Paladin Of The Forsaken Lands (Monster Crafting "Nature" Paladin Lit-Rpg) 55- What's Wrong With this Town?

Vraxious- Hopes End

The bounty hunter looked around expectantly at the crowd of half-drunk townsfolk. ”Did I stutter? Where is the paladin? first to talk gets thirty imperial gold.”

A figure against a back table wearing a cloak made of fine white fabric that accentuated the vicious look of the black daggers strapped to their thigh was the first to speak up in an incredulous tone: “Did, did you really just admit aloud that you have thirty gold on you?”

A drunk stumbled past the hunters, making a hasty exit, looking every part like a panicked bar-goer trying to throw up outside. The hunters barely paid him any mind. Vrax looked through Identify again. The leader's na was Horus; the others were Bob and Blu. Horus turned to the figure against the wall. “Did you just fucking threaten to rob ?” he growled out.

The figure against the wall sighed, “I was going to, but fucking Hank beat us all to it!” Realization dawned in Horus's eyes as he patted frantically at his side; the stumbling drunk had made off with his coin purse.

Jeers rose from around the room; one particularly slurring voice from an elven man in the garb of a guard rang out above the others. “That’s the asshole tax! Get the fuck out of the bar; we are trying to get drunk!” A round of agreeing cheers and clinking mugs drowned out Horus's sputtered response.

He was practically shaking in rage as the room began to turn back to their drinks. Mana flared as he unwound a chain with a hooked grapnel on the end, mana coursing into it, causing the tal to drip shadows across the floor. “I said, where the fuck is the paladin?” Horus scread, grabbing a nearby patron by the shirt threateningly.

Rafael let out a deep weary sigh as weapons around the room began to be drawn. “Not in my fucking bar! Gentlen, this is the only warning you are going to get before things get really, really pear-shaped for you; leave with your dignity.”

Horus’s companions drew weapons behind him; one had a massive crossbow, and the other had a brown wooden staff. “You think you can take us? I see a few drunk guards and a bunch of has-beens,” Horus rasped out as his skill began intensifying, casting shadows wide around the room.

The tension was palpable as Gregory drew his weapons behind them. Then suddenly the drunk elf in the corner shouted out again, “Into the stew, with you!” he chanted oddly.

The bounty hunters cocked their heads in confusion as the chant was half repeated a few tis across the room before Gregory behind them sighed, sheathing his sword. “Into the Stew!” He shouted.

That began an unholy, uneven chant across the bar, with Vrax and Torvald cheerfully joining in, rising from their seats. Torvald especially looked excited. “Into The Stew!!” He bellowed, setting his hamr against the wall.

The hunters were understandably confused as the room around them continued with the chant, most of the patrons slowly rising from their tables nacingly. The few other out-of-town patrons had wide eyes like they had just unknowingly walked into a dark cult lair and stayed the hell out of what was happening with hands ready on weapons.

“The fuck are you hillbillies on about?” Horus spat out and then looked at Gregory in his obvious town guard garb. “And you, you are supposed to uphold the Dutchy law!” Horus gestured angrily.

Gregory puffed on his pipe for a long mont, then set it on the bar next to himself. “Subsection twelve, article three of the town charter, specifically punishnts for disturbing the peace in lieu of tarring and feathering, other punishnts may be ted out with the approval of a ranking guardsman.” Gregory gestured towards himself and then pushed both his hands towards the ground in an explosion of mana that ripped the tal weapons from the hunters hands so violently they embedded into the tavern floor.

Everyone else took that as their cue and rushed forwards. Torvald charged from the bar, shattering his stool with the force before catching the man with the staff mid-cast. Torvald wrapped his hand around the back of the man's skull and gave the most prodigious headbutt Vrax had ever seen; he dropped like a sack of bleeding potatoes. The other two hunters tried and failed to get weapons out and skills off as the crowd around them threw kicks and punches.

Horus escaped the crowd for a mont; using the shadows to glide to a far corner, he began weaving an intricate symbol in the air that started snuffing candles out one by one. Tom looked up annoyed from his scrolls at the scuffle and waved a hand. “Counterspell.” He half mumbled, brutally scattering Horus’s magic.

Horus tried again, a sigil half forming from the shadows around him, reaching hungrily towards the crowd. Tom this ti angrily half stood up, waving a hand that snatched the magic from the air around Horus, forming it into a condensed ball of darkness that sat right next to the pile of scrolls. Before going back to reading in a slight huff.

Horus briefly managed to summon a blade of shadow in his hands before Rafael joined in; his words, laced with power, ripped across the bar in a visible wave of purple energy: “Sit!” Horus and the n nearest him plopped down like scolded schoolchildren with a dazed look on their faces. The crowd of townsfolk jeering the whole ti snatched up and held down the bounty hunters in a rather terrifying display. The crowd parted for a mont, and a gnarled old woman with a knitting needle in one hand and a dagger in the other walked over and began summoning twine out of thin air that lashed around the n like a dented spider wrapping its prey in a cocoon.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The bar cald down for a mont; a few people, Vrax included, were still chanting into the stew with you. And Rafael's wife, along with three other hefty cooks, pulled out the biggest pot imaginable; it was a weathered, blackened thing coated in the gri of a thousand als, easily big enough to fit all three of the hunters and then so. Horus's eyes went wild, and he flailed within his prison of twine.

With an almost jovial reverence, they were tossed into the pot one after the other before the massive lid was clamped onto the top. Vrax walked up to a table of rchants from the traveling caravan who looked like they were actually about to try and save the n. He put on his best smile and politely tipped his hood. “Don’t worry, we aren’t actually going to make them stew; just introduce them to Stewart. He lives in the town stew!” Vrax explained as if that made any sense to the rchants; he may have been drunker than he thought.

The minor noblewoman owner of the caravan looked at him like he was actually insane. “I’m sorry, sir, but what does that all an?” She cautiously asked.

Vrax swayed slightly. “Oh, just follow us if you want to see!” Then he trailed out the door after the crowd that had the massive pot hoisted above them; faint screams could be heard from inside.

With his enhanced hearing, Vrax could hear the caravaneer whisper to her nearest guard, “I think we should leave now, Stewart.”

The guard was staring out the door like he had just seen a ritual sacrifice and downed his drink in one go before responding, “Yup, I think that’s a good idea.” He said it flatly, already putting his coat on.

The mob paraded down the street; it was still early evening, so the town was busy. Locals either sighed and moved aside or joined the procession in excitent. The out-of-towners mostly looked confused and mildly concerned. Vrax noticed one sowhat regular adventuring group called the coin counters, whom he had guided briefly in the past, who imdiately joined the procession angling towards him.

A lanky man nad Hector with a fiery red mohawk and poorly done spiraling tattoos across his face and neck shouted towards Vrax, “Yo Vrax, is this what I think it is? These fuckers gonna go et Stewie?”

Vrax gave them a thumbs up. “Yeah! Co on, this should be good!”

The procession continued through the town all the way to the gate nearest the chapel. The whole way Gregory kept having to stop and assure people that yes, this was official guard business, not mob justice, technically. Cedric was standing in front of his house sipping on a cup of sothing steaming. Clothed in a bathrobe watching the procession as it went by, he cocked an eyebrow at Gregory, but Gregory just gave an apologetic shrug in response. Cedric shook his head and went back in his house, closing the door with a solid thunk.

They paraded out the gates and down a small side trail on the north side of town for a few minutes before coming to a stinking concrete trench easily ten strides deep and twenty wide and long. A stinking rectangle that all of the town's plumbing emptied into. The crowd set the pot on the edge of the latrine trench, and there was an excited pause before Hans and Elric hauled the lid off the pot. Torvald and Vrax walked up and together tipped the contents off the wall. The hunters muffled screams as they fell ended with wet, sickening splats as they landed in a heap of human refuse.

Cheers, jeers, and laughter echoed from the crowd. Hector walked over to Vrax. “So wait, I get the stew part—y’all are gross for that joke—but who is Stewie?”

“That little guy” Vrax gestured towards a ripple within the fouled waters, and two curious eyestalks the size of a fist with bright yellow irises peeked above the edge of the water. “Just wait for it…..”

Stewie exploded from the water; it was best described as a circular banana slug covered in tentacles and tongues the size of a cart. It greedily grabbed its newest roommates, drawing them over and beginning to lick them clean, nibbling at the foul things stuck to their clothes. Vrax looked away from the screams and back towards Hector.

“They will be fine...ish...he gets bored after an hour or two, and all he will do is clean them...over and over again…” Vrax chuckled darkly. “Better than jail, right?”

Hector had a concerned look. “No, not better than jail... No wonder this town never has bounties for bandits…”

Vrax interjected. “Oh no, that’s because of Mister Abernathy…”

Gregory’s voice exploded outward, drowning out the laughter and conversation. “And according to the town charter, the punishnt for disturbing the peace has been ted out! I suggest you gentlen leave town once you escape the stew!” Gregory sharply turned on his heel and strolled back towards town.

Vrax and the rest of the mob watched for a few more minutes before joining; there were drinks to be had.

It was nearly midnight at the Hog’s Trough, and the party was still going strong; soone had been bringing in every nearby shrub or tree they could find for Vrax to adapt. Vrax was standing on the center table hunched over a small apple tree that had just a few unripe apples hanging from it. The tree had eyes, the apples had eyes, and right now a very drunk Vrax was trying to give the apples a separate consciousness and the ability to scurry around the bar.

Rafael and Hans watched in morbid fascination as the apple twitched slightly, one malford leg sprouting out the top of it. “Fuck...I might have had to many wines for this.” Vrax unevenly slurred to himself.

The front door burst open, and the two dozen or so remaining patrons whirled around, ready to finish off the bounty hunters. Instead, Feldwin was panting slightly, bow in hand, splattered in blue ichor. He nodded towards Vrax with a confused frown as the apple began stabbing itself with its singular leg. ”Monster hugger, good to see you are back! And...doing weird shit again…” he trailed off as the apple disemboweled itself.

“Grumpy fucker, glad the cycle didn’t take you yet.” Vrax slurred back.

Feldwin stood up straight, tapping his bow on the ground to make sure everyone was still paying attention. “Alright, listen up everyone who can still function. We have a monster surge that is about twenty minutes out, level twenty to fifty. Being chased by a pair of mid-tier-2 monstrosities, so please try and take this seriously.”

Chairs were knocked over and stools were upended as everyone in the room who could staggered to their feet. Hans looked around in concern” Are we unda attack laddies?” He was taken aback when, instead of answering him, the room whooped and hollered louder than they had even when they added the hunters to the stew.

“Thank the gods I’ve been so bored since we removed the lures!” A lumberjack said while pulling chain mail on over his thick shirt.

A fat, short man in glasses across the bar excitedly jumped off his stool. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to try my new Fireball variation so badly.” He said with malicious glee.

Rafael put his hand out placatingly. “Rember the rules, gentlen: let the first tiers get a crack first for so essence, then the low second, then the few monsters in the room.” He gave a pointed look at the fat man, who had materialized a burning staff taller than himself from a small pouch at his side.

Hans looked at Vrax in confusion. “Wha the hell tis wrong wit this place?”

Vrax shrugged. “You get used to it.”