Drawn by the horrific sounds of battle and victory, Martha finished her bath - though not before properly drying off and calmly dressing in fresh clothes. One couldn't risk getting them wet, or worse, stained. The ever-attentive and chivalrous Gary took care of laundry duty. No one really knew how he did it since he only worked in private, but he always returned with clothes not just clean but lightly perfumed - though somewhat slobbered upon. Perfection has its limits.
Following the trail of wet sandal prints Lucius had left behind, Martha arrived at the gruesome scene: two hobgoblins utterly annihilated. One's thoughts now floated downstream as fish food, while the other lay half-submerged, its remains decorating both riverbank and water. Her time as a healer - a fact she still kept from Lucius - kept her from recoiling at the carnage. She tended to Lucius's wounds with care, cradling what remained of his head in her lap before delicately prying open the mouth of the half-dead man, who resisted even in unconsciousness, and pouring a thick, shimmering red liquid from a delicate vial she kept hidden in her robes.
Knowing what came next, she gently laid Lucius's body on the grass beside his bloodstained clothes and stepped back.
BA-DUMP
The sound erupted from Lucius's chest like a war drum.
PUMP
This time it reverberated like a distorted guitar chord, his torso actually lifting slightly off the ground. Had Lucius been conscious, he'd have compared it to that time he'd seen paramedics defibrillate a colleague who choked on a hamburger.
A final BAMP and a strangled gasp later, Lucius sprang upright, battle-ready. "DIE alr-?" His threat died as he saw the lifeless attackers. His hands flew to his head where a Big Gulp-sized hole should've been, only to find... just a mild headache and perfectly intact skin, skull, and hair.
"Martha!" Lucius cheered, rushing to hug her. "I thought I'd died! Or at least been permanently disfigured!" He released her to find Martha smiling, giving a thumbs-up and exaggerated wink. "What would you do without me, boss?"
Lucius suddenly remembered one good reason to have stayed dead - Martha's attitude had flipped entirely, as if she were the summoned dark lord and he the lowly servant. "Don't let it go to your head," he grumbled.
Mph snorted his now-very-smug companion, and possibly-sister, crossing her arms.
"But how?" Nothing made sense in Lucius's mind. Not even the plastic surgeon who'd transformed his second wife could've fixed such injuries. Even the wounds from BFBB's battle were gone - his condition pristine, literally good as new.
"You owe me for this," Martha declared, holding up the delicate bottle—now completely empty—before tossing it to Lucius for inspection.
"What is this supposed to be?" Lucius examined the vessel. The glass was unnaturally cold to the touch, its square form and high-quality cork stopper reminiscent of the expensive wines he used to enjoy. A thin cord around the neck held a small tag marked with the number 10.
"A true healing potion," Martha explained. "With one of these, you can cure anything—except death, usually."
The revelation made Lucius appreciate her life-saving gift even more.
"I made that one myself," she added, somewhere between annoyed and smug. "Each costs a full gold coin to brew, so you'd better start working if you want to repay me."
A sudden breeze reminded Lucius of his current state of undress. Martha tactfully turned away, walking toward the trees to give him privacy. As he dressed, the reality of his survival sank in. "That much pain... I survived that."
The blood-soaked clothes he changed out of felt strangely viscous inside, yet warmer and drier than expected given their dunking in river water, blood, and hobgoblin remains.
"Those animals..." Lucius muttered, stepping over to Martha and casting a final glance at his first victims. Their lingering corpses hit him harder than he expected—things felt far more real when they didn't dissolve into pixels.
"They're not animals," Martha corrected. "Hobgoblins. Half goblin, half human."
"Ah, why not Half-goblins... Then why don't they disappear like BFBB? No summoning circles on their heads?"
Martha adopted a solemn expression, as if preparing to explain the meaning of life itself—then abruptly broke character. "No idea, teehee!" She stuck out her tongue and resumed walking.
Visibly disappointed, Lucius pressed further: "I'm guessing the key difference between animals, plants, and beings like us or them is intelligence or a soul?"
"Bingo!" Martha cheered.
"Bingo? They have that game here?"
Martha nodded absently, more focused on navigating the path home.
"So what races exist? Humans, goblins, hobgoblins..." Lucius trailed off, waiting for her to continue the list.
"About ten more, if you count subtypes and such," she said offhandedly. "You—well, my brother—has a book on it. I'll dig it out when we get back."
The rest of the walk passed in silence as Lucius processed everything. By the time their tavern came into view through the trees, he was starting to feel like himself again—less like some walking corpse.
"We should fix this place up, get it running," Lucius mused.
Martha burst out laughing. "We'd need a thousand gold just to make it functional! And for what? The nearest thing is a podunk village halfway between here and the real city—days of travel away." She shook her head dismissively.
"We won't get anywhere without income, Martha. I want you to calculate exactly how much we'd need to reopen, and we'll find work."
The word work seemed to terrify her.
"But my great lord," Martha fluttered her eyelashes dramatically, clutching her frayed apron strings, "am I not your humble servant already? Is that not working enough for me?" Her tone dripped with false piety, fingers tracing the embroidered hem of her sleeves.
Lucius sighed, watching afternoon light filter through the tavern's cracked windows, dust motes swirling above their mystery-meat stew. "What's the fastest way to earn coins here?"
"Travel to Newmire through Steepguard," Martha jabbed her wooden spoon at a grease-smeared map nailed to the wall, "work as an adventurer or hired blade—though sometimes they're the same job." The spoon left a dubious brown streak across the parchment.
As they prepped lunch—a stew whose aroma hovered between "questionable" and "illegal"—the debate continued. Lucius stirred the murky broth, noting unidentifiable meat chunks bobbing like shipwrecks. "Martha, it's decided. I'll take a job first. Build a farmstead. Then we upgrade."
Martha's shoulders relaxed visibly, her grip on the knife loosening. "Fine. But first—a test."
What followed was ninety minutes of grueling interrogation at their rickety table, its surface carved with generations of drunkards' initials.
"Currency basics. Go." Martha's spoon hovered like a judge's gavel.
Lucius recited from memory: "Lowest is a silver Doba, then royal silver Dadoba. Gold is Grand Doba and royal gold is Grand Dadoba. Silvers have horses, golds have swords, and the 'royal' versions have crowns on the reverse."
"Correct." Martha rewarded him with a spoonful of stew. The meat tasted oddly gamey, with a metallic aftertaste he chose not to examine.
"Destination and route?"
"Newmire via Steepguard. Merchant caravans go biweekly." Another victorious mouthful. The stew's herbs almost—almost—masked its unsettling sweetness.
"Job restrictions?"
"Manual labor only. No adventuring or assassination." Lucius paused, mouth open like a baby bird. Martha raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
A trick question. Lucius's fingers drummed the table. "Because… it'd draw attention. You want me laying low. And… you worry."
Martha's spoon clinked against the chipped bowl as she fed him again. "Approved!"
Lucius frowned. "Then why mention teaching me swordplay?"
Martha's grin turned feral. She patted the dagger strapped to her thigh—the one with serpentine engravings Lucius had never asked about. "So you don't die when trouble finds you."
Later, Lucius summoned BFBB into the dusty yard. The rat-king emerged with a wet pop, beady eyes locking onto Martha with primal hatred.
"You're feeding my stew to this filth?!" Martha's voice could've curdled milk. The tension between them crackled like static before a storm.
"I didn't realize you still held a grudge," Lucius lied. BFBB's twitching whiskers and Martha's death glare told him otherwise. "You're both… valuable assets?"
The wooden spoon thwacked his forehead with uncanny accuracy. "No more stew for you," Martha hissed.
Post-meal training commenced immediately. "Come at me!" Martha challenged, brandishing a well-worn shortsword. The weapon showed its age - a broad, utilitarian blade of common steel, its edges nicked from years of use. The crossguard had long since broken off, leaving only a leather-wrapped grip stained dark from sweat and a simple metal pommel at its base. This was no noble's ornament, but a commoner's last line of defense.
Seizing a momentary lapse in Martha's attention, Lucius exploited his enhanced reflexes. In one fluid motion, he disarmed her and sent her sprawling with a well-placed shoulder check. Martha hit the floor with an undignified oof, her robes puffing up around her like an offended hen's feathers. By the time she scrambled up, brushing dirt from her garments, Gary came trotting through the doorway - Martha's and Lucius's freshly cleaned clothes dangling damply from his mouth.
"What? How?" Lucius sputtered, equal parts amazed and disgusted at the goat's laundering methods. The garments bore telltale tooth marks and that peculiar Gary-scent - equal parts meadow grass and whatever mysterious process he used.
"How clean can clothes be when washed in a goat's mouth?" Bleh. Gary's response, while philosophically sound, did little to reassure Lucius.
"Just be grateful we don't have to do laundry," Martha interjected, already folding the slightly-damp garments with practiced efficiency. "Gary, help him train."
Before Lucius could protest, a devastating headbutt to the solar plexus sent him crumpling to his knees, gasping like a beached fish. When he finally regained his footing and assumed what he hoped was a defensive stance, Gary proceeded to school him thoroughly - three humiliating takedowns, six disarms, and zero successful counters later, Lucius surrendered.
"I'm better with rocks," he grumbled, face burning with humiliation. "Give me a decent stone and you wouldn't stand a chance, Gary."
"You're holding the sword wrong," Martha intervened, demonstrating proper grip. Lucius's current technique was so poor that if he made a fist like that, his thumb would disappear into his palm. "And for blocking," she exaggerated the wrist position dramatically, "it should be like this - less strain, more control." Surprisingly, Martha proved an excellent instructor.
The session stretched into nightfall. By the end, Lucius could defend against Martha's stick, Gary's headbutts, and BFBB's surprise nibbles while staying within a chalk-drawn circle. "I think I've got it," he panted after his third consecutive victory. "At least I won't die immediately in a fight now."
"For attacking," Martha advised between breaths, "just do what you did to those hobgoblins - but with a sword." Her advice rang true - Lucius's brutal, pragmatic style would serve him well.
During a water break, Lucius examined the wooden beer stein Martha drank from - a relic from the tavern's operational days. "Speaking of which," he began, "that healing potion can't be common if it's so expensive. How'd you get it?"
Martha wiped her mouth, her expression darkening as she glanced at BFBB. "Before trying to summon you, I used to brew potions in the basement. Before your new best friend moved in." The death glare she shot the rat-king could have melted stone. "My brother - well, your body, would gather herbs from Newmire's woods and I made them potions. We sold them... until he found a loose book page during his routine gathering. Instructions for summoning you." She gestured vaguely at Lucius. "And voila!"
Lucius's jaw dropped, not at the summoning story, but at the business opportunity they'd been sitting on all along.
"And why don't you just start making them again and make bank that way?" he asks, surprised that such a solid business idea hadn't come up when they were brainstorming ways to make money.
"Only you knew where to find those rare herbs. It was way too dangerous for me or Gary to go that deep in the forest, sometimes you'd be gone for days. But I'm guessing you don't remember where it was, so those juicy profits are gone for good. The ingredients I can get my hands on don't cut it for high-profit potions. But if you bring me a couple of things when you come back, I could get my super special potion factory up and running again!"
By super special, Martha means the lowest, most basic quality—both in ingredients and tools, and therefore, potions.
"How about you give me a list of what you need and where to buy it, plus your brother's book. I'll have some free time at night. Could be useful to have something to read."
Everything settled and agreed upon, things finally seem to have a clear direction. In three days, Lucius will head out to Steepguard with a mission: get as rich as possible before coming back.