15 Neigh

A new adventure! And two await us this time. There is the lighthouse that Drai mentioned, but also a damsel in distress, which is as heroic as it gets. Now all we need is a dragon. The bride of the prince we saved earlier... is there no end to royal woes?... was missing, and someone needed to go rescue her. It was a puzzling mission, and as things went onward, things got weirder still.

First of all, we were tasked to go to the palace.. which I suppose makes sense, they don't want any random adventurer to go "rescue", and want to know who is going. But a princess rescue mission from right outside town is a military job, not adventurer - so why hire us? This time we were promised actual payment, and when I asked about a badge of honor like last time, the response was, "hundreds of those if you want." Which.. well.. made the badge I have lose a lot of its value. It's pretty, though.

And the weirdest of all was that we were greeted by the prince, in person. He broke into tears before us and bawled on the breastplate of our fighter Emma, and I wasn't arrested when I placed my hand on his royal back and tapped a few times. So it seems.. the prince controls some funds but not the troops. What are all the guards doing then..? Someone else controls them - if so, who? It doesn't seem like they'd be needed to fight off a revolution as the town is quiet. The prince said something about his father being out of town.. perhaps that explains it.Some royal infighting, and a poor would-be princess pays the price by being left undefended.

Figures. When aristocrats are involved, someone else always gets hurt.

So with a promise of hundreds of badges of honor and a thousand gold each, we.. Kab.. that is, me.. Drai, Rivyre, and replacing Coill from the first adventure, Emma, a well-shaped and attractive human female warrior... set off to travel, with a a map and a description of the prince's fiancee in our possession. The fiancee was a pretty young thing. Very young. Like nine or so, far too young to bear a child, and if one can't do that, why wed? Aristoc rats and their ways again.

At the gate I got myself a horse. That was the next weird thing. It seems there is an orcish force nearby, and no one is buying horses. Should that not be high season? Anyway, I got myself the best horse there was, a beautiful black heavy warhorse, and got it for pittance, plus equipment for good measure, and some basic horse maintenance and riding tuition. I asked the horse what it's name was.. and the suggestion was excellent. Neigh it is, and Neigh likes carrots and apples.

Carrots were in short supply so we headed out to an orchard of apple trees along the way, resupplied and moved on to find the young aristocrat, with a very happy warhorse to ride.