When they left the inn, leaving Muscolo to watch after the two injured elves, the group first headed to the market, to buy so needed mana potions. The ones in Bokh’s bag, have sadly been broken during the gnome attack, tinting it and his back a subtle shade of blue left unnoticed. They got the potions as uneventful, as a simple monetary exchange could get, and got back to the inn.

The inn, however was deserted, but for three elves sitting in the middle and the barkeep behind the bar. Each of them smiled maliciously at them, except the dwarf, of course, who was as stoic as ever. He gave them another nod, like nothing was out of the ordinary. The elf in the middle was another story.

“Greetings!” His high pitch voice and a wide mad smile combined together into a sight worth avoiding. His slender features and fluffy, well brushed blond hair gave away the crime boss he was. That and the other two elves standing bodyguard around him.

The following silence was a bit uneasy, and Syln felt a need to break it. “Hello?”

The elf extended a slender palm at them in an obviously fake welcoming gesture. “Don’t be shy! I just want to talk about the lovely weather we’re having today”.

Out of nowhere, two more elves, practically identical to the bodyguards next to the crime boss, closed the door behind them, their hands on the hilts of daggers. Something told Syln it wasn’t going to be a friendly chat. It could’ve the feel of a pronounced and determined sharp stare of the elves behind him, which could cut him in half, if it wasn’t artificial. The dwarf straightened his back took four step forward and took a seat behind the table. Others hesitated for a moment, when Felia took the initiative and with a fake determined look did the same as Syln. She held her hand on the handle, trying to look intimidating.

“Oooooh!” chirped the blonde elf. “Looking sharp, I presume”. He emphasized the word ‘sharp’, as if it was a knife of his own, ready to cut open throats.

“What do you want?” asked Syln.

“Straight to the point then?” he sighed, as a dog, who had no more bones to play with. “Might as well, do the same. I think, at the very least, you have some ideas, why I was waiting for you?”

“Is the elf upstairs one of your band?”

“That ungezie up there?” the elf threw a thumb to point to the stairs. “Oh, Gerund! No! Of course, not! But this”, he made a dramatic pause alongside the dramatic gesture covering his surroundings, “very well is!”

Syln and Felia didn’t understand the implications and looked at each other questioningly. “Sorry, gospod. But I am afraid, I don’t understand what you mean”.

“Oh, Ger...” the crime boss put his face in his palms and suddenly looked back up. “Are all of your dwarven skulls so thick? You have completely ruined my establishment! You gotta pay up!”

Syln’s brow shot upward. “Is that all?”

“Is that not enough?! I could’ve excused the vomit! I could’ve excused some piss, we’re all used to this! But blood?!” The elf stood up, slamming his thin palm on the table with such unexpected force, that he almost flipped it over. “I couldn’t care less for the fucker, from where it came from, but do you know how fucking hard is to find someone, who is willing to spend half a day scrubbing the shit out of the wood and not tell the guards? Especially, when it’s all dried up? And the bribes?! Do you think I have the money to pay off those arrogant cunts?!”

During his speech the elf leaned closer and close to the pair before him, putting all his weight on the table. Syln and Felia leaned backwards, away from the barrage of words, trying not to think about what he might order to do to them. Yes, there were only four, five counting the crime boss himself, of the elves and they could easily take them on, but this would surely attract the guards, not to mention that the elf must’ve had more pawns to throw at them. And the barkeep was giving them the same look the bodyguards did, and they had no idea what cards that dwarf had in his sleeves.

The blonde elf took a couple of deep calming breaths, sat down and put back his unbehaving hair. “In any case, I just thought you might consider giving us some donations to the cause at hand. What do they call it now? Dellier elves prompt to putzen? Ah,” he threw his hands up, “who cares?!” Then his face got unnaturally serious. “So listen here: you gonna pay up, and I’ll let you all slide”.

“And what if we don’t?” Felia finally spoke up.

The elf in front scowled a wide grin, reminding her of a hungry wolf. “I thought you’d never ask...” He snapped his fingers and sat upright. Nothing happened. He put a confused look on his face and looked at the bodyguard to his right, snapping his fingers right in front of the standing elf’s face. The elf snorted, apparently waking up from a brief nap. “Were you sleeping right now?”

“Wha?... No. No, no, no, no, no!” he reassured his boss and himself, waving his hands.

“Then get the guy here!”

With a quick ‘yeherr’ and a nod, the bodyguard left through the back door. “I’ll deal with him later”, the elf muttered and stared back at the elf and the dwarf. Felia was looking straight at him projecting self-confidence. Her facade, however, was nothing, but a wall of smoke. She was terrified. She was terrified ever since she entered the inn and saw the elf in question. Because she heard of him more than enough to paint a picture of a vicious, uncaring murderer, who wouldn’t stop at anything to get his way.

She was, at first, unsure whether or not it was the crime lord in question, but when he spoke the name of Dellier family, there was no more doubt in her mind. Bose Dellier was his name. A bastard son of Tierod Dellier, the current prince candidate from the Western part of the Prinzessin. No matter how much Tierod denied any connections with him, especially them being close relatives, Bose only reassured all around of his heir. He wore the Dellier name with pride and, whenever someone doubted that he was part of the family, he cut their throats out. Of course, these were rumors and nothing more, but each time such a rumor went through the city, there was an unusual spike in the number of missing elves.

Felia decided to keep this revelation to herself, until she could talk to her companions without a literal death threat sitting in front of her. Also, she didn’t expect Bose to work on such a low level. She always imagined him being in charge of a more prestigious district and not worry about some low-life inn, even the residents of which thought of ‘hygiene’ as a fancy way of saying ‘rich’.

When the silence was finally broke by the backdoor opening, one would hardly blame the group of losing their voices. The bodyguard that left has returned and with him came in two more elves, holding stolen military issued spears right at Muscolo’s throat. Felia and Syln stood up, when they saw them. “Muscolo?!” squealed Cervella with a worry in her voice, that the young rogue never heard. Hudal was obviously silent.

“You know each other?” Bose asked in mock surprise. “Never would’ve guessed! Well, do we have a?...”

“I’LL KILL YOU!!!” the woman screamed on top of her lungs, lunging forward, holding an arrow like a dagger. She made a few steps forward, when she freezed. Well, to be more precise, she was frozen.

Bose held his wrist up and slowly approached Cervella. “A bit unexpected...” He curled his lips in thought. The ranger’s angry eyes steadily followed his every move. “Is she his girlfriend of some sort?” Everyone was silent. The elf threw his hands in the air, releasing the woman from his spell. She fell on her knees and gasped for air. “Doesn’t matter!” He took a determined step forward and leaned towards her. “You are lucky, you know that?”

Cervella threw an angry glare at the elf above her. “Let him go...” she half-whispered.

“What was that?” Bose turned his ear and put his hand, as if he didn’t hear. “Did you just say: ‘One more move and my precious little boyfriend will die?’ Oh, how smart and wise of you, dame! What do you think, boys? Shall we fulfill her desire?” Some of the guards started nodding and saying barely heard ‘yeah’-s. “Excellent!” he turned back to her with a serious expression on her face. “So, are you ready to cooperate?”

Cervella glanced at Muscolo with a panic in her eyes. The man wanted to give her a reassuring nod, but the spears under his neck convinced him only to give her a reassuring look. “Well, if you are hesitating, don’t let me stop them from doing what they do best. Boys!...”

“Ok! Fine… I’ll cooperate...”

“Good. Good! Very well, indeed! Take him back to our little haven of ours”. The guards with spears at Muscolo, gave the man a little kick and led him away through the back door. “As I always say: a Dellier always gets his way!”

“Ummm...” said one of the bodyguards at the front door. “I never heard you say that”. This attracted more than a single shocked and terrified look at the guard in question. Who, at this point, had a knife in the middle of his chest.

A burst of dark blood blasted through the narrow gaps between metal and flesh. He gasped for air and coughed up even more upcoming blood.

“If I said that I always say that, then I ALWAYS SAY THAT!”

“I...” he coughed. “...I am sorry...”

“Third time this week! Third, Grimo! One more and this knife will stick out of your head!” Bose looked at the barkeep. “Heal him! And clean it up! I don’t want anymore mess as is”.

The dwarf nodded and rushed to the elf in a pool of blood. He pulled out the knife, let it fall to the floor and put a hand on his head. He whispered something about Gerund, and the wound fused right in front of everybody’s eyes. “That bastard”, Felia murmured under her breath.

When the dwarf was done, he and the elf ran to the bar, presumably, to get some cleaning utensils. Satisfied, Bose projected his interest back to the rogue and the fighter. “So… Where’s my money?”

They both looked back at Hudal, who was mysteriously absent. He must’ve left while that elf was bleeding right next to him. It was a miracle that nobody noticed him leave, but on the other hand, everyone had other things on their minds. “We… don’t have any money” Syln broke the uneasy silence.

Bose smiled. “Thought as much. But what about that halfling friend of yours. Defor said that he paid for the rooms”.

“We don’t know”.

“Oooooh! Protecting your friends now, are you not? Lovely! In this case, I have a proposal for you”.

“What is it?”

“Nothing too special. You three will work for me until, let’s see... you pay double your debt and then maybe, just maybe, I will let all of you go. Will that work for you, what do you say?”

“What about Bokh?”

“Who?”

“There were two elves, one of them on a bed. Where is he? He needs a mana potion!”

“Oh, that guy. Yeah, he’s with your big lad. Just for convenience sake, in case you don’t do as told. Speaking of which. Will you do as I tell you?”

Syln looked over Felia and Cervella and with a heavy sigh nodded. “Just give him a mana potion”.

“Perfect! I’ll make sure to tell one of my shitbags to give the guy that shitty potion. I’m not a monster” he grinned a toothy smile. “Now you three stay here, and I will send one of my little rats to give you the first assignment. Hope that’s clear enough”. Without waiting for an answer, Bose straightened his back even more than he did before and snapped his fingers, raising the hand high in the air. “Boys! We are leaving!” Both the front and back doors started creaking and swaying, as the elves left the building. Bose smiled mockingly, bowed and quickly left through the back door. Almost at the same time, the barkeep and healed bodyguard got back from wherever they went to, both of them with a mop and a bucket of water, and started scrubbing the blooded floor.

It was silent, except for the squeaking of wet wool on floor. Felia and Syln stood up one after the other and walked up to Cervella to help her up. She murmured ‘thanks’ to no one in particular and let herself be led to the closest chair. Couple of tears were forming at her eyes, but they didn’t say anything. This was frightening. One of the most powerful elves in the whole Prinzessin and he just threatened to kill Muscolo and Bokh. Saying it was unexpected would be saying nothing.

“We need to find that little asshole”, said Felia.

“You do that. Cervella and I will stay here, in case anything comes up”, answered Syln. Cervella nodded in silent agreement.

Felia rushed to the door, but stopped mere centimeters from it. She turned to face the dwarf busy with scrubbing out the bloodstains and glared at him. She had so much to say to him, maybe even stab the asshole. That would be lovely, she thought: having both the satisfaction of watching him struggle and glee of watching him spend even more time cleaning the shithole he called inn. But when he gazed back at her, she thought of something about the abyss and staring back. The rogue went out of the door as fast, as she rushed to it.

***************************************

Felia was a little bit jealous of Cervella at this point. She spent two hours, wandering through the city, looking for Hudal. She had been to the market and even right under the walls of the Prinzessin Palace, which covered almost half of the city of Boremar. Sure, she could’ve missed him due to his little size and relative giants walking around. She wanted to have the same skill Cervella did, her being a ranger, Follow his steps. The skill would allow her to easily find the little shit, since she knew him close enough for the skill to activate.

The only thing left to do was to ask around, if anyone saw him. And she asked.

“How little’d you say? Nah, never seen such small shits around”.

“Did you say you are looking for your kid?”

“Young lady, maybe you should just ask the guards. They should be able to help you”.

“A halfling you say? More like a fuckling! Now piss off, you scaring off my customers!”

This felt pointless. Maybe he got out of the city? No, he couldn’t do that. He’d need a new escort and before that he’d need to cancel their quest, which he still hadn’t done, for some reason. Where could he be?

“Oi! What are you doing here?! Shoo! You little shit!”

“What?! I was just looking around!”

“I saw your little claws trying to steal my apfels!”

“I would do no such thing!”

“Oh sure! Just wait ‘til I call the guards, and tell them this bullshit! Guards!!!”

She turned around and alas, there he was. Hudal in all his little traitorous glory. And he was running away from an apfel stand, right into her hands. He must’ve not noticed her, but that only played into her hand. She scooped up the escaping halfling with her hands and ran in the same direction.

“Put me down! Put me down! I am not going back there! Not in million years!” Hudal started kicking and weaving trying to get out of her grasp, as a little child would do, but her determination to get him back to the inn gave her the strength to overpower the halfling’s struggles. Not to mention that elf vendor screaming ‘guards!’ in their direction and a couple sets of armour heavily booming in their pursuit. She had to come up with some kind of plan, which was the first time in her life, as she thought back to it after the fact.

Felia started looking around for a convenient alley to duck in, but all were too obstructed to get to, especially with a halfling in her arms. She jumped and weaved around the elves, some humans and katzes in the crowd, and, was that a couple of lizard gurvels? Not stopping by to double check, she almost ran into a cart full of pears, which she swiftly was able to jump above.

Special action has been performed!

Hardcour parkour skill is now level 1.

That was a nice surprise, and Felia smiled to herself internally. She finally found an alley to slip into and without hesitation she did so. She was glad to find a pile of clothes to hide under, what she did as well. The rogue clasped a hand around the halfling’s mouth to keep him silent, but she only just realized that he stopped resisting some time ago. Come to think of it, he stopped doing so, at the same time as she heard the guards’ heavy armour clunk behind them.

Felia heard the guards run past them, which was pretty easy to do. So did Hudal.

“I am not going back in that inn!” hissed the halfling.

“We all got into this mess, so you sure as Hel are going!”

“No, YOU got into that mess! I am not even part of your little adventuring club, so, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get another idiots to travel with. Hopefully, not as thick as you are!”

“Oh really? Then why didn’t you cancel our quest?”

“I didn’t?” Some mental gymnastics later, Hudal exclaimed, emerging from the pile of dirty clothes: “Dachin’s coin pouch! This system is going to kill me”.

Quest ‘Escort Hudal’ has been canceled by ‘Hudal’

No rewards will be issued

“There! Now will you let me go?!”

“Go where exactly? To a guard post? Might as well go to the palace prison, while you’re at it! Your wizardry can’t be kept a secret for long!”

“I just need to find a group of idiots fast enough. Just like I did with you lot!”

“Oh yeah, and who else is willing to march half a continent just to escort a little shit like you?”

“I got the money!”

“And where’s your hashtag with all that money you have?”

This shut Hudal up. He looked blankly at the apfel in his hand, he undoubtedly stole from that vendor and let it drop on the floor. He sat down right next to it, chin in his palms. “The guy took it all, didn’t he?”

“That’s Bose Dellier, of course, he did”.

“A Dellier?” Hudal looked up at Felia. “Isn’t that Tohcraft prince of yours gonna be pissed?”

“He is a bastard son gone rogue. No one even is sure, whether a Dellier actually had a bastard son, but Bose insists that he is. There’s a rumour that Tierod actually keeps sending him money, so that he doesn’t go more public than he already does”.

“Wait, hold on”, interjected Hudal. “If the guy gets paid to keep his mouth shut and he certainly stole my money, then why does he want us to pay up? Cleaning and bribing doesn’t cost as much. Does it?”

Felia shrugged. “I am honestly happy that he didn’t kill us. Maybe, it’s a principle of his?”

“And what principle is that supposed to be?”

“Try to get as much money and power as possible? While reminding of your Dellier heritage?” she suggested.

“Weak”.

“Ugh,” she sighed. “Look. All of us are now on the wrong side of the law, and don’t tell me that you can keep your wizard class a secret. The guy has threatened to kill the people, who can help you get to the prairies unscathed. You got no money and nowhere to go, but with us”.

Hudal looked at the stone pavement around him. “Unscathed, you say? Out of three days, I spent with you lot, I almost ended up dead in two of them. How is that unscathed?”

“Ok, not unscathed, but alive for sure”.

“That’s not very encouraging”.

“I wasn’t trying to be”.

They fell silent. Hudal deep in his thoughts, Felia waiting for the answer. “You really have to think about it?” asked the rogue.

“Yes. Not all of us are willing to throw themselves at death’s door, just to escape prison”.

“You don’t know what dungeons here are like. And trust me, you don’t want to know”.

Hudal looked up at her. After a moment, he scowled, baring his teeth like an angry dog, and rolled his head. “Fine! I’ll come, I’ll come”.

They stood up and went in the inn’s direction, weaving through the crowd like a silk ribbon, avoiding all guards on the way there. When they opened the door to the establishment, unusually clean spot before them was lacking the dwarf and the elf, who done a surprisingly good job. The spot was several shades brighter than the rest of the floor, but no one had any doubts that it will become as dirty as it was before, when the evening crowd would come.

Syln and Cervella were waiting for them, seemingly not having moved even a centimeter from their original position.

“I gather, he cancelled our quest?” asked Syln the newcomers. After an affirmative and an unwilling nods he added: “But you somehow persuaded him to give it back?”

“Alright, alright, I get it! Just give me a piece of paper and some ink”.