Kegan stood in the doorway of the Keep’s storeroom with a frown on his face. The storeroom was empty. No grain, no vegetables, no cheese, and no salted meat.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

Jacus was fidgeting in the hallway behind him.

“Well, I’m not sure since the servants ran off. But if I had to guess, its ’cuz you scare the crap out of them … m’lord.”

Kegan opened his mouth to argue the point but closed it again after realizing that Jacus was right. Instead, Kegan just sighed thinking about the past few months. Everything had started so easy.

The duels had gone exactly as Kegan expected. He beat up a few men, they shot at him, and he ran into the keep with only a few crossbow bolts in him. Afterward, they struck a bargain with Count Talias’ men. Kegan gave them all the gold and silver in the keep, and they left without burning down the village. He had considered hunting them down, but he was low on calorie reserves. Jacus had also convinced Kegan it was a bad idea since killing the soldiers would just invite retaliation.

After his initial success, nothing had gone well for Kegan. All but five of the guards had wandered off with their gear after learning that there was no money in the town to pay for their services. Half of the village had dispersed into the outlying manors because they were afraid the Count’s soldiers would return and burn everything down.

Everyone but Jacus had started avoiding Kegan out of fear. Yanking out crossbow bolts and healing right in front of them had started it. With the opening of the food reserves, he was able to reach a new level in strength, far above normal human limits. But he hadn’t accounted for the extra strength when sparring with one of the guards, and Kegan had accidentally broken the man’s arm.

Now he was learning that most of the food in the Keep came from the outlying manors. Everyone had been too afraid to tell him that the food was running low, so he was only learning about the problem after there was no more food. To top it all off, winter had begun and there was light snow falling outside.

“Jacus do you fear me?”

“m’Lord is a mighty warrior, capable of protecting us front the Count’s men”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Err … well yes, you do frighten me sometimes.”

Kegan sighed in frustration.

“Why have you stayed around?”

“Duty and loyalty is a virtue …”

“Stop it. Sometimes you are a terrible liar Jacus.”

Jacus shifted uncomfortably.

“It's my Ma .. she’s sick .. can barely walk. I can’t just leave her behind. My wife takes care of her, but I gotta make sure there is a roof over their heads and food on the table. You are the only protection this place has, I just thought if I stayed by you, gave you advice, maybe you’d stay and help us. Now that the food is gone … I ...”

He left the words hanging, and an uncomfortable silence filled the air.

“I can survive on very little food. More food will make me stronger, and I need it to heal myself from wounds. But if I have to I can hibernate like a bear and survive for a long time. I will stay for the winter because I have nowhere better to go. Once spring comes things need to change. I don’t know anything about running a village. You will run this village from now on. I will be your spear, I will fight who you say to fight. But you must start feeding me again in Spring, or I will leave.”

The winter passed slowly for Kegan. He only stayed in the Keep for a few weeks before deciding that his old hut on the edge of the village would be better. Both locations were considered a ‘home’ for the sake of his perks, so his sleep and nutritional needs were drastically reduced. However, despite his reduced nutritional needs, Kegan could tell his fat stores were shrinking the entire winter.

No one from the village spoke to him and Kegan felt a sense of loneliness mixed with frustration at the fact he was feeling lonely. He’d lived in isolation in a small valley with only wild animals to keep him company, and he had been fine. But now that he lived a couple of hundred feet from other people and none of them wanted to talk with him he felt more lonely than he ever had before. He coped by staying busy.

His waking hours were spent making javelins, combing the woods for edible plant matter, and reforging a small iron knife over and over again. His intuitive understanding of the perks let him know that each reforged knife was counting as a newly made knife for the sake of his ‘material attachments’ perk. If he made enough of the iron knives he’d be able to start his next life with some already created.

As the weather slowly warmed up Kegan received a visitor at his cabin. A tentative knock on his cabin door followed by a young man’s voice “Hello?”.

Kegan opened the door and was surprised to see six young men outside of his cabin. He didn’t recognize any of them, so he knew they weren’t from the village. They all looked travel-worn, their clothes stained with mud, and hanging loosely on skinny frames.

“Who are you?”

“Walter Tunglin, are you Lord Kegan? We’ve traveled far, and the villagers said Sir Kegan lived here.”

Kegan looked at them suspiciously, they all seemed eager, with the same look in their eyes that others got when they wanted something from him. “Yes I’m Kegan, what do you want?”

After hearing that he was Kegan their eyes grew wide and they all gave each other an eager look before nodding and then kneeling. “Lord Kegan, we wish to become your Knights, we promise to serve you loyally and faithfully for the rest of our lives!”

He was a little taken aback by the level of fervor in the young man’s voice. Kegan shook his head sadly. “I have no coin or food to pay for any warriors.”

Two of the men’s faces wavered at this new information. But the other four, including Walter, looked just as resolute. Walter spoke up again “We are not common mercenaries who only fight for coin. We will fight for duty and honor!”

“Oh … then yes, you can be my knights.”

Kegan had sent his new ‘knights’ to run a couple of errands for him. They had seemed reluctant to do what they called ‘servant’ work but agreed to it after he questioned their loyalty. Four of them were off collecting firewood in the forest. The other two he had sent into the village to see if anyone would barter for extra food.

He was sharpening a branch into a javelin when he heard some shouting outside of his cabin. Walking outside he found Walter and Ernst, his two new knights, arguing with Jacus and Jacus’ uncle Trent. Walter was trying to use his skinny frame to block Jacus and Trent from getting closer to the cabin.

“Who are you to intrude on Lord Kegan’s land without permission! Backup this instant or there will be consequences!”

Jacus looked confused and tired like he’d just woken up, while Trent looked angry, “Shut up you blithering idiots! You aren’t knights just because that dumb muscle head says you are! If any nobility hears you claiming that they’ll hang every one of us!”

“Lord Kegan’s exploits have already spread far and wide! We know he beat fifty of Count Talias’ Knights in single combat to claim the title of lordship over these lands. When they tried to dishonorably kill him afterward he slew half of them and sent the rest running for their lives!”

The wildly inaccurate account of events surprised Jacus, Trent, and Kegan. Jacus could only stammer out “That's … that not what happened … at all.”

“My brother was here that fateful day. He came back with his arm broken, but his life mercifully left intact by the honorable Lord Kegan. Other wounded soldiers gave the same story, and many men didn’t return at all. The story has spread far and wide over the winter. And now that Lord Kegan has defended his noble title he can promote anyone to knighthood. We were the first to leave when the roads cleared, but there will be many others.”

Trent tried to argue with Walter for the next hour. To Kegan, it had always sounded like Trent knew all the rules of the nobility. He had worked as a scribe in the Keep and claimed to know the laws and rules of nobility. But Walter seemed very confident in his interpretation of the rules. Jacus eventually dragged Trent away.

In the coming weeks, dozens more young men showed up to become knights. Kegan decided that Trent was probably wrong. The dozens that showed up couldn’t all be wrong about his authority. He agreed to call them his knights, as long as they agreed to follow his orders and work for free.

Kegan’s new “knights” came with their own set of problems. The main problem was one that they shared with Kegan: a lack of food. Some of the knights were stealing food from the villagers. It had led to a few fights, and Jacus had ended up killing the most brazen thief. Kegan’s knights had wanted him to punish Jacus, but Kegan had decided to do nothing. He liked Jacus and didn’t know the thief. Plus he didn’t want to ruin the deal he’d made with Jacus.

A few days after the killing, the first and most enthusiastic knight Walter had come up with an alternative solution. There was plenty of food in the neighboring fiefdoms, and according to Walter, those fiefdoms owed food for all the money they’d already stolen.

Kegan thought the justification sounded wrong, so he checked with Trent first.

“You and your bandits wanted to steal food from the neighboring lords?!”

“No, it won’t be stealing. Walter said it would be ‘forced trade’ since they took our coins a few months ago.”

Trent’s face went through different emotions: terror, shock, contemplation, and then satisfaction.

“Ya know what, I agree with Walter for once. You should go up to a few different manors and take all the food you can find. Let each manor know who did it, and let them know which manors you are going to next so they can get all the food ready for you in advance. Just make sure to loudly announce that you are Lord Kegan and everyone with you are Knights.”

Trent walked off with a satisfied smile. And Kegan was left feeling more uncomfortable with Walter’s plan, despite Trent agreeing it was a good idea.

The next day four dozen young men and Kegan left town. They were carrying an odd assortment of gear. All of them had a half dozen javelins, despite only a few of them knowing how to throw a javelin. A dozen or so were wearing armor composed of a mish-mash of leather, copper, and bone. Most of them had a spear with an iron tip, those that didn’t have a club or knife. There were a few with bows and arrows. Every single one of them was unprepared for the trouble they would cause.