Author’s Note: So I don't have much to say today, but please enjoy the chapter.
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Chapter 12
It was early afternoon when I finally got out of the mountains. I had been following a ravine for the past hour when it opened out onto a ridge that gave me a view of vast open fields, forests and even a river that flowed into a lake way off in the distance. Even better was there was not a single damn mountain in sight. I excitedly started down the path that led down from the ridge. Unlike the other paths I had followed, this one seemed well traveled with obvious signs of people wearing boots, or some kind of footwear at least, using it.
Coa was currently happily curled up and asleep. I wasn’t in a rush to wake her, since I’d very quickly realized earlier that she’s quite a glutton. I assumed she wouldn’t need to eat for a while after the meal she got this morning but she was perfectly ready to start crying when she noticed me having a small snack. It had taken almost a full meal worth of food, she had been perfectly willing to chow down on veggies too, before she was satisfied. If she was going to keep this up then the large stock of food in my bag was going to rapidly not be a large stock of food.
I was making my way through the trees at the bottom when Lynn spoke, “Mistress, what are you going to do about the fortress ahead?”
I stopped. Fortress? “What fortress are you talking about Lynn?” I asked, confused.
“The fortress that is probably a kilometer or two ahead of you? Did you not see it from the ridge? It was plainly visible.”
“No, I don’t think I saw it. I was kind of more focused on the further off scenery I guess.” I shyly admitted.
Lynn sighed. “Well, you need to come up with something because the soldier in the watchtower saw you at the ridge. I assumed you had noticed which is why you were hurrying. You probably have soldiers coming to intercept you already.”
“Do you think the soldier saw anything? Like Whisperwind, for example?”
“Probably not since you kept it slung up against your back. It wouldn’t have been visible from the angle they were looking from.”
“Then time to hide it and my plasma daggers I guess.” I slipped them back away into my bag. “I’m not sure what I’ll do if they ask to search my bag though.”
“You’ll just have to give them no reason to want to search you Mistress. Of course if all else fails, I doubt they’ll be able to stop you if you try to flee.”
“It’s not just how easy it is to flee but if these are soldiers from the empire, and they likely are since I should be in empire territory now, then if I do run from these soldiers they’ll spread my description far and wide. That will be quite a burden to deal with. I’ll just have to try to fool them and hope I guess.”
“Do your best Mistress.” Lynn encouraged.
Of course, I still had the option of just turning around and re entering the mountains but that wasn’t really an option I wanted to consider. So I needed some kind of cover story. Let’s go with ‘I’m a Beastmaster that entered the mountains hoping to tame some new things’ and if they ask why I’m alone despite that, I’ll say that all my other beasts besides Coa were killed. I think that will work unless they press the questions further.
I started moving and kept following the path through the trees. Shouldn’t be long now until I clear them. I was keeping my speed at a believable pace for my appearance. No reason to blow soldiers away, yet at least. I might have to later, so let’s not give the game away too soon.
I’m surprisingly worried about this coming meeting. Before, I thought the people in that town were just NPCs, but now I know I’m interacting with real people. I’m a bit nervous. Just need to stay calm, Seri. You’ve worked as a mercenary for 40 years, and as Aaron you worked retail for 5 years. You know how to deal with people. There’s no way soldiers are going to be as bad as some of those customers you have had to deal with. That brings to mind a different topic. I’m definitely staying away from the Merchant Class in the future. Retail never again!
As I exited the woods, I saw the fortress ahead of me and quite a surprising number of monster corpses in the cleared field in front of it. The walls of the fortress, I would guess to be about twenty to thirty meters in height. The corpses looked pretty fresh too, so if I had to guess they must have died relatively recently, probably earlier today. There were soldiers walking around skinning some of the hides of the more beast like monsters and scavenging parts off others. It was a bit of a grotesque sight really.
A small group of eight soldiers were making their way toward me. I decided to get into my role a bit. After all, I was going to be posing as a young beastmaster that just tragically lost her beasts and only narrowly escaped with her life. I hurriedly walked forward to meet them. I tried my best to radiate a feeling of happy relief. Small sounds coming from by my neck told me that Coa had woken up, probably from the sounds and smells. She was making confused little warbles as she looked here and there.
The soldiers and I finally reached talking distance. They were quite tall, especially compared to my small self, and Coa was frightened by their presence. I stroke her head with my hand to calm her down.
The human soldier in the center that was wearing more intricate armor stepped forward and asked, “What was a young demon child like yourself doing in those mountains alone?” Oh good, I can understand the language so they must speak the same as the kingdom people.
I guess it’s also a good sign that they didn’t immediately draw weapons on me based on my appearance. It still sounded like some hostility was mixed in, but that might just be because of how suspicious I appear to be. Not sure I liked being called a demon though, and Lynn wasn’t happy about it either, judging by the not very nice things she was currently saying about the soldier that only I could hear.
“I went into the mountains to look for new beasts to tame. I’m a beastmaster, after all,” At this point I tried to puff up a bit with pride like I was a child before I let myself slump back into my previous posture. “My pets all got killed protecting me and I was only barely able to escape with this child!” I gestured to Coa. Time to turn up the drama a little. Thankfully I had practiced fake crying in the past, it’s surprising how often this can solve any problems. With small tears now in my eyes I continued. “I’m so, so glad, I’m st-still alive!” I made sure to stutter my words just a bit.
The soldiers shared awkward glances amongst themselves. I raised my hands to block my eyes and lowered my head. I was making sniffling and gasping sounds. I was also doing my best to get some real tears flowing, it would make things easier for the next likely step. Coa was too young to really understand what was going on, but her innocence helped in this case. She started crooning and rubbing her head against my cheek as if to comfort me.
The fancy armor soldier spoke more gently this time, “It’s fine, you’re safe now, but the Commander wishes to speak with you and ask you a few questions. Can you come with us?”
I raised my head, thanks to rubbing my eyes just right I had some tears rolling down my cheeks, and nodded. I froze for a moment when I saw the soldier’s face and I had to struggle very hard not to start laughing. Lynn was taking advantage of the contacts and had drawn a stereotypical curly, evil mustache on the soldier’s face. Along with some other silly additions like horns and an eyepatch. I guess she was still annoyed that I was called a demon. Damn it, Lynn. What would have happened if I really started laughing here!
The soldiers formed up like an escort around me and we started marching toward the large metal gate of the fortress. I wonder why the commander of the fort wants to question me. Interrogation maybe? Check to make sure I’m not a spy? Then again I don’t think a spy would sneak across those mountains, they’d take the trade route and have a fake identity setup. Maybe ask some questions about the mountains themselves? I’m not sure what kind of information he’d want though, so trying to predict it is difficult. I thought about whether I should switch Classes but I decided not to. While Empath would help for this coming conversation like it did back in that town, it’s still been only two hours and a bit hours since I swapped classes so if I swapped again I’d be locked out for another twelve hours again.
After entering the fortress, I saw a large number of soldiers still inside going about their duties. I’d estimate at least a few hundred that I could see now, plus the couple dozen I saw outside, there’s probably five hundred stationed here. I wish I could take out my terminal to scan some to check their levels, but that would definitely be noticed. At least on the bright side, I guess the thing about the empire being welcoming to other races is true. I see some people that look a bit inhuman here and there. That guy over there has long horns that curve back and over his head. And that guy has a long furry tail. Oh, there’s a female soldier, and she has long elf like ears. There’s even a few soldiers shorter than me wearing really bulky armor. Possible dwarves? This place is really interesting!
Fancy soldier led me through a doorway in the inner keep and I noticed that my escort of eight soldiers had shrunken down to just him and one other behind me. The others had went off to perform different duties, I suppose. I followed him through halls, up some stairs, then along other halls and then down a flight of stairs. Isn’t this fortress’ interior a bit too complicated? It definitely felt like I was being led around in circles.
Eventually the soldier stopped at a door that looked identical to all the others we had passed and knocked. A gruff voice from the inside was heard, “Enter.” The soldier opened the door and led me inside. The inside was pretty spartan. Simply a long table and a number of chairs around it. The two things that clearly stood out in the bare room though, were the map on the side wall and the the large banner hanging on the wall next to it. I made sure to take an unobtrusive glance at the map, hoping Lynn would catch on and add the info to our own map. I hoped so at least, she was still doodling on the poor soldier, adding spikes and things. The large banner had a coat of arms of what appeared to be a crowned lion pinning down a dragon with its paw. I wonder if that is the coat of arms for the empire?
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The male human sitting at the table gave off the impression of being an old veteran. He was definitely a large man and had a solid build. He had a long scar that went across his face, along with a few smaller scars giving him a bit of rakish appearance. The most surprising thing about his appearance though, was his hair color. It looked very similar to mine, a dark purple. I could tell by his expression and direction of his gaze that he was quite surprised by my hair color as well. I hope that wasn’t a bad sign.
The commander spoke, “Take a seat young lady. I’m quite interested in your little jaunt in the Nothar mountains. The watch didn’t mention that you were blessed by the Lord of Spirits, Airin. I have to admit, I didn’t expect I’d ever meet another so blessed again. Quite surprising indeed. It’s been decades since I last met someone like myself.”
I wasn’t at all sure what he was talking about here, but I could guess it had something to do with our shared hair color since it was the only feature we shared. Is that what odd hair colors have to do with here on this world, blessings? I took the seat in front of him and was aware that the soldiers stayed behind me at my sides. I guess they weren’t going to trust me that easily to leave me with their commander.
The commander was giving me an appraising look before speaking. “I want you to tell me everything from where you entered the mountains to today when you came to the fortress. Don’t leave out a single detail.”
So I weaved together a bit of a tale. Taking into account the size of the mountains, I stated that I entered the mountains about fifteen days ago from the other side. The commander was a bit interested at that since from his own words it was surprising that a demon would travel through ‘that shitty kingdom’, as he called it. I just explained that I hid my appearance while passing through before moving back to my mountain adventure. Since I had already said I was a beastmaster, I mentioned that I had had a small pack of wolves for my pets, that wasn’t even really lying after all. Most of the tale was pretty boring. I talked about some fights with obvious embellishments, trying to make the embellishments sound like those of a young person bragging rather than someone lying to hide things. I made up a slightly similar scene for taming Coa but placed it a few days ago.
He listened attentively until I got to today when his eyes took on a much more inquisitive and kind of threatening, focused look. Coa didn’t like it and started trembling. I used my hand to soothe her as I told how, for some unknown reason, the monsters today had been all fighting crazily. How I kept seeing large numbers of monsters fighting each other, which had led to my pets being killed and me being forced to flee for my life. At this point I made sure to toss in some appropriate little theatrics like biting my lip to make it seem like I was trying not to cry. Unlike the other soldiers this didn’t faze the commander at all, as expected of a veteran! Finally I concluded with reaching the ridge, except in my story I mentioned that I saw the fortress and hurried to get there, because I saw it as safety.
The commander was silent as he considered my words but he kept his eyes fixed on me. After a few minutes of this silent treatment, he turned his attention to the soldier that hadn’t been doodled on. “Donovan, go get one of the status orbs and be back on the double.” The soldier saluted and then turned and left the room at a brisk pace. The commander turned his focus back to me and asked me something I had been dreading the possibility of. “Now the other topic to discuss is that bag of yours. What might you have in it? Would you hand it over so it might get searched. After all, you admitted by your own words you don’t have any identification to show me and you are far from home so you are under certain suspicions now.”
Damn, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. I lifted the bag off my shoulders and the doodled soldier took it from me and sat it to the side on the table. At a nod from the commander he opened it and looked inside and of course saw nothing. If you could actually see all the items in the bag then there would be a problem. All he has to do is reach in for something though and he’d likely find something I wouldn’t be able to explain away. The soldier didn’t do such a thing though and his words surprised me. “It appears to be a bag of holding sir. No telling what is inside it since we’re not the owner.” What’s this? Is this some luck coming my way?
The commander tapped his gloved finger on the table for a minute before asking, “I’d like you sign this paper.” He pulled out a small piece of paper with some writing on it and passed along a small quill pen with it.
“What is this?” I asked, looking at the paper warily. I couldn’t read the writing so I had no idea what he was asking me to sign. I definitely wasn’t going to trust it. <((If you have paid money and bought this story on Amazon or some other store, please file a report and request a refund as it has been stolen and is being sold illegally.This story is only hosted for free on royalroad.com. If you are reading this series on any website other than royalroad.com, then you are doing so without the permission of the author, Xacual.))>
“It’s protection against bags of holding. One of the few that can really be used and trusted. It’s an oath enchanted paper that simply asks whether or not the contents of your bag are planned to be used to conduct murder, sabotage, or a number of crimes on empire land. So sign the paper or I’ll have you thrown into one of the holding cells. It’s your choice.” He shrugged.
Damn, damn, damn! There’s no way to know if he’s telling the truth or not. I should have swapped Classes for this meeting after all! Well, now I’m paying for that decision. If I don’t sign then my only option is to wipe out the entire fortress, every single person. Even beyond all the people I’d kill here, that would likely have severe repercussions on the villagers or towns in the area too. If I do sign, either he’s telling the truth and nothing will happen since I don’t have the slightest intention of using my stuff to cause problems in the empire or he’s lying and something will happen that I probably won’t like. Not to mention my bag isn’t a bag of holding, whatever that is, so if the note really just says that I won’t use my bag of holding contents against the empire then it’s a dud. Enchanted implies magic and I’m already worried about the possibilities of magic if this world has it. Is there another option here somewhere?
I thought hard and could really only come up with one option and it might not even work. I asked, “Can you sign it first? I want to see that it’s safe.”
The commander stared at me and then smirked, “Why not?” He took the paper and pen and signed on it. The paper briefly glowed green but nothing else happened. He slid the paper and pen back across to me and gave me an expectant look. I really don’t want to do this, but I don’t want to kill hundreds of people over something simple like this either. Especially when it’s possible some of these soldiers might be strong enough to escape me. I still don’t have good enough judge of the average level of strength of this world, though the town guards back then didn’t inspire much faith in it. Bad enough making the attempt, even worse if some escape anyway.
I took a few calming breaths and then signed the paper under where the commander did.
As in the case of the commander it simply glowed green for a moment before returning to normal. The commander looked satisfied, “Alright, everything is in order then. Roderick, hand the lady back her bag.” Doodle soldier now known as Roderick did so. “Now I’ll tell you what I am going to do with you. Tomorrow, I was planning to send a pair of messengers to the nearest town. The town of Dawnwater is about three days away. The pair will take you along and protect you until you reach the town but you’ll be on your own from there.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I was going to be forced to travel slowly and I’d have to hide the contents of my bag too. At the same time, I have to accept the offer since it’s clear he’s expecting me to jump at it. If I don’t take it it would look weird with the backstory I gave. I’m a beastmaster that now has no beasts except for a small baby dragon. At the same time, I’d at least get taken to the nearest town which meant I wouldn’t have to look for one. Well, I don’t really have an option here anyway unless I want to show off my true abilities, but I feel like that would cause a lot more hassles down the road. “Thank you, I’ll gladly accept the assistance.” There’s always the possibility of learning interesting things from the messengers I’m sent with if they’re the talkative type. Maybe I can pick up some magic knowledge or just more general knowledge about the empire from them if we’re going to be traveling together for a few days.
The commander nodded. Then the soldier that had left earlier, Donovan, returned with one of those status orbs in hand. It looked just a bit larger than the one I had seen at that town. It also was a different color. The orb back then had been glowing green but this one was glowing a green closer to blue. He sat it down in front of me. “Here we go. This is just to confirm your class and level is as you told me. So if you would.”
I was a bit hesitant but placed my hand on the orb and the same thing that had happened back a week ago was repeated. Eventually from the small box came the card. The commander picked it up and examined it. He looked thunderstruck for a moment before getting his expression back under control. He turned the card toward me, “Care to explain, your highness?”
What? I looked at the card.
Name: Seri
Race: Human
Title: Sniper Princess
Class: Beastmaster L30
Subclass: None
Ahh, fuck.