It had been a year since Mark woke up in Maidenstone. A year since he had last seen his little sister and his mother. It still ached horribly to think about his family at night, but it had gotten a tiny bit more tolerable with every night he went to sleep without seeing their faces.

He was not sure if the family he saw in his dreams was accurate to reality any longer, but he was still sure that he could recognise them on sight. There was not much use dwelling on melancholy for too long in the day, but every morning when he woke up and walked to work, his mind inevitably wandered, wondering how they were doing.

It wasn't like his family was dependent on him, but it was still nice to be able to see familiar faces after work in the evening.

Now, all he saw was strangers.

His meeting with Viktor, the head guardsman was still crisp in his mind. After Viktor had been the only person in the village not wanting to run away from the terrifying alien, he had hoped he would be able to get some small help from him while he was still figuring out his place in this world.

Viktor and he had rode to Maidenwatch castle in what was a painful but uneventful journey. Horse riding was a cruel and unusual punishment. On the way to the castle, Viktor told him that the woods in the way were generally safe since they had been cleared of almost all wildlife during the great war, and now Maidenwatch kept a small watch to keep the surroundings clear of stray demons and mutated wildlife.

When they had reached the castle, Viktor had handed off the "stray demon-forged" to a friend of his, who now owned a small inn in the town outside the castle. Mark had to negotiate for a room and information with a majority of his remaining coin.

Over the course of three months staying at the inn, Mark had slowly figured out that Maidenwatch sat close to the northern border of the Empire, close to the coast where the invading demons had first landed.

The war had apparently lasted for five years, and there were only a few remaining signs of the war in castle-town itself. It was a short but intense period of war before the mages of the Empire had apparently come up with some way to enhance the citizens of the Empire a great deal, allowing the general populace access to magic and a greater ability to grow strong.

Mark had eventually found work as a lumberjack and a small trip to the woods outside the town was a now daily ritual. He had spent half a day chopping and collecting iron-wood for an order and was just walking back home after having delivered the order.

There was at least some benefit to being reborn as a walking nightmare, one of which was greatly increased physical strength and stamina. With a large enough cart, Mark could do the work of four or five human lumberjacks in a day. It was a hard living, but he could not complain, since he had no other skills, and convincing Carl to introduce him to the woodcutting guild had been a chore.

"Good evening, Carl!", he greeted the barman and owner of the creatively named Carl's as he walked back into the inn. "Could you please send some bread and meat to my room? I am famished today, and the evening crowd is about to come in, so best to get going before things get awkward."

Mark had never been introduced to the lord of the castle by Viktor, and he had eventually figured out that Viktor could have never really done so. It was slightly off-putting to realise that he was simply not wanted in the village of Maidenstone, but he eventually realised that Maidenwatch town had been much better for him.

He had not been able to make any friends here, but there were not many awkward stares, and he had eventually figured out that he could avoid most of the trouble by avoiding drunk people.

He had finally saved enough money to hire a Speaker at a local library since he was illiterate in the local script. It was already a miracle that he understood the spoken word but he had not given much thought as to why - there was too much other stuff to get through first.

Tomorrow morning he had no pending obligations, and he would finally go to the castle to find the library and hire a Speaker.

It was time to figure out where and what he was, properly.

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Mark was woken up by a steady knocking on his door when it was still a little dark out, the next morning. There was some stuff he wanted to do, before he got to the library, mostly the breakfast and a small chat with Carl the barkeeper to get some basic information before he headed out to find a Speaker.

The Golden Hedgehog was a three-storey building built mostly out of wood and stone. It was quite nicely insulated, and chill and noise from outside the room rarely ever intruded on sleep. When Mark got downstairs, he found that Carl was already preparing a vegetable stew for breakfast, but that the meat was not done cooking yet.

"Good Morning! Hey Carl, mind If I disturb you for a bit while the meat roasts? Also, can I have a bowl of stew and some bread to dip, thank you!"

"I don't have much time before people start walking in, but I suppose I can spare a few minutes. Better be quick, though, I have work to do."

"Yes, yes, I wanted to find you before there were too many people around, It will only be a few quick questions, I promise!"

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Carl walked to his stool with a bowl of stew and a plate of bread and oil, and Mark thought it was best to rip the band-aid right off. "What am I, Carl? What are the demon-spawn? The people don't like to walk around me I see, but not one person has bothered me a bit in the time I have been here. It is a bit strange"

"I don't rightly know, but shouldn't you already know, you know, what with having to fight the demons and all for a good year and a half?"

"I don't remember much, just that my name is Mark, and I woke up in woods near Maidenstone with only my robes on me!"

After a bit of needling, Carl eventually told him that he didn't know much it was best to ask the speaker - but from what he did know, the mages in the capital figured out how to control dying demons, to make them fight against the invading legions.

It didn't truly seem necessary, said Carl, since the Magineers of Magnolia or some such thing had figured out a way to make people strong about half a year into the war, and while the war was intense, most people thought it was won at that point.

"Most people think it was heretical", said Carl about the matter. "No one knows if the cleansing is going to last forever they say, and many think there was no need to raise dead demons to fight a war that was already won."

"Then why do people not run us out of here?" Mark had rarely seen other demon-forged in the town, but he did know they existed.

"The lord says you fought in the war, and you get to stay. So you get to stay. Don't think about it too much, everyone can earn their place that way. No one will want to be friends with you, but it is your right to live here if you have fought for it."

Mark wondered what he would say if he knew Mark had never fought for a single thing in his entire life.

He was done eating, and it was time to go to the library anyway.

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The town around the castle of Maidenwatch wasn't too large, but it was big enough that the walk from the outskirts of the town where he lived, to the castle itself was about an hour. During the day, the traffic from the town to the castle passed freely. There was a throng of people already moving to and from the castle.

Maidenwatch itself was less of a castle and more of a large watchtower with walls around it. The town of Maidenwatch was outside of the castle walls, separated from the castle by a moat and two walls.

Citizens of the town were allowed to pass freely into the castle walls, as long as they checked in at the proper gates. It was necessary since all of the town's administration was inside the wall boundary. So were the Library, where he was headed, and apparently a hospital, although Mark had never seen it.

"I have an appointment with speaker Loran at the library", Mark said to the guards manning the gate.

"Put your finger to the tablet, and be back out before the night falls. If we have to find you it won't be pretty. The entry is 90 coppers"

Mark sighed and paid the fee, not knowing if it was a fee for the guards or not. Arguing would not help anyway, and the queue behind him was only growing larger.

Immediately inside of the castle walls was farmland, a lot of farmland. Mark did not understand why there was so much farmland inside the walls when grain could be transported just well from the outside, but it was hardly his problem.

He kept walking, it would be a while before he got to the library. Inside the castle was basically another town. He wondered if it was also called Maidenwatch. Hah!

The town was arranged in rings, with farmland and barracks outside the middle ring, where the library and the hospital were. There were also a lot of residential villas inside the middle ring.

There were hardly any proper addresses, and places were mostly identified by landmarks. It was how Mark knew where the library was. It was next to the small statue of the maiden, after taking the third left from Central Street after one entered the middle ring.

By the time Mark reached the library it had already been an hour and a half, and the sun was properly out. It was for the best, as it meant the library was open already.

It was a modestly tall building, about four storeys, made of the same oily stone as all the roads he had ever seen here. The library was painted in a shade of blue, with small artworks depicting books and scrolls as highlights. Although Mark couldn't yet read the text, he assumed the large Mural in purple next to a picture of a woman with her hands clasped either said "Library" or the name of the building.

Mark nodded to the guard at the entrance and walked into the library. Straight ahead was a small hall, and then stairways to the upper floors where there were rooms to talk, so you would not disturb others. He walked to the receptionist and asked for speaker Loran, and was directed to room 103, the 3rd room on the first floor.

The library reminded him a lot of the one at his university, even though the architecture was so starkly different, the organisation was strangely familiar. Mark walked into the room and found that the Speaker was already there, waiting for him.

Between them, they had arranged for an entire half-day to chat, and it had cost him a pretty penny, about three months of his savings from chopping iron-wood.

He supposed now was the time to make use of it.

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