Thinking about it, Caleb came to the conclusion that he was still entirely clueless as to why he was willing to fight said giant dragon-hurting cannons. Originally, he was doing it because of Eva’s force of personality, for lack of a better term to describe the incomprehensible woman’s odd allure. After she had left to ‘work’ with Desire, he was really reevaluating why he was there.
In the end, it was not the people that cemented his decision to stay. It was an admittedly vain part of himself. He wanted to be part of something great.
Caleb never lied to himself and said that he was a perfect person. He was never a paragon like Philip was (or appeared to be), nor was he a devil like that Duke he had heard such poor things about. He was his own person. He decided that there was little harm in having a selfish reason for being there as long as it did not put others in danger.
As the walls of the fortress came closer over the horizon, he wondered why the rest of them were there. He decided not to ask; he would rather let them have their secrets.
*=====*
Philip sighed as the walls of the fortress came closer over the horizon. He was wondering what the point of it all was. In the week he had been aboard the Kharon, he had felt off kilter, so much so that Bella had to sit down and talk with him about it. Back behind the walls of Green Oasis, he thought of it as a way to become stronger, to be able to help the world around him.
His optimistic thoughts, however, were shattered when he first sparred with the undead death knights.
He was treated like little more than a punching bag, being thrown around by the only human death knight, Megaera. It bruised his pride a lot, but what really made him reconsider was the extensive knowledge in the head of his former friend’s new friend. It was breathtaking how someone could be so knowledgeable but still have another passion.
Before any of that, however, there was the revelation that his friend had not only not died, but had become a lich after losing all of his, or rather, her memories. It had come as a shock when he learned that the skeleton covered in a cloak was once his best friend. He was still unsure of if she even was the same person as Jack was. They had some similarities, but the broad strokes were simply too different.
He was reserved, while Mori was energetic. He was consistent with his mood while she was able to swing her mood to whatever she wanted. They both, though, had a fascination with Greek mythology, as well as most mythology in general.
He shook his head, clearing his mind. They had arrived at the front gate and were being let into the walled off inner courtyard. Helga turned to them and leaned into the little circle they were in, “Alright, go along with what I’m sayin’ while we’re in there, and we’ll have enough time to get somethin’ to eat before we starve to death,” she laughed, “Let’s go!” she said as they began to disembark the skiff.
As much as he wanted to figure out his purpose there, or even how the lich fit into it, he had to follow Helga to the meeting. He sighed once more, hoping he would get enough time to think about things soon.
*=====*
Natalia barely concealed a smile behind a mask of annoyance as she followed behind the orc in front of them. Her mind was full of images of blood-soaked battlefields and her standing above them all, victorious. ‘I’m a psycho, but there’s nothing wrong with being wired differently, is there?’ she thought to herself.
She was never diagnosed as a psychopath, as she was far too stable, nor a sociopath, as she was able to feel love and compassion towards her fellow humans, but she was told that she was abnormally receptive to violence.
In her honest opinion, she found nothing wrong with her state of mind. Sure, she was receptive to violence, but everyone else was once their backs were against the wall. What she was sure to keep away from the psychologists was the idea that she liked to revel in violence. Or, more accurately, the feeling of victory that came when she was still standing in the end.
She was not sadistic —that was for people who reveled in suffering— but she was willing to do whatever was necessary to win. She was sure she could go on about the evils of humanity and how it was simply the way of humans to spill blood and kill just for some sense of personal satisfaction, or how it would only take one push to turn anyone into cold-blooded killers, but she was not pretentious enough to say it seriously nor a clown-themed supervillain. Besides that, she was able to get some satisfaction from sports like football. Both kinds, too.
Helga led them through the halls of the large inner keep, ignoring men and women rushing around them, all carrying stacks of rough paper and acting as if the world was ending. Natalia simply followed the lead of their orc guide and followed along until they reached a tall door.
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Without hesitation, Helga opened it, leading them into a large room with a number of fancily-dressed men and women arguing over something or other. The orc began talking, but Natalia almost immediately stopped listening. She was excited to finally fight something no one would call her a monster or anything for fighting.
It was actually for that reason that she joined the military. She was never a bootlicker, but she was never a rebel without a cause either. The military was a good fit for her. It gave her a place to act on her violence-seeking urges without judgment as well as a place to conquer her urges; she knew that letting her urges take the wheel was a one-way ticket to becoming a serial killer or something equally unpleasant.
Luckily, she had a place to temper her self control. Now, she had a place to let her urges run wild without having to run the risk of going ballistic on an actual person; robots did not count, after all.
*=====*
Helga barely held in a groan as the table full of jokers went back to making their little power plays and whatnot. Eaner shot her a remorseful smile, as if to apologize for wasting her time. She gave a small huff and accepted the apology, crossing her arms and waiting for the oh-so important nobles, crime bosses, admirals, and professors to let her go get a bowl of cold soup.
She could tell that the rest of her little party was becoming tired of the charade. Philip was trying his damndest to stay focused on the conversations determining his upcoming life expectancy, Kevin was giving them a flat, bored stare, Natalia never even paid attention in the first place, Bella was listening in as she always did, looking bored nonetheless, and Mark and Caleb was trying to pay attention much like Kevin was. She was starting to worry that they would fall asleep on their feet.
Just as she was about to simply leave, his noble pain-in-the-ass Duke Jiklac aimed his combined smug smirk and annoyed glare at her, “And what are you still doing here?” he asked, voice full of annoyance-inducing self-importance.
“Waitin’ for you to let us be on our ways,” she shot back in kind, staring at him with a deadpan look.
He nearly growled as she showed him no respect, but he managed to keep his decorum intact. Barely, “Then see that you make your way out of here.” He turned back to the group of big shots, saying something that was probably rage-inducing. Helga ignored it, leading her group out of the room and through the ants nest of hallways that made up the keep. As she walked, her mind drifted, once again, back to the place she wished she could just forget.
Her husband was, by all accounts, a very kind man. He was not a bureaucrat, not a pirate, not a hunter, nor a craftsman. He was a chef, plain and simple. Helga remembered some otherworlder or extradimensional saying that went something along the lines of ‘the best way to get a man’s love is through his stomach.’ She felt like the man described the first time she met Gari.
He was smart, funny, and really wanted others to enjoy his cooking. His intentions were pure as the clouds, and she loved him for it. They married and, as an Aekan resident, he stayed in his home city to continue his little cafe on the corner of Thorn Road.
She still remembered the last time she saw him in vivid detail. She remembered how he hugged her and leaned into her side like she was an unbreakable cliff and the winds were howling at his back. She remembered how he said he loved her, with every word meaning the world to her. It was painful to remember.
But, she knew what he would say if he saw her then. He would tell her ‘get up off your ass and use all that on your shoulders.’ He was a smart man, but she would never lie and call him eloquently. With his voice still in her head, she smiled and walked with a bigger spring in her step. She would throw the weight on her shoulder around, but she needed a bite to eat before anything else.
*=====*
Bella sat next to Philip as they ate their cold soup in silence. She hated how she could not do a single thing to help him, how she could only stand by and watch as he tore himself up on the inside trying to get to grips with the most recent events. While she did feel some sort of attraction to him, she was far from crazy over him.
She listened to the conversations going on all around her, a habit of her ill-spent youth as a rogue on the streets of some city or other. She was able to hear the latest gossip, something about the lich taking bullets to the head like her first kill took stabs to the gut, and rumors about what the head honchos would decide to do; apparently rumors about the Pass were spreading and most of them were right on the money.
Some were saying that days of concentrated artillery fire would be followed by a massive assault on the tiny pass. Others predicted that they would stall for time until a tunnel in the side of the range could be dug. She would have scoffed at the idea, but their temporary hostess, the lich Mori, was overseeing it, so she had to suspend her judgment until something more concrete came from the little outpost she had made; she may not have seemed like much personality-wise, but there was something about her that made Bella think she would do something just to spite the people saying it was impossible.
After a bit more people-watching, she turned her eyes back to Philip. He was so deep in thought that he completely missed her intense stare for a few moments, blinking as he finally noticed her, “Hey… Is there something on my face?” he asked awkwardly.
“Are you sure you're alright?” Bella bluntly asked, “You’re even more out of it than before.”
He stopped for a moment, looking down at his soup, warming in the arid heat, “I… I’m not alright. I’m just wondering why I’m still here. Why I’m still willing to fight. I wanted to get stronger, to become more powerful to help the world around me, but his just seems suicidal the more I think about it.” Bella stared, “What?”
“Do you not remember the reason why we’re here?” she asked, “We’re here because, unless we want to face the worst this world has to offer without being prepared enough to fight a bunch of buckets of bolts,” she said quietly. She made sure not to say it too loudly; saying something like that was just asking for trouble from someone who lost a friend from the Clockworks.
Philip nodded, “Yeah… You’re right. I think I just need some time to internalize it,” he said as he began eating his soup. She gave a small smile to him and went back to her people-watching. No one else would do it, after all.