Seren had her eyes on it and was not looking away but clearly wanted to.
The second creature had been hanging back, watching the large wolf work, and then it moved for Darion’s horse. He redirected the large wolf with a command, the wolf disengaging and covering the distance in two strides, and the second creature t it head-on instead of eting the horse.
It was over in another minute.
Three bodies on the road.
The large wolf stood among them looking at nothing in particular, waiting.
Words appeared in Darion’s vision.
[Creatures Identified: Rops]
[All three can be revived.]
Rops. He looked at the bodies. That was their na. Hideous creatures with four eyes and nightmare mouths, and their na was Rops. The world had a specific talent for anticlimactic naming.
But they could be revived. Three more animal slots filled without a graveyard or a forest hunt.
Wild animals encountered on roads were potentially recruitable, not just threats to survive. If he found more Rops, or more of whatever else lived in terrain like this, every encounter was a potential addition rather than just a problem to get past.
He dismounted and went to the first one.
"Revive."
Three tis. Quick. The green light on each one, the eyes opening, the bodies shifting from dead weight to undead waiting for instruction.
They looked worse as undead than they had alive, which was saying sothing. The four eyes with the green points of light in them, the wide mouths slightly open, the heavy bodies holding the posture of things that would move very fast if told to.
He added them to inventory and remounted.
[Three Undead Rops added to Animal Inventory!]
[You have gained Attribute points]
[STATUS]
Na: Darion
Title: Baron of Percvale
Class: Necromancer
Rank: Acolyte
Territory: Percvale (Border Domain)
Territorial Resonance: Low (Starving-aligned — Improving)
[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength: 57
Agility: 47 [ 2]
Endurance: 55
Vitality: 48
Perception: 48 [ 2]
Intelligence: 73 [ 2]
Willpower: 55 [ 2]
[Knight Undead Inventory: 50/50]
[Animal Undead Inventory: 15/25]
[Skills:
Death Perception
Distant Command]
Seren was looking at him.
"Sorry you had to see that," he said, aning the tearing specifically.
She looked at where the wolf had been working. "The wolf is very thorough."
"It is," he agreed.
She turned back to the road. "Let’s keep moving."
The forested stretch eventually opened up and the road widened and by the ti the light was going properly they had reached a small settlent, not Ghlk, just a waypoint on the route, the kind of place that existed because travelers needed sowhere to stop between larger destinations.
There was a bar. One building that served drink and food and had rooms above it, the sign outside faded enough that he couldn’t read what it had once said. Light and noise coming through the shuttered windows.
Seren had been right that sleeping on the road through this territory at night wasn’t advised.
Even with the wolves, the darkness and the terrain and whatever else lived in those trees made it a bad calculation.
So they decided to rent a room in the place. It was bar which offered rooms for travelers to pass the night in, at a cost though.
"In here," Darion said.
They tied the horses and went inside.
The room was low-ceilinged and warm from the fire and loud, filled with noise of n who had been drinking for a while and were committed to continuing.
Several of them looked up when the door opened. A few looked at Seren in the way n in bars looked at won who walked in. Darion looked back at the ones who held the look too long and they found other things to look at.
He went to the counter.
The man behind it had white hair and a beard that Darion figured that he had stopped trimming it several years ago.
He looked at Darion with neutral assessnt.
"How much for a room?" Darion asked.
"Five bronze," the man said.
Darion reached into his pocket and counted what he had brought.
Three bronze coins.
He looked at them in his hand. Then at the man behind the counter.
Five bronze required. Only three bronze available. The gap between those two numbers was not complicated but it was currently a significant problem.
He glanced at Seren. She looked back at him, her expression confirming that she had also counted and arrived at the sa conclusion.
He turned back to the counter man. "We have three. It’s all we brought for the road. Any possibility of consideration?"
The man looked at the three coins, then at Darion, then at Seren. His face did not imdiately suggest that consideration was forthcoming.
"Can’t go lower than five," he said. "That’s already below what I should be charging."
Darion thought about the alternative. Outside, in the dark, in the kind of terrain they had co through. With the temperature dropping and whatever lived in those trees making their nightti sounds. He had the wolves and could summon them for protection, but sleeping on the ground in the cold with no shelter and Seren beside him was a significantly worse option than whatever this room looked like.
He was still working through possibilities when Seren spoke.
"Please." She said it simply, her voice subli. "It’s everything we have."
The man looked at her. Then at the coins again. He considered for so ti then he exhaled through his nose.
"Fine," he said. "Three. But only because leaving you two out in that cold would be the kind of thing I’d think about later and not enjoy." He held out his hand. "And because you seem like honest travelers and not the type that breaks furniture."
Darion put the three coins in his palm.
The man closed his hand around them, dropped them into a box behind the counter, and turned to signal one of the won working the room. She ca over, looked at them both briefly, and gestured toward a door at the far end of the bar.
They followed her through.
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