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Name:
Caelus, Wayward Refugee
Rank:
Shielder (Squire)
Level
12 (40)
Status:
36/36 (120/120)
Weapons:
- Refugees Walking Stick
- Plain Travelers Clothes
A Bronze Ring of Title Spoofing and a Silver Ring of Level Spoofing worked in accord to grant Calaf – or perhaps Caelus – his disguise. No physical aspects were altered, but this is what anyone under the Menu would identify him by.
It was after dark when the disguised Squire made his approach through the woods towards Fort Duran. So dark was it that he could hardly enjoy the permanent autumnal wonderland he was encountering for the first time! Fort Duran and Autumn’s Redoubt in general were places every Paladin dreamed of one day building up sufficient levels and stats to brave, and here Calaf was having that time squandered on an infiltration mission.
Leaves fell to the forest floor on a great carpet and were replaced in swift order by new buds, which rapidly mellowed into the same Fall colors as everything else. It was a curious microclimate existing only on the southern slope up to the Olde Capital’s grand plateau. A phenomenon neither church clerics nor mage scholars had a concrete explanation for.
At any rate, Calaf found himself approaching the Fort, armor and weapons stashed safe in his Inventory. He walked alone to put on the airs of a simple traveler cast out of his home, looking for refuge with the rebel forces.
What he found instead was his least favorite person in the entire world. And with Honest John in the running now, that was saying something.
Two figures turned, both wearing flashy and extravagant gear in their own way. Neither was particularly concerned with stealth.
Name:
Baldr, Hunter of the Church.
Rank:
Barriermeister
Level:
89
Status:
777/777 HP (Nonplussed)
“Hmmm?” The Church hunter frowned. “You the fresh meat Perarde sent?”
Calaf’s blood ran cold.
The third figure among them strummed a brightly-colored Ruan.
Name:
Klavier, Hunter of the Church
Rank:
Bard
Level:
75
Status:
360/360 (Performing)
“Song of Hushed Stealth is complete,” said the Bard-Hunter. “Our location is safe for many minutes yet.”
Both the Bard and Barriermeister gazed upon Calaf with prying eyes.
“Do I know you?” Baldr’s brow furrowed.
Thank the System the hunter was bad with faces!
“Oh, I’m sure we would recognize a man of his countenance,” said Klavier. “Perarde vouches for him, meaning he is peerless and fully expected to follow orders to the letter, yes?”
Calaf nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”
“Okay, Mister New Meat.” Baldr’s twangy Autumn’s Redoubt accent was peeking through. “I’m sure the big man’s given you instructions…”
“To infiltrate Fort Duran,” Calaf said. “Find out what I can about the heretical nobles behind this rebellion, and determine force strength, troop counts, and how many church relics or baubles they currently have access to.”
“Good job,” Baldr said with the tone one would give to a trained dire-dog who just sat on command. “And if you find any warp gates or stone circles leading back to the Battletower, report back right away. We’re going to need to reestablish that. It’s vital to our plans!”
Klavier the team Bard pulled up a trade request:
Klavier
· Porcelain Snail of One-Way Audio (x1)
To:
Calaf
· None
“It does what it says,” Klavier explained. “Speak to it. Whoever holds the corresponding snail…”
“That’s me,” Baldr added.
Klavier nodded. “… that’s him, will hear your reports. Go forth, with the hopes of all the faithful on your shoulders.”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
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Caelus – rather, Calaf in disguise – approached a camp around the back end of Fort Duran Du Loc. Klavier’s songs granted him a modicum of stealth so that he would be neither noticed nor approached until he was well into camp.
It was an unpleasant, lonely feeling, being under this Bard-based stealth field. He walked through the camp, rebels, and random refugees and the like walking around him but rarely noticing him. When someone did look at Calaf directly, they seldom lingered and would find they could never remember any details.
Subterfuge and spy craft. What odd ground for a Squire. But if the exemplar of all Paladins ordered him to do it, well, who was Calaf to refuse?
For his first order of business, Calaf got the lay of the land. There was a camp of several thousand people – refugees, people from around Autumn’s Redoubt, the edge of the desert, the plateau’s edge leading to the Olde Capital, and associated border regions. Almost all were Branded, which was no surprise given this region was the core of the church’s influence.
Soldiers patrolled the camp, as well as manned outer defenses well beyond the scope of the fort’s ramparts. Calaf counted maybe two hundred soldiers guarding the camp, all level sixty or above. To get a full-force projection he’d need to get into the castle itself…
Wandering around the edge of the camp, Calaf happened upon a stone archway, not unlike the one stashed in the Battletower basement, seemingly arbitrarily. Given the connection between the Battlemage and Paladin of Yore, and the sheer number of other archways leading seemingly elsewhere back at the Battletower, it didn’t take some learned scholar to determine this was not arbitrary at all.
“I think I’ve found the portal…” Calaf spoke into the snail.
He would receive no response, for it was only a one-way device.
The woods beyond the perimeter were dark. It was hard to tell if this was indeed the same location he’d seen through the portal, where an injured Honest John had tried casting one last cocky glance back. Calaf knelt. Even his mediocre Agility stats helped to puzzle out the pattern of dried blood in the soil where John had taken a spear to the gut.
Calaf smiled despite himself. Knowing that his foe suffered. It wasn’t very chivalrous of him, but the thought set a tingle going up his arms. It felt satisfying.
Once his field of stealth properly dissipated and he was reasonably certain that he would be seen as just another refugee about camp, Calaf checked out a group huddled at a campfire.
“Have you heard any word about a man found heavily injured by that archway over there?” Calaf pointed towards the wood’s edge. “Would’ve been near death. Maybe thereabouts at two HP?”
“Guy missing half a face?” asked one refugee.
“Yeah, that fellow!” said another. “Received healing in the fort. Got the spear out of him, but there wasn’t much that could be done about his face. After a meeting with the Mistress of the fort and her gentlemen cleric friend, he ran off.”
“Which way did he go?”
“Oh, thereabouts thataway.” The crew around the campfire pointed eastward.
Calaf pondered this. “That’s well off any roads or routes.”
“Someone must have had him spooked!”
“Indeed.” Masking a smile, Calaf left the campfire.
For his next question, Calaf checked in with a merchant distributing soup around camp.
“So,” the spying Squire began. “What’s the word around camp?”
“New here?” the merchant raised an eyebrow. “Not a lot of convoys coming in anymore. Seems the Madam has done what she could to keep the Church at bay and shield residents from their oncoming forces. Now we must hope she’s got what it takes to route ‘em, spark off this reformation movement she ‘n her beau have promised.”
“Reformation?”
The merchant’s eyes narrowed.
“I just got here not long ago,” said Calaf.
It wasn’t even a lie!
“Aye. She gives a big speech every other night about it. The next one should be about an hour from now in the bailey. You should go have a gander if you haven’t already.”
Calaf nodded and took his leave.
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Well, he wasn’t expecting to be just let into Fort Duran just like that. But evidently, it was an open house. Calaf followed a group of similarly low-level refugees and the like up through a drawbridge and gatehouse into Fort Duran’s castle bailey, a wide-open marshaling ground.
Calaf counted what soldiers he could. Maybe a hundred along the walls right now. Another few hundred in the baileys. Of course, with each of them pushing level 70 a well-trained party of any five of them could’ve routed the entire Riverglen contingent of the army back in the hinterlands.
None of the refugees here in the bailey spoke or looked distracted. Instead, they looked up at a balcony near the ramparts as if expecting someone to make an appearance.
All the soldiers along the edge of the bailey pounded their shields, spears, and swords into the ground in anticipation. Calaf’s estimate was about five hundred now, and many more still patrolled the perimeter looking outward for threats.
The rancor hit a fever pitch, then died abruptly. Out walked two figures. The first wore full dull-gold colored armor. Capital Garrison Mail, the official Paladin armor from the plateau around the Olde Capital. This figure took her helmet off to reveal a middle-aged, battle-scarred woman with greying wiry hair kept back in three knotted braids:
Name:
Joan, Paladin
Rank:
Paladin
Level
81
Status:
10001/10001 (Pillar of Righteousness)
Weapons:
- Greatsword of True Faith (x1)
- Tower Shield of the Capital Ramparts (x1)
“Greetings, citizens, subjects. Farmers, townsfolk refugees. All who heard the call of our System Message before it was so rudely squelched by the corrupt authorities at Demon Lord’s Fall.”
At level eighty-one, Joan was only one of a handful of Paladins anywhere near the upper echelons of the Menu’s leveling system. There would be maybe a dozen non-church hunters that matched her skill. Calaf had not heard of her, but only because the ranks of the old nobility and those of paltry Riverglen sewer guards were separated by a gulf roughly equivalent to the distance from Demon Lord’s Fall to the moon!
The second figure held Joan’s hand, looking over the crowd. He was a cleric with a shaved head in the style of those deep into the church’s monastic life.
Name:
Cayo, Reformist
Rank:
Bishop
Level
84
Status:
780/780 (All-Loving Saint)
Weapons:
- Simple Talisman
“For untold centuries, the Church of the Menu has controlled all affairs of life on this continent with its rules and strictures.” Joan’s voice boomed through the courtyard. “But, my friends, there is another way..."
Cayo stepped forward.
“Brothers, sisters, the hierarchy of the church is a distraction. It serves only to enrich deacons, bishops – of which I am one, true – and most certainly the archpope themself. Faith is to be expressed by Branding and the Menu, yes, but the Church itself has cut off key elements of the Interface to ensure its control over the populace.”
“The Menu…” Joan held Cayo’s hand aloft. “Is for everyone. Marriage and acts of love – are for everyone! With no distinction between class, rank, or how any individual chooses to undergo their journey up the Menu’s levels.”
The crowd hung on to every word. As peasants and farmers from some of the periphery towns along the pilgrimage route, they’d seldom gotten much support from the church either way.
Joan’s voice grew louder and more commanding. “Even as we speak, the church has put a movement of humble pilgrims – their own initiates, who answered the call of pilgrimage! – to the sword. The corruption of the church’s higher echelons: its ecclesial council, its hunters, and its staff currently occupying the bones at the Demon Lord’s Fall, is self-evident. Rise up with me in rebellion against the church, and we can return the gifts of the Menu to the people!”
Again, the crowd grew feverish in answer to the call. Cayo let go of Joan’s hand and held his aloft, patiently urging silence.
“So many of the church’s teachings are about control,” he said. “Levels are gained primarily in combat. But this need not be the case. The option to allow a life of farming or smithing to grant you enough experience in a lifetime to reach level 70 or 80 is available via holy relics. This option is simply cut off, by order of the archpope – and countless archpopes before him.”
Joan held aloft a Stupendous Amber Level Up Bauble of Endurance. “With this, we shall bring about a great Leveling. All shall be equal under the System.”
“All are brothers under the Interface,” Cayo added, his head dipped in prayer.
“Hallowed be!” yelled the crowd.
To great fanfare, Joan popped the Level Up Bauble. It provided only a fraction of the XP required for a level 81 to advance to 82.
“For our first order of business: no longer shall the dead of all kinds be confined to church crypts.” Joan looked over the crowd as they soaked this in before continuing. “In this new world that we strive to create, all shall be buried in simple graves, facing the sky and accessible to family and the masses.”
This point gave Calaf a queasy, uneasy lump in his stomach. It was enough to break him out of the spell where he was transfixed alongside the crowd. Everything else Joan had said so far seemed at once blatantly rebellious against all that was holy but also, at some level deep in his gut, just plain common sense.
“And how shall we accomplish this?” Joan asked the crowd. “Well, we have found a vitally important piece for the board. A descendant of the holy twins, a young girl not but twelve years…”
Calaf looked around, scanning the bailey. Doing his job, trying to avoid thinking about whether this Paladin Joan and her apparent love spoke the truth. There, in a far corner, he saw her:
A slender woman wearing functional and mobility-enhancing travel attire leaned against the fortress walls. She had a tri-corner hat covering most of her face, but it could not mask an overlarge eyepatch over her left eye.
The relic thief seemed to notice Calaf in that moment as well. She shuffled in place and then stood up a little straighter. Her face went from neutral to a sharp smile. Then, she gave him a wink with her good eye.
“Jelena,” Calaf mouthed, almost letting relief and even longing sneak through.
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