Chapter 9

**A Place Called Finchead**

“Oh boy, its cold,” Vanna said with a shiver. The temperature had dropped significantly since their heist and both were struggling to keep warm. They were too afraid to start a fire in case they were being followed.

“Let’s stop in this ditch for the night, the nearby rocks should hide us from anyone passing by,” Jason suggested. He had already lent her his cloak and wished he had something to cover himself with. They guided Skippy into the small glen and unload the wool sacks. “We can use these as pillow and each lay on a side of Skippy to try and keep warm,” Jason said.

The idea slightly improved their situation enough so that Jason didn’t fear they would die from exposure, but he still wasn’t comfortable. Vanna must not have minded the arrangement because Jason heard her snoring only a few seconds after they hunkered down. Jason took the opportunity to check the pending notifications he had.

**New Skill: Dodge (Beginner I): 1% movement speed boost when moving to avoid things +50 Exp.**

**Skill rank up: Dodge (Beginner II): You survived a life or death situation almost solely on dodging. 2% movement speed boost when moving to avoid things +75 Exp.**

**Would you like to see the battle log for your last combat experience. Note this will include all damage delivered by party members. Yes/no.**

Jason selected yes.

19:31:05 Herder takes 21 slashing damage from Vanna

19:31:40 Herder takes 17 slashing damage from Vanna

19:31:41 Herder takes 2 damage from bleeding

19:32:01 Jeb takes 43 blunt damage from critical hit from Skippy

19:32:11 Herder takes 2 damage from bleeding

19:32:15 Jason kills Jeb for 100 critical piercing damage

19:32:41 Herder takes 2 damage from bleeding

19:33:11 Herder takes 2 damage from bleeding

19:33:20 Skippy kills Herder for 25 blunt damage

Experience Log

+125 from Jeb (Level 5 Herder)

+100*.1 from Herder (Level 4 Herder)

Total Experience Gain: +135

Jason was surprised the entire fight only lasted a little longer than two minutes. In the moment it felt like hours. He was also surprised by the insignificant amount of experience he received from the fight, he gained nearly as much experience from his skill gains as from the actual fighting. Is fighting even worth it as a means of leveling up, Jason asked himself. It seems I’ll have an easier time if I just stick to leveling up my skills. There was one last notification pending and Jason summoned it.

**Warning: You are present at the scene of a murder, escape undetected to avoid a bounty.**

**You have escaped the scene without being seen, no bounty received.**

**New Skill: Sneak (Beginner I) [Active]: Reduces chance of detection by 1% when active. +50 Exp.**

It wasn’t murder, Jason almost screamed out loud. I was just taking my stuff back and they attack me. Jason closed all the notifications then tried to make himself comfortable. Skippy was surprisingly warm but his feet, hands, and face were still cold. It wasn’t murder, Jason thought as he closed his eyes and kept repeating the mantra until he finally drifted off to sleep.

*****

Day 4

Vanna woke him again with nudge, “sun’s up Honey it’s time to go. I need my breakfast, so let’s find that town.” Jason wanted to let out a protest, as the sun had risen the temperature had as well and their little hovel was now comfortable, but followed the woman’s commands. Vanna returned the cloak, she wouldn’t need it today, it felt like it was going to be a warm one, and helped Jason to load the wool back onto Skippy.

As they were walking Jason asked Vanna questions about the notifications he received last night. “Hey Vanna, did you check the notifications from last night?”

“Yes, when I woke up this morning. Why do you ask Honey?”

“Did you get the message about murder?”

“Oh that honey. You need to remember you were in the right, they stole your stuff and attacked us. They system only calls it that because that’s what any sheriff would think when they first arrived at the scene,” Vanna said trying to reassure Jason.

“Oh ok,” Jason said, his guilt didn’t disappear though. “I’m just worked up on what we talked about yesterday about the NPC’s being real people.”

“It’s tricky Jason, but we’re in a different world now and people think and act different than we did back on Earth. There were no other paths we could have taken back there.”

Jason still wasn’t completely fine, but he stopped talking about the subject. “What about the experience gain, that seemed kind of low,” he mentioned, trying to change the subject.

“I don’t know if you could tell but the base experience reward per each level is 25 then classes act as modifiers. Fighting combat classes will give you more experience, noncombat classes like the ones from last night will give you less,” Vanna said. “In the army, we rarely killed unless we were fighting bandits. Against real enemies we would only try to wound them because they could be ransomed, so I’m not too accustomed to killing either.”

“Oh I just remembered,” Jason said, “I found my money bag on…,” he was about to say Jeb but caught himself, “on one of the thieves.” He had tied the pouch to his belt the night before but had since forgotten about it. He pulled it out and looked inside. If he remembered right he had a little less than a silver in coppers coins when he was robbed, but he also expected to see the two silvers he paid for the wool. But when Jason looked inside the pouch he found his two silvers in addition to thirty copper coins, Jeb must have had some of his own money in the pouch as well.

“Don’t worry about it,” Vanna said as she pulled a similar pouch off her waist, “I nicked this off one of them. Had about 14 coppers on him, that’s more than enough payment.”

“Well that settles it than,” Jason responded, he wasn’t sure how to breach the next topic but came straight out with it. “So um, now that we are done, what are you going do Vanna?”

“It’s going to take more than that to get rid of me Honey. You made me more money than I’ve ever had yet so I’m going to stick around. Plus I like you.”

Skippy snorted and Jason glared at the donkey, “alright then I guess we are a team.”

They found out the town was only about an hour away from where they had camped. Like they planned, Vanna and Jason cut through the trees to enter town from the north. Like Fallows, where there was not forest there were pastures full of sheep and cattle. To the north, the river flowed and created a watershed for a mile long patch of farmland. Compared to Fallows, this town seemed to be well off.

Many of the villagers looked to be of working, but the few housewives and children waved at them as they walked down the main road. “Lets ask around to get a lay of the land and see if we can pick up some more wool to sell,” Jason said.

Vanna nodded, “I don’t think it would be a good idea to try and return to Exton anytime soon.”

Jason nodded in sad agreement. He had been looking forward to playing 39 Thieves with Darrow again and he had just started to become familiar with the town.

The first woman they spoke to was helpful and pointed them in the direction of the city hall. From what they had already seen of the town it was the largest building consisting of a longhouse with an attached cottage. Outside there was a post with a grey pony tied up. Jason tied Skippy’s reins to the post and he and Vanna walked to the door.

As Vanna was about to knock on the wooden door it burst open and a short man stormed out. “Murder, murder!” The man yelled. “And we will catch whichever one of you rotten lot murdered my sons.”

A tall tanned man stepped out of the building, “I told you we had nothing to do with this.” Another man followed the speaker out of the town hall.

“Lies, lies! There will be hell to pay, mark my words,” the short man yelled. A few nearby villagers watched nervously. Children were told quietly to run inside, the short man had a sword on his waist, but so did the tall man’s companion.

“And what is that supposed to mean Malcom?” the tall man asked not feigning any fear.

“You know you arrogant bull,” the man began to wag his finger. He turned to face the rest of the villagers, “watch your fields and sleep with one eye open for we don’t forget in Fallows.” With those words he mounted his pony and stormed out of the town. In his wake his pony left a cloud of dust.

The two men turned to each other and began to talk, but then realized that Vanna and Jason were standing next them. The tall man reached out his arm to greet the, “hello travelers. Welcome to Finchead, I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

The tall man’s companion looked at Vanna and Jason and saw their weapons.

“I am Byron the reeve and this is our sheriff…” his words faded away as he looked to the sheriff. The man’s eyes had went from Vanna and Jason’s weapons to Skippy loaded with sacks of wool.

The sheriff put a hand on his sword hilt and said in a low growl, “I don’t want to make a scene out here, so you two are going to come inside and do some explaining.”