Well, That Was Easy!

Gavin made his way down the tunnel he said he thought was the supply chamber, his reasoning was sound that part, the other two he wasn’t quite as sure about. When Gavin got to the chamber, he got visual confirmation it was a supply chamber almost as soon as he arrived at the chamber’s entrance. There were few lanterns hanging by the doorway to illuminate things, but they were out, Gavin reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wooden box with some flint and a piece of steel and used the flint and steel to light the lanterns. He could feel the cool air of the chamber from where he was, what lay inside was expected but also surprising.

Gavin took the lit lantern, a make-shift hooded lantern using an old metal bowl as the hood, and entered the chamber. Within he saw a small army’s worth of provisions of all kinds, meats of various quality hung on hooks from the ceiling and bobbed in barrels of saltwater that showed signs of icing on the surface. The whole room felt far colder than the cool sensation at the door had suggested. Cheeses of all sizes and types were hanging on similar hooks in the ceiling to those of the meats that were hanging. Crates of various vegetables of varying quality lined the walls, crates and barrels of brews of various kinds lined the spaces between crates along the walls. All that was more than expected, but well within what was anticipated.

What almost blindsided Gavin was the presence of dead bodies, they were clearly human, that showed signs of being in some sort of battle, the clearly fatal wounds in their chests, necks, and heads said that the dozen or so bodies he spotted in there had been killed quickly. Despite the clear battle wounds, there were no blood marks or stains near the bodies, or anywhere nearby within the room or near its entrance. This all indicated the bodies had been killed elsewhere, possibly somewhere else within the cavern, then moved to this chamber for whatever reason. Gavin suddenly had a very bad feeling, he quickly looked around for where the weapons were stored and found a kite shield and war hammer that looked like they were well-made but were curiously missing any symbols or signifiers, he would worry about that later, and grabbed the armaments before rushing from the chamber to where he had sent his so-called mentor.

Gavin hurried down the halls of the cavern to where the rest of his so-called companions were. As he approached the other passageways Gavin heard the telltale sounds of Sir Galthias telling a tall tale that clearly related to their predicament, it seemed he also found corpses, just not as well-preserved as Gavin’s discovery. Gavin steadied himself as he drew closer to the sound of a man making up everything and prepared to do something he was usually unwilling to do, lie and only share bits of the honest truth.

As he entered the chamber, Sir Galthias the squires turned their attention towards him. “Awe, there’s the last of our merry band,” said Sir Galthias as Gavin entered the room, “tell us of our spoils.” Gavin internally winced at that, it usually meant the bulk of what they found would be claimed by Sir Galthias as his compensation for services rendered.

“A small army’s worth of provisions sir,” said Gavin, then came the lie and he just hoped he could play the deceiving performance well, “along with some weapons, as you can see, I was fortunate to actually see a bit of combat myself. Some of the souls of the dead in that cold chamber remained and possessed large pieces of ice, I was fortunate to be near this weapon and shield at the time, a few good swings and the ice specters were sent off back to the afterlife.” It wasn’t that much of a telltale, especially since magic and the undead were both known enough to be uncommon sights, if not outright rare encounters. “Will I be permitted to keep the shield and hammer? I won’t really ask for anything from this place.”

“I suppose,” said Sir Galthias, “after all, your other equipment is no longer battle-ready,” Gavin internally snarked about how that gear was barely practice-ready but said nothing. “Besides,” said Sir Galthias, “you at least deserve some reward for your time of service with me, I don’t see the harm in letting you have better armaments after all this. I believe I’ve taken out their second in command, we will wait here for a few days to deal with the rest of these rogues once they return.”

Once again, Sir Galthias actually had a good idea, usually, his plans involved a lot of bravado and pandering rhetoric. Gavin was willing to wait for two or three days for their prey before suggesting a different attempt. Chances were Sir Galthias would be far less patient, it had happened before. Thankfully, their wait would be considerably less.

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They had been waiting almost an hour, the more liked squires had reached the end of their patience and were challenging each other to a variety of challenges, Gavin kept his distance from the rest, as usual. Five bandits, including what they were sure their quarry looked like, and were taken care of a bit too easily. Only one survived the encounter, the one that looked the way they were sure the criminal they were after did, the rest suffered fatal blows. Almost true to his word, Sir Galthias let Gavin keep the shield but claimed the hammer for his own.