The two boys sat by the side of a deep pond, watching the birds. They were both around the age of 15 and although they were similar in height, the boy on the left was apparently scrawnier than the other. His face had several recent burn marks around the chins, it left him wanting in goodly appearances, but it didn’t seem to affect the way he seemed to radiate happiness and joy. The boy looked around and picked up a flower from the ground, removed it’s petals and places them gently inside a pouch while muttering a slight prayer to Chauntea.
“Do you always have to be wasting your time picking flowers and mushrooms?” The other boy grumbled as he looked over at the flower and rolled his eyes.
“Ofcourse, the only way to learn about things is to actually study them.” The first boy answered with a slight sigh. “You really should think about other things than just swinging that silly sword around , Philip.”
“Now, why would I want to do something like that? You’ve seen the adventurers that pass through Murann, people step out of their way if they have big swords and stuff!” Philip grinned as he picked up the small shortsword from the ground and pulled it from it’s scabbard while jumping to his feet. He swung the blade around himself deftly a few times and then jabbed it at some unseen foes. “Ain’t gonna get far in life if you’re all scrawny, people’s just gonna walk all over you and you’ll end up like that bum Ricardo, sitting in the gutter eating what others throw out.”
The first boy’s smile didn’t waver a second as he threw away the remnants of the flower and stood up as well. “You know Philip, alchemists are respected and when I’m finished studying I’ll be able brew an assortment of potions that those sword swinging adventurer types are going to be wanting to purchase from father’s shops.” His smile widened as Philip ignored him and ran around swinging his sword at a butterfly. “You’ll see, it’s going to be my family that has more gold than it’ll know what to do with” He said and gently placed his hand on Philip’s sword, lowering it while his other hand waved the butterfly away. “and it’s going to be people like you that are going to be giving it to us.”
Philip snorted, sheathed his sword and tried tying the scabbard to his belt to no avail. The first boy calmly walked over to him and firmly fastened the scabbard to Philip’s belt.
“To think that you can’t even tie a knot Philip. I’m telling you, I really don’t see the reason behind your father wanting you to learn something as useless as swinging a blade around. We have an assortment of imbeciles to take care of defending our country, it’s not like we’re lacking in capable swordsmen.”
“Look, dad said I ain’t good for nothing but taking orders and I should serve our damned country like any man is supposed to.”
The first boy shrugged slightly and walked towards his small pack, picked it up and swung it around his shoulder.
“Anyway, we really should get back. I need to return to the guild before dark and hand over these ingredients.”
Philip laughed and grabbed the other boy’s face and turned it so he could see his cheek. “You even seen your face you idiot? That stupid guild doesn’t care a rats ass about you, you’re only there so they don’t have to get splattered by those che. . . cher. . . “
“Chemicals” The first boy said and pushed Philip’s hand off his face and frowned a bit.
“Yeah, chemicles. . . you’ll be looking like a leper before you’re done studying that stupid stuff. Hah! Hells, you look like a leper now!”
The first kid slowly pulled his pack over his other shoulder and shrugged slightly. “Such is the penalty of knowledge, they may believe they can exploit father and take his money while they just use me for menial labour.” He grinned slightly before continuing. “But I know better, I’ve picked up more than they care to realise.” He walked off towards the town.
Philip laughed and walked behind him.
It would have taken them about 3 hours to walk all the way back to Murann but after about an hour they heard what appeared to be a muffled scream on the other side of a hill.
“You hear that, Philip?”
“Yeah, ain’t our problem, let’s just keep going.”
“What if someone is in trouble?”
“Well then they’s gonna have to find a way out of it by themselves, what you think we could do anyways?”
Philip kept walking while the other boy stood there and looked towards the hill. A few more muffled shouts came from past the hill. He looked after Philip and saw him still walking away and heard his distinct complaining voice as he was trying to convince the air behind him that there was absolutely nothing they could do and it shouldn’t bother about things like that. Finally the boy moved off again, not after Philip but towards the hill. As he was reaching the top he let himself fall down to his knees and crawled the few meters left until he could just see over to the other side.
There were about 5 men in what appeared to be black armour standing over three persons that were lying on the ground. The boy immediately recognised the largest of the men, he’d seen him outside the Alchemist’s guild making a rather large order for miscellanious potions. He kept watching as a few of the men picked up what appeared to be a couple of packs and began rooting through them, laughing, while the large man kicked one of the persons on the ground.
The boy began to crawl slowly backwards and then turned his head to the side to see a pair of boots right next to him. “Philip, it’s bandits. . . we’ve got to hurry back to Mura-“ He stopped talking when he looked up the legs to notice that the person standing over him was much taller than Philip. He felt a knock on his head and everything went black.
He heard a shout. There was something warm covering his face. He opened his eyes and rubbed his eyes, pulling his hands away to see them covered with blood. His head hurt. He heard the shout again. “I am Philipo Ovidio and I will gut you like the pigs you are for killing my friend!"
He heard laughter.
“By the gods, what is that fool doing?” He thought to himself.
He tried to sit up, noticed he was still on the hill but now there were 6 pairs of boots infront of him. Slightly further he could see Philip running up the hill with his shortsword above his head, shouting incoherent praises to Tempus.
The men standing infront of him laughed again, which only seemed to add speed to Philip’s movement. He tried to tell Philip to stop.
“Phlm...” That was the only thing the escaped his mouth before he yet again felt the darkness surround him.
It was everywhere, the darkness encased him and he could feel a great pressure upon his head. He heard nothing but had a feeling that there was something he should be hearing.
His eyes opened again and he saw Philip’s face infront of him. His eyes stared into him, no fear – only, a look of utter relief as he saw his friend still lived.
He turned his head to see the large man standing over him, chewing on dried meat with a disgusting grin on his lips.
“Your friend’s really a feisty one. We had to tie him up.”
He turned his head again towards Philip and noticed the gag in his mouth and the ropes around his body.
“I don’t really know what to do with the two of you, although I’ll probably just kill you both.”
The boy turned his head quickly, a move that nearly cost him his conciousness again, and looked up at the large man with eyes full of fear. He slowly shook his head and tears began to stream from his eyes.
“Ohh, you don’t want to die?”
He continued to shake his head.
“Well, then I just might let you live. I’ve seen you in town haven’t I? In the Alchemist guild right?”
The boy slowly nodded without saying a word.
“Well, those damned guilds can be pretty annoying if they discover you’ve killed one of their servants.”
Although a slight knot of anger stuck in his throat at the mention of “servant”, the boy said nothing.
“Tell you what, I’ll let you go after you do me one favor.”
The boy looked up at him with pleading eyes and nodded slowly.
“It’s really simple, you kill your friend here and we’ll both have secrets we don’t want people knowing of.”
The boy turned his head slowly towards Philip and noticed the look of humour in his eyes.
“I. . . I can’t do that” The boy mumbled.
“Ohh well, shame about that then.” The man replied and pulled out his blade.
The boy, despite the pain in his head, quickly sat up and drew his dagger.
“Wait! Wait, I’ll. . . I’ll do it.” He turned towards Philip and heard the rest of the men laugh slightly and the large man shush sternly at them. Philip’s eyes betrayed his doubt of his friends actions but yet, there was a tint of fear in them now.
The man pushed the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, just cut his throat, he’s all tied up and can’t do nothing to defend himself. Easy as cake boy.”
He moved up to his knees and crawled towards Philip. The man took a couple of steps and positioned himself directly behind the boy.
“I can’t do it!” The boy exclaimed. “He’s my friend, I can’t just kill him. I won’t do it.”
He felt the point of the man’s sword push into his back and he took a deep breath.
“I only have to push slighty and you’ll never take another breath alchemist boy.” The man said with a hint of humour in his voice. “Do it boy, slit his throat. Kill him. Do it boy! Do it or you die. It’s not very hard. Just cut across the throat, boy.”
The boy placed the knife against Philip’s neck and looked into his eyes. Fear, fear and a look of utter betrayal.
He felt the sword push harder against his back and he closed his eyes and pulled the knife against Philip’s throat. The sword pulled away from his back and he released his breath.
“Hells boy, you’re one hell of a sadist, it’ll take him a long time to die from that wound.” The large man said and laughed. “See, he can still breathe and there isn’t all that much blood trickling from his throat.”
He pulled the boy up on his feet and gave him a good push. “Now run off boy, you’re free. Just remember, I know exactly where to find you and if the guards suddenly come looking for me I’ll make sure they know what you did to your friend.” “By Cyric boy, we’ll make a man of you yet.” The large man said as he nudged Philip slightly with his foot.
The boy ran as fast as he could. He never looked back. He stopped at a small stream and quickly washed the blood off his hands, head, hair and knife, then continued running.
When he reached the gates to Murann he wiped the sweat off his brow, pulled his pack further up on his back and tried to walk as casually as he could. He nodded to the guards as he walked past them. “If I stay out of the torchlight they won’t recognise the difference between the blood on my clothes and smears of dirt. I just have to be careful.” He thought to himself as he smiled thinly to the woman walking past him. When he got home he slid past his fathers guards and went straight up to his room.
“I’ll deliver the ingredients tomorrow, I’ll say it was already dark when I got back.” The boy thought as he removed his clothes and hid them in a sack under his bed.
He lied down in his bed and stared at the ceiling until he could see the sun rising. He dressed himself in a hurry and walked downstairs.
“Hello father, can’t talk, heading off to the guild.” He said as he passed his fathers study.
His father didn’t even look up from the accounting books he was gazing at.
He stopped by the Ovidio house and knocked on the door. Philip’s father came to the door and smiled at the boy.
“Hey Mr. Ovidio. Is Philip home? We were walking back home together yesterday and I borrowed his knife to carve a bit of mold from this tree. He went on up ahead of me. I kindof lost track of time because I found all these other flowers and. . ahh. . . things to collect for the guild.” He smiled faintly, trying his best to look normal. “You know how it is.” He forced out a slight laugh and hesitated slightly as he handed the knife that killed Philip over to his father.
Philip’s father looked at him strangely for a moment and then took the knife. “I’ll give this to Philip, he’s not home yet. That moron probably got lost trying to find his way to town.”
The boy laughed uneasily and nodded. “He’ll be home soon, he always comes back.”
Philip’s father nodded and closed the door.
The boy walked up the street, towards the guilds. He felt empty, like he’d lost a part of his soul.
When he came around the corner to see the guild house, he noticed the large man from the night before standing across the street, chewing on dry meat.
“Good to see you’re well Delgado.” The man said and smiled at the boy.
Delgado’s shoulders slumped down as he walked into the guild to continute his life without his best friend.