Chapter 8
Copyright J.B. Norman
The rest of the day passes uneventfully, with no further sign of Alveric von Strom and his self-professed highwaymen. However, the group — especially Petra — remain on-guard.
“I’ll take first watch,” Petra declares as they start setting up their camp for the night.
Apolline unhitches the cart and Alda happily helps her rub down and feed the two horses. Meanwhile, Roland builds up a campfire and sets to work on the group’s dinner.
“You can cook?” Lucia asks.
“Of course,” Roland answers, glancing up from the campfire. “Cooking is really just alchemy you can eat. Measuring out quantities, mixing stuff with other stuff, applying heat to it to effect a fundamental change in its properties. It’s all the same techniques. And, by the way, it’s amazing what kind of ingredients you can find just growing all around you, for alchemy and for cooking.”
He points to various points around their camp.
“The bark on that tree is used to treat pain. Those berries taste awful but are highly nutritious. Aunt Sofia likes the perfume you can make from those flowers.”
“And you just can remember all of this stuff?” Lucia asks.
Roland nods. “I’m not going to pretend I’m really all that smart,” he begins.
Lucia agrees wholeheartedly.
“But,” Roland continues. “Alchemy’s always been the one thing I’ve actually enjoyed learning about. If it’s the one thing I’m ever going to be good at, might as well get really good at it, right?”
“We’re under attack!” Petra announces suddenly, making the others jump.
“Now, I do hate to be interrupting,” Alveric von Strom declares, looking around Petra to stare down the rest of the group. “No, actually. I don’t. I have quite been looking forward to this since you humiliated us all back there. Which is to say, let’s try this again.”
He clears his throat.
“Now, ladies, cat-person, small child, and gentleman. Once again, if you’d be so kind as to step back from the cart and let us get to work, there will be no need for violence. We’ll just help ourselves to that cart of yours, and then you can get back to your —” he glances sceptically at the campfire and dismissively waves his hand. “— camp victuals, or what have you.”
“Hi, Mr. Bandit,” Alda says. “You should probably leave us alone, or my brother is going to make you really sorry.”
“Again, little girl,” Alveric insists, “Highwayman, if you please. Furthermore — Did you just punch Chauncey? You did! You punched him! Right in the face!”
“Ow,” Chauncey groans from the ground.
“Oh, sorry,” Roland mutters, standing over a prone bandit, his massive hand still clenched into a fist the size of a prize waterlemon. “Were you talking to me? I wasn’t really paying attention. And, well, I figured you did just jump us, so isn’t it only fair that I get to jump you?”
“Don’t just stand there, you lot!” Alveric von Strom bellows to the rest of his hired brutes. “Get him!”
Roland glances over his shoulder to Lucia. “Could you look after that?” he asks, nodding towards the campfire. “I’d hate for our supper to burn.”
He turns back towards Alveric and his minions.
“You ready to do this?” he asks, cracking his knuckles. “‘Cause I’m ready.”
All in all, Lucia isn’t really surprised that they find themselves fighting bandits — that’s par for the course when you’re an adventurer. What she didn’t expect was that the fight would go like this.
Lucia, Apolline, Petra, and Alda watch as Roland singlehandedly fends off Alveric von Strom and the other interlopers.
“Should we help him?” Lucia asks, keeping half an eye on their dinner.
“No,” Apolline answers. “He looks to have a handle on things.”
Lucia looks on as the muscular alchemist’s muscular fist comes sailing towards one of the bandits.
“Alchemy Punch!”
Protectively holding the girl’s hand in hers, Lucia looks down at Alda. “Why does he always yell like that?” she asks.
Alda shrugs. “He thinks it makes him sound cool.”
Lucia quizzically tilts her head, her furry ears twitching in bemusement. “Isn’t he just giving away his next move by yelling out his attacks like that?”
Alda shrugs again. “He doesn’t seem to mind.”
“Distillation Kick!”
“His form’s excellent,” Petra notes, the Half-Troll Amazon nodding in approval. “I should be taking notes.”
Alda gasps. “Roland, look out behind you!” she shouts to her brother.
“Diffusion Spinning Back Fist!”
The bandit attempting to sneak up on Roland from behind has his efforts rewarded by the alchemist’s fist crashing into his face. The impact makes Apolline and Lucia wince, while Alda happily applauds her brother and Petra continues to nod in approval.
“So, uh, how many of these names does he have?” Lucia asks Alda.
“A lot,” Alda explains. He spent a week practicing new moves, then a couple of nights with our uncle’s copy of Aldenberg’s Glossary of Alchemy looking for words he could use as names for his moves.”
Lucia rolls her eyes and sighs. Just when she thought Roland couldn’t possibly manage something stupider than the latest stupid thing.
It all seems like an awful lot of work: looking for names, thinking up names, deciding which name goes with which move, then committing it all to memory. It strikes Lucia as a waste of time and effort. As far as she’s concerned, it’s easier just to fight the bad guys.
It’s not like she goes around yelling ‘Galgano Face-Scratch!’ or ‘Natalis Bad Guy Punch!” — or that she’s ever felt the need to. But, hey, she can’t argue with the results. And if he wants to do all the hard work, who is she to say no?
Roland grapples with the last remaining bandit, hoists him up off his feet, and —
“Alembicplex!”
— brings him crashing to the ground.
“You haven’t seen the last of me,” Alveric von Strom declares, turning with a dramatic flourish of his jacket, disappearing back into the trees.
“Stay out of Middlesbrooke,” Roland calls as he straightens out his shirt.
“Oh no!” Alda says, pointing to Roland’s scrapes and bruises. “You’re hurt.” She desperately turns to Apolline. “Quick! Use your magic to help Roland!”
With a nod, the Aurorean sorceress nods and begins to apply her healing magic on Roland.
Roland grins at his sister. “Yeah, but you should see the other guys!”
Lucia, Apolline, and Petra can, in fact, quite easily see the other guys.
The attacking bandits have been quite thoroughly Alchemy Punched into submission, left strewn all over the ground like the pieces of a dropped and shattered plate and it about the same overall condition of a broken plate, slowly hauling themselves up from the dirt and limping back into the trees behind their leader.
Grinning the same grin, Roland turns to Lucia, Apolline, and Petra. “So,” he says. “Shall we get back to dinner?”
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