Chapter 12 - "This was my village."

The next morning Taen woke up to a light drizzle on his face. He groggily rubbed his eyes and looked around amidst the pitter patter of the soft raindrops along his skin and the ground. Butcher had been sent off into the nether realms to await a summoning so that the creature didn’t scare the living shit out of all the locals, so the enormous flesh golem was nowhere to be seen. Clouds covered the sky in a fluffy blanket of grey, and on occasion thunder could be heard from a distance. Slowly rolling out of his makeshift bed he pushed himself up and yawned. To his massive amounts of amusement, he saw Chris a few feet away with Erin curled up next to him asleep. As their eyes met, Chris shook his head with a sigh.

Taen began to laugh. “Look at you, you’re even sharing a blanket. How does it feel knowing that she’s in your debt… forever and ever?”

“Funny man.” Replied Chris still lying there straight faced next to Erin, shielding her from the rain with his cloak. His blonde hair began to mat against his face with the droplets of water. “Could have given me a heads up you know. She was pretty upset when she found out that I had no idea what I had done, took me a while to calm her down.”

“So does that nullify things then?”,

“No. Apparently it’s some sort of sacred tradition to them and I couldn’t reverse it even if I wanted to. She insisted on that fact when I told her she could take it back.” Chris sat up, being careful not to wake the sleeping girl and placed the blanket back over her.

“Well aint dat the sweetest durn thang you ever dun seen!” said Michael sitting on a fallen tree a few feet behind them while eating an apple. “So how was it?”

“How was what?” Chris responded with an obviously irritated look on his face.

Michael got up and inched closer with a widening grin until he got right up next to Chris. Placing his mouth next to Chris’ ear, he let the words slip out in a sly drawl: “The sex of course! What else?”

Chris immediately got up and punched Michael square in the jaw, who fell laughing to the ground. “Nothing happened Michael.”

“Nothing happened?!” Michael got up again in a frenzy while holding his bruised face, “What do you MEAN nothing happened? A pretty girl like that shows up naked and pledges her life to you and nothing happens?! CHRIS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!? Have you started liking men instead?”

Taen interjected. “He’s just not a womanizer like you Michael.”

“Womanizer?! I have only slept with THREE women since getting here, only three!”

Taen raised an eyebrow. “Three? I thought Petsy was the only one. Does she know about this?”

Michael looked up thoughtfully to the cloud-strewn sky for a moment, ignoring the slow drizzle as beads of water flowed over his face, then looked down again. “No, she doesn’t know. In fact one of them was her best friend… but who cares right?! What they don’t know won’t hurt em!”

Michael smiled and continued to eat his apple, to which Chris just shook his head and got up to go get some food with a grunt.

Green Apple (Food)

Item Tier: (4) Basic

Bonuses: none

Requirements: none

Durability: 1/2

Special: None

Taen Chuckled. “You have no conscience whatsoever my friend.”

“Not true. I would take a bullet for either one of you two,” replied Michael as he finished the apple. “Believe it.”

“Oh I believe it, and I’d do the same for you. But you still don’t have a conscience.”

After a couple minutes, Chris came back to join Michael on the fallen tree, and it wasn’t long after that Erin began to wake up.

“Rise and shine, short stuff!” Chris said in an upbeat tone. He went and sat down next to her, handing her an apple and some bread. “I got you some food.”

Erin sleepily rubbed her eyes and took the food, giving him a shy look. “Thank you very much…”

“Did you sleep ok?” asked Chris, to which she nodded. He looked at the ground a little hesitantly. “...I’m sorry about last night you know, I really am.”

“No!” she said immediately, “It wasn’t your fault at all, and it’s ok. You’re new to these lands and don’t know the traditions. I would have done it anyway...”

Looking down at the ground as well they sat there next to each other not knowing what to say. The drizzle began soaking both of them and Chris had stopped trying to cover her up due to embarrassment. Exchanging awkward glances at one another, it became apparent neither of them wanted to make the next move.

Taen watched them sit there for a minute before he intervened. “Uh… ok. Well then, let’s get everyone together and figure out what’s going on. We still need to reach that village and find out where the bandit encampments are and whatnot. Sound good?”

Erin looked alarmed. “Wait… You’re going back? Why would you do that?”

Michael raised an eyebrow and slowly nodded. “To kill all the slavers of course. If we don’t, then we won’t ever get past this second trial and I’ll never be free. Oh, and my genitals will always be in danger of exploding violently... that too. I’m assuming Chris told you about our situation?”

Erin was definitely confused. “What are you talking about?”

Michael sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “Oh boy. Well Chris you have a lot of catching her up to do. I’ll leave you two to it as I go get everyone together, you stay here and fill her in. Taen come with me and help me out, we have shit to do.”

Getting everyone together was a much tougher challenge than they had believed it was going to be. Instead they ended up dealing with people praising them and thanking them for what they had done. The children kept running in circles around them and asking them questions about their magic or the numen they had heard stories about, while the women kept on bursting into tears over the people they’d lost. After a while of talking them down, they had finally convinced everyone to come and circle around so that they could figure out what course of action they were taking next.

“Where are Chris and Erin?” Taen asked while shielding himself from the rain under the cover of a large forest tree.

Michael shrugged. “He’s probably still filling her in on the details. Or just filling her in period - if you get my drift. Let’s begin without them.”

Taen turned to the group of village folk and cleared his throat. Then he waved his hands around to get their attention. “Alright then, as you all know we’ve cleared out the pass and are now able to proceed to the next village.”

The young man who’d questioned their abilities, who’s name they’d recently learned to be Oni, stepped forward. He apologetically raised a hand. “Actually, that village we were heading to is now gone. I was just speaking to the survivors… we were too late.”

Silence ensued, and was broken up by a sob coming from someone in the back.

Taen’s eyes fell and a feeling of discomfort settled into his gut. “Alright, well we head to the next village that isn’t gone then. From here on out, we really only need one of you that knows the area well. I know that some of you might think that it’s dishonorable and whatnot but to be blunt, we are being slowed down by having such a large group. On top of that we don’t want any casualties if we can help it. Protecting one person is a lot easier than protecting fifty or more, and as you can see after last night we can handle ourselves. We probably don’t need the help when it comes to taking care of these bandits or slavers. Or mages for that matter, if the rumors are true.”

“What would you have us do then?” Asked one of the men.

Michael spoke up from where he stood beside his friend. “Take these people back to your village in the north, leave some men here to escort anyone else who tries to cross if they need help. We will probably be sending more people this way if we find any other slave camps like the one last night.”

A pale hand shot up from behind the crowd as a high pitched feminine voice called out, “I can be your guide!”

All eyes turned to see Erin as she made her way to the front. Behind her followed Chris, who leaned onto the bark of another tree nearby. She cleared her throat to speak. “I will guide you to the villages you seek, my father was a merchant and traveled this area a lot. I would go with him sometimes… and I also am in a life debt to Chris, so I refuse to be left behind.”

Chris shrugged when Taen and Michael gave him inspecting glances.

Oni then came forward with a grimace. “I refuse to let a woman risk her life in my stead, I will go and…”

Oni was cut off with a hard slap to the face as Erin angrily shouted at him. “Do not belittle me, little man! I will go and there is nothing you can do to stop me!”

This small girl shouting down Oni, and calling him a little man while she herself was so little, only caused some of the other villagers to laugh. Embarrassed, Oni stepped back and bowed. “I apologize, I was only thinking of your safety.”

“Well don’t!” she snapped and turned her back to him.

Scratching his head more for something to do rather than for an itch, Taen resumed his speech. “Guess it’s settled then. Everyone pack up. It’s been a pleasure, but it’s probably time that we should head out. Good luck to all of you and I hope we get to see you all in the next couple of weeks, if not sooner!”

Time passed. After saying their goodbyes and collecting their things: Erin, Taen, Chris and Michael started down the steep path down the cliff and to the boats. From up above along the cliff’s edge, the men and women shouted farewells before beginning their own journey northward and disappearing from sight.

“Nice bunch of people,” muttered Michael as they began to push off into the river. He could feel the water of the river rushing through his armor’s joints and grimaced at the cold it caused him. Hastily leaping into the boat after they were aloft, he shook his head and cursed the weather.

There would be no getting dry any time soon.

***

The drizzle had turned into a downpour as the four companions held their cloaks close to their bodies to try to keep in the heat. Lightning scattered across the darkened sky and the thunder roared overhead. Walking down the beaten dirt trail along a ledge, they found that the ground had turned to mud and it gave way under their weight. It very quickly caused Chris, Taen and Erin to all slip and fall simultaneously when they hit a certain patch of loose ground - splashing dirty water everywhere as they piled up.

Michael hollered pointing at them as they got up covered in leaves and mud. “HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Taen slowly turned to Chris, gave him a meaningful look, and simultaneously they picked up handfuls of mud and flung it. The wet dirt rocketed towards Michael, hitting him in the chest and arm while he continued to cackle at their unfortunate circumstances.

“Uncalled for!” Michael exclaimed as he dodged the next handful of mud, laughing again. “It’s not my fault you three are stooges!”

It rained for hours after that, and eventually it even started to sleet. Then it started to hail. They’d been truly cursed with bad luck this day and the journey was going less than well. This forced the companions to temporarily discontinue their trek to seek shelter.

Unable to find any close by, Michael cracked his neck and began to summon earth magic to do his bidding. It wasn’t necessarily a spell he’d learned, but it was well known to all three Earthborn that an attribute would let you use very basic abilities even without an official spell registered with the All Spirit. It had actually been one of the reasons why Michael had picked Earth as one of his attributes in the first place. Meditating for just a couple of moments and slamming his fists into the ground, the mud and dirt around him began to creep upwards all around them. Despite the taunting of his friends telling him that he was going at too slow a pace, he stayed fists-down with his eyes closed and focused on building a dome of rock, soot, and clay. When it finally was big enough to fit all four of them inside while covering their heads, he hardened it and gasped with the amount of mana he’d consumed. Exhausted, he sprawled out onto the floor of their makeshift shelter panting while the others congratulated him on a job well done.

“That was much harder than it looked,” Michael said in between breaths. “Did I do something wrong?”

Chris began to take off his heavy armor, setting it to the side in a pile.

Thinking for a moment, Taen sat up from where he’d laid along the ground appreciating the hail of ice berating the landscape out of the shelter’s opening. “I don’t think so, but maybe. That did take a couple minutes, and it was a sustained spell as opposed to short bursts of magic that we usually go with.”

He looked at Michael's blue mana bar and it was nearly empty in the party screen. Quietly he acknowledged the effort his friend had put into such a minor thing and appreciated it even more that they had somewhere to ride out the up-and-coming blizzard.

Hail and sleet pounded down upon the roof violently, and through the small half sphere of an opening they began to see the hail get bigger. The hail was now about the size of golf balls, tearing through the leaves and branches of the trees around them. Conjuring a celestial fire, Chris pulled out his pipe and packing in some of da grey chief he began to smoke. Looking to his left where Erin sat shivering and huddled up against the wall, he stopped.

Chris briefly looked ashamed, took off his cloak and wrapped it around her. Then held out his hand in front of her with a large, white, conjured flame steadily writhing above his outstretched palm.

“I won’t be able to do this for long, short stuff, I’m pretty tired after all,” Chris smiled down at her. Turning to the other two, he gave Michael an acknowledging head-nod. “No, I don’t think that’s it. You’re tired because we used a significant amount of magic yesterday as well. Remember how Maltetious told us using magic is like a muscle? In her realm, we were babied and our magic was replenished by her whenever we needed it. Here, we’re on our own. We need to keep a better track of our status bars.”

Another second later and a cloak was thrown about him, and as he turned back to look at Erin - he saw that it was actually the one he’d given her. She nestled up against him to pull it around them, closing his hand and extinguishing the flame as she did so.

She began to close her eyes and warmed her body against his. “Thanks Chris, but this is good enough.”

Blushing, Chris quickly looked away as the other two smirked at one another.

Michael curled up into a ball and yawned. “Well lets all get some rest while we’re waiting, Erin has the right idea. I’ll see y’all when we wake up.”

Taen smiled and reached over to give Chris a good pat on the back, then turned to look out the opening. “I have three different personalities. If you try to walk through me you may do so, but only with two of the three. I don’t need you but you need me. What may I be?”

Chris put his arm around Erin, she was freezing. All the more of an excuse to hold her though.

“Another riddle huh?” Chris looked up thoughtfully. He had no answer though, and remained clueless as time passed on.

“Dihydrogen monoxide.” Taen’s answer came as a whisper after a while with no response, while he still watched out the entrance as the storm’s sleet and hail pounded around them. “Ice, Water, and Vapor.”

Name: Taen Movorio

Level 40

Class: Necromancer

Name: Chris Ederson

Level 37

Class: Celestial Paladin

Name: Michael Noren

Level 42

Class: Juggernaut

Name: Erin Yol

Level 2

Class: None

A day had passed and the companions were making their way a lot more slowly than had been expected, ice covered much of the ground making the traveling difficult and miserable. Traveling down the dirt road and passing signs of recent activity, they came upon a bloodied corpse lying face down in the dirt. Then further down, they came upon many more. Eventually as the road bent around a dense cluster of vegetation, they saw their first glimpse of what was once a town.

The fires that had once burned were gone now, in their place were piles of ash and charred skeletons of the structures that had once stood there. Walking through the village was like walking through a badly kept morgue, and corpses lay sprawled out on the ground in all directions. Flies were gathered in mass around the sites of the bodies despite the recently poor weather the day before, while rats and other animals had started to come and eat away at the casualties. Erin led the way through the ruined town until they abruptly came to a stop on the outskirts in front of one of the smaller ruins.

“Here is the village you originally sought...” Erin shakily noted, trying to maintain her composure. “This was my village.”

What must have been a house at one point still had two walls partially standing, metal pieces of farming tools lay upon the ground to the right. Erin walked through to what was once the interior and knelt down next to a corpse of a burned, disfigured man... A spear had skewered him, pinning him to the dirt floor. Only a small whimper escaped her lips as she let a few tears roll down her cheek. Erin slowly wiped them away, murmuring things to herself that the others could not hear.

Then she said something that the others could hear: “I’m going to miss you, father.”

Chris winced and the other two men immediately felt terribly for her, glancing downwards and not knowing what to say. She slowly stood up and walked over to where three more corpses lay at the opposite end of the ruin. The fire had eaten away at most of their flesh making their appearance hard to discern, but one looked to be a woman and the other two were obviously children. A cold wind picked up, whipping Erin’s tunic and hair about in a frenzy as she continued to stare.

The three Earthborn stood in silence looking at the ground not saying anything. Straight faced and calmly, Erin began to speak.

“They held my father down and made him watch as they raped my mother and I.” Reaching out her hand and gently touching one of the burnt corpses, shedding another tear as she did. “That was after they had already killed my two younger brothers. They were twins and had only been through eleven winters. When my mother bit one of them during the struggle, they ended up strangling her and then lit her on fire.” Tears began to well up in her eyes again as she looked back at the dead man she had once known so well. “I had never seen my father cry before that day.”

Beginning to shake uncontrollably and tears beginning to run down her face she screamed out towards the three Earthborn in front of her. “I WANT YOU TO KILL ALL OF THEM AS PAINFULLY AS YOU CAN!”

Collapsing to her knees she started to sob and covered her face with her hands.

Taen shot a glance at Chris who stood there stupidly, and with an irritated look Taen shoved Chris in Erin’s direction. He then pulled Michael by his shirt collar away from the scene of the tragedy. Thankfully Taen hadn’t gone to collect the corpses for zombie material just yet - it would have been a real blunder consider these were her friends and family. So as he left with Michael, he forced himself to just keep on walking - he would find other corpses eventually.

Putting down his spear-sword, bow and other equipment that he had strapped to his back, Chris approached the weeping girl and sat down next to her. He put his arms around her, pressing his steel chestplate against the smaller girl’s frame, but didn’t know what to say. He sat there with her, embracing her as comfortingly as he could as the sun began to peek out from behind the grey blanket of clouds above them.

========================================================================

Name: Siad Ethrez

Level 27

Class: Warrior

Name: Konnen Bolb

Level 53

Class: Wizard

Siad brushed the guard aside angrily as he stormed into Konnen’s tent. Konnen lay upon a feather bed he had stolen from one of the well off inhabitants of the last town he had conquered, measuring his trip’s success in the loot piled about him. Various valuables lined the room, lit up by two lanterns on either side of his bed, but his thirst for wealth was still not quenched.

It was never quenched.

“Konnen, we must speak! I have bad news to bear.”

Slowly Konnen opened his eyes, yawned and sat up. His dark hair was in a frayed mess, and the elegant mage’s robes he wore were very wrinkled. Konnen recognized the voice of his old friend Siad, though he wasn’t sure why he was here. Stretching - he grabbed a jug, pouring out two cups of wine. Handing one to Siad and motioning for him to sit in one of the chairs, Konnen yawned yet again. “What is it, friend? Why have you come to wake me at this hour, and why are you not at the cliff? Do you grow bored there?”

Draining his cup he picked up the jug and began pouring for more drink.

Siad drained his own cup and shook his head adamantly, slamming the cup down with an irritated belch. “I come bearing bad news.”

“Yes, you have already said that. What is it?”

Siad swore, muttering to himself for a time before he looked Konnen in the eye. “Vampires. Three of them. Vampire battlemages. They slaughtered everyone.”

Konnen sleepily watched his straight faced companion, and then began to chuckle. “Everyone except for you, eh? Come now Siad, now is not the time for jokes.”

Konnen began to chug from his glass again but this time he was grinning.

“IT’S NOT A GOD FORSAKEN JOKE! THEY’RE ALL DEAD!” Siad screamed and he jumped up to start pacing.

Konnen paused what he was doing, examined his friend anew, and put down his drink. He stood up and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, motioning for him to sit down again. “You are serious? How could three men defeat such a large company? You had about fifty men, did you not?”

Siad nodded. “I went to take a piss during the night, when I came back, I had drunkenly fallen into a bush and had lost my voice because a branch had caught me in the throat. That’s why I’m still alive.” Slightly embarrassed, the shorter warrior rubbed his forehead and looked down shamefully. “Anyways, they had killed our sentries and zombified them. After the men dealt with the zombies the vampires came out from the dark, eyes glowing and slaughtered everyone. I may have been a coward, but if they were able to kill that many men by themselves I doubt I could have done anything to stop them either. I also thought it would be better if you were to know.”

Konnen leaned back to stretch and casually picked up a mirror to adjust his hair with. “Necromancers then? I’ve never known you to be a coward. But you are right to have run, now I know and am able to deal with this problem before it presents itself again. Losing that many slaves cost us a great deal of money. Did you notice anything else about them? These.. vampires?”

Thinking for a moment, Siad nodded. “Actually yes. Three things come to mind that struck me as odd. These were no ordinary vampires, if such a thing can be said. They used both magic and weapons to fight, but the weapons… They were strange. They were made of a milky white metal, and embedded within the metal was ebony lacing. The lacing designs were fitted together with runes and markings, one of which I recognized. The mark of Maltetious, the mad numen, was embroidered upon the weapons. I have not seen it for years, most of her cult followers are dead now. It is a rarity... so it caught my attention.”

Konnen’s eyebrows lifted, and puzzled tilted his head to the side as if deep in thought.

Siad continued: “The next thing I found odd is the language they spoke in. They knew the Human tongue, but there was a second language they spoke to each other that I have never heard before. I don’t think it was any of the All Spirit languages either, it sounded different. Like a primal language of sorts... They are foreigners, of that I am certain.”

Konnen nodded, “Yes, it is strange for vampires to be here in these lands. I have never heard of vampires living in Shrubeth before. What is the third thing you noticed?”

“They went out of their way to save the slaves from being killed in two separate instances during the battle. This is definitely not characteristic of vampires, they care little for the races they consider to be inferior.” Siad shook his head in dismay and poured himself another cup of wine.

Konnen murmured his thoughts aloud, his chin digging into his intertwined fingers while trying to think of a reason these vampires would show up here of all places. “You said they killed the sentries first. So they probably came from north of the cliff pass. This is all a very unusual set of circumstances. I will dwell upon this and let you know when I decide what to do. Thank you for the information, go rest and treat yourself to one of the slaves.”

Standing up Konnen walked out of the tent with Siad in tow. Walking through the camp they were soon intercepted by a slaver though, and he threw two women down to the ground in front of them.

“These two tried to escape,” the man said gruffly, pulling at his leather coif and bowing before his superiors. “How should I make an example out of them?”

Konnen just shook his head like a disappointed father would do to his children, giving the two women disapproving looks as he did.

“Bring them to the front of the pens,” replied Konnen after some time to glower. The grunt nodded and the two women were immediately dragged by their hair over to where the rest of the slaves were kept. Large wooden stakes planted in the ground kept the prisoners tethered at intervals, most of them in solid metal chains while others were bound with rope. Some were even starving, and others had evidence of very recent abuse at the hands of the slavers who’d taken them from their homes.

The two women who’d been caught were thrown forcefully to the ground in front of the slave enclosures and spit upon by the slaver who in turn moved out of the way for Konnen to take the stage. The wizard raised his hands up for the captives to look upon him in dread and concern, and then he shouted out to get everyone’s eyes on him. When Konnen was sure he’d gotten all of their attention, he began to shout. “If you wish to live, you will behave yourselves. There is no tolerance for troublemakers. Accept your fate, and be done with it.”

Turning his attention to the women beneath him, he took a whip from his grunt and struck out at the women with a vile smile across his lips. Blood began to coat the ground as it dripped across their lashed backs. Screams erupted inbetween bouts of begging for his mercy. Over and over again he struck them in both pleasure and fury as they cried out in extreme pain until both of their backs were nearly devoid of unmarred skin. Dropping the whip he held out his hand. Blue fire gushed from it and struck the two girls, engulfing them both as they screamed even louder. Leaving them to writhe upon the ground until they met their untimely end, Konnen turned around and casually walked away.