A cool breeze wafted against his skin, the feeling a refreshing contrast against the heat and all at once unpleasant, the scent of feces filling his nostrils. In either hand he carried buckets of excrement, taking each step slowly and carefully as their brown, chunky contents sloshed about with sickening sounds.

It was his punishment for talking back to the Baroness, that foul walking corpse, and had been his sole duty day in and day out since. The buckets were to be carried from the barracks to the woods, where they would be dumped in a hole that had been dug some time ago. The hole itself reeked worse than the buckets ever could, an ever growing mixture of waste and, he imagined, corpses of animals and humans alike.

How he’d like to throw that hag into that putrid hole. The thought crossed his mind each time he poured the buckets down into its black depths, waste water disappearing noisily from sight.

He had given his word, had promised Berns his life in exchange for information. Information that the Baroness currently used, given its vital importance. A mockery. Alden cursed the woman and prayed for her death each morning.

Pouring the contents of the buckets, Alden peered down the hole, then turned away with haste. It had been dug by criminal slaves, the other soldiers said, so deep that they could barely be seen. Then, once they had finished, they had been left there to die, occasionally begging for mercy when soldiers came to dump excrement down the hole upon them. Even now, they said, their ghostly whispers could be heard begging for freedom.

Alden had paid them no mind, at first. A tall tale to spook the newbie, that was all. But there were times when he peered down the hole and could not help but wonder.

He returned to the barracks and placed the buckets in their proper spots. The other soldiers avoided him as he went about his business, though whether due to the smell or due to his previous actions he did not know. Both, most likely. It didn’t bother him much. He had never gotten along with them to begin with.

He washed his hands vigorously with soap and water, scrubbing roughly so as to dispel the smell. The water did little to help his callouses, which had become so rough that they felt like sandpaper. That, and the frequent washing they had begun to dry out as of late, and so they would be even rougher for the rest of the day.

Alden sighed. Nothing seemed to be going his way, of late.

Passing by the manor’s front stairs he saw Mina. Wearing blue and gold robes, she looked every bit the image of a mage, albeit of the rich, courtly variety. No longer wearing the hood she had as Doctor Elmswood’s apprentice, her scarlet locks fell freely over her shoulders. Alden had seen her only briefly since her appointment as Baroness Sylvana’s court mage, and he savored each moment he could. Though she had not taken a liking to him, she was one of the only women Alden had opportunity to speak with, other than Frenna. He shuddered at that; Mina was not half as harsh or cruel as Frenna, and that was more than enough.

She hailed him, and he walked up the steps, making certain to kneel once at the top. Court mages, like the nobles they served, had to be treated with utmost respect and deference.

“My lady,” he said. He looked at her curiously, as he always did. Fair-skinned and with splotches of freckles upon her face, she was a beauty, and Alden had found himself smitten by her. More, however, he was smitten by the look in her eyes; red like her hair, they blazed with unquenchable curiosity, the world itself no more than a book for them to read.

“Latrine duty?” she asked.

“Damn. Is it so obvious?” Her look said that it was. “I apologize, my lady.”

“No need, Alden. It is an important job, if humiliating. And better one man stink than the whole of the manor grounds.”

“Indeed, my lady.”

She studied him for a time, her fiery eyes consuming all there was to know about him. What was she looking for, he wondered? Did she have a power like his own Observation? Well, he reasoned, whether she did or not, fair was fair, and so he focused the power on her and read the blue screen that appeared.

Mina

Age: 23

Health: 210/210

Mana: 560/560

Level: 26

Stats

Strength: 13

Intelligence: 112

Wisdom: 35

Dexterity: 22

Agility: 18

Endurance: 12

Luck: 21

Charisma: 23

She was just as impressive as he’d expected, her intelligence in particular, though curiously she was only half what Doctor Elmswood had been in terms of magic. How impressive was he, really? It seemed the more he learned of the good doctor the more he was surprised.

“I have a task for you,” she said, breaking him from his thoughts. “You are free to refuse, but I cannot tell you the details until I have your word that you will do as I say.”

“So I must accept your request blindly? Dangers and all?”

“Yes. I understand how it sounds, but you’re the only one I can ask. It’s too important.”

Honest. That was the feeling she exuded. Or perhaps it was something else? He wanted her favor, badly, and that no doubt clouded his judgment. The longing he felt for her had grown with each encounter and had become a painful tightness in his heart. Was she being honest, or had she merely caught on to his feelings towards her, and decided to exploit them?

Regardless, the offer was tempting, dangerous or not. Carrying buckets of shit every day could make just about any other kind of work sound appealing, even the bloody kind.

“Fine. I’ll do it,” he said.

Mina gave a warm grin. “Thank you,” she said. “We should discuss this inside.”

Mina’s office was much grander than Alden had expected. Twice as large as Commander Dhatri’s office, the room was filled with rows of shelves and tables, each filled to the brim with books and plants and tools. Her desk sat against the far wall, large windows on either side that stood nearly floor to ceiling and illuminating the room with ethereal light.

On the right wall there was a display of staves, a dozen in total, each of different color and shape. From red to blue to black, and from short to long and thin to thick, each staff was as impressive as the last. He could feel the magical power emanating from them, the mere proximity to them stinging at some incorporeal part of his being.

“Interested, are you?” Mina asked. Alden nodded. “They are lady Sylvana’s, so no touching. High quality, most of them, though nothing outside what could be expected of a baroness. But I digress, we came to discuss something a bit more important than magic wood.”

She approached her desk and opened a drawer, pulling from it a slip of yellowed parchment. Handing it to Alden, she leaned in close, her mouth just beside his ear.

“There will be war soon. I know you know it. Lady Sylvana has selected you for frontline duty. She expects you to die, I think. But you won’t die so easily. You have quite a bit of magical talent, you know? And I need you to use it. On that slip of paper is the name of Sylvana’s elected heir, a cousin of hers. He’ll be in charge of you and the other soldiers. I need you to kill him.”

Dumbfounded, he took a wary step back. The request unsettled him. Had he misjudged her? He had not thought her capable of such schemes.

You do not know her, he reminded himself. All the more reason to question her request. Why him? Did she think he hated the baroness? She wouldn’t have been wrong, technically speaking, but striking at her relatives...

The damndest thing of it all was that he did not find himself disgusted with what she asked. Surprised, certainly. Mina had put before him a life threatening task, to say the least. But when he thought of killing the noble, thought of seeing the Baroness’s face when she finally found out? It intrigued him, oddly enough.

“When are we to march?” he asked. Soon, he hoped, before his sense caught up with him.

“Within the week. Messages are being relayed between the nobles as we speak, and it turns out things are more complicated than we assumed.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Licestor Barony had a supporter. Lady Sylvana had expected it to be another noble, a cousin or brother to Harold Licester, but she’s received information from her allies that it was the Hilva Kingdom’s doing. Credible information.”

“The Kingdom is rebelling?”

Mina nodded, turning to the map that hung from the wall. Intricate, it detailed every river, forest, mountain range, town, and border of the Drygallis Empire in its entirety, spanning nearly a quarter of the continent. But almost all of the Empire’s lands were, in truth, held by its vassals, of which the Hilva Kingdom was amongst the largest.

Of the Drygallis Empire, only a small section was under the Empire’s direct control. Known as the Drygallis Dominion, its lands stretched to a relatively large size by this world’s standards, somewhere between the size of France and Germany. And occupying nearly the entire eastern border of the Drygallis Dominion was the Hilva Kingdom, a land of equivalent size.

“Scouts have already confirmed army movements across the border, and there have been other reports in Licester of fortifications being built, villagers being conscripted. Had their surprise attack been successful they might have won.”

It would be a full scale war, then.

Subtle tremors began to cascade over him. This world had a population unlike anything Earth had ever seen, with wars regularly resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Only the World Wars on Earth could have compared in body count, and they had been fought with guns and bombs, not swords and shields.

This world had its own version of bombs, he reminded himself. The thought did not ease him.

“May I ask why this cousin of Sylvana’s must be dealt with?”

“No,” Mina replied curtly.

“Then why tell me all of this? Why trust me to do it, but not to know why?”

“What is it you want, Alden?” she asked, answering his question with another. “You want power, prestige, status. I don’t blame you. I want much the same. The issue, as I see it, is that lady Sylvana stands in our way. Without her, things become easier. Don’t you agree?”

He wasn’t sure he did. His current plan was to become a knight; a hard task, from what he’d seen, but not impossible, even under scum such as Sylvana. What would he gain with her out of the way, really? There was no guarantee that her replacement would be more amiable to him.

“What do you stand to gain from this?” he asked. Mina grinned, coy, and relaxed her shoulders.

“What did I say before? Power, prestige, status. I need Sylvana out of my way to achieve them. And if I get what I want, I can help you get what you want.”

She grinned again, as if a mere smile could convince him. The damnable thing about it was that it worked, somewhat.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll do this for you. But not free of charge. I expect payment when this is done.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now go, we’ve talked too long, and I’m sure they’ve filled another bucket by now.”

Scowling at her comment, Alden turned and left the office, thinking fast. Mina expected him to die, he was certain of it. And why wouldn’t she? A mere soldier amidst thousands killing a noble? It was a death sentence. And who would believe him if he blamed her? There was no proof, and he had no allies to aid him even if there were. He was a loose end that would wrap itself up.

He had no plans to let matters go her way, however. As she’d said, he would not die so easily.