Hera and her party followed the elder beastman inside the city. This time, people seemed more relaxed. Some would even wave at them, and most were not wearing any masks or helmets. The Empress had the impression that when they arrived here, the people were ushered inside their homes, but now they were seeing the village as it was supposed to be.
"Are we okay? Don't we have to worry about the monsters that were attacking back there?" Bonnie asked the elder.
"We have another team to take care of the stragglers, and we deactivated the lure, so it should be fine," the elder replied as they walked inside the treehouse.
Unlike what they expected, the place wasn't just a home. Instead, it was an amalgamation of different facilities, all centered in this massive tree trunk. Right after the entrance, there was an open area that looked like a town hall of sorts, with a small stage in the center that would allow someone to be seen by anyone who was sitting on the small stumps on the ground. To the left, there was a medical bay of sorts. Although calling it a shaman's hut would be more fitting. There were a number of different plants growing on the trunk of the tree, some odd smells coming out of the door, and several empty vials tied together with string by the entrance. To the right was a room with several pieces of leather with something written on them and even some long chunks of wood with pictures and more writings.
The actual houses or bedrooms seemed to be only on the second floor and maybe beyond. It was hard to tell right now if there was a third floor or not, especially since, from Hera's point of view, the second floor didn't match the height of the balconies outside. Now, they were heading to a room that was on the opposite end of the entrance, but this looked much more like an office. A place where people would come when they had to talk about something important or something that not everyone should hear. Another interesting thing was that the man with a wooden mask was dragging a large piece of wood toward that room.
"What is this place?" Bonnie asked.
"I already told you. This is a prison, but most of us are free to go wherever we want," the old man explained.
"A prison? Why don't you all leave then?" Shane asked.
"Come inside. Here we can talk," the elder gestured for the party to go in while the man with the wooden mask was setting up the wooden board against the wall in a way where everyone could see the painting on it. It was a large map but before paying attention to it, Hera looked around. As they walked inside the room, everyone noticed how the place was almost cozy. There were a few hammocks and small pillows that could be used to sit down on the ground and a couple of wooden chairs. The elder walked to one of those and sat down while the man in the wooden mask was still standing beside him.
"First of all, let's start with some introductions. I am Multrak. The village elder. Although this is mostly a title because of my age, not because of anything else," the old man explained.
"Don't say that. You know we all respect you. And you are the strongest person here," the man in the wooden mask added.
"Sure you do, and I'm only strong because of what I did. Not because I deserve it. Any of you could be much stronger than I am if you had my skills," Multrak turned to the man with a wooden mask, "And would you introduce yourself, or do I have to do it as if you were a child?"
"Sorry," the man turned to the group, "I'm Grilat. I'm the captain of the guard here."
"Do it properly," Multrak said without even looking at Grilat, "They need to know what can happen here."
"But some of them are cute!" Grilat gasped, but Multrak just hit his shin with the cane that was in his hand, "Ouch! Fine, fine." Grilat grumbled and removed his mask, making Bonnie and Adriel gasp. Once upon a time, the man would be considered handsome. He had plump lips and a nicely shaped nose that didn't bring too much attention to it but helped frame the face, his cheekbones were a little pronounced but not to the point of it being weird, and his one working eye had a beautiful shade of green. However, all that was put to the side when looking at the massive scar that crossed his face. Starting from above his right eye, there was a set of two claw marks that went all the way to his chin. His right eye was also scarred, showing the man was half blind. The nose was split into three, right above and below the bridge, and the left nostril was gone. Both of his cheeks also had some missing spots, which showed everyone his teeth all the time.
"See! Now the cute one is afraid of me," Grilat looked at Bonnie and then put his mask back on.
"I'm sorry," Bonnie replied.
"Don't be. It's better to look like this than to be in the ground. And, believe it or not, some people are into this," Grilat pointed at his face.
"If there are people like that, why are you saying she's cute? Are you not with them?" Hera asked, already feeling protective over her friend.
Multrak chuckled, "Yes. Why are you and Toraz not together?"
Grilat sighed, "Look if a woman gets turned on by something like this, she's trouble. Trust me."
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"I mean, he has a point. I don't want to offend you, but if you are dating someone who likes scars to that degree, that's a major red flag," Alex nodded.
"Red flag?" Multrak asked, unsure what that meant.
"Oh. It's just an expression. It means it's a warning sign. Basically, it's a way of realizing the person is trouble before anything big happens," Alex explained.
"That fits her perfectly," Grilat huffed.
Multrak laughed, "I'll be sure to tell her you said that."
Grilat stared at him for a moment, "You do realize that there are easier ways to get me killed, right?"
"But those wouldn't be as fun," Multrak smirked and turned back to Hera and her group, "Now, back to the topic at hand. Like I said, this place is a prison. Every single person who is sent here was sent here because they committed a crime. A violent or severe crime. Most of us are murderers, and we have a few serial killers, a couple of rebels, and a particularly prolific identity thief. Despite that, you don't have to worry. No one is going to try to hurt you. It doesn't matter what they did in the city. Here we take care of each other. We may be a rough bunch, but if anyone tries to harm you in any way, all you have to do is say, and that person will be banished."
"Really? Just like that? No questions asked?" Helena asked.
"Of course not. If something were to happen, we would have to figure things out, but we have people who can take a small glimpse into the past, just like the ones that do that kind of thing in the city. Now, it would be better if you told me what you did to be sent here, but I understand that this might not be something you want to do. At times, we have people who neglect children to the point of almost killing them or something that is not well received by most, and they prefer to keep it to themselves. If that's the case with you, that's fine, but then we will have to consider that you have the longest possible sentence, which would be life."
"Are there many people serving life sentences here?" Mylo asked.
"Just one. Me. Also, if I'm not mistaken, we don't have anyone else serving in a sentence right now. If they want to, they could go back to the city," Multrak continued.
"And why don't they? Why do they stay here?" Blue asked.
"Because life here is easy or easier, at least. Sure, we might be in danger, but we know what we have to do, and we know that everyone is trying to help each other. No one's going to try to get a leg up on you to get a better job or to marry someone better. Not to mention we don't have to deal with the nobles, which honestly is probably more than half the reason why we stay," Grilat added.
"We also don't have to worry about money. We always have food on the table and a place to sleep; if we need new clothes, all we have to do is ask. After living here for a long time, I realized that when we remove some aspects of the civilized world, life becomes much more pleasant, no matter the situation," Multrak said with a smile.
"That does sound nice," Adriel nodded.
Hera looked at the elf and thought about his confession and how the guild would oppress new civilizations for money. If that wasn't something they needed, maybe those people wouldn't have to suffer, "Yeah… It does."
"With that out of the way, let's talk about what we actually do here. We could come back to any questions you have later. The Vanguard, which is the name of this place, was created to protect the city. And by city, I mean the ziggurat, not this village. Our job is to travel Into the woods and look for any monsters that might be a problem or have the potential to be problems. We also have to control the population of many of the creatures that exist in the jungle. The Boulder of Vine that you fought is one of said monsters. One of the strong ones, I mean," Multrak gestured to the wooden board behind him that had a map of the room, with several marks signaling the territories of creatures and some strong monsters.
"But why did you stop us from killing that one? We were struggling, but I think we would have managed to get rid of it," Alex asked.
"That's because of a different monster that we are already planning to defeat," Multrak pointed to a marker east of the city. The marker itself was made out of leather, and it had a name written on it, 'Night River.'
"That bastard is a… Honestly, I don't even know what it is. Part wolf, part gorilla, part water. We've tried killing it several times already, and we couldn't. The problem is not that it's strong or anything like that, but since it's made of water, it's very hard for us to be able to deal some actual damage. Even with spells," Grilat clicked his tongue, "We spent days tracking it and trying to get rid of it, but every time that thing was about to die, it would just become water and seep into the forest floor to escape."
"We don't have a way of stopping it from doing that, and if we try to dig up the water, we would have to destroy the jungle's trees. Destroying them is not a problem for some moral reason or anything. It's just very difficult to do, and by the time we managed to clear an area, we would have lost the Night River's tracks," Multrak continued, "But a couple of weeks back, one of our Scouts saw something very unique. A fight between the Boulder of Vines and the Night River. The wolf-monkey tried to use that ability to escape the vines, but the sentient shrub was able to stop it from transforming and even pulling it back from the ground. In the end, the Night River won that battle, but he wasn't able to kill the Boulder of Vine. That's when we developed this plan. We will attack the Night River and the Boulder of Vine at the same time. When Night River tries to escape, we will lure the boulder of fine to that area in hopes that it will notice its wounded enemy and change focus. As long as we are not appearing to be a direct threat to it, I believe it would do just that."
"Honestly, the plan was a bit far-fetched. We were counting on several odd things for it to work. But now, we might have a better shot thanks to the two of you," Grilat gestured to Blue and Hera.
"Why us?" Hera asked.
"Because, we would have two legacies to help us with this plan, instead of just mine. But before anything, what can your legacy do? We need all information we can get to see if our plans will change," Multrak replied.
Hera and Blue glanced at each other. Sharing information about a legacy was always tricky, but Sammy, who was still in the room just staying very quiet, spoke up, "You can tell him. It's not like they will be able to find your legacies anyhow. Besides, we need their trust if we are going to figure out how the curse started."
Hearing that, Blue started to explain what Stormcloud was and how it worked. Hera was still a bit iffy, but then again, this was the past. Sharing that information wouldn't harm anyone. Besides, she was pretty sure she could run away from this place even if they attacked her. She used her [Observe] a few times as they walked through the village, and no one here was at a higher level than her party.