They arrived back at Braithvale in the late afternoon. The guard at the gate was taking a nap so they walked right into town unchallenged.
"Wow, it's weird to be back home," Brandon said after they'd been walking through the streets for awhile. "It looks so much smaller than I remember."
"That's because this is some rinky-dink inconsequential little town in the middle of some backwater kingdom nobody cares about," Fabian said. "Your hometown sucks. And I, for one, will be happy to never see it again after I collect my reward. Or should I say rewards."
"Rewards?" Brandon asked. "What do you mean rewards? Hey wait a minute. This is my house. What are we doing here?"
"Here's the thing, Scrote. The last time I was here I couldn't help but notice a poster advertising a reward for your return. I've returned you, so now I'm going to collect my reward." Fabian knocked on the front door several times.
"But what about our partnership?" Brandon asked. "I thought we were going to continue to travel and go on adventures together. I thought we were friends."
"Yeah, Fabian doesn't really do friends. I will say you were tolerable some of the time when you weren't annoying the bejeebuz out of me. And you definitely were useful once in awhile out there. But the fact of the matter is, I don't want to split the reward money for the cat with you."
"You can have it all," Brandon said. "I don't care about the reward. I just want to keep going on quests with you."
"Yeah, but then I'd be missing out on the reward money for you and I just couldn't live with myself if I passed up easy money like that. So, sorry Scrote. But it's time for you to go home." Fabian knocked on the door again.
A hard looking man whose hair was beginning to turn grey answered the door.
"Yeah? What do you want?"
"You have the honor to be in the presence of the famous hero and adventurer Fabian. I believe you were also advertising a reward for the return of your missing son, whom I have located and rescued at the risk of great bodily harm to myself." Fabian whipped out one of the posters he had torn off a wall and unfurled it.
The man blinked his eyes at the poster and then turned and looked at Brandon. "Bran? Is that you?"
"Hello, pa," Brandon said sheepishly.
"Brandon! You're home!" A little girl ran out of the house and wrapped her arms around him tightly.
"Hi Cecily," Brandon said as he returned the hug. "It's good to see you again. Master Fabian, this is my baby sister."
"Yeah, I don't care," Fabian said.
"Bran! Where the hell have you been?" Brandon's father shouted. "You get over here right now!" He threw Brandon over his knee, pulled down his pants and began paddling his bare bottom.
"Excuse me," Fabian said. "You can totally whoop his ass all you want on your own time, but I'm a busy man and I believe your poster mentioned a reward."
"Oh, right," Brandon's father paused in his paddling. "We're a poor family. We don't have much."
"That's okay," Fabian said. "I'll take whatever you've got."
"I can give you five gold shillings," Brandon's father said.
"Five? What are you, some sort of cheapskate? This is your child we're talking about here. How can you put a price on something like that? Which is why you should let me put a price on it and I think twenty gold shillings is fair."
"I have a wife and children to feed," Brandon's father pleaded. "We'll go hungry if I give you that much. I can give you ten shillings!"
"Tell you what. I'm a generous man. You can give me nineteen shillings and we'll call it square. Your daughter can probably stand to skip a few meals. She looks a little pudgy to me."
Brandon's father pursed his lips and let out a sigh. "I might be able to cobble together fifteen shillings. But we're going to have to tighten our belts for a little while."
"Make it sixteen and we'll call it a deal."
"Okay, wait here." Brandon's father went back into the house and emerged a few minutes later with the money.
"Pleasure doing business with you," Fabian said after he counted out the coins and made sure they were all there. "See you around, kid."
"Bran, say thank you to the man," his father said as he slapped him on the head.
"Thank you, sir," Brandon said.
"Now where's my cart?" Brandon's father asked.
"Um, I sort of lost it somewhere near the Enchanted Forest."
"What?" Brandon's father shouted. "You get over here!" He bent Brandon over his knee and began paddling his bottom again.
"Say, I'll tell you what," Fabian said. "I've got a horse I don't need parked in the stables. You can have him to replace your lost cart."
"Well, that's mighty nice of you," Brandon's father said. "You're good people."
"That I am. I will, of course, need another five shillings for him."
"Five shillings? All I've got left to my name is three shillings!"
"Sold!" Fabian said as he took the money from Brandon's dad. "And now I must be off to see that a rich lady gets her cat back."
"Wait, what rich lady?" Brandon's father asked.
"The countess, pa. Master Fabian and I found her lost cat."
"What do you mean you found her lost cat? You mean you helped, Bran? Wait a minute, don't you think that you're entitled to some of that reward money?"
"I'd back off if I were you, mister," Fabian said.
"The hell I'm going to back off! If my son helped find a rich countess's cat I'll be damned if he doesn't collect his share of what's coming to him. I think you've been trying to cheat me this whole time, you lousy low-life thief!" Brandon's father had moved so close to Fabian's face that he could feel the spit flying out of his mouth.
Fabian calmly pulled out his dagger and held it to Brandon's father's throat. "I said back off. You got your precious son back and you got a horse out of the deal. There's no need to get greedy here. Unless you think it's worth dying in front of your two sweet innocent children."
Brandon's father stared Fabian down for a minute before he finally backed off. "Get in the house, Cecily. Bran, you go straight to your room and don't even think about talking back to me. Consider yourself grounded for the next six months. And you," he said as he turned back to Fabian. "I don't ever want to see your face around here again or I'll organize a posse and hunt you down. Don't think I won't do it. Now get out of here."
"Jeez, you'd think a guy would be a little more grateful for having his son returned to him alive and mostly unharmed. The finger totally wasn't my fault, by the way. Anyway, thanks for the shillings. Catch you later, pops."
Fabian used some of the reward money to hire a cart to take him across town to the adventurer's guild.