Stephan and Muriel dashed into the village, which was less than three hundred yards from where they had found the deadly destroying angel. Stephan had long since lost the tracks, but Muriel ran straight towards a specific house and barged in without knocking.
A woman’s shriek echoed from within.
“Don’t eat those mushrooms!” Muriel shouted. The scream and the shout drew attention from everyone, the surprised village-folk turning to gaze toward the house even as Stephan arrived at the doorstep.
“You picked poisonous mushrooms by mistake,” Muriel said in a much calmer tone. “Did anyone eat them?”
Stephan caught a good look at the people inside. A simple home holding a gray-haired elder who sat on a carved wooden chair with his back held straight, his eyes going wide as he realized what Muriel was talking about. Two small children played with bits of straw on the floor by his feet, and a woman was cooking in a clay pot. The old man paled. He ran for the door, jamming fingers down his throat as Stephan moved out of the way.
He started retching immediately, but given Muriel’s dark look, it wouldn’t be enough.
“What’s going on here?” A tall villager in his thirties approached, an ax in his hands. It was lowered, but a clear sign of how he felt about strangers.
“He ate a poisonous mushroom and brought them home,” Stephan took the lead, fearing what Muriel might say. “We found the place where he picked them in the forest and came here to warn you.”
He looked at the old man as he placed his hand back into his mouth. “It seems we are too late.”
Then, while everyone was gathering, Grace ran into the village.
“What are you doing here?” Someone shouted, more afraid of the girl returning than they were when they heard about the poisonous mushrooms.
“Didn’t they take you to the baron’s to work as a maidservant until you worked off your debt?”
“You’ll bring them back here to us!”
The crowd was becoming a frightened mob, turning against Grace. The fear and poverty of the people sank in as the thoughts of mushrooms vanished from Stephan’s mind.
They will take her to the baron themselves. He doesn’t even have to lift a finger.
This is why we will never eradicate evil. The words of a Paladin long dead echoed in his mind.
I have to do something.
“Everyone!” Stephan shouted, moving towards Grace and protecting her with his own body. “Calm down. We saved her from the wastes where a wyvern was attacking her.”
Most people calmed, some cowed, some having their fear dispelled, but the man with the ax wasn’t one of them.
“Stay out of this, outlander; this is our matter. You’ll be gone on the morrow, and we’ll have to deal with the baron’s wrath.”
His words reached the others, the fear and doubt returning.
Can I do this? Stephan hesitated, then committed. “If the baron comes today, we will fight him. Tomorrow, I will go there personally and see what’s happening.”
Muriel watched him as if he had sprouted another head, then Grace glowed. Her whole body flashed with the familiar golden light, the bruises and lacerations gone from her face and hands.
“I,” she struggled for breath. “I just got my class.”
She looked at Stephan, terrified.
“I’m the Saintess.”
You’re the what?
Silas and Harold had guessed the Saintess had perished in the attack on Kingstown, but so had the Paladin, and Stephan had expected the class had found a new holder the moment the previous one died.
While he was trying to get his head around the new development, Grace touched his hand. The scratches he had suffered but didn’t heal to conceal his identity vanished in a glow of gold, right before the wide-eyed villagers.
Stephan expected genuflection or some other form of worship, but instead, the man with the ax roared.
“We’re doomed! The king will come for her himself! He’ll torch our homes—”
Stephan slapped him, a bit harder than he had intended, and sent him flying. The men fell, blood gushing from his nose and mouth.
“I didn’t mean to,” Stephan said, then sheepishly smiled at Grace. “If you don’t mind.”
She didn’t. The newly appointed Saintess healed the axman’s injuries when another youth shouted, then another.
“I got a class!”
Stephan looked around; the ones getting the class were around Grace’s age, a bit younger or older. The villagers turned their heads this way and that, their stunned mouths open, then the whispers started.
“They are too young.”
“Three at once.”
“Is this a sign?”
Even the axman seemed to have forgotten about the danger to his village and stared in wonder. The only one who wasn’t impacted was the retching old man. No amount of shock or shouting could draw his attention.
The axman stood, staring at Stephan with apprehension. “Who are you people?”
Are the gods showing me the path? They can’t speak to me directly, but this is definitely out of the ordinary and it’s happening while I’m here. And only after I made the choice to stand up to this baron. And what do I dare tell you people?
Stephan considered the axman’s question. He weighed the gains and losses if he told them the truth, and decided that revealing his class could cause little good and catastrophic harm to everyone involved. After all, they already had the Saintess with them.
“I’m Stephan,” he went on one knee before Grace. “And I will protect the Saintess with my life.”
A trickle of warmth, so insignificant Stephan wouldn’t have noted it if he wasn’t paying attention, entered his chest. Not as he knelt, not as he uttered his vow, but as a third of the gathered villagers did the same as he.
Grace’s face grew red. “Get up, all of you. You don’t have to kneel before me.”
Stephan rose and noticed that Muriel had also gone on one knee and was swiftly rising. She gave him a pointed look, but said nothing.
The axman remained silent, then turned around and left, a handful of older men and women following behind him, muttering.
“Who’s that?” Stephan asked Grace without trying to be subtle.
“Richard Bowyer. He’s the village chief.”
“Will he cause trouble for us?” Stephan had a gut feeling he would, but Grace disagreed.
“Shouldn’t. Nobody wants the baron looking around closely. And what am I supposed to do now?” An intimately familiar note of panic tinged the question.
“Heal whoever is sick or injured to gain levels. I can’t tell you much else.”
Grace nodded. “Light flashed before my eyes when I healed you.”
Right, my first level came after healing only a handful of people with low levels. I guess my scratches equal that now.
He looked at the two young men, who stood with their heads raised high after they got their classes so suddenly.
“Do you have swords? Shields? Armor?”
Grace stared at him in confusion. “No, of course not. Owning anything more than a cleaver or a knife can get you hanged.”
Of course. What did that book say? A ruler who rules through fear disarms his people while the one who’s loved arms them, or something like that… “Could you find a couple of cleavers, so I can see whether those boys got some fighting classes?”
“I’ll bring you one, ser,” an elderly woman bowed and went towards her house.
“I hate to ruin this glorious moment,” Muriel started, “and I’m only half joking there, but we have a man not long for this world. He told me he tried the mushroom in the forest, a tiny nibble, and that he ate it whole when he tasted nothing wrong with it.”
Muriel rolled her eyes as if she wanted to hurl some insults, but the man was already going to die for his mistake and calling him names felt inappropriate.
“Can I heal him?” Grace asked. “Perhaps I can save him.”
“There’s nothing to heal now. But he’ll be dead in four or five days.” Muriel shrugged.
Stephan had no clue either. His healing didn’t help with poisons and diseases, but that didn’t mean the Saintess was limited like he was. Still, she was only level two, and such abilities were certainly locked away from her.
Wait, if she reaches a high enough level, she might be able to help Tom and Lacy.
Stephan stomped out that hope as soon as it sprang up. He would indulge in such possibilities only once Grace grew powerful enough.
Wait. Does that mean I’ll have to come here every time to rescue her? What about the rest of the kingdom?
Suddenly he realized he needed to be in the heartlands to prevent the conflict revolving around Eleanor, in the east to heal Bernard and find the warlock, and finally in the south to save the Ranger and the Saintess from a hungry wyvern. All in a span of days.
But that’s impossible… How do I even try to do that?
While the poisoned man sobbed, the old woman returned and offered what was clearly a small hatchet for splitting wood, but could still pass for an ax-like weapon.
“Here you go, the cleaver, ser knight.”
Stephan took it and, without even understanding how, estimated it was poorly balanced.
“Friends,” he addressed the two youths, “let’s see if you know how to handle this little thing.”
The two freshly minted class holders exchanged weary glances, then the bigger one pushed the smaller one towards Stephan who handed the hatchet to the volunteer.
“Before we start with anything, did you hear any voices when you got your class? Or perhaps read what it said or know in any other way what you are now?”
The youth nervously shook his head.
“In that case, attack me with everything you have, and we’ll see what we should do next.”