noveltune Chapter 145: The Feast
Chapter 145: The Feast
Chapter 145: The Feast
I tightened my grip on the bear pelt and stepped through the portal. My senses were on alert, but I was not prepared to walk straight into Brutus. “What in Pluto’s realm!” He barked at me. “Eryk? You’re alive?” He turned around, and Felix was right behind him. “Eryk’s back! Move back and let him out.” There was someone behind Felix as well, a small train of men.
It was a little bit of a cluster getting everyone to turn around and exit the narrow snow tunnel in full, now ill fitted, armor. I don’t think they saw what I was pulling behind me. The company men were excited to see me alive as I entered the tavern. Mateo cheerfully said, “Told you he was still alive. Eryk could go to bed with a medusa in a brothel and come back satisfied with a smile.”
The bear hide behind me was dragged into the room, and everyone’s eyes suddenly became fixed on the harvest. Everyone was silent. Benito rubbed his eyes with his good hand, “Tell me that is real. Please, someone! Tell me that is real!”
Maveith’s large body moved forward and poked the meat with his hammer. His deep voice echoed, “It is real.” But he let out a long sigh in disappointment. “Eryk, you didn’t scrape the hide properly. You have forgotten everyone I taught you when we harvested the manticore. Don’t worry, luckily, we can still save it.”Thê source of this conte/nt n/o/v/(el)bi((n))
The men didn’t wait any longer and started to sort through the leg quarters, chunks of meat and mushrooms. Konstantin warned everyone, as he held a mushroom in hand, “The mushrooms are not poisonous but still need to be cooked. If you eat them raw, you will regret your life decisions.” Konstantin, with his arm in a sling, nodded at me. Was this recognition for doing a good job? I think I was momentarily stunned by the small sign of recognition.
Castile and Adrian stood smiling nearby, “Eryk, come and report.” I sat at a table while everyone else began to process the meat using practiced efficiency.
Lirkin yelled to our table, “Where is the liver, Eryk? Don’t tell me you didn’t get the liver! No kidneys here either? If you had brought the intestines, we could have smoked some sausage.” His tone was not completely serious, but he was upset. Adrian gave Lirkin a hard stare, stopping his complaints about my animal processing skills. “I’ll make sure to learn more from Maveith in the future.” I replied back at Lirkin. He gave a nod of approval in return.
Castile’s own smile slowly faded, “Well done. We were sending in teams to look for you.”
“Teams?” I said, confused.
Adrian warmed his hands and cracked his knuckles, “Yes, we figured out how the dungeon worked. You need to be in contact with the others as you enter the portal. Up to four people can enter together this way. There is one team of four already inside the dungeon, but they should be back soon as they were not to leave the entry room. We started a mapping effort after you did not return.”
Castile looked over at the men and asked curiously, “What kind of meat is that? How did you kill it?”
Adrian added, “Whatever it is, it looks tastier than spider legs.” Castile gave him a sidelong sour glance as she had provided the spider legs.
“It was a large gray bear. At the end of a corridor was a room with a pool and just one bear. I distracted the bear and got a good strike on the head. My attack was so sudden the bear had trouble using its head to fight back.” I couldn’t help but smirk at my play on words. Rather than go into details, I gave as little information as possible. “It wasn’t easy. The rest of my time was spent cutting up the beast,” I indicated the meat. Castile and Adrian looked over at the excited company. I think their mouths were watering as well.
I decided to continue with the good news. “I found this in the reward chest after killing the bear.” The small potion vial was on the table. Castile’s eyes popped and she snatched it and looked at the runes.
Adrian already knew what it was, “A healing potion? Who gets it?”
Castile confirmed, “A greater healing potion.” Adrian and Castile had a lot of discussions as they went through the injuries in the company. There was a lot of frostbite, but the only real use of the potion would be getting someone combat-effective again. That meant Konstantin was the most likely candidate.
Their discussion narrowed it down to Konstantin or Maveith. Castile looked at me, “Maveith is in some pain but should be fine, especially if we can claim more of these.” She hadn’t released the potion from her grip. “Konstantin will heal with time, but if we are going to explore the dungeon, having our best scout capable would be the best use of it.”
The decision was made. Adrian addressed me, “Go give it to him.” Castile reluctantly placed it on the table, and I could see why. Her fingertips were black, and she had been hiding the advanced frostbite from us.
Lirkin rushed over to our table, “Can we start a fire? I know it is not dark yet, but the men might start eating the meat raw if I don’t cook it soon and bear needs to be cooked properly to be eaten safely. It is incredibly tough and greasy if not cooked properly!” I was about to produce the thermal stone but paused. I had stuffed the box in my dimensional space with fish.
The mood in the tavern suddenly turned somber. Castile broke the melancholy, “The summoner would have found us eventually. Now that we know we can enter the dungeon in groups of four, we can always retreat into the dungeon. Now that the summoner knows where we are, we can keep the fire going during the day.”
Someone started pounding the table like he was challenging the summoner to come. Others quickly joined him until all of us pounded the stone tables in unison. The beat built to a crescendo, and everyone cheered and then continued to eat. Everyone slept that night with a full stomach and contented smiles. Castile used her nightmare spell on a third of the men.
In the morning, Castile sent seven men, led by Konstantin, to the wine vault. I sat with Castile and Adrian. Castile was not as optimistic, “The storm elementals were not over the city this morning.” Her tone was heavy.
“How long do we have?” Adrian asked.
“He is preparing a large summoning circle just outside the city. My guess is a wyvern or some other large flying beast. The city is too deep in snow and has too many specters for anything on the ground to reach us in the city’s center,” Castile noted.
Adrian thought on it, “He might have seen the dungeon entrance as well. The tree canopy shielded it, but that owl was close.”
“Are we going to send everyone into the dungeon?” I asked after a period of silence.
Castile nodded, “I asked Konstantin to get as much wine as possible.” The weight of command on her, she announced, “We need to decide what the groups of four will be.” There were twenty-three of us. Meaning there would be five groups of four and one group of three.
Castile wanted me in her group with Adrian and Konstantin, but I didn’t want to leave Maveith. I felt I owed him something for influencing him to come with us. Castile conceded, and we assigned everyone to a team over the next hour. The goal for the company is to reunite inside the dungeon. We would spend the next year living in the dungeon and then exit together in the hope the summoner had abandoned his pursuit.
I looked at the groups and hoped I made a good choice in lobbying for my entry team.
Castile, Adrian, Konstantin, Blaze
Firth, Wylie, Mateo, Felix
Eryk, Maveith, Scholar Favian, Brutus
Lucien, Benito, Pavel, Lirkin
Kolm, Linus, Donte, Flavius
Cyrus, Soren, Remus
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