⌠2nd Xplorer⌡

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"Not from where I came!" Rina laughs, sidding with Ron.

"Ok, no stories about your past now, you midget." Ron gave Rina a warning that looked much more suspicious than Aivery's self-taught drawing lessons. "We can rest at the Dropped Crow for today and depart as soon the sun wakes up. And to you..." He pulled Rina's ear. "... not 'night terror stories'."

"Ouch, ouch! Ok, got it..." The girl retreated some meters while holding her bruised hear.

Both Ron and Rina had a wristlet with an image of Jealoc, the Goddess of Strife.
 
"That's a yes to both questions of course!" Aivery said while covering his face with his wings. "Also, I let you know that my name is Aivery, and I would like it if you refrained from the word 'bird boy'. I am a priest before I am a halfling, after all..." He reached into his bag and took out his holy book. "I'm a priest of Miyudane, the goddess of cleanliness!"
 
"Aivery, huh? What a quaint name," Lento remarked, before shrugging, "Well, I'm Lento, if you haven't heard already. Would the honourable Priest Halfling be interested in dining with me at the Inn? Or are those places too unclean for your presence?"

He smiled disarmingly, before saying to the other two, "Be meeting you two at the door of the Dropped Crow then! Come along, Aivy, you haven't eaten yet, right?"
 
Aivery smiled back and gave a nod. "I would love to join you Lento! As my master once said, 'there is no truly unclean place, just a place that could use a good cleaning!'" Still, that didn't mean he wanted to eat somewhere dirty. Wanting to clean their table as soon as he could, Aivery made a dash towards the inn he had already been to. He turned around and called to them "Come on, the food isn't going to eat itself!"
 
Ron nodded and dragged Rina to other part of the town, maybe to cash in the reward for killing the pests.

The Dropped Crow tavern is a big place with three floors: the restaurant and two floors to the inn. People can rest and sleep soundly without the usual shows and drunk fights that happened often. Also, the price is always the best to people who didn't caried too much money with them.

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Something else had drew the attention of the pair: two or three girls with ragged clothes. They had collars, and one of them looked like a dark elf. They are sitting in a corner, waiting for something or someone.
 
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Reaching there first, Aivery walked up to an empty table. It didn't look too bad, but it could always use some work. He reached into his bag to grab a small cloth and began to wipe the table down with a small smile and hum. There was no way he would let his new travel companions have their first meal together on something too dirty.
 
Well, the Dropped Crow wasn't exactly the most beautiful bar Lento had been to, but the wanderer had to admit that its prices were nice. He put on a weird smile when the priest of cleanliness began to wipe away any traces of wine and dirt on the table. It felt odd, seeing someone so focused on the task, but it wasn't for him to judge, ultimately. If Aivery aspired to be a butler in the future, that wasn't any of Lento's business. Looking around the wooden complex, Lento briefly admired the painting behind the stage, before a trio of slaves caught his eyes, sitting in a corner. None of the other bar patrons acknowledged them, and it didn't look like they were just there to eat some food before getting back to their tasks...

"So they still have slavery here..." he mused.

But hey, it wasn't his problem until he decided to get involved.

"Anyways, Aivery, whatcha want to eat? I'd recommend chicken pot pie, but that'd probably be cannibalism on your part..."
 
The slaves were nothing knew to Aivery. Even at his own temple there were slaves, although they were technically criminals paying for their crimes. Still, they weren't enough to make him lose focus until Lento pointed them out.

"Yes, slavery is very much a thing here. Although I've heard the severity varies from city to city."

He gave Lento a puzzled look by his remark. "I am a halfling, neither bird nor human. I actually like the meat of birds over cows and the like. While I haven't tried human yet, nor do I want to, I wouldn't consider it cannibalism either." He said with a straight face before going back to cleaning.
 
Suddenly, a barmaid in a yellow dress and a wrench tied to her belt comes to the pair, holding a tray with three glasses of a greenish liquid on them.

"Oh, what are you guys doing? We always clean the tables!" She laughs. "I'm Wrench, and I'll be having your order right after I'm finished with the three Apetizers." She makes a curtsy to Lento and proceeds to the trio of girls. Glasses are handed fast, the girls drink the content in a gulp and return the glasses to Wrench, whose sad expression fade out right after she came back to the pair. "So, do you guys have your orders, now?" A trained smile filled her face.
 
"Neither bird nor human, huh? Woulda thought that you'd identify as both bird and human." Nevertheless, Lento decided to stop that train of conversation. He had met other halflings before who were more sensitive when it came to their diet, but it appeared that it didn't exactly bother Aivery. He looked upwards at the waitress, a woman called 'Wrench' with a smile, only half-hearing what she was saying until she mentioned something about 'three appetizers'.

Lento blinked.

Appetizers?

He watched as the woman served the trio of slaves some green liquid, a frown on his face as he tried to figure out what that all meant. Are they seriously going to just kill the slaves and serve them as food here? He took another deep breath, and then smiled. Of course they wouldn't do something like that! Wrench was probably just referring to complementary appetizers for their meals.

As the waitress came back, Lento said, "I'll have a chicken pot pie then, m'dear. With a flagon of beer as well."
 
"I could see why you would think that Lento." Aivery said with a small chuckle. He had hoped he didn't scare him with the whole 'I could totally eat a human' part of his explanation. With the waitress showing up, the conversation seemed to had ended, and Aivery was curious about the 'appetizers' she was giving the slaves.

When she returned, Aivery said, "I'll have the chicken pot pie as well." He did this as a childish way of proving to Lento he was serious. "Also, could I have the same appitizer those women got? It looked very tasty!" Aivery hoped the drinks were what the waitress meant by appetizer.
 
Wrench smiled and noted the orders on her dress with a black chalk. "Ok, two chicken pots..." Two seconds after, the words disappeared. "You want... oh, no, those are-" She leaned to the pair, talking with a low voice. "- those are tranquilizers and sleep drugs. Those girls have been chosen to try to calm down the Insect King, or whatever is commanding those bugs you two seen. They are orphans, and the owner of one of them handed his to this very "job" because... he's a sadistic shit." She left a air out of her lungs before continuing. "If I could I would take them away from here, but I'm a no one."
 
Chosen... To calm him down? While Aivery didn't know what she meant by that, he knew it wasn't anything good. He lowered his face. "That's, that's horrible." Slave or not, Aivery believed there had to be a line that shouldn't be crossed with any person, and that line was being crossed. Colder than usual, he responded, "I'll have some fruit juice then. I'm not too picky, so any is fine."

Still, what could he do? He was just a small halfling and couldn't drag the others into this. He recalled another one of his master's teachings. Remember everyone has a nice, clean, pure spot in ther bodies. As a priest of Miyudane, it is your duty to protect that spot!

He didn't have a plan yet, but that wasn't going to stop him from trying!
 
Orphans, huh? Orphan slaves that would be drugged and then tossed underground to feed whatever monster commanded the attention of the insects. All things considered, it was an ideal situation. They were slaves, so they weren't protected by any laws. They were women, meaning that physically, they were less useful than male slaves. They had no family, so no one would mourn their passing.

But Lento never liked such pragmatism the first place.

"Sorry, but I'm new here, so I have a question. Antril's ruled by a mercenary council, right? Why aren't they doing anything about all the insects in the sewer? Seems like ignoring this problem would only make it worse."
 
Wrench leaned back, recalling what others had told her about this matter.

"As you had already noticed, an acid rain caught everyone by surprise. Rich people can get very annoying when they threat removing all donations and investiments around the city... and there's the matter of the dragon at the north; it asked for protection some weeks ago, and those insects arose at the same time. We are lucky we don't have problems with thieves and poachers, but people are suffering the same."

Wrench noticed Aivery's mood change and patted his head. "I know this is cruel, but people don't want to die. Those drinks have been created by an alchemist that trusted us that-" She sighs, as the very thought of what she was about to say was way dumber now than in that moment. "- those drugs will delay or paralyse the insect for enough time to the trainies to kill them."
 
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That idea was silly enough to bring Aivery back to his senses. At this point they weren't even slaves anymore, just cattle waiting to be slaughtered. He looked up back at the bartender with serious eyes. "But you said it yourself right now, people don't want to die!" He moved a wing towards the ladies. "They want to live just as much as any one of us do, why can't we drug something that isn't a person? Don't bugs eat anything they can find? Why not raw meat? Or animals?" He desperately continued to shoot ideas to the bartender who had no real power over the subject.
 
Silence fell in the tavern. A fat man in a yellow shirt, brown pants and a fridge strapped to his belt came from the kitchen and stared at Wrench, no word left his mouth.

"This is what the council agreed. This is what the insects want: living people. I can't do anything about that."

Wrench was about to verge in tears when a man stood up, claping his hands loudly and slowly while walking to the pair's table.

"If you can't keep your cool with the truth, then it's highly probable that you will fail in your future endeavors." A cynical smile fills his face. "The only you can do is cry like a baby; or maybe chirp as a baby chicken that you are."

The trio didn't heard anything: they slept soundly under the sleep drugs effect.

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Lento listened in onto the exchange between Aivery and Wrench, content with simply digesting facts and thinking. First off, he had to admit that the dragon must have been one hell of a pathetic little bitch, to be afraid of a bunch of godlins. Second off, no matter how he thought about it, it was fifty shades of stupid that you can drug an insect by making sure that their food was drugged up beforehand. And third off...well, it's been some time that he was privy to a fun little adventure anyways.

"Well," he said, standing up and smiling at the cynical newcomer, "Anything that has no chance of failure is a boring venture the first place, so hey, I'll go pay the Insect King a visit and see whether he's an understanding bloke or not. You wouldn't happen to have any more of those drugs, would you? Or oil? And please, enlighten me in regards to where you planned on dumping those slaves, Wrench."

Right now, all Lento could see was the massive rewards he'd be able to get if he pulled this out, all the heroic songs he'd be able to sing if he survived this. Perhaps it was a greed that bordered insanity, but it was a greed that fuelled his soul.

"And Aivery, sometimes, you got to stop asking about possibilities and just wing it. Your goddess will protect you anyways, right?"
 
The newcomer was quick to ruffle Aivery's feathers. First of all, he was a proud halfling, not a chicken! Secondly, if he had to choose a bird to be, it would be a sandpiper! And thirdly, he was not a baby! He showcased his anger by pouting at the newcomer and prepared himself to stark squawking his reasons as to why this man was undeserving of Miyudane's, dave any other deity's, grace. Before he could start however, Lento began to speak.

Aivery's face grew into a big smile at Lento's heroic courage. Only a true hero would take the place of an offering and try to defeat the monster! At the very least, he was happy that he wasn't the only who thought this was wrong as was going to do something about it. His wings flapped happily as he responded to Lento, "Yes, that's right! As long as Miyudane is with me, we will surely succeed!"
 
"Look at them." The man pointed, walking carelesly to the girls. He picked up a bread knife in the next table and pressed the blade at the neck of the blue haired human one, holding the top of her head with the other hand. "Look." In a quick gesture he slit open the neck of the girl, however she didn't woke up nor screamed in pain. "They won't wake up. They will never wake up. You." He pointed to a terrified Wrench. "You killed them when you gave them those potions. Be proud, my wife." Then he just threw the girl to the floor, along with the bread knife.

Some drunkards fled from the tavern, other clients stood and moved away from the scene, but remained inside the tavern. And as that man said, both Aivery and Lento noticed the rings on each hands of that man and Wrench.

"Stop, you monster!" Screamed the fat man with the fridge, behind the counter. "We won't allow anymore of your evil in this city!"

The man grinned at "Fridge", and with a challenging tone he yelled. "THEN MAKE ME!" At the same time, Ron and Rina entered the tavern, confused with the commotion. "I AM THE ONLY ALTA GRADE ALCHEMIST OF THIS CITY, YOU ALL WILL BE DEAD WITHOUT ME!"

"That's a bad guy, isn't?" Rina asked to no one, preparing her greatsword with a serious face. "Who cares, we'll beat him anyway." Replied Ron, snapping his neck.
 
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