Dawn of the Last Dragon Rider - Chapter 031 - The Reason to Bet It All (Patreon)

“You are killing me, Kaen,” Hess grumbled as they walked down the street they had come into the main city on. “Why are you waiting to tell me what you are thinking and why you did that to Fiola?!”

Kaen glanced around and shook his head no.

“Until we are in our room and with Sulenda, I am not sure that no one is following or listening,” Kaen stated as he smiled at Hess.  “Something just came to me, and I went with it.”

Hess groaned but gave up trying to get Kaen to talk.  He knew Kaen was right and was impressed that Kaen had considered that someone might be spying on them.

The trip back had gone quickly as Kaen had set a fast pace.  He only got confused a few times on the direction to go, and Hess had been more than willing to help him figure out where he had turned wrong.

When they entered the inn, Beatrice saw them and cheered.

“So Kaen, what is the news? We are dying to hear!”

Kaen and Hess noticed there were more people in the inn than either had expected.  The betting and amount of interest in Kaen’s placement were far beyond anything the town had seen in years.

“I wish I had an answer, but after meeting with the guild master and her learning of my deeds and accomplishments, she has decided to think about it and let me know tomorrow what I will do,” Kaen answered loudly.

A groan echoed across the inn from many people waiting for an update and perhaps considering how they might want to bet.

“Fear not though, Miss. Beatrice,” Kaen continued as he walked toward the bar across the room and continued speaking loudly, “I have no plans on anything lower than bronze.”

Gasps were heard across the inn, and a few people cursed, obviously ones who had bet on a lower rank for him.

“Is Selunda in Eltina? We need to talk to her.”

Eltina was at the bar and glancing at him with a peculiar look.

“She is in the office.  I should check and see if she is ready for you,” she informed Kaen as she jumped down from her box behind the bar.

“No worries, she wanted to see me first thing when I got back, she said,” Kaen declared as he winked at her.  He motioned for Hess to keep following him as Hess stopped a few feet inside the door.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Sulenda shouted as Kaen entered her office without even knocking.  “I don’t know what game you think you are playing or what Hess has told you to do, but you best not think I will tolerate you disrespecting me in my own place just because I got sentimental last night.”

Kaen laughed and nodded.  It caught Sulenda off guard.

“Hess, go sit in the chair so the three of us can talk.  I have a plan to set the two of you up for life.”

Hess’s eyes went wide as he shut the door behind himself and looked at Sulenda.  He saw the rage in her eyes but also the curiosity about what was happening.

“I’m sorry, Sulenda,” Hess said as he moved to a chair, “I have no idea what the boy is talking about, but you should have seen him back Fiola into a corner in a way I have never seen anyone do in a long time.”

Sulenda’s eyes brows raised as she looked at Kaen, who was standing and smiling as if he had just won a competition against the best in the world.

Shifting the glass on her desk, Sulenda had yet to take a drink since Kaen started telling her what had happened.  He had made her swear to secrecy on her lifestone.  She had only done it after Hess had told her to.

“So what option will you choose?” she asked as she stared at her glass.

Kaen smiled, leaned forward in the chair, and pointed at both her and Hess.

“You two get to decide,” he teased.  “As I listened to her talk, I knew she must have a reason for that third option.  I realized that she wanted to see my stats.  There has to be something really important about it because no one, and we all know no one, ever asks for that.  That means it must have a reason to do with my Dad.”

Hess glanced at Sulenda and nodded.  He had realized the same thing but could not interfere in their discussion.

“Your dad never shared his stats with me,” Hess informed Kaen, “but I knew he was much more powerful than I ever was.  I was not sure if it was all items he owned or what, but he could defeat every one of his rank outside of a few mages with exceptional control spells.”

Kaen nodded and tapped his chest.

“Do lifestones work differently for each race or bloodline?  Are there perks for nobles who keep them for generations or what?”

Hess leaned back in his chair and shrugged.

“I wouldn’t know.  That is outside of my knowledge.  There have been lots of rumors over the years, but I think you would need to find someone high up in a king’s court or in the guild who might have any actual knowledge about such things.”

Sulenda stopped playing with her glass and looked at Hess.

“Children of adventurers are often stronger, though,” she mumbled. “The longer the line of adventurers, it is rumored, the stronger they can become.”

“There haven’t been that many traceable lines of adventurers in hundreds of years,” Hess argued.  “Most die out, and very few ever marry another adventurer.”

The moment those words came out of his mouth, he knew it was a mistake.  Selunda growled as she leaned back in her chair.

“No. No, they do not,” she declared with an air of anger.

Hess sighed and shook his head.

“That isn’t what I meant,” Hess groaned.

“What you mean and what you said doesn’t matter,” snapped Sulenda.  “It is the truth.”

Kaen sighed.

“Would you two please stop fighting for a moment? You cannot change the past, but you can hopefully help us all enjoy the future.”

Sulenda stared at Kaen.  Her eyes finally softened, and she nodded.

“Why do you ask these questions, Kaen?  You know who your mother was even if she died earlier in your childhood.  I do not believe she was an adventurer.”

Kaen looked at Hess, and Hess saw the question in his eyes.

“I do not know if she was, but she did have a lifestone.  You and I both know that.”

Kaen nodded and smiled.

“I know, but I’ll forget this train of questions for another day.  For now, we need to focus on tomorrow and what we really need to decide.”

Kaen walked over to the desk and picked up a piece of paper from the neat stack on the corner of the desk.

“Can I borrow a pen?”

Sulenda opened her drawer, pulled one out, and handed it to Kaen.

Kaen smiled and started drawing columns and rows like the one on the chalkboard on the door.

“Ok, now pay attention because I think we can use Fiola’s desire to know my stats to set us all up for a long time.”

Kaen pointed to the column he had made and the ranks he had written down.

“We all know I won’t be wood, copper, or even bronze.  So everyone who bet on those will lose their money.  That means we can focus on how many bet on iron.”

Kaen glanced at Sulenda and noticed that Hess and Kaen were both looking at her now.

Chuckling, she pulled a small box out of a drawer in her desk.  It looked plain but had no opening.  Taking the quill on her desk, she pricked her finger and put the now bloody finger on the edge of the box.  Suddenly the side closest to her popped out, and she pulled a small piece of paper from it.

“That is pretty cool,” Kaen mumbled in adoration.

Sulenda laughed and smiled.

“Always protect the secret you must.”

She read the paper a few times, and Kaen saw the smile get bigger as she moved down it.

“Right now, only a handful of people have bet on iron.  Less than maybe three percent,” Sulenda stated as she ticked the fingers on her other hand, doing math in her head.  “We stand to make a fair amount of money off the current bets, knowing that none of them will win now.”

Kaen laughed and pointed to the silver square.

“If we wait until tomorrow and we announce that I choose to attempt the harder test, everyone who has lost would know it.  They would then have another chance to bet on what rank they think I will become!  If you two were honest and you had to choose between me being iron rank or silver rank, which one would you bet on?”

Hess groaned and rubbed his chin for a moment while Sulenda smiled and spoke first.

“Iron.  I would never bet on silver because it is impossible.  Even knowing what I know now about you, I would still be iron. I cannot begin to believe you or anyone else can pass a test worthy of starting at silver rank.”

Kaen nodded and looked at Hess, who was still struggling with his decision.

“Blast you, boy!” Hess lamented. “I want to say silver, but she is right!  I would not wager on you getting silver, and I’m your bloody trainer.”

Kaen laughed and waved both of them off.

“What if I could guarantee that I became silver?”

“That isn’t possible,” Hess argued.  “No one knows what the test will be.  We both remember what it takes to be silver, which is not easy at all.”

Kaen shrugged and never let his grin leave his face.

“You are forgetting something, though.  One of the finer details of my agreement with Fiola.  I can take the test with any gear I want.  So what if we help me out a little by outfitting me with a few more items?”

“That's cheating!” Sulenda practically shouted as she stood from her seat and smacked her desk.  “You would cheat for your adventurer rank?”

Kaen scoffed and held Sulenda’s glare.

“What makes it cheating?  Why should I get to take a special test when others are not allowed to?  Why should I have an opportunity no one else gets?  Just because of who my dad was?  Or just because of the goblins and orcs I killed?”

Sulenda started to speak but held her tongue.  She knew Kaen was right about that.  She was already upset that he was being given the opportunity to even try for a silver rank from the start.  She had worked hard and long to earn hers, and this young boy now had the chance to pass years of all this work without that toil.

“Even if we gave you gear that helped you, how can I be certain it is worth the risk?  I already stand to make a large sum of money off of your current bets.  I could call it quits and walk away.  After what you said earlier, I am sure there will be even more betting tonight.”

Kaen nodded and smiled.

“What if I share just one of my stats and skills with you?”

Hess scraped his chair back and gasped.

“Kaen, think about what you are saying!”

Kaen held up his hand toward Hess and kept his eyes on Sulenda.

“I am.  I am saying I trust Sulenda more with the knowledge of who I am and what I am capable of than the woman who is our guild master.  I trust her because my father and you both trusted her.  As such, I believe she has earned this from me.”

Sulenda’s knees felt weak, and she staggered for a second and was thankful for the desk to lean against.  Kaen trusts her that much?  There was no one she trusted enough to share her stats with.  Not even one of her employees she had known all these years.

“Why? Why would you risk that?”

“I already told you.  My dad trusted you, and my dad’s request of Hess cost you greatly.  If we do this right, I can at least help ensure you are financially stable for a long time.”

Kaen turned and smiled at Hess.

“I can also help make sure that Hess is compensated for raising me.  What either of you do with the money you make from all of this is up to you.  I just want to repay both of you for what you have done.”

Sulenda reached back, finally found her chair, plopped into it, and stared at Hess in disbelief.

“He is just like his father,” she whispered.

Hess groaned and nodded.

“And I have had to live with him for all these years.”