Every person had a purpose, each a cog in the machine. It was an idea that had been pounded into Jo by each of her superiors, and it was likely why the outfit ran as long as it did. So long as everyone had a clear directive, entropy took longer to take over. In hindsight, it seemed obvious, but only in practice did she see how critical it was. Their situation within Nesme was no exception. Everyone, Nura’s family included, all had their place in ensuring their survival, each given jobs highly suited to their individual strengths.
Except for Jo, the loose cog that lay outside the machine, completely forgotten. She preferred it that way, though.
The sun had barely passed its midpoint as Jo stepped through the gaping hole in the walls of the city, picking her way through rubble and debris. Handing over lunch to Doriyah and Pavel had kept them from inquiring about her, something she’d been aiming for. She didn’t have the will to put up with Doriyah’s eventual complaining that, while they worked, she had just walked around the city. Her explanation, that information gathering was just as important as manual labor, would have fallen onto deaf ears. Then again, most things did with that man.
But while she understood that, a smaller part couldn’t help but feel frustrated at just how pointless it had truly been. She’d uncovered nothing that they hadn’t already known. It’d been good to confirm it herself, but it still felt pointless.
She shook her head, stepping around a large chunk of debris and looking out at the town outside the city. The place might have once been lovely, with its gentle rolling hills and buildings built atop them. The two massive trenches, however, extending down from the city’s central hill, through the wall’s gaping wound, and through the town, dashed any remnant of that. Two stark reminders of just how little they knew.
Holding back a sigh, Jo followed the pair with her eyes; the deep grooves tore through the town and went right up to the forest that lay some distance away. There, rather than cutting through, the trenches turned sharply to the right, continuing until out of sight, as though the giants had decided to go around the forest.
Jo glanced about, adjusting her sword belt before setting off towards the town, hoping that Cruck’aa, on his fool errand, wasn’t anywhere near to witness her poor decision.
As with many places before, most of the buildings looked identical to one another, the only difference whether they were built of clay bricks or tree logs. Many along the edges of the trenches were trampled, caved in, their debris scattered about much like the wound within the wall. It forced Jo to give the twin grooves a wide berth, as picking her way through the debris field looked dangerous in of itself.
Her gaze trailed a window as she walked past; this place had been lived in before, and now, it was just as much a carcass as Nesme was. Had they seen it coming, those months ago? Were there signs, even for a place as remote as here? More questions emerged but Jo shook them away. One problem at a time.
The town wasn’t that big, and within a few minutes, Jo had cut through it, and arrived at the edge of the forest, head craned towards the canopy. The trees loomed over her, not as thick as the bog forest they’d slogged through before, but still eerie in their own right as they extended out on either side. How much ground it covered, Jo wasn’t sure, but it was enough that going around them seemed out of the question.
“Not for the giants, though.” Jo muttered, eyeing the trenches.
Had it been up to her, she’d have followed that trench. It felt like a slight to her ancestry to admit that she never cared for forests, especially this one, with how oddly the light diffused from the tops of the trees. A lifetime and a half of marching did that to anyone. Still, it remained their only way forward, and with how blind they were…
Jo sucked in a breath and stepped into the forest.
She immediately hated it.
Despite it being midday, Jo swore her eyes had to adjust as she pushed through the thicket. There was barely any place she could step without stumbling, so thick was the underbrush, and within the span of a few minutes, Jo had already stumbled twice. The singing of birds and buzzing of gods only knew what felt like mockery as she righted herself against a tree, frustration building in her chest. Even with her eyes adjusting, she could barely make out a foothold in this Gods forsaken –
She squashed the curse with a shake of her head. She shouldn’t be getting so frustrated, yet she felt it building within her all the same. Gods, she was better than this, especially considering she’d been trained for this.
Her eyes darted about. If barbarians did live within these trees, then it stood to reason they had ways to get through them quickly. And if she just looked…
There, slicing through the undergrowth like a knife, lay a game trail, almost hidden by the foliage around it. Nodding, Jo shoved off the tree, fought through the brush, and heaved a sigh of relief as she walked down the reasonably cleared ground.
For a moment, having her feet not trip through bushes and whatever else littered the forest floor almost allowed her frustration to bleed away. Yet having nothing for her mind to focus on, aside from watching for anyone else, allowed her concerns to creep up on her, filling her mind with doubts.
She frowned, ducking under a branch. Truthfully, Jo shouldn’t be here, especially on her own. They’d vowed to Nura not to go into the forest, as doing so could make the situation worse, and, if Jo was spotted or gods forbid captured, she could see how that would be true.
Yet it never sat right with her to act with only one source of information, and as much as she trusted Nura, she just simply wasn’t enough. They needed another set of eyes on the situation, and out of everyone within their party, Jo trusted only herself to accomplish that.
She cringed; it was a rather conceded thought, but it still rang true. Serena was too distracted by Werond, Doriyah and Pavel were, frankly, idiots, and Cruck’aa…
Well, she just hoped Cruck’aa wouldn’t see her when she came out.
The minutes bled by as she continued down the trail, winding deeper into the forest. Her eyes wandered about, trying to gage just how large the forest truly was. It had looked massive from the city, quickly forming their opinions of going around it, but it wasn’t until she was within it did Jo truly question how difficult it would be to pass through. Yes, the barbarians were a problem, but from what she’d seen, it seemed entirely possible for them to –
Instinct caught the gentle chatter of life before she did.
Jo cursed and dropped into a crouch, now acutely aware of the voices that sifted through the trees in front of her. Had she tromped about for another minute, she would have, no doubt, stumbled right into whatever was ahead of her.
Gods above, she really was getting worse.
Moving off the trail, Jo shoved her way through the thicket, cringing at the rustling. She had little doubt that any sentries would hear her coming, but she prayed that they’d be too distracted to care. It wasn’t a gamble she was comfortable with, but she had no other option; continuing down the game trail would have been suicide.
The murmur of life gradually grew into a chatter as she slowly approached, creeping towards what she recognized as a clearing. She inched the rest of the way forward but halted right at the edge, parting a bit of the shrubs to get a better view of the camp.
And swore.
A massive bonfire stood in the center of the clearing, perhaps ten feet across, its flames licking the air, bed rolls crowded about the stones that marked its edge. Interspersed around the clearing, some feet away from the fire, stood tents of all sizes, each comprised of wooden frames covered by pelts of all kinds. Only one appeared to be lived in, its flaps closed to the world, with two tree stumps situated outside it; the rest, oddly enough, appeared to hold the necessities of life, with meats hanging to dry just inside one, crates and boxes stacked in another, and what looked to be weapon racks poking out from the other. The rest remained out of sight, cut off by the angle, or crowed by the denizens of the camp.
Jo couldn’t help but smirk; she always did find it comical that, so long as the temperatures weren’t fridged, most of those who lived outside of civilization looked the same. Of the roughly fifty or so men and women that milled about the clearing, attending to their lives, most wore some variation of simple a tunic and either pants or shorts, all crafted from the roughest hides and pelts they could find. Some had bones strapped to their shoulders or arms, the only variation amongst their kind.
Save one man, Jo realized: the one who sat in front of the closed tent. Despite wearing similar clothing to the others, he wore a headdress of some sort, fashioned from what looked to be a dear skull with extra horns strapped to it. Why they needed extra on it, Jo hadn’t a clue, but perhaps –
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The wind shifted, blowing towards her.
Jo gagged before she could stop herself, bile rising in her throat. Flattening herself to the ground, she buried her nose in her hands, sucking in air through her mouth.
Nine Hells, what was that stench?! It was as though they’d killed something and left it in the sun, couldn’t they smell it?! Surely they didn’t just live with it?
She shuddered, fighting back the urge to vomit into the dirt. Gods above, it made her body want to curl in on itself. Despite the horrors she’d witnessed before, and the stenches that came with them, this one felt worse than anything she’d encountered. What could even make a stench this powerful? There hadn’t been any corpses or anything of the like around them that could –
The answer flashed in her head like one of Serena’s fireballs.
Mouth still open, Jo pulled her head from the dirt, fighting off a shudder as she brushed a bit of the shrub in front of her aside.
She doubted the realization almost immediately. These people were too primitive, with their basic methods of food preservation and open bedrolls around a fire. Hells, the weapons clutched in hands or strapped to their backs looked more bone and stone than metal. Besides, who would even be facilitating it? None of the men or women before Jo matched the image she held in her mind. And beyond that, there remained no other instances…
Jo’s thoughts trailed off, her eyes landing on the bonfire, burning despite the warmth of the day. Why hadn’t she’d seen the smokestack earlier? With its size, she should have been able to see it from the edge of the forest.
She craned her neck and found her evidence. The thick column of smoke, drifting lazily towards the sky, vanished the moment it would have risen over the forest canopy, almost as though an invisible wall blocked it from sight.
The barbarians had magic.
Jo flattened herself to the ground once more, resting her chin against the dirt, mouth still open. A hundred implications coursed through her mind, a thousand questions following in their wake. What kind of magic did these people use, and how did they utilize it? Serena might have been able to tell, though she wasn’t the most…intellectually gifted in that manner. But had they known, could they have guessed how they’d use the magic? As it stood, it was likely behind the stench, possibly a way to keep people away, and the disappearance of the smoke to hide them. But what else could they use it for? What –
The bushes rustled.
Jo froze as five barbarians tromped through the foliage only a few paces from where she lay, bursting out of the shrubs and into the clearing, each carrying a spear in hand. A few from the camp turned towards them, calling out a greeting as they met each other halfway. One of the barbarians, taller than his four companions, looked irritable as he yelled about something in their tongue, pointing with his spear behind him.
Back the way Jo had come from.
Biting back a curse, she wiggled herself backwards, eyes never leaving the group of barbarians, growing more agitated by the second. Just as the tall one waved an urging hand at a few others in the camp, Jo pulled herself out from under her bush, pushed up to a crouch, and slunk off into the forest.
Her heart hammered as she shoved through the thicket, uncaring of the noise she was making. Nine Hells, she was getting worse; how she’d missed those five entirely, she hadn’t a clue, but if the mutilated bodies from before were any indication of her treatment, she wasn’t about to wait around and ask.
Despite the adrenaline fueling her frantic half-run forward, Jo couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to those frustrating questions. The appearance of magic created far too many implications, each as worrying as the last. They needed to adjust their plans, they needed to accommodate it all; they weren’t just up against barbaric people in the forest, they had –
Rustling, to her right.
Jo swung around and ripped her sword out, as best she could, heart exploding into her throat, ready to fight –
An equally startled bird that fell from the trees, his squawking obnoxiously loud as it crashed into the underbrush.
Jo cursed, ripping her head towards the camp. She swore she could her voices further away, growing louder by the second. How much –
Wait – that obnoxious squawking.
“Cruck’aa?!” Jo hissed.
The Aarakocra hissed back, shoving himself up, twigs and leaves coating his feathers and tunic. Jo doubted she looked any different.
“What in the Nine Hells,” Cruck’aa spat. “are you doing?!”
“What in the Nine Hells are you doing?!” Jo shot back.
“Watching you!”
“What?!”
“You’re not supposed to be here!” Cruck’aa threw his arms up. “You wax on about how stupid Doriyah and Pavel are yet you –”
“You’re not supposed to be here!” Jo hissed.
For once, and perhaps the only time she’d seen it happen, Cruck’aa’s beak snapped shut, his beady eyes narrowing at her.
“I am aware.” He said.
“Then what” — Jo shot another look over her shoulder, heart hammering; where they getting louder? “Gods damn it, we can discuss this later, we need to get out –”
But Cruck’aa had already taken off, shooting through the trees and into the canopy above, leaves cascading to the ground where he’d been.
“Cruck’aa, you motherfucker!” Jo spat, before continuing her sprint out of the forest.
…
It wasn’t until the sun had finally sunk below the horizon did Jo feel confident that no one was following her.
She sighed, leaning her head against the tree, fighting the urge to close her eyes. That was just an excuse, she’d known she hadn’t been followed after the first hour. But admitting that meant going back to the city and to her friends, something she just wasn’t ready for yet.
Her gaze drifted to the right, sweeping over the little town, and towards the gaping wound in Nesme’s walls. She’d stumbled onto a tree that stood at the edge of the forest with a nice crook for her to rest in, and the extra height offered her a stunning view of the abandoned buildings below. It offered an excuse, as well, when everyone inevitably asked what she’d been doing all day. Not a soul would begrudge her for keeping an eye on their enemy.
Yet, with none of them having appeared, Jo found herself, once again, grappling with her concerns.
Despite spending hours rolling them around her mind, Jo could only sigh as the doubts resurfaced. The appearance of magic was concerning; without any idea of what the barbarians could accomplish, she couldn’t help but wonder if their plans would even succeed. After all, every spellcaster she’d ever met could have destroyed their ambush in an instant.
But that left the question of why Nura had never brought the matter up. Surely the barbarians would have used it at some point in their raids. It was entirely possible that Nura had kept the information to herself, but it didn’t make sense why she’d do so. But then, had the barbarians never used it during the raids either? It was evident that they were enjoying its benefits, so why not use it?
And none of these questions touched on why Cruck’aa was in the forest.
Jo let out a guttural sigh, scanning the ground below for a place to jump down.
Somehow, that felt more pressing than the sudden appearance of barbarian magic. The easiest answer was that the damned bird was actually trying to find ingredients for some kind of cure, but Jo knew that Cruck’aa was no fool, on some level, at least. He’d probably known it was a wild goose chase, which meant that he was more than likely attempting it out of sheer spite, so he had an excuse to bitch at them later.
But then he agreed with Jo about something, on top of all of that?
Jo shook her head, adjusting herself to leap out of the tree; that Aarakocra was up to something, but until they were on the way to Silverymoon, she didn’t have the energy to figure out what it was.
She glanced towards the town and city again. Exhaustion had finally begun to trickle into her legs, and the thought of having to trek all the way back –
Jo froze, eyes on the wall.
Doriyah stood just outside the wall, locked in argument with a man utterly unknown to Jo. A foot shorter than him and wrapped in a dark cloak with the hood up, he flinched back as Doriyah lunged at him, only to remain eerily still as Doriyah continued to rant at him. The conversation, if it could be called that, lasted barely a minute, before the man flipped on his heel and marched away, Doriyah gesturing rudely at his back before he too turned away.
Jo watched the man as he slipped into the town, heart quickening. She shoved her questions aside as she watched him, the man not bothering to hide his movements as he wound his way around the empty houses and buildings. After a few moments, he turned towards one, as non-descript as the others, and pushed open the door, throwing it shut behind him.
She wasted no time throwing herself from the tree and running into the town proper, slowing only as she neared the house. Uncertain of any traps or the like the man may have left, Jo flattened herself against a building nearest to the house, leaning around the corner to stare at the door, barely standing within its frame.
Gods above, first Cruck’aa, now Doriyah? Who could the giant man be meeting; he wasn’t smart enough to be involved in plots.
Jo narrowed her eyes, scanning and rescanning the walls and windows, broken to some degree. While he may not be smart enough, he was infuriating enough to deny any accusation she’d level at him. She’d needed proof, something she could throw at him to get the truth. Lacking that would just make matters worse, especially when she’d been gone all day.
Satisfied that the outside of the house wasn’t rigged, Jo shot around the corner, darting towards the wall, and flattening herself against it. She leaned towards the window, jagged pieces of glass like teeth in the sill, waited to the count of ten, then slowly raised her head to peak through it.
The house was comprised of a single, large room, a thick layer of dust coating what remained of the furniture: a solitary couch paired with a table in the middle, a bed shoved to one side, some semblance of a kitchen space shoved into a corner. Each as dark and deserted as the room itself was.
Jo scanned the place, scanned it again, then swore under her breath. She pulled away from the window, fighting the urge to ball her hands into fists.
Magic was at play, it had to be. But whether the man he was simply invisible or gone altogether was another matter entirely. She didn’t dare enter and find out though; Gods only knew what lay in wait that she couldn’t see.
Cursing once more, she stepped away from the wall and stalked around the building, checking each side for another door, or some other kind of exit. Yet she found nothing save for the smooth wood that made up the walls. Even peering in through the cracks in the boards revealed nothing, the only notable detail a bit of rope hanging in one corner. The room, it seemed, was utterly deserted, and she hadn’t the foggiest as to how.
Jo backed away, a myriad of curses upon her lips, and ducked around another house. She leaned her head the wall and tried not to dwell on the frustration that tore through her chest.
She was getting worse. How many plots had she submerged herself within, back in her marching days; how many underhanded dealings had she been aware of, and who was in them. And now, her friends danced around her, their own dealings flying over her head, as though she were a novice.
And perhaps worst of all, she remained powerless to do anything. Jo could go and confront them, of course, but that would mean a disruption of their plan. They needed to get to Silverymoon, to figure out what was going on, and reorient themselves. Anything between that was merely a distraction.
Heaving a deep sigh, Jo turned back towards the ruined city and began to make her way towards it, hoping beyond hope that she wasn’t making the wrong choice.