At first, Irene thought Redfalls was a newly discovered square. None of the storefronts were taken. When Ian took her there for dinner the common room was barely a quarter full.
It wasn’t until two days later that she found out from Jake that their leader Kyle was killed on the last trip into Chicago. The inn was run by Kyle’s spouse Ellen, so people were staying away out of respect. Irene felt odd that that blue patrol she spotted above Chicago might have been the men who killed Kyle. How would things have turned out if she didn’t decide to hide?
Redfalls relied on their hidden location behind the waterfall to keep them safe. Ian asked her the first night not to spread word of the square, since most of the population of the square were women and children. The square was run similarly to The Heights, in a communal manner. The Heights worked because there weren’t that many adults in the settlement. When Irene realized how many women and children were living in the apartments she really couldn’t understand how they managed. She said something about it to Ellen. Ellen’s response included the information that the square was settled almost five years earlier. She also mentioned that most of the warriors were away, assigned to tax stations. The handful in residence now would rotate out with a set at the stations every couple weeks. They brought back coins which the woman used to pay the rent on the apartments.
Irene knew the tax stations must pull in a lot more money than just an apartment’s rent, but it appeared very little of it made it back to the square. The inn survived off the earnings of the hunters. They earned both the prize coins from the kills and a flat rate for providing meat for the inn and the residents. The women gathered fruits and tubers in the green, but none of them dared to go very far.
The main reason the shops were all empty was that there were no crafters here. With so few magic users in residence, no one was scavenging the halls. Scrap was the primary source of material for most crafters. Scavenging was also the primary source for the beginning crafting tools. Irene tried to sell the few crafting tools she picked up during her search for spell clues, but found few takers. She was only able to sell a few of the skinning knives to hunters.
Ian dined with her each night, showing a great deal of interest in her deciphering of the tier five spell. She still didn’t know which direction the timing read. She realized that either the last two, or first two symbols were timed together. While the other two were definitely one symbol followed by a second with the other hand. She leaned to the two symbols together being the finish, but she wasn’t certain.
“Jake and I are running out to Chicago tomorrow,” Ian told Irene over dinner.
“I’ll miss your company at dinner,” Irene told him truthfully.
“We'll be back in six days, twelve days max,” Ian responded. He leaned over and gave Irene a light kiss. “I’ll bring you a gift,” Ian said. Irene blushed.
“There’s no need for that,” she replied, a bit flustered.
The next morning, Irene saw them off. The group that left included six warriors who were going to continue on to the tax stations. It was the first time Irene saw them. She wondered where they were during the rest of her visit. The group left through the training grounds and into the green. Irene went up to her room and packed up her things and changed into leathers. She gave up finding any more hints on the tier five spell three days ago. She was lingering now because she enjoyed Ian’s attention. Now that he was gone she remembered her store. She would follow her plan and swing north to avoid the border. She left out the back door only twenty minutes after Ian’s party.
Paris was in an uproar when she got there. The square was located on the eastern edge of its green. It’s back door faced south. Since Irene was coming from the north, she entered through the green. That was probably the only reason she wasn’t killed on sight.
They were hit by an attack on the back door the night before, both guards were dead. One managed to call the alarm before he bled out. The reaction force arrived expecting an animal wave. Instead they found around a dozen red warriors spilling into the square. The guards managed to push the invaders back. The red’s superior armor protected them from serious injury.
The depth of confusion among the guards was revealing. Paris was not the source of the blue raiders in Chicago’s green. Irene did not linger in the square. As an outsider she was kept under careful watch. She entered the square openly. She made a note to approach settlements with more caution in the future. Even the tier zero don’t notice me spell would allow her to blend in.
She moved south fast, afraid for Anthony standing his evening shift alone at the back door of Londontown. She considered the warrior a friend. She didn’t want anything to happen to him. She made the trip in a personal record time. She entered through Londontown’s back door at midday and walked directly to the Inn.
“I am looking for Christopher,” she announced to the innkeeper.
“You mean Chris,” the innkeeper replied, “the head of the guard?”
“Yes, Christopher, my brother. Where is he?” Irene demanded.
“He should be in the training yard,” the Innkeeper responded, suddenly much more subservient. “I can run and check.”
“Never mind,” Irene announced. She turned on her heel and marched back out of the inn.
Christopher was in the yard, sparring with another warrior. Irene marched straight up to him, ignoring his opponent. His opponent, seeing Christopher’s distraction lunged forward with a heavy overhead swing of his sword. Irene reached out with her main hand and cast shield. The warrior bounced, lost his footing and fell onto his ass.
“I need to talk to you,” Irene announced to her brother.
“I am kind of busy at the moment,” Chris said with a wave at his opponent.
“Did you replace that addict that was on the evening shift with Anthony?” Irene demanded.
“I don’t see how that is any of your concern,” Chris countered. He motioned for her to move out of the way as the warrior he was facing climbed back up to his feet. Irene glanced at the warrior and threw lightning. Cast in the training yard, it was little more than a stun. The warrior fell to the ground and convulsed.
“If you're smart,” Irene said to the warrior, “you will stay down.”
“Fine,” Chris said, returning his sword to his scabbard. “What do you want?”
“A suburb leader was killed by a blue raiding party a month ago, in the green north of Chicago. A week ago a red raiding party hit the back door of Paris in the early evening. The reaction team was able to push them back, but not before two guards were killed. The square can’t figure out why they were attacked because they didn’t send the raiding party into Chicago’s green. Did you?” Irene demanded. She was practically yelling by the time she reached the final question.
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“No,” Chris responded. “I swear.”
“Anthony is my friend. I will not see you sacrifice him because Mother can’t hold onto power without the healing addiction.”
“You are going too far,” Chris warned her.
“Perhaps I am,” Irene countered. “I am so sick of it all. You eject red warriors like they can’t be trusted, but look at what you allow Mother to do to the blues. We are all human. This entire place is constantly trying to kill us, the last thing we need is to start killing each other on top of it.” She took a deep breath and tapped her staff on the ground. “Sort this out and protect your people. All of them.”
She turned and walked away. Every warrior in the training yard watched her leave. There goes a Queen, a small quiet voice at the back of Christopher's mind whispered. He shook his head, wondering where that thought came from. It was just Irene, his little sister.
“Evan,” Chris called, “you’re banned from healing for the next month and you’re off guard duty.”
Chris ended up reorganizing all the guard watches. He doubled up the watch for the next two weeks. He set up a reaction force. Although he was aware of the concept they hadn’t kept one for years. Originally set up to repel beasts that followed fleeing hunters back to the square, the guard long ago became little more than tax collectors. He randomly visited every shift himself. Anyone caught not on full alert was added to the banned healing list. Three days later, when the raid came against the back door they were ready.
“I’ve not seen this type of armor before,” Phillip observed. He was standing over the body of a red warrior in the hall by the back door. “It is some kind of hardened leather.”
“It stood up extremely well to frost blade,” Chris observed. “If they’d caught us unprepared they could have done a lot of damage.”
“How were you so prepared?” Phillip asked, as he straightened up.
“I was warned there was a raid against Paris,” Chris reported. “I doubled up the guard and replaced the less dependable warriors.” He was surprised Phillip didn’t already know that. Chris was starting to think every magic user in the square was in the training yard that day. Now that the attack actually happened, Chris was a little worried about the following Irene was going to gain. Only her open disapproval of healing was keeping most of the warriors from raising her banner.
“How many did you kill?” Phillip asked.
“Three,” Chris reported. “We injured at least two others. The blood trails head east. We gave them a good bloody nose,” Chris commented. “They should think twice about coming at us again.”
“Strip the bodies and take the armor to the leatherworker. Instruct him to repair it and make more. We’ll organize and push back against them. When they get over their bloody nose, they will just come at us with more men,” Phillip countered.
Chris nodded his head in forced agreement. Irene sighed. She was standing less than ten feet away under camouflage and muffle, listening to her brothers. She was very disappointed. She wasn’t certain what she expected, but this wasn’t it. Her outburst at Christopher shifted the deaths from the blue to the red, but it didn’t stop any of it. Londontown proved that the back door was easily defended. The next attacks would come from the green, or in the green, like the original raid against Chicago.
Worse, she could see Phillip’s point about pushing back. Bullies never backed down on their own. It didn’t really matter who sent the blue raiding party that killed Kyle. It only mattered that Chicago thought it was Paris or Londontown.
Irene listened as her brothers talked about sending a healer to Paris to help with any wounded. They talked about solidarity among the blue against the red threat, but Irene saw it as a way to get their addiction into the Paris defenders. It was all spiraling out of control. Irene recognized the hardened leather armor as John’s work. Irene herself might have supplied the bear hides that went into its construction. The armor was expensive and rare. Whoever was behind this action possessed both wealth and access to Chicago. That wasn’t proof that Darien sent these men, but it was indicative of it.
Irene carefully retreated from the entrance to Londontown. Camouflage and muffle did not damp out the vibrations of footsteps. Once clear of the men patrolling outside the entrance, Irene turned east. She was angry and frustrated and didn’t trust herself to behave well if she stayed in Londontown. She used the last three days to restock her store, going out during the day shift with all the other scavengers. She found her steps turning to Redfalls.
The trip back was much faster than the trip out, since she didn’t stop at Paris. She’d been gone three weeks when she came in the back door of Redfalls. The hunters were in the process of distributing the day's catch at the tables outside the inn. Irene walked past them carrying a badger. She dropped her badger onto the counter in the common room.
“What will you give me for it?” she asked Ellen, the innkeeper.
“I don’t have any coins,” Ellen responded.
“I don’t mean you personally,” Irene countered. “What can the inn pay?” Ellen activated the inn’s interface and carefully picked her way through the icons. Irene offered hints on which icon to select when Ellen seemed puzzled.
“I can pay you three iron,” Ellen answered. It was low, compared to the standards in Londontown. Badger was a much better tasting meat than squirrel, which was what the hunter’s were distributing in the courtyard. Baked the animal would serve at least twenty. Put together with greens or tubers, the meals could be sold for an iron each.
“Alright,” Irene responded, “but at that price, I am keeping the hide.” Irene went out into the courtyard to skin the animal.
After selling the meat, she rented a room and stored the hide for later. She went out into the green and joined the woman gathering greens. She did her gathering at the edge of the group, using her movements to move the group in the direction of fresh territory that wasn’t so picked over. She scared off two or three squirrels using fear. The group stayed out longer than usual, returning after lunch with a good haul.
As the woman stopped at the tables to divide the produce, Irene went straight into the inn and set her items on the counter.
“How much?” she asked Ellen. Irene could smell the roasting badger. Several hunters were already eating portions of it in the common room.
“One iron,” Ellen offered, she couldn’t look Irene in the eyes.
“Alright,” Irene agreed, “because you are just getting started. A meal of badger, tubers and greens costs an iron in Londontown. It is two iron in Chicago. I’m going to go scavenge out the back door for a couple hours. Is there anything you need?”
“The inn kitchen comes fully equipped,” Ellen explained, “but I am short on serving ware and plates.” Londontown used vent pins for forks. Vent pins were available for purchase from the vendor. Their main use was to hold air vents closed when camping in wildspace. It was cheaper to make them, although it took metalworking skills to do it. Both squares of leather and short wooden planks were used for plates. She thought she could provide the leather squares, but perhaps encouraging someone to learn woodworking might be the better option here.
After lunch, which Ellen insisted was part of the payment for the greens, Irene went out the back door and started at the first room on the right. She picked up every piece of scrap and crafting tools she could find. She threw the rats she killed along the way back into the rooms. She didn’t want to give the hunters any excuse to stop working. In a stroke of luck she found a smelter. She didn’t know how to run the thing, but she had watched the metal worker in Chicago do it.
Irene dragged the smelter back and set it up in a market stall. She pulled about twenty pieces of iron scrap from her inventory using the market’s systems and stacked them around the smelter. She made a big show of throwing scrap in and banging against the smelter with her stick. It didn’t take long for a woman to arrive and lecture her on the appropriate way to handle a crafting tool. Her name was Andrea, she was about four months pregnant, she addressed Irene like she was a child. She walked Irene through how to smelt iron. Irene only paid half attention to it. She didn’t have any intention of becoming a crafter, although she did take notes.
She put on this display in an effort to find someone to sell the smelter and scrap to. Her earlier methods of asking around didn’t work. She thought a more physical demonstration might.
“That takes too long,” Irene said when Andrea finished the first ingot. “I’ve got better things to do. How about I pay you to do it for me? I’ll give you an iron for every five ingots. I’ll supply the scrap.”