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Exiles of the Holy Ascension
Chapter 12- Interlude: A Perfectly Fine Day

Chapter 12- Interlude: A Perfectly Fine Day

Three Days ago

It was a warm, beautiful, perfect day in Brightholme.

Gim Odit sat in his small wooden boat, floating gently on the calm Lake Midian. He didn’t own many things. Didn’t care to. With two exceptions: this boat, and his fishing pole.

Gim was a fairly new resident of Brightholme, having arrived just three years prior. Before that, he’d been a fighter. Mostly a pit fighter, a fighter for sport. But the truth was, he would have used any excuse to fight.

Since he was a young boy, nearly five hundred years ago, fighting had been the only thing he had wanted to do. And the only thing he was ever good at. He loved it, excelled at it. He traveled and he fought, and won more often than lost. As an Aeonic, he had an advantage over the humans he sometimes fought. His skin was a little tougher, his muscles firmer. It took a lot to bruise him or make him bleed. He didn’t tire easily. It was only the fights against other Aeonics that had ever offered him a real challenge.

Then something happened, something he never expected. Out of the blue, out of nowhere… He got tired of it. Had just woken up and realized he was done. He didn’t want to fight any longer. So, he had made his way to Brightholme and petitioned for entrance. Had gone through the process, and despite the psychics reading him like a book, seeing his past life as a fighter, was granted access. Because they could also see his sincerity. And his weariness.

So now he spent most of his days here. On this lake, in this boat, with this fishing pole.

Living in peace.

In the tiny village of Midacre, a young girl of fifteen rushed excitedly to her mother and father. They had recently returned from Safehaven and gotten the rare chance, by chance, to meet the Godknight. And the girl, Pilre Daldienn, had been immediately enraptured. The stories about him, it had turned out, weren’t accurate. They sold him short. He was magnificent. An Angel. A God.

And a God should be worshiped, she told her parents. She wanted to start “the Church of the Godknight,” where people like her could gather and exalt in his glory and sing songs in his honor.

But her parents stopped her short. The Godknight, they explained, did not want to be worshiped. Some had tried in the past, and he had insisted they cease, each time. “Why?” Pilre asked, confused.

“Because the Godknight is not a deity,” they told her. “He is our guardian. Our protector. Our friend.”

It just made Pilre Daldienn love him more.

Bertha and Pioga Peronell sat patiently in the hall of their quaint, cozy home. Their youngest child, Sussie, was not so patient, bouncing up and down and moving back and forth between their laps.

A moment later, their son, Billie, rushed into the room with great fanfare. Billie wore a black cloak, his arms spread wide at his sides. His face was filthy with dirt and mud, so dirty his mother gasped in alarm. Pioga patted her once on the knee and winked. She sighed and let it go.

Billie stalked around the room, hunched over, seemingly oblivious to their presence. A moment later, his sister, Fezzie, appeared. She was scrunched down, crawling on all fours, wearing a pretty red dress. Which, mercifully for Bertha, was not filthy. Yet.

Billie resumed what they soon realized was some kind of hunt. Was he a vampire? A monster of his own imaging? It was impossible to tell, and asking him, interrupting their performance, would be a terrible insult.

Fezzie seemed to be playing the part of a normal human girl… Maybe? They weren’t quite sure of that either.

Sussie laughed, completely captivated by the performance. Bertha and Pioga looked at each other and grinned. They didn’t quite get what the little homemade play was about. But it didn’t matter. They were all thoroughly entertained, the performers and audience alike.

Earlier that morning, Prylen Highhorse had been a nervous wreck. She’d actually been that way for several days. But this morning was the worst.

She was convinced it was going to rain today and ruin her wedding. It was an outdoor ceremony, and there was no back up plan. If it rained…

But she’d woken up to a bright, sunny, cloudless morning. Which, somehow, had only made her nerves worse. Luckily, her soon-to-be husband, Phebuz Trebius, had not shared her nerves. He was as calm as the sky was clear. He reassured her. And reassured her again. Pointed to the sky, told her to pick out one single cloud. She could not, and slowly, as the moment of the ceremony drew nearer, her nerves turned to excitement.

It did not rain. The wedding went perfectly. Prylen was filled with a love and a joy that she never imagined she could feel. They danced and they laughed. They drank ale and ate sweet treats baked just for the occasion. Their family and friends were all there, sharing in the celebration.

It couldn’t have possibly gone any better. And Prylen and Phebuz were filled with the hope and confidence of a long, happy life ahead.

An hour outside of Crescent Hollow, there was a little trading post, run by a grumpy old codger named Gob. His grandson, Bryson, was a clueless, annoying teenager with more brawn than brain.

On this day, Gob left Bryson in charge. Fingers crossed, he made the short walk next door to his workshop, the hope being he could get some good, quality, relaxing time in with his secret project: a diorama, carved from wood, of a man fleeing from an angry giant.

He needed to get the scale right, in order to convey the reality of just how big the giant he had once seen truly had been. Not as tall as Godknight Tower—there was nothing as tall as Godknight Tower—but taller than the trees around him.

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Of course, nobody had ever believed his story. Just like in Brightholme, the people of his homeland knew giants were nothing more than a myth. But he knew better.

Meanwhile, back at the trading post, young Bryson was being visited by a pair of giggling girls around his age. They weren’t identical, but even slow-witted Bryson could tell they were twins. They had brought with them a pair of wool blankets, explaining to Bryson how valuable they were. Because, they had insisted, it was made with their bare hands. And with love.

Bryson had swooned. They had giggled. The three chatted some more, the girls getting slowly closer to him. A little touch here, a little touch there. Bryson moved right from swoon to smitten. He was ready to make what his buddy Frawn would call “a move,” when his grandfather made his return.

His grandfather was pissed. He pushed the boy aside and promptly completed the transaction, giving the girls fair value in a moderately-sized wash basin. They hadn’t seemed happy with that, but they took it all the same, hurrying away with only a fleeting glance back at a heartbroken Bryson.

Gob turned on his grandson. “Stupid boy! Don’t you know what they are?” Bryson lowered his head and nodded. Gob smacked him a good one upside that head, hurting Bryson’s feelings more than his thick skull.

“Witches, boy. Witches! With their black magic and evil eyes and demon curses. Ya can’t trust ‘em, boy. They probably were hypnotizin’ ya. Ya ever think a’ that? Huh?”

Bryson frowned. “I don’t think I was hypnotized, Gramps…”

“Ah, how would you know. Just a dumb kid…” His grandfather sighed. “They come in here again with something to trade, trade with ‘em. But that’s it. Don’t talk to ‘em, and definitely, under no circumstances, should you…” He made a gesture with his head towards Bryson’s crotch. Bryson cringed awkwardly, but got the message.

“Them witches are alone up there for a reason, boy. But if you stay clear of ‘em, they won’t bother you.”

Bryson knew his grandfather was wiser than he, and always did what he was told. But this was a warning he would never need to heed. He would never see the sisters again.

Memri Kez was perfectly content with her job as a service mage. She liked the little things she could do, and had never questioned or even considered that there might be more to this “magic” she’d been long ago taught. It was exactly what it was, and nothing more. Which suited her just fine.

A lifetime Brightholme resident, she was perfectly content with life there. People were mostly nice, mostly minded their own business. There was never any fighting. Nobody owned any weapons. She’d always felt perfectly safe.

She was having a perfectly normal day, sweeping the floors of the Peacekeeper’s headquarters in Safehaven. It was an easy enough job; it certainly didn’t require the skills a service mage possessed. But she used the magic just the same, expertly pulling the tiniest dust particles from the smallest nook and the thinnest cranny with a simple gesture.

She still used the broom to sweep it all into clumps though, before brushing it all into the dustpan. She didn’t want to show off, or seem lazy.

She was just reaching the main hall when the one of the Peacekeepers, a thin, balding man named Chiuh Iaoy, walked by. He was deep in concentration and didn’t seem to notice her, brushing by her without a word.

‘Hmph,’ she thought. That was a little rude. And so unlike him.

Chiuh stopped in the doorway and turned around. He looked at Memri, momentarily confused, as if he were noticing her for the first time. And perhaps he was, at least on this day. He looked at the floor. Looked at Memri. Looked at her broom. Looked back at the floor. Looked back at Memri.

“Good job,” he said simply with a curt nod. Then turned and left.

Despite herself, Memri smiled at the compliment. Who didn’t like a compliment?

It was a perfectly fine day.

At the top of the Peaceful Path, the mountain pass that wound up Mount Serenity, laid the Gateway to Brightholme. Relative to most of the other mountains that surrounded Brightholme, Mount Serenity was comparatively small. But it was still a few hours’ walk up the sometimes steep path for most people. Guests stopping by just for a visit were so rare as to be virtually non-existent, and were always turned away anyway. So if you made the long, difficult trek up the path and the mountain, odds were you were coming to seek a new life and a new home.

It was late in the day when the Peacekeeper on duty spotted a trio of people staggering towards the entrance gate.

It was a man and a woman, so thin and frail it was clear they were near starving. The man was carrying an equally thin child in his arms. It was impossible to tell the child’s gender, only that they were very young and in trouble.

How the man, looking like he did, had managed to carry anyone, even a small child, up the mountain was beyond the Peacekeeper’s comprehension. The moment they reached the first gate, desperate looks on their faces, both the man and woman collapsed. The man dropped the child, who rolled lifelessly across the path.

There was a process and a procedure to follow at the Gateway. If someone asked for entrance, they would be escorted to the Way Station just on the other side of the first gate. There was a second gate beyond that. If that was eventually opened to you, you were officially a resident of Brightholme.

At the Way Station there were stationed several service psychics. They would be charged with interviewing the new arrivals and deeming whether they were fit to enter, and capable of heeding the “Live in Peace” rule. Sometimes this could be accomplished in a day. Sometimes it took weeks. In the earliest of days, the Godknight was the only one allowed to award people citizenship. But many, many years had gone by, and Brightholme continued to grow bigger and bigger. So in the years since, this way station was built, and these procedures put in place.

The moment the three starving people collapsed at the gate, though, all those processes and procedures were immediately forgotten. The Peacekeepers on duty rushed into action, scooping up all three and running to the Way Station. The psychics and service mages, as well as the clerks and administrators, saw all of this and immediately ceased their duties and rushed to help.

The child—a girl, it turned out—was alive. But barely. She was quickly wrapped in blankets, and all three were put in front of the large fire burning in the hearth of the main meeting hall. The Peacekeepers and Way Station staff brought them food and water, which the husband and wife devoured. The child awoke—someone joked it was the smell of cooked meat that did the trick—and she was able to eat as well.

After they had warmed up and finished their meals—the first in nearly a week, they learned later—the staff helped clean them up. Some clothes were gathered and given to the family. The parents told their story, a harrowing account of what it had taken to reach this place. Some of the Peacekeepers and psychics had heard worse tales, but still felt sympathy for what they had gone through and admired their courage and will. The family struck them all as kind, and worthy of help, making their suffering feel less fair than most.

The staff subverted the rules slightly, allowing the family to sleep in the more comfortable staff beddings. There was still the matter of the psychics and the interviews, but that wasn’t going to happen today. For now, the family was happy just to get help, to feel a little human kindness and charity. They could wait a few days to become citizens if need be. But once they had guided the family to the beds, the Peacekeepers, psychics, and staff were all in agreement: the interviews would be mostly perfunctory. This family was going to gain entrance.

They would make the new life they sought out for themselves. Free of fear, free of war, free to live how they chose, always under the protective watch of the mighty, noble Godknight.

There were finally nothing but better days ahead.

These were just a few of the stories of the good people of Brightholme.

In three days, every one of them would be dead.