CH152

“Uh, what’s going on here?” Thera asked as she and the other two women returned in the evening to find seemingly the entirety of the village’s young children in the yard and tugging at Ben, with Delair being the most demanding of his attention.

“Remember all those toys I made last night? Well, I gave them to Delair and told her to share them with her friends, and when they came to say thanks they just stuck around after.”

With the kids came their mothers, each less than willing to let outsiders have unsupervised access to the village youth, even if Fontesh was around. More positive though was the fact that a few of them had heard about his enchanting for the others. Even if they weren’t willing to trust him, they’d brought some of the more portable items they’d had to be improved on, giving Ben something to do aside from just trying to entertain a bunch of kids.

When Delair saw them all return, she quickly ran to Thera, proudly pointing to a new necklace she hadn’t worn before.

“Can I see now?” The child asked, filled with curiosity.

“Um, later when there’s less people around, everyone needs to wear one after all.”

“Alright, promise?”

“Sure I promise,” She’d been hoping the young girl would have forgotten, but if she had to entertain her later for a bit it wasn’t the biggest deal. “Did you make any extras Ben? It seems like we’re going to be watched a bit while we deal with this and I’d rather not affect any bystanders.”

“I made two more to be safe and can make more if need be.”

“Hopefully that’s enough. How did the rest of the day go? It doesn’t look like you ended up doing any repairs to the house,” That wasn’t to mention the mysterious stone pot he had boiling, as well as whatever machine Skoe was twisting off to the side while looking exhausted, but she chose to ignore those, even if Sachel and Ralia went to check on their teammate.

Ben made a face at the question. “The village had none of the things I needed, so not only did I have to make some tools, but also the tools to make tools without any of the things I’m used to. I’m basically living in the stone age trying to get everything I want to done, I’d kill for a bit of metal to work with.”

“Then were you able to get everything you need?”

“Mostly I think. I’ll be able to make enough oil and tar to treat all of the houses, but I won’t be surprised if anything else comes up. I’ll also be borrowing Skoe to act as my seed-grinder for… well whenever I need him, but I’ll talk to Sachel about that later. How about you, think you’ll be able to manage with them?”

“We’ll see, I haven’t seen a frost bat before, but I’m fairly sure that we’ll be able to draw them out, I’m just not sure how hunting will go. I can’t use any earth magic without risking damaging the forest.”

“You’ve done some hunting with them before I showed up, right? Think they’ll be able to deal with them?”

“Probably? Since it sounds like they’re most active during the evening and night we decided to come back to eat and see if you had the amulets ready and then head back out.”

“Cool, in that case maybe I’ll come watch. It would be nice if I could make use of the bodies if there were no other plans for them.”

They chatted some more about everything that needed to be done until Fontesh called for dinner. The various children hanging around went home with their mothers while the rest of them went in to eat. It was a simple meal made up of many of the vegetables in the garden, but since they were all varieties Ben hadn’t previously tried it was a nice change.

Thera couldn’t relax for the meal though, the curious pair of eyes that seemed to want to bore into her soul didn’t leave her as they ate, and once they were done Delair finally asked.

“Can I see now?”

“Alright, as long as everyone puts on their amulets I guess let’s get this over with.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Hmm? What’s going on?” Sachel, questioned, not having been around for the younger dryad’s previous questions about Thera.

“She wanted to know what Thera looked like under her hood,” He explained as he handed out resistance amulets to each of them. “I assume you all know how to channel a bit of your mana through a magic tool?”

Everyone gave a nod as they put them on and eagerly waited to see what she looked like. Sachel’s group was especially curious. Along with the more negative rumours that would go around about her in Stonewall, there was also a curiosity as well about the mysterious and dangerous girl that had an unusual passive magic.