Chapter 14: The Monsters in the Cave, Part 1

"Well, I doubt you'll ever pay for drinks in this town again," Egon said.

After they'd raided the Pavers' headquarters and retreated back to the Scaled Maiden, List had eagerly began sifting through their spoils. But she had been outvoted two to one, and Valerie and Arden had decided to turn over everything that didn't belong to them to Egon, to be returned to the Pavers' victims.

The dragonblood man commanded a measure of respect from the people of Shadefall, and he in turn valued the sanctity and stability of the town. With nothing but a few words from him carried off by his daughter, people were coming to the Scaled Maiden with an account of what they'd lost, and they either got it back, or received a compensation of scales, "courtesy of the Pavers' generous donations." Not all the money in the Pavers' headquarters had been stolen from the people of Shadefall, and now that imbalance was being put to use.

Everyone who came thanked Egon, and Egon in turn directed their thanks to the three outsiders currently calling the Scaled Maiden home. Some people's gratitude dimmed when they realized that it was a band of outsiders, and not Egon, who had reclaimed their property, but most simply heaped on the praise and thanks. By the end of the week, they were local heroes.

"I'm just saying," List's voice called from upstairs. "We'd be able to pay for things just fine if we'd kept some of that money for ourselves."

"It wasn't ours," Valerie repeated. "And you already kept those clothes."

List came down the stairs looking like a new woman. Her old patchwork clothes were gone, replaced now by a tight fitting white silk shirt worn over a dark red undershirt and black tights. Washing her hair had brought out the red streaks in it, and it shone under the torchlight. She wore the same unimpressed expression as always, but her tail was dancing behind her in obvious delight.

"The owners already left town. If someone was going to look this good in them, it might as well be me," List defended. "But you can't buy food with a nice outfit. Well, I guess there are ways . . . "

"I daresay we will have to pay for things, eventually," Arden said. "Valerie and I were fortunate enough to encounter a merchant willing to take Corsan glint in exchange for local scales, but I doubt the exchange rate was favorable, and those funds won't last forever."

"Local church could always use more hands," Egon said. "But I take it that's not the sort of work you're interested in."

Arden gave a polite smile. "It isn't particularly my specialty. Or my saint's."

Egon grunted. "Freelancer work then?"

"I prefer to think of myself as a hunter more than a freelancer," Arden said.

"Someone comes in here, offering pay for help killing a beast that ate their cows, are you helping?" Egon asked.

Arden immediately guessed where Egon's question was heading. If they took the same jobs as freelancers, and produced the same results as freelancers, then not calling themselves freelancers seemed like petty semantics. But Valerie supplied Arden's justification for him.

"We'd probably do it even if they didn't offer payment," Valerie said. "Dr. Siren always says studying the creatures we fight is its own reward, and anything else is a bonus."

"Well, I did have a university salary when I said that," Arden said. "But she's not wrong. I came here for research purposes first and foremost. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to observe local monstrosities even if there weren't a reward for them."

Egon shook his head. "You really aren't freelancers then. Never met one who'd lift a finger until after they knew money was coming."

"One of many reasons I prefer not to associate myself with the term," Arden said.

"But you do take payment if someone offers it, right?" List asked.

It took Valerie a moment to work out why there was so much apprehension in List's voice. The hellborn wasn't just worried about Arden and Valerie's financial situation. She was worried about her own. Which meant, at least on some level, she'd started linking their circumstances in her mind.

At first, Valerie was surprised, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. List didn't have anyone, and whatever brave face she'd put on in the early days of their travels, that couldn't have been easy. The girl had been sleeping in the woods and eating people's garbage. Of course she'd latch onto the first opportunity she found to be with people again.

Valerie felt doubly guilty for the moments where List worried her. Had she really contemplated abandoning the girl out of fear? So what if List had a penchant for violence? Dr. Siren treated mortal peril with a detached formality people found disquieting, and she had no problems traveling with him. And if List did stick around, fighting monsters alongside them, her tendencies just meant she'd enjoy the work.

And it wasn't as if List had ever actually threatened her. The people of Darshan's village, Xigbar and the other Pavers, sure. But never her. Apart from maybe when they first met, and Valerie had been half convinced List was prepared to bite her hand off. But she decided that didn't count.

"We're hardly in a position to decline any offered rewards for our actions," Arden said. "And truthfully, in my experience, rewards can be quite common when dealing with monsters."

"Well what are we waiting for then?" List asked. "This is Xykesh. The day we got here, this town had just come off the back of a week long landshark problem. There's got to be something that needs killing around here."

"Mm." A low rumbled rolled in Egon's throat as he thought something over. Despite his hospitality toward them, and his refusal to take credit for the town's turn of fortune with the Pavers, his behavior was still colored more by pragmatism and honest than actual trust. After a few moments of mulling his thoughts over, he reached a decision. "If that's what you're set on, you'll want to see the headwoman."

On Egon's instruction, Kiva escorted them across town to an oblong building capped at its front with a two-story belltower, the office and home of the head of Shadefall, Samira Shen. Kiva gave them a brief rundown of the woman on the way over. Apparently, Egon and Samira knew each other, and Kiva herself was friends with Samira's son.

Samira had called Shadefall home for most of her life, but had been to almost all of Lochmire territory at one point or another as a practicing apothecary. She was shrewd, but fair, and she'd been the headwoman of the town for the last five years. She'd taken the job after the last person in charge of Shadefall had been killed.

"What killed him?" Valerie asked.

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Kiva frowned, and the ridge of her brow furrowed. "The King's Chosen. Emir Zaman."

List's tattooed arm twitched in a sudden flare of pain. With her at the back of their procession, no one else noticed, giving her time to hide the fear on her face.

"Emir took his position by killing the last people who had it, and any town leader who he thought might still be loyal to them," Kiva said. Her voice tightened as she spoke, and Valerie's curiosity bubbled up in her before she could process for herself what that meant.

"Who was the last head of Shadefall?" Valerie asked.

"My mother," Kiva said.

Kiva said it with an even, firm tone, but Valerie felt like she'd just been slapped in the face. Behind her, List cleared her throat. 

"You really have a knack for stepping in it, don't you?" List joked, trying and failing to lighten the mood.

The conversation ended until they reached the headwoman's home. Kiva knocked, and a servant let them in. A few minutes later, they were ushered into an office.

Samira Shen was a short woman, with light brown skin, thin lips, and narrow eyes that were currently glued to a stack of papers on her desk. Her black hair was cut short, coming down only to her chin and kept out of her face. There was a chair in her office, but she wasn't using it, choosing instead to loom over her desk with her hands resting spread out on it. She wore white and black layered robes similar to Kiva's, though hers were shorter, and much closer fitting than the dragonblood's.

"Kiva," Samira greeted. "What can I do for you?"

"Actually, I'm just here to make introductions," Kiva said. "These out of towners were looking for work, and Dad figured you could point them in the right direction."

"Out of towners," Samira said, drawing out each word as she stared at them. "Outsiders then."

"That's us," Valerie admitted sheepishly.

"Dr. Arden Lee Siren, Monstrologist of the University of Olwin," Arden introduced as he stepped forward. "This is my student, Valerie Waymire, and her companion, List."

Samira gave each of them a once over, noting Arden's pendant, Valerie's pendant, and List's tattoos. "Monstrologist, you said? Do you kill monsters, or just study them?"

"Given the often hazardous effects my subjects have on local populations, I tend to do most of my research post-mortem," Arden said. 

"What's the biggest thing you've ever killed?" she asked, businesslike and without hesitation.

"On my own, I've killed a selk hive queen. Though, when I was with a larger hunting party, I helped dispatch an entire murder of vampires," Arden said. 

"What's a selk?" 

"Giant extradimensional pest infestation," Arden said. "Their behavior models an ever-expanding insect hive, and their hive queens are lethal creatures. The original hive queen is now a ninth circle demon, though some of her spawn occasionally—"

"Anything else besides those two?" Samira interrupted.

"Dozens of various creatures, over the years," Arden said without missing a beat.

Samira looked him in the eye, trying to tell if he was lying. Eventually, she nodded. "Well, I'm in no position to turn down qualified help. Let my staff know where they can find you, and I'm sure sooner or later—"

They were interrupted by a distant shout from someonwhere in the house, calling for the headwoman. Then there was another, closer. Then the doors of the office burst open, and a young man List and Valerie's age came to a stop, gasping for breath, dirty, and bleeding from the head. 

"Headwoman!" the boy burst out. "They got him! They got Daniel!"

The headwoman went rigid. "Who did?"

"The bugbears!" the boy said.

The color drained from Samira Shen's face, and her previously confident face now trembled. The boy said nothing else, still trying to catch his breath.

". . . well," List said. "How's that for timing?"

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