The Foolhardies 26 The Replacements

With the help of Zarz, we emptied our jar of mana into twenty-five small vials equivalent to a minor mana potion each. And with these mana potions in hand, the group made our way along the main cobbled street until we arrived at our intended destination.

The red-stone edifice of the five-story building before us styled in the city's standard dwarven design might not have been the biggest of the dwellings we'd seen in Broken Sellsword's Canyon but it was certainly a contender for the busiest and rowdiest.

A myriad of banners and flags representing dozens of companies and clans who did business here were planted on the grounds surrounding this portion of the canyon wall. Both fairies and humans were loitering about as well. Some looked undecided about entering the building while others joked around and pushed each other forward in eagerness.

"Well, we're here... if you're looking for fools to join you and your foolhardy band, this would be it," Zarz raised a hand to the building facade. "This here is the mercenary's hall of Soldier's Peak."

"You realize that you joined us too, right?" Luca reminded him.

"I'm an active non-combatant," Zarz reasoned.

"What makes you think Dean won't put you in danger either way?" Varda piped in.

"He'll likely be the first of the new recruits to die," Edo agreed.

"W-w-what?!" Zarz sputtered.

"Alright, alright... stop scaring our recruit," I patted Zarz on the back as I walked past him. "He'll survive... probably."

The others followed my lead and gave Zarz pats on the back as they passed him.

I glanced back and saw Zarz hesitating as he looked at our backs. "Master Mildew... what did I get myself into?" Then he too followed us as we entered the square entrance of Soldier's Peak.

Soldier's Peak was exactly what I imagined it would be, a wide spacious interior with wooden floors and a high ceiling. There were wooden stairs in one corner that led to a second floor which was lost in the gloom. A white board, covering the length of the entire eastern wall, was nearly full with parchments ranging from announcements to different job recruitments. Wooden tables and a variety of benches, chairs, and divans were scattered near the entrance. Several booths and platforms like the ones you'd find in a job fair on Mudgard were set up in disordered rows on the other side of the tables all the way to the far wall. On the left side of the hall stood a long wooden counter that was half bar and half reception.

Much like a fair, the hall was full of people going about their business, from lounging in the comfy chairs to exploring the recruitment booths to looking over the announcements on the bulletin board. Rowdy males and females from every race clinked on bottles of alcohol, the universal language of camaraderie no matter what world you were in.

"Now, this is my kind of place," Edo whistled.

"Go have a look around then," I grinned while patting him on his arm which is about as high as I could go without jumping. "Aura and I will register."

While Edo, Luca, Varda, and Zarz went to tour the hall, Aura and I made our way to the reception to register our unit's intent to find recruits with the hall's help. I easily accomplished this with a form and five golden Leprechauns.

When we were done registering, a gnome receptionist led me and Aura to the only free space in the hall for recruiters. This was a spot close to the wall at the far end. The rest of the team joined us here and we began our preparations for the task ahead.

Varda used her dwarven talent to create two signboards for us. These were 'Join the unit that defeated Azuma in the Calmlands' and 'Special signing bonus for the first twenty-five recruits'.

"I feel like this will attract the wrong sort," Luca commented.

I shook my head. "Nope. I think it'll attract the right sort."

"The crazies and the reckless?" Varda suggested. "The kind of reprobates who'd follow your crazy plans?"

I nodded. "Exactly... let's get started!"

The plan was simple, attract people with flashy signboards and speeches while wearing the new equipment we purchased from the Rings of Fortune Auction House. We easily cleared this requirement as both Aura and Varda were beauties who could gather a crowd together by a mere batting of eyelashes. Even with Aura's mask on, her honeyed voice as she called to passerby was enough to get them interested.

"Come one come all and join the heroes of the hilltop who defeated the unkillable Azuma!" Varda called. "Meet Dean, the first human commander to end the rampage of the monster of the Magesong clan!"

"Fight alongside us, and win honor and glory for yourselves," Aura added.

A crowd had encircled our booth, and when it had grown enough to cause a ruckus in the hall, Aura passed me the baton. It was now time for the speech I'd prepared.

"Friends, lend me your ears!" I called.

The few humans who understood snickered, but my joke dumbfounded the rest. And I realized I sucked at beginning my speeches.

"We are the Foolhardies, a unit serving directly under Great General Darah of the Trickster Pavilion," I said, a little louder.

The name of Darah really held great weight because many of the mercenaries and would-be soldiers perked up at hearing me mention her.

"And we're looking for warriors!" I roared. "The very best of the best to join us in our fight to become heroes of the Fayne!"

I expected a cheer of 'aye' but got a few nods at best. The rest seemed unmoved.

"Bring back the girls!" One called, and the rest laughed.

I glanced over at Aura who met my eyes and gestured for me to keep it up. Luca, standing beside her, refused to look me in the eyes, and I could tell I embarrassed him.

I turned back to the crowd. "Are you looking for an easy life, is that it?"

I glanced at the human who'd made that joke and made him cringe away with my best steel-eyed glare.

"Or would you rather stand alongside a group of elites who can face off hundreds without fear," I pointed to the sign that mentioned Azuma. "Do you want to claim glory with us?"

The mood was finally starting to turn in my favor. It was now time to seal the deal.

"Plus," I raised my hand. "We're giving away lesser mana potions to the first soldiers who sign up with us!"

The cheering was as expected, and the line that followed snaked all the way to the front of the hall, earning my team a few angry glares from the recruiters beside us. And now we had a new problem. There were too many people trying to join us when we only needed to fill the seventy-seven free slots. So we had to conduct a rigorous interview for each potential recruit.

As we didn't have enough mana potions for all these people, I decided that we should give them a cask of fairy spirits instead as a bonus so I sent Luca out with Zarz to buy some from the marketplace.

There were a few noteworthy mentions among the list of recruits.

There was a bashful troll named Shaqs who walked up to Edo and bowed his head after calling him master. Apparently, Shaqs, who was bigger than Edo with twice his girth, saw his fight with the shieldmaiden and was so impressed with him that he wanted to learn from, "the toughest warrior in the Fayne," or so he claimed.

An elven healer named Berrian Berrygrove was one of our first sign-ups for the chance to grab a free mana potion. This was fortunate for us as we needed a healer in our unit and he claimed to know a spell that could heal more than a single person.

A male salamander magician named Donar Firemonger who was obsessed with fire magic struck a conversation with me and signed up with us after I told him about napalm and dynamite and other explosives from Mudgard.

Perhaps my favorite among the new recruits was Alfie Monroe, a human visere who had accidentally found himself in the Fayne after a beautiful elf had hoodwinked him into a contract. Apparently, this elf was the same one I killed on the hilltop, freeing Alfie from their contract. But as visere contracts don't end even with the death of the contractor, it was necessary for Alfie to find another patron in the Fayne which Varda was happy to become after we learned that Alfie was a chef on Mudgard and it was his food that caught the interest of the she-elf commander who tricked him.

After we'd handed out the last of the mana potions, the number of potential recruits dwindled, and the promise of quality alcohol didn't last very long as it never arrived. Thus we enlisted only thirty-five new soldiers rather than the seventy-seven we originally wanted.

Luca and Zarz hadn't returned since I sent them out to get the alcohol and this had me worried. So Aura and I left Edo and Varda to finish our business at Soldier's Peak while she and I went to search for them. We hadn't gone very far when we found Zarz in a sidestreet just off the main cobbled street a few yards past Soldier's Peak.

When we knelt to inspect him we discovered that he was bleeding from a cut on his shoulder and unconscious from the blow to his head represented by the bump forming on it.

Aura roused him awake with the heat from the red orb of her Hearthwood staff.

"Drow!" Zarz yelled as he awoke. "Drows took Luca!"

My eyes darted left and right, agitation growing inside me as I searched. They had taken Luca. That thought raced through my head while I surveyed our surroundings. But it was when I looked up and saw that the sky had lightened that I began to curse myself for not realizing that the night was nearly over. Dawn was coming and the sun would force me to return to Mudgard despite my missing brother.

"Aura, listen to me..." I whispered urgently to her as I grasped her shoulders with both hands. "As soon as I'm gone, take Zarz with you back to Edo. You guys need to see Kallista and get information on the drow we encountered outside the city. Get Ashley—"

I never got to finish my instructions to her because I saw the alarm on her face while she stared behind me, and I was a second too late when I turned around. I felt the heavy blow of something hard crack against my skull, and I blacked out hearing Aura scream my name.

Chapter end