A House of Evil

Home Base

Laurence wakes up to see a pack of jackals have entered the room and are sniffing Barrone's hair. He quickly grabs his sword to scare them off before they bite him and his partner.

They all growl at him and try snapping their jaws at him to scare him off but Laurence stands his ground firmly and defends Barrone.

After a couple of tries to evade Laurence and claim their meal being completely thwarted by Laurence's swordsmanship, the jackals give up and look for food elsewhere.

Laurence immediately goes to check up on Barrone for a pulse, sighing in relief when he finds that his friend is still alive.

"Barrone, wake up!" He demands, tapping the side of the unconscious sorcerer's face.

When this doesn't work, Laurence moves onto his next tactic. "I'm so sorry about this." He murmurs before slapping Barrone.

Barrone groans as he comes to again. "Wha- what happened?" He checks.

Laurence bites his lip just remembering what happened before they both passed out. "We met the Castle's Lord." He answers with a hint of shame in his tone.

Barrone thinks back for a moment before his eyes widen. "H-how did h-he not kill us?" He panics.

"We're not high enough on his list of priorities, I suppose." Laurence replies. "Come on, let's get out of here and check in with Blue. He needs to answer some serious questions."

"Right away." Barrone nods, getting helped up by Laurence.

-

When they arrive at Blue's room, they spot someone else there. Laurence rests his hand on the hilt of his sword while Barrone's expression breaks into one of pure joy.

"LUKE!" He greets, hugging the taller man as soon as he sees him.

"Barrone, there you are, you selfish bugger!" Luke greets, hugging back tightly.

"I thought I'd never see you again." Barrone sighs, tearing up in happiness.

"Did you really think you could lose me that easily?" Luke chuckles warmly.

Laurence stands on the outside and watches in curiosity.

"You didn't even come to me to say goodbye." Luke tells Barrone.

"I didn't want you to stop me or talk me out of it." Barrone weakly defends.

When Luke pulls away from the hug he strokes some of Barrone's hair back, out of his eyes. "They've banished you, you know." He tells his friend sadly.

"I know, I was expecting it when I did it." Barrone admits.

Luke manages a weak laugh. "You idiot." He sighs. "C'here." He adds, hugging Barrone again.

It seems that Luke has already decided to make this his base and has set up some kind of blacksmith workshop in what was just before an empty room.

"I missed you." Barrone admits.

"Me too. If Drew were still with us I think he'd kill you himself." He adds. "What were you thinking?"

"Um, excuse me but... who are you?" Laurence manages after he's seen all he can stand.

Part of him is feeling jealousy at the thought that the only person he knows is rampaging this castle on the edge of his sanity. To Laurence, Barrone is his only friend so he feels slightly left out when he talks to or about other people.

Luke breaks off the hug and looks at Laurence for a moment before spotting the sword on his waist. The second he does he gets to his knees and bows loyally. "My name's Luke Illingworth, I'm the one who was actually assigned to aid you in your quest. I'll be granting you with anything my village has to offer you to give you strength to defeat the Dark Lord." He explains.