A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I, Jorah, give mind, body and spirit in the service of my Master, Oliver Patrick. I swear to make his dreams a reality, within the bounds of our agreement," Jorah said. He had not intended to include that last portion. It seemed more like it was forced out of him, like something had pushed him to it.

When he opened his eyes again, and turned around, he didn't find the hostile environment that he had always expected to find upon swearing his oath. He'd always expected people to cast aside the false masks that they had shown him, to merely reveal their devilish inside.

Instead, he found the same warmth that they had presented to him before. More so, in fact. The dangerous youth that the student body had come to fear as Oliver Patrick, he gave him the best smile of any of them. A genuine, friendly smile. Not the smile a master gives a servant, but the smile that a friend gives another friend.

Oddness surrounded him. In his very shadow, there sat the beautiful visage of the Lady Blackthorn. But despite that oddness, Jorah had a feeling that he'd made the right choice. A burden that he'd carried for far too long drifted off his back.

The fabled day soon arrived. It was hard for Oliver to remember the last time he'd been quite so excited. The week before? Almost. But then, he hadn't been quite sure what to expect. They'd told him that there would be monsters, Hobgoblins and the like, but a part of him had cautioned him about growing too excited.

That there was sure to be some catch, that it surely wasn't as good as things seemed.

Well, he'd already tested those waters, and he knew that the information Verdant had given him was rock solid. He'd been able to meet with an old foe, and whet his blade against them again. And so, for this reason, when he planned the expedition against an even mightier opponent, he allowed himself to indulge more freely in that excitement.

He'd decided to fight the Boulder Crab. It had been a choice between that, the Ivy Giant and the Phantom Horse. Something about the Boulder Crab just seemed more straightforward than the other two. The book that Verdant had given him listed it as being primarily a strength-based attacker.

That made sense, because the book also described it as being ridiculously massive. It had given him a weight, and also compared its height to the height of a tree, but the numbers seemed so ludicrous that Oliver wasn't willing to freely believe them until he saw the beast in person.

Of course, today wasn't just about Oliver. He knew that, and so he desperately tried to put a plug in his own excitement, as he tended to the others that he'd brought. The Boulder Crab was a good hour and a half away from the gate regardless. So it made sense to try their hand at some weaker monsters first.

"Alright then…" Oliver said, stretching his arm out, unable to keep the smile off his face.

The Minister of Blades, Gavlin, stood hauntingly behind the rest of their party. If he ignored him, he could well have said that the day couldn't actually get any more perfect than it already was. Well, it hadn't started yet.

Even Blackthorn – with her usually stone face – somehow seemed more beautiful. He grinned at her, and she drew her eyebrows back in an expression of disgust, which only made his grin wider as he stifled a laugh.

Blackthorn was sulking, he was pretty sure. When she'd found out that there would be others joining them on their weekend forays into the Grand Forest, she'd seemed put out. She'd hardly spoken to him the last two days, even whilst they trained.

Perhaps she assumed that he would have less time to train her, now that he had three other underlings to watch over.

"Alright, well, I suppose you four can work together, can't you?" Oliver asked, pointing at Blackthorn and then nodding towards his three newest retainers.

Kaya and Karesh looked to be bursting with nearly as much excitement as Oliver. Jorah was doing a better job of hiding it. They each had a short spear in their hands, despite their familiarity with the longer ones, Oliver had been pretty sure that the long ones would only serve as a hindrance, until they were able to build up a strong enough spear wall to make use of them.

Even those short spears, unfortunately, were borrowed. Now that Oliver had put all his gold towards hiring them – and had then deposited the rest in the bank, so that they would each be paid monthly until the end of the year – he now only had 3 golds in which to play with. Not enough for new weapons for his retainers, at least, not the expensive sort.

Verdant seemed convinced that he could get some halfway decent ones for mere silvers…

But regardless, that brought another qualifier towards their expedition that day. Oliver needed more Hobgoblin parts, somewhat desperately. The sting of an empty purse weighed heavy, and he sought to quickly rectify that through Nebular. Though, it must be pointed out how outrageous it was for him now to call a purse of 3 golds 'empty'.

After giving them that order, the lot of them looked particularly uncomfortable. Blackthorn for her own reasons – she didn't want to be trained alongside mere beginners, or so he could guess. And the boys for their own – they didn't feel comfortable fighting shoulder to shoulder with a noble of a standing as high as Blackthorn.

"C'mon, we're about to enter the clearing with the goblins in, you're going to have to steel yourselves, even if you don't like it," Oliver said. "Blackthorn is fast. For this first wave, merely defend her sides, stop the enemy from surrounding her. Lasha, why don't you see if you can up last week's total, now that you don't have to worry about getting surrounded?"

Her expression softened somewhat at that. She was the competitive sort. The prospect of progress excited her almost as much as it excited him.

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He cast a glance back to the Minister of Blades, who stood like a boulder, ten strides back from the rest. The man betrayed no reaction. There was no sign of whether he thought Oliver's leadership to be good, or bad, or whether he was simply thoroughly disinterested in the whole affair.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om