Chapter 3: Volume 1 – Chapter 02

Chapter 2

His history teacher clearly deserved it. Corben was actively casting a breaking spell on the chair while his friend watched the door in case someone was coming. The spell was relatively easy to cast and took mere seconds to finish.

"Done. Let's go before…" He had started to say when the nearest wall slammed into him with full force.

Corben opened his eyes with a painful groan. His left side felt like it was kicked by a wild horse. Only a faint light from the window illuminated the otherwise pitch-dark room.

Slowly, he got to his feet, cast a basic illumination spell, and looked around in half-asleep confusion. As yesterday's events came back to his mind, his eyes fell on the culprit of his current circumstance. Lonaraa was mumbling something in her sleep, lying down diagonally on the bed, and doing a kicking motion from time to time. Her loose sleeping pants didn't restrict her movements one bit.

'And this is what I get for trying to save money. What should I do to her?' A mischievous thought of putting the waking salts to use crossed his mind but in the end, it would only awaken her for a short while and once she fell asleep there was no guarantee that he wouldn't be kicked out of the bed once again. Another option was to push her out of the bed, but that had a chance of ending the partnership right there.

'I'll just push her back to her side.' He not so gently pushed her back to her side, only for her to roll over and lay diagonally on the bed once again.

'This is ridiculous!' "Hey, get back to your side!" Corben hissed at Lonaraa, who mumbled something unintelligible and moved her leg in a kicking motion.

"Ah, screw this!" He quietly swore, pulled the blanket out from under his oblivious companion, and just layed down on the wooden floor beside the bed. With a rather practiced ability to sleep on pretty much any flat surface, he quickly fell asleep once again.

A gentle nudge awakened him again. "Corben, why are you on the floor?"

"Make a wild guess." He grumbled without opening his eyes.

"Was there something wrong with your part of the bed?" She asked, none the wiser of her own actions.

"Good thing you do not use horseshoes." Corben remarked with another grumble and slowly opened his eyes.

"Are you saying that only because I have hooves?" She asked defensively.

"No, I'm saying that because my left side is blue." Corben said, slowly standing up. "We are getting separate beds or rooms from now on."

"Did I kick you in my sleep? I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it!" Lonaraa hastily said and turned around to hide in shame. 'I thought I wasn't doing that anymore. I should have warned him.'

"I pity the fool who will marry you one day and will have to share a bed with you." Corben dryly remarked.

"Hey!" She flipped around out of a rapidly forming habit in response to Corben's crude remarks, but this one brought back memories. 'A little brute like you will never find a suitor by acting like this.' Her eldest sister had scolded her more times than she could count.

Out of five sisters, she was the only one who didn't become a paladin, priest, or mage, since the light didn't respond to her prayers and she was not particularly talented with magic.

Instead, she honed her body to become a warrior, but with that came a more unrefined fighting style which her, sometimes, self-righteous sisters clearly didn't approve of. Being the youngest by more than a century, she was only growing up when they already had families of their own.

"That's… ugh… you are horrible!" She hissed in anger, pushing away her memories.

"Yeah, yeah. You weren't the one sleeping on the floor." Corben said as he put on his robe, not paying any attention to how upset his partner was. "You better get prepared as well or we will not get anything done today."

"You didn't have to get that personal." Loranaa mumbled quietly. With a droopy expression, she slowly pulled down her sleeping pants and put on the chainmail ones.

'Huh, that one really hit home? I better apologize or she may be like this all day.' "Sorry, that was a bit uncalled for." Corben said while looking away and giving her privacy while she was getting dressed.

"Let's just go." She replied coldly and walked past Corben.

Lonaraa's mood was clearly ruined for the day. In hopes that stabbing something would cheer her up, Corben didn't hesitate to locate the marshal and get a quest.

Today it seems he was hellbent on sending everyone who was unwise enough to ask for quests to deal with the kobolds, who had infested the copper mine and its surroundings, located north of the abbey.

"So we need ten small candles that the vermin are carrying on their heads." Corben explained.

Lonaraa was walking beside him without paying any attention.

"Hey, are you listening? Have you fought a kobold before?" Corben spoke a bit louder.

"No." Lonaraa said, sounding as cold as the winter's night in Northrend.

"I see…" He said flatly and then added. "I guess we are getting murdered by those rats today."

That finally snapped Lonaraa out of ignoring Corben. "What? Are they that dangerous?"

"Oh, we are talking once again. That's a start."

"Just tell me what I need to know." Lonaraa sighed.

Corben walked in front of her, making a point to stare into her eyes, and spoke in a professional tone. "First off, you can hate and ignore all you want in our free time. When we are on the field that shit has to go."

"I… you are right." She reluctantly agreed.

"Let's get the obvious out of the way. I didn't mean what I said when I woke up and I'm sorry. It was not my intention to upset you so much." Corben said.

"It's…" Lonaraa closed her eyes and let out a long exhale. "It's not your fault. I'm sorry for overacting."

"Still, I'll try to not repeat it." Corben said apologetically and then resumed a professional tone, bordering on a harsh teacher would have used in his school. "Back to the task at hand, kobolds by themselves are not that dangerous, but if they gang up on us we are goners. They are about a meter tall; a race of bipedal rat people who carry candles on their heads. They are very protective of those candles and the best way to piss them off is to take them from their fallen brethren, as according to their culture, the candles then belong to their closest relatives."

Startled by Corben's sudden change of demeanor, she straightened out, saluted, and listened to him with her full attention. "Got it. What are our options in engaging them?" She asked in an equally serious tone.

"Do you have a taunt ability?"

"I…" she gulped and looked down. "Yes I can use taunt but… but… do I need to use it?"

Corben raised his eyebrow at her reluctance to use such a basic skill. "My plan was to set up a frost bomb and lead a pack into it. If we are lucky, we could get the job done in one go."

"I-I'll try… But you have to promise not to laugh." Lonaraa stammered while playing with her fingers.

"I'll promise." Corben replied with his hand up, as if giving an oath.

"And no jokes too." She added.

"That I can't promise. Tell you what, if I say something that goes over the line you can ask me to stop, deal?"

"Deal."

It seemed that the talk had lifted her foul mood a bit as now she was walking beside Corben with her attention fully on the job. Following the directions, they found the mine soon enough.

By the looks of it, several other groups were hard at work of clearing the area already. Not paying too much attention to them, Corben chose a camp with about a dozen kobolds around a hundred meters away. The kobolds were either unaware of the presence of various adventurer teams, or more likely, the dull creatures didn't understand the danger they were in.

"Now I will set up frost bomb here. You taunt them to run right into it. Stand there." He pointed at a spot about two meters behind the spot he was standing. "If more than four survive, we run. Oh, and just in case put all your defenses up, there is a chance that some shard from the bomb can fly in your direction."

"Got it." Lonaraa nodded and took a long breath, mentally preparing for the task she was not particularly looking forward to.

"Hey, we are planning to attack that camp!" A voice shouted from a distance. Corben slowly turned to see a group consisting of a paladin, a hunter, and a rogue. The rogue was standing in front of the other two and clearly was the one who shouted. Without hesitation, Corben rammed his right hand up and hit the biceps with his left in a rude gesture.

"You seeking problems, pal?" The rogue shouted while pulling out his knives.

Corben casually opened his backpack and took out a large vial from it and handed it to Lonaraa. "This is a stink bomb. Aim at the rogue, his stealth will be useless for weeks." He said loud enough for the other group to overhear.

"Don't you dare!" Rogue shouted and hid behind the paladin.

"You wanted a beef, you will get one, 'pal'!" Corben shouted back.

"We'll just find another camp to target. There are more than enough of the creatures for all of us to have our hands full." Paladin wisely remarked and then added. "You can take this camp, folks. We'll go farther to the west."

With a relieved sigh, Lonaraa handed back the vial as they watched the trio depart. Corben took the vial, put it back in the backpack, and remarked. "Freaking rogues. Think they own the world because they have stealth."

Without any other distractions remaining and the frost bomb in place, which took all of Corben's mana to create, Lonaraa took the position and after short hesitation, shouted. "Hey, rat faces! We will murder you all and then ram your fucking candles up the asses of what remains of your stinking candle fetishist kind!"

"Whoa!" Corben exclaimed. 'Did someone teach her to use insults on top of the taunt ability? Hell, this will be more fun than I imagined.'

The kobolds, predictably, charged them as a disorganized mass with angry shouts. "You take no candle!" "Kill!"

The moment the disorganized hoard reached the bomb, it exploded, shredding them with icy spikes. Lonaraa blocked the spikes that flew in her direction with her shield as Corben watched from a safe distance.

Only two kobolds were still standing with the rest either dead or grievously wounded. Dealing with them was not a big problem. Corben had consumed a few mana potions and was ready to cast attack spells. Lonaraa hit the nearest kobold with her shield and kicked another one even before Corben could cast a spell.

"I didn't know you could use such a 'colorful' language. I'm impressed." Corben remarked as he walked up to get and prepared a sack to put all the candles in as proof of the deed.

Lonaraa blushed profusely. "I… please don't laugh. This is the only way I can use taunt."

"I'm not laughing at you. In fact, I think I will have to be prepared to take notes to enrich my own arsenal." Corben chuckled.

"But, I'm not like that. I don't like using such crude language." She said quietly while staring down.

"Relax. It's not like swearing is that big of a deal."

"It is to me."

"Fine, we will use your taunt sparingly then. But you are holding yourself back if you refuse to use your abilities."

"I know. Thank you for being understanding." Lonaraa said with a faint smile.

"In either case, we should head back. The Marshal will probably try to push more work on us, and I, for one, don't want to spend an entire day dealing with these rats." Corben said.

The moment they returned back to the abbey, the Marshal immediately gave them the next task of dealing with kobold workers that were working around the mine's entrance.

Not a particularly hard task, but all that Corben could say about the situation was. 'I jinxed it.' What's worse, they were sent back to the mine a few more times as once the workers were eliminated the laborers who dwelled inside the mine needed to be dealt with as well.

Both stood at the entrance of the mine, listening to the faint sounds of kobolds hitting the hard walls of the mine with their crude pickaxes. The dark and damp cave was anything but inviting.

"You know, maybe selling potions is not that bad of an idea. We could get you a cute uniform, save up for a place to rent in Stormwind, and have a legitimate business." Corben said while staring into the dark abyss of the cave.

"We got this far. This is the last quest, and remember, Marshal promised us new gear." Lonaraa refuted his half-serious proposition.

"And this is how men fall to their doom; by listening to the encouragement of beautiful women." Corben said without any humor in his tone and held a half-cast fireball in his hand for illumination, ignoring the blushing warrior beside him.

The only relief was that kobolds lit their candles inside dark places and could be easily seen from a distance. The moment they came in contact with the half-illuminated face of the small rat-like creature, Corben released the fireball, burning the creature which fell to the ground shrieking in agony.

The descent into the mine was slow and tedious, to say the least. All the oil lamps that were supposed to hang from the wooden beams were either broken or unlit.

Since the kobolds inside the mine carried the largest candles, they were of a higher ranking than the ones outside. Corben lit a fireball in his hand once again and picked up a half-melted candle from the kobold's corpse, motioning for Lonaraa to follow.

'Why did I agree to this? By the light, I hate this.' The claustrophobic feeling was getting worse with each step. By the screams of anger and the loud footsteps, at least four kobolds were now running in their direction.

"Be ready." He whispered to Lonaraa. She nodded and stepped in front of him in a half-crouching position. With her being two point two meters and the kobolds on average only a meter tall, fighting them was a hassle.

The moment the first one was close enough, she slammed her shield into the face of the creature with a sickening crunch. The remaining three took a step back, only to be met with the strike of a fireball.

The last one standing screeched. "Aieee, me run!" and ran deeper into the mine.

The maddening descent into the mine ended twenty minutes later when they reached the lowest floor. By the sounds of it, there was only one kobold left snoring somewhere. Considering that all the candles they collected so far were all the same size, the last one likely was the boss.

"Let's get the last one and be done with it. Marshal better give us an extra for this." Corben said with a faint whisper and moved his hand to illuminate the deepest corners of the hall they were in. There was one last corner that they couldn't see.

Lonaraa carefully crept towards it with her shield risen and her sword ready. Corben was right behind her with a fireball ready to be used.

Suddenly, there was the sound of someone heavy standing up. Then a distinct sound of two rocks being scraped against one another. A moment later a gigantic kobold, that towered even over Lonaraa, emerged and roared in a deep voice. "You take no candle!"

"We take no candle!" Corben squeaked and whispered to Lonaraa. "Run!"

However, his companion disregarded his very reasonable suggestion and charged toward the creature that likely ate bears for breakfast.

"You moron!" He shouted after Lonaraa. It was too late to run now. "Ah… dammit."

The kobold blocked Lonaraa's charge with a crude wooden shield which was haphazardly held together with uneven copper strips. The massive creature retaliated by swinging a club at Lonaraa's head. She nimbly ducked and stabbed the creature in its thigh.

Corben, meanwhile, aimed his fireball at the creature's head in hopes of blinding it. His strike was only partly successful as it hit one side of the kobold's head and blinded him in his left eye.

The kobold roared in pain, and using his superior strength, slammed into Lonaraa. She somehow managed to not lose balance and jumped backward to give herself some space while trying to locate Corben from the corner of her eye.

'Shit, Shit! Why the hell did she charge forward? How the hell will we kill this thing?' One thing no mage ever wanted to find himself in was an unplanned battle situation. One mistake could spell doom for both of them.

The creature was now swinging his club madly and pushing Lonaraa back. He needed to either be stopped or at least slowed down. With a frost spell being the best option in this case, Corben cast ice spikes on the ground right under the kobold's feet.

The needle-sharp spikes pierced the legs of the creature, making it lose its footing and fall. The creature hit a support beam and shattered it. A rumbling sound came from above.

Sensing the imminent danger, Corben screamed. "Run!"

"We can't…"

"The whole cave is about to collapse! Run!" Finally, Lonaraa got the message and started to run. Only guided by the faint light of the fireball in Corben's hand they managed to navigate the narrow tunnels upward as fast as they could. Not even five minutes later, they heard a quake from down below.

Neither even considered stopping for a moment, running up till they reached the exit.

Marshal McBride, however, was rather skeptical about their tale. "You are telling me you found a gigantic kobold down there and you have no proof because the tunnel collapsed?"

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"How about you pick up a shovel and…" As Corben looked like he was about to start a rant, Lonaraa put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. Corben stopped mid-sentence, exhaled, and then continued. "Look, there was a much larger than usual kobold down there. At least put some contingency in place if another one like that shows up."

Marshal eyed them both, then took off his helmet and scratched his head. "Tell you what. I'll drop an extra five silver on your reward and you don't go blabbering around about gigantic kobolds. I'll go investigate the mine with my men but there better be a cave-in."

"Deal." Corben said. With such a reward he could keep his mouth shut even if there was a demon hiding in the mine.

An hour and a wash in the nearby river later, both were in a tavern stuffing their faces with roasted chicken and ale. With an extra reward, there was reason to celebrate. On top of a decent sum of money, Lonaraa had gotten a new sword and Corben finally replaced the robes he had been wearing for years. His new robes were warm and sturdy; perfect for a field mage.

"You know, we make a pretty good team." Lonaraa remarked while nibbling on the chicken wing.

"We do, but a few more people wouldn't hurt to help me drag your stupid ass out of dangerous situations. That thing could have killed us." Corben replied before taking a large gulp from his mug of ale.

"I know what I'm doing, and we almost killed the beast on our own. You need to be more courageous." She said enthusiastically, ignoring the insult.

"You will be the death of me, woman." Corben shook his head. 'I need to get more reasonable teammates fast. She has a bad influence on me.'

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The morning was usually the time when taverns were packed to the brim with all the adventurers that wanted to get the first meal of the day before setting out to fight dangerous foes. This morning was an exception.

Corben lazily took a sip of sweet tea and bit into a muffin as he was going over his arcane magic notes. His partner had run off to do some mining before the recently freed copper mine got infested with kobolds again. No matter how many of the candle-loving creatures adventurers and soldiers killed, they always came back.

In fact, everyone with the mining skill was getting into the action and dragging their teammates along as pack mules. Somehow, Corben managed to escape the grim fate of being dragged into the copper mines once again.

There wasn't a particular need to reread his notes, but refreshing his knowledge never hurt. As yesterday's experience showed, it took one wrong turn to get caught unprepared. 'I will need to save up for spellbooks and some training.'

Paying the same academy that unceremoniously kicked him out the first chance they could was not a particularly pleasant thought, but the only other option was to become an errand boy for an experienced mage in hopes of learning something.

'Let's see… was I drunk when I wrote this?' Not being able to read his own handwriting didn't exactly help in the situation, but there was no helping it. As if deciphering an ancient forgotten language, he soldiered on, trying to both understand and remember what was once taught to him.

'My past self was an idiot, that's for sure. I should have paid more attention to all this.' He grimly mused.

While Corben was fighting to understand his own notes, a soldier came into the tavern and nailed something to the notice board. The moment the soldier left, Corben stood up and walked up to the notice board to see what sort of problem was arising in the valley surrounding the abbey.

'The Defias brotherhood took over vineyards to the north? Do those pricks have nothing better to do?' Corben rubbed his eyes with a thumb and index finger. 'Just great! Now Marshal will send us to fight them.'

The Defias brotherhood was one of the largest crime organizations that plagued the kingdom. Formed after nobles refused to pay masons for rebuilding Stormwind, the guild master of the masons guild, Edwin VanCleef, organized a riot to get what the guild had earned. The riot was dangerous and chaotic and in the confusion, King Varian Wrynn's young wife, Queen Tiffin, was brutally murdered.

With everyone in the guild branded outlaws, they fled the city and formed the now infamous cartel.

There was no helping it. With the only other quests being the animal hunting for meat and skins, Lonaraa and he would have to go deal with the Defias problem together with other somewhat competent adventurer teams.

That is how it always worked. The completely useless people got seriously injured by boars and wolves and retired before even starting their adventuring careers. The next set was picked off by the kobolds and now the rest had to deal with the human bandits that no doubt will either kill or scare off another large chunk of the would-be heroes.

While Corben was spending the rest of the morning frantically making preparations for every single possible scenario, Lonaraa walked into the tavern covered in sweat and dirt with a happily tired expression. She dropped a backpack and a box beside the table with a clunk and sat down.

"I mined as much as I could carry. I think there will be good ore spots for at least a week." She started to explain while panting heavily. "I could make a whole fresh set for myself and more."

"That's good." Corben replied absentmindedly while scribbling his plans in his notebook.

"But I'm not sure about the pricing." She continued in a timid voice. "Could you help me with selling what I don't need?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hey, are you even listening?"

"You have too much copper to use for yourself, so you want me to help you sell either ore or whatever you produce with it. I can multitask." Corben responded matter of factly and looked up at his companion.

"Sorry. I thought you were ignoring me." Lonaraa leaned back and back on the wooden chair. She lifted her right hand to get the tavern's keeps attention. Even with a passive glance, it was easy to see that her arm was trembling out of exhaustion.

"So, since you are back, are we taking it easy today, or was mining for the entire morning not enough for you?" Corben asked, closing his notebook and putting it away.

"I could eat, go wash, take a short nap to charge up, and then we could do a quest." She let out a long yawn and stretched a bit.

"I see… very well." Corben let out a sigh. "Just a heads up, but we will be dealing with human bandits, so be prepared for opponents that may know what they are doing."

"Ohh. That does sound dangerous."

"Not if you don't charge into battle like a maniac."

"I will follow your directions." Lonaraa said quietly as she looked down. It was her rash actions that almost spelled the disaster in the mines.

"I hope so."

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Three hours later, both were standing by the bridge crossing the small river that was flowing through the valley. On the other side was a grape field bursting with ripe grapes. Somewhere on that field lurked the Defias members that needed to be dealt with.

On top of that, a young woman called Millie Osworth asked to bring back the buckets filled with grapes as she had fled the fields when bandits attacked and was afraid that her harvest would be ruined when adventurers and soldiers trample through the fields.

Finally, there was an extra reward for the head of Garrick Padfoot.

Corben took out the map he had purchased from one of the stalls to plan out the route they should take. "If we follow the river and then go by the mountain side, we should arrive right at the farm where Defias' leader is supposedly hiding."

"Shouldn't we first kill the ones patrolling the fields?" Lonaraa asked, trying to see if any of them were lurking nearby.

"We leave them for the chumps that come here without thinking and charge the first target they see. The leader's head gives an extra reward and we are taking it." Corben remarked.

The path he chose proved to not be as safe as they thought. About halfway there they found a large camp consisting of six tents with at least a dozen Defias bandits. Considering that there were additional patrols nearby, sneaking around was impossible.

"What are we going to do? We can't fight that many." Lonaraa whispered while both were hiding behind a large boulder.

"I have an idea, but please don't take it the wrong way." Corben carefully started.

"Umm… What do you have in mind?" She asked, mentally preparing for something she most likely will not be thrilled to do. What Corben had in mind was impossible to tell, but if he started by asking her to not get angry it was likely nothing good.

"Does your native language sound the same as the one the Eredar are using?"

"It is similar, but we and man'ari are not the same. They are fallen demons…"

"I know, but with a little bit of illusion magic, they will not be able to tell you apart from one." Corben said. "I will put an illusion on us both and we will approach the camp. You will scream in your native language while I will pretend to be your demonic servant and attack them. No one in their right mind wants to go against an Eredar." Corban explained.

"I don't know. It…"

"It's just an act. You are not getting corrupted."

"Fine." Lonaraa reluctantly agreed to the plan.

"Great. But if they don't buy it, run. I'll cast something to slow them down and we are getting back to the town."

Lonaraa nodded and mentally prepared for the role she was about to play. Corben cast a spell, making her skin look red and her blue eyes glow with the aerie green light of the fel magic. His own illusion was that of a dread lord, which were considered almost as dangerous as an Eredar.

"Ready?" He asked once the illusion spell was finished.

"Yes." She said, "Should I say something horrible in case they understand?"

"Of course. Get in the role as best as you can."

Lonaraa stood up and approached the camp with her hands extended while shouting. "Belanora mordanos nenaar ila mornu farlos kada!" Which roughly translated to: 'Let the echoes of doom resound across this wretched world, that all who live may hear them and despair!'

The first bandit who saw her screeched in terror. "Demon!"

Lonaraa pointed at the bandit while Corben cast a fire spell that, under the illusion, looked an awful lot like fel magic.

The camp erupted in panic as they scrambled to get away from the two demons. It took less than ten seconds for all bandits in the proximity to disappear.

"At least half of them crapped their pants." Corben said with a laugh while he canceled the illusion spell.

"Please don't make me do this often." Lonaraa said with a somber, almost haunted, tone. The trick was devastatingly effective but also reminded her of just what kind of reputation her fallen brethren had.

"I'll leave this trick for times when we don't have any other option." Corben said. His partner's expression told him everything he needed to know. "We better move on before they come back, even for morons like them it shouldn't take too much time to figure out we weren't the real deal."

The rest of the path was uneventful as seemingly the appearance of the demon had shaken the entire gang into a frightful frenzy. They likely would figure out that there was no demon soon, so there was a need to hurry.

They found the local Defias leader standing by a shack with another bandit beside him. Both were chatting casually about the plan to spread through the region and slowly either bribe or remove the local militia. Likely no one had dared to inform him about the incident.

Lonaraa and Corben observed them from behind a bush. Just two bandits shouldn't be too hard to handle and by the looks of it, none had any ranged weapons. Corben pointed at the one on the left and whispered. "I'll slow that one, you taunt the leader."

"Do I have to?" She whispered back.

Corben gave a judgmental stare in response. Lonaraa quickly caved in and reluctantly nodded in agreement. She jumped out of the bush and shouted while pointing at the leader. "Hey, you in the red mask! Did your whore of a mother fuck an ogre to push out an ugly mongrel like you?"

"My mother was a saint, you horned bitch!" The man screamed and charged her, unaware that his companion was stuck in place.

Lonaraa blocked his reckless charge and swung back at the man who despite his rage was aware enough of his surroundings to jump back. Since Lonaraa was much taller and was equipped with a sword, her reach was much longer and she could easily keep back the bandit who was armed with two long daggers.

Meanwhile, Corben cast ice spikes in front of Lonaraa, as the spell worked perfectly the last time. Same as with the gigantic kobold, the spell proved to be the man's undoing as well. With pierced legs, he fell to his side and Lonaraa's sword found his unprotected neck.

The other bandit was still stuck in place and scrambled for other bandits to come.

"Quickly, cut off the head! We have to go before reinforcements come!" Corben shouted at Lonaraa and shot a frost bolt directly into the man's chest. His leather armor proved to be inadequate protection against the strike and he slumped down.

Just as Lonaraa had finished the bloody deed of cutting off a man's head, a group of three bandits emerged from the grape field.

"Shit!" Corben swore. "We can't take on three at the same time."

"What now?" Lonaraa shouted back.

"After I cast the spell, run like crazy, and don't lose that head!" He shouted as a large flame appeared between his hands.

She quickly nodded and watched as a large fireball flew in the direction of the three bandits. Somehow none of them managed to get out of its way and the intense flames engulfed them. One collapsed right away. The second one dropped to the ground screaming in pain and the third one ran back into the field engulfed in flames.

Corben could only watch in horror as the grape field lit up. He ran up to the field and cast a cone of cold in hopes of extinguishing the flames but it was far too late.

"We…we have to run!"

"But the field!"

"We will say that the Defias bandits burned it down!" Corben said as he grabbed Lonaraa by the hand and dragged her away from the burning field.

"But…"

"There is nothing we can do. And for the record, if anyone asks, those bandits set the field ablaze." He said as both ran by the mountain base towards the river.

"But… your spell…"

"Do you want to slave away for a year or two paying for the damages? That fucker ran into the field, I didn't set it on fire!" Corben shouted at her.

By the time they reached the abbey, he somehow managed to convince Lonaraa to keep her mouth shut. It's not like there were any other live witnesses remaining to tell anyone what happened.

The Marshal listened to Corben's explanation of how the retreating bandits set the field on fire out of spite and remarked grimly. "Those thugs have no shame, no honor. This act of spite gave them nothing but more scorn from the common folk. In either case, here is your reward."

"Defias are such scum." Corben replied while accepting the reward money and dragged Lonaraa away from the Marshal before she changed her mind and spilled the beans about how events went down.

Once they were some distance away from others, Corben said. "I think it's for the best that we head for Goldshire and do some questing there."

"Are you sure? There will be a lot of…"

"We solved the main problem. Farmers can deal with the field. Let's just sell all the ore you don't plan to use, and leave."

"I don't know. It is somewhat our fault as well." She protested.

"Look, I know you. You will not be able to keep your story straight if people start questioning you. Do you really want to risk your reputation while no one really knows what to think of your people?" Corben asked, pushing on her weak spot.

"You… you are right. It was an accident but… but they might think we did it on purpose." Lonaraa agreed. "We can quickly sell the ore and walk to Goldshire before sunset."

"You want to walk? We could take a cart ride." Corben groaned.

"We need to atone for our mistakes, and walking strengthens the spirit." Lonaraa said with conviction.

'Seriously, this woman! Why am I putting up with her crap?'

Proofreading by Sad_Smiles and Somnium Hypnos.

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