3 Can we take his stuff?

Julian made them scare off the crows from his garden while he retreated back inside to make himself presentable. Dog had finally taken pity on him because Julian found his seeing glasses conveniently placed on the desk where it clearly wasn't before. He hissed curses at the thing but otherwise ignored the creature in favor of getting dressed.

Within the mess that now decorated his little living space, he had a really hard time finding where his walking stick was. Actually, hadn't he left it leaning against the stuffed bear? Or was it behind the armor? Julian wanted to pull his hair out in frustration.

It ended up being near the entrance, next to the trunk Julian conveniently used a shoe stand and the spilled Blues that were now all scattered over the floor. The ores glittered and glowed like little gems but were too rough in texture to be called a precious stone. To the Doctor, there was nothing else in the world more valuable and precious. These babies were the only known mineral in the world that could conduct mana.

Julian swore there was one ore less than before when he went to put them back in the jar. He wouldn't be surprised if he found it in a day's time, somewhere among wyvern manure.

"Dog! If you don't behave I'm going to stuff you into one of those rabbit cages for the next two weeks, you hear me?"

The wyvern cackled at him but did not cause any more mischief, curling up in the hammock and rocked back and forth. Julian left the window open in hopes that the beast would fly out and never return.

Finally he was going to see those brats again and give them a well-deserved beating.

"Come out, you noisy devils!" He howled at them, waving his old walking stick around threateningly.

"We didn't do anything wrong." The girl, eight years old, was called Lina and had brown-red hair always done in two little braids. She took after her fat needling-spinning mother and had large chubby cheeks and had a constant bored pouty expression on her face.

"Yeah, that's right." Freddie was the same age as Lina but was half a head shorter than her. His head was a mess of brown curls and he had a dumb gap-tooth look about him that Julian liked to make fun of. Plus, the brat totally deserved it. "It's not our fault you don't have your life together."

Lina dusted off her apron as she stood, a perfect replica of her mother's habits, albeit a bit clumsy. She approached the Doctor with a little bounce in her heels, undaunted by his crossed arms or narrowing glare. "There is urgent matter we wanna discuss with Mister Doctor. Won't you listen?"

"Yeah, old man." Freddie ran up to him and couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to stand on Lina's right or her left. The kid was shuffling back and forth restlessly, "You gotta listen to us."

Julian's arms tightened as his sneer deepened, glaring at them through the circular glasses that sat upon his nose, "Is that how you talk to me, as an adult and village healer?"

Lina said nothing and gave him a look of disappointment.

Freddie nonchalantly replied, "Yup. You're not even good at being an adult even though you're an old man."

"Learn some manners!" Julian roared at them, raising his cane. It didn't really have the effect that he wanted. The little shits ran off with laughter, knowing well that he had no way of chasing them with his lame leg.

Left to curse and fume, Julian waited for their return to finally tell him why they had to so rudely rouse him from his rest.

Maybe Freddie's dad had another exceptionally bad hangover and couldn't get out of his bed to go tend the sheep. Or maybe Lina's mom wanted Julian to take a look at their old cat that no longer did a very good job of scaring off the mouse, even though Julian explained to her countless times that he only took human patients. Honestly, the woman was never in her right mind.

But they were urging him to come along with them without much explanation. To Julian's horror, the kids were leading him down the forest trail rather than toward the village.

This was it, he thought glumly. He was finally going to die, led into a trap by a few bite-sized brats.

Freddie kept running off and shouting at them to hurry, while Lina kept rolling her eyes at the smaller boy. "Don't you know the Doctor can't go any faster? Don't be a rock!"

"I'm not a rock!" Freddie shouted from ahead.

Julian had no idea what being a rock meant and assumed it was a saying that kids made up for fun. She shook her little head and gave exactly three exaggerated tsk's. "Sorry, he's a bit stupid."

"I can tell," Julian answered dryly. "So just what exactly is out here? If it's some bear or wolf carcass I'll tell your parents about the time you brats stole apples from Mrs. Kateen's orchard."

"You wouldn't do that." Lina blinked up at him innocently. "Plus, it's not a bear or wolf care-crass, it's a surprise."

"Yeah, it's a surprise. Come here!" Freddie shouted from ahead.

The first thing that Julian saw peeking out from behind the wide tree trunk was black leather boots.

He secretly hoped that it was a corpse, especially when he approached and saw a Divine Light medallion nestled in a gauntlet-wearing hand. The uniform robes of an Inquisitor pooled around a large tree trunk, a bit damp. The Inquisitor had probably fallen into the nearby stream before hauling himself up to this resting place.

His hair was black, long, and straight. It hung around a pale ashen face that was remarkably young and handsome. He looked no older than twenty-five, Julian gathered.

"Is he dead?"

Julian bit back the feeling of revulsion and knelt down in front of the Inquisitor to inspect further. The two kids knelt as well, one of either side to curiously follow the Doctor's expert eyes.

The metal of his left gauntlet was dent by some sort of blunt force and there was a deep cut on his right calf. The leather of the boot was split with the flesh underneath. It was red, inflamed. The blood around it was dark and flaky, most of which dried.

His clothes had seen better days. The black and blue robes of the standard inquisitor garb were dirtied and torn. His hair as well was matted with bits of mud, grass and dead leaves.

The most startling though was the wound on his abdomen, where leather armor and the fabric of his armor seemed to have melted away, leaving a large area of angry red burns.

They were not normal burns, Julian could tell right away. He scrunched up his nose at the smell. There was a certain stench about the residue of magic. This was undoubtedly caused by the spellwork of a mage. Not a very good one, but one that had somehow managed to get past the defenses of an Inquisitor.

Very interesting.

"So is he dead?" Lina asked again, picking up a random stick from the ground to poke the man.

"Can we take his stuff?" Freddie found the inquisitor's Witch Slayer conveniently lying nearby on the forest floor. The boy tried to pick the sword up, despite the blade being taller than him.

Julian reached over to the unconscious man, hoping to feel rigor mortis settling in on a freshly dead body. He had no such luck and instead found the strum of a light, shallow pulse on damp, clammy skin.

Julian sighed deeply.

"No kid. We can't take his stuff."