Master Of None

”Well I could have told you the king would give you travel medals that made you emissaries. Royalty is a sneaky lot. Even the king of Ordist gave you a sigil now, you are all going to be very tangled up if you keep traveling far and wide.” Barry almost seemed a bit sad saying this knowing that the politics of kingdoms could complicate any situation one was in. ”Seeing that you were dragged in to a tournament, the king must really have liked you all. Now that you helped out with the demons it is sure that they will send some of their own emissaries to visit in the coming months. I would not be surprised if he sent one of his generals, I have heard he only does that when he wishes to send a strong message.” Walker was imagining general Scylla showing up in the castle and putting all the nobles and attendants in to a state of shock. He almost had hope it would happen just as such. ”It does worry me that a demon was intentionally cursing gear to sell however...We may have to recruit a few more appraisers just to be safe.” Barry fiddled with his system most likely sending a message to the guild master to do such a thing. It was a good precaution to take just in case there were more items that had made their way outside the Kingdom of Ordist. 

”We also managed to learn a bunch of things about crafting from the tamers guild master, Midnight and I have some experiments we want to try out when we get home.” Walker was not in the least bit afraid to let Barry in on some of the ideas he had, Barry seemed like the kind of person that would not tell a soul unless asked to. Not only that but Barry also seemed to want to help them more than he let on. 

”Ohho you met that old guy too? I would expect him to have some good forging tips seeing that he grew up in the dwarven kingdom. Even if he doesn’t have a system they like there he would have picked up some knowledge just by growing up there. Whatever he showed you or told you should be very useful, make sure to heed his words.” Walker and the others gave a nod, Midnight even seemed to be listening intently. ”So that little snake there still hasn’t been introduced to me, when are you going to get to that?” Barry had been polite so far but his curiosity had finally caught up to him.

”Forgive me, I did not want to interrupt the reunion. My name is Onyx.” Barry did not show a single ounce of surprise when Onyx spoke in his head, it was the years of poker face experience he had. 

”So this little one can already speak, how unique. With you working overtime I don’t think any of you will need to learn hand signals like the other adventurer parties do, how lucky.” Barry had always been the one who distributed basic hand signal books to younger parties as part of his role in the guild, but seeing that the party would completely communicate without the need to speak he was relieved to have one less party to give a speech to at his monthly lecture. 

”Actually I still hope to attend a class on them, It may be useful when we interact with other groups.” Gil was the one to speak up, as he often scouted ahead he was most likely the one who would work together with other scouts and be required to be silent. Onyx would not always be going with him so if anyone needed to learn hand signals it was him. 

”I also would like a copy of your notes and knowledge, if I memorize them I can teach them to others.” Walker would use his mental archive skill to the fullest just so he would not need to practice them. He could also potentially be in the scouting position and thought Gil’s idea to be wise.

”Well maybe I will just be asking you two to give a lecture on it one day in my place.” Barry laughed at this but id did not seem to be a joke as much as it was a way for him to avoid having to work more. 

The time went on like this until it was well past sunset. They all decided to get some rest for the night so they would be refreshed for the morning. If the party kept up their pace they could make it home the next day before the sun set again. Barry even offered to travel with them since he was just told to roam around the plains to find a horde to take out if he could. 

Once they had all started to get up the party spent some time roasting the most recently caught horned rabbits legs to share with Barry who for some reason had not brought any food with him. It seemed he traveled very light only taking the most basic gear to sleep and his two double bladed axes. These two weapons seemed to scream death just looking at them, Barry however was not deterred at all casually lifting the obviously heavy weapons with one hand. 

”That seems to be some pretty good catch there, and here I thought you all had roasted them to ashes based on your story.” Barry had tried to lighten things up when he noticed how hard Walker had put the event on himself. Although it seemed his words weren’t really needed since the party already was developing solutions to the problems that had and wanted to improve upon. 

”Well that’s enough sitting around let’s get on the move, I will head with you all until the fields.” Barry pushed them to be on their way, he knew that with the outbreak of horned rabbits happening there could be a large group passing them by at any time. Not that he was afraid of them, in fact he was excited to get a little exercise in. 

Cleaning things up as fast as they could, the party broke down camp and get ready to follow Barry who took the lead. They followed nearly at a jog pace even though they were fairly sore from the other day, however knowing that they could reach home before sunset only seemed to motivate them further. The winds on the plains were a bit stronger today making them all bundle up extra carefully. The sun may be stronger and melting the snow slowly but that did not make it too much warmer.

The entire morning passed uneventful, they had yet to see a monster at all, even Gil had not spotted any tracks along the way. Barry seemed a bit unhappy with this since he was out to wander around and hunt some horned rabbits based on the orders for the guild master. However in contradiction Walker was more than happy for the uninterrupted pace, he knew that ever second saved when the did not need to fight an opponent was time they used to get nearer to home. 

Gil picked up his pace to try to scout ahead a bit but was matched by Barry who went ahead with him, it seemed Barry did not want to be left out of any potential battles. Although he was met with disappointment when Gil returned having found no signs of any monsters around. Barry had begun to believe that the break out had been false, he was soon to be proved wrong on that account though. 

Midnight had slowed sniffing the air, ”Sister says she smells more rabbits.” Midnight was definitely more sensitive than any of the others when it came to smell since she was a dragon, the wind was also bringing many smells from across the plains to them. 

”Little Onyx, which way is your sister smelling them?” Barry did not even hesitate before asking, it was clear he was aiming to find them. 

”To our right they should be near.” With this Barry started to shift to the right while picking up his pace. Walker was not sure if he should head that way too but decided since he would be with Barry the party would not have too much to worry about.

Passing through some higher dried grass, the party soon saw a large amount of shapes in the distance, they were too white to be snow and moved around way too much. The sun was showing high in the sky at this point and the group of horned rabbits was doing much of the same the Gil had witnessed before. The only difference was that this group may only have consisted of a little over a hundred. ”Hm a small group but it will be enough to practice on. Walker after i deal with them I will expect you to carry them back for me.” What Barry sped up way ahead of the party.