Chapter Text
Grevesh stood outside an old, squat stone building and pulled a folded parchment out of his belt pouch. It read:
Thank you for doing this. If you need me for anything, ever, you just need to ask.
Salia
Below Salia's signature was a list of eight names. Four were already crossed off. Grevesh pulled a small charcoal stick from the same pouch and entered the building.
The small village he was visiting, Groppe, was mostly a hub for the farms in the surrounding area. With fewer than five hundred people, the only real landmarks of note were the central market, a small horse-racing track, and this building, a mixed-denominational temple to various deities of weather, trade, and the hearth. Because of this, it also housed a small orphanage, which was why Grevesh was there.
Two adults, a priest and priestess in different vestments, and a dozen or so children of various ages, looked up as Grevesh ducked through the low stone doorway. They were, naturally, a tad nervous -- Grevesh was taller and broader than either adult by a significant margin, and was also armed and armored. The priestess asked, "Excuse me, are you looking for something?"
"Yes," Grevesh replied to her, then he turned towards the children. "Which of you have seen me before?" Two timid hands, attached to a pair of boys around eight, slowly went up. Grevesh looked over at the priestess, who was now even more concerned, and asked "Were those children brought here about a week ago? By someone who donated some money?"
"Well, yes," the priestess confessed, "by three young men who said they were abandoned in Chendrok. Why, is there a problem?"
Grevesh replied, "No, that's all true. I just needed to make sure." He handed the note and the charcoal over. "Cross off their names, please? I don't know them." As the increasingly bewildered priestess drew a thick black line through two more names, Grevesh surveyed the room, then followed up with, "Are the children sleeping well? How are the blankets?"
"We're actually set for blankets --"
"The beds, then. Are they in good shape?"
"Well, one or two of them could use repairs, but it's nothing --"
Grevesh pulled out a small, but deceptively heavy, cloth bag and put it in the priestess's hand. It clinked softly. Then he said, "Get the beds repaired, or replaced. Use the rest for food, firewood, whatever." In the silence that followed, he plucked the list and charcoal back from the priestess's other hand, and ducked out the way he came.
Back in the sunlight, Grevesh looked over the list briefly before tucking it away. Six of the eight children had been accounted for. So far, Flen's mysterious shadow bosses had kept their word, both to the letter and to the spirit. There were a few more places he could look for the last two children, but they were both through Chendrok and out the other side. It wasn't that Grevesh was afraid to return to Chendrok -- he wasn't planning on hanging around in any dark alleys or spending the night, so the local criminal gang that he'd run into before was unlikely to try anything. But he wasn't sure if it'd be unnecessarily confrontational. Would it be bragging? Or taunting? Would the twenty-or-so remaining members make a point of rushing him in full daylight, just to make a point about who was in charge?
Maybe just cutting through wouldn't be so bad. A hot meal and a beer at the Black Briar Boar would be a pleasant change of pace from the two weeks of trail rations and canteen water in his backpack for his extended trip. He'd be through town in under an hour.
Almost subconsciously, he shifted his shoulders in his armor, and reached around to make sure his steel warhammer was ready.