brighter smile on his father’s face.

Tanor chuckled at the thought. The frown the next morning when no one could find his captive was just as stark. He had never seen a deeper scowl.

And for all his spy networks, his father instilled it in his children that there were always eyes on them. His network of spies was created to grow the family and protect his offsprings.

For what is a man if he cannot protect those he has sired.

The thought dripped into his head like a venom from a serpent’s fang.

That Lord Lacheart knew him by a name he had not used since running away from home was all he needed to know. So, it was not out of place that Lord Lacheart was a powerful child birthed by his father’s grueling training. It was there, in the way he moved, the way he assessed situations. He was good, smart, ruthless.

The dead [Saint] came to mind. Tanor frowned.

Lord Lacheart had probably been one of the best in his class, perhaps his father’s finest. Had it been part of his father’s plan to make an enemy of the church or was that just the spy’s overinflated enthusiasm working?

But he’s not here for me, Tanor thought, finally hearing the sound of crackling wood and muted conversations. The place was farther than he had expected. Has father set his eyes on the heart of Nosrath or is there something else I’m missing.

And why were the men Lord Lacheart and the [Mage] had sensed so far out. Just how strong were they that they were aware?

The [Mage] was a no-brainer, though. She was from the Mage Radiant. His father always said that he would’ve hated their arrogance were it not backed by their power and competence.

Tanor pushed leaves and branches of a shrubbery aside and stepped onto a small clearing. He was met with fire from burning wood and six men and women armed and waiting for him.

His hands came up immediately.

“Whoa!” He looked about, took in all six of them. He pointed at the largest, a man with a bow and nocked arrow wearing light armor. “That is a small bow on a very big man.”

He could not help it. It was just funny to look at. The arrow would knock a proper hole in his head, but it looked like a toothpick in the man’s hands.

All six, there were four men and two women, each garbed in some level of light armor. Tanor took a moment to take them in again. His brows furrowed. They looked… poor.

The large man for one definitely needed a set of heavy armor on him. It had nothing to do with his class but his size. Over six feet, he had a gut almost as round as he was tall. The man was not crossing long distances quickly, that was for sure.

And since being unproductively corpulent was only a trait found in children on Nastild, that his class, whatever it was, allowed him to be this corpulent meant that he was supposed to be large and seemingly difficult to kill.

Both girls were blonde and brunette respectively. They looked nothing alike and, bless her soul, one had a face that could be only loved by a mother. But the boobs on her…

Tanor banished the thought from his mind. This was no time to be paying attention to the wrong things.

The remaining three men were average. In looks and in height and in size, he could pass them four times on the road and never look twice.

“You’re a funny one, aren’t you,” one of the men said. His only distinctive trait was his scowl. It looked like he was supposed to be smiling not scowling.

Tanor shook his head quickly. “No, I didn’t mean to say that. I swear.”

His eyes darted off to the side. Beside one of the women was a massive mallet with a head like a boulder. It was as large as a man.

The woman with the normal looking face caught his attention. Her eyes moved protectively to the mallet. It rested, head on the ground with a slender handle as tall as her. She placed her hand on the handle.

“What kind fool accidentally stumbles upon another person’s camp?” she asked.

Tanor kept his hands up. “The kind that did not do it accidentally.”

“So, you knew you were here and foolishly walked in,” the man whose scowl did not fit him asked.

The large man still held the bow and arrow primed on him.

“I just… saw people and figured I could join you for a warm fire,” Tanor said. “I just—”

“What happened to the rest of your team?” The large man finally deigned to speak.

“I…” Tanor’s first instinct was to lie. He stopped himself, though. But now he found himself unsure of what to say.

He had come here to show Lacheart that not everybody was a potential enemy. Strangers didn’t have to be people to be killed. Sometimes people were just good.

But was he going to prove that through deception? Wouldn’t that be cheating? It was easy to make a person temporarily good through the proper false presentation. Lies were useful that way.

Still, was it his place to give out the others?

“I came into the forest alone,” he answered, deciding to offer just enough truth to mask the real truth.

The second man, with a mouse of hair on his head laughed a little. “What kind of schmuck comes into Nosrath’s territory alone when everyone knows that the beast is up and kicking. Nosrath’s a raid boss. No one’s soloing that monster.”

Then it was a good thing that Tanor had not come here for Nosrath. He’d come here for knowledge, to study the animals and maybe the plants. The trees were especially interesting to study. It was a sad thing that he did not know enough about herbology and plants to truly understand most of what he had learnt.

“That means you’re either very strong or very stupid,” the man with the scowl said.

The woman with the face Tanor didn’t want to look at frowned. “Or very rich.”

Her companions looked at her and she nodded at Tanor’s gear.

“Heavy armor like that,” she said. “You see the way it’s made of metal but creases when he moves like fabric.”

Eyes went to placed like his elbow and Tanor could already sense the problem coming along. It was there, the subtle sneaking greed in their eyes.

He had been really hoping against this outcome.

“Enchanted armor that is,” the woman continued. “Makes you wonder what a kid is doing with enchanted armor. Must be a rich one.”

“Maybe one of them Lord’s kids,” the last man said. His arms were so big in comparison to his chest that he looked as if he was standing funny. “Could get a lot out of a Lord’s kid.”

Tanor did not want these people to die. He had seen what his father’s trained spies could do when they put their minds to it.

“How about I pay you for some time at your fire?” he asked, and the moment the words left his mouth, he knew they had been the wrong one.

The lady with the mallet closed her fist around its handle. She hefted the weapon, allowing the handle to settle across her shoulder. It was as if the thing weighed nothing to her.

“How much you got?” she asked.

“Two gold coins.” It was a lot of money. The price of a night in some low end luxurious inns back home.

“For each of us?” Her voice took up a tone of mock flattery. “Why what would we do with all that money?”

Tanor resisted the urge to correct her. He knew what she was doing. She’d understood that the gold was for them as a group. She was mocking him.

Bullying him.

He held his tongue. Maybe they were just unfortunate enough to be the strangers that were for killing not befriending.

The large man lowered his bow and arrow. Hope flared in Tanor’s mind where it had died not too long ago. Maybe they could salvage it.

The man looked at his teammate, the girl who had pointed out his armor. “Do enchanted armors adjust to those who are wearing them? I think I heard something like that somewhere once.”

“Depends. Why?”

“If I can get his to replace mine, maybe…”

“Oh,” she cooed in realization. “That’s true, yours got beat up. You know I completely forgot why you were wearing light armor.”

Tanor sighed as hope died again. So much for the kindness of people.

He held his hand out to the side, drawing everyone’s attention.

The girl with the mallet furrowed her brows at him. “And what are you about to do?”

Tanor was not the one to answer her.

“Kill you all, obviously.” Lord Lacheart was standing beside her, emerged from the darkness of the night.

She turned quickly, swinging her mallet. He leaned back and it blew by.

With a turn and a twirl, she mitigated the force of the swinging weapon and settled it back on her shoulders.

A laugh came from her lips. It was false, filled with feigned bravado. “And you think the two of you can take on us?”

They were all ready now, combat aware.

Blood was about to be drawn.

Tanor hated it. He hated it more when Lacheart grinned as if he was happy to be right.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not us.”

Tanor’s halberd appeared in his hand, summoned from his storage space.

Lord Lacheart’s smirk became a boyish grin.

“He’ll kill you all himself.”

Tanor hated that he was right.