Aurelia made short work of the guards that attacked the inn. She was relentless as always and had them tied together against a pillar inside of the inn.
"Thank the three you came..." The inn keeper says while still under Lisa's care.
"The trifecta made us come in the perfect moment!" Lisa smiles.
Not losing a chance to preach your belief, huh?
"So, you three..." Aurelia is poking them in their cheeks in turns with her scythe. "So, I guess none of you would like to come with me and turn into my personal toy?"
What kind of question is that?!
"U-ummmm... Is that an offer?" One of the soldiers answer.
Holy shit he is brave!
"Oh? Inrerested?" Dhe smirks from ear to ear.
"Aurelia, you cannot take any of them and we don't do slavery." I explain like I was explaining to a little kid.
"Pshe! You are boring!"
I just want my base clean and not turned into a sex dungeon by her.
"So, friend... Willing to talk?" I turn my attention to the one that tried to escape. I tied him up against a chair, just to have a nice chat.
"Only if you offer more than they did!" He answers.
"You yelled Oswald's name earlier. I need your information, but if you think you can negotiate, I have bad news for you. This is not it."
"T-then what? Are you going to torture me?"
As I said days ago, that doesn't give actual information.
"No, I want to give you an offer. It is better when we both end up with a receipt." I sit on the table with my legs crossed, looking down at him. "If I am mistaken, what he is doing is a coup to take the city under Martial Law, right?"
He does not answer.
"Well, when this is over. More like, when I finish with this, we will have two strong political figures wanting to point fingers and put people behind bars, probably even cut some heads."
A small drop of sweat falls from his forehead.
"You can decide. Should I just let you fall, or give some nice words when I inform them about who helped me to stop whatever Oswald is attempting... If the information is real, of course."
I can still sense hesitation coming from him. I smirk, noticing how he is looking to his allies and back to me.
"Or I can give the same offer to your friends there, or anyone else that we capture. First come, first served, as they say."
There is a simple silence that is interrupted by a couple of witty comments from Aurelia towards the soldiers she is tormenting right now. Her laughter can be annoying, but at least she is not causing a bigger problem.
"Fine..." He says. "I don't know much of what he is planning, but yes, Oswald is paying for this. I have no clue where he is getting his money or whatever he is doing, but he is serious about this shit."
Interesting.
"You fucking traitor!" One of them yells.
"Hey! I have shit to take care of!" He answers. "I cannot die!"
"And you are selling us out?! Fine! The fucking general has been bringing people from a group called the... Shit... Something eye."
Oh...
The Eye of Right, those people that called themselves a Dominion. I have no clue where their territory is, but they come back into the picture.
"Eye of Right!" Another answer. "They are mercenaries or something. I have no idea where he is sending them to, but he seems to be friends with someone of that group!"
Why do I have the feeling some of them were sent to act as city guards?
Now that I think about it, what if Oswald was waiting for the Eye and Maxwell... But we came out instead.
Interesting...
Differently with how I have been feeling these last weeks, I feel much more excited than I could ever imagine. This is the part of me that pertains to Amber before I turned into her. Wanting to jump into action, always looking for a next objective, a prey so to speak.
"Anything else I should know?" I ask them.
The last one speaks, the one that was taking Aurelia's offer seriously earlier.
"Y-yeah... Oswald sent us here to get something that the guy with the chickens left here with the innkeeper or something similar. We were going to get paid when we returned with it."
Then I am glad I sent Aurelia and Lisa ahead of me while I secured the Mayor and Dawson. A minute late and we would have missed on this information and who knows what would have happened to the inn keeper.
They became talkative once the offer was on the table. But what to do with them? They can still attempt something against us and I would prefer not to run that risk.
"Si, how is the inn keeper doing, Lisa." I ask, turning my attention to them."
"He is fine! Only some bruises that can heal on their own. My prayer did its job."
"You are... Jace's friends, right?" He asks.
"You could say that... He wanted to tell us something but got dragged by the guards."
So his name is Jace? I will pretend that I knew for now.
"Hmmm... I told that idiot he would be in danger."
"Has he been acting strange lately?"
"Lately? He was always strange! Reading about rituals and shit... Recently he got his hands into a weird stone and has been talking about people in danger in town, claiming that the thing has been talking to him."
He stands up with Lisa's help. He probably was well roughed up by these guys. He gets behind his counter and searches for something under it.
Then, he places a stone there.
It doesn't seem like anything special, just a simple stone.
"He told me I had to give it to a vulpin with red hair and fur... I imagine that was you."
I take it... And nothing happens. For a moment I thought I was going to have a bunch of images flash before my eyes... But no. Nothing happens. The stone is cold and rough.
"He left it this morning here, saying that something big was going to happen today."
Like he could predict he would be arrested.