The mayor did not have kobold slaves, and despite being very paranoid after Theris, Merdon awoke to found nothing wrong with anyone. They were well-rested, put up in a nice guest room that everyone had access to, and yet nothing bad had befallen any of them. He silently thanked the goddess and went to go bathe. This manor, in particular, had some nice inside plumbing and special bathrooms for washing up in. Merdon found it a little extravagant, but Sarel had taken a bath the night before and insisted she was going to bathe before they left as well. It was a little early for Merdon to be up, even he would admit that, but his sleep had been less than restful in the end. Camping outside where he was in complete control felt better than being at the mercy of a stranger.

He was joined midway through his bath by Sarel. The blue kobold slinking in as quiet as her profession dictated, undressed, and slid into the bath with him. It gave the man a shock when she was suddenly on top of him, lips against his, but it was a welcome surprise. Unlike a few others he could think of anyway. They relaxed in the bath together more than cleaned, chatting idly about what came next. Merdon recounted a few contracts he could remember to her.

They had a stop in the capital, Ardmach, to deliver a package from one place to another. It was another small task outside of the guild's usual activities, but Cath had gone out of her way to secure it for Merdon as it was exceptionally easy to lose people following you in the capital. Afterward, they would head down the other side of the mountain that Ardmach sat on and take a lesser-known route to a village known as Sarche where a bear had been threatening the locals' food stores for some time. Usually, the guards would handle it, but rumors abounded the bear was supernatural in some way. Possibly the conjuring of a wizard or the like. Whatever the case, their lives were full of adventure until they reached the witch's tower.

Armed with the knowledge of the trip ahead, Sarel suggested, after their bath and the readying of their companions, that Merdon, at last, spend some coin on a couple of horses. She argued time wasted walking, their exceptional exhaustion every time they rested, and how much easier those two things made them to be ambushed as well as how much harder being on foot made it to escape such situations. As a counterpoint, Merdon handed Sarel a pittance of their funds and insisted, if she was so adamant, to buy the supplies they needed to continue with such a small amount. He drastically underestimated the swindling kobold thief, as she returned a half-hour later with exactly the provisions requested and some change.

Merdon stared at the coins she placed in his palm with dead eyes as Sarel told him, “Never challenge Quickclaw, verakt. She always wins.”

Beaten at his own game, Merdon and the kobolds went down to the stables and he started bargaining for a pair of horses. He spelled out almost immediately how high he was willing to go, being a novice at such mercantile acts. and the owner trotted out a pair of less than prime horses. Unlike Merdon, the owner of the stable sold his horses exceptionally well, speaking of their strengths as being endurance, capable of long travel, their training around water making them good for crossing rivers, and sweetening the deal by mentioning they may have been quite good at jumping as well. The knight wasn't quite sure, despite being assured their reliability. Which was when Sarel stepped in.

The kobold walked over to the horses and made a sharp noise, causing the horses to whinny and back up. As he turned around to shout at the kobold, Quickclaw cut him off and said, “The way the mare steps on her back leg, it's fractured.” He froze and practically bit his tongue off closing his mouth. Sarel continued, “These horses are also not just over their prime, they are old, quite old. Quickclaw saw them when she passed through the market earlier today. She doubts they could travel at anything faster than a light trot.”

Merdon raised a brow and watched the stable owner carefully.

“You might be more of a critter yourself, but you don't know the first thing about horses,” he said after a moment. “You probably hurt the ol' mare when you scared them!”

Quickclaw folded her arms. “And that is why she was limping when you walked her out? Quickclaw scared her so badly she injured herself before arriving?”

The older man burned red in the face and started talking up his other points, none of which Sarel was listening to seriously. She told him their journey was long and important, and they couldn't rely on half-dead horses to carry them to the capital and beyond. He retorted that his horses could make the trip a dozen times before dying, again insisting she had no idea what horses could and couldn't do. That was when she surprised Merdon the most.

“Come along, Merdon,” she gestured, turning her back on the man. “Quickclaw scouted another stable, and the guards say it is where they get their horses. They seem to be much better quality than these.” She had not scouted out anything, but the stable owner became very irate after those implications.

“Fine,” he shouted, leading the two horses back into the stable. “You want something better, I'll give you better.” It sounded threatening, but he came back out with two more horses which were obviously in better condition.

Quickclaw turned around and smiled. “That is much improved. And certainly, the price hasn't changed, you would not want to be called a swindler after all.”

The man glared at the kobold but accepted the conditions. She had taken the rug right out from under his feet and left him with not a foothold in sight. Merdon, much as it pained him, essentially emptied their coffers into the man's own purse before taking the horses, saddles and all, and heading towards the town gate. It wasn't until they were almost there that Sarel started laughing and grinning widely.

“Quickclaw distracted him so much with getting a fair price on the horses, he did not realize we also walked away with their saddles. He could have argued quite hard for those,” she said quietly. “Good saddles are not cheap.”

Merdon was shocked, as he hadn't considered the saddles could be separate, but she was right. Threatening to call the old man a swindler had let them do just that. He felt rather dirty.

“Relax,” she told him, “We overpaid even for these ones. Not by much, but we didn't have the time to spend all day wearing him down like we needed.”

“Why would the bargaining take all day?” Merdon asked, exasperated. “Why don't people just offer fair prices?”

Sarel cocked her head at him. “Fair prices? Verakt, that's nearsighted and you know it. Quickclaw believes we have had this talk before. Haggling is a game, and Quickclaw does not lose.”

Once they were outside of the town gate, Merdon attached their packs to the mounts and then spent a minute teaching Skyeyes and Red how to mount one. It was harder thanks to their smaller frames, but they got it relatively quickly. Sarel seemed to know, considering she was waiting on the other horse for her mate with a smirk. He could guess why and was proven right as soon as he got up behind her. The blue kobold wriggled and adjusted until she was sitting on his lap, which was much more comfortable than having her take up a large portion of the saddle that he needed for his own comfort, but it was much more intimate than Red's hands on Skyeyes' sides. The knight had to shake such an idea from his mind as he grabbed the reins and looked at the other two.

He started off by demonstrating how to control the horse, using their legs and applying pressure by squeezing to make it go, turning by a similar means, and how they had to be wary of anything that might make it rear up as well. Getting thrown from the back of the horse was a good way to get injured. Once Skyeyes had an acceptable grasp on the forces and motions, Merdon continued the lesson by showing how to start the horses at a trot. Giving his mount a good squeeze to start it forward at a trot, the human looked back to watch Skyeyes do the same thing. It was a little harder given the kobold's size and strength, but eventually, the horse got the idea and started along. Merdon pulled back a little, slowing down and letting the less experienced riders catch up. After that, he got them both on an even trot down the road.

It was much faster to travel the kingdom's highways by horseback, and they all noticed it pretty much immediately. They also noticed they had more freedom to pay attention to the surrounding areas now that they weren't trying to distract themselves from sore muscles. Avant was a vast and diverse location with mountains, forests, a shoreline, it was a place some would call idyllic. One side protected by an ocean, another by mountains, and their capital positioned on the highest peak in the land, flattened and worked into a plateau for their kings. The peaks replaced by various keeps and castles. That was their next stop, and as they made their way towards it questions naturally came up.

Most of them Merdon answered satisfactorily. He told Red, the most curious of the three, that Avant was a massive military power, and the many castles atop the mountain, visible from many places in the nation, were held by distinguished generals. Ardmach was built like a fortress and would never fall so long as one of the five castles stood. There were rumors about ways to sneak their king between them, but they were just rumors as far as the general population was concerned.

Their military history also explained the abundance of adventurers in the kingdom. Many people had fathers and mothers who had served in arms and passed their training, and weapons, on to their children as they got old enough for such things. The three kobolds got a very quick idea as to how Merdon's childhood looked all of a sudden and tried to refocus the topic. Sarel was curious, herself, but figured her verakt would divulge his past when he felt ready, as she would to him.

Skyeyes, meanwhile, asked how far they were from the capital in terms of travel time. Merdon frowned and pondered the question himself before figuring they were about two weeks from Ardmach. Two weeks that included a very long trek up a mountain path, even on horseback, which would consume at least half of the trip. The priest tried to comprehend the distance and time as he looked at the mountain. Surely then buying the mounts was a good idea on Sarel's part, as such a walk on foot would have taken twice as long or more. Perhaps she knew where they were going, the two were mates after all. It left Skyeyes with more silent questions though. For a traveling companionship, they all felt very closed off about their pasts to one another in his opinion.

A few days later, after Red and Skyeyes had gotten used to their backsides being sore from riding on horseback and the group was camped out in the shadow of the mountain that Ardmach sat on, Sarel went to speak with Merdon. The knight was taking first watch as it tended to even out the sleeping schedules of him and the kobolds, which meant Red and Skyeyes were heading to sleep. That made it perfect for the blue kobold to sit down next to him in silence for a while before breaching the subject she wanted to speak on. It was a matter close to her and an unavoidable one.

“Quickclaw has been to Ardmach before,” she said quietly.

Merdon looked at her curiously. “I thought you weren't interested in hume politics,” he chided her.

She slapped his lower back with her tail and went silent. She was being serious, and it made the human stop smirking and lean into her. When Sarel finally spoke she whispered, “Sarel was born in Ardmach. Her mother lives in the kobold slums along the Southern wall.”

“You … were born there?” he repeated in surprise. “I'm sorry, that's not what I expected to hear. You asked about our politics. How did you not know about kings if you were born in the capital of Avant?”

“Not everyone cares what you humes do,” she fumed. “Sarel left her home when she was young and lived among kobolds outside of hume society. The raids slavers perform on the slums are nerve-wracking.” Sarel's body was compacting against itself, trying to seem as small as possible.

Merdon put his arm around her and pulled the kobold close. “You'll be fine,” he assured her. “I'll be there, so will Red and Skyeyes. Nothing is going to happen. We have a simple job, one day, then we leave.” Still, even as he tried to calm her down a pit was forming in his stomach. Raids on the kobold slums, the houses kobolds who were supposed to be free being ransacked by profiteering humans. It made him sick, made him wonder how no one had done anything about it yet.

After several minutes of silence, and Sarel unwinding, the kobold got the main point of her revelation. “Sarel wishes for you to meet her mother.”

Popping from the fire made Merdon jump shortly after she said that. “Your mom? She lives in Ardmach still?” Sarel nodded to him and left him to think. She lived there, as long as she hadn't been picked up in one of those raids, and he would meet her in a week. A week of climbing sounded a lot better than that meeting for some reason.

Merdon looked up, tilting his head far enough back that he could see up the nearly sheer cliff behind them. Far above sat Ardmach, capital of Avant, home of kobold slavery, and home to Sarel. His verakt. A home she did not feel comfortable in. He suddenly wished she had told him this much sooner so he could have avoided the place altogether. Putting them through stress was not what he wanted to do. They had a witch to fight, a happy, normal life to secure by keeping them all safe. Yet at every turn, it seemed like they marched straight into danger. The simple delivery in Ardmach paid quite well though, Merdon couldn't deny it.

The contract promised twenty silvers to get a package from one end of the city to the other. What made it stand out was the level of protection the package needed, and since the regular guards couldn't be bothered to play errand boy, and they needed the money, things just worked out like that. Still, he felt much less comfortable after hearing Sarel's story. Taking Skyeyes and Red into a city where slavers went on raids common enough to make Sarel leave sounded like the exact kind of thing he was trying to protect them all from.

“We'll be fine,” he told Sarel again, although it was more for himself. “We make one delivery and then we leave. We won't even stay till morning. In and out, like a thief in the night.” He smirked at her after that one.

The kobold chuckled and nodded. “Exactly the kind of thing Sarel would do.”

Merdon kissed her and ushered her to bed. They started their ascent in the early morning, after a hearty breakfast. It would be hard going, and then they now needed to leave the city through the other gate the same day they arrived. Sore would be an understatement, but it was what had to be done. And the knight was getting used to doing things in very peculiar ways.