Chapter 23

My mouth was dry and cotton-like, and my head pounded. You would think in a world of magic and alchemy; they could make alcohol that did not have a hangover. This was by far the worst hangover I ever had as well. Give me two six-packs instead of half a bottle of brandy any day. I managed to get ready and get to the gate in time.

Castille was dressed in legion garb instead of mage garb at the gate for the patrol. Her leather chest piece was shaped to her curves, and she even carried a short saber. I was hurting too much, and the sun was too bright to ask anyone questions why. I located Linus, and he seemed perfectly fine and greeted me with an annoying smile, "Mornin Eryk. Take this, crush the stem, and suck out the syrup. You will feel better shortly."

It looked like a dandelion, but the stem was as thick as my finger. I did as advised and crushed and then sucked. The taste reminded me of aloe and cinnamon. Linus was right. The pressure on my head faded first, and then my eyesight normalized. The dryness in my mouth remained, and it added a bitter, sticky aftertaste, but that was a small price for regaining functionality.

I learned the flower was called Morning Glory and was grown by skilled nature mages because it required aether to thrive. A single stem cost six large silver but had multiple doses. It just needed to be consumed shortly after picking. I would be adding a few to my dimensional space in the future as the stasis effect should keep them viable.

As we formed up, there were only two missing people for the patrol, Mateo and Delmar. The ogre had injured both, and I had not seen either of them at the wall yesterday. Castille led us out of the gates, and I ended up walking next to Firth. He complained about the lack of quality in the brothels in the city. He looked to be in his early 40s, and I wondered if he was actually upset with brothels as he claimed or just liked to hear himself talk.

We walked in pairs, spaced about ten feet apart. My feet had healed enough to not cause an issue. I had pulled two spare sets of socks out of my dimensional storage for the patrol just in case I needed them.

As we proceeded, the road and surroundings gave me Deja Vu from the previous patrol. Castille was at the front with Adrian, her lieutenant at her side. I was too far back to hear what they talked about, and I tuned out Firth as we walked.

It was the same as yesterday—no encounters until we reached the spot where we had killed the ogre two days ago. The body had been pulled into the swamp, and insects the size of my fist swarmed over the corpse. Mage Castille pulled out a scroll and used it to cast a flame spell to burn the insects and the body. The ogre fat caught, and a blue-black smoke started to get thicker and thicker into the air.

The smoke smelled terrible, so our short column rushed past to continue our patrol. Firth commented, "No large predators or scavengers in the area. Otherwise, the corpse would have been gone by now."

I joked, "Maybe they couldn't stand the smell either." Firth laughed and then went into a long story about how some of his brothel partners smelled. The only thing his story did was reinforce my reluctance to partake in the brothels.

A large frog hopped into the road, and Castille bound it with her shadow chains. It was quickly killed with spears and rolled off the road after Castille failed to get an essence from it. This patrol was so much easier with a mage with us. "Why didn't Castille come with us on the first patrol?" I asked Firth.

Firth commented, "She was probably in a meeting with the other two Legion company commander mages. Mages operate outside the normal army command, only Legion officers can command them, and none are currently in the city. I actually think she requested for us to patrol the southern road. Rumor is the local baron's advisor thinks the bullywug spotted recently was part of a dungeon release."

"Dungeon release?" I questioned.

"It sometimes happens, fairly uncommon. It only happens when the dungeon ecology is so screwed up that the dungeon has to release some of its monsters. It is probably just the fancy of the baron's advisor, though. Delmar thinks the bullywug was either a solo hunter or an exile, not a dungeon release. If there was an unbalanced dungeon out here the Emperor would send the Praetorian to destroy it. Either way, we are trying to find a frog man in a swamp full of giant frogs," he laughed.

"Praetorian?" I asked. I had heard them mentioned before, but I just thought they were the Emperor's personal guard.

"You really do not know much about the Empire. The Praetorians are the Emperor's elite mages and warriors." He paused and added, "And assassins." I realized it was another piece of the Roman culture as the Praetorian Guard was considered the Royal guard in my remembered history. This Praetorian had evolved into something else in a world of magic.

"Are the Praetorian First Citizens?" I asked after walking for a while, staring in thought at ominous dark clouds over the swamp.

Firth paused and said a little too harshly, "No, they are not. They are usually selected from the Lion Legion, from what I know. No First Citizens serve in the Lion Legion," Firth said. Lightning flashed from the dark clouds deep into the swamp. Castille had the column stop while she studied the odd lightning in the distance.

I overheard conversations from the others. Castille was trying to determine if the storm was natural or magical in nature. We waited for minutes, and two giant frogs came bounding toward us from the direction of the storm. They were fleeing and did not look to be attacking us. We formed up into shielded groups to face them. One unit speared and hacked one of the frogs to pieces. The other frog passed over the road in a large leap and kept going, clearly afraid.

Castille announced, "Mark the road with the direction of the storm! Then we will make haste back to Macha." The men went to work cutting rotting trees to stand into the road. It was just two poles, but they would line up in the direction of the heart of the storm. As we worked, we had to deal with sporadic life from the swamp, a half dozen frogs, and one massive snake thirty-foot-long snake.

The frogs went down quickly, but the snake had tough scales, and Castille's shadow chains could not hold it. When the snake broke her chains, it swallowed Donte. Castille took out her wand and targeted the missiles on the head while we all hacked at the body. After it was killed, it was a rush to cut Donte out. He came out sputtering, swearing, and spitting—and then vomiting. Castille looked at the storm and talked with Adrian as she readied her essence collector for the snake.

Adiran yelled, "Skin it! Fangs are not poisonous, and we are taking those as well. You have thirty minutes to finish if you want a bonus!"

Seven men stood guard as the rest of us attacked the snake. The hide was almost two inches thick, and I asked no one in particular, "What is this good for anyway?"

"Mostly saddles," Wylie responded, covered in blood. "I come from a family of leather workers, and this will make some durable and fancy saddles. We will cut it into strips the width and length of a person. Each strip should fetch two or three gold—but maybe not in Macha with all the skilled craftsman having fled."

We all worked hard, and each of us had a strip of flesh to carry back. We rolled them up and attached them to our backpacks. I guessed the weight was around 40 pounds, so the awkward bundle was not going to be fun to carry. I flashed back to carrying the spider spinnerets in the dungeon. Adrian took the fangs and no snakeskin.

"Cut open the rest of the digestive tract," Castille ordered before we left. She wanted to see what the snake had been eating. The storm appeared to be getting larger, but we worked fast and found three partially digested giant frogs and one humanoid. According to Konstantin, the humanoid was a bullywug, not that I could tell, as the flesh was mostly gone from digestion. That was all we found, and Castille, Konstantin, and Adrian examined the bullywug in detail.

At least the train of fleeing animals had finally stopped. They finally ordered a quick march back to the city. When we marched, it was like a game of telephone, getting the words from our leaders at the front. The rumor passed down the column that the bullywug was not from a dungeon, looked like a runt, and had probably been exiled from its clan. The larger rumor was that Castille thought the storm cloud was not natural.

The seven miles to the city were not pleasant for any of us. The snakeskin's added weight and awkward weight distribution made it get painful on our backs. When we reached the gates, Castille reported to the guard captain for a few minutes. Before we were allowed to enter, three carts guarded by ten mounted men left the gates down the road. Konstantin was standing next to me, "They will take the rest of the skin and probably as much flesh as they can for the siege. Pitty, we will not see a copper of it."

We got a lot of looks from the remaining citizens and regular soldiers as we followed Castille to the tanners on the far side of the slums. The smell of the tannery told me why it was placed all the way over here. Adrian talked to the grizzled tanner. Castille was already leaving, heading back to her residence in the city. According to Firth, she only came to show her face to the tanner to get a better deal for us. Mages were respected—and feared. Still, Adiran did not seem happy with the final result.

We were ordered to stack the bundles of snakeskin outside the tanner and were free to go. I found out we would all be getting 55 silver each for hauling the forty pounds of skin seven miles. I thought it was a good deal for the amount of work involved—my back would heal in a day or two. Wylie said it was terrible since a saddle made from the skin would sell for over twenty gold to a noble.

A few of the legionaries were headed to the upper city to use the baths there. They cost an outrageous silver coin, but we were all filthy, and the water was cleaner than the baths in the lower city. The four of us, Wylie, Donte, Felix, and I, decided a silver coin after our small windfall was worth it. We would celebrate surviving another day.