Grayson decided to return to the village after his encounter with Bolan. If a literal Goddess of Nature tells you the creatures of the forests won't bother the farmers or villagers, may as well take them at their word. Besides, he'd blasted an unholy column of water, earth, and wind into the sky several miles high. It would only be polite to tell them what had happened. Before he could get far however, Queuecy decided to let him know something.

  No time has passed since we blasted that beam.

  The sun still where it was?

  Yup.

  Gods, eh.

  And Goddesses, no offense intended to our Lady.

  Yes, certainly. No offense intended to Lady Perimis, Lady Marrati, or Lord Oris.

  Offense intended to me?

  Nope!

  Absolutely not!

  Perish the thought!

  We would never!

  By all of us, you two really are the same. I can see why Perimis was complaining.

  Grayson and Queuecy diverted Bolan's foul blandishments against their good name as they rode Mink back to the village.

  We really need to find out if this village has a name. It's really weird that nobody's told us by now.

  Maybe it doesn't have one? Actually doesn't have one instead of everyone thinking we already knew what it was.

  Alright, sure, but it didn't have a name on Mertaba's map either. It was just marked as a village, and Gravistone was named.

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  Gravistone's also a city. Maybe the village isn't big enough to warrant it's name on the map. It wasn't a very good one.

  Yeah, but you've got access to every map ever made by humanity. The rest of us have to make do.

  You don't.

  I'm special. I have this special friend in my skeleton who can graciously give me a much better map of any area humanity has been before. Unfortunately, we're not there so we're making the map up as we go.

  Fair point.

  Queuecy, life is fucking weird.

  I'm a skeleton. How the fuck do you think I feel?

  You feel it in your bones.

  Okay, that one was a good one.

  The pair joked with each other even as they descended into the village and unsaddled Mink. Grayson had decided to patrol the North again the next day. The threat of bandits was minimal, and the threat of large beasts was hopefully nonexistent but Grayson didn't entirely trust Bolan to do more than keep the letter of her word. Maybe only the beasts of the Southern magical forest would be harmless for the next ten years. If so, he'd be remiss in his duties if he didn't check for dire wolves or whatever they had in these parts... They had rats at least.

  It was over the dinner that Grayson and Fera were sharing in the church dining hall that the local priestess of Bolan wandered up.

  "My lady would like me to assure you that the beasts of the Northern forest will also leave the villagers alone for ten years." She had a reproving look on her face. "She would also like you to know that even if you are an affront to the natural order, that doesn't mean the rest of us are."

  Fera laughed as Grayson looked chagrinned into his stew. He looked up at the priestess and apologized. Fera had heard the story shortly after he'd returned in the mid-afternoon. At this point, she wasn't even surprised that Grayson had somehow managed to challenge a Goddess to a fight without meaning to. In her words "you're the kind of person who'd meet Gods walking down the street." Grayson had tried to counter by saying he'd only met five so far only to learn that despite them existing in this world and actively caring about people, most people only met one or two in their entire lives. Again, in Fera's words "most people do not have whatever you have going on."

  Their time after dinner was enjoyed partying with whichever villagers still had energy after the day's labors. It was near midnight when they went to sleep and the following day, Grayson went off to patrol the Northern forest anyway because what the hell else were they there for if not to check for any possible dangers. Fera agreed so she could get another day teasing Lyn before they returned to Gravistone twelve days before anyone expected them back. To be fair to Grayson, he'd virtually eliminated any possible threats to the village and surrounding farmsteads. The only thing that could possibly be a threat to anyone was a small group of bandits.

  A small group of bandits exactly like the ones who were creeping towards one of the farmsteads.

  autosave and so far I haven't lost any of them. Except ones I deliberately deleted.