Exit Strategy

Our elf friend was waiting for us by his throne. He and his three ****. “You. Actually did it!” He says with a surprised smile. “I felt his grip on me fade the moment you killed him.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “So this is really it then?”

“This is it.” I say with a grin. “You’re free.” I raise my hand. “However I’d like to propose an alliance. I seek to bring the word of Bellowyn back to the world. A rising tide lifts all boats, it could also mean the return of Shae’Hamora if you join me.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “I’m afraid it’s too late for us.” He straightens up. “You’re Awfully kind to offer though.”

He suddenly launched himself forward at me like an arrow loosed from its bow. His claws aim right for my throat but before he could finally shut me up, Cyrus incinerates him with a blast of light.

It’s all over before I even flinch.

The elf is gone and a cloud of ash collapses into me. “What the hell?” I gasp and throw myself to safety.

“I guess that fancy new star works.” Elizabeth chuckled. She went over to the pile of dust and kicked it about. “Cuck.”

“What the hell?” I say again my nervous system still prepared for the puncture.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “He thought we’d be weakened by the battle and figured he could keep everything for himself.” She laughs. “Don’t take it personally. I know you think of yourself as a master manipulator.”

“What a waste.” I shake my head. “Thanks Cyrus. You really saved me there.”

He beams at me… not laser beams, just like… smiles. “I got chu boss!”

What a shame, but a good reminder. Even if we were allies his was to serve an inferior goddess who valued secrecy and betrayal. Had he been of Bellowyn he would have seen virtue in cooperation, he’d be alive. Besides that, what did he mean by it being too late? Too late for what? For who?

Then a strange thought occurs to me. None of my allies recognized the temple or its forgotten god. I only knew the name of The Ravenlady from my own religious teaching. Could this have truly been erased from this world? Weakened like the princes until…what?

“What happened?” There’s a groan near us. The three adventurers we’d sold to the vampire were coming out of trance now that their master was dead.

“Fuck…” I sigh and shake my head. “Elizabeth?”

“Got it.” She set Melli down and proceeded to knock the three men out and tie them to the throne at the center of the cathedral. Making two concussions for them today, not to mention a little mind control

Great now I have a dungeon and prisoners.

I was kind of hoping that I'd offloaded the burden of them onto the vampire. You know, freed myself of the guilt of having to kill them. But now they were back on my lap.

I shake my head and press on.

The three of them don't really matter, but Melli is a great deal more important. If she dies then I may have permanently crippled one of Bellowyn's children.

So we head back to town.

Luckily it's an uneventful trip. We leave Cyrus behind to guard the camp. A single goblin acting as a guard may have been a laughable concept yesterday, but now Cyrus was a 1-star. Perhaps the most powerful goblin on the planet. He could manage, and I think he could manage the adventurers if they broke free. I had to damn well pry the shield out of his hands though. That would be needed to prove we'd slayed the boss and retrieve a reward from the adventurers guild.

We traveled through the night, and got to the alchemy store around the time it opened up in the morning. I was dead tired by then, and so was Elizabeth. We'd had to hurry on the last leg of the trip through town because Melli was getting very weak. We'd almost forgotten the week she'd spent as a vampire's snack pack. She hadn't much blood left to loose, and she'd been oozing what little she had left from the holes in her body. The only hint that I had that she was alive where the weak rattling breaths she'd take in.

It was so bad that I ran into the alchemist's shop, went straight to Daliah and and threw Melli across the counter like it was a healer's bed. "I need a restoration potion now! She's dying!" I cried, surprising my apprentice and some respectable shoppers as well.

Daliah who was but a shop clerk and not a hero nor a healer just looked at Melli's mangled lower half in horror.

There was a stomping from upstiars and down came Cobalt Celeste. I shuddered as I saw her unnatural form, not too tired to not appreciate the beauty I saw. "No no no." She said haughtily. "This is not a healer's home, this is a not a house of prayer. You do not barge in here with a corpse and beg for a miracle!"

Daliah immediatly backs away from the counter, and shrinks into the background as her mistress takes charge of the situation.

"Blood!" Celeste scoffs, passing by the nearly dead Melli to gawk at her floor. "On my floor. On my counter!"

"I don't care Celeste!" I growl, turning towards her. "She's dying!"

"Mistress Celeste." She corrects so astutley I feel it as as lap across my face. "And I do care. This is my shop you see."

"Celeste!" I cry again.

"Once more boy." She quickly extends a single finger towards me. It's filed to a tip, and gleams ominously in the light. It's tipped with poison I know it is. "And I'll kill you for trespassing. I'm a master alchemist and I'll say what I'll say in my own time, and I'll do what I may in the same measure."

"She's dying." I begged. "Mistress Celeste..."

Ugh, I felt like she should have earned corruption points from me there.

"This means nothing to me." She says coldly. The shop had come to a complete standstill, all were at her mercy now. "As I stated this is no healer's house or house of prayer. I'm under no moral obligation, divine or otherwise to help anyone. This is a place of business."

"I'll pay." I say. "That's not a problem."

"With what?" She taps her nose in what would be a coy fashion if she were less angry. "I smell no coins on you. Penniless as I left you."

"With this." I reach into my burnt robe and produce one of the two gems from the dungeon. Couldn't smell that could you bitch? "This should cover a minor restoration potion?"

"Minor?" She scoffs, and glides back to Melli. "Look at this. Flesh, muscles, bones, nerves. Some of her organs have had holes burned in them. Her spine is damaged." She pockets the gem with one had, and produces a golden tonic with this other. "She'll need this."

I don't question it. I don't stop to think, I uncork the bottle and pour it down's Melli's throat.

"There." Cobalt Celeste smiles. "Have your servant remove her now."

I can already see her wounds at the edges begin to heal up. I nod at Elizabeth, and she picks Melli up and takes out to the cart.

Sure enough there's a puddle of blood and puss on the counter, thanks to Melli.

Celeste let out a long sigh, and placed her hands on the counter. "I'll put the floor waxing on your tab as well."

"Understood."

With her fury quickly leaving the shop slowly returned to life. Celeste's alchemical monkey came out with a mop and went to work cleaning up the trail I'd left. Amazing, this woman had stopped **** in it's tracks, and her main concern was respect. I want to be like that.

She sniffs the air again. "I don't smell a Bull's strength potion on you." She says. "I take it you failed?"

"I had to drink it to conquer the dungeon."

"Ah yes, I thought you looked different. A 1-star now eh?"

"Indeed."

"Good for you." She grins. "Of course now you'll be too full of yourself to learn something from an old woman."

"Not at all." I say, pulling out the second gem. "I'd like to repurchase my last order."