Fractured God

After Mr. Bentley said his piece he left for his office to send a few letters to adventurer headquarters. After his leave, several of the people present promptly left for their respective guilds. In the end, only four were left sitting in the dusty building, two of which included Elizabeth and Ezekiel.

"Those bastards, are they even human?" Elizabeth asked those present.

"I can't believe they've managed to get away doing this five times now," Ezekiel responded.

The next to open his mouth was a crude-looking man with spiky hair and black spots over his eyes wearing mostly dark leather armour.

"Oi, Jake wasn't this recent village they found near your place? The fuck were you doing huh? Too busy having fun fucking your groupies you little bastard!!" The crude man shouted at the other man present while standing up from his chair.

"Come on Furor, it isn't like that-" but before the man could fully respond Furor kicked his chair at him.

"Don't give me that horse shit you mean to tell me you limp dicks didn't bother to check the place for a week? Ezekiel here was the one who had to report this and compared to you, he might as well be on the other side of the country!!!" He shouted at the man named Jake's face.

"Enough Furor, we're supposed to be killing cultists, not each other," Elizabeth told him.

"Tch" he responded while picking up his chair. He looked less remorseful and more annoyed at her comment.

One might think that this group had no commonality. And they would be right. The only thing that caused this group to form in the first place was Ezekiel. Well, less Ezekiel and more of their respect for him.

"Anyway Jake, I heard you had some big job," Ezekiel asked him.

"Yeah, I was offered a commission in the capital, I didn't even come back until yesterday," Jake responded, trying to clear the air. Jake himself looked for lack of a better word, pretty generic. He had short brown hair and was wearing pretty unremarkable armour. If you said the words "upstart adventurer" he would be the first thing you imagined.

Furor didn't even spare him a glance because as far as he was concerned Jake was giving an excuse for his incompetence.

"Well," Ezekiel, "I suppose talking here isn't going to get us anywhere. I'll stay here and talk with the old man. You guys can go."

"The hell are you running us away for!?" Furor blurted at him.

Elizabeth quickly stood up and walked towards the exit.

"Well, if you'll excuse me."

"Oi, where the hell do you think you're going!?" He shouted at her. Unfortunately for him, she paid no mind to him and went on her way.

"Tch, she thinks she's such hot shit."

"Jealous you're not number 2 anymore?" Asked Ezekiel with a grin on his face.

"Shut the hell up."

"(Why am I still here?)" Jake thought to himself while minimising his presence.

As soon as Elizabeth returned to the mansion she gave Tibaut a brief rundown.

"So what are we gonna do?" Asked Tibaut.

"At the current moment nothing. As far as I can tell we're going to have our best trackers (not that, that means much) work on figuring out their location."

"That's it?"

"Of course not you idiot. As soon as they find anywhere vaguely suspicious we're gonna have to bust down its door and see what's up."

Tibaut nodded his head and responded "Oh."

"And because of that, I've decided to add something special to your training."

"What, you buy a new book?"

With a smile on her face she continued "No, we have more than enough in the library. Starting tomorrow you'll get some physical training with me tomorrow."

"Oh cool." He responded not sounding nearly as concerned as he should have been. Due to him honestly speaking to Vanessa, he had taken a shocking amount of damage to his mental fortitude which is why sadly he did not realise the danger hidden in those words.

It was now a little later in the day and Tibaut was scrounging around the pantry looking for food. From the outside of the room, Vanessa was discreetly watching him. When she was doing this she noticed Elizabeth walking by and called to her.

"Hey, Liz." She whispered as loud as possible to catch her attention.

Elizabeth just looked and sighed. "Vanessa, I know you haven't had a boyfriend for a while but this is just creepy. I didn't know you'd stoop to stalking." She said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Shut the hell up, look at what he's doing."

Elizabeth unenthusiastically obliged and looked at Tibaut in the pantry.

"He's looking for something to eat. What about it?"

"Thing is I don't honestly think I've seen him eat before."

"So?" Elizabeth responded plainly.

"The thing is, and I've asked Merill, it doesn't seem like for as long as he's been here he hasn't eaten any of the dried meat, or fruits or used any flour."

"Are you sure?" she asked with false concern.

"Very."

Elizabeth looked as if she was done with Vanessa and walked towards Tibaut.

"Hey Liz, what are you doing?"

"If you're curious why don't we just ask him."

Soon Vanessa had run up to Elizabeth to try and drag her back. If only Elizabeth had cared. Even a fly would have done a better job slowing her down. It was like watching someone try to stop a car on ice barehanded.

"Hey Tibaut, Vanessa's been curious about what you've been eating these past days."

Tibaut looked at her with his hand stuffed with something. "Oh, these." He responded as he extended his hand out to her.

"..."

"..."

"What's wrong guys?"

"Tibaut," Elizabeth said in the lightest tone she could manage. "Have you been eating nothing but hard-tack ever since you got here?"

"Yeah, what about it?" He said while taking a bite of it. It sounded as though he had just bitten a rock.

You might be wondering what hardtack is. Simple. Flour and water. And maybe if you're lucky, some salt.

None of that fancy leavening stuff here. In the history of mankind, there are few dishes, no calling it a dish would be an insult to anything that's been called food throughout human history, creations as sad as hardtack.

Due to it being created simply for survival and nothing else you could probably find rocks with a better texture and with its hardness too much to bear for some, they'd have to break it with a hammer and try to make soup with it to even eat it.

"Please Tibaut we can teach you how to make bread, so please stop resorting to desperate measures." Pleaded Elizabeth.

"Yeah, I heard Elizabeth say you used to live in the wild. You don't have to live like you won't know when your next meal is gonna come, anymore." Vanessa said while reaching out to him for a hug.

"(Why the hell are they giving me those looks?)"