Axes for chopping at the wide trunks of trees became axes of war and battle. Micah of Riverwood swept the sweat from his brow with a cloth, relieved by one of his fellows as they made their way through the forest. “This sucks...” He groaned. His arms felt like lead weights and the things refused to stop coming. In a seemingly endless tide. “I told them not to open that dungeon. Didn't I? I told them, but nobody listens to ole Micah. The elders know better, they said. It'll bring great wealth to the town, they said. What a crock of shit!” Micah whined, the forest more dark and dreary than he ever remembered it being. “Old people can eat my ass, and that's the way. Yessir.”
“Don't you think we're more pressed than to offer your 'I told you so's!?'” Jude protested. If he'd a free hand, he'd use it to knock that blockhead to the ground. Probably. He was a lot smaller than his oldest friend, but he insisted that it wasn't the size of the man but the size of the fight in his heart. Or something like that... Often making comments about 'going for the knees' but not once had he ever turned Micah in a gods honest wrestle. “We have to get back inside the walls, man!”
“Why are they coming out in the day now!?” Someone called out, it was hard to tell by the sounds of their voices given the unnatural echo in the air whenever the undead came out... “I thought they were only supposed to come out at night?”
“That was what the paladins said. Those bastards. All fancy as you like, shiny armor as you like, and they can eat my ass too as they like!” Micah grunted, turning his axe over to the flat end and smashing the skull free from one of the bony creatures. The old mines had been re-opened at the behest of their new lord, some fop with a forgettable name that had been given the barony for no apparent reason. Replacing Regis as lord and doing a shit job of it right off the bat. Opening the iron mines, and disobeying imperial law to keep the dungeon within closed. A cavern below that had seen to the shutting down of the quarry more than a hundred years ago.
Rumor said it contained a black tree that grew no matter how many times it was burnt with holy fire, giving rise to a near infinite numbers of skeletal undead. A threat to exceed any worth the dungeon had to anybody, sealed with a stone that the lord had broken courtesy of his fancy magic blade. He was dead now, the first to die when the hordes of undead had filled the mines with their clacking and groaning. Screaming for help while the men he'd hired to protect him had slunk off with their tails betwixt their legs.
The town itself was consecrated. So near moving water, they hadn't been able to assault Riverwood directly, being trapped on the other side of the river. Because of that, the town remained relatively safe through sheer luck of their geography. Lumberjacks still went out, mans gotta eat, but they returned earlier and a curfew was in place for all citizens. Except today, where the undead came marching out of their hole in the ground uncaring of the sun.
They weren't too much of a threat individually. Their numbers... That was the problem. Thankfully, Jude had a quick eye and a decent brain between his ears. Enough to see them coming far in advance and start the flight back down the hill. Until they'd been caught by an awkward ambush and stuck in a fighting retreat. All skeletons. No ghouls or zombies, thank the gods. Until ole Harry caught a rusty axe in the jaw, seconds later rising as an example of the latter. Enough to make a few of these hard men wet their britches. But they fought as best they could, armed but unarmored. A single nick from those rusty blades might send them to the black if left untreated, or whatever happened to a mans soul when he became one of those things.
“Help!” Someone screamed, someone in the rear. An idiot too, because all it'd serve to do is draw more of the undead to their location. These creatures were dumb, but they had senses despite not having the parts necessary to have them. Foul magic. There was a reason why these folks had never attempted to hire a healer or traveling mage in the past, and that which they had found after the town expansion got turned into one of those zombies. Trying to save a man dying of the rot and getting his neck opened right up for it. Nothing good could come of magic, it came in many flavors of misfortune and the undead were only one small part of that.
“Well, buddy.” Micah chuckled. He was no warrior and he'd be lying if he wasn't near to the point of soiling his pants, but such was life. Sometimes there were situations you couldn't escape from. Whether it be a tree swung the wrong way, crushing you flat, or a horde of skeletons making mincemeat of your insides and raising your limp corpse into eternal damnation. “Reckon we'll go down in a nice scrap and find ourselves snuggled up in Lady Freyja's fat tits, no profanin but that's my wish. Savvy?”
“Aye.” Jude smiled, swinging his wedged mallet into the rib cage of a skeleton. Micah could see the blackness in his veins that would soon put his sight out before taking him. Not the most likely of ends now, the fever took days and the undead weren't that slow. “Reckon we make a good showing of it. Like ye ole heroes of yore, maybe some tavern wench with some nice round milkers will be callin' me Jude of Justice as you like. Jude of Justice, Jude of the pick, had a perky ass and a big ole... Well, you get it, lad. Pa always said we shouldn't be doing no cursin' before we die lest ole Thanny hears us.”
“All to praise a bard prettier than you, I reckon. Ha!” Micah laugh, loping another one of the things heads off. They were surrounded now, dozens of them could be seen through the dense wood, with their small gang of men backed up against a thick ironoak just a few months too young for a chopping.
Just then, a booming nose rolled through the forest. Black lightning as thick as Micah's arm lashed out in a flash, scouring the undead off their feet and only leaving the aforementioned appendage and a bit of ankle and charred boot intact. Still and smoking as if their feet were not yet aware that their owners had been killed. Or... Unkilled? Could you kill an undead? Micah was no skeleton scientist, but he figured the descriptor was fine regardless.
A tall woman swathed in a voluminous black robe descended on the summer breeze, landing amidst those undead yet standing with twin orbs of ebony electricity in her hands. Moving her hands about as mages were won't to do and making a mess of the bony lot.
In a long tongue of destruction, a black and violet viper ran in a chain along all of the nearby undead, blasting them to cinders. “Run, you idiots!” She shouted, expending what remained of her magics before pulling a silver ranseur from her dimensional ring and returning to her grisly work. Micah put Harry to rest by caving in what was left of his skull. With zombies, you went for the head, everyone knew that. Skeletons would remain moving unless you destroyed the chest, though.
Maybe I've a bit of talent for this. He mused, plucking the screamer-now-dead-zombie from his feet by the hem of his shirt and hoisting him up onto his shoulder. Harry was a good lad, deserved an honorable send-off. Always free ale at them burnings anyway, Micah choked. Hard to believe that all that was left of him was the weight... A man he'd known for all of 19 years just... Gone. Jude belted off, not looking a gift horse in the mouth, hoping to get back to the church and see if they could stop it before the black blood got too deep a grip on him.
“You, too!” The woman yelled. Clearly a noble, or she wouldn't be all dressed up like that. A mark barely visible, winding up from hand to wrist identifying her as a college mage. Micah sighed.
“Yeah, yeah. You should get going as well, lady. It'll be night soon and more will come out, doubt your fancy magic will be worth much more than my axe at that point.”
She grunted, smashing another zombie from its feet and reversing the butt of her pole-arm to stab up and into its skull. Her movements were smooth and graceful, and when her hood fell – Micah found himself staring into the violet eyes of the most beautiful lass he'd ever seen. Violent, rowdy, radiant, some kind of goddess come from above. Wavy hair as black as night falling over her shoulders, the swiftness of her motions revealing a honed and athletic body and a pair of legs like nothing he'd ever seen. Too bad they were hidden beneath those tight leather breeches of her...
He wouldn't get a chance to exchange introductions. It was better to make himself scarce, and he'd never been much interested in younger women to begin with. “Go, I can handle this and I'll look for your friends!” She repeated herself, and he did, wishing her well and hauling ass down the hill toward the safety of the river and the town walls. All while ole Harry made for a bobbin' on his shoulder.
“Sorry, pal. It'll be over soon.”
–
Tyr boarded a boat with the others and left Karth behind. After a few days, the incessant smells of the sea had begun to bug him, it wasn't that he hated it, but the sand and salt got everywhere. Coarse and rough and irritating... “You alright, kid?” Mikhail chuckled. The one-time prince was green to the gills and wobbly, clutching at the gunwale and heaving for the fifth time over the edge. “We could've taken the south bridge, but you insisted it'd waste too much time.” It didn't make sense to be in any sort of a hurry, but Tyr had 'wanted to ride a boat' at least once in his life. Only to find a new friend in what they called 'seasickness'.
Okami was similarly wobbly in his more diminutive puppy form, whimpering and earning a few looks of disgust and amazement as he vomited out a half digested carcass many times larger than he was. Leaving the deckhands confused at the mechanics of such a thing. But these men paid the toll, so they didn't ask, sea sicknesses wasn't so uncommon to the more land-friendly.
“Never been on a--” Tyr wretched again, shaking his head and spitting phlegm over the edge and into the sea. “How long...?”
“Few hours at most, got to cross the strait, that's all. Not a long voyage.”
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“The--” Another wretch, leaving Fennic howling in laughter. Tiber patted the boys back gently, while Samson pulled a cloth gaiter over his nose to defend against the stench. “You should seriously reconsider your diet, ooni...” Ajax and the other beastkin remained ashore, refusing to take to the sea. Despite there only being a thin strip of it separating the Lyran Republic from Haran, their superstitions were strong. They'd travel overland and meet up with the rest in Leygein, a port city on the eastern coast and center of trade in the region. If there was work, they'd find it there, and no man could live for long in this world without at least a handful of coin.
Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to hours before they finally arrived. Okami recovered after emptying his stomach, but Tyr experienced no such awakening. He lurched unevenly from the deck before falling forward, face flat to the stone of the wharf where many ships were being docked and unloaded. Tyr had always considered the Lyran's a backwater people of a tiny, impoverished nation, but the industry of Leygein's port was worth noting. It was even denser than Haran, though the capital docks were far larger in scope and there was nothing here to even approach rivaling the palace he'd once called home once.
“So, this is the republic, I've gotta admit...” Mikhail whistled, impressed. Clean, sharply cut, a bit disorderly but the bright sun made it look like some kind of beach side resort location he'd heard about from the constables about to retire. “This is beyond my expectations. You've been here, right Tiber?”
“A decade ago, and it wasn't half so large, they work fast, these Lyran's. When I was a boy, Leygein was barely a fishers village.” Tiber nodded. The twin empires were seen as the two jewels of human civilization on the continent, but if the other cities in the republic were like this – they might have a new challenger for that title. It was a young nation, existing for only a century or two in it's current state. A child before the grandiose scale of eras the twin empires had seen. Before, it had been a motley collection of free nations, doing their best to pull that which they could from the rocky, peaty soil. Until a war with the orc nations had destroyed near half and united the rest into a hasty confederation. Beating them back with the assistance of their many allies, including Tyr's grandfather and Alexandros' sire.
Nowadays, that confederation was a thing of the past. There was only one Lyra, and they organized themselves into a republic, a collection of states ruled by a 'senate'. No nobility existed here, only some bizarre thing called 'democracy'. Tiber didn't trust it personally, but he had no horse in that race, as a knight he'd served nobles and royals his whole life. To him, freedom was always an illusion. Here he was, free to do as he pleased, honorably discharged and rewarded for his service, and he still followed Tyr around. Even when Jartor had asked him not to... Not much else to do, might as well make a tour of the world so long as the boy remained wayward, watch his back if Tyr would let him.
Their true power, the Lyran's that was, was their diversity and commitment to inclusion. All races, even the same orcs that nearly wiped them out so long ago were relatively welcome here, so long as they behaved themselves. Except for those who refused to integrate into Lyran society – but they were given their reservations and left mostly undisturbed. The republic made the various successor states look like a side show, while this was the main attraction, perhaps the most racially diverse country in all the known lands, and one could behold it with a glance. Spiny backed maxxid walked alongside the goblins busy unloading the ships of dusky skinned Assyrians. Far from home, come to take part in the great globalist economy.
Agoron men could even be seen, in their colorfully striped robes, bands of mithril around their wrists and forearms. Tyr had asked Samson about this, but the main claimed these were not 'his' people, his were the Awowogei and his tribe did not ply the seas. It was shocking how rich they were, though, trading in platinum wafers apparently worth over 2 times the value of Harani sovereigns. Friendly, but watchful over their rare and exotic goods, each and every one of them carrying magic items and well capable of defending themselves. Not quite as large as Samson, their guards still cut quite a figure and stood so still they might as well be statues.
Beastkin hauled crates and rolls of textiles from ships, those who were unafraid of water. Some of them were dressed as guards or soldiers, something that would never be seen in Haran or Varia. Gray and course skinned, almost shark-like shuukan discussing philosophy or terms of trade with dwarves. An obvious pickpocket of the halfling variety cut the fat coinpurse clear from its moorings at the hip of a red skinned telurian before being caught by the aforementioned guards. Too stubby in the legs to escape from the explosive speed of the beastkin quarrying him, beaten to within an inch of death by their clubs and dragged off groaning and claiming it 'wasn't him'.
“It's loud.” Tyr observed with a sour look. He'd experienced ports before, but with the hundreds of people milling about all speaking in their own tongue, his brain could hardly translate before he was assaulted with even more shouting. He gently shoved away a hunched goblin trying to sell him some foul smelling fish, pushing his way through the crowd. “I don't want to be here, where should we go?”
“You're the boss. Well, sort of, you're all famous and still noble as you like so I still plan to use you as my meal ticket.” Mikhail shrugged, purchasing some of that same foul smelling fish and seeming to enjoy it. A faint acidity to join the pungency brought on by the fermentation process, some kind of pickled herring he'd guess. “Oof, that's good, you should try some of that.”
“Do they have an adventurers association here?” Tyr asked, turning to Tiber, the most knowledgeable regarding foreign nations. What with being the honor guard of merchant prince diplomats and even an empress at one time, there were few places he hadn't visited north of Varia. “Somewhere we can find work?”
“Hmm...” Tiber pondered for a moment. “It might've changed, but last time I visited, the adventurers guild here was a satellite organization. By law, all commissioned Lyran mercenaries and adventurers operate out of a network of independent organizations.”
Mercenaries and adventurers. Akin to Haran, Lyran's could not form their own private armies, with the distinction being anything over 100 men. Everything was in control of their independent states which in turn had their own independent laws in an unending cycle of bureaucracy. The only apparent exception to this rule were the guilds. Not the guild, as in other nations, but the institutions that worked in satellite to them, their own businesses, treated like any other group of artisans. Though they made their craft with swords and axes rather than needles and thread or otherwise. In the successor states, there was the adventurers guild, and then smaller independent guilds that operated under its wider purview. Here, it was the complete opposite.
Guilds were present in the successor states, but they were less singular in purpose. Half mercenary company and half mercantile outfit, whatever they wanted to be so long as they paid tribute and taxes. Here, they were more akin to hunters, taking bounties throughout the various states in lieu of an official regiment like the warden's or rangers in Haran. They handled near everything regarding the safety of the nation, and were sworn to the senate as a whole rather than individual states or government officials.
The first they found were the Blue Rose. A knightly chapter more than a guild, but Lyra didn't care for the distinction and called it how they saw it. 'Unfortunately', they didn't accept 'common' men – but more importantly...
“I don't know man, it seemed like a nice place.” Mikhail grinned wickedly. “Did you see how many girls were there? It's too late for these old men, but we could find you a new wife. Or seven to make for a true harem worthy of the old tales. Never understood you lot, primus' can marry as many common women as they'd like no less pretty than the nobles. Could have one wife for every day of the year... We live in a society, brother, best to take advantage of it.”
“They don't serve alcohol.” Tyr rejected the proposal to return and request the exam. He might not be able to claim 'official' nobility, but he highly doubted that anyone would question his Ebonfist heritage. It was good enough for near anywhere on the northern half of the continent. They were a famous and excessively wealthy trading clan, and in this era you could practically buy a nobility from somewhere in the marches and nobody would care, beyond claims that one might be an 'upstart' that is.
Next were the Red Ravens, but they were... A bit odd. A man with his arms buried elbow deep in the carcass of an unknown variety of warg greeted them with a nonchalant smile, as if such a thing were normal here. Unfortunately, they didn't serve alcohol until 9PM. There were a few hours left before it'd be that late, and performing an autopsy on a monster plain visible in the same place they ate food couldn't have been sanitary.
Tyr politely refused any offer to 'take a look at their catalog' before leaving as fast as he could.
Winter, Knights Gryphon, The Companions, Dynasty, Remiel's Finest... There were a lot of them. It seemed unnecessary to separate them all like that, clustered in their various chapter houses throughout the city – until Tyr considered the scope. There were perhaps a hundred recognized adventurers in Amistad's local guild. But here in this single city, there were thousands and all their attendant staff – and they took their duties far more seriously. Less rogues and more salary-men, with the odd exception, all with their own personalities, creeds and rules.
It all made sense, really. That was a lot to manage and enforcing a policy that required them to police one another was quite clever. Organizing their own teams, leaving less personal choice and becoming far more effective for it. Of course, it ripped a lot of the charm out of adventuring, in Tyr's opinion, but he could understand the necessity. The republic was quite large and the distance between large human settlements was extensive, every state capital was fairly isolated and this made it much safer. Giving each and every one of them a super mobile, independently minded army of sorts that worked mostly on merit.
“A centralized guild?” The woman asked, the deputy commander of the Dynasty chapter in the city. Gray had begun to take root in her hair to declare her middle aged, but she was handsome despite all of that. Regal and strong in the neck, with scar tissue framing the left side of her face, and the callouses of a warrior well used to the sword on her hands. Tyr had liked her immediately, but she was a little... Forceful, he'd say, and some of her subordinates he'd seen passing through the place stank of foul deeds. “Sure, the Hunter's. Most people consider them the closest thing to a centralized guild, and they are a lot more accepting, I wouldn't suggest going there, though. You'd be much better off with us, and like I said we can offer a far more appealing membership contract than they could.”
“You don't say.” Tyr mumbled. He had a growing headache in the back of his skull and it was all he could do to maintain his manners, for what they were – which wasn't much. But the tall woman seemed to find it amusing if not charming based on her soft smile. “Why?”
“Well, you know how it is. Each guild has its own identity, but their only identity is being vanilla stereotypical mercenaries and the like. No oaths, they don't pay very well, all they do is drink and--”
“Yep, thanks!” Tyr departed, knowing exactly where he needed to go.
"--Trick you into debtor agreements."