Chapter 28: Money Problems

Trip woke up in the broken house. He looked around and saw a bunch of children in rags. He felt sorry for them. They had no strength and they had no money. Without money or strength one could never thrive in this harsh world. Trip knew that he had lived a fairly privileged life. He had always had a place to stay, and when he didn’t he always had the strength to live comfortably. Thus he felt incredibly guilty staying in this house while he had money. Before anyone else woke up he woke up Alex and they left. They left behind a hundred coins of gold. It wasn’t much, but it could pay for food for several weeks.

After they exited the house they sighed in relief that they did not wake anyone up, however their relief was destroyed by Alesha. They saw her walking down the abandoned street the moment they left the building. She was carrying a stick on her shoulders which held two large buckets of water to either side. This strength was extraordinary for a malnourished eleven year old girl. The moment she saw Trip and Alex she frowned, not because they were leaving the house, but because they had an embarrassed look on their faces.

She put down the water buckets and walked up to them, saying “Mornin’, are you leaving already?”

Trip felt such guilt for having basically pretended to be poor and homeless so he decided to confess. “I’m sorry, but we are not actually poor. We left 100 gold coins for you. Sorry for taking advantage of your kindness.” He said

She frowned again, but then she smiled warmly and said “No need to be sorry about it; it isn’t as if you lied or anything. 100 gold coins are actually very helpful, so thank you.”

Trip sighed in relief. He was truly very worried that she would be very angry and that she would wake everyone.

“How ‘bout a goodbye hug?” Alesha said, extending her arms.

Both Alex and Trip hugged her and then they went on their way. Everything worked out in the end, and now they could spend the rest of the week in the city without feeling guilty about their actions.

They decided that the first thing that they should buy was clothes. They walked over to a decent part of town, to ensure that they would be able to get some comfortable clothes. They found a small clothing shop. It wasn’t high quality stuff, but still good enough to be comfortable. They hoped that it was cheap and affordable so they could afford several sets of clothing. They picked out a few clothes which fit, and then they went up to the cashier.

Trip smiled and asked “How much for this sir?”

The man looked at the clothes for a second before responding “2000 gold.” He said casually.

Trip’s eyes nearly filled up with tears. ‘2000 GOLD! This is robbery!’ Trip could barely contain his anger. Even Alex was shocked by this total. It was said that there was a lot of inflation in West Hrior, but this was ridiculous. They had spent the whole of yesterday working to get money, and yet now they couldn’t even afford a couple crappy clothes!

After a couple of seconds of having mental arguments Trip grabbed some clothes and put them back. He left only two shirts and two pants, this was it. Luckily when he asked for the price he was greeted with a bargain of 600 gold coins. Trip reached towards his pocket, ready to pay. He felt around for a bit, but his wallet did not seem to be there.

He turned to Alex and asked “Alex, do you have the wallet?”

Alex felt his pockets and turned to Trip with a panicked look on his face, before saying “I thought you had it.”

They looked at each other with eyes filled with panic. They both knew what had happened. The only contact they had with anyone today other than each other was Alesha. It was clear that she had taken their money when she hugged them.

Alex’s eyes filled with rage. Trip smiled on the surface as he apologised to the shopkeeper for not having money, but on the inside he felt incredibly angry. Not only had he been played for a fool, he had even felt guilty and was charitable to those people. Alex looked at Trip, and Trip looked at Alex. They were going to get that money back no matter what.

They rushed as quickly as they could towards the abandoned street. They then snuck down the street until they reached the house. Before they entered they listened in. It was strangely quiet, too quiet for a house full of young children.

After a couple of seconds they heard a voice. It was a voice that was too deep to be a child’s voice. Unfortunately they could not hear anything because of the wall of the house, so they around the back, where there was a large opening. Once they reached it they started to have a clear view of what was happening.

There was a man sitting on a wooden box. His facial features were fairly average, but his eyes were incredibly intense and almost maniacal. His hand was at his belt, holding a handle of a weapon, but Trip could not tell whether it was a sword or a dagger. He was sitting in front of all the children; they were all kneeling towards him. All but Alesha. She was standing next to him, bowing and handing him a bag of gold. In exchange for this bag of gold the man released his hand from the hilt of his weapon. At that point Alesha took out a small shiv and lunged towards the man, her movements were fast and strange, but when Trip saw this unfold he immediately knew that the man could easily grab his weapon before Alesha would reach him. While Trip was angry that his money had been stolen, he understood why, and he would rather not see any children die. He quickly moved into a good position and shot a quick water bullet at the man, knocking him out immediately.

Alesha was shocked. She turned around to see a smiling Trip and Alex. She looked at them and seemed to be unable to grasp the situation. A ten year old had just knocked out a full grown man using magic!? This was ridiculous!

Trip walked towards her and said “We need to talk.”

The three went upstairs to talk while the rest of all the orphaned kids were only sitting there in awe.

When they were alone they started to talk.

“First of all we need to address the fact that you robbed us. We understand that you needed that to pay that man, but now that you have the money we would like it back.” Alex said

Alesha could only laugh awkwardly as she handed to money to them.

Then Trip chimed in “You can use wind magic.”

Alesha looked at him in shock. “How did you know?” she asked

“When you attacked him I saw that your movements were strange, and this morning you were carrying things that you shouldn’t have been able to carry. This is all because of wind magic; however your understanding is very rudimentary.”

Alesha couldn’t even look at Trip. She had always kept the fact that she could use wind magic a secret, but now her secret had been found out within a couple minutes.

Seeing that she didn’t say anything Trip continued to speak. “With your talent you could easily have left this place and lived a better life. Why stay here?”

She angrily looked at Trip and said “What? Was I just supposed to leave them here!? These children have no one, no leader, no parents, how can they survive if I left!?”

Trip looked at her with a complicated look. Somehow he felt really bad about the fact that she was sacrificing an incredibly promising future by staying with these children. It annoyed him. Suddenly he came up with an idea.

“If I can get a home for all these children then you should be able to go to school, right?” Trip said

Alex looked at Trip with a confused look. Why did Trip care so much about this girl? After a couple seconds Alex seemed to have reached a conclusion. It was clear that Trip liked this girl! He looked at Trip and gave him a thumbs up.

Trip did not know what this meant, but he assumed that this meant that Alex agreed to helping the children.

Alesha then responded to Trip’s enquiry. “If you could do that then I would go to school, but how in hells name are you going to pull that off?” She said. While her words were negative she had seen how powerful Trip was and had a hope within her heart that he would be able to actually do something to help her and the children.

Trip smiled and started to explain his plan.