The group of four made their way back into the hall, having already searched what that room had to offer. They were pleased this place had some value to it, but no one was looking forward to hiring people to sell all this stuff off. Then they had to find buyers, or wait for them to come to them. No one here had much experience selling off stuff in this area. Hilda usually sold stuff to the dwarves on the mountains, and they were a long way from the nearest dwarven fortress. Thea had absolutely no experience selling anything, so she was quite useless in that regard. Janus sold meat down in Fordin, sometimes fur as well, but he never delt in weapons before. Robin usually sold off smaller and more expensive items whenever he could, sometimes a few swords. He had already hatched a plan to sell off all this stuff.
"Janus, you said you have a stall, right?" The gallade asked, wanting to make sure he heard correctly.
"That I do, my horribly disfigured friend! What about it?" The blaziken responded with a small smirk on his face. He had been wanting to comment on the gallade's burn scars for a while, but he held back. He felt that would be too easy. He was sure the gallade was probably already numb to any comments about his face.
Hilda was shocked for a moment. "You have a stall? You?! So you see and talk to people all the time?" She questioned him immediately.
"You seem surprised." Janus sounded slightly confused as he walked with the group towards the door to the right. His confusion was feigned, but it sounded quite genuine.
"You're fucking right I am! How has no one killed you?!" The dwarf exclaimed, finding it hard to believe this blaziken would get any customers at all with the way he talks to people.
"Why would anyone want to kill me? My personality is a bright light in these dark times." Janus sarcastically replied to her.
Hilda scowled a little as she heard that. "If you mean you're a flaming wanker, then aye, that you are..."
"Such vulgar words spewing from your mouth, a lady shouldn't say such things. Heh, to answer your question, they don't kill me because I feed the miserable whelps. My prices are low and affordable... Sure some may have threatened, and yelled, and pulled weapons out on me, but the common folk can't afford to lose me. Without me, they would probably eat each other!" Janus was exaggerating a little, but he knew that most of the poor bought meat from him. Sometimes he sold off pelts to the local blacksmith whenever he needed a little extra fur or leather. There were also some other peasants that bought the pelts too, but that wasn't very often.
The gallade quickly decided to chip in and get to the point before they spiral into yet another pointless argument. "Could we use your stall to sell off some of the items we have found?"
"Hah, you could try but you wouldn't get far. My stall is in the piss poor part of Fordin. You want to open up a stall in the upper markets, in the richer parts. Sure I could sell off maybe some of those shitty stools, or maybe a dagger or two at my stall, but the people down there are more concerned with keeping their bellies full with either booze or meat if they're lucky." Janus told them, barely even noticing Thea who had already proceeded into the room to the right. It was easy to ignore she wasn't there anymore, but it was harder to ignore the pitch black darkness that came when she took the torch into the room with her.
Thea looked around the room, seeing a fireplace with a pot over it. There was a table in the middle of the room, some utensils nearby all nearly held in small cups made out of the hollowed out horn of some unfortunate creature. There were some shelves too, but they looked quite empty. One glance at this room was all that was needed to gather what it was. "Just a kitchen." Thea said to herself.
Robin sighed before returning to his conversation with Janus. "How much does it cost to set up a stall in the upper markets?" He asked the blaziken.
"I don't know, too many butchers up there for my liking so I never tried setting up a stall." Janus told him as he walked around the kitchen, giving it a look around. Who knows? Maybe someone stashed some gold around? It was a long shot but he felt like he should take a look. "Why are you asking me all these questions anyway? Ask those other two tits some questions. Most shops are run by women anyway while the men do all the hard work."
That comment got the attention of a certain angry dwarf. "Must be real hard work, pulling that little string of yours and watching things die. Fucking coward." She spat back at him.
"It's not so little." Janus chuckled as he searched the place, even going as far as to look in the pot. He gave up when it became clear that there was nothing here of any real worth.
Thea led them out of the kitchen, and towards the one remaining door. "Be ready for anything, there could be more of these beasts." She warned the others before pushing the door open, only to find yet another long corridor. Even with the light of the torch, Thea couldn't see the end of the corridor.
"Give your arm a rest Thea." Robin said before carefully taking the torch off her. "I'll light the way forwards."
"Thank you." Thea happily said, glad that he decided to take it off her hands. During that last fight, she felt a little useless whilst holding the damn thing.
Robin was out in front, leading the way. Hilda was right behind him, followed closely by Thea and Janus. There were more doors to the left and right. A quick glance inside them revealed that they were nothing more than bedrooms. As they walked down the corridor, they passed twenty of these rooms. "A lot of people must've lived here... I wonder what happened to them." Robin thought to himself.
"Got slaughtered by those creatures we saw." Janus bluntly said.
"Maybe some escaped..." Robin responded, not wanting to think that everyone who once lived here met some gruesome end.
"Doubt it, probably nothing but bones by now." Janus responded, this time saying what he thought was true.
Thea wondered just how many poor souls have lost have lost their lives in this place. It seemed like a terrible place to die, a place where the sun would never shine. This was a place she never wanted to die in. "When we have rid this place of evil, we should find the remains of the dead, and give them a proper funeral."
Hilda walked towards another door to the left, expecting just another bedroom. "We shouldn't waste our time on old bones. Once they're dead, they're dead. Why give the left overs some special treatment? Not even worth the effort." She replied as she opened the door, only to get kicked right in the face. She fell back, grunting as she hit the ground. At first she was surprised, but as she felt the blood trickling out of her nose, she got pissed off.
The other three were caught completely off guard as two seemingly human men lunged out. One of them held a dagger and a small shield in one hand. The other held a single sword. Both men were wearing blood stained chainmail one of them had their chainmail hood still up, the other one wielding the sword had his hood down, exposing his slightly black hair. It looked as if the right side of his head had been scalped, the wound still looking red, wet and sore. The man with the dagger lunged for the blaziken, whilst the man with the sword went for the alakazam.
"Die, cunt!" The man with the sword yelled as he swung his sword horizontally, intending to cut Thea's abdomen open. Unfortunately for him, she managed to jump back. The swordsman fluidly turned his miss into a preparation for yet another slash. This time, he brought his sword down, towards Thea's shoulder. Thea saw it coming, and quickly ducked and sidestepped in a split second. The swordsman's blade struck the wall before Thea used all her strength to strike right at the human's right kneecap, smashing it in. The weight of the ball broke bone whilst the spikes pierced flesh. The human screamed as he dropped to his back. "Back! Away with you bitch!" He screamed at her whilst swinging his sword in her direction. Thea stayed away from him, not wanting to hit a crippled man while he was down. Hilda did not show such mercy.
Hilda slammed her shield right into the human's hand, disarming him and almost breaking his wrist in the process. "You fucking hit hard!" She yelled as she stomped right onto his forehead while he was still dazed. "But I hit fucking harder!" Hilda sat on his chest as she slammed the rim of her shield right into the side of his skull over and over again. It didn't take long for blood to come spurting out of the knocked out man's head.
Thea was shocked by Hilda's brutality. Instead of finishing it off quickly with her sword, she chose to bash his brains in. "Hilda! Stop! He's had enough!" She shouted as she grabbed Hilda's arm, trying to stop her from killing the poor sod.
Hilda shot Thea a glare. "He tried to fucking cut you open, and you want to save him?! He would've fucked your corpse afterwards if he was given the fucking chance! Get off me!" The dwarf raised her free arm to bring the pommel of her short sword down onto the man's nose, almost splitting the cartilage in half.
"STOP!" Thea yelled as she tried to pull the dwarf right off the human desperately. She couldn't let Hilda kill this unarmed and unconscious man, even if he was a murderer, or at least attempted to murder them.
Hilda wasn't listening to the monk. She wanted to bash this man's brains in, and she wasn't about to let some holy woman stop her. "Get. The. Fuck. OFF ME!" The dwarf suddenly stood up, spinning around to face Thea with a very hate filled look in her eyes.
Thea was frightened for a moment, thinking the dwarf was going to kill her. She backed away, pressing her back against the wall. "Calm down, he has had enough..."
Hilda took deep breaths as she looked right into Thea's eyes. "You're not going to make it if you don't toughen up, fast... Remember that next time some mad fucker wants to shove a fucking blade right though your gut. Nice people don't live long in this world..."
For a moment, there was nothing but silence between them. Thea didn't know what to say, until she heard something dropping nearby. Thea broke eye contact to see Janus and Robin with smiles on their faces. The man that tried to attack them was now dead, an arrow in his neck and a large wound on his back. She saw red droplets dripping to the floor from Robin's left elbow blade. She didn't understand how anyone could be happy about killing someone else. She wasn't sure if there was something wrong with these people, or if she was the one in the wrong. She tried to shake the thought from her head, yet it lingered. She felt the urge to pray.
Author's Note: This story is starting to get longer than I planned on it being. Oh well, I will keep writing until it is finished! I don't know how long this story will be when it is finished, but I promise, the best has yet to come. Thank you to BigBossSonic and Zarfy for looking through this and correcting a few things. :) And thank you to everyone reading this!