"What's so funny?" I was confused and the others were still laughing at me.
Lesha came and pulled me down the beach until we found another of the little armored demons.
"That is a crab and not a monster. They have a hard shell and then can pinch, but I am sure that Gloria had repeatedly told Mei to leave it alone. Mei needs to learn her lessons and Gloria will make sure of it. We just need to worry about us, okay?"
I rolled my eyes, but Lesha grabbed me and kissed me, almost knocking me over in the process. Then I was led by the hand back to where Kevin already had food ready and waiting. I noticed that Gloria had come back with a moving bag, but when I asked her what she had, she grinned.
I pulled back in revulsion when Gloria tried to shove the bag of crabs in my face. I pushed her away and scowled.
"Why do you have a bag full of those little monsters?!" I asked while glaring at Gloria, circling the fire.
"Because the little demons taste good! Oh, come on, K! You can't be scared of a little crab!" Gloria shouted while chasing me around the fire.
The witch had one in each hand now, she had abandoned the bag beside Kevin who was laughing at the two of us. I finally got Lesha between the two of us, but she started to scream and kicked Gloria between the legs.
"Oof!" Gloria uttered as she dropped the crabs and her eyes bulged, grabbing her crotch in pain and falling over.
Lesha had got her good with the toes of her boot and now she was on the ground trying to see if Gloria was okay. Mei, Tim, Kevin, and Mark were all roaring with laughter. Gloria got back up, holding her stomach, and then turned her death beam gaze on Mei and the men, who all shut up and found somewhere else to look.
"I had that coming, but wow, I have never been kicked there before. Wow, not something I want to try again! No amount of bracing can stop that gut-dropping feeling; I can kind of imagine how much it must hurt for a man to get his kicked with all that hanging around!" Gloria said as she was finally able to stand back up.
After we gathered around the fire and ate some stew together. We talked, even laughing about Gloria and my little chase, and then Lesha's shoe in for the victory. After we finished Lesha and I went to the tent and crawled into the bed we hand made.
I was tired from the day, and It didn't take long for me to fall asleep with Lesha's warm back pressing into my chest.
------
Mie woke me up by crawling on me and sticking her tongue in my ear. That made me freak out and I almost knocked Mei out with a solid elbow to the side of her head, sending her rolling off me.
I sat up and wiped Mei's slobber out of my ear, and gently woke Lesha up. Mei popped back up with a smile and looking fine. I rolled my eyes at her, but that just made the grin split her face more.
"Get some sleep, and no fooling around with Gloria! We are expecting trouble tonight, so we might need both your help," I told Mei as Lesha and I pulled our boots on.
"K! We only did it once! Don't be so heartless! You know I have needs!" Mei complained, and Lesha left the ten, so I went over to Mei and got up in her face.
"I have needed to! I have done it the same amount of times as you have and yours sounded far more exciting sounding than mine!"
Mei patted my arm to console me and smiled up.
"Okay, I will keep my hand out of her pants, but those are the only promises I'm making. I told you I have needs," Mei said, giving me a serious look.
I shook my head with a smile and kissed the little pervert on the forehead, then I headed back out to the fire where Gloria was just coming from.
"Goodnight, I don't think I have to tell you not to screw around, but just don't let Mei take advantage of you!" I joked to Gloria, and she smiled back at me, squeezing my arm as she passed.
"Goodnight, K."
Kevin and Mark were just saying goodnight to Lesha when I got to the fire, and the men said goodnight to me before leaving. Tim was just coming out of his tent, but that's when it happened.
The forests on the other side of the fire started moving, and men started to walk out, a lot of them. Not only were there a lot of them, but they were big and looked strong.
"Lesha, come!" I called and Lesha came back to me.
Tim was just walking up beside me, and the others were coming out of the tents. Only Gastbo and Corbit remained in the tents. This was bad.
"This isn't good, they all have the same tattoo of a raven, Guild of The Laughing Ravens. They are assassins and bandits posing as a real Guild. The problem is that they are a real Guild and they can throw their status around to get away with murder on the daily from what I have heard. We need to be careful of these men," But I cut Tim off.
Stay behind me," is all I said to him.
I was full of blood and ready to use. If this group wanted to play, then my girls and I would teach these impotent fools a lesson on attacking from the dark. I waited until the biggest one stepped forward.
"My name is Kal, I am not the Leader of The Laughing Ravens, but I am his second. Jester wishes to offer you a place to work from while you stay in Dyster."
"What?" I asked, thoroughly confused.
"Why would you want to help us?" I asked with suspicion.
"Can we sit down? Look, we will drop our weapons over here," Kal pointed to a spot on the ground where the men started to put their weapons down in piles. "We don't want trouble, the exact opposite. Since you have already had a visit with Dyster it was important for us to talk with you before you got to the city."
"Fine, but I am sending the girls back to bed, but I don't need them to kill you all," I said, gesturing to the logs we had rolled up.
"Hey, you don't have to tell us twice, we already know about you. Red Legion Guild is big talk in Healia so we naturally heard about you, and you completing the first dungeon! Very impressive, and not long before Jester completed the one here and earned his item," Kal explained.
There were three logs rolled in a triangle around the fire, so Lesha, Tim, and I were the ones that put our back to the tent. Tim still straddled the log to watch the tents just in case.
"Item?" I asked curiously.
"I will let him tell you about that, he doesn't share information freely, but that doesn't mean he is a bad guy. We all get a bad name because we do the jobs that no one else will, but we don't kill without purpose. Jester wants to give you a place while you're in the city, but he has his reasons. He wants to kill Dyster, and all the rest of the Gods by extension," Kal explained as we all sat around the fire.
Now that was interesting, and it also lined up with what I was planning to do at some point anyway. This Jester sounded experienced, but was he just a crime boss that wanted to overthrow the Gods because it was inconvenient, or was it something else?
"What reason would Jester have for wanting to kill Dyster besides making his life easier as a crime boss?" I asked, but then all the men started to laugh, except for Kal, and then they all soon quieted.
"Jester is no crime boss, hell he doesn't even like killing and we don't do anything that doesn't need to be done because of him. Jester was a normal adventure that was a soldier before that, a good and solid man, never did wrong. One day, he had gone to the dungeon after kissing his pregnant wife goodbye. Dyster was having a bad day and one of his natural disasters caused the house that Jester's wife was in and five others on the block to collapse. Jester returned home to find his wife and unborn child dead."
Lesha gripped my hand tight as Kal told the story, and I could feel her start to shake at the end. I slipped my arm around her, but he wasn't finished.
"Jester spent the rest of his time from that point forward; only coming out to buy food rations with the spoils he earned. It took him three months of grinding until he was finally able to push through and claim the core for himself. After that he came to our guild and killed the current master, not a big loss, Teim was a cold-blooded killer that would kill anyone if he was paid. The rest is history, or at least the last 2 months," Kal finished and leaned back on the log.
"What about Giayadel's followers, and the women?" I asked.
I would hunt them down in my spare time if I had to. After hearing yet another story of callus Gods, I was starting to feel less reserved about killing them. I already had a sense of what Dyster was like with the way his temper had spiked when I challenged him, so the story was not hard to believe.
"Jester will still help you deal with them, we know about it and we have been slowly making them disappear, but Giaydel just sends more. The men we kill are all wearing some type of mask that makes them look handsome when they are just hired thugs with silver tongues. Jester is working on plans to deal with them, but they are still in the works, for now, we need more information."
"So then what do we do with the rings and Belt Knifer? How do we give them back?" I asked.
This was a far better deal than what Dyster had offered, but then Dyster wasn't that likely to help with a plan for his own execution. Losing the rings would be unfortunate, but we could get more in the city, we would just have to get some more gold…
"Here, Jester told me to give these to me if you asked. He said that meant you understood what he was trying to do and would be willing to listen. I will take the rings back and then Jester will deliver them back to Dyster because he will not be happy that you refused him. Plus, Jester loves to take any chance to get under Dyster's skin," Kal said with a laugh and walked over to hand me a handful of rings.
"What about my Knifer?" Tim asked a bit reluctantly, but Kal was already pulling a small rectangular box with wrist straps.
Tim's eyes lit up and he looked at Kal with big eyes.
"Jester knows about you too, and the Belt Knifer is good, and we can get you some, but this is what you need. This is the" Kal tried to say, but Tim cut him off.
"Air Knife, are you serious? Isn't this a tool only allowed to be used by members of your Guild?" Tim asked, not grabbing for the weapon yet.
"Yes it is, but Jester has decided that since we will be working together it would be fine for you to borrow one for now, but I'll need the pair of Belt Knifers you got on. Dyster tends to get a bit upset when he gets stood up on a deal," Kal said with a smile.
Tim took his belts off and handed them over, trading for the Air Knife. This was not how I had expected this meeting to go, but I was relieved. And now I was more on track with my main goal, ridding the world of the invading Gods!
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