Helmold Brecht’s attention went straight to the Pharos when it sounded, hoping it was the Dicentis Lar Tathvaal.
When he saw who it really was, he went pale for a moment.
He straightened himself out before answering, took a deep breath, and answered with a smile.
“My Lord Redmane,” he said. “How fares your journey.”
Even the ghostly image of Redmane’s gaze was unsettling.
He looked at people the way a curious predator looks at a prey animal it just happened upon. A steady stare, that gave one the feeling he was working out whether or not you were worth eating.
“I’m in the town of Rollo’s Pass,” said Redmane. “In a place called the Priory of the Well. I have not yet taken control of it, but this building is adjoined to the Zone I last cleared. So I appear to be able to access Sanctuary functions from here.”
“How fortuitous! You will have a place of refuge, should you need it, while you clear the town of monsters.”
Redmane didn’t say anything back. For a few long moments he stared at Helmold like a wolf. Again.
“I encountered something unusual on my way here,” he finally said.
He gave him a strained smile. “Oh?”
“Yes. A Sicarius.”
Helmold couldn’t hide the way his eyes went slightly wide with recognition. Redmane’s own eyes narrowed in response.
“Know something about it?” Redmane asked.
“Merely that they are high level servants of the Colonial Governess. And that they report directly to her Praetor.”
“Do you have any notion of why a Sicarius might attack me?” asked Redmane.
This time Helmold’s eyes widened again. Which made Redmane tilt his head a bit, curiously.
“I cannot say. Perhaps it was posted to guard something, and ordered to waylay any trespasser? Was there anything of significance near where you encountered it?”
Again Redmane made him endure a long silence. He stared.
“How fares the Coterie,” he said.
“They departed in the morn, for the lands to the west. The Kizska domain, I do believe,” said Helmold.
Redmane nodded. “And how fare the folk in the castle?”
“Well indeed. Many have requested I imbue them with Professions. I could do so, if you would permit me to purchase the necessary manuals with the Sanctuary’s store of Gnosis.”
“Do whatever you see fit with the Sanctuary and the people. I leave their safety in your hands.”
The tone of Redmane’s voice was calm and steady as it ever was, but the way he looked at Helmold made the Magister suppress a shiver.
It was plain to see. He was suspicious.
Helmold fixed a smile onto his face and bowed. “I shall.”
The spectre of Redmane disappeared, and Helmold breathed out a heavy sigh.
Why wasn’t Lar Tathvaal answering his messages?
----------------------------------------
Redmane closed the Pharos, considered Helmold’s reactions for a moment.
He knew what a Sicarius was, but when he revealed what had taken place, the Magister had looked sincerely surprised.
Perhaps he didn’t have anything to do with it.
All the same, it would be prudent to keep an eye on him. An eye the Magister didn’t have to know was watching.
But before he went back to his little birds in Häerz Castle, he closed his eyes and felt out through space for the ones he’d dispatched to follow Valtr, Vengarl, Irina, Radovid and Vella.
Redmane found them walking the westron road from Barograd, their packs fully laden with supplies. Flora was with them, or more accurately, one of the Floras was with them. The group chatted and bantered as they hiked along. He spent a short while listening, but they weren’t discussing anything of note.
So he let go of the eyes of his birds, and directed his mind toward another.
Ah, there you are my Lord, said Pietr.
What has the woman called Flora been doing, said Redmane.
Pietr laughed. Well, she keeps herself quite busy, I must say. She personally constitutes half the kitchen staff, she tidies the barracks and keep daily, she plants fruits and vegetables with her magic, and I do believe she set out yesterday to Midva Forest, just after your Imbued friends departed for their little adventure.
Did she say why she was going into the forest?
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Aye, she explained that the castle can’t produce any more of her, so she’s going to spread out a bit. Quite soon I expect most, if not all of Midva Forest will resemble your castle yard, and there will be Floras running about everywhere.
I see…
Redmane chose to be content with that.
If he asked any more questions, Pietr would chide him.
Did you forget that we’re of one mind, my Lord? Pietr asked, amusement in his tone.
Redmane shut the door to the Soulspace.
All appeared to be going well enough for now.
He looked outside the Priory’s windows. The pale of early morning began to wane as the sun cleared the mountaintops surrounding Rollo’s Pass. But the town didn’t sound as lively as it ought to have.
The only noises he heard outside were the calling of crows, the clip clop of hooves in the distance, and the occasional growl.
Redmane stood, cracked his neck, and walked out the front doors of the Priory.
You have entered Zone: Rollo’s Pass
Tasks:
Slay Fedor the Footpad
Slay Acreman Barba
Slay Captain Solveig
Tasks Completed: 0/3
Mountain air gusted by as he stepped onto the street, disturbing his hair and cloak. The air had a crisp, thin quality, thanks to the high elevation and proximity to the northern sea. The sky above was clear and cloudless, and it was pleasantly cool.
But that’s where the beauty of it ended.
The air was crisp, yes, but it carried the scent of dried blood. The streets of Rollo’s Pass were a charnel house.
The windows and doors of homes and business were smashed and broken down. In the center of the street an ox cart had lost a wheel and its owner had left it there, most likely having fled for his life.
Blood spatters and the body parts of humans and animals littered the street he stood upon. There were crows everywhere, perched on every chimney, rooftop, lamp post and sign, feasting on the beastmen’s leftovers in packs, quarreling with each other over the choicest morsels.
Redmane walked over to a pair of crows standing on a barrel. They were playing tug of war with a piece of bloody gristle.
Beast Speech
It’s mine!
Mine!
No, Mine!
Excuse me, said Redmane. I’m looking for especially large beastmen. Seen any of those?
The crows stopped immediately and looked up at Redmane, their heads cocked curiously to the side.
The ape spoke, said one.
It’s not an ape, it’s a wolf-ape, said the other. Look at its claws.
Redmane raised an eyebrow. Shall I repeat the question?
One of the crows hopped in place until it faced the intersection to the northeast of them. It pointed with its beak.
That way. There’s a real big one, he’s hanging around the building that smells like ox dung.
Redmane set off in that direction, the crows watching him curiously.
No sooner did he reach the intersection, and turn the corner, did he come face to face with a new kind of beastmen.
There were two of them, crouched over the carcass of a horse, tearing its guts out in greedy mouthfuls. They had the bodies of goats from the waist down, and wolves from the waist up, and both had a set of thick, backswept horns like mountain rams. The ruins of their peasant clothes remained on their bodies in stretched tatters.
One of them heard Redmane’s footstep, and its head snapped up to see. Its pupils were slitted, and it tested the air with the forked tongue of a serpent.
Common Mongrel
Monster Type: Mongrel
Level 82
If this was a ‘Common’ Mongrel, Redmane wondered what an uncommon one looked like.
It growl-hissed at Redmane, which roused the attention of its neighbor. The two Mongrels stood, bits of viscera dangling from their jaws, and stalked toward Redmane with their bloodied claws held low. Ready to lunge at a moment’s notice, the instant they sensed they were within range. They weren’t nearly as tall as Blazh and Vasili, but they were at least a head taller than the average beastman.
[Mongrel] Marked as Prey.
Flame Breath
Gnosis: 624
The fire flinched them. It also applied Burning.
Burning (5)
Both Mongrels yowled and swiped at their own greasy fur as it took flame. Redmane streaked in between them and ripped their guts out with one claw each.
Bleeding (4)
On fire and desperately trying to hold their innards in with their hands while also trying to pat out the flame spreading across their hirsute bodies, they didn’t put up much of a defense from there.
Throughout the town, Redmane encountered these Mongrels in packs of twos and threes. There weren’t any common beastmen around at all. Perhaps they had been eaten by this stronger breed. Redmane couldn’t tell from the body parts strewn all over the streets, since a common beastman looked much like a human. Whatever the reason, these beastmen were quite a bit more ‘beast’ than the ones he had encountered thus far.
Even Samo, Blazh and Vasili looked human compared to them.
There was another interesting detail. One that made the System tag ‘Mongrel’ make sense. No beastman he saw had one set of animal features. It was always a blend. The heads of wolves or bears, with horns or antlers, claws and taloned feet like a bird’s or cloven feet like an ox. Every Mongrel was just that.
Redmane took to the rooftops between bouts with the Mongrels, running and leaping from roof to roof in search of more prey on his way toward the building that smelled like oxen. He gained a goodly sum of experience doing this, despite the ease with which he could dispatch them, and a generous helping of Corpus to go with it.
Corpus: 12,657
Level Up
Level 69 —> Level 70
Level 70 —> Level 71
Quality Points awaiting allocation: 2
Redmane considered it a moment, gave the points to Grace rather than Fortitude.
Grace 45 —> 47
They would likely both reach 50 soon.
He crouched on the corner of a rooftop, looking out over the town when he saw the building he was looking for. It was a general purpose stables, one side for horses, one side for oxen, both facing a central corral. At this distance it was difficult to make out details, but it appeared that most of the beasts had been haphazardly slaughtered and eaten on the spot.
But no sooner did he see it, did he hear the shriek of a little girl. And it came from the house he happened to be standing on.
Redmane leapt off the roof, kicked down the front door of the house and rushed inside.
There was a girl of perhaps ten or eleven years, crouched behind an overturned table, with mousy brown hair, freckles over her nose and panicked hazel eyes wide as dinner plates.
A little Mongrel advanced on her, no larger than she was. But he had horns, and claws. His mane of black hair grew all the way down his back and over his shoulders like a mantle. It hung over his eyes, completely hiding them. All one could see was a nose and a maw of gleaming sharp teeth.
“Get back in the cupboard Bartosz! Get! BACK!” the girl was shouting at him.
But the grinning beast child advanced on her anyway.
The girl’s eyes darted to Redmane, and her eyes went even wilder with fear.
Redmane understood the situation immediately.
This child beastman was her relation. Brother, probably. He’d been turned and she hadn’t.
A glance at the cupboard — which looked as if it had been closed and barricaded, and he’d broken the barricade open — told him the rest.
It took him a moment to figure out what he could do. Besides eating this girl’s brother in front of her.
That seemed unkind.
Bartosz stalked closer to his sister, and she screamed again.
And then the solution came to him.