Arriving back at the Broken Twig, Kael saw that his father was still drinking. Motioning to his father to go upstairs, the two headed to his room. Once inside, Kael handed him his pack, “Can you store this for me? It’s full of herbs that I don’t want to go bad.”

Taking the pack from his son and putting it in his pouch, Iradin asked, “So where is the gift for Raen?”

“No worries, it will be done tomorrow, then we can get out of here.”

While the father and son were upstairs talking, what Kael was unaware of was that he was being followed. Originally the shopkeeper he yelled at got fired after he left. Following Kael with the intent to beat him up, he had overheard what he said to the shop clerk at the other shop. Seeing him slap down 10 gold like it was nothing, he assumed Kael was a rich merchant. The ex-shop clerk kept following him to find out who his father was. Once he confirmed they weren’t local, nor nobles, he took off to gather some people to rob them.

Kael and his father headed back downstairs. Kael had a decent, but a very greasy meal of some kind of fried white meat, fried vegetables, and what he was pretty sure was fried bread too. After eating his fried everything, he went upstairs to sleep. At some point in the night, the sound of a dull thump and the cracking of wood woke him up. Looking at the door he could tell some just shoved it in, breaking most of the door jamb.

Not entirely sure of what he should do, he decided he might as well open the door for the people trying to get in. Rolling out of bed, he exploded towards the door at full speed. Covering the 10 feet in a blink of an eye, he jumped and performed a full-blown dropkick on the door. In mid-air, he pondered how strong his kick would actually be. Surprisingly, he got a rough answer that he was sure had nothing to do with Newton or his laws.

Soul is calculating strength of its kick. Core strength is 1,650 pounds. Strength modified by 200% for a double leg kick, (3,300).

Based on acceleration and weight, an additional 2,500 pounds has been added. Total force of 5,800 pounds will be applied.

The dropkick landed on the door reducing the center of it to sawdust. The kick continued on to hit a burly looking man directly in the chest. Kael could feel and hear a sickening crunch as the man's ribs also exploded inward. The guy’s body went flying into and through the door opposite of Kaels, while Kael went flying back into his room on the rebound.

Landing, he slid back until the wall stopped his momentum. Looking up he saw the store clerk from earlier with a panicked look on his face. At the same time, the sound of something large rupturing came from his father's room. The ex-store clerk turned around to run just to find himself face to face with Iradin. Reaching out, Iradin’s hand clamped down on the top of the guys head and lifted him straight off the floor.

Kael exited his room just as the person across the hall from him stumbled out. It just happened to be the merc Walter and one of the barmaids. When Walter saw Kael, he looked back at the dead man who had two deep footprints carved into his chest. Shuddering, he stepped past Kael to speak with Iradin.

“Who are these fucks?” Walter said.

“No idea, I think this guy is about to tell us though” replied Iradin.

Interrupting them, Kael said, “He is a store clerk that did not want to sell to me today because I’m a kid. No idea why he is breaking into our rooms though.”

The store clerk seeing he was being ignored shouted, “My uncle owns Pharmacology Now, you can’t kill me.”

Squeezing the guys heads until he could hear his skull start to squeak, Iradin said, “I don’t care who you are or who you know, what were you doing?”

“You’re rich, we were just going to steal some money, you didn’t need to kill them!” the man shouted.

Snorting, Iradin crushed his skull like it was rotted wood. Dropping the body on the ground, he gave a handful of gold to the barmaid asking her to get some people to clean up the mess. Looking at his son he asked, “Why would he think we are rich?”

Shrugging, Kael said, “After he wouldn’t sell to me I went to another herb shop and only spent 10 gold. I have no idea why he thought I was rich. If he followed me the entire day he may have seen me spend about 150 though.”

“Well, 150 gold would be enough to rob for, but most people wouldn’t dare rob a child who can spend that much money in one day.”

“Sorry pops, most of the time it was just me and the shop keeps. No idea where a random thief popped out from.”

“No problem, you did well, just be more aware of your surrounding in the future.”

“Will do, but let's stay at a higher scale place next time to avoid this.”

Finally, the innkeeper and a few men that did odd jobs showed up. Charging Iradin for three doors and a 5 gold disposal fee, everything was taken care of. The barmaid even tried to give back the 4 or 5 gold Iradin had given her, just to be denied. Moving into Iradin’s room they went back to sleep. The next day was not very lively. In the late afternoon, Kael and his father went and collected all of his purchases before leaving the city for home. Kael trying to be mysterious refused to let his father open them. Totally forgetting that his parents both had a powerful spiritual sense, he did not realize his father was just asking him to be polite.

After an uneventful, but a very tiring trip home, they made it back the day before new years. Not forgetting to tell his mom he knew how strong they were, he took a moment to examine her as well.

Name: Alavarah Everflame, Race: Human, Age: 282 / 1250, Sex: Female,

Bloodline: Fae - Fire/wood, Cultivation: Body Refinement, Perfection (Core Establishment)

Group A

Base

Mod

Total

Group B

Base

Mod

Total

Group C

Base

Mod

Total

Group D

Base

Mod

Total

Strength

47

-30

17

Agility

76

-30

46

Reflex

100

-30

55

Talent

12

0

12

Body

51

-30

21

Stamina

64

-30

34

Endurance

90

-30

45

Perception

10

0

10

Intelligence

64

0

64

Willpower

55

0

55

Spirit

87

0

87

Luck

1

0

1

Damn, my mom is buff too! Both of their luck seriously sucks though. Hearing her son call her out on hiding her strength, Alavarah felt a little ashamed. “Sorry baby, there are just things that are not good to know unless you can step out of the mortal realm. It’s better to live a safe and happy life if you don’t have to worry about it.”

“It’s ok mom, I understand. One day when I am rich enough to purchase the entire kingdom I hope you tell me.”

Smiling at her son’s ridiculous dream she said, “It’s a deal, now show me what you bought.”

Looking at his dad, he said, “Dump it all out!”

Iradin began to unload the stuff Kael had bought. Starting with the sling bag he sat it on the floor off to the side. “Just herbs in that one, nothing fun.” Next, he pulled out a small pouch and handed it to Alavarah, “It’s about 1,000 pounds, careful.”

Taking the pouch she pulled out the ore. Looking at it closely and feeling it’s weight she asked, “Nice ore, what did it run you?”

Grinning like a fool Kael said, “It’s better than nice ore, it’s a tier 2 earth ranked ore called Night’s Ton! I scored it from a poor clueless fellow for 30 gold. I may not know what it is worth, but it has to be at least 10 times that.”

“It’s definitely worth more than 30 gold, but you should get Muta to take a look at it. He is not as simple as he looks.”

“Will do mom! Dad, get out the next thing!”

Listening to his son he decided to just take everything out and pile it up for Kael to go through. Kael sorted everything out into three piles. One pile had a set of soft leather boots that were well made and adult sized. The second pile had the same pair of boots but in a woman's style and size. It also had a pile of neatly folded clothing, and one wrapped package. Half the clothing was two pairs of sturdy work clothes simply consisting of pants and a shirt. The other half was two nice but sturdy cotton dresses.

Finally, Kael handed the package to his mother. Unwrapping it, she was presented with a silk dress. The dress was sleeveless and hugged the form until mid-thigh length where it flared out. From the neck to where the dress flared out had a dark green vine motif scrawled across it.

“Thanks, son! You have way better taste than your father, I’m glad you only bought him some old smelly boots.” With a big smile, she asked, “So where is Raen’s gift, don’t think you can get away with hiding them. Don’t worry, I’ll wrap it up nicely afterward.”

Kael pulled over the first package, and said, “Now, no laughing. Raen’s gifts were designed by me.”

Handing the dress over to his mother she slowly unwrapped. Running her fingers over the material she said, “Wow, it’s made out of Darkfern Spider Thread, and it gorgeous. It looks like I got an old smelly dress too.”

Taking the final, much larger package that was wrapped in a nice hide, she opened it. Feeling the texture of the boots and how soft they were inside, she set them aside. Doing the same with the pants she commented, “This has some nice reinforcement to it, and it is still soft, nice and functional just like that little girl.”

Finally holding up the long jacket, she absolutely loved the design. “You need to give the design to this and the name of the leatherworker to your father. The next time you go into town Iradin, I want one, and it has to be maroon with hunter green highlights.”

Taking that as the best compliment he could get, Kael hurried to get his mom to rewrap the dress. As soon as it was packaged up he ran over to the smithy and handed it to Muta, “This is Raen’s pre-gift gift. Tell her to open it and put it on in the morning for the celebration please!”

Afterward, he headed home. He asked his mom to store his herbs in her pouch so they would not lose their medicinal value, he then got everything packaged back up and went to bed.