After it got dark Tara walked around looking for one of the people with the tablets, when she found one she walked up to them and grabbed it out of their hands and began going through it. The man who it belonged to tried to take it back but she pushed them to the ground about 10 feet away and they ran off. She stayed right there and went through as much of the stuff on there as she could. Most of it was lists of names and how much they owe or have paid, but one list was a list of people that were not to be bothered. These had to be the people who were running this place, probably keeping a low profile so people don't feel watched. While waiting for that guy to come back with some guards or something, she got a message from Eli.
"Hit 50, cls upg be there in am"
She thought he would be well past 50 by now, but she thought she would be too. She wasn't sure why but she did feel like she leveled slower than some, something to think about later. Right now, she needed to think of a response to his message, but she couldn't think of anything to say that would be cute or flirty so she just sent this instead.
"Causing trouble, cu soon"
It took awhile but the guy whose tablet she stole came back with four guys holding weapons. As they walked up to her everyone that was out quickly moved away, but she could see some of them peeking around corners so they could see what happened. The leader of the four came up with swagger and confidence and Tara thought that he had the most punchable face she had ever seen, she was going to enjoy this. The other three circled her as the leader began talking.
"That tablet does not belong to you"
"Yes it does"
"The guy you took it from, an official of this city, says otherwise."
"What evidence do you have that I took it, cause it sounds like you don't have any and you're just going to bully me into letting you steal it," Tara said with a big smile. The four had the basic gear and weapons, but also had a green scarf thing around their neck. Stevens had mentioned that the basic clothes that offered no protection or magic were pretty cheap in the store so the matching items were supposed to mean something. She finally had focused on the leader long enough and it just came back saying that he was level 44.
"Just hand it over and no one gets hurt"
"Make me!" Tara said with a big smile and an inviting hand motion. This was obviously not going the way he had planned and he was catching on quicker than most thugs would.
"You want a fight, don't you?"
"It's getting harder and harder to not punch your punchable face so can we get started."
"What's wrong with my face?"
"It's very punchable, you agree right?" Tara asked, pointing to one of the other guys. One of the guys she wasn't pointing to started snickering until the leader gave him a glare and he stopped.
"This is your last chance, give me…." He was cut off when Tara slapped him.
"A Slap?" Tara finished for him, "Been there, done that, can we move on, you guys are boring." She started checking her nails as she finished speaking.
He got red in the face and reached back for a punch, a slow punch, this guy must have invested only in strength cause he didn't move very fast, Tara thought to herself while chuckling. With a practiced motion she summoned her axe from her inventory with the blade directly in line with his punch. This was a move she had practiced at Eli's suggestion, during the journey down here she had asked for combat pointers and all of his advice was little things like this, but now she saw its value. It pushed her back a step since he pulled it back after his hand was cut in half.
He jumped back holding his hand, his face was glowing red and yelled for the other three to attack Tara. She chopped down at a foot on one, sliced another in the chest right as she summoned her second axe and drove the spike on the back of one into the third guy's collar bone. With all three injured, the leader told one of them to go get reinforcements, someone called a 'minion', or maybe that was their title, she didn't know. But they didn't seem to want to run away so she decided to talk to them again and try to get more information. She put her weapons back in inventory and started looking at the tablet again.
"Who runs this city?" she asked with a predatory grin.
"This is Lord Flowers' city" one of the off-siders said.
Tara burst out laughing, "I sure hope she is paying you well to sustain injuries for her."
"He does pay well, and once minion Terrence gets here, you'll regret your disrespect." the leader guy said.
She started laughing again, "Oooo Minion Terrence sounds scary, you guys are a joke. This is the least intimidated I have ever been, you all need to work on your names."
Just as she finished speaking, she could see and hear a man approaching from far off. He was moving fast and yelling with a sword out pointed right at her chest, just as he got close she held up the tablet so his sword would hit it. It broke instantly, but it was enough to distract him and slow his momentum just a bit, giving her time to get closer and grab his sword arm with her left hand and pull out an axe with her right. He had too much momentum and her arm grab tugged him off balance, she sent the blade of her axe into his left shoulder with what she thought would be enough to sever his arm but it stopped when she hit bone and he jumped away.
"I don't have your tablet anymore so I think we can just call it a night. I'm looking forward to seeing the beach tomorrow, so I should get some rest," Tara said without making it sound like a big deal.
"You're dead, take one step outside the safe zone and I will be there to kill you," Minion Terence said.
Tara put out a hand and her water golem came into existence and started firing water blades at everyone as Tara turned her back and started walking away at a relaxing pace. At first none of them followed but she was sure that at least one was keeping track of her. She needed to draw out someone higher-up that she could question, so she stopped toward the edge of the city and just walked into a random building. It was locked but with a shoulder throw she broke it open, now inside, she sat on a log bench and waited. After an hour she got bored and started messaging Eli, the one minute delay was killing her but she had nothing else to do.
"How close are you?" Tara sent
"Be there sunup, need faster?" Eli replied
"No, just bored wait trap"
"I feel sorry for them"
"Did you mean it?" Tara asked
"Mean what?"
"That you love me…" Tara sent back, getting nervous. She wouldn't really let herself believe that he loved her until he said it in person.
"Yes, I love you"
Tara's body heated up just thinking about being in his arms finally together. She had more she wanted to ask him, but of course they would interrupt her. She heard people moving around outside the building she was in and got an axe out and started picking her nails with the spike on the back. The door was still open from when she forced her way in, and in walked someone she had not met yet, a very clean person with bright new looking clothes. They were not expensive but no one had credits to burn so no one was really buying them just yet. He sat down on a log bench opposite her and gave her an assessing look up and down, not in a lustful way like the way others did, but in measuring her character and how threatened he should be by her.
"This is the part where you try to intimidate me" Tara said
"No thanks, I doubt anyone in this safe zone is strong enough to intimidate you."
"IN this safe zone, no" She said, making it obvious that she used that word specifically.
"Ok then, how about you tell me what you want, and we decide together how to handle it." The man said.
"I want to know who runs this place and why the place up north was wrecked. How about a trade, you tell me what I want to know, and no one needs to get hurt. We can't kill each other so we might as well have a nice chat." Tara finished and tried to look pleased but she just looked bored.
"Well, this city belongs to Lord Flowers, and I am Servant Anthony, you already met my Minion Terence who is also my cousin. I cannot speak to what happened up north but I know that my people and I had nothing to do with it." Anthony said, clearly trying to keep neutral and nodding at Tara to indicate that he wanted her to introduce herself. At first, she was going to be a smart ass but knew that Eli would chastise her for that so she took a breath and did her best to be polite.
"My name is Tara, I am a servant to a lord but I do not go by the title per my lord's wishes."
"I thought that might be the case, can you tell me who your lord is or maybe if he has plans for this city?"
"He has plans, but they do not involve this city or anyone in it. He sent me here to gather information since he cannot enter safe zones." Tara said, while carefully gauging his reaction to the information. He tried to act like it didn't matter, but from his brief pause of breath and slight widening of his eyes, he was shocked.
"What do you want to know?"
"Bottom line, how do you plan on protecting this city from the monster horde? My lord wishes for the most people to survive this as possible. If your plans are insufficient he will stop people from leaving where possible to keep the level of fighters inside the safe zone as high as possible." Tara said with a smile. It felt good to speak this way, like she was enacting Eli's will on the world and she was doing a terrible job of hiding it.
"So, he can't come in but will tell us what to do, does he think he is king of this place?" Anthony said as he started to lose his calm and stood up. "My lord will not go along, but I suspect your lord is stronger. I would judge us to be equals in a fight even though I am level 52 and you are 43." Now he was pacing and clearly getting agitated.
"Is there something wrong?" Tara asked while her smile just kept getting bigger.
"If I give you my word that I will speak to my lord about this, will you leave peacefully?"
"I was planning on leaving peacefully to begin with, and my Lord does not care if your city plays along, he does as he wills, and so do I." Tara again got a warm feeling in her chest when she spoke like this, something about speaking for Eli and doing things for him made her feel good. For a second she got worried, so worried that her whole facial expression and body language changed, but she thought that maybe the system was rewarding her for serving her lord. The system had labelled her a servant so maybe it was tipping the scales to keep servants loyal, or maybe you had to want to serve to become a servant.
Tara relaxed and decided that she had had enough, she stood and walked out of the building. There were twenty or so people outside holding various weapons, all of which were standing nervously and staring at her and not moving out of the way. She looked back at Anthony and raised an eyebrow. He sighed and gestured for them to move out of the way. Tara sighed and walked off toward the meeting place for the others and decided to wait there for the morning to come. When it did, they were going to the beach.