A few days went by, with Meryda and her father sometimes enjoying and others hating their daily routine.
Every morning, Craydon was in the Guild’s kitchen preparing things for lunch or checking ingredients, and on more than one occasion, he went to buy supplies in the market, together with a very happy Rusha Banei, the Guild’s receptionist.
She never lost an opportunity to hold firmly his arm or lean her head on his shoulder, enjoying every moment of those brief visits to the city’s market.
The city folk and the stall sellers got used to seeing them together, and some of them even congratulated Rusha for catching the always-evading man or teasing him by saying they made up a nice couple.
As for Meryda, she was often going to her farm in the mornings with her friends to take care of the animals and to make sure the Bone Boars were watching over the planted fields. Every time there was something to harvest, the kids would fill the waggon and bring everything to the Guild to be sold later by the Guild Master to an outsider merchant.
In the afternoon, it was fighting practice. That was what Craydon and Meryda hated the most. Not only did they have to fight against Explorers and Adventurers but also with Meryda using one of her Monsters against her father, who would use another.
That was one of the Guild Master’s crazy ideas. He convinced Meryda that she had to get used to fighting against other Monsters, and her Monsters also needed the practice.
It was a strange sight to see the Salamander in front of Meryda fighting the Slime that was in front of Craydon. Or Meryda using a Gigantic Spider to go against her father’s Bone Boar.
In one of those fights, the Fae returned and sat on the ground next to Meryda’s friends, happily cheering for her.
Craydon didn’t fully trust that strange green being, but for the moment, and since his daughter seemed to like to see her around so much, he didn’t say a word against it.
One afternoon, the Guild Master didn’t come; only Rusha Banei, the Guild’s receptionist, and a small bunch of Adventurers did. Apparently, the Guild Master had to stay behind, dealing with the Ooman Alliance’s envoys, who came to get supplies and weapons.
As he had told Meryda and her father, the farms around didn’t have a good harvest that year, so there was a lack of products to be delivered to the Alliance. Luckily, Meryda’s farm had a surplus of harvest that kept increasing in her barn, and that would make for more than enough to deliver to the Alliance, and even to the families of the farms with weaker productions so that they could endure until the next harvesting season.
Despite Meryda’s insistence on saying that she could go to those farms with her Bone Boars to help them out, the Guild Master and her father strongly opposed that idea. She was supposed to be a well-guarded secret, and that would be ruined the moment other people besides the Guild and its members knew about her powers.
Even with all the secrecy and the utmost care the Guild Master and all his Explorers and Adventurers guarded Meryda’s powers, talks about her reached the city folk, either by whispers between Adventurers that a merchant overheard or because a drunken Explorer got a loose tongue and spoke about it with people he shouldn’t trust.
Either way, it came as a surprise when, one of those afternoons, the Ooman Alliance envoys came to see for themselves, guided there by a Party of Adventurers that Craydon immediately recognised at first sight as the ones who tried to attack him when he went to the Guild with the Slime and the Salamander.
The Guild Master was with them, together with a group of his Explorers and Adventurers, and they didn’t seem pleased with that situation.
While the envoys and the outsider Adventurers were watching in terror the enormous Emptiness that stood in their way, stopping them from even getting near the farm’s gate, Dralro Jic, the Guild Master, trotted his horse ahead after briefly asking the Emptiness to let him pass and leave him alone.
The dark cloud moved to the side so that the horse could jump over the watery canal and went back to his place behind the gate, checking if any of the other people tried to approach.
The Guild Master stopped his horse in front of the house, and a puzzled Craydon Crawler stared at him, waiting for his explanation.
“I couldn’t do a thing to prevent this. Those fool Adventurers, the ones that you met at the Guild a few days ago, told the envoys that your daughter had Monsters for pets. To make matters worse, some of my stupid Adventurers babbled while drunk, and other people overheard them. I am really sorry for this,” said the Guild Master with a pained look plastered on his face.
Leisurely, Craydon put a sharp dart on his crossbow while saying, “I am also sorry for this, but I warned you about this. Now, will you kindly back off from here before I pierce your heart? And take those fools with you. Meryda, go pack your things. We are getting out of here. Call out all your Monsters because we will most probably have to fight our way out.”
Noticing Meryda’s wet eyes, he continued, “I wasn’t asking, Meryda! Now move!”
The Fae tilted her head and asked, “Why don’t you hear them out first?”
Then, the surprised green being looked down at the dart stuck in its chest, and the moment the Fae raised its head, it exploded from a powerful strike from Craydon’s crossbow handle.
As it was dissolving on the ground, Craydon frowned and said, “Now that was easy! I thought those things were almost impossible to destroy!”
Before anyone could get out of their surprised stupor, another Fae started to grow from the ground, standing in the same place the previous one dissolved seconds ago, and asked with a dark green colour all over its face, “Hey! That poisoned dart hurt! What was that for? We didn’t do a thing for-”
Another blow to its head and the Fae dissolved again. Another one appeared, and Craydon said, as he was raising the crossbow to hit the new green head in front of him, “I can do this all day, dumbass! This is what you were waiting for, wasn’t it?”
“No! We never intended for Meryda-”
And it vanished again with another powerful strike. Another Fae appeared, this time hiding behind the scared Meryda, and said, “We told you to wait! We didn’t do anything! Why are you being so mean?”
“Because, you damned plant, those guys came for my daughter, that’s why! And you seemed to want that to happen the last time you were here! So don’t you go now and pretend that you are innocent!”
“But we-”
Craydon placed the crossbow on the Fae’s forehead and said, “You are not convincing me, you stupid plant. If this was not your plan all along, then go get rid of them so that Meryda and I can escape!”
“At least hear them out! They are probably as surprised as you are! There is no harm in hearing them, is there?”
Suddenly, Craydon pushed Meryda to get behind him and hit the Fae with a dart straight in the forehead.
As it was dissolving, he readied another dart and pointed the crossbow at the Guild Master’s head while slowly saying, “Back off! You are not welcome here anymore! You could have sent a message that you were coming here with them or taken them to the wrong place instead of coming straight here!”
“As if I could do that!” The Guild Master said with anger in his eyes instead of fear from the poisoned dart in front of his face. “The moment those bastard Adventurers told them, they sent a message to the Alliance, asking for reinforcements! An army is going to arrive in a few weeks, and they will kill everyone in the City if they can’t get their hands on Meryda!”
“One more reason for us to get the hell out of here!”
The Guild Master blinked a few times and said, “You… are going to flee with Meryda? But… that will condemn everyone to their deaths!”
“Not my problem! My sole purpose in life is to keep Meryda safe! If you all have to die for her to be safe, then you will all die!”
Suddenly, Meryda said, in a surprisingly serious voice that didn’t sound like hers, “Let them come here, father. I want to hear what they have to say. I will tell them I don’t want to go with them, and if they still insist, I will ask one of my spiders to eat one of them to show them I am not kidding. If that army comes, I will fight them alongside my Monsters.” Noticing the surprised look on her father’s face, she said while signalling the Salamander to stay by her side. “This is not up for debate, father. Unless you want to get a torched tail.”
Craydon rubbed his face with his free hand and complained, “Darn it, you sound just like your mother! Every time I didn’t want to do what she said, she would threaten to kill me!” He then lowered his crossbow and said to the still-angry Guild Master, “Go get them, but if any of them make a sudden movement, the first poisoned dart goes to you!”
Dralro Jic slowly walked backwards with his hands up and climbed on top of his horse. As he was trotting to the farm’s gate to meet with the group that came with him, he mumbled, “What the heck is wrong with him? I never saw him like that, and I have known him since he was a kid! I knew he had been overly protective of Meryda since her mother died, but all his threats were ridiculous! He was really going to kill me! And he might still do it!”
Next to the gate, the Fae was waiting with its arms crossed over its chest and said the moment the Guild Master got near. “It seems he changed his mind. We were about to talk with the envoys and stall them until Craydon and Meryda could escape.”
The Guild Master blinked, puzzled by that straightforward answer. “You were going to help them escape? But I thought Fae never intervened!”
“Normally, we don’t, except in special cases. And Meryda is a special case. Go do what he told you to do.”
Dralro Jic made the horse trot again, wondering how the Fae could have heard his talk with the angry Craydon since she was so far away. Was Fae hearing that good? Or did they read minds? There were still a lot of unknown facts about the Fae, but now was not the time to ask.
The Guild Master told the Emptiness to let him pass and went straight to the envoys. Three Oomans with fine vests and covered in jewellery looked back at him with serious gazes.
Dralro Jic took a deep breath and said, “They agree to meet you. I was also told that any sudden movements would cause us all to be killed, starting with me. There are plenty of Monsters on this farm to kill us one hundred times, so I hope none of you will be stupid enough to act rashly. That includes you and your Party, dumbass!” He looked at the outsiders’ Party, and their leader, a rough man with dark green leather clothes and a spear tied to his horse’s saddle, nodded.
He told his members not to make a sudden movement and to stay in silence while the envoys talked with the Monster Tamer.
ns 15.158.61.12da2
