The Meres-folk man in the mud rolled his head to the side. Eyes of a murky, moss green color stared toward Macond. His throat worked like he was going to say something.
From out of Galen’s field of vision, metal flashed toward the man, hard gray in the ruddy light of the burning manor. A sword’s point drove into the mudder’s throat.
Blood spewed. The mudder’s face convulsed, eyes bulging and mouth distending like a speared trout’s. He gasped and gagged, and Galen gasped and gagged in sympathetic impulse. Then, with a shudder, the man fell still.
Galen followed the line of the blade that had killed the man up, to the hilt of a very nice sword and the hand of the woman who held it. Blood both fresh and old stained the deep blue of the fine wool dress she wore. Strands of brown and white hair hung loose from what had once been a neat knot at the back of her head. Pale lines of tear tracks washed down dirt- and soot-smeared cheeks, but she fixed dry eyes and a stern look on Macond.
“Lady Gastusad.” Macond pulled his short little self up straight, like he was about to execute a bow.
Lady Gastusad interrupted before Macond could continue with any niceties.
“My lord Gastusad and his hunting party returned before the raiders could complete their work.” With her free hand, Lady Gastusad motioned at the circle of dead Meres-folk on the ground around her. “As you can see, the attackers were less successful against more than the house servants and field workers they initially faced.”
Disgust dripped from the woman’s voice. This was someone who knew what needed to be done and how to accomplish it—and had no use for anyone of a lesser spirit. Galen’s stomach unclenched a little, even as he eyed Lady Gastusad’s sword warily.
“I’d have run from you.” Galen murmured the words without thinking that anyone was paying any attention to him. He definitely wasn’t thinking about the OOC rule when he blurted it out.
Lady Gastusad’s sharp gaze darted toward him. She didn’t issue a reprimand, but she also didn’t smile.
Galen’s face heated. He bowed his head apologetically. “Ma’am.”
At least it was something that could be taken as in character. Dolt.
Lady Gastusad stared a moment longer and then returned her gaze to Macond. “Lord Gastusad and a handful of his hunters have chased after those who managed to flee. It would behoove you to go after them.”
The lady glanced down, pulled her sword with brutal efficiency from the dead mudder’s throat, and looked again at Macond.
“My children are dead. Let not one of those savages return to their own mothers.”
Lady Gastusad turned on her heel and continued walking through the body-littered courtyard. Each time she crossed a raider’s body, she paused to thrust her sword into its throat.
Now that is a dynamic NPC.
As Galen watched Lady Gastusad go, a low heat rose in his chest.
This whole scenario is so damn grim.
But despite Galen’s misgivings, a quiver of anticipation fluttered in his throat.
That sure as hell sounded like a quest hook to me.
“You three.” Macond swung his arm to encompass Galen and Danto, as well as Brin as she returned on foot through the manor’s ruined gate. “See if you can track the lord and his party. Just find out what direction they went. See if they need a hand. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll take the horses back to the Way and see if I can’t hurry along the main muster.”
When the manor’s rider had fetched them from the outpost north of Chanford Falls, Macond had sent the rider on to the city to rouse the rest of the militia. The outpost had horses—for reasons just like this one—but the full body of militia volunteers would take time to gather and then need to come mostly on foot. A few might own or borrow horses, but not even the Chanford family could afford the luxury of keeping enough horses to outfit an entire militia.
Instinctively, Galen recognized that Macond’s decision to remain behind had less to do with needing someone to ride back to the main road to give directions to the approaching militia and more to do with him not wanting to travel into potential danger with the three new militia conscripts he was supposed to be leading.
The heat rising inside Galen doubled. All kinds of things he wanted to shout tumbled through his head, things about shirking responsibility and making other people carry your weight.
You fucking coward.
Galen just barely managed not to say it aloud. Thankfully, Danto spoke before Galen’s self-restraint could fail.
“You’re taking the horses?” Danto’s voice rose and fell in several unnecessary places. He sounded much less like a Voshellian novice and more like a scared low-level character. Which was, of course, exactly what he was.
Macond’s perpetual sneer deepened, and his brows lowered. Before he could say whatever he was going to say to poor Danto, Brin spoke. Anger sparked in her voice. Galen was pretty sure her annoyance wasn’t aimed at Danto, even though that was who she addressed.
“The woods will be too thick for riding, anyhow.” Brin turned without further argument and stalked back through the gate she’d just entered.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Brin’s head lowered as she examined the ground outside. Her braid fell forward over her shoulder.
“Here. This way.”
Galen’s teeth ground together. He was willing to bet Lord Gastusad’s party had a trained tracker, and he was certain that the full militia under Commander Farsafe would also have one. All the three of them would have was Brin, who was smart and practical but not trained—just like Galen and Danto.
But that’s the quest.
And if Macond wouldn’t do it and no one else was there to step up, either, then that left Galen and Danto and Brin.
See how that works, Xander?
Galen slapped a hand onto Danto’s shoulder and gently pressured him toward the gate, where Brin waited for them.
#
As Galen, together with Brin and Danto, set out in pursuit of Lord Gastusad and his retinue, Galen popped open his map to orient himself.
Mindet Valley Map [https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1163627398881886250/1171113316375072848/Mindet_Valley_Region_Map_Current_Age_102723.png?ex=656df444&is=655b7f44&hm=38c65c9af962de85ebdaa9687cd53ada401b090a91a80f5c7f7de9b06efb4ac0&=&width=999&height=1023]
Per Galen’s narrator, the Mindet Valley, or sometimes just the Valley, was the blanket name for the lands west of the Mindet River, which rolled from north to southeast in varying widths. Where the east-west flow of the Chanford River spilled from its heights into the Mindet, the city of Chanford Falls had been built on a bridge spanning the falls. Below, the Mindet widened enough to warrant christening it Lake Morene before the river drained again to the south and continued on its way.
His personal location marker didn’t show up on the larger region map, but Galen knew Gastusad Manor was somewhere just north of Chanford Falls along the River Way, between the road and the lake. He zoomed into the local area map, but it showed nothing but markers for Galen and his party in the center of a fog of war graphic effect.
Galen snapped the map shut. That was fine. He took pride in turning off compass and quest indicators and traveling inside game worlds with as little UI steering as possible. That made it more like a tabletop adventure, where you had to look around and notice things to get anywhere.
As Brin led Galen and Danto east away from Gastusad Manor, Galen knew Lake Morene lay somewhere ahead of them. He spent the next stretch of time so busily estimating the distance in his head while he walked that he might have tripped over the body if Brin hadn’t reached it first.
“Another mud-touched.” Brin pointed down and slightly ahead of her.
“Mud-touched” is technically a term which applies to any beings with a natural affinity to the Lutis sub-race of Shining Ones. Residents of the Mindet Valley routinely but not always accurately use the label for anyone from The Meres. An associated and more derogatory term also often used by Mindet Valley residents is “mudder.”
Galen knew he could probably look up the mentioned Lutis and Shining Ones in the codex—he remembered seeing the names before during character creation. He recalled something about elemental-themed magic and near-immortality. For the moment, he let it slide. More interesting was that Brin had chosen the more polite of the two terms, in contrast to Macond’s choice of “mudder.”
Not all that surprising, really. Macond might be the noble, but Brin is the classier act.
As soon as Brin and Danto and Galen had entered the woods which surrounded Gastusad Manor’s walls, the three of them had fallen into single file. There was little room for anything else.
Brin had taken the lead. She carried her spear in one hand, point tipped forward. The pack on her back bumped against a militia tabard over a well-worn leather breastplate. All of them, including the spear, were militia property, just like the gear Galen and Danto also wore and carried. Only Danto’s medicinal satchel was personal property, although Galen assumed it belonged to Voshell’s Favor and not to Danto himself. Voshell was also known as the Mother of the Fields, goddess of harvests and life and the common folk. She had a humble shrine in Chanford Falls, with a priest, known as a tender, and a handful of novices charged with caring for her people.
Neither Galen nor Danto had objected to Brin taking point. The three of them hadn’t known each other even according to their IC backstories before the week-long training quest chain began. All Galen really knew about Brin was that her family worked a farm not far from Chanford Falls—and that despite no magical knack and little formal training, she was very good at all the things she needed to be good at. That seemed more than reason enough for her to lead the way.
Brin crouched beside the body she’d found, which sprawled in a mess of blood-painted grass and broken twigs. Somewhere overhead, birds chirped merrily at each other, oblivious to what was going on below.
This body was a woman’s, dressed in the same roughly-woven garb as the others. Black feathers and white moss trailed from her hair as well as her clothing. Blood and innards spilled from her side and into the dirt. Green-brown eyes stared sightlessly toward the sky.
You have never seen anyone from The Meres before today. Your father once told you that there was a difference between Meres-folk and people who just lived in The Meres. The way these people dress and adorn themselves is like nothing you have ever seen.
Again, Galen wasn’t sure what some of the narrator’s words meant. Honestly, though, he didn’t care where these people were from or how they dressed so much as he cared what they’d done.
Brin shifted the dead woman’s shoulders, and more blood and gore oozed from her wound. Galen’s stomach lurched. The opening training montage had featured the usual random blood splatters, but everything since had been presented with alarming realism. Rather than continuing to watch whatever it was Brin was doing, Galen squinted up through the branches laced together over their heads.
Sunlight slanted through the leaves, but Galen couldn’t gauge the sun’s exact position. The hour was mid-morning, perhaps. It seemed impossible that mere hours had passed since they’d been at the Northgate guard outpost, within view of the stonework and towers of Chanford Falls, perched on its massive bridge over its namesake waterfall.
“How did they even get here?” Danto peered over Brin’s shoulder but made no move to stoop beside the body. His hand moved toward that leather satchel of his again, though. Only then did he add, “She’s not alive. Is she?”
Danto’s first question was apparently a valid one, and Galen’s narrator explained why. There was a centuries-long history of Meres-folk attacking Arlerico, and Arlerico attacking them back. But Arlerico was far to the south of Chanford Falls. Which wasn’t to say there was never trouble in the area—far from it. Just nothing like this from across the lake.
“Assholes.” Galen scowled toward the sprawled body without looking too closely at it. “People work hard to scrape together a living, and they just swoop in and kill to take it.”
“They came from The Meres.” Danto tipped his head forward and turned his palms upward in a don’t-you-get-it gesture. “They had to get down the sheer cliffs on their side, all the way across Lake Morene, and somehow up the cliffs on our side to even get here. How?”
“They landed further north, maybe? There’s lower ground across the river near Thandre.” Brin shrugged and sat back on her heels. “I don’t know. But it looks like Lord Gastusad and his hunters are doing all right for themselves. This one is definitely dead.”
Brin brushed her hands on her tabard as she stood. She was a farmer’s daughter. Galen guessed she was used to things like dirt and blood—she certainly took them in stride. Now, she aimed a pointed look at Danto, who stood back a few steps, still clutching at his satchel.