The healer walked from town to town, he took no coin, just pay stubs from the mayors or local nobles.
It was a rousing success and the man was glad such a system was implemented to let people get the healing they so desperately needed while the kingdom paid for it.
Since they put it into effect the number of people willing to try to go to the frontier had a noticeable uptick.
He entered the next town, its sign had been defaced so he didn’t even know what it was called.
It was run down, considering its location he knew it couldn’t be more than 7 years old, but this place had a way of breaking things, breaking people.
He saw two guards dragging a young girl away as who he assumed was her younger brother cried with a bloody nose on the ground.
“What crime has the girl committed that you would be so rough with her and that boy?”
They noticed the rose pin but they didn’t remember what a blue one met.
“Fuck off old man, she doesn’t have a family so we just want to give her a job, we’ll even give the brat food if she does well.”
The lecherous smile on the man nearly sent the healer into a rage, but he couldn’t just kill the two of them without the full story.
“And how old is she? I doubt she has even bled before, I will ensure that both of them make it back to an orphanage that can take care of them until they come of age. If no crime has been committed then it is a choice that they must make, what you are doing is illegal and I will not let it stand.”
One of the guards drew on him and then he was just gone, not a trace of him remained but the sword that hit the mud.
The second guard was stunned, he didn’t know if his friend was dead or not, but instantly obliterating somebody was surely the work of somebody beyond him so he hoped to play a statue and maybe live.
“Girl, do you want me to take you away from them?”
She barely nodded her head, exhaustion and starvation were both clear in her eyes, he couldn’t stand to see a child without a spark of hope at such an age when the world didn’t need to be so cruel anymore.
“Is that your brother?”
She nodded and the healer took both of them by the hand to get food so he could give them proper healing without taxing their bodies even more.
As they stepped into what could barely be called a tavern the guard who had gone missing finally hit the ground, after 10000 feet the man was dead in an instant.
He would clear the rest of the shithole and take the fight however high it needed to go, he was not a merciful man and he would not stand to see his friends work go to waste because of corruption.
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It was a calm day at sea, relatively at least.
He was a squire on contract with the knights of the Dolemen Empire to help guard a shipment of something that he wasn’t allowed to know about.
He found himself alone in the brig next to the crate he was supposed to protect, yet he heard nothing outside, he hoped that whatever that lich hit him with didn’t deafen him.
He spoke and found his voice was his own, but his words were wrong.
The squire shimmed the door open, he hoped that there was still somebody left on the ship.
When he stepped outside he was filled with horror as he realized he was in the great wall of fog, this was no place for men.
He checked the instruments but even the high quality divination compasses spun wildly and without purpose.
He had no idea of day or night, the only lights he could see were Healer Jellyfish as big as he was floating lazily along the aircurrents.
They sensed his pain and he allowed them to approach, the cool touch of their tentacles and the slime left behind calmed his head and healed the gash he suffered while the ship tossed and turned in his sleep.
He waved goodbye to the nearly mindless but gentle and empathic creatures as they disappeared into the fog.
Down below deck he sat by the provisions, they should’ve had enough to reach the western front and 3 days more after that, but he saw only 5 days of food and clean drink were still there, whatever happened to the rest of the crew it wasn’t immediate, so at least they didn’t get caught between the dread pirate and the Goliath frigate, both sides would’ve killed them all without a moment's delay.
Two days passed, at least he thought it was two days, neither sun nor moon ever pierced the veil.
He heard sirens on the first day but he had never once been less than faithful to a woman, so their mind bending calls fell on deaf ears, instead they brought him fish to eat.
Nobody really knew what was inside the veil, nobody who went deep inside ever came out, but every creature inside had stories of malice and kindness in equal measure.
Another 3 days passed, he stretched himself thin, but he was already starving for a few days before he even woke up so the rations only lasted as long as originally intended.
A week came and went, he had no food, no water, the sirens asked if he wanted a clean death, but he wouldn’t take up their offer, he had somebody waiting for him back home, if there was even the slightest chance that he could make it back he had to take it.
Their songs became laments for a man who had no hope yet clung to it anyway.
As he drifted to sleep he felt something deep in his bones vibrating.
Whales, dark purple in color and with wings like loose threads of silk moved through the fog.
His wife jumped from the back of one of them as they sung their haunting melody.
She asked if he was finally ready to come home, he knew it wasn’t real, but he almost wanted to believe.
He couldn’t help but cry as she held him.
He told her that he knew she wasn’t really there, but he couldn’t betray his wife, even now.
Lir said her sister would love him very much, and that she was looking for something.
He led her to the brig where the box was, he could barely stand due to weakness but she held his hand and lent him her shoulder.
He tried to open the box for her but his arms wouldn’t move.
She laid him against the wall and tore the lid off with her bare hands.
It was what she had been looking for, the vial of plan looking water was part of her body and it would’ve turned the war.
Whoever drank it would be her champion, she rarely took one willingly, instead she simply set up a trial to give that power to whoever found it, but she wouldn’t let those men use her powers to enslave another person.
She spoke to the squire whose white armor was stained red with the blood of the kraken they had fought before they ran into the lich, he looked plainly unbefitting of power, his arms had thinned, his face was giant from dehydration.
Yet the sirens laments had drawn her here to this place, and their words of the man's honest nature tickled her heart.
He couldn’t go home, but she would allow him to live, she asked nothing of him, he could be a great warrior, he could be an archmage, or he could throw it all away and be a blacksmith if he liked, but living or dying was his choice.
He cried yet no tears came out, with dry eyes he agreed, he would try to get back home no matter what.
She was glad to hear of his resolve, though she knew he never stood a chance of returning.
He needed her help to tilt his head back and he drank the water of her flesh, he didn’t remember what happened after that, he was and wasn’t solid anymore, awoke on a beach.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
His armor and sword were the only things he still had left, somehow he knew that this was not his homeland, he had pierced the veil and he could never return.
The years passed, he thought often of those he left behind, even after 80 years he still couldn’t bring himself to find a wife.
He now took the form of an old man, in his youth he was handsome, yet now he let the outside show how worn down he really was.
He moved between towns and cities, he wondered what job he would take this time, he had been a soldier, a farmer, a tailor, but nothing filled the hole left in him.
He wondered if his wife ever found another man, he hoped she had been able to live happily, he hoped his daughter had her own children, that they had long lives.
After another hundred years the sadness turned to anger, he couldn’t connect to people anymore, just yelling and hammering away at his weapons, everyone he knew was gone, everyone he tried to know would just live him in the end, he could meet the grandchildren of the children he told stories too, but they only brought him more pain.
Sometimes he still saw her short chestnut colored hair, her cries that someday she would be a knight and protect her papa from all the bad men he had to fight so he could be home more often.
He shattered the blade with his hammer and banished the thoughts that tormented him, death crept through his thoughts again, but he drove it away once again and reforged the blade.
It was a gift entirely unbefitting of a girl so young.
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She walked through the camp and challenged every man who she saw, she was a fireball and a half at 18 and looking for prey, it was tradition for a woman of her house to meet a soldier in this way for a husband.
Barely anyone gave a good fight, most of them just outright denied her request.
Her mother made sure that she didn’t force anyone into a fight that didn’t want to, coercion wasn’t a good way to find someone to spend the rest of her life with.
“Fight me.”
She didn’t expect the boy in front of her to try and fight, he had a cadets uniform and was here as part of his training, he wasn’t even a real soldier yet.
She toyed with him for minutes, breaking him over and over again, yet he always got back up.
“I’m not getting married to some boy who can’t even land a hit.”
He spit out another tooth.
“So if I get one hit in, you’ll consider it?”
She scoffed and agreed.
He ran directly at her like every other time, yet instead of even trying to dodge the cadet threw himself on her blade and headbutt her, breaking her nose.
The commanders went white as a ghost at the display while her mother laughed with a sinister tone to her voice.
After they were patched up she and him went on their first date and he became her one and only love to which no man would compare.
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The ranger looked at the amulet he always kept on him, the memory he stored was clear as day.
He hated dealing with rogue settlements, they hadn’t really done anything wrong and most of the time they just needed to be told they had to pay their taxes if they wanted to set up on the frontier.
Lately however things had been bad, someone was supplying them with weapons that the kingdom had never seen before.
It had a wooden stock which they placed against their shoulder and the rest of it was metal.
It was mostly mechanical but had some magic to it as well and shot pieces of metal faster than the eye could see, a cylinder at the trigger held six shots.
It shouldn’t have been an issue, mages had been dealing with crossbows and arrows for as long as they existed, but with these new weapons just a single lucky shot was it and they were able to fire far more quickly than any but the most skilled archers.
It was like they were dealing with a dozen or more mages that just knew how to throw rocks really well, it took years to train a mage right, but any idiot could be given one of those things and suddenly it was a big problem.
Normal soldiers couldn’t hold up to ambushes and their armor ended up full of holes most of the time, so rangers or other elite units were needed to deal with rebels as soon as they realized they had these new weapons.
The ranger finally decided that it was time to negotiate.
He moved forward with his wall of stone nearly a foot thick and tried to ignore the booming sound of rifle fire.
Eventually they realized their new toys weren’t doing anything.
“Can we talk?”
His tone was calm but his voice carried over the walls of the fort.
“DIE KINGDOM DOG.”
The woman fired off another 6 rounds while everyone looked at her like she was an idiot.
An old man had to be nearly carried to the top of the wall.
“We’ve caused no harm, we just want to be left alone.”
“The kingdom just wants its tax, pay the rate and we’ll leave you be, you don’t even need to pay in gold, wheat and meat are just as good. It would also help if we knew where you got those weapons.”
“Can’t tell ya, a stranger came with a cart and showed us how to use them. I'll say that I’m not here for a fight I know I can’t win. We just don’t want you to think we’ll roll over if you show up at our door.”
“If I leave and a tax collector comes through to tell you what you need to give every month I won’t need to come back here with a warmage squad, I really really don’t want to kill anybody, but I can’t stop command from making examples out of people. No blood means no blood, simple as that.”
The warmages were already a quarter of a mile away and ready to strike, the ranger had only stumbled upon the whole thing and the commander listened to his request to try and solve it without shock and awe.
“Blood for blood, I’ll convince the rest of the village to submit, just don’t put us under a noble, we all have our stories of cruelty from those bastards.”
“Not sure how long I can keep you out of someone else's control though, the kingdom wants to keep an eye on everyone, but you’ll have until this area is cleared and they find somebody to put over here.”
“How long.”
“Depends, if we find something dangerous over here it could take months while we make sure the area is safe, if there is something valuable here then you would have less time as they decide to put more resources towards the clearing.”
The old man gripped his cane tightly and thought of how he wanted to reply, they didn’t have a choice, everyone knew it, they just needed to decide if they wanted to die for picking the one the kingdom didn’t like.
“Lindwurms nest to the west of here, deep in the woods around a valley, if you cleared them out I am sure it would go a long way to keeping the peace even though we don’t want to be in your kingdom.”
“Thank you, I hope every time I come back that I can look my sister in the eye knowing I saved more lives than I ended.”
“If you were a noble, I’d hope to be under you.”
The ranger shot a flare spell into the air, its bright green light let the warmages know that it was a peaceful resolution, he just hoped he could convince them to help kill the Lindwurms instead of going back to base.
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The ranger, 4 warmages, and their commander made their way half a days travel west of a small village seeking out Lindwurms.
It was the policy of the king that they should attempt to peacefully solve issues when possible, it never looked good for a village to be wiped from the map even if nobody should’ve known about it anyway.
“How the hell do you know that old man isn’t full of shit, we’ve seen no Lindwurms, no valley.”
“Look up.”
All the warmage could see was the massive canopy of trees.
“Lindwurms don’t fly.”
“Nope, they are forest creatures. The closer we get the bigger the plants are, I saw a tulip the size of your head 300 feet back, and if the trees get any bigger I think we are going to run out of light. We might be running into a White Lindwurm, in that case just don’t do anything, I’ll try to talk to it.”
The ranger got a look like he just said water was red.
“Don’t look at me like that, White Lindwurms aren’t Drakes, they are intelligent creatures, Green Lindwurms are the dumb ones, kill them on sight.”
“Since you are such an expert, what else should we expect?”
“Well, the chief said they were nesting, the area around here seems to confirm that, which means they probably laid eggs, we might even run into hatchlings. The adults, and I do hope the male is already gone, will probably be 40 feet long, 10 feet around, they spit milky poison that doesn’t hurt the plants but it will turn you into food for the forest in a moment. If you see them trying to grab their tails then get ready, they turn into wheels and then you risk being run flat by them.”
“That's just silly.”
“It is far less silly when they are coming at you, ice or mud might make them slip, with the massive bodies hitting anything at such a speed will break them or whatever they hit.”
After another 15 minutes they finally came upon the beasts, green tops, pale pink bottoms, spines like a fish on top.
The mates spiraled around a massive tree that reached straight up without any extra branches along the way, the male knotted himself around the tree and the female was devouring him headfirst as she laid her eggs.
“Well, good news and bad news, good news is that it is going to be much easier since the male is half gone already, bad news is that it is a green one.”
“What is the plan then, that thing isn’t 40 feet, it has to be over 100!”
“Any of you been involved with lumberjack operations?”
They once more looked at him like he was a fool.
“Fine, I get the message. I’m going to go over this, since we only get one chance. I’ll tell you where to hit and then you hit it with something that breaks the tree and it falls on the Lindwurm, easy kill.”
“Never say something is going to be easy.”
The commander was an older man, he kept a few scars on his face to remember the message he had given the ranger.
Yet everything went off without a hitch, after the tree fell onto the Lindwurm they simply attacked its rear end until it stopped moving.
Even if they hadn’t nearly bisected the beast they could’ve still relied on just a few big attacks since they were smooth like a scaleless fish unlike their more hearty cousins.
From there it would’ve eventually bled out, though with something that size it could’ve taken hours of hit and run before it finally died.
“I feel like we’ve done something heroic in the most anti-climatic way we could.”
Said the youngest of the warmages.
“The longer you are out here the more you are going to wish everything ended like this, I honestly expected one of you to die when we fought it.”
The others reacted with shock and tried to scold the ranger, but he was part of a parallel rank structure and they came of their own volition so they didn’t have any leg to stand on for anything more than a formal complaint and the ranger knew it.