WilliamDArand

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 24-

“The Dragon King!” shouted Duke Fash and the Count nearly at the same time. Falling down to one knee, bowing their heads, and pressing their opposing fist to the ground.

As one, the entirety of the meeting all fell into the same bow the Duke and the Count had given him.

Standing there, Nick felt rather strange, his fingers tightening up on the shaft of his weapon.

There was also no missing the fact that there was a light rumbling shake that was making the very ground tre...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 23-

“—just swallowed it all,” Jessie finished answering the question. Then she blinked, looked at everyone around her, and seemed to remember the company she was in. Most especially Sara, who was watching her with a smile and raised eyebrows. “Or something… I guess… uh… yeah. Haha… shit.”

“I mean… as a woman with no experience, that’s very good to know,” Erica stated with a thoughtful look on her face and a small nod of her head. For all intents and purposes, it ge...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 22-

Sara had just finished working at the embassy of Wretin to finish off the deal that’d been struck.

In the end, the purchase had been ludicrous.

Ludicrous and to the point that the individuals sent with the gold were all in their final promotion and in their eighties. A force that would be measurable as a vanguard to an invasion force.

Nick had no thought at all that this group had snuck across the border rather than going through official channels. If they had gone through...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 21-

Sitting at the desk in the study Harlowe had made her room, Nick turned the page on the account book.

This was the written account of all the monies that were currently in his dimensional coin pouch, secured in his personal pack, along with the ledger.

Given that Rahak had left last night, Claudia and Julie this morning, that left him as the one responsible for managing their trade and finances.

Claudia and Julie had both decided to leave separately from Nick.

After al...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 20-

Nick regretfully left his bedroom.

He had unwillingly fallen back into a pattern his father had stuck into him. One that he had thought he had finally shaken.

Waking up with the sun, without even meaning to.

Jessie was still asleep.

She’d slept through his departure to talk with Harlowe, his return for bandages, and even when he came back to go to sleep. About the only thing that changed was she mercilessly cuddled him in bed when he got in.

He closed the door ...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 19-

The guild had no news.

No one in the markets had any news.

Even the embassy, had no news.

As far as anyone knew, the Dungeon was closed, and would remain so.

Letting out a soft sigh, Nick leaned up against the windowsill.

His room was on the second floor at the back of the home. Jessie was fast asleep in the bed and wasn’t going to be waking up any time soon.

Their love making had been a bit “desperate” on her end. Being scolded as she had been had le...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 18-

Sara and Jessie’s argument had petered out into a discussion of blade sharpening.

The different grinds one would put into them and how often. As well as what they felt were better blade shapes for certain applications.

All of which really didn’t much matter to Nick.

His poleaxe maintained it’s own edge, just as The Fall did.

He’d changed clothes and walked the grounds with Julie. It’d been a nice walk and they’d had a far more normal and natural conversatio...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 17-

“That’s Goba,” Harlowe stated, walking along next to Nick as he rode table.

The Werewolf didn’t have a mount and most of the horses in the party didn’t much like her.

Table had given her a snort, eyed her for a second, and then returned to being the goodboy he was.

Because Nick hadn’t bothered to do anything with Harlowe, Table had decided that nothing needed to be done as well. After all, unless he was told to do something, he would immediately go into a netural...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 16-

“Okay!” Claudia said and stood up.

Jessie and Sara both now had a limb splinted up. Each Elf having been given something for the pain and then told to just wait there.

“Thank you,” Sara murmured, looking at her very broken leg.

Normally Claudia would be quick to heal them, but after realizing that their would-be prisoner would need a lot of work, Claudia had prioritized that over fixing their severe breaks.

For now, a splint would be good enough to prep them fo...

The Axe Falls - ch 15-

“— look, just because you’ve got a face that needed tits to get attention, doesn’t mean you need to be so pissy that I’m prettier,” Jessie grumbled, throwing a hand of torn grass at Sara’s face.

“You’re such an uncouth little monster,” Sara cooed back at her, all sugary sweetness. Even going so far as to reach out and gently pat Jessie’s cheek who only sneered back at her. “It’s a wonder how you’ll ever succeed with Nicky’s nobility when the time comes.

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 14-

“I see no-mm-magical foes,” croaked Rahak. “I sense no magic either.”

“That’s odd,” Julie murmured, tapping a fingertip against her lower lip. “Then again, the group that left clearly had six casters in it of the ten. The first group we killed had two in it.

“That’s already eight in number. The one I fought was fairly high-level. It left me feeling like they were perhaps in charge of that patrol.

“Jessie, you said the one you fought wasn’t too bad?”...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 13-

“This was always a fun way to collect bounties. It just always made handling the bodies rather… messy,” Julie complained from behind him. “You can’t touch them immediately and end up having to wash them down to a significant degree.”

Nick didn’t respond, he just stared into the cloud of smoke and poison. Waiting for whomever was going to come and challenge him.

A man with a sword and chain mail burst out of the cloud. Rushing toward Nick at a dead run and not seeing ...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 12-

“They’re… at the village now. They don’t seem to be taking… things. They are talking with everyone though,” Rahak reported, staring at nothing at all as she connected with her scouts. “I cannot get closer it would-mm-likely alert them.”

“I think this will be the path they take back and they won’t be going to another village either,” Jessie murmured and gestured on the track they were on.

It was more or less a beaten path from the camp of the deserters, to the...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 11-

“— roughly twenty in number when they left. Half of them supposedly rode east, the other half came down this way,” Julie explained, looking to everyone else in the room. “That means we’ll be dealing with somewhere between seven and twelve individuals. You can assume they’ll be level twenty on average.”

“Doesn’t that seem a bit much for us?” Claudia asked nervously, her hands lightly moving along Ker’s back as he laid in her lap. “There’s only six of us. They wo...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 10-

Nick felt stiff.

Overworked, really.

As if his body was starting to warn him that he really couldn’t take much more, despite the fact that Claudia healed him every evening.

Over the last week they had almost done nothing other than grind out dungeon dives. All day, every day, from just after breakfast, till right before dinner.

Everyone had gotten to their next promotion level other than Nick. Given the experience distribution based on levels, everyone had started to...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 9-

Julie gently pushed open the door to the home and gestured inside.

The home was just a few streets away from the guild house and only a single street away from the restaurant they’d just had dinner at.

It’d been a pleasant evening for Nick and Julie had quickly devolved back into her previous self.

He did note that her way of speaking had changed just a bit but overall she wasn’t that different from what his memory told him.

“After you,” she said with a grin....

The Axe Falls 2 -chapter 8-

“Well,” Sara murmured and then jammed her sword through the chest of the Centaur as it thrashed about on the ground. The monster stiffened momentarily and then started to writhe about again. “Oh for… just… let me finish you. You’re just making this harder.”

Sara drew out her blade and stabbed it again in the chest. The sword punching right through the soft leather armor it was wearing.

There was a rough groan followed by a hiss of air as the monster finally went stil...

The Axe Falls 2 -chapter 7-

“It’s rather different,” remarked Claudia as they walked up to the entrance of the Dungeon.

Nick couldn’t agree with her more.

What was in front of them was a single building, roughly the size of an inn.

There were several city guards out in front of it, adventurers wandering around, and it generally looked rather odd to him.

More like there was a noble personage in the building, rather than it being a dungeon.

“The other buildings are behind it as well...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 6-

“—and then they head to the front lines,” Julie murmured with a shrug of her shoulders. “I get a commission for every person I contract, but I can only use the contracts I’ve been provided. No changes allowed.”

“Well, it definitely sounds like it’s better for you than where you were,” Nick offered up after having listened to her explain the whole thing start to finish.

In the end, it just boiled down to her being a recruiter for the army. Targeting adventurers pr...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 5-

“Claudia, would you save me, you beautiful, kind, generous, fiance of that idiot man of ours?” pleaded Jessie as she climbed down from the horse.

Everyone but her had learned to ride a horse reasonably well.

For whatever reason though, the Dark Elf just couldn’t figure out how to ride without hurting herself. To the point that she would just grovel to Claudia for relief.

“Jessie… just… stop,” Claudia said with a warm laugh.

Over the week of travel to get ...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 4-

Grimacing, Nick realized he couldn’t shake Sara today. That he would have to have a conversation with her whether he wanted to or not.

Tonight, he surmised given the way she had caught his gaze at dinner only part of an hour previous. The stare, cocked eyebrow, and head tilt, was all he needed to see to know her wish.

Thankfully, Claudia had just passed out almost immediately after they entering their room.

Even now his would-be fiance was snoring away in her bad that she ...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 3-

“Don’t make that face, Master Dol,” the count said with yet another dismissive hand wave. “Before you fret, I keep a small artifact in my tent that prevents anything inside the tent from leaking out, and anything outside the tent, leaking in.”

Claudia had a strange look on her face as she looked between Nick and her father.

It took Ralph a moment to realize it was incomprehension. She didn’t understand what was going on.

“Now, the reason I know, is I’ve met y...

The Axe Falls 2 -ch 2-

Nick looked to the landscape and couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to these lands. They were likely fertile yet unfarmed.

The battlefield had slowly drifted north and was now more in the north-east of the territory at the moment.

It was quite likely that the fighting could end up moving this way and that meant that attacks like tornadoes and lightning would be dropping in these areas.

I mean, the last time I saw the battlefield, the king dropped mother nature ...