Chương 592: Chapter Five Hundred and Seventy-Six - Night Parade of Nine Protagonists

"And you'll be okay?" I asked. The knight bowed slightly.

"We will. I can already feel the return of our reason to be. Our Solace. With a proper cause for life with us once more, there will be no reason that we cannot aid our core and return our home to its proper state. Once again, thank you." I grinned. Helping people was always the best way to make myself feel a little better. I took a small step forwards, then another and gave the knight a hug.

He froze up, and maybe it wasn't the most comfortable hug, what with all the steel plate getting in the way, but that was okay.

"Alright! See you around, then! Don't forget to be nice if any of those villagers come over. They were really worried about you."

"I will see what can be done," the knight said.

"Good bye." I ran over to the exit portal, and with a final wave over my shoulder, I hopped through. I wasn't the last one out. Bastion insisted on taking that honour, in case anything went wrong, so when I stepped out I almost bumped into Caprica ahead of me.

"Oh," I said.

"Sorry," she said as she took a small step back.

"I was waiting for... ah, there you are," she said to Bastion. The paladin nodded once, then scanned the crater past her. I turned and did the same. Amaryllis and Desiree were further out, talking with Calamity while the Scallywags watched. There was a small fire burning in a pit lined by some loose rocks nearby, maybe five paces from a tent set up just on the lip of the crater. The fire didn't provide all that much light, but it was enough to see by. Glancing up, I took in the star-filled sky.

The moon was hidden behind some clouds, and it wasn't full in any case, so it was rather dark out.

"Ny'all made it back," Calamity said with a quick nod to Bastion.

"Good. We just cooked up some sausages a bit ago. Didn't plan on leftovers, sorry."

"That's okay!" I said. Though... now that I was paying attention, I was a little hungry. I could use a snack.

"Do you have anything else left to eat?"

"Hah! I have a few vegetables? We brought a pot and there's some water near here. A little stream. But that's about all we have."

"Darn," I said.

"Oh well. So, should we venture back to the Beaver or is it too far?"

"We can produce plenty of light to make it there safely," Amaryllis said, "or we could camp out here. But, given that on the one talon, we could take a brisk walk in the dark that ends with a warm meal and my own bed, while on the other talon, we could camp on an empty stomach and sleep on bare rocks... well, I have a certain bias as to which option I prefer."

"That's fair," I said.

"Sorry about your camp, Calamity." He waved the apology off.

"It's fine. It was fun teaching the little kittens how to set up a proper tent and camp and all in the first place."

"Well, if we're going to head out, we can at least help take it all apart," I said. That wasn't too hard. We dropped some water on the fire and tamped it out with a bit of dirt while Amaryllis summoned a few glowing balls of light that hovered overhead to illuminate the area. The tent was a little more complicated. Calamity had really done a good job of digging the posts into place with that one.

I was never a girl scout, but I knew that when interacting with nature, it was polite to leave as few signs of your passing as possible, so we picked up everything we could, then started the trek back to the Beaver with the Scallywags leading the way as scouts, with instructions to not be too noisy from Calamity. He called it 'additional training' and I figured it was alright.

"So, what will our next steps be?" Caprica asked.

"With the device and all that?" I asked.

"Yes. We should probably warn the village," she said.

"We might be able to squeeze more information out of them now that we know that others interfered with the dungeon."

"It's just as likely that they never knew," Amaryllis said.

"These alleged Black Avatars don't sound weak, and it's entirely possible that they landed nearby and never interacted with the town." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"I guess, yeah," I said.

"They probably do have airships of their own. Rainnewt can probably steal one or something. That would be something he'd do." It probably wasn't very nice of me to assume such mean actions on someone else's part... but also, Rainnewt was kind of a meanie, and so I wasn't predisposed to thinking very kindly of him. Piracy was like, probably not even in the top ten crimes he committed regularly!

"Oh... well, I never had to tend to a pantry before, so I wouldn't know," Caprica replied.

"In any case, the best scenario would be that Rainnewt is lending his expertise to the Black Avatars because their goals happen to align. Just because he's a cruel, capricious criminal doesn't mean that the purpose of his crimes is entirely wrong. Saving the World by stopping the spread of Evil Roots is objectively good."

"I wonder if the king would agree with such justifications," Bastion said. I turned, and beheld Caprica's cheeks puffing even in the semi-darkness.

"Yes, he would. He's very much a man open to compromise and is a life-long politician."

"And your mother?" Caprica was quiet for a long time.

"What she doesn't know can't hurt her?" she tried. I giggled. Wasn't her mom a former Paladin, just like Bastion was now? Caprica was really trying to walk in her dad's footsteps.

"We don't know if there's a link between Rainnewt and the Black Avatars," Amaryllis said.

"He could very well just have stolen their names. The people that dove into the dungeon were presumably strong, so we can assume that they were at least at their second tier, with two classes. They might have their third. That would make them... quite rare, but not vanishingly so."

"Mercenaries?" Calamity asked.

"Possibly," Amaryllis said with a nod. I didn't like the idea of that, but it did make some sense.

"I don't know how Rainnewt is getting money for all of this, but I guess it's possible," I said.

"But maybe he really did meet with the Black Avatars?"

"And convinced them to work with him?" Amaryllis asked.

"That man couldn't charm his way out of a paper bag." I snorted at that.

"Amaryllis! Just because he's mean and a jerk and other words that mean not-nice, doesn't mean that he can't be, uh, charming and charismatic and such. It's possible, I think? He did speak well, and I guess he wasn't ugly. Plus he had a lot of levels and some people like roguish people."

"Please tell me that's not your type," Amaryllis said. I gasp.

"No! Ew! Have you seen his chin?" Amaryllis sighed, talons pressed over her chest. I glared as best I could at her. That was such a weird thing to think! Also, ew! Rainnewt was evil, and evil wasn't attractive. We continued our walk towards the Beaver, recounting our adventure in the dungeon -- at first it was only the highlights, but the Scallywags kept wanting to hear more so we ended up going through the whole thing in detail.

They also wanted to maybe tackle the dungeon themselves if we were going to stay around the area, but I was... not sure about that. For one, I didn't think we were going to stay here for very long, and for two, the dungeon was quite hard. Maybe if we sent Bastion and maybe one or two of the other stronger members of the crew with them it wouldn't be that dangerous, but it was still a ways above their current levels. Not that they were that weak, I don't think.

Adventuring and travelling across the world as we did seemed like a pretty great way to level up. More so than staying in one place and working one job. Soon enough, the Beaver was in sight, sitting in that same slightly-trampled field next to the little town. A few lights were still on, both in town and on the Beaver itself. The rope ladder was drawn up, but when we approached, I saw Clive and Gordon on the main deck. They waved, and soon it was lowered for us to be able to climb aboard.

It was nice being back home, even if we were only gone for a little bit!