I spent a little over an hour chatting with Benjamin and found a lot of fun things that will be useful in the near and long future. The issues ranged from why he was in Vania's group and planting his three guards and the answer was extremely simple and it was no surprise to whoever he was after Vania his family had tasked him with the mission of uniting the families by marrying Vania.
As I suspected Vania has an important position in the Yates family, she is not directly linked by blood to the current patriarch but because she stood out in her generation and ended up drawing the patriarch's attention and she is now a candidate to become the family matriarch Yates, but that would only happen a few decades from now, but that was enough for Benjamin's family to make a move on her.
I was really overwhelmed by his courting strategy. This guy has a real personality problem he doesn't understand how the world works instead of talking, calling out and wooing the normal way for the nobles he decided to join Vania's group and incognito and constantly replace the members of the group by people loyal to him and then declaring his love for Vania and if she refused he would be more direct.
I don't understand how he thought this would work I saw how Vania treated him and he didn't have a chance so I ended up saving Vania's life, but of course I have no intention of proclaiming myself her savior but leave it to Rafaela because along with the thanks also comes the hatred of the family of Benjamin.
I'm calm that being the indirect helper has less chance of being targeted I already have problems with the Vernos family and I don't want to be the cause of forming a club of nobles that aims to destroy me or use my downfall to get favors from a noble family .
But leaving it behind I discovered a few more interesting things like the name and location of some black markets that can be very useful for me to get rid of or buy rare materials and hire mercenaries who have a wider range of services .
And finally I found out what he took from the mutilated purchase of the leader of the bandits was a type of brooch that bears the symbol of a criminal organization that extends not only through the kingdom we live in but throughout the continent. The brooch is the simplest of this organization. serves as a business card and used by members who have the potential to be part of the organization.
Now I partially understand the desire to keep and hide the brooch he found it is really valuable not to people like Hilda and Rafaela, but to mine and Raziel and quite useful.
But before making any decision that can't be turned around, I need to get more information in the best scenario I can develop and use a false identity to be part of the shadow society to decrease the chances of me getting paid off with a criminal group, and I assume that if i have to tag myself or register my real identity i'll refuse i don't doubt i have several advantages to entering the shadow society but i feel that with my luck i'll end up being exposed as a criminal.
The problem now is how to invent an excuse to keep the brooch because when Rafaela and the others discover the function of this brooch I believe suggestions like destroying it, handing it over to the guild for a reward and shoving it up Benjamin's throat and killing it. suffocated it will appear and that last suggestion would come from Rafaela.
As I pondered my options I was approached by Hilda and Rafaela.
"You're done interrogating the idiot we've wasted too much time here and I want to kill him."
A Benjamin who was immobilized and with a rope in his mouth began to squirm for fear of Rafaela.
"Looks like you 're done with him Ulric so you can give him to sister Rafaela so we can go home soon I really want this trip to end."
"I'm happy to report that I've finished my interrogation, but before Rafaela kills this idiot I want to present our options. First of all the item he hid is not valuable in the sense of an item to sell, but we can use it in two ways and you won't ask me for its use and I buy from you and when I say buy I mean pay fifty coins of gold for every member of the team and we kill Benjamin here now."
"I liked the last part but the first one I'm curious to know what you got there ."
"The second one and I count what he recovered from the bandit's body but that means we're going to deliver this item to the guild I don't know how much gain for doing this and on the point of killing Benjamin it can be the same as the previous option or we keep he lives and we deliver him together to the guild as a freebie item to get another dough and with that we'll end up insulting his family ."
"So which option do you want to choose?"
"We have to talk to the rest in order to take a vote. We're back Ulric."
Rafaela and Hilda went to talk to the rest of the group while I was taking care of Benjamin tied up I spent my time poking the idiot with my hunting knife and he was struggling. After a few minutes Rafaela returned with the group's response.
"Unfortunately the vote was enough to pulp Benjamin's life and deliver him with the item he stole to the Torris guild and David will be responsible for that as the Yates will be hostile to the Chartreux family so if they turn him over to the guild there's no way we're going to get involved and that's only if Benjamin is executed by the guild."
"That's annoying for me I wanted to kill him here because I can't be sure he's going to die if he ends up going back to his family then he'll want revenge on us."
"So I can kill him?!"
"Perhaps."
I walk to the group that had gathered to vote.
"And the next Benjamin got this brooch he perishes to a criminal organization and we can accuse Benjamin of wanting to join them and turn them both over to the guild and hope for a reward, but it's obvious to all of you that Benjamin's life might not end. to be handed over to the guild and he goes back to his family so who wants to let Rafaela kill him?"
The group's new consensus was to kill Benjamin and accuse him of trying to hide the shadow society brooch. Hope to get something from the guild.
Rafaela had fun killing Benjamin she took out all her anger on Benjamin's corpse at the end of her catharsis the body was spread out and separated in different directions by a large aria. After Rafaela cleaned up we made our way home again.
Our convoy has changed a bit we have fewer people more horses that are carrying our trophies what I call the trophy and the bandits equipment and Benjamin and his minions and the bandits heads maybe they have a reward that we can get from the guild.
I got some weird looks from David and Isis I think they figured I wanted to keep the brooch and they're suspicious now. That's natural they've just been betrayed by their group mates and I'm a stranger who might be interested in wearing the shadow society brooch, but I don't worry too much about it because I can defend myself simply by saying I want the reward. from the guild just for me and try to use it to increase my rank in the guild.
The rest of the trip was more peaceful we were only tackled by some magical animals on our way they are interested in killing our extra horses. The rest of the time I had to put up with the depressed mood from the rest of Vania's group and Blue's interruptions and bite attempts when I try to talk to Hilda.
But in that time I found out the name of Ingredi's mount and it's called Soft and so I realized that neither one of them is very good at naming their partners. Ingredi defended herself by saying that they were five years old when they named the weasel chicks and if I provoked them because of their partner's names I would be ambushed by sisters Blue and Soft.
As I'm not suicidal I won't play with it especially when I was warned the two weasels were already showing their teeth to me. I'm really not their favorite person.
Will I have a hard time finding a good mount for me. After a few days we finally got home and now I hope to get some money because just thinking about the price I will have to spend to get a decent mount . Moments like this I feel like I'm very poor even after spending several hundred gold coins.
After we entered the city we went straight to the adventurers' guild to deliver the mission report , heads and brooch. I'm curious to find out what I'm going to gain at the end of this long and lucrative journey, and I'm referring to my plan to rob the Yates family.