TVC BK I, T 2: Setting out

Turn Two: Setting Out

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” I asked again.

Terv gave me an annoyed look that expressed just how happy he was to  be asked the same question four times. I ignored it. I needed everyone  on their A-game today and he was the weak link. Sooner or later people  were going to learn of our disastrous defeat. Even if the caravan had  not already mouthed off at every stop between here and Tappier folk  would eventually notice that once familiar faces had disappeared. As a  seventh-stage tempering cultivator, the Captain had been both our ace  and deterrent. Without him, things were going to get difficult. Things  to worry about in the future, I suppose. For now, we needed to get grab  supplies, men, anything and everything we could use before our weakness  became known. That meant no fuck-ups. We were going to ride through the  valley like we were still the biggest game in town and not desperate  dogs in need of … well everything. That especially went double for  desperate twin brothers in dire need of medical supplies.

Something in my face must have conveyed my meaning because Terv  caught himself and giving me a searching look, returned a determined  nod. It would have to do.

We rode out. Six men and eight horses. Four were to draw our two  waggons. The Captain had never liked squeezing the vale folk but well …  tough luck! We were going to take everything we could carry back and  hole up until I figured out my new abilities. After that? That was  anybody’s guess.

——

The sun was dipping in the sky by the time we came upon Pranil. It  made for a beautiful sight; the sun was low in the west, the hues of red  and orange spilling across the sky behind a village we had to sort of  squint at to see properly. Pranil was the third stop on our journey and  the biggest settlement so far. That said if memory served there couldn’t  be more than four hundred people behind those wooden walls. It said a  lot. This wasn’t just a backwater, the vale folk were incredibly poor.  Our entire day of travel was mostly passing homestead after homestead.  However, that suited me just fine. I was increasingly convinced that  this was a nice out-of-the-way starting area without any high-level  enemies. It made my plan seem more secure.

Already, our waggons had a good deal of cargo. We had several fowl,  two pigs, some grain and a nice heifer. That farmer looked like he was  going to cry when we took his cow and he probably did when he left.  Pranil though, that was going to be the real challenge. There was no way  six men could take on several hundred. Luckily, we didn’t have to. They  knew us there. Case in point, the men who came out to meet us looking  all the while like they were being force-fed lemons.

“Still watching the world pass Jonas?” I sneered.

The man scowled so fiercely that his face scrunched like a wad of newspaper.

“We’re already paid up for this moon!” he growled out.

Only prudence kept me from kicking his face in from atop my horse.  The old Bunpagna loathed this man. I found that I did too. Jonas the  troll. Jonas have-to-pay-the-toll-before-you-pass, Jonas  I-saw-you-looking-so-I-going-to-beat-you-because-you’re-thinking-of-stealing.  Jonas come-here-let-me-check-your-pockets. The man was despicable. A  genuine lowlife thug, which was saying something given we were bandits.  He was your classic fear the strong, bully the weak type and the number  one enemy of children and small animals in the village. As a former  street rat, the old Bunpagna suffered a lot at his hands when he roamed  the muddy streets of Pranil. That was before he threw himself at the  Captain’s mercy and got recruited into the gang. Today, he was bigger  and stronger than Jonas but it was clear the old fart still couldn’t see  it that way. The only one Jonas feared was the Captain.

“Next moon isn’t for a few more days but just cause it’s you, Jonas, I’m willing to collect early”, I said with a smile.

“YOU!”

That same shared history that kept Jonas from recognising the threat I  had become was the same one that had prevented the old Bunpagna from  acting out on his obvious hatred of the bastard. However, that was then.  Things were a little different now and I let Jonas know it.

“Yes, Jonas! Me!” I smirked practically daring him. “Now unless  you’ve got money for me get the fuck out of my way! Have Pierce come see  me.”

Not waiting for a response, I spurred my horse past him. The air was  tense for a moment but Jonas and his men let us pass. My own men  hesitated for a split second before following. Our arrival had not gone  unnoticed. Eyes peered at us from behind shutters and across the street  but no one stopped us. Good! It might not look like much but Pranil was a  big place. They didn’t fear us as much as the other villages. If they  saw weakness, they just might pull something. That was why the Captain  never went too hard on them. As a fourth-stage cultivator, I was already  the strongest in the village. The Captain being seventh could chop  through them like an axe through jelly. Nevertheless, he had to be  careful because if they committed, they could bring him down through  sheer numbers if nothing else. Scores would die before he croaked,  making it an incredibly stupid decision but they could if pushed. The  same things could happen to me if I wasn’t careful.

We holed ourselves up in the village’s only inn. Just six men having  some lunch before going about their unlawful business but to the  villagers, we might have as well been devouring human flesh instead of  bread. The small inn was nearly deserted, emptying out in a matter of  seconds upon our arrival and those who stayed kept shooting us furtive  glances. Marla, the wench forcibly elected to serve us looked ready to  bolt at the slightest sign of trouble. Poor girl! Every item on her tray  rattled when she brought them over on account of her trembling.

‘Damn, that intimidate ability is really pulling its weight!’ I remarked quietly to myself.

My current class was Brigand. It gave me two abilities; [Plunder] and [Intimidate].

With the secondary ability proving so useful, I was eagerly looking  forward to seeing the other in action. I was never a pushover, in either  life, but this was different. That confidence to walk up to someone and  the force of personality to make them back off instead of confronting  you was invigorating. That feeling of power was like a drug. Even the  unbelievably tense atmosphere that practically swamped any place we went  felt natural, felt right. The men felt it keenly, especially now. It  was one thing to roll over a bunch of farming steads and another to walk  into a walled village of hundreds and have them avert their gazes.  After a brief moment of uncertainty, they lapped it up. Already, they  acted like they owned the place; laughing and joking as the ale and meat  filled their bellies. It was their want, we were predators, and these  weak villagers were prey. We …

Quickly, I shook my head to clear out such thoughts. Perhaps I was  leaning too heavily on these new skills. We most certainly weren’t  predators. Low-levelled scavengers maybe but nothing higher. There were  much bigger fish out there. The Captain’s death proved that. Even  ignoring the magical aspects of this world, common criminals never  amounted to much, in either life. The old Bunpagna was limited by his  poor upbringing and lack of education but Thaddeus grew up middle class.  I knew or encountered people who fell into a life of crime. When I was  younger I worked in a supermarket that got robbed, constantly.

The perpetrators were fundamentally the same, low-level trash who  thought they were ‘hard’ and other people, especially law-abiding  people, were ‘soft’. They were dullards that failed to understand one  thing, the common criminal much like the common man was disposable only  more so. Being ‘hard’ meant nothing. They were pawns skulking in the  muck, earning money for uncaring bosses who walked in the light. That’s  not to say the old Thaddeus wasn’t. He was a junior manager in a real  estate firm, effectively the same but with a key difference. He was in  the light.

The low-level criminals in my old life were petty thieves, con men  and drug dealers who scrounged on the outskirts of ‘polite’ society  making ends meet by ripping off strangers and selling who knows what.  Sometimes, they would make a big score only to find themselves with  money they couldn’t even use legitimately. It was a harsh life where one  wrong move and they would get done in by others or wind up in the big  house. I could see parallels between my two lives already. For all his  power, the Captain ended up living out his days in an abandoned ruin and  dying in an ignoble way. To be fair, I don’t think he knew any other  way to live. However, that only made my point for me. Robbing people  might be a rush but if I was going to be successful in this life, the  last thing I wanted to do was fall into the mindset of a common  criminal. I needed to get smart, either get out of the game or find a  way to become a whole lot less common.