Paladin 4: Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Gwen pointed out her tree house in the distance, and Darren scooped her up in her arms and flew her there. Callum followed close behind.

“I must say, that is far faster than climbing flimsy rope ladders!” Gwen laughed. “If we could fly, we probably wouldn’t be so wary about venturing to the ground.”

“All you need is a sigil and to complete a few quests,” Callum said cheerily. “I’m not even an archpaladin like Darren. I just have a flight skill.”

“An archpaladin?” Gwen withdrew in on herself when she heard Darren’s rank. “I... well... I suppose I should have expected as much after the way you took down that demon. Forgive me for not showing more respect.”

“No forgiveness needed. I was not offended.” Darren set her down on the narrow balcony surrounding her home, and they walked around to the entrance and slipped inside. The hut was nicer than most around it, and it was made from sturdy hardwood carefully carved and squared off. The tree it stood on was also exceptionally impressive. It was stouter than those that surrounded it, with a straight trunk and a four-way split near the canopy, making it perfect for laying a large round home nestled in its branches. Though this tree home had only a single floor, it was several times larger than most of the others.

“My husband had this built before he died. He thought I should be in charge of the village, since I was the one with the title. He thought this would be a throne room or something...” Gwen sighed, but the melancholy expression vanished a moment later and was replaced by a smile. “Let me put some tea on for you to drink while I draw that map.”

At her insistence, Darren and Callum sat down and made themselves comfortable.

Callum hefted his mug of tea. “Well, it isn’t a feast in our honor, but I’m pleased someone is happy to have our help!”

“Yes.”

Callum tapped the side of his head. “I feel like there’s something I’m forgetting though...”

Darren was about to answer the person he was pretty sure Callum was forgetting, but their hostess reappeared with a large piece of parchment and two handfuls of ink bottles and quills. She looked like she was about to drop something, so Darren stood up to help.

“Oh, thank you, Sir Archpaladin!” Gwen smiled as Darren helped her carry her cumbersome load over to her writing desk nearby. “Normally, my daughter is here to assist me, but she’s out on a run to the local well. It’s a dangerous trip, but it’s been a while, and the rain barrels are nearly empty. Someone has to make the trip and bless her heart, my daughter always volunteers to go, noble title or not.”

She wiped a motherly tear from the corner of her eye, pride and concern at war on her face.

“She sounds like a strong girl,” Callum said.

“Oh, that she is! A little spitfire! She got this little knife for her birthday from one of the village boys. She said if bandits ever captured her fetching water, she’d skewer them first thing! And if that didn’t work, she’d skewer herself or bite off her tongue before they could drag the location of our village out of her.” Gwen wiped a tear from her eye that was halfway between concern and pride. “I’m just glad she was away from the village when the demon attacked. Knowing her, she would have gotten herself in trouble trying to rescue people...”

Darren froze for a moment. He checked on Gwen’s drawing, seeing how close to done she was. He realized he might need to excuse himself for a bit and was about to say as much when Gwen misinterpreted his look.

“Out of tea? You just sit right back down. I’ll pour you another cup.”

Darren and Callum sat in Gwen’s lobby drinking tea. Callum and Gwen chatted a bit, which suited Darren best since she seemed a bit less anxious talking to Callum.

Darren, meanwhile, was stretching his tendrils over the area, searching for someone. He found the person he was looking for, but not where he expected her to be. Gwen had every right to be proud of her daughter.

Unfortunately, their time with Gwen was likely to end when she returned home, so their time with Gwen was running short. It would be best to get all the information out of her that they could as quickly as they could.

“Most villages live in forests or mountain caves like us. We’ve broken off contact with the outside world, except for the princess’s settlement on the coast. I suppose you could say what little remains of Eastwood is playing dead. It will take generations for our population to recover, especially if we get more waves of demon attacks like the one that just happened.”

“There should be no further demon attacks soon,” Darren replied.

So long as his people could continue to contain most of the demons deep in the Seven Hells, they shouldn’t be able to muster any sizable force to attack the surface kingdoms like Eastwood.

“Well, that will be good to hear, but at this point, I won’t get my hopes up until I see it.” Gwen let out a sad laugh, frowning as she tried to get her line of the coast to match her other map.

Darren glanced out the window and saw the crowd was gathering. Most of them were on the younger side, most even younger than Gwen’s daughter.

Darren was fairly sure that wasn’t a coincidence. The elders in this village knew how powerful paladins could be, and so they were hiding in their homes, frightened and afraid. Only the ignorant teenagers accompanied Gwen’s daughter on this quest to chase these paladins everyone else was terrified of out of town.

They were lucky they hadn’t run into a real pair of paladins from the Order of the Rod. Even an ordinary pair of unaffiliated wandering Paladins might not take it easy on these frightened village folk.

Fortunately, Gwen was nearly finished with her map, which was something he thought he might need, considering how little he knew about the Eastwood Kingdom. He reached into his Inventory and withdrew his Cloak of the Mysterious Hero. This was about to get awkward.

“Darren?” Callum looked at him curiously.

With his cloak active, Darren was unnoticeable to anyone except those he allowed to see him. That meant Callum could still look at him fine, but to their hostess, it was like he’d vanished. She might have commented on his absence if not for the knock on the door that came a moment later.

“Mother! Mom! Are you alright?” A young woman said from the other side. The voice was the same as the woman Callum and Darren had run into earlier in the forest.

“You’re back! Goodness me, I was worried about you with the demon attack!” Gwen threw open the door, wrapping her daughter in a warm embrace.

“Mom, I heard from the others that you were kidnapped by a pair of paladins!” the young woman said, eyes glancing around the room. She soon laid eyes on Callum, though thanks to Darren’s cloak, he avoided her notice.

“Oh no, dear. Sir Callum here is one of the two paladins who saved the village from a demon attack.” Gwen cast Callum a beaming smile.

“No, mother! Quick, run away! He and his friend are bad men!” the young woman tugged at her mother’s sleeve. Then she turned over her shoulder and called out to all those who’d followed her to her mother’s home. “The evil, perverted paladins are in here!”

“Perverted?” Callum jumped to his feet. “Hold on, I think there’s been a terrible misunderstanding.”

“He’s probably like that other paladin who showed up last year!” a pimple-faced village boy shouted.

“Yeah, the one that insisted he could purify all the girls of their virginity in a sacred ritual of his!” another young woman scowled, face red as she bounced a rotting fruit in her palm.

There was more growling and grumbling, and the anger in the adolescent crowd was building. The young woman leading it all only added to the outrage as she led the mob into her home.

“He’s one of the two who tied me up and left me in a tree! Who knows what evil, perverted things they had in mind for me? They’re just lucky they got my hunting dagger, but they missed the spare I keep tucked in my boot!” The young woman held up a tiny thumb-sized knife. “Thanks to this thing, I could cut the ropes, climb down, and escape their evil machinations!”

“Daughter! That’s enough! These two men saved our village from certain destruction at the hands of a terrible demon!” Lady Gwen said as she stood between Callum and the increasingly irate mob. Her eyes were wide with fear as she glanced between her daughter and Callum. “Please! Don’t pick a fight with these men. Their power is not something you can resist!”

“Ha! They got the better of me once, but only barely! And even then, only because they got me by surprise!” The young woman huffed with her chin uptilted as she waved her little hidden knife. “I think Paladins aren’t as scary as you think, mother! If we work together, we can chase them out of the village before they cause trouble for us again!”

“Yeah!” the teenagers cheered, a few hefting kitchen knives and others wielding torches. The young woman leading them stepped forward and the angry mob advanced to follow her.

Darren took a quiet step away from Callum’s side as the crowd eyed him.

“Darren!” Callum cast him a pleading look for help, but to everyone else, it looked like he was just talking to the empty air.

“Better run,” Darren suggested, just as a few crowd members started pulling out more rotting fruit from their pockets.

“There’s no need for that, everyone!” Gwen held up her hands and desperation in her voice. She cast one last pleading glance back at Callum even as she tried to talk her daughter and her friends down. “Please, the paladins will leave after I finish speaking with them. Everything is under control. You should return home to your families. I’m sure they’re all worried sick about you.”

“We need to toss this evil, perverted paladin out of town before he does heavens know what!” Gwen’s daughter shouted.

“Yeah! Get out of town, paladin!” the pimple-faced boy added.

“Daughter! This man and his comrade slew a powerful demon! Didn’t you see the knocked-over trees?” Gwen insisted.

“They probably brought the demon in themselves and killed it to win our support! We’ve been fooled by the Order of the Rod and other paladins before. The last three times we were attacked by demons, were they here to save us? I think it’s awfully suspicious that two supposedly powerful paladins are showing up now! They’re here to swindle you, Lady Gwen!” The pimple-faced boy pointed his finger at Callum in accusation.

Gwen tried to talk sense to the irate teenagers a little further, but it was no use. Their fury was building to a breaking point. Eventually, someone broke, and Callum was struck by a rotting tomato.

“I spent half the day helping you people!” Callum protested. A moment later, a rotting tomato hit him in the face.

Callum wiped his eyes clear, only to have another fruit thrown at him again. His battle-honed instincts had his spear in his hand before even he knew it, and the villagers stopped throwing fruit at him for a moment.

They eyed one another, curious who would be the first to renew the assault in the face of a man wielding a weapon of war. But Callum took a deep breath and put his weapon away.

“If you all want me gone, then fine. Consider me gone.” Callum let his hands fall to his side. A moment later, another rotting tomato struck him in the face.

“See that? He’s afraid of us! Get out of here, Order of the Rod scum! Quit taking advantage of Lady Gwen!” shouted the pimple-faced boy.

Callum waved his hand, smacking a flying tomato out of the air. Rather than shoulder aside the crowd to leave through the door, Callum opened the shutters on the nearby window and squeezed through. He wasn’t as nimble here as he was with Turiel’s windows, and his shoulders ended up snapping one of the shutters.

“He’s trying to wreck Lady Gwen’s home! Don’t you think you’ve caused enough property damage during your stay here, Paladin scum? You already made a demon attack our trees! You know how much work it’s going to be to relocate those buildings?”

“Screw you all!” Callum huffed as he took flight and hovered just outside the tree house. “Just remember, a real member of the Order of the Rod would probably have killed a few of you! Don’t think you can pull this against another paladin!”

“Finally, now we can hit him without messing up Lady Gwen’s furniture! Have at him!” the pimple-faced boy shouted, and dozens of rotting fruit went flying in Callum’s direction. He flew off, and the villagers practically chased him out of town. He didn’t stop until their voices went quiet, and the settlement was far behind him.

“Well... that sucked....” Callum sighed as he wiped rotting fruit out of his hair and took off his armor to clean it. “After all, we went through to save those people from that Demon Lord...”

Darren appeared beside him, moving faster than eyes could follow. He sat down on the same boulder Callum had seated himself, though Darren was perfectly clean.

Darren gave Callum a pat on the shoulder. “Not all quests go rewarded, and yet we complete them all the same.”

Callum gave Darren’s perfectly clean appearance a dry look. “How come I’m the only one who got pelted with rotting fruit?”

“There are many reasons to improve your skills. That is one of them.”

Callum stared at Darren, and Darren stared back at him.

Eventually, Callum broke first and cracked a smile, which soon turned into a belly-clutching laugh.

“Heavens above, what a pair we make! These adventures of ours always end in chaos, don’t they?”

“But we still completed our quest in the end.”

“Aye, that we did, Darren.” Callum pulled his armor off, tossing it aside as he cleaned himself up. Darren got the rotting fruit off his equipment by pulling it all into his Inventory and then taking it back out again with the debris removed.

“Feeling better?” Darren asked as Callum put his clean armor back on.

“Much.” Callum sighed in contentment. “Tell you what, Darren. Let’s make a deal. If you don’t tell Turiel about me getting chased off by a bunch of teenagers armed with rotting fruit, I won’t tell Cassandra, Morgana, Sasha, and Asuriel about you getting chased around by an old woman with a dildo.”

“She was a cult leader, and it was a weapon of incredible unholy power.”

“It was a dildo, Darren!”

<note></note>

Will Callum turn Darren in and tell Cassandra, Morgana, Sasha, and Asuriel that he was chased around by an old woman with a dildo? Or will Darren reveal that Callum was chased out of town by a bunch of teenagers convinced he was a pervert? Find out next time!