[IRP] The First of Many

[Breadophile]

So ended the tale of Glass II.

"Rather anticlimatic way to end it. Whatever, can't really glamorize death I suppose."

But geez, that woman. She's so much stronger than me. She killed Grass without even thinking about it. I got sick to my stomach just watching her earlier. Go figure. Ilian military; trained to kill; can't even lance a bandit.

For one of the few times in her life, Kalin looked worried and saddened, but got over it with a somewhat-bright idea.

I wonder if I can just knock all of my enemies unconscious. The hand-to-hand stuff they taught us was easy enough, but against weapons, it's kind of... outclassed. But I bet an iron pole or bo staff could do it. Wonder if I can get one from the vendors.

Oh hey, I have to return that staff. Or I could keep it. I wonder if they'd notice.

While working towards the scene, Paige took notice of her first and approached Kalin with some concern in her eyes.

“What happened to him?” she said as she touched Shad’s face to make sure he wasn’t cold. “We might have to get him to the castle for treatment.”

"Oi. From the looks of it seems that Mr. Badass here just had to be a hero. I hope it's not as bad as you say..."

Were a couple of buildings worth this, you idiot? Geez...

For the second time today, Kalin looked worried and saddened.

"But to answer your question... I don't know. We diverted the biggest and last of those flaming rocks just minutes ago with his magic. I think in that time the combination of heat and magical exertion got to him. I'm no expert, but with a meteor that hot I could definitely feel the effect of the heat. However, I wasn't using magic at the time, so I'm in the dark about that part."

Ray sometimes gets a headache (or at least complains about one) from launching too many fire balls. It must be like that.

Or it might just be I was able to keep it together better. Puh, as if. He hasn't lived in Ilia his whole life...

Why is it so damn hot?

It might be a little hard to believe, but living in a place that's blizzard-level freezing for a good solid 99% of her life, Kalin was no expert on the subject of death by being too hot. She didn't even know that was a thing until just recently.

"In any case, he certainly has that exhausted look. Um... what should we do? I can get to a castle faster than anyone, but that still takes time. Is there nothing we can do in the village? You should never underestimate the combined wisdom of an entire town of ordinary people."

Just then she remembered the tome Grass was using. She didn't really have time to go searching through it, though. She looked towards the people standing around Grass's dead body.

"H-Hey, before I forget. That meteor tome... Can one of you open it and tell me if there's a hot chocolate stain on the first page? Don't ask. It's a long story."

Kalin sincerely hoped the man hadn't been carrying Ray's Meteor tome.

"Oh, one more thing. Interrogate some of the leftover bandits. A couple were knocked out a while ago before the bandit lord here even started setting things on fire. If we can find out where the bandit hideout is, we can uh... r-return all of that stolen stuff. I'm sure there's a bunch of it just lying around."

What if they didn't even have a bandit hideout? What would poor Kalin do then?

I could start a healing stave business. Though, to do that I'd need inventory that isn't stolen.

Oh how painful were the woes of the pegasus knight...