Reincarnated As A Peasant - Book 2: Chapter 33: A Wolf's Howl

Landar

I walked through the gloom, my team behind me, everything illuminated by a spell Tosh had cast that seemed to bath everything in a soft white glow. Eventually the long corridor gave way to an open space with a large set of double doors.

“Well these look familiar,” I said as I tried the handle. The moment I touched the metal ring the doors pulsed with a green light, the mana inside the enchantments activating and moving the doors slowly open.

“Be ready,” Roland stepped in front of me, his shield and mace raised in a defensive posture.

But instead of more gloom and danger, we found the cold stone amphitheater we had left from. And all of our classmates were sitting and waiting impatiently for us. Edna smirked as she stood in front of the class leaning on her broom turned staff.

“Welcome back Mr. Landar, and friends. Please take your seats.”

“It’s an illusion,” Roland said, as he stepped into the room his shield raised.

“No illusion boy.” Edna said, amusement mixed with the authority she naturally carried and I instantly knew the truth in her words. “This is the third room. The meditation room.” She waited for us to take our seats before she continued. “I let you do the first two rooms for one very specific reason. Can anyone here tell me why?”

No one raised their hand or spoke up.

Edna sighed. “If no one can provide me with the answer to this very basic question. I will require you all to pass through the first two rooms to get her, tomorrow when we have our full mediation on these events.”

Several hands rose. Edna called on the girl with the clockwork looking constructs attached to her and her companions bodies. “I don’t know if it is the reason, but I can tell you something I learned.”

Enda nodded for her to continue. “I learned that I am far more powerful than I had thought myself to be.”

“Did anyone else have this revelation?” Most of the students nodded or showed some other sign of agreement and I found myself nodding along with them. Modgi from Sakura’s group raised his hand and Edna called on him. “Yes boy, tell us what you experienced.”

“I used an ice spell that I have used several hundred times against opponents in duels and even on several occasions during battles against the elves as my people and I made our way here. It was always far more effective at forcing my opponents to slow, and deal with the projectiles, than it has ever been at actually causing damage. But when I unleashed the spell, the quickest combat spell I know, it ripped through the Kobolds like they were made of wet paper.”

“Good, good. That was the experience I wanted all of you to have. Or at least become aware of. All of you are at least level seven or you would not be in this class. That is Silver rank, for our eastern friends. Can any of you guess how long it would have taken Steel warriors, or those level five or under, to accomplish what took all of you less then an hour to do collectively?”

Again the room was filled with silence. “It would have taken a squad of warriors at level five, a minimum of an hour to clear those two rooms. If they were foolish enough to attempt the trapped areas of the second room, it probably would have taken much longer. A squad of baseline warriors would have been quickly overwhelmed and slaughtered. The normal army is filled with level zero baseline humans, and are typically led by level one up to level five officers. Copper and steel warriors, respectively. If it was led by at least one level five veteran steel warrior, a platoon would have been required to conquer those rooms if it was staffed by baseline humans. And even then it would have taken them the better part of the day to do so.”

Her cane cracked against the stone floor as she paced back and forth in front of the lectern.

“Each of you is worth more than fifty warriors. Even those given the best equipment and armor they could handle, they would have struggled. Not one of your teams took longer than fifteen minutes to clear those first two rooms.”

That sent shivers down my spine. I might have guessed I was equivalent to maybe a squad of spear wielding militia. Maybe. But a platoon of well equipped and trained warriors? That seemed too much. And yet, I didn’t think Edna was lying.

Edna looked back at the clockwork maker and smiled. “And of course, with every successful attempt at the tower, there is a reward.”

She stepped aside and several chests lay open behind her. They were small, the size of my satchel bag at most. But inside was filled with pure shining gold. A few sparkly gems peaked out from between the coins as well.

“There is one for each of you. Tell me, do you think the risk is worth the reward?”

I never heard the woman’s response back, as I and the other students quickly went to the front of the class to retrieve our team’s winnings. THe chest was heavy, in the end split four ways, each of us only got twenty five gold. We agreed to sell the handful of tiny gems, and put the money into a pool for any group expenses that might come up.

If this keeps up, I don’t think there’s going to be very many money issues in my future.

***

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Wait. How much is it going to cost?” I asked the professional master builder, who I had already had to bribe to even make the journey out to apple core court. Ten gold might not have been a lot to most lords and ladies, but it was a lot to me.

“Roughly ten thousand gold. And that’s just to reinforce those two foundations. The third one there,” the gruff old man pointed towards the abandoned, and heavily condemned building I had ordered my people to stay away from. “It’s a lost cause. Demo alone is going to cost at least another ten thousand. Maybe thirty depending on permit fees with the city and any damages that might get caused to other tenement buildings.”

I jinxed it. I damn well jinxed it. I sighed. “Alright. Are you willing to finance this? Or do we need to have the money up front?”

“Up front payment is the standard.” He said this as if that was what he would be expecting to continue the work. I glared at him for a moment until he blinked. “But uh . . . well. I guess since it is an emergency and all, we can work something out through the builders guild with the bank. But you’ll need to meet with guild master Timothy about it. I’m just a builder.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Thank you,” I felt anything but gratitude as I paid the man the ten additional gold he demanded from me to come out and do the inspection. He took his money, bowed, and started walking away.

I scowled as I felt the lighter weight of the bag of money I kept with me at all times.

“Expensive inspection,” Gragon complained, and I had a hard time disagreeing with him.

“Come on. We have some stalls to get back in working shape before it gets too dark. The Dredges were able to get enough firewood to trade for proper planks today.” We went to where the three giant bots sat in the middle of the courtyard, and found a pile of some of the worst looking lumber I had ever seen.

“This is barely better than raw wood.” Gragon complained.

“I think Dugal might have gotten swindled in the trade.” I bent down and examined the wood. They were rough hughen, and that was being generous. “Looks like they just cut it with an ax rather than a proper mill saw. Sheesh. I don’t think there’s an even part of any of these planks.”

The dwarf tisked as he finished his inspection of the would be stalls. “No two ways about it, lad. I’ll get a few of the drudges together and go on another excursion for river rocks we can use to at least smooth these things out a bit. We’ll do the work tomorrow.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Say, have you given any thought to that other project we discussed?”

“Aye. It’s what Stegal, Brimhat, and Dugal have been having most of their people working on. Finding us the right plants, and the right sand is a tricky thing for people who-”

I didn’t hear the end of his sentence, as someone screamed at the top of their lounges and then was suddenly cut off. “What?”

“Help!” Someone else yelled, “he’s got a knife to her throat!” Another voice screamed and it took me a moment to realize where the voices were coming from. The top floor of the condemned building had several people hanging out the windows, all of them young teens, or children.

I didn’t hesitate for a second as I pulled my ax from its belt loop and charged towards the doors to the dangerous building. Only, before I could get inside a man wearing a cloth mask grabbed both of the girls hanging out the window and yanked them back into the darkness of the top floor.

When I reached for the door a heavy bolt locked in place. “I can force my way in,” I said but Gragon shook his head.

“Not good lad. Whoevers up there isn’t alone.”

A third man, again masked, came to the window of the second story, and shouted down at us. “Stay out, or we kill these brats!”

A crowd quickly formed and surrounded the building. Many of the workers held implements of their trade, hammers, spades, shovels, and most simply held bricks or sticks that were particularly hardy.

“What the hell is going on?! What do you want?” I shouted up at the hostage taker as he glared down at me.

“Clear off and leave us alone!” He shouted. Despite multiple attempts after that, he refused to communicate. Clearly agitated. After a moment of watching the growing crowed, he retreated back inside.

“Who are they?” I asked but the three task masters and elders that had gathered around me by then shrugged. None of them knew.

Yolanda appeared at my elbow as if out of thin air. “Gangers.” She whispered. “Been prowlin around for a few days now ever since you opened the gate. Watching. The kids went in to play, and must have found em.”

“So they didn’t plan on taking hostages. They just got found out.” she nodded.

That changed things dramatically for both good and bad. It meant that if I could get them to see reason, I could legitimately negotiate a peaceful resolution. But it also meant these idiots were acting out of panic and were as far from reason as a person could get in their situation.

I cleared my throat and projected my voice up at the glaring man. His face was obscured by his mask, which held several symbols that I recognized from common graffiti around the drudge slums. “Release the kids, and we’ll let you go!”

“Fuck off!” The words were muffled, and came from inside. Then at the top floor the first man who had taken the girl who had screamed for help appeared. THe same young girl, maybe ten or eleven at the oldest, held tightly under one arm. He held a gleaming knife to her throat, as tears streamed down her face. “Or she dies!”

Without any further conversation he pulled her back inside and out of view.

Someone in the crowd burst into tears. Probably the mother, shit. This isn’t going to be good. Either I’m about to have two dead kids, a riot and several very public hangings on my hands, or this is going to take a while to get them to cool off.

“Anyone know another way inside, that isn’t the front door?” I asked, keeping my voice low so only those close to me could hear. I was looking for options, not trying to tip whatever hand I had.

“Or the basement. I sealed that off good.” Gragon said, the gravel in his voice displaying his displeasure at the events we found ourselves in.

“You could scale it like the girls did.” Yolanda pointed with her one good arm over to where a set of drain pipes clung, half rusted, to the stone building’s wooden facade.

“How hasn’t that fallen and gotten someone killed yet?”

Yolanda shrugged. “Don’t know, but it holds me just fine.” Yolanda was tall for a woman, but she wasn’t nearly as heavy as I was.

The likelihood of catastrophic failure of the pipe structure under your weight is 26.75%. With supportive runes or enchantments we can decrease that likelihood down to 15.34% boss.

Thanks Sid, I thought as I weighed my options. I could wait, try to negotiate once things cooled off a bit. Or, I could breach the front door and start slaughtering gangers left and right and hope I got to the kids before one of them got hurt.

Alternatively, I could try to sneak in, locate the kids, and then do what needed doing.

In the end, I really didn’t have a choice. Not if I wanted things to come to a good ending before someone got really hurt.

On top of the practical side of things, I felt what I can only describe as an unnatural urgency. As if a predator was stalking close to home, and I had to put up some kind of defense. My territory had been violated, and I needed to rectify that breach before more ingrates got funny ideas about what was mine being theirs.

Deep in my mind I heard a growl, a wolf slowly waking from her slumber. A howl growing in her throat and mine alike.

I shook my head to clear it. “Lead the way.”