Joe blinked a bit, trying to parse Garnedell’s meaning, “Go? Or no go?”
“No priest. No go.”
“There’s no priest? What…” Joe stopped the conversation for a bit to consider his questions, trying to aim for as simple as possible.
“Where priest go?”
“Priest go… go…” Garnedell stopped with obvious frustration, revealing his lack of vocabulary. It took him another few minutes till he finally thought of something to say.
“Priest go far. Priest go … far time. Priest go… … big … big… big,” Garnedell stopped, sighing in frustration and simply ended the sentence, obviously unable to explain, “… big home?”
Joe was doing well until the end. What does it mean that the priest is going to a big home? Why? Joe revealed confusion and repeated the part that was confusing, “Priest go to big home?” He then shook his head, revealing incomprehension.
Garnedell sighed while rolling his eyes, once again stuck where he had been stuck before. He began pacing as he considered his options and quickly came up dry. He decided that it might be time for a language lesson, and he gestured around him, taking in surroundings, “Home… here home.”
“Home,” Joe asked, pointing to the village inn.
Garnedell shook his head vigorously, “No… no… home… all home! Here, here, here, here, home!” Garnedell punctuated each ‘here’ by pointing at another building, then gestured all around him and repeated once more, “Here!”
Realization came to him and Joe looked glanced around at everything. Huh… he means… “The village!”
Garnedell cocked his head and considered, wondering and Joe expanded his explanation, “Many homes, many people, together is a village.”
“Village?”
“Yes, village. Many people and homes is village.”
Garnedell nodded and thought a bit before trying again, “Priest go to village. Big big big village.”
Joe’s eyes quirked at that and replied without thought as he considered the ramifications of the priest being gone, “A big village is a city, Garnedell.” Joe sighed and brought himself back to Garnedell’s training, “Big village is city!”
Garnedell nodded, “City. City is big village.”
Joe nodded and considered his next question, “Where Priest go?”
Garnedell seemed a bit frustrated, “Big city?”
Joe smiled and nodded, “Yes, big city. Where big city?”
Realization came to Garnedell and a small smile came to his face, “Big city, far! There.” Garnedell pointed northward.
Joe nodded, “How far?”
Garnedell opened his mouth, then closed it several times, seeming lost in how to respond. Joe quickly understood why Garnedell was struggling and offered a solution, “How many sleep?”
Garnedell’s eye’s widened in understanding and held up eight fingers, then another fifteen fingers before wobbling his hand has he had learned from Joe.
“Huh, ten to fifteen days? Hmm… Why did the priest leave?”
Joe began pacing as he considered his options but he had to find a priest. There was no other choice. He needed jobs and he needed to grow them. But as he was considering, Garnedell interrupted him.
“Priest no talk.”
Joe turned to look at Garnedell’s before replying with a shake of his head, “I don’t understand?”
Garnedell tried again, “No talk priest. No talk job change. No talk me… bad thing. No talk!”
Joe blinked at that reveal, “Huh, so… we need to be quiet about this. Why?”
Garnedell didn’t understand and thought he needed to clarify, “We no talk! No talk! No talk priest! No talk me! No talk me bad thing. No talk you. No talk you job! Many many many job! No talk many job!”
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“OK. I guess that could make sense. I’m obviously not normal! So keep it silent. Can do… but I need a priest! Um… Me job how?”
“Um… you… new priest?”
“Where?”
Garnedell pointed south then held up one finger, “Sleep,” then he held up two fingers, “Walk. There, many, many priest!”
Joe nodded in understanding, “OK… so the priest doesn’t want to see us and we need to find something else and south seems the best and closest place to go? Alright… And with many priests, I guess I can hide my jobs by going to a different one each time? I wonder which job, but I’ve got two days and two nights to figure it out, I guess.”
“Job? Zhoe job?”
Joe took in Garnedell’s comment and asked, “You know my next job?”
“New job, yes. New job. Priest say me Joe new job!”
Joe took a bit to consider then understood, “For speaking?”
“Yes. You speaking new job!”
“Alright. We’ve got a plan! We’ll try to get me speaking. Well, let’s sleep for tonight, I guess.”
Joe prepared for the evening, taking his bath and heading home. After he went to bed, he started fiddling with his status again and remembered that he’d hit level twenty. Huh… I should check my skills! He was disappointed when he found nothing new, but then he remembered that he’d gotten another four or five jobs unlocked with metropolitan reaching twenty. But when he looked at his available skills, there wasn’t anything too useful. He already had the skills with the village versions of the job, although they city inn keeper had a skill the village inn keeper did not: sign and logo. When he clicked on it, it stated that it was a skill to create a pertinent and powerful sign and logo for the inn keeper’s inn. Huh… OK, useful for an inn keeper, but not so much for me.
Joe finally grew bored of searching through his status and flipped it off before laying his head back. Time to move on tomorrow! He did wake several hours later to the sound of pounding below but fell back to sleep quickly, unconcerned with the noise. What are the neighbors doing now? The pounding ended quickly enough that Joe fell back to sleep rapidly despite his irritation.
* * *
The first guard of Baron Grugtrim arrived at Lakeside quite late in the evening, actually closer to morning, to be truthful. The sergeant had pushed for speed and they had been well on their way to arriving before midnight, but a hazardous meeting of a slime deep in the woods had surprised the men. The men had reacted well enough and none were hurt, but one horse had been killed by the slime and soldiers had taken quite some time to pin and finally kill the slime.
Their attacks had been poor against the slime with it easily healing itself and returning to the fight. The men’s shields protected well enough as the slime would strike the shield and fall to the floor as the men continuously struck at the slime with spear and sword. The slime found itself ground down, slime fluid splattering across the floor and shields as it slowly shrunk until one of the spearman was finally able to strike the core of the slime. Its quivering response proved the hit was true and men dropped shields to step forward to rapidly assault the core. Most missed and the sergeant had felt some irritated disappointment with a silent promise of more training. A still unmoving target should not have been so difficult for his men to strike. Despite that, the men had done well enough and the slime had been killed after only an hour or so.
During that time, another two slimes had come, and the sergeant had to detail a couple of the veterans to engage and pull them away. After the second arrived, the sergeant quickly realized that they seemed to be on a monster trail and had the three slimes pulled further down the road away from the monster trail. By the time they’d taken care of the slimes, they had seen another two or three slimes cross the road and the sergeant was relieved to have pulled his men out of targeting range and spent a good two, almost three hours pinned in one location, struggling against the slimes. By the time they had begun focusing on the third and last slime, the sergeant found himself out of patience and joined his men, quickly putting them to shame and showed the men how to properly kill a slime. The last slime fell in only half an hour and the men had been appropriately awed by the sergeant’s superiority. Despite the late hour, the sergeant did take the time to advise his men on the proper way to attack monsters while simultaneously reinforcing his superiority to the men with a subtle use of his example.
With the slime ambush and the late night travel, they arrived at Lakeside’s only inn well after midnight, sore and incredibly exhausted from fighting three monsters. The sergeant had pounded on the inn door for several moments to waken the inn keep but was surprised when the inn keep showed up so quickly. Their rooms were situated quickly and the sergeant sent the men to bed with the promise of being able to sleep in.
The next morning, the sergeant had awoken to some commotion but fell back to sleep in exhaustion and the men didn’t wake until around noon. The sergeant woke an hour or so before noon although he let his men continue their sleep and spent the morning preparing and wandering around the village, getting the lay of the land and doing some preliminary scouting. What he found wasn’t promising for no news of the knight Toogarn was available.
He returned to the inn to find his men enjoying lunch and he joined them for a meal that proved to be scrumptious beyond expectation and the ten men enjoyed their simple but delicious lunch. They soon found their day spent wandering the village and interviewing the various members of the village. None knew of the knight Toogarn although there was significant talk of a great adventurer named Joe who had taken a young orphan boy of the village to apprentice. This Joe was the only man known to hunt in the east wood slimes. And he’d left for Coushar only that morning.
He’d heard the news by the early afternoon, and although he urgently thought to pursue, leaving so soon would leave them two nights on the trail with one outside the city walls. It would be wiser to seek a horse and leave the next morning as they would only be a day behind. All news pointed to the man seeking out the dungeons of Coushar, which meant the man wouldn’t be leaving the city of Coushar any time soon. There was no need to push so hard for no gain. Leaving now, even if they found a horse quickly, would still put them a day behind the man as they would have to camp outside the walls till the next morning when the gates would open. Leaving tomorrow would have them a day behind as well, entering the gate in the afternoon.
“We will leave early tomorrow morning, men. Rest and prepare well. There will be no drinking tonight! We leave before first light.”