Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 486 of 619

Silvermoor held now. Aldric kept the count, Tucker kept the lodge, and Chalam would sail south to Grayson at dawn. But Ajax had one thing left to settle before he left the town himself. The bar servers and room workers had earned their place. He wanted them stronger before he crossed the sea. He found Chalam in the great hall, staff in hand, satchel packed for the voyage. "One more working before you go," Ajax said. "Your potion. The one that builds a man over three days." Chalam set the staff down. "It needs their consent. I won't pour it into a man who doesn't ask for it." "I know the rule," Ajax said. It was Chalam's rule, and Ajax had kept it every time. "Offer it. Don't press. Whoever wants it, takes it." Tucker leaned on the bar, cloth over his shoulder. He had run rooms in worse towns and knew what filled them. "Better looks mean better tips," he said. "Captains stay a night when the server's worth looking at. But you tell them plain what it does, or they'll bolt." Ajax called the servers and room keepers to the hall. Six men, hired off the harbor, sworn to silence with silver chains. He stood before them and spoke straight. "The wizard has a drink. It makes a man bigger, stronger, harder to forget. It lasts. Three days and it's done. No man here drinks it unless he wants it." Chalam stepped forward and said it colder still. "It doesn't undo. Say yes and you keep the body for good." The men looked at each other. Tucker poured wine and let the quiet sit. One young keeper spoke first. "I'll take it." Then all of the others agreed Chalam brought out the vials. He measured each dose and gave it to the them. "First cup now," he said. "Two more over three days. I'll leave the rest with Tucker, marked in order. He pours nothing without my count written on it." By dusk the change had started. Shoulders broader. Chests thicker. The men worked the bar shirtless that night and drew every eye in the room. Two captains booked beds who'd meant to sail. Tucker counted the coin and grinned. The men work always work shirtless. Ajax watched from the door. The town would hold. Aldric had the ledger, Tucker had the lodge, and now the lodge had men who'd pull captains off the water. Silvermoor could pay its own way across eight days of sea. Chalam shouldered his satchel. "I sail at first light." "Go," Ajax said. "Grayson needs your stone." His council was scattered now, one man to a coast. But every post was manned, and the house still answered to him. He would gather them home when the walls stood full again.