The morning sky was gray and a slight dampened the ground outside. A thin film of condensation formed over the ground floor windows of the only inn Landis Town had. Raed sat at a table closest to the window, having gotten up early after a restful sleep. He sipped on a mug of rye ale while he waited.
When Leif arrived twenty minutes later, he half-tripped half-stumbled down the final steps. Several holes dotted his tan cloth shirt. Even his tough denim trousers were torn in some places. A leaf fell out of his oily yellow hair.
"You look horrible," Raed commented upon seeing Leif's appearance.
The blacksmith apprentice plopped his tired body on the chair across from Raed. The alchemist offered him a mug of rye ale, and Leif declined. Shrugging it off, Raed reclaimed the drink.
"What happened to you? It looks like you climbed in a ditch," Raed said.
Leif made a bitter frown. "I ran away. I hid in a hole in the ground until they left."
"That would explain the holes in your clothes. Did you even bathe between now and then?"
"I couldn't do anything," Leif muttered, anger and frustration seeping into the tone.
Raed took that as a 'No' to taking a bath. He sniffed the air, expecting the worst. What he got was a bitter grain smell mixed with alcohol on his side of the table, and some hints of smoke and dirt on Leif's side.
"What did you expect?" Raed said after taking another sip of ale.
"I promised Tiryui that I'd be back for her and her son. Now Chaibi's dead."
"Can't say that I'm surprised. Well, not true. I'm surprised they even lasted more than a day on their own."
"He was just a kid," Leif said.
"And he's dead. So sad, I know. Moving on now. I'm starting to doubt those two were at all relevant to my quests."
A disgusted look came over Leif's visage. "Is that all they were to you? Objectives to complete?" His hands were trembling and he could not sit still in the wooden chair.
"Well they're not even those anymore," came a cruel retort from Raed.
"What's wrong with you Raed? We told them we'd help them!" Leif was gnashing his teeth at that point.
Raed took another swig of his morning ale with little regard for Leif's complaints. He set it down, watching the foam bubbles pop. "No, you decided to do that. I was all for leaving them on their own."
"I could have been killed by bandits!"
"Again, your own decision. You could've kept following me." Raed finished his second mug of ale. He ran his eyes over Leif's tattered shirt and the fragments of twigs and leaves in his hair. "From the looks of it I had a much better time than you."
"They would've both died if no one helped them!"
"It doesn't sound like you made a difference anyway. Besides, people die all the time. I don't see why demons should be any different."
"You don't feel bad at all!"
Raed tried to hold back the growing annoyance he had toward Leif. "Why would I? " He said. "Do you fall into depression every single time a random baby starves to death? Do you mourn the loss of every single peasant that dies sick in a pool of his own urine and feces?"
"We could have helped them."
"You mean that you weren't strong enough to protect them on your own and now you want me to help you, did I understand that right?"
Leif deflated. He fell back into his chair, though he continued to shake at the arms and legs. "Yes," he conceded.
"I refuse." Raed gave a flat statement.
"What?"
"I said I refuse. I was very clear from the beginning that you were to prioritize yourself over them, and you succeeded. You owe them nothing."
"I owe them my word!"
"Yes, words, blah blah, and all. People say a lot of words, they mean nothing most of the time."
"Say that again," Leif growled, standing from the table and clenching his fists.
"Sit down, Leif. You're being loud and causing problems for the other guests and staff." The one person other than the two men in a heated argument was the innkeeper, who, having experienced much action during his tenure at the inn, ducked quietly through the door to the cellar.
Back at the table, the young man didn't sit. Instead he continued standing and glaring.
"My word is everything!" Leif shouted. "If I can't keep my word then what worth am I?"
"There you go again," Raed said. "I noticed it back at the cabin two days ago too, but you seem to have trouble with those emotions."
"They killed the kid!" Leif yelled.
"So?" Raed shrugged. "It wasn't any kid I knew."
"You! You!" Leif stammered. He crouched lower, setting his feet and tensing his legs.
Seeing this change, Raed said in amusement, "What are you going to do? Fight me? What exactly will that achieve?"
"It'll make me feel a lot better!" Leif yelled.
"Yes! There it is at last! It was never about those poor suffering demons was it? It was all about you!"
"You're wrong!"
"Am I? You're angry because you wanted to play hero. And then when you couldn't step up to the challenge, you hid like a scared little rat."
"That's not true!"
"What happened then? You took on all five and won? Some hero you are to let one of your wards die and the other get captured."
"Raed, I am going to punch you in the face!"
"You're welcome to try, kid."
Leif lunged at Raed, reaching across the small table with his right hand in a powerful punch. At that distance, and with Leif's speed, his fist was already upon the older man in less than half a second.
And it hit nothing. Raed tilted his chair back and avoided Leif's straight punch, moving out of range of the attack.
"This is disappointing," Raed sighed. He stood from his seat and retreated to give some distance between him and Leif. "Here I thought you had a good head on that body, but it turns out you can't keep track of it."
Leif roared with barbaric fury. "You selfish coward!" He flipped over the table, sending the pewter mugs flying and splashing the last remnants of ale over the floor and window. He thrashed wildly while advancing at Raed, who avoided every attempt.
Grinning with mocking amusement, Raed taunted him. "There's that hot Northman blood coming through. How long can you keep it up before your tendons snap and your heart explodes?"
The only responses from Leif were more roars and swipes from his arms.
While the uncontrolled rage-filled strikes passed him, Raed assessed Leif's movements and their changes in acceleration. He estimated the young man's height and weight and overall constitution to get an idea for how long remained before he needed to intervene. It was a very imprecise guess, being a difficult task to accomplish even sober, and Raed was no fighter, nor did he have a quick calculating mind.
If he didn't stop Leif, then he would get hit sometime, or the kid would tire out. Raed hoped it would be the latter, because the alcohol was getting to his head and he was starting to slow in his reactions. But before that, he needed to teach the naive boy a lesson while he was most open to listening.
"You won't land a single hit on me no matter how hard you try you know," Raed bluffed. That was untrue, Raed knew, while a bead of sweat formed on his head. The younger man was fast and strong, and could keep up the assault longer than the older alchemist could keep avoiding the hits.
Several enraged wild punches flew past Raed in a blur. The kid was actually getting faster and more ferocious.
"You can't get close to hitting me because you've already let me win without touching you," Raed said with the beginnings of slurred speech.
It was time to take action before he could be proved wrong by a single hit from one of Leif's powerful blows. Reaching into a pocket on his cotton jacket, Raed grabbed a small glass bottle that was filled with clear liquid and popped off the cap.
Once Leif whiffed his latest attack, the older alchemist flung the contents into the young smith's face, hitting the exposed mucous membranes of his eyes.
With a scream of surprise Leif recoiled and covered his eyes. The liquid numbed his eyelids and he felt a seeping dullness spread through his face, then into his head and affect his brain.
The young man's pulse relaxed and his tightened muscles slacked. After one last unmotivated swing of his fist, Leif came to an idle stop. He stood in place breathing deep measured breaths while his hands hung at his sides.
"Right, you're done now?" Raed said. "You should find it hard to feel anger even if you wanted to right about now. Don't worry, the effects aren't permanent and will wear off soon." He picked up the chair that he abandoned when Leif went berserk and set it upright. "Take a seat," he motioned to Leif. Raed righted the flipped table as well and sat in Leif's former chair.
Leif walked to the offered chair with a dazed gait. His eyes were glazed and his mouth stayed open wide enough to show his tongue tucked behind his lower row of teeth.
After Leif took a seat, Raed continued talking in a slower speech than normal. "Are you ready to listen now?"
The other man gave a docile nod.
"Good. You screwed up a lot just now to the point where I'd consider sending you back to Valter. But I'll wait on doing that until I make sure there's no sense left in your brain."
"Uhn," Leif grunted. He stirred a little from his confused state.
"You might be wondering why I did this to you, and I'll tell you why. You were being an idiot with no insight to your own idiocy. Don't make the mistake of thinking that I cared about you trying to attack me. I've had plenty of scraps with members of my own party in my time. That's no issue for me. But what I do take issue with," Raed gave Leif a critical stare, "Is someone who refuses to acknowledge their own stupid choices and proceeds to project on me."
By this point Leif was starting to move his body with intent. He tried moving his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by Raed.
"Like come on man, I was enjoying two drinks in the morning! It was way too early to listen to whatever you were doing. I get it you feel responsible but what were you going to do? Be realistic here Leif. You couldn't even hit me, a middle-aged drunk guy. What were you going to do against five people?"
"Nothing. I would have been killed and that's all," Leif admitted, having restored most of his function and come down from his berserk high.
"As long as you get it now," Raed said, relieved. "Now go pick up the mugs and apologize to the innkeeper." Raed looked at the front desk but found no sign of the man. "Well, just return the mugs to the kitchen at least. I'll smooth things over with the innkeeper when he comes back. Consider us lucky it was so early else we'd have a proper bar brawl without a bar."
"I'm sorry for my outburst, Raed," said Leif as he struggled to pull out of his chair and swayed on unsteady legs.
"Just return the mugs and take a bath. Do you have another set of clothes?"
Leif nodded.
"Good, then go get changed after the bath. Meet me in my room after that. Second floor, next to the window at the end."
Leif scooped up the two mugs and shuffled to the kitchen beyond the door to the right of the front desk.
Raed sighed with exhaustion. The morning had already tired him out. He was getting tipsy. And he needed to enter dangerous territory soon.
It was a good morning, Raed concluded.