Sofie refused to bring her left hand off the sheath of her sword, ready incase Cameron’s half-baked plan went up in flames. She went back over the knowledge that Athena had given her, which now that she saw it felt basic. It wasn’t clear to her if that was because months of standard training was forced into her brain or not, but it felt like she had known how to work a sword for far longer than just a few days. Whatever the reason was, she was sure it put her skills above that of militia who probably didn’t have solid training. Of course, while she was prepared for what she felt was inevitable, she prayed that there was no fight to begin with.
That is what led to Cameron and her standing in front of two young militia guards probably just a year or two older than her. Both men's eyes immediately darted to the American at her side, the grip they had on their spears seeming to tighten as they did. The look made Sofie do the same for her sword, an inherent circle of distrust having easily formed without a word spoken.
That wasn’t exactly a good sign.
“Roped a traveler into your schemes, rat?” One of the guards asked. The venom he addressed Cameron with only made Sofie grip her sword even harder, to the point it actually hurt a bit.
“Come on Ty, after all this time I figure you would see me as a friend,” Cameron replied, his voice dripping with nearly as much hatred as the militia men before him. He sat down, tail swaying in a rhythmic yet casual manner. “Now, I ask you two to stand back or I’ll let the Lord of Terror here have her way with you.”
A look of fear grasped the two men, immediately pointing their spears in every direction but the one Sofie was standing in. She wasn’t sure if she should have been happy to not be perceived as a threat or insulted at it. She also noticed the awkward way that both the militia men held the spears, not needing any training to know that one does not hold both hands right under the spear’s tip. She got the vague sense that neither of them had ever actually needed to use them, which made her pretty confident in her ability to deal with things as they were clearly heading south.
“I’m… right here,” Sofie told them. Both guards looked to her, then to each other, and then back to her. “Sofie Yvanova, Lord of Terror. Fear me or whatever.”
Silence struck the group at Sofie’s lack of enthusiasm, the Ukrainian knowing at this point that Cameron’s “plan” was not going to work. That was only made more clear when one of the men started laughing, his fellow militia man looking at him with something equating to fear. Sofie didn’t notice that, her focus solely on the one laughing at her. It also caused her to miss the look of disappointment that Cameron had on his face.
“You? A scrawny little girl like you?” The laughing militia man said, not noticing the twitch in Sofie’s free hand as he poked fun at her. “Good one Cameron, good one. You mean tell me you tried to pass of this malnourished brat as the Lord of Terror? I knew you were desperate but–”
“What did you call me?”
His eyes suddenly met the glaring eyes of Sofie, who was far closer to his face than it was moments ago. That brought the laughter to a halt. He tried to raise his spear and push her back, but as his hands were still firmly gripping the top it was easy for Sofie to grab it herself and push it against him. The other man tried to move to back up his friend, only to get tackled and promptly disarmed by Cameron. He kept his target pinned while Sofie pressed her target's spear against his stomach,
“I worked my ass off to make sure my mother was fed. I took years out of my life to try and keep a sickly mother alive while my brother fucked off and played soldier,” Sofie shouted, her words filled with anger and pain. “Even with that we barely had the ability to put food on the plate somedays. You gonna make fun of the Lord of Terror for looking malnourished after considering that?!”
The man finally switched one of his hands away from the top of the spear to the bottom, his strength able to shove Sofie off of him. The Ukrainian managed to stop herself from stumbling too far back, eyes turning to the militia man's hands as he thrusted the spear towards her. She moved to the side, her pupils enveloping her eyes just like they had with the highwaymen three days ago. Even if she wasn’t aware of that side effect, the sudden voice of Athena told her all she needed to know.
“Replication found, awaiting further data.”
She pushed the voice’s notice to the side. This was not the time to be thinking about gaining spear proficiency, especially when the man had tried to strike her. Athena had distracted her enough where she had no time to dodge a following strike. Except it missed far to the left, as if the man hadn’t been aiming at her from the beginning. A look at the man’s face showed not anger but fear and worry. It dawned on Sofie that he wasn’t trying to hit her, but scare her off.
Using that unwillingness to strike her as an opportunity, she brought herself forward. The man backpedaled but had nowhere near enough speed to get away. When Sofie stopped moving it was already too late. Knowing that her goal was to stop the militia from keeping them out and not kill them, she brought her legs between his own and kicked him clean in the nuts. With that moment of impact the man dropped his spear and fell to the ground in pain, Cameron and the other militia man looking in terror at what she had just done.
“I’m gonna take this,” Sofie said, picking up the spear as she looked at Cameron and the other militia. “Interfere with me and Cameron and I will make sure it feels even worse for you.”
“R-r-r-right, of course of Miss Terror,” The other militia man said, Cameron hopping off him and watching as he ran to his winded friend.
Throwing one of their arms over their shoulder, one militia man practically dragged the other away. Cameron wasn’t sure if he should thank the fact that he could not take such punishment. As the body he shared with his sister was female, he could technically not suffer the same fate. That thought was enough to nearly send him into another downward spiral. The acknowledgment of that fact was yet another reminder of how wrong this body felt.
“I know this isn’t the optimal time for an introduction, but if you need a–”
“I’ll be fine Maria,” Cameron assured his sister. “Though, thanks for the offer. It means a lot.”
He waited for Sofie to make her way over to him, shaking her head. There was shame written on her face, an emotion he hadn’t seen out of her before. He took a few steps forward and placed a paw on her leg, looking up at her with a soft smile.
“Got a little worked up?” He asked.
“Yeah, sorry,” Sofie answered, eyes still locked on the ground. “I’m sure you probably know all of this but… there was a famine when I was younger. That combined with how poor my family was to begin with…” She shook her head, trying to get the bad thoughts out. “Let's just say hearing someone call me that hurt a bit.”
“If it helps you feel better, you look really pretty healthy despite it all,” Cameron told her. Sofie smiling back, an acknowledgment at the American’s attempt to comfort her. “Anyways, back to business.”
With a nod from Sofie, they turned to the door that they had freed from militia hands. With a combined push from them both it opened, revealing a room barren in the front but filled with grain and sacks of vegetables in the back. Cameron closed the door behind themselves as they entered inside, lack of windows making it near pitch black. Low circulation of air made it rather hot as well.
Cameron took the lead as he led Sofie to the back of the room, her eyes slowly adjusting and making out the faint outline of a door at the far end. The closer to it she got to the door, the more the earthy smell of harvested vegetables overwhelmed her nose. When they reached the back of the room Cameron motioned for her to wait, leaning against the door to see if he could hear anyone inside. When he heard nothing, he pushed it open with his snout and the two went into the backroom.
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Sofie knew the moment she entered that Cameron wasn’t joking about the draft, the heat of the main storage breaking away to one far cooler. A small table with a deck of cards and two chairs sat in the middle. A rack of well worn spears were in the right corner and a bookcase on the left. Two unlit lamps with half melted candles were on either side of the door. The most important thing, however, was that no one was indeed inside and the room should not have felt as cold as it was.
“Grab one of the lanterns. I’ll light it,” Cameron commanded as he sat next to the bookcase.
Not understanding how he would but not in the mood to complain, Sofie grabbed one of the lanterns off the stand it was placed on. She brought it over to Cameron, opened the hatch, and went to take the candle out before being motioned not to. Putting her hand down, she watched as he effortlessly blew a small flame from his mouth onto the candle, igniting it without a need for a match.
“That is useful,” Sofie states. She closed the hatch and stared at the candlelight in awe at what she had just seen. “Have you been able to do this since arriving here or is that something you replicated?”
“It’s not replicated. Truth be told I haven’t replicated anything just yet,” Cameron answered, turning around to look at the bookcase. “Dragons normally breathe fire, ya know? Only reason I know I can replicate shit is because of all the stories and myths Felice told me about the Lord of Terrors.”
“You’ll have to share some of them with me later,” Sofie replied, placing the lantern down on the table. “So that is where you believe it is coming from?”
“Again, the illiteracy rate in Ellio is really high,” Cameron replied. “What use would they have for this?
Sofie was more than on the same page at this point. She brought herself over to the right side of the bookshelf as Cameron took the left, and the two pushed and pulled. Once it was out of the way, they both let go. On the surface, all that the two saw was more floorboards where the bookcase has once been. Grabbing the lantern, Sofie brought it over to where the said floorboards. Her eyes caught a metal ring like that of a cellar hatch attached to one in the center.
With a glance and nod to each other, Cameron took a step back as Sofie opened the latch. Moving the lantern so that she could see what was underneath, she found a tunnel leading down to darkness. With a look back to Cameron, she motioned for him to enter first. He jumped in immediately, Sofie following suit after and closing the hatch as she felt her shoes sink into the ground. It wasn’t enough where they were stuck, but the audible squish of the mud as she placed her feet in it sounded louder than it actually was.
Raising the lantern up, she looked down through the tunnel that laid before her. It wasn’t natural, or at least didn’t feel like it was. Stone didn’t appear till the very end of the lantern’s light, the shape of it till then giving off a more man-made feeling. It only further set in Sofie’s mind that something was up.
No militia needed this. No village needed this.
“Let’s get moving before the rest of the militia gets here,” Sofie said, Cameron nodding in agreement.
With the sound of the muck under her feet filling the tunnel, they headed forth. Sofie kept the lantern to chest height, her eyes focused solely on the way forward. As the ground transitioned to that of natural rock, the ground became less and less even. It also started to widen. The sound of running water was faint in Cameron’s ears, his gut twisting as he realized he had to have been right.
“So, why do you think they’re doing it?” Sofie asked Cameron, her voice low so that it didn’t echo as greatly through the cavern’s walls. “Something bigger has to be going on right? I don’t see why the militia would do this to their own town and families.”
“I’m not sure, but you bring up a decent point,” Cameron replied. He went silent for a few seconds as he thought over the question, then spoke back up. “My guess: something threatened them with a fate that made this seem like the better option,” He stopped for a second, a sudden thought coming to his head. Sofie turned to look at him. “Maybe they didn’t know that it would affect the children.”
“Destroy your own harvest and we will not kill everyone,” Sofie said, looking off to the side. “It’s possible that whoever made them do it also knew people could die from it. Didn’t tell them to make it seem less destructive, while getting what they originally wanted in the end.”
Neither of them liked the implication, but it made more sense than the militia willingly poisoning their own home. The sound of footsteps behind them told the two that they didn’t have the time to discuss further. Not knowing how close the rest of the militia was, they broke off into a sprint down the tunnel. The difference in speed between Cameron and herself only became obvious when he disappeared into the darkness of the cavern. She noticed it starting to open up farther ahead, the faint glint of candle light in the distance.
Not sure how else to douse her own light, she opened the lantern and pressed the candle inside it into the ground. It didn’t work. Sofie, having forgotten the ground was completely stone, decided the better option was to just throw it behind her. If anyone was down there, they would no doubt notice the extra candle light from the lantern she had been carrying. It left her in complete darkness, but the light ahead of her told the girl that wouldn’t be for long.
As she neared the first of the lit candles, the sound of rushing water entered her ears. Two voices were muddled by it, one sounding far more exasperated than the other. The closer she got, the clearer it was, until the cave opened up and the sound of water was all that was in her ears. Cameron opened a wing to stop her from stepping forth, Sofie not noticing him until he did so. He raised a paw to his snout, signaling her to stay quiet. The answer to why came in the form of a voice loud enough to pierce the water.
“My son is dead!” The voice of a man called out, Sofie not recognizing them. Cameron did, however, for it was Oscar’s father Lucas. “You said that the sickness would fade. You said that he would be alright, that he would get better. You said that this mixture of yours would–”
“Do I look like I care what the mixture actually does?”
Sofie looked out to see who the second voice was as it sounded inhumanly raspy. What she saw was a small, scaly creature like that of a bipedal dragon. Its red scales were mostly hidden by torn and oversized robes, two white horns ripping through the hood. A long reptilian tail almost bigger than the creature's body could be seen poking out of the bottom of the robe.
“So kobolds exist in this world too?” Cameron muttered.
“Yep, and it looks to be the evil kind of kobold,” Maria said, her voice coming off as sad. “If one of them is involved, then you can bet a dragon has something to do with this as well.”
“After all, they did get better in the end, right?” The kobold spoke. Their voice pulled Cameron’s attention back to what laid before them. “No purer cure for an illness than death. They shall never get sick or have to deal with hunger or thirst again.”
Lucas curled his hand into a fist. “You… you monster!”
His words gave up any surprise in an attack, his raised fist being stopped as the kobold held out a small gray orb. The moment it touched said arm, he couldn’t move it, the rest of his body responding but unable to turn. He attempted to walk forward, realizing too late what he had done as the muscles between his arm and shoulder strained. A grunt of pain left him, pain that made the kobold chuckle. Feeling her brother’s desire to rush out and crush the kobolds' neck at the sight, Maria forced her way in front.
“Sis, give control back, now!” Cameron commanded. His anger would have been overwhelming if she wasn’t used to it by now.
“I know why you are angry but rushing in blind will land us in the same posi–” Maria stopped herself as she looked up to Sofie, who in turn was staring back at her with eyes of shock and confusion. “Explanations later, we got something else to deal with right now.”
Maria had no idea that the kobold had heard her words, a smirk growing on its muzzle as it looked in the direction the two were hiding. He would deal with the two of them in a minute, see if they didn’t run off in fear as he taught the man in front of him a lesson. Though his spell ended, any fight Lucas could have given was gone as he kneeled and grabbed his shoulder. The kobold stepped towards him, lifting Lucas' chin to face him, the man feeling insulted at the act of being brought low by something half his size.
“Do you remember our deal?” The kobold said, hoping that the mention of the bargain would dissuade the ones currently spying on him. “Destroy your harvest and suffer the pain of starvation, or else my master and my kin will rain death and destruction upon your worthless village,” His claws dug into the underside of the man’s chin, not yet enough to puncture skin but discomforting to the man nonetheless. “Since you seemed to have the intention to kill me just now, I doubt anyone in the village would mind if I took something more away. A punishment for nearly killing all you know.”
“Seriously Maria, give the body back to me right this instant!” Cameron shouted, though to all but Maria it was unheard. She planted her paws firmly and guarded her mind, refusing to return control to her brother while he still had intention to kill.
Sofie, all the while, took in everything that the kobold said with her knife firmly drawn. Despite that, she found herself afraid to step out from behind the cavern wall. She feared that it would kill Lucas, and that whatever sort of magic the kobold had used to freeze his arm would be done to her. Before her was something that very likely could be a life and death situation, and she would not have Felice lose everyone.
“You two, into the opening or else!”
Sofie and Maria looked behind them, militia having finally caught up to them with spears held towards them. All of them were afraid, no doubt also at the kobolds' mercy whether they liked it or not. Wishing to not fight them, they did as was told, each step they took being met by the militia. As they did, the kobold laughed, his and Sofie’s eyes meeting with equal amounts of hate.
“Well well, got interested in Raazin’s little operation, eh?” The kobold said. “I’m more than aware of the rodents, they’ve been a pain in the ass since I started all this,” He let go of Lucas’ chin, eyes never leaving Sofie, the only thing separating them being the rushing river separating both halves of the opening. “But you young lady. Who are you?”