Broken Haven

Chapter 12

Hans awoke with a gasp of 'Air!' He thought to himself. 'I can breathe! Finally!' After he'd gotten over this experience that he'd been lacking for a fair few weeks now, he laid for a few more moments. He recollected the events of yesterday. He'd sent the Madnight of whom he hadn't even asked the name of to be locked up in one of the town's houses with at least two people on watch at any given time. Plans had been set to immediately start more work on the wall, and to clean up the mess left behind from Orthys. Hans felt somewhat pleased about the events of yesterday... He knew he shouldn't, but he just couldn't help it. With Jehtro out of the picture, everyone looked to him for a solution. He held this new sense of power with pride.

Hans wondered down for breakfast on his own as everyone else seemed to have already set off to the pub. He spotted his friends at the usual table and wondered over. He took a seat before taking a deep and exaggerated breath as he beamed. "Yes, we know." Rosalie replied with dull eyes.

Hans ate his breakfast next to the blue spirited villagers, trying to hide a smirk that kept managing to creep its way onto his face. Hazel, Alex, Rosalie, Jose, and Lucas, all sat around his table. Jethro sat at a table nearby; his face was extremely pale, and his faded expression told Hans everything he needed to know about Jethro's mood. "Hans?" Hazel requested faintly in the back of Hans's distracted mind.

"Sorry, what?" He replied, focusing back to reality.

"You should make a proper speech, and get people's jobs set."

"Yeah, I should..." Hans kicked back his chair and stood up, forcing the gazes to his direction. "I'd like to make a speech..." He looked over to Jethro, who half-heartedly nodded.

"We had a tough day yesterday. Lots of good people died. We need to pull together now. I mentioned about us getting better equipped for battles. I also talked about repairing the walls. My suggestion is that we have people go out and fight bosses for special equipment that we can't craft or buy. Even if we don't need it, we can still sell the stuff you earn so that we can buy masses of food to store for a later date. Who would like to volunteer to go out and fight bosses?" A few hands rose, Jose included. "That's good. Make sure to strip those Madnight of any salvageable armour; if its messed up then our blacksmith can fix it back into shape I imagine. We'll also need some people to go out and collect resources to rebuild the wall. Any volunteers?" Some hands rose. "I'd like the rest of you to get farming monsters for money. I want everyone to be fully decked out with the best equipment that they can get. Well... I've rambled on for long enough and I think you get my point, so... Good luck I suppose. We will rise above this. We will be ready for anything." Headed modestly nodded.

Hans glanced back at the table, quickly making eye contact with Rosalie before moving on. "Uh." Hans cleared his throat for his undivided attention again. "Just one more thing... We need to vote on what we're going to do with our prisoner." Eyes turned back to face Hans with interest. "We have the option to keep him prisoner, or kill him."

"What about letting him free?" Hazel asked.

Hans sighed. "Uh... Yeah, or set him free; that too."

"Votes for setting him free?" Hazel and a few others rose their hands.

"He saved us Hans." Hazel reminded Hans quietly.

"All in favour of keeping him prisoner?" Many hands rose at once. "And Killing him?" Hans raised his hand and a few others did so. "Really, that's it? He did try to kill us... OK. Seems like a waste of an opportunity to irradiate a problem."