I Built This City Chapter 74: Chapter 74

Read chapter 74 of I Built This City by ThePudding on NovelPedia.

Anroll Greylan It had taken much longer to get back to Merriweather than he’d hoped, but that still put Anroll there only a couple weeks into spring. Not many adventurers did much traveling during winter, so he’d had far too many tasks to handle. His own abilities let him move with greater ease than most, even if it was still grueling to travel during the cold and snowy winters of Thallis. Merriweather was a natural stop on the way back to Mount Onroc. Not only did it let him resupply, but it gave him a chance to check the rumors and see if people had heard anything unusual about the dungeon and its owner. Ellen had done well thus far, but she was still inexperienced and clearly not suited for adventuring work. Anroll didn’t trust her to manage to keep herself secret for long. What he did not expect when swinging by the Guild to check in was to find his niece out front, loudly telling a story. It wasn’t a bad story, and it was about the monsters in the dungeon, but it was exaggerated. Either she was deliberately fudging things, or this Ellen had never been into the dungeon. Either way, he wasn’t sure what to think of her loud voice and wild gesticulations describing the monsters any challengers would need to face. “She’s pretty good at holding their attention, isn’t she?” Anroll jerked to the side, startled. His senses immediately cut through the low-level Perk that he saw making Ellen less noticeable, but that didn’t explain how she’d snuck up to stand right beside him while he watched. She had a hood up and loose clothing on, so it wasn’t easy to see she was the same as the girl loudly shouting out her stories nearby, but he should have caught her earlier. “How did you do that?” The hooded Ellen just nodded to her louder counterpart. “Stage Ellen, that’s how. I’ve been testing it for the last two days. If you look at me, you notice me… but she draws the attention. Very few people seem to have any defense against that. It doesn’t matter if I am not hiding all that well when people just aren’t looking for me.” It made a horrifying amount of sense to Anroll. It was the same tactic criminals used, but he’d never heard of the diversion plan being so effective at low levels. Against ordinary people, sure… but he was an experienced hunter, and should have seen it coming. There was only one problem. “Stage Ellen, huh? And which one are you?” He sighed. “And how many of you are there now?” “Call me Whisper. Merchant Ellen died to a horse cart that turned out to be a murder, and that’s where I come from. There’s fifteen of us now, but the situation is a lot more complicated than just us dying.” She gestured to the Guild Hall. “Let’s go inside and I’ll explain.” The Merriweather Guild Hall wasn’t like the ones in the capital. While every Guild Hall had a place to meet and chat with other adventurers, the Merriweather version’s common area was much larger and doubled as a general planning area. This was pretty normal for Guild Halls out near the frontier, and it worked to Anroll’s advantage now. This sort of place maintained plenty of partially-obscured tables for a level of privacy. Whisper slid into a chair without comment, and Anroll only hesitated a moment. This Ellen seemed a lot more serious and competent than what he’d remembered. She lacked the energetic attitude he was used to in his niece… and he wasn’t sure he liked that absence, even if she was more careful. “I’ve been looking into the murder after interrogating one of the culprits,” she opened without preamble. “It all points to an agent of the Theocracy hiring some goons to make it look like an accident, probably so they can move in and manage the dungeon before the kingdom realizes the owner is gone, to try to stake some kind of claim on it.” Anroll settled into his chair and placed his hands on the table. “You found that out all by yourself? That sounds bold and risky for the Theocracy… they’ve been occupied at their southern border for years now. Then again, maybe they’