13 - Departure

It seemed that the phrase 'money talks' held true in both Tom's old world and the one he found himself in now, as after he had slammed down a pouch filled with gold coins on the counter, the bartender's tune quickly changed.

"What exactly are you hoping to achieve in New Dale? The mine is swarming with monsters and there is nothing of value left in the town."

"That's nothing you need to worry about, I need a team of 4 to follow me to New Dale, stay there for half a day, then return. The pay will be 10 gold coins per person with the possibility of a bonus depending on performance."

Explaining the therms to the bartender yet again, Tom didn't fail to notice how his eyes glazed over with greed the moment he mentioned the pay, but he still seemed unwilling to accept the absurdity of Tom's request.

"Look, no matter how much you're paying I need more information about the job, what you'll be doing in New Dale, if you plan on fighting monsters or avoiding them and how the hell you're sure you'll even be able to walk out of there alive."

"Yeah that's cool and all, seems like we'll need to take our business elsewhere."

Returning the gold coins to his pouch, Tom turned around and prepared to leave when he noticed that some of the half drunk adventurers had gotten up from the benches they had been drinking at to block the exit, weapons drawn.

"Now let's not be too rash here, leaving here without paying is a crime."

"But we didn't fucking buy anything!"

"Sure you did, I say you did so that's what the guards are going to believe."

With Lisa also getting involved trying to refute the bartender's claim, Tom quickly realised the bartender had been blinded by greed the moment he had seen how much gold Tom was offering.

(Well that's understandable, this amount of coin could set him up for a life of luxury… That is, if he lives to spend it.)

"Gas, masks on."

With negotiations having broken down, Tom warned Lisa as he took a grenade from his plate carrier and pulled the pin, tossing it to the side as he put on his gas mask and made sure Lisa had her on and it was secure.

"What the hell is going on here!?"

Arriving at the adventurers guild around mid day, Ruth found the place attracting quite a bit of attention from guards and bystanders as white smoke was billowing out from the door and anyone who came close to it started uncontrollably coughing as their eyes teared up.

"Stay away from the smoke! Whatever it is, it's toxic!"

Taking a step back as advised, Ruth made sure she was keeping a healthy distance from the smoke when she heard the familiar sound of a gunshot ring out from inside the guild.

"Someone is coming out!"

As a guard called out a pair of figures could be seen emerging from the smoke wearing strange masks, but Ruth quickly recognized them as the pair which had joined her latest caravan gig mid-way through and subsequently saved her life a dozen times over. Watching Tom and Lisa leave the guild, briefly get questioned by the city guard where Tom showed them some sort of seal, Ruth approached them when they were about to leave the area.

"Hey Tom, what happened in there?"

"I tried to hire some adventurers, negotiations broke down and the bartender and his goons tried to rob me so I showed him what for."

"... Did you kill him?"

"Yeah, he tried to rob me blind so I defended myself."

This wasn't the first time Ruth had heard about that particular bartender screwing over both customers and adventurers alike, he would demand unreasonably high 'service fees' and threaten adventurers to give up most of their cut from contracts so it really didn't bother Ruth to hear that he had finally tried to scam someone who didn't take shit from anyone.

"In case you're still open to hiring some adventurers for a job, me and most of the others from the caravan gig are available. Ulf is taking his sweet time negotiating with multiple partners about the goods he brought here so we're all just lazing around."

"Sure, lead the way."

Seeing Ruth had no issue with him smoking the bartender, Tom was open to working with her and flashed a smile as he removed his gas mask and urged her to lead the way.

Running into one of the adventurers who had been part of the caravan after he had dealt with the bartender, Tom quickly found himself inside another bar negotiating work.

"Imposible, even with that magic weapon of yours there's no way 6 people can just make a day trip to New Dale and return alive. In the first place it would take 2 days on foot just getting to the town, that's of course not counting the delay constant gob attacks would cause, we wouldn't even make it half-way there before being forced to turn back due to depletion of supplies."

Having calmly heard out Tom, Ruth who acted as the leader of the adventurers calmly explained how what he was asking for was an impossible mission at best, and at worst a suicide run.

"Then what do you suggest?"

Recognising he was dealing with competent people who actually wanted to work with him this time around, Tom asked Ruth for suggestions.

"Well for once you'll need a larger crew… Even with your magic weapon you would need at least 12, 16 people to be safe, to just stay inside New Dale for a few hours. With that many people, supplying them and taking care of the injured would be difficult travelling on foot so getting an armoured carriage would be wise."

Hearing Ruth's assessment, Tom learned back in his chair to think for a moment before answering.

"No good, I plan on using the same stuff I used at the adventurers guild on the monsters to keep them away and only have 4 spare masks so even 12 people are too many."

Explaining his reasoning for just having 4 adventures along, Tom had decided to thrust Ruth and her people as she seemed willing to work with them so keeping fact's off the table at this point was counter-productive.

"... In that case I suggest taking at least 20 people and 2 armoured carriages to somewhere near New Dale, then set up a defensive position with the carriages near town and splinter off with a smaller group to head into the town after the large group has drawn the monster's attention."

"That could work, but with that many people I can't pay 10 gold per head."

Although he absolutely could pay out 200 gold coins for that mission, Tom wasn't about to let anyone onto the fact that he could quite literally print money from thin air. Having expected this to be a deal-breaker, Tom was surprised to see smiles all around from the adventures.

"A single gold coin per person is absolutely fine, if you're really going to get rid of the monster nest as you say, then that's more than enough for all of us here… We've all lost people near and dear to us to these fucking gobs so getting rid of them would be the best kind of revenge any of us could hope for."

"... Then let's get to work."

Accepting Ruth's conditions with approval from the surrounding adventurers, Tom settled the deal with a firm handshake and got to work preparing for the expedition where he ended up buying a lot of the needed gear from the merchant Ulf before deciding that they would set off come first light tomorrow as it had become too late after spending the afternoon getting supplies.

"So that's how you plan on dealing with whatever this 'nest' is?"

"Yeah, so as one of the great poets of my old time said, 'when in doubt, C4'."

Sharing the finer parts of his plan with Lisa the night before they set off towards New Dale, Lisa was understandably doubtful about the potency of the tiny block of clay like substance in front of her.

"Can that thing really do that?"

"Yeah, this 2 kilo slab of compound gamma is enough to collapse the mine and kill everything inside, and if that is not enough I have this one too."

Presenting Lisa with another slab of explosives, Tom was met with another eye roll from Lisa but she seemed to accept his plan. 

"So you're going to gas everything, get to the mine and then blow it all up."

"Yeah, compound theta is denser than air so it'll flow down into the mine and choke everything inside, then it's just a matter of setting up the explosives and level the place."

Leaving out the numerous problems with the plan he was radically oversimplifying, Tom spent the rest of the night summoning the rest of the equipment and ammo he needed for the mission, reducing his point reserve to a measly 512.

"Well, here we are, last chance to back out."

"There's no way we'll do that with what you're paying us."

Starting the next day out by giving the adventurers he had hired one last chance to leave, Tom didn't know whether to feel happy or be annoyed at Ruth's statement. While he was the one who had forced their hand by paying an absurd amount of money for a day's work Tom also realised that it wasn't likely for all of them to make it out of this alive.

"Then let's get this show on the road, I'm calling the shots and will be on top of the first carriage, Ruth you'll be on the second; assign whoever you want for rear guard."

Delegating the adventurers to figure out the finer details, Tom jumped up on top of the first armoured carriage before extending a hand to Lisa. While the adventurers were somewhat surprised at how effortlessly Tom jumped 4 metres into the air with a rifle and heavy gear, Lisa just rolled her eyes at his extended hand before her green eyes started glowing slightly, then she leapt up onto the carriage and joined him. With the amount of training Lisa had gone through the last few weeks under Tom's care she had gradually started using more magic, and although she wasn't that comfortable doing more advanced things, stuff like strengthening her body for shorts bursts now came to her almost instinctively at this point. Immediately when Tom saw Lisa prepare to jump onto the carriage he turned off the safety on his M-909 and paid special attention to the surrounding adventures, but after a few seconds of quiet scrutiny it seemed like none of them had noticed or cared that Lisa used magic. Waiting for the convoy to get underway Tom got slightly more serious as he moved closer to Lisa and lowered his voice.

"This could turn slightly serious, if at any point you fear getting overrun, abandon the adventurers and escape by yourself, I'll be fine."

"That-"

"I'm serious, and if any of the adventurers try to get in your way when you're running, kill them without hesitating. If you can't promise me you'll do this right this second I'll leave you behind."

Seeing how serious Tom was just by the look in his eyes, Lisa seemed to accept the terms after a bit but it still took about a minute for her to respond.

"Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Okay, I'll put myself above all others if things start getting dicey."

"Good, then let's go kill some monsters."