“Hey, Gaelin. This might sound a little abrupt but I am going to be leaving soon.” Arthur dropped the bombshell at Gaelin’s feet. Gaelin looked at Arthur with confusion and worry at this abrupt statement. “I'm sorry, what? What do you mean you will be leaving soon?”
Gaelin looked at Arthur like he just told him he punched an elderly woman in the face. He was definitely confused, but he was more worried than anything else.
“Like I just said I am going to be leaving for likely several months, perhaps even longer than that. At this point I don’t really know. I can’t give you much detail on the why, but you will find out eventually and you will understand why. I plan on leaving by tonight, so we will still be able to spend some time with each other before I need to leave.”
Gaelin just looked at Arthur like he didn’t even hear a word of what he said. The nervous fiddling with his hands immediately came back like a terrible habit and he started avoiding eye contact. “Do you need to leave at a specific time?”
Seeing Gaelin’s distress Arthur stood up and began to comfort him with a hug, something that he hadn't actually done before and something that Gaelin seemed to appreciate by returning it. “How about this, I will make us a nice lunch and we can spend the rest of the day just walking around the city. I think that sounds nice, what about you?”
“Yeah, that sounds nice. I would like to do that.” So the two went out and enjoyed the remainder of the day. Since it was spring all the street performers and other events that required walkable streets for both themselves and their customers.
Most of the performances were just regular people doing some semi impressive things like juggling several balls at once or lifting something that was labelled as heavy. But the two still had their fun watching it all, they even tossed a few coins every so often when they saw something that was unique like a foreign man eating fire.
But they eventually did need to stop as night slowly began to creep across the sky.
“Do you really need to go sir?” Gaelin asked while the duo started walking back to Arthur home. He didn’t seem as sad as before but he still wanted Arthur to stay.
“Unfortunately I still do. I don’t exactly have an explanation for not going. But don’t worry, I have already taken some preparations for this. I left you a list of several businesses and what they sell so that you can keep up with selling potions even after I am gone. I also made several fire dart talismans just in case you need them, they aren't the most powerful ones out there, but they will do wonders for someone who is fighting a few poor criminals and is in a pinch.” Despite his reassurances Arthur could tell that Gaelin was still worried, but he didn’t know of anything else to say to ease his feelings.
When they arrived back at Arthur’s home it was already getting quite dark out, to save on time Arthur handed Gaelin the key. “Now keep this safe, this is the only key I have to the house. Since I am not going to be here for a while I might as well allow you to come and go as you please.” Gaelin held that key like it was some sort of precious jewel.
“I will try and be back as soon as possible, alright. Just keep things standing until I come back.” Arthur gave one last reassuring sentence before he left for Lyra’s residence in the northern district.
*********
Having a perfect memory aside from before Dom Badaher, Arthur easily found his way back to the residence that Lyra had the tryouts at. When he arrived he followed the instructions he was given on that day and knocked at the front door and followed the staff inside. There he found Lyra along with several members of the mercenary group waiting along with Calavia.
“Hello Arthur, I suspect that you have a good reason for not being here sooner.” Lyra not so subtly indicated as she walked towards him.
“Yes, I needed to make sure that my apprentice was able to keep things running while I am gone. Sorry if it took a long time doing that.”
“Well at least that is a half decent excuse for taking your time. We once had a member of the Flock who was late not because of personal business he needed to take care of, but because he was in a brothel enjoying himself. He didn’t stay a part of the Flock for much longer.” Citro said as he walked down the nearby flight of stairs clad in his steel plate armor.
“There you are, does putting on your armor always take this long or were you just taking your sweet time?” Lyra said as she had a large grin on her face.
“We are still waiting on a few others before we will head out. Hopefully we will have the time to leave and set up camp on the road, that way we can cut down our arrival date by a bit. We just need to hope that they get here soon.” As he said all this to Lyra he walked by and took a seat in one of the nice chairs that were in the room. Even though he couldn't feel the chair through his armor he looked quite comfortable and this annoyed Lyra slightly who looked away and gave an annoyed grunt.
While waiting for the few remaining members of the Flock Arthur made some small talk with a few of the members that were in the room with him. “You know this war is over the Niveis Pass just like the last one, though no one on either side has said anything about it, everyone knows both sides want exclusive access to it.” A tanned human woman dressed in leather armor and with a short sword and buckler on her side said to Arthur.
“What is the Niveis Pass? Does it have something to do with the Niveis Mountain range?”
“You clearly don’t know much about the politics between the major powers, but in short that is correct. It is a massive hole that just appeared in the Niveis Mountain range around thirty or so years ago, now since it goes all the way through it has made for an excellent passage to the north beyond the mountains where most of the northmen and northwomen live allowing for easier trade between us and them. The only problem is that the pass is, or more accurately was directly in the middle of the border between the Kingdom and the Empire. For a while that wasn’t a problem, until Emperor Raoul Spitzer lV became emperor after his father died.”
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“I assume he isn’t a very diplomatic emperor.”
“Now that is the understatement of this era.” The woman said as she shook her head. “Emperor Raoul Spitzer lV is a menace to the peace across this entire continent. For a little while he looked like he would follow in his fathers footsteps, but then suddenly he spun around and demanded the exclusive rights of the pass or his empire would declare war. King Gaius Caesar III tried to keep relations between the kingdom and the empire peaceful, but Spitzer wasn’t having it and war was declared.”
For a moment the woman went silent and just looked down at the ground. ‘She must have taken part in the war then, she must be reliving old memories. From what I know the war was unexpectedly brutal and costly, the kingdom only barely managed to force a cease fire because of all the life that was lost and the people of the empire weren’t supporting the emperor and his actions.’
“I was a part of the military back then for the kingdom, I was a scout with a primary focus on reconnaissance on enemy forces. While most stories might not mention many of the things that were used by the empire that is mostly because those that fought against the few powerful demons that were summoned didn’t live to tell about. During one of my earliest reconnaissance missions I was able to see a demon up close, it was one of the most terrifying things I had ever seen.”
Arthur didn’t say anything at this statement, he too had once encountered a demon and like what the woman just said it was terrifying. It was like every part of his body was telling him that he needed to run in the opposite direction as fast as possible, like some sort of spell was cast on him and he didn’t even notice.
“All we can do is hope and pray to the gods that the empire doesn’t try and use demons again to bolster their ranks. I guess that is why Lyra asked me to join this time around, if there are any demons I will find out and inform her about it.”
Most of the other conversations that Arthur took part in were mostly unimportant ranging from rumors going around the city to people's taste in women. Eventually the few remaining members of the Flock arrived, four to be exact. One was a mage, another was an archer, and the last two were carrying spears with short swords as backup weapons.
Citro upon seeing that everyone was present stood up from his chair and walked to the center of the room. “Now that everyone is here we will be leaving soon. If you have anything else that you absolutely need to bring you will have an hour to meet us by the eastern gate. If you are not there by then you will be left behind.”
********
Everyone slowly followed Citro out of the building and towards the eastern gate. Since it was nine o’clock at this point in time the streets were almost empty of people with only the city guards and the occasional citizen walking around.
Reaching the eastern gate they found several wagons drawn by strong looking animals that carried the food and all the other things that were needed to make the journey to the border where the fighting would be happening. Thankfully no one needed to take anything that they didn’t already have with them so the group numbering around twenty five left after around fifteen minutes of prepping.
The group walked for around three hours before they stopped and made camp along the side of the road. The first thing that everyone did was set up their own tents, then a small campfire was quickly made from some nearby dry stick and grass and pyromancy. Some moisture in the air was collected and dumped around the fire to keep it from spreading.
Arthur managed to quickly set up his own tent and looked back in the direction they came from. Most of the land they passed by from the eastern gate was flat and a good portion of that especially around the walls where most of the farmland was. He could still see part of the walls even after three hours of walking, it was a strange feeling, like when he first saw the walls from a distance on his first trip to Antium.
“Ugh, how did you manage to get your tent set up so quickly?!” Calavia stumbled over her tent laying across the ground next to Arthur nearly tripping over it.
“I just did what everyone else did. I put the little skeletal pieces together first before putting the actual fabric part over it.” Arthur answered as he turned and began walking back towards Calavia to see what she did to get such a mess.
“But that is what I was doing, it just isn’t working for me. See.” Calavia pointed to the jumbled mess of wooden sticks that made up the skeleton of the tent as well as the fabric practically draped across it like a blanket.
“Ok, this isn’t what I would call doing what everyone else did.” Arthur said as he walked right up to the mangled tent and yanked up on the fabric and tossed it off to the side. Like he was building a puzzle he attacked the wooden pieces together and began putting them into the x shape for the fabric to do its part.
“See, it wasn’t all that hard. I honestly don’t have the slightest clue what you were doing when you tried.” Arthur not so happily presented the finished tent to Calavia who gave him a hug out of happiness.
“Thank you Arthur, honestly outdoor stuff like this isn’t really my thing. I always needed help setting up my tents when I did stuff like this more often.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Calavia gave Arthur a weak punch in retaliation for the little insult and the feeling of embarrassment he gave her before she quickly walked towards the fire.
Several members of the Flock were also standing around the fire, some were already drinking what was likely to be alcohol. The rest were engaging in small talk that Arthur couldn’t hear from such a distance. But instead of following Calavia and going to the fire like almost everyone else, he walked over to his tent and crawled inside and sat down.
Closing his eyes and listening to the amount of noise was limited mostly to rustling plants nearby, the voices from around the fire were mostly unhearable from where he was sitting. Laying back on the sleeping role that he and everyone else within the Flock were given, Arthur kept his eyes closed and started to relax while still listening to the soft sounds.
Outside and around the fire everyone but a small handful of the Flock were standing around talking. Most of what was being said was just small talk, but Lyra and Citro were talking about something a bit more serious just out of hearing range of everyone else.
“Are you sure this was a smart idea? You know what Julia said about the last war, how the empire had summoned demons to act as their shock troops. We had difficulty facing just one demon warlock in the past, I don’t know how we will fare against several at once.”
“We are also stronger than we were then. We know a lot more than we did then as well, and unlike the military we can retreat if we can’t hold the line.”