Chapter 43

"We're lost again… aren't we." Rhordan rhetorically sighed after Pavel suddenly stopped in his tracks, they were trekking through a dense forest north of Larravass, the terrain was treacherous mountains, fractured hills, and a lot of cliffs. They had to double back five times because they ran into a sheer cliff that they couldn't climb down, and the alternative routes weren't taking them anywhere near their goal.

They were heading north for the simple reason of finding a decent sized city that they could use as a temporary base, the city was closer to the Cube than Larravass and it wasn't often travelled to. As they were now, the brothers were too weak to fight in the Cube, they needed to get stronger before the dungeon opened up in just under a year's time.

"We're not lost… I know where we are, I just… its this way!" Pavel immediately took off in another direction, pretending that he actually knew where he was going. Gideon and Rhordan had gotten into an argument about which route to take that would get them to the city swiftly and safely when Pavel boasted about his natural ability to navigate, and that he had once travelled there before and knew the route.

The brothers had been somewhat impressed with Pavel's bounce back after he left his family a week ago, he seemed more relaxed and carefree than before, though there were a few incidents when he would look over his shoulder wistfully. They were worried that Pavel was glossing over how major an ordeal this was for him, but they were effectively silenced when they found Pavel making a beeline to the adventurers guild the next day.

Registering himself with excitement, jovially exclaiming that he had always wanted to be like those that travelled the world, explored new and exciting places, and fought powerful monsters. Pavel had always dreamt the life of a vagrant, moving around the world and doing what they wanted without anyone telling them what to do.

Rhordan had to fill out the form as Pavel spent more time running around the Adventurer's Guild main hall talking with anyone he could, asking after their adventures and their victories. She was forced to give him a codename after Gideon failed to drag him back to the desk, going with their theme of precious materials, she gave him the name 'Cobalt'. A name that Pavel pridefully adopted, so much so that the brothers had to forcefully drag him from the building before he annoyed any more adventurers.

They scoured through many of the shops before leaving the city, buying food and medicine for the trip north. During their shopping trip, Rhordan had got assaulted by a terribly distressed yellow fluff ball, one that made a beeline towards her the moment it picked up her scent. The brothers were somewhat dismayed they couldn't get to see Xan and the others, but they were no where to be found, not even Aurelia could find them again when Rhordan asked.

In the end, they left the city quickly, opting to get ahead of anyone trying to hunt them down. Though that list started and ended with the Holy Order, they didn't want to take their chances in a massive city like Larravass. The city they were heading may only be half the size, but it was the furthest settlement from both Averia and Literia, at least one that was built up enough to host an Adventurer's Guild.

There were some rumours that the city was under the control of the Holy Order, though the risk of being openly attacked by them are higher there, the areas around them host a large amount of Novice and Apprentice ranked magical beasts. They needed practice working together as a team, fighting effectively and determining their roles in the group, though Pavel was a warrior with extensive training in various weapons, he hadn't had any experience fighting on the front lines with allies relying on him. They wanted to give him a controlled encounter where they would be able to step in if things go wrong.

They decided upon two routes that would take them close to the Cube, they wanted to get a glimpse at the dungeon they were aspiring to raid, one that could hold many dangers that could kill them instantly, or treasures that can secure their future. They had thought about hiring Wind Riders to take them to the city, but they were extremely expensive, and required listing their names down on just about every form available. If they wanted to get to the city unnoticed then they needed to travel there by foot.

"Wait… It may be that way…" Pavel stopped as they reached yet another cliff, they had gone round in circles for the past few hours, and this was after yesterday's nightmare where they nearly ran headfirst into a Flamewing, a Knight ranked magical beast that was a massive red bird with wings literally made of fire. With luck on their side, they escaped relatively unscathed as the Flamewing was happily snacking away at its meal and had only turned its head to harmlessly fire a plume of fire at them before returning to its meal.

Magical beasts have been a thorn in their side, the region they were in ranged from Apprentice rank up to Baron rank, forcing them to hide from the vast majority of them. They gathered what materials they could from the magical beasts they could kill to sell once they arrive at the city, though they still had most of the gold coins in the spatial ring as well as the multitude of magical items they were still working their way through, they wanted to collect spare coin and build a reputation with the city's local Adventurer's Guild office.

Rhordan takes time every day to study the magical items they had in the spatial ring, using her magical sense ability and her knowledge of runes to decipher how they work and where they rate on the rarity scale. She was mainly doing this to increase her capability and understanding of runes and her skill with her magical sense ability, though they had heard of auction houses dotting the landscapes. They could sell their magical items at most merchants or armoury, but the auction house has the potential of netting them several gold coins just for a single item.

"Pavel, how about we double back to the road we saw a league back, we can use that to orientate ourselves." Gideon offered, he and Rhordan had been patient with Pavel due to the events outside the coliseum, but they were barely a week into a two-week journey, and they doubted they had made the distance equal to a week's worth of travel.

Pavel was about to argue his point until he burst through a thick bunch of bushes and nearly fell to his death as the cliff edge dramatically cut inwards like a knife edge and just stopping short of the bushes. Gideon's fast reaction stopped Pavel from falling as he bolted forward far faster than he would have normal been able to, grabbing Pavel by the back of his shirt and hauling him away from the edge.

"Yeah… lets double back." Pavel finally admitted defeat, dazed and slightly shaking, he turned away and stumbled back down the hill side with the brothers following not far behind.

Returning to the road, they found they had gone far outside of their chosen route as they saw a small village far ahead of them, their route was meant to avoid villages and towns as a precaution encase the Holy Order had scouts posted in or near them. They decided to travel towards the village and ask for directions, they didn't know how far from the route they were.

The village itself was only a collection of a dozen or so shacks haphazardly placed closed together, they were all made out of dirt, straw, and boulders. A few male villagers walked about tending to their day job, they were dressed in plain brown and white clothes. The moment they noticed the three adventurers strolling down the road towards them they stopped and warily watched them, whispering to one another.

As they reached the edge of the village, an elderly man approached them. He wore simple brown robes and an old oak staff, his old dark skin wrinkled with a massive smile on his face, he had dark brown eyes and a shock of dark grey hair. He walked casually and slowly towards the three that now stopped at the edge of the town, unsure if they were allowed to enter given the old man walking towards them.

"Greetings, youngsters. We don't get many travellers this way, may I ask what brings you to our small settlement?" The old man's voice was smooth and wise, as he spoke his grin turned to a small smile as he addressed them with kindness. Some of the villagers behind the old man looked on with apprehension, listening intently to the conversation.

"Sorry to disturb you or your village, but we got ourselves lost on the way to Valra City. You wouldn't mind telling us where we are?" Gideon took lead in the conversation, stepping forward and mimicking the old man's kindness. From the look of the villagers around them, the wrong word or action may incite violence, or at least they wouldn't be able to reorientate themselves.

"Of course not, this is Ulvar village. You are in Literia territory, just a few leagues northwest from Larravass's border." The old man replied happily, his tone lightening the moment Gideon told him that they were lost. A note that Gideon wanted to ask about, but he choose to remain quiet. "You are pretty far from the road to Valra, were you forced off the road by a magical beast?"

"Not exactly, we wanted to hunt down some low rank magical beasts but bit off more than we can chew and ended up running." Gideon sheepishly stated, pretending to look ashamed at failing to kill a magical beast. He wanted to make it look like they were off the road for a plausible reason rather than avoiding running into merchants, or anyone official that could report their location to those hunting them.

After leaving Larravass, they had to misfortune to nearly run into a battalion of holy knights from the Holy Order asking after them by their adventurers' codenames, though they were lucky that they didn't have much in the way of a physical description. They had left immediately after that, wishing to put as much distance between them and Larravass as possible.

Rhordan and Gideon had tried to persuade Pavel to leave their side when they reached the city gates, accompanying them meant becoming an enemy of the Holy Order, but Pavel brushed it off rather nonchalantly. The brothers were worried that Pavel wasn't thinking this through, silently agreeing that if later down the road he decides to leave then they wouldn't hold it against him.

As they were walking through the village, a little girl nearly ran into Rhordan as she was playing with a few boys around her age. She immediately apologised and quickly ran off, chasing after the boys once again. Though the girl was playing happily, there was a note of sadness in her eyes, one that Gideon had assumed to be the fact that her mother was any where to be seen… or any woman for that matter.

"Ah! The glamorous life of an adventurer. The joys of being full of youthful vigour, you should be careful around these areas." The old man happily chuckled, leading them through the village towards an old house that had an old broken chair propped up against the wall. Cautiously taking a seat on the chair, the old man addressed them team with a note of urgency in his tone. "I apologise for not offering accommodation, our village is small, and we don't have any inns or spare beds. There is a town ahead of us that will have an inn."

"We only needed our location. It was a pleasure meeting you." Gideon nodded to the old man before heading towards the only road leading out of the village, Rhordan and Pavel close on his tail though they were slightly weirded out by the old man's desire to get them to leave the village. The other villagers watched them go, but there was a trend that Gideon was noticing as they left. One that may explain the old man's need for them to leave.

Once they travelled far down the road, Gideon dived into the bushes, pulling the other two with him. Doubling back, he climbed the hill near the village and found a spot high up that gave them a view over the village from above without revealing their location.

"You noticed it as well?" Pavel confirming his suspicious over Gideon's actions, spending all his time around Jorgan taught him to be perceptive when dealing with new people, to always be on the look out for things that don't look right. Though after he failed to know that Jorgan was behind the plan that nearly got him killed, he didn't want to make any assumptions unless he had conclusive proof, however when Gideon swiftly and sneakily doubled back, he knew he wasn't the only one who had seen it.

"Yeah, pretty hard not to notice, especially when there are so few of them." Gideon grunted, scanning over the village as a whole, trying to see if there was anything he could notice from this height.

"Mind cluing me in?" Rhordan asked after neither of them choose to explain what it was they saw, Gideon looked at her for a second before turning back to watching the village.

"Rho, tell me how many women did you see in that village?" Gideon decided to let her work it out herself rather than him telling her outright, he was somewhat concerned that he and Pavel were being somewhat paranoid after the run in with the Holy Order, but at the same time he couldn't dismiss it without at least discussing it.

"Well, there was that little girl playing in the street but… no…" Rhordan looked at them weirdly, she thought it was weird for no women to be seen around the outskirts of the village, but as they walked through it, they only saw men. Even in the windows of the buildings, there was no face that resembled a female, and the men of the village were looking at them with suspicion and fear.

"Exactly, that old man was worried when he saw us before calming down once he knew we were travellers who had gotten lost." Gideon explained, wondering what scared the old man enough that he was instinctively afraid of three youths in mismatched armour walking down the road.

"Those men didn't like us either, its hard to make out but I could see most of them glaring at us." Pavel added, leaning against a tree just out of sight of the village, pondering what could make them so hostile to strangers. "No women, angry men, fearful leader… only thing comes to mind is bandits."

The brothers looked at one another for a second, they knew there would be bad guys like bandits that would raid or steal, but never terrorise an entire village and steal all the women. A note of fear ran through them at the thought of what the bandits might be doing to these women, this fear made them wish to help the villagers, though there was a thought that they couldn't shake from their heads.

"Wait, why don't they call for help from either Larravass or Literia?" Rhordan asked Pavel, he was the only one among them that had knowledge of this world that neither of them possessed. Pavel exploded into laughter at her question, causing the brothers to look at one another in confusion.

"Ha! Literia only helps those that are devout to the Holy Order, and Larravass only helps those that have enough coin." Pavel shook his head, it was known problem for a lot of villages and small towns, but one that nobody ever tries to fix. "Villages and towns have to deal with these problems themselves or get lucky enough that the Adventurer's Guild puts a bounty on the bandit's heads, though that only happens if they attack someone notable. If they only harass small towns like this then nobody bats an eye."

"Is it really that bad? I doubt even the six original clans would be so cold as to forsake these people?" Gideon asked, this world had shown them time and again that corruption ran rampant throughout, and this wouldn't be anything different from that, but a part of him had to hope that these people had at least a shred of dignity or morality. His hopes were dashed when Pavel laughed harder, forcing himself to cover his mouth encase he gave away their positions.

"The six original clans are like the royals of the kingdoms, they don't care about commoners." Pavel stated after calming down, coughing slightly as he had to stifle his laughter. "These people could beg on their hands and knees and they would do a damn thing. Power is all, that is the unspoken moto of every clan or kingdom, without it you are nothing. And for villagers like these, even though some of them may be born with decent talent, they wouldn't have time to train or would any of the other villagers support it as the moment someone shows talent, the kingdoms or clans snatch them up and forsake the village entirely."

"That… horrifying…" Rhordan sighed, these villagers had to deal with these problems on their own, and they couldn't train to become strong without some clan butting in and forcing them to leave their home. They are, in a sense, defenceless.

"It is, and there is nothing anyone can do about it unless the major powers act. Something everyone knows is a fantasy." Pavel shrugged, he knew all too well how useless the major powers were when it concerned the commoners. They wouldn't lift a finger unless one of their own was involved in the issue, then they will act, though not in the interest of the village. "Best thing for us to do is leave, most bandits wouldn't group together unless there was at least one strong combatant… these people are usually around Knight rank, or sometimes Baron rank if they have been around for a while."

"We can't leave them on their own! They have suffered enough!" Rhordan exclaimed, outraged that Pavel would suggest something like that when they could do something about it. Though she couldn't think of a way to fight the bandits, she refused to abandon these people to their fate. She was a titan, and after everything that had happened since arriving in this world, she felt she lost the right to call herself that. She had to find a way to redeem herself, and if that means going against them impossible, then she will do it.

"Pavel's right, we can't take on the bandits. We are barely at the Novice rank in physical strength. We wouldn't stand a chance against them." Gideon shook his head, hating this fact with great intensity even though he was the one saying it. Rhordan looked aghast at him while Pavel nodded approvingly, however Gideon wasn't finished. "That said, we aren't going to leave these villagers to their own plight."

"What can we do against bandits? Maybe if we get lucky with a weak group of bandits, but even then the strongest member among them would be at least Knight rank." Pavel asked, he didn't want to dismiss Gideon outright, but they had no way of fighting against them. Even if he had the talon, it wouldn't be enough.

"Nothing, we aren't going to do anything to them…" Gideon started, staring at the two of them with a small smile. The two looked at him as if he lost his mind, though they knew his inanity had its reasons, and his plans had a way of working out despite being insane. "The villagers are expecting them to come back, when that happens, we follow them back to their camp."

"What good is knowing where their camp is when we can't fight them?" Rhordan was starting to think that Gideon wasn't hearing them when they said they had no hope of fighting the bandits outright. Pavel grunting in agreement, though he remained patient, waiting for Gideon to reveal his full plan.

"And we would have to kill all of them." Pavel grunted, he noticed Rhordan wincing harshly though Gideon seemed almost apathetic, as if he already knew this answer. "You have a plan to do just that?"

"Yes… The only option we have left is to poison them." Gideon reluctantly stated, during the last week, he spent every second he could studying the flora of this world, using his mystic ability to learn of their nature and their purpose. Picking and toying with the plants and flowers before replanting them somewhere else using his nature element, experimenting in part with the life pulse of the forest.

They had purchased a herbology book before leaving Larravass, though the medical type guilds were extremely reluctant to even allow this book to get into the public hands, Gideon managed to persuade one of their members to sell it to him after he lied about becoming a new member of their guild. It wasn't a complete lie as Gideon wanted to join a guild called the Apothecary Guild, a group that focused solely in the pursuit of medicine and enhancement through alchemy, though with their current status of wanted fugitives, he didn't have the luxury of the option.

The book illustrated what effects a plant or flower would have if processed in a certain way, Gideon would use this knowledge to gaze into them and see their inner workings, their flow of magical power and their essence of nature. He found that plants had differing structures or foundations, changing almost completely with each different one he tested, however among them were types that he could identify.

His mystic ability allowed him to connect to and see inside the plants, and it was with this that he was able to identify healing type plants, poisonous plants, curing type plants, and so on. Each type had a nearly identical foundation that the plant or flower built upon, following these structures gave Gideon enough of an understanding on how the plant functions, but without the means to test them he only had his intuition and his gut to rely upon.

They had also purchased blank journals to use as notebooks, Rhordan used hers to record her findings on rune magic and the magical items she was studying from the ring, Gideon used his to record everything he could about the flora of this world, writing down his guesses and making notes on how to test them later on.

Among the multitude of plants and flowers they came across, only a few of them held any reasonable properties to them that Gideon took particular interest in. One such item was a bright red flower, one that was shaped like a star and had a bright light blue centre. Gideon found that this flower had similar markings and essence of the poison type though its makeup had a somewhat healing type aspect to it.

He thought it was weird, though judging from the structure of the star flower it seemed like he could make a powerful poison with it, one that would suit their purposes. And, if given enough time, he may find an anti-dote to it as well, a combo that would become extremely useful against those hunting them. Though, he had no idea where to start making either of them, nor did he knew how the physical power rank of a person would react to it either.

"You can't be serious?!" Rhordan stared at him in shock, unable to process the words coming out of his mouth. They knew they had to be able to kill a living person at some point, but to actively seek out a group of killers and poison them all to death, Rhordan was getting scared of the new Gideon, she was secretly wishing for the old one to make his goofy appearance back and tell her he was lying, that this was a joke and they could go and find someone to help them.

"I am, these bandits overstayed their welcome, and they are harming innocent lives." Gideon reluctantly stated, he agreed with her shock but someone has to do something and soon, otherwise that little girl was next, Gideon would never be able to forgive himself if he had the power to do something and didn't. "We can't get them arrested, nor can we fight them directly, therefore our only option is to take them out quietly and quickly."

"It's a cowardly act, but given out current circumstances, I agree." Pavel nodded, he didn't like the idea of sneaking into the camp and poisoning their food, but he couldn't leave these people to their own devises. He was not without compassion, but the notion of the strong bullying the weak never sat right with him, he always found it distasteful to fight those that could not defend themselves or had the power to defend against him.

"Rho, you can sit this one out. Neither of us will think any less of you if you do." Gideon tried to placate her, he didn't want her anywhere near what he was about to do, and he wanted her to know that neither him nor Pavel will think less of her if she opted to let them do this on their own.

"No, if we do this, then we do it as a team." Rhordan reluctantly agreed, she didn't like the idea of poisoning anyone, let alone bandits who might actually deserve it, but without the power to fight back against the bandits then this became their only option. She felt appalled with herself agreeing to this, that as a former titan she had stooped to this level, but the thought of what those bandits might be doing to those women horrified her, and she doubted she could live with herself if she left them.

"Alright, one of us will need to stay here and watch the village encase the bandits arrive." Gideon went straight into leader mode, dishing out tasks to the team. He didn't want to think about what they were planning on doing, the nauseating thought ate at his mind, yet he pressed onwards as this was the only course of action available to them. "I need to collect plants to make the poison, and we need disguises, specifically foliage that we can use to pad our outfits to hide ourselves."

"Disguises might fool low ranked individuals, but higher ranks wouldn't be so easily fooled." Pavel warned, he knew that the higher one climbed the ranks, the better abilities they would get, and one of them was an ability to sense the presence of others around them. "If we are going to do this, then we have to stick to the outskirts otherwise the leader might sense our presence."

"Noted, though I doubt we will get that close to them. We only need to poison the food or the water, after that we can leave." Gideon stated, he knew his plan had flaws, especially the one where they might poison the prisoners, but it was a risk they needed to take as otherwise all of the prisoners would be in for a terrible fate. "Okay, let's get to work."

Rhordan opted to go looking for the disguise materials while Pavel stood watch, she didn't say anything, but Pavel and Gideon knew she needed to be active otherwise her mind would think of nothing else than the deaths they were about to cause. Pavel didn't mind being on look out, he was the only one among them that had actually seen a bandit before so he knew what he was looking for, though the chance to sit there and peacefully watch a quiet little village was seem appealing to him

Gideon scoured the hill side for the specific flowers he needed, he had wanted to get them earlier but he had no desire to be carting around a deadly flower like that star flower, though he did try to ask Rhordan to store a few within the ring which she vehemently denied at the time after Gideon explained what they were.

The star flower was somewhat rare, Gideon only managed to find a few clusters of them. He decided to hunt down other types of flora around the area, picking up bundles on ones he hadn't examined before, and collecting those he knew would suit his purposes.

Returning to the tree where they had first stopped at, he sat down behind it quietly and got to work trying to work out a way to extract the poison. Gideon hated the idea of doing this, but he knew all to well what evil men do to those that cannot defend themselves, and the fate these women face isn't one he would wish on his worst enemy. Gideon kept that in his mind as he worked, forcing him to press onwards as vicious memories of his past flared to life in his mind.

Focusing on the flower, he used his magical sight and his mystic ability to study the flower, detailing every part and essence that made it. Pulsing his mana through the flower, he found it lit up areas of the petals and the bud in the centre. Zeroing in on these parts, he used his mystic ability to surround the highlighted parts, drawing them from the flower and into his palm.

The red and blue flower suddenly dissolved in Gideon's hand as a purplish red liquid poured into his open palm, the liquid hovered in the air as a fluid ball constantly in movement with no defining shape or structure. Staring at this, Gideon focused his nature sense onto the liquid, studying it with intrigue and confusion. He found his nature power alerting him to the danger the liquid in his hand possessed, though there was something wrong with it, that it wasn't quite complete, that the healing element inside the star flower diminished its effect.

Picking up a small bluish green plant that looked eerily like a seaweed, he examined it carefully, studying its properties and its essence. This plant held some water element energy to it, enough that it could be used as a drinkable source of water, though not useful to his current purposes, it was something to keep note of.

Of the four remaining groups of plants and flowers he had collected, two were medicinal in nature and he put them aside for the time being to focus on his objective. He picked up a flower with soft round blue petals and a shock white centre, it had no element and its properties were beyond any he had seen in the herbology book.

The flower sparked with his pure mana, charging it slightly until he recoiled from it in shock. Gideon wished to spend time studying this particular flower extensively, he wondered if he could make a mana potion out of it, though for the time being he had to focus on his goal.

The last item he had gathered was neither plant nor flower, rather it was dark red bark he found around a weird red tree in the area. The red tree only grew in a patch near the top of the hill, no other tree could stand near nor any plant either, the red tree warded off all types of flora from coming close to it. When Gideon touched the bark of this tree, his hand felt scorched like had shoved it directly into the heart of a roaring fire, he shuddered in pain as agony shocked through him, sending him to the ground.

He managed to collect a few pieces of the back by tearing a scrap of cloth from his shirt and using that as a cover to pick up a few pieces. Gideon surmised that this tree bark would have some harmful properties, but not to the extent that he was seeing now with his vision. The bark's malignant presence felt evil and defensive, yet it contained a vast amount of fire element energy and no evil energy like the sword strapped to his back. It confused him, though he supposed that not all evil has to have evil energy.

Drawing the essence from the bark, he held the orb of bright red liquid, it violently resisted his attempts to control it though with his mystic ability it quietened down the moment he exerted his will over it. Gideon decided to experiment with it by combining the two liquids in his hands, they resisted greatly, but with great effort he combined the two into a single swirling dark purple liquid.

Studying what he had in his hand, he began to force his mana into the liquid, brightening the colour of it and increasing its power. He wasn't exactly sure what he was doing, yet he felt that the poisonous effects of the liquid grew stronger, though without a way to test it he had to rely on his instincts.

Pulling out his cantina that was attached to the side of his backpack, he drank the last of the water in there and poured the liquid inside to store. Before they left Larravass, they made sure to grab large leather backpacks to carry some of the items they needed and to hide the sword on Gideon's back. They couldn't keep using the spatial ring as it would draw attention to it, and they could become a target for those greedy enough to try.

Gideon set about making more of the poison by combining the star flower and the bark, empowering it with mana before storing it inside the large cantina. He exhausted himself of his mana by the time he was down, finding the mana requirements slowly increasing with each batch. He was forced to give up after filling the cantina despite still having some left-over pieces.

Raising from his seated position, he left to go find more plants and flowers. Gideon wanted to stock up on items to experiment with, though he wasn't going near those trees again, he had enough bark from them that he was willing to risk getting. He secured the cantina to his backpack, taking the tail end of the bindings to seal the lid, making sure no accident occurs while he carried the cantina.

As he was scouring the hillside, he came across a small group of goblins sat beside a small river, they were drinking and arguing with one another. Gideon instinctively went for his short sword, but an idea formed in his head.

Climbing up a bit away from the goblins, he moved to the side of the river before removing his cantina. Tipping it enough for only a single drop to fall into the water, he waited to see how potent the poison was depending on the dosage. He had to start low and work his way up, he already made the mistake of underestimating magic and its capability, with the magically empowered poison, he couldn't take the chance of using too much and waste what supply he had made.

Minutes tick by with nothing happening, the goblins were still drinking and arguing with one another. Gideon took the time to record the poison in his journal as well as the process to make it, he was about to write down that he was going to increase the yield as the potency wasn't high enough when the goblins started screaming. They clutched their throats before falling to the ground, they writhed for a few moments, growing still after moments of them screaming.

The poison took a while to take effect, but once it did, it killed within three seconds. Terrified, Gideon just stared at the cantina resting beside him, fearful of what he had made. A second scream shocked him from his stupor, this scream sounded eerily like Rhordan.

Fear crushing his heart, he scrambled down the hillside towards the noise, praying with every fibre of his being that he hadn't killed Rhordan. He felt his soul being crushed under the weight of grief and terror filling him. Rushing through the forest, he found Rhordan, the sight before him chilling him to the bone.

Author's Note: Oh no, has Gideon made a colossal mistake?

Anyway, I had plans for Xan but like I said before, I had to scrap five chapters worth of content because of the direction I went in. However, I am going to use what I wrote about him in this new direction, it works and is perfectly valid.

Xan's real name is Talrin Firestorm, and he is the second heir of the firestorm clan, the girl with Old Duke is also an heir, though she is below his rank. Can't say anymore as I may introduce her later and want to save this for then. There was supposed to be some interaction between Talrin and Old Duke with a bit of comedy, but I thought it was too casual for the story despite it needing a little uplifting moment.

I may include the scene later on, or maybe I might just post a single chapter with all my cut content. (Just for context, the five chapters are about them meeting up with everyone before going their separate ways, the brothers going to an auction house with Paylor. However, this direction was too unnatural, a lot of things went their way and they got a lot of good items and new powerful friends.)

Comments:

Frog31791 – Thanks for the comment. Jorgan's scene was purely to show the difference of a single rank, but also because I needed a bit of a tragedy to befall one of them as I haven't killed anyone except for Jacob and Sophia Jackal (the two that tried to kill Xan because they knew he was Talrin).

As for the heirs, all clans have so many children born to the main family and close relatives that the number of heirs is large, however there is only ever at most five heirs that are chosen. They change depending on the status of the heir, take Pavel for example, he was labelled the first heir and he hated it because he had to constantly prove himself. If he fell behind or failed to meet expectations then he would be bumped down the ranks.

That said, the vast majority of clans don't really abide by this rule, they value power, status and nobility. They would only allow the main family descendants, or those of an extremely close blood relation, to become the heirs. Though, this isn't perfect as technically all clans abide by the rule that power rules, therefore a person who has a right to the position of heir can challenge any of the named heirs for their spot.

I have a massive spread sheet dedicated to tracking the story and listing all the characters as well as the organisations, locations and even magical items. Without that, I definitely would get lost, though I try my best to explain everything.

Eris – Thanks for the comment. Power rules, and Jarl never had any. He was forced to become the clan leader because Jorgan had no aptitude for the position, and he had to bow to his every whim despite being clan leader. I doubt anyone would have reacted differently if they were in his position, constantly forced aside and having to allow not only Pavel taking the first heir spot, but also Helenia in the second heir.

Beylina is the captain of the guard, she practically wrote the current book on how to train the guards in the Frostmare family, if anyone is capable of staying safe from them its her. However, she has to be constantly vigilant for the Holy Order. Jorgan is under the care of Paylor, he has enough connections to keep him safe while he recovers, but from the look of the wound, it is doubtful he may even recover.

Xan is the heir to the Firestorm family, if anyone tries anything against him then they will have to content with the might of one of the six original clans… supposedly…

The only hint I can give is from the chapter back when they were staying in the Frostmare mansion when the brothers asked about their inability to increase their magical power…