B1 Chapter 14 - On the Defensive

A week passed without much note. Jackson came by more often to walk me to work. Apparently, Nancy was putting the young man to work when he said he was willing. Poor sucker. Nancy also began going to the forest. I guess she did so occasionally, but with the rumors of a demon, it inspired her Drachenlict heritage to wanna personally slay it.

I knew the other reason was to look for Tabitha. I think she felt responsible for not going with us that day, and the lack of a body was nagging at her. Though the girls were eating better because of it. Nancy was a skilled fighter by a normal Rumorain standard, and bringing home a wolf every day or so had been pretty trivial for her.

With the funds that Cecilia and I added to her budget, we were now getting two meals a day. Though I still tried to skip when they weren’t looking. I just didn’t need that much food. But occasionally, they would bribe me by adding a baked potato to dinner.

I was about ready to leave when the guild master brought me a bucket of cores.

“Give these to Nancy,” he said, mildly annoyed.

“Okay, but what are they?” I asked.

“Alarm cores. She owes me big, be sure to let her know that,” he added.

“So like-”

“She will explain. I’m going to bed,” he said.

I chuckled but grabbed the bucket. It was heavy, but nothing too extreme for me to handle.

Nancy saw me with them as she was sweeping the front porch and ran over. “That doofus couldn’t bring them?”

“What happened with you two?” I asked. I couldn’t help wanting to know.

“We dated once upon a time,” she said. “As you can tell, past tense.”

“I sense, I don’t wanna know more,” I said.

She smiled. “Smart woman, always had good instincts. So he finally made them.”

“So, he said you’d tell me how they work?” I said.

She nodded. “These circle ones create a field, and then these cylinder ones become beacons. If a beacon leaves the field, it will sound the alarm. Which is a high-pitched screech loud enough to wake the dead. Anyone who tries to steal a kid from my shelter again will regret it.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“Come help me dig some holes to bury them,” she said, smiling.

I grabbed a shovel and she carried the bucket. She mentioned that they needed to be about ten meters apart. So covering the entire shelter took quite a lot of them. She actually had already marked where she planned to put them. So the task was pretty simple. Dig about two feet deep, drop it, cover, and done.

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“So is this a common thing to do in Drachenlict?” I asked.

“Yes, but it isn’t a Drachenlict custom if that is what you mean. Even Rumorain nobles use this technology. It is pretty common once you are in places with something to lose. Sadly, it costs a lot. He can make them out of the best digger rat cores, though, so by supplying him with dire wolf cores, I was able to save up about a third of the price so far.”

“Yikes. Did the money I gave you help at all?” I asked. I did end up giving her all my pay. It was only for about three days, and I wanted the girls to be taken care of. My next pay day is a full pay. I was planning to spend more of it on myself. I really needed a better bag.

“No. I’d never spend donation money on something like this. It was my failure, and I wanted to pay for it,” she said. “Your money went for food and other needs we were low on.”

She really was a good person. She was someone I could aspire to be like. “So, I am curious. You are clearly a good hunter. Why not be an adventurer? Seems like you could sustain the shelter by yourself that way.”

She looked down and shook her head. “I wouldn’t be caring for the shelter at all that way. Leaving it alone this long, as I have been hunting, is actually something I feel bad about. Without me, the girls tend to form factions, and while they may have full bellies, it doesn’t usually end well. Plus, the shelter isn’t supposed to be forever. They are meant to get skills or jobs and eventually escape. It isn’t supposed to be comfortable.”

“Then why now?” I asked.

“Tilly was nine. I never lost a child before,” she said. “At least, not like this. Sickness is one thing. Slavers are the only group I can imagine that would do that. If slavers are coming for children… god, it makes me wanna puke. I won’t allow it. Even if I have to ignore my normal setup.”

“If anything, I hadn’t noticed a difference in any of the girls at the shelter currently,” I said, smiling. At this point, I had completed my basic research notes and had memorized all the girls' names.

She laughed. “Two main reasons for that. It has only been a week, plus every girl here is upset about Tilly. It is a uniting factor.”

And last one, I thought while patting the dirt. I looked at Nancy, and she was putting a bracelet on. “This is the controller. Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the universe?”

“Not really, but I have a feeling I am about to either way,” I said.

She just smiled as a super high-pitched shriek went off. It sounded like nails on a slate, or a dying bird, but as loud as I could imagine. I quickly covered my ears and shut my eyes. I don’t even know why I closed my eyes; it just felt like an instinct to hide from the attack on my head. But then in a heartbeat, it vanished.

“I’d say that was a success,” she added.

All the girls and children came out. Which had the side benefit of making everyone ready to hear the explanation of the alarm. She also handed out sticks to almost everyone. She only had thirty for now. She didn’t give me one since I left the most often.

A guard came running up to us, a bit out of breath. “What in the name of all that is reasonable was that?” he asked.

“Alarm. That was the test; if you hear it again, it means someone is attacking the shelter,” Nancy said. “Inform your boss or tell him to come here if he has a problem with it.”

The guard clearly was not about to fight Nancy, so he left.

“Would they have an issue with it?” I asked.

“Totally. Even the rich guys can probably hear it, despite them being on the opposite side of town. They can’t do anything about it if it is being used properly, but if we set up too many false alarms, they could ask us to shut it down. So, we need to be careful.”

That tracks. The rich do what they please after all. Slavers were usually backed or directly catering to the rich after all. So, if anything, this system not only annoyed them but also cut into their profits. Yeah, that was gonna lead to issues later on. But Nancy didn’t seem worried, so I decided to trust in her.

It was funny thinking about how the shelter was getting an alarm system almost entirely because I took Tilly outside of the town in the middle of the night. Though one thing was for sure. I couldn’t sneak any more women out of the shelter anytime soon.