33 Risen#re

Lirian followed behind Naz, while gently tapped his cane against the ground as he walked, Lirian realised that for a village it was pretty wealthy because it's main road was completely cobbled, and the village was pretty big, it took a good half hour to reach the best inn in the village.

The inn was stationed on the main road , just across the street was little bakery and a little further up sat the residence of the village mayor.

The smell of food and ale carried into the night air as well as the chattering of the people that were huddled within the inn, much of what Lirian had heard was similar to what the guard had told him, the primary topic of everything was the orcs.

Lirian felt amused at their great fears, if they only knew that it was him, and that they just let the person they were all fearing into their village, he wondered how they'd react.

When he reached the door, Lirian pulled out a couple coppers and dropped them into Naz's hand, as he pushed the old door open.

Ding.

A little bell on top of the door rung as it opened and Lirian stepped inside the room, at first his presence didn't catch to much attention, but as more and more people didn't recognise him he caught more and more attention.

For the past few days there wasn't a single new face in town and even the merchants that came, were well known by the villages, and even with the mask Lirian was very memorable, from his face and the blindfold to his height to his gear, and the walking cane it all stood out.

Naz was happily looking at his palm that was full of coin, a generous tip that Lirian provided, when he noticed the looks that were being cast at Lirian, most of them were curious but some of them were wary.

He quickly rushed in and whispered a few words to anyone important in the town explaining the situation, the first person he told was naturally the inn keeper and as soon as Naz moved on to the next person, the inn keeper walked to Lirian.

"Greetings guest from afar, welcome to my humble abode," the fat inn keeper said with a flourished bow to Lirian, he bowed so low that his large apron brushed the floor, and everyone looked on in surprise at the inn keepers' actions.

But as Naz moved around speaking softly, the story quickly reached everyone's ears that they were in the presence of a cultivator, and they all started to look at Lirian with reverence in their eyes.

The inn keeper, stood with a small distance between himself and Lirian to be respectful, "How may I be of service to you good traveller?" he asked with a big smile.

Lirian grabbed a coin purse from his belt, that had 10 silvers and tossed it to the innkeeper, "I'll be staying for a few days to rest up, prepare your best room for me, serve me 3 hot meals a day during my stay and prepare a hot bath for me every morning before the sun rises, and keep my mug topped up with your best ale at all times,"

Lirian's demands could have been said to be excessive but the innkeeper smiled pleasantly and showed Lirian to a table in the inn.

Once Lirian was seated the inn keeper went into the kitchen and looked into the purse, he broke out into a wide smile as he saw the silver, even a single silver would have had him over the moon.

In general, he charged 8 coppers for a normal room and 13 coppers for his best room, 3 coppers for a meal and 5 coppers for a hot bath and two mugs of ale were worthy a copper.

So even if he gave his best treatment for a day it couldn't be much more than 30 coppers a day, maybe 35 if the guest was a big drinker, and it took 100 coppers to make a silver.

Yet he got ten silvers for just a few days, it was more than he made in a good season, let alone a month.

---

Lirian took a seat in one of the corners of the room near the fireplace that was crackling loudly, the warmth of a fire always clear Lirian's head, and as he sat down, there were several people that came up to him and offered their thanks, and many of them even prayed to him openly.

It was due to that, that Lirian realised just how highly the people thought of cultivators, from their prayers Lirian could tell that they believed cultivators to be upright guardians of justice and goodness.

Heroes who look after world, and more than once he heard some of the younger one's directly praying to him to save them from the orc invasion, as for the adults they were a little more tactful and simple prayed that Willcolly be protected from harm.

This was a first for Lirian, but he managed to hide his shocked well as he took in large mouthfuls of ale, and listened to the various prayers being sent his way, Lirian had heard a lot, maybe a little to much about the peoples lives at one point, these mortals started to get very detailed with their prayers.

They were some girls that were praying for a prince to make them their wives, and there were others that began to openly state the names of the woman and man they wanted to wed, at which point Lirian started to think that there was something wrong with the people, because that was just the least ridiculous of their prayers.

Lirian sighed as he thought of the potential cause of this, the people did basically deify cultivators, but it would be ridiculous for them to openly state such wishes with a crowd watching.

Lirian realised that it was likely something to do with him, even with his clothing blocking their view of his body, it wasn't spelled to completely conceal his bodies natural effect on the people, while they weren't experiencing an insatiable lust their minds were being affected, the moment they opened up a little to him with their prayers all their hidden desires started gushing out.

"Cough," Lirian cleared his throat loudly, "All of you return to your meals and stop disturbing me," Lirian said in a slightly cold tone.

Everyone started looking around with alertness in their eyes, as they realised what they had been doing, and many of the people who were reaching marrying age were looking around with reddened faces, as they realised that they admitted to liking certain people or that they didn't want to marry the person they were betroth to.

The people soon backed away, not complained a bit even they knew that they had gone too far, and they couldn't explain why.

As the crowd dispersed, one of the barmaids came and carefully placed a bowl of hot soup in front of Lirian.

It was vegetable soup, with bits of chicken inside it, Lirian could tell that his was different from everyone's as he took a sniff, the others only had vegetables in theirs but Lirian had meat in his and there was a lot more vegetables inside it.

However after digging in Lirian felt disappointed, while it was flavourful, when compared to the food he was used to eating, it was the equivalent of animal grub.

As Lirian ate a small girl maybe five or six years old came up to him with shining eyes, and said in curious tone, "Mr," she called out sweetly, "Mommy and daddy are saying that Mr is strong, just like Mr. Cassy," she said.

"But they won't tell me who's stronger, are you stronger or is Mr Cassy stronger?" she asked with curious eye, "I think Mr Cassy is stronger, he can pick me up with one hand and hold me up in the sky like a birdie," she said with a giggle.

Lirian was glad to hear the name Mr Cassy it was for him that Lirian had decided to come all the way to this village, that was the name of the cultivator Lirian had discovered in the bandits memories, and from the look of thing he was pretty well known.

After seeing the treatment, the people here gave to him, he imagined that was similar if not greater to Mr Cassy who lived amongst them.

"Lizzy," the girls mother suddenly cried as if just noticing that her daughter had snuck away, "We told you not to trouble him," her mother scolded her.

"Please forgive her for disturbing you, I'll take whatever punishment you have in mind, please forgive my daughter," the girls mother cried falling to her knees while begging.

"That's alright," Lirian said to woman he was fairly amused by the little girl.

"Lizzy," Lirian said turning to the girl, the girl seemed a little worried after seeing her mother's reaction, but she nodded obediently when Lirian spoke.

"Do you want to hear a secret Lizzy?" Lirian asked with a playful smirk.

The little girl seemed to forget all of her earlier hesitation at the mention of a secret, as he eyes lit up and she nodded.

Lirian pointed two fingers at her and silver energy began to build-up under the girls feet, and in just seconds the girls eyes opened wide as she realised that she was flying, the silver energy was lifting her up and brought her ear close to Lirian's lips.

"There is no one stronger than me in the whole wide world," Lirian whispered playfully into her ear, his whisper was intentionally loud so that everyone could hear.

The adults smiled softly, due to the playfulness in Lirian's tone they believed that he was lying and intentionally letting them know, as for Lizzy her entire face had gone red from excitement as she nodded her little head vigorously.

The children and adults looked on in complete awe at the little girl who was floating in the air like a little fairy.

They had never seen such a sight not even Mr Cassy could do such a thing; it was like they got to see the power of the deities for themselves.

Lirian twirled his finger and Lizzy acme back to the ground, "Now run along to your mother," Lirian said as the girl stood still staring at him as if star struck.

"Barmaid, show me to my room," Lirian said after taking another swing from his mug and emptying out the ale, before climbing to his feet.