After what should have been a full night’s rest, the hero’s party were roused by the golems and summoned to breakfast. Trailing out of their rooms one by one starting with Ernest, they find the table from the day before filled with meat links, strange bread-like products, fruit, bitter-brew, and various other items.

Not one to wait, Ernest started eating before his companions and asked mundane questions of the golems and soul stone, as he had started the night before. The most intriguing things to him were the various experiences with the houses of nobility and the best ways to schmooze up to them. Marvin and Rory arrive in time to see the first plate finish, and start digging in and listening to Ernest prattle on.

Rachel finally leaves her room alongside a golem. The trio look over briefly at her and wave and think nothing more of it until the golem also sits down between Rachel and Marvin.

“Um…” begins Rory before being interrupted.

“Hi guys!” says the golem with a nervous chuckle, “I know this is a surprise for me but it’s good to see you again. Kind-of see you at least. Not with eyes or anything but whatever is going on.”

Marvin finally drops his utensils to his plate and immediately wraps the golem in a hug, sheerly on impulse, and begins crying.

“Shhh shhh, I know you big lug,” says Margarette through the golem, patting him on the back. “Rachel told me a bit and at least you got me this far. We can talk normally until you have to leave.”

The rest of the group scratch their jaws or look otherwise awkward, and continue on with breakfast while ignoring Marvin for the time being. After shedding a fair amount of tears, he comes back to himself.

“There’s so many things I wanted to talk about,” he mumbles while going back to his breakfast.

“Well, we can talk before you leave. It may seem like I’m stressing this, but you know you can’t all stay here forever right?” Margarette states while looking around the table. “Rachel was telling me last night she had a funny feeling about things before all this started and I assume the rest of you have had time to think on things.”

“Yeah,” instantly replies Ernest. “One of the things that has been bugging me for a while is how all of these nobles know all of us but we know next to nothing about most of them. Almost all of our work ends up coming through the nobles at some point but we don’t even have time to question it. For instance, we all know of the Handbell family right? Got their start after clearing out a nest of monsters in the land they got titled to, hunters the lot of them. Mostly at least.”

“I know you like your stories but hurry up,” says Rory.

“Fine, but here’s the thing. Miss Saidel, can you tell them what you told me last night?”

“Certainly!” pipes up a bright young voice from the wall. “Apparently it isn’t common knowledge of what our clan cleared out, but down here it’s almost mundane.”

“Wait,” says Margarette, “you are a Handbell?”

“Oh yes! It may have been admittedly brief, but I was~! Anyway~ Papa was titled land at the then edge of the country where some others had been sent for pioneering work. Few dozen at a time and what not, nobody was super surprised when they weren’t heard from again, but Papa was granted command over his division after the war and land, so it was different! Well, long story a lot shorter, when Papa got there and surveyed the land we found out the people had vanished from the land they cleared, but we found a town in the depths of the forest! I don’t know why, but one of the men in his division was a very jittery priest, super paranoid about everything, and he started freaking out. ‘This reeks of demontry!’ he shouted. Papa always had this look of sadness whenever he talked about that priest, but apparently he trusted him. An hour later he had blessed all of the water canteens and water barrels, all the weapons, and Papa’s horse. Left a permanent hand print on his butt!”

As little-miss-sunshine starts giggling, the group looks at Ernest, who motions with an understanding look for patience.

“So~! Everyone surrounds the forest village and Papa rides forward and calls out, ‘Is anyone home?’ Several minutes pass then a door opens up with an old butler standing there with an umbrella. ‘Commander Handbell’ he says (that’s Papa), ‘What a surprise to see you here.’ ‘It’s Baron now,’ Papa replies in a very official voice. ‘And what is the butler of the Marquis doing in the middle of this forest?’ ‘Well,’ the butler said, ‘my master had a change of plans with how the war was developing, and decided to reassign me temporarily.’ After that-”

“Young miss,” says Rachel in an attempt to divert the conversation to its conclusion, “I can tell you really like your Papa. What happened at the end, how did your Papa and the horse do?”

“Oh! Papa really was awesome! Well, I can see Ernest rolling his eyes so I’ll sum things up.”

The hero’s party all glare at Ernest at this while he mouths, ‘Well, she’s moving faster right?’

“Papa and the horse ended up fighting a vampire! And everyone else did too! I ended up dying at the end, but Papa handed me a crystal and told me that the butler was a vampire that worked for the Marquis when he was at war, and the Marquis had sent a lot of soldiers to fight in one spot but not any others. What the butler said when Papa told him it would be easy to hunt down his master was, ‘Ha! If you think that buffoon was my master then what we do next will be easy!’ Then he just started shouting ‘Die!’ a lot. Papa got him though! Said that the butler wasn’t expecting the horse to be blessed as well and the horse caught him off guard! Papa said he’d get somebody to take care of me and after making a town he would make sure to hunt down vampires until they were all gone! That guy over there told me Papa did a really good job of it too, and Mr. Horse also lived with Papa until he died.”

The hero’s party turns to look at Ernest, who tilts his head and turns around in time to see the Other walk out of a doorway.

“It’s true you know, every word of what she said. And by the grace of whatever god that priest blessed him with, Mr. Horse is even running around the southern plains right now.”

“Wait,” interjects Rory, “You’re telling me there’s a 150 year old horse with a hand print on his hindquarters running around at large?”

“I mean, if you really want to find out you can always check? It’s only 23 transfer ballista’s away. He runs pretty fast though. Has a whole heard with him too. Might slow down if you say you know Saidel though.”

Marvin begins rubbing his temples as his headache arrives. “So what was your original point Ernest?”

“Think about it! Do any of you remember ever getting a request from the Handbell’s? I thought it was always sketchy and they were doing shady things but I was wrong! Probably! They’re vampire hunters! So there is shady things going on in this country otherwise they would have come out and said something already! I don’t know what it has to do with us but it could! Brinlog has always had all sorts of shadiness to him so this could be the kind of shady business we’re looking for!”

“So now what,” begins Marvin, “do we run off back to the capital and report to the King? ‘We fought the dragon but we don’t have any spoils from the fight and two members are dead, but we want to fight Vampires now?!”

As Marvin gets a little heated, the Other steps in as an unwanted but cooled voice. “Well, partially? I told you to take a vacation, so if you say the bit about fighting the dragon but being unable to locate where he went, (which you don’t really know do~you~), and I happened to be around to heal you and mentioned the Eastern forest this time of year is a great place to relax or refocus or whatever, it should be fine right? If it helps you can tell them I just came back from there. Here’s an acorn.”

As Marvin blinks in stupefaction at the Other handing him an acorn, he subconsciously reaches out his hand to take it.

“As far as armor and clothing goes, well, hardly any of that will survive a fight with a dragon right? Take some from here if you want,” the Other says, not noticing the golem behind him nodding its head furiously, “or don’t if you don’t. I have a small cottage in a town a carriage ride away I can leave you at, if you want to properly enter the capital. If you decide to retire outright,~swing~by~my~sweets~shop! You won’t regret it~!”

“Sorry,” interjects Margarette. “This is so different from yesterday when you just starred into my soul and kept asking the same question. You are who I think you are right?”

“Not you too,” murmurs Marvin. “Yes, it is, and he has a habit of pulling others into his own pace. And don’t you have something like a kingdom to take over or something?”

“Oh that was last Tuesday, went off without a hitch. Great supply of these neat little widgets and strangely shaped fruit. Here, have some!”

The other begins passing out trinkets and polygonal fruit as Marvin swears to all the known gods under his breath at the fact he just did what he warned others not to do.

“So, uh, who’s up for a vacation?” says Rory, slightly distracted with the widget he was handed.