Gilbert sat in the warmth of his generously sized campfire, calmly puffing away with his pipe and slowly whittling chips off from a piece of wood he had picked up nearby.
On his admittedly shameful retreat to avoid any possible responsibilities imposed on him by the promise between his cursed, young form and Yulia, he had spent the first couple of days contacting the scholars in Valor, who might have had some idea about the origin of the forces that had managed to kill the so called baron of iron – who was apparently somehow Sylvia’s son. However, when each and every one of his inquiries returned fruitless, he had more or less given up on the search for the time being but didn’t feel like it was appropriate to return to the inn yet.
And so, there he was, camping in the unfinished foundations of the castle Anastacia’s goblin tribe were building for her. It had sturdy walls that blocked wind well enough, and the goblins had somehow managed to lean massive trees over the wall and support them with pillars to create a part of a roof. While it did require a bit more work, it shielded Gilbert from any snow that could have fallen at any moment. All in all, it was a very good and peaceful place to camp for a few more days, before Anastacia would return from her quest and gather most of the attention, allowing him to quietly sneak into the inn like nothing had happened.
His little, green hosts were more than welcoming for the ‘man of huge’ that had accompanied their queen on her visits several times, and Gilbert was starting to like the overexcited buggers as well. He could most certainly appreciate their utterly careless way of life, free of worries regarding age, women, difficult protegees and the like, where they simply did what they wanted at all times.
The rent for the stay was rather reasonable as well; in exchange for the partly completed roof over his head, a bit of aid in locating animals when hunting and water from the well he and Anastacia had instructed the goblins to dig before the winter, he was asked to make spoons. Gilbert did not know why or what the goblins needed them for, but wooden spoons was what they wanted, and he was only happy to provide them, as it gave him something to do.
The adventurer had offered the tribe a chance to warm themselves by the fire as well, but the cold appeared to have no appreciable effect on the barely clothed creatures. They rolled in the frozen grass and ran about in the wind just as much as they had done during the summer and only really came to the campfire to touch the campfire and get burned by the flames before running out and screaming something about a ‘holy flame’. This appeared to happen several times to the same goblins, so nothing resembling learning was happening in their lumpy little heads for sure.
Deep in his thoughts, Gilbert didn’t notice a knot in the handle of his eleventh, almost complete wooden spoon. The thin piece of wood gave up as he was doing the finishing touches and his knife slipped slightly, grazing the adventurer’s thumb and slitting open a decent bit of it.
Without yelling or cursing, he placed down his tool and craft, washed the wounded digit with a bit of freezing water and tied it with a simple piece of linen, figuring it to be good enough until he was able to have Emilia take a look at it, after all, it wasn’t the first cut he had gotten – and unlikely to be the last one either.
As he was about to pick up the now broken spoon, one of the goblins dashed to him and snatched the pieces from the stone floor of the castle in progress. It looked at the two bits of the spoon in utter confusion as it held one in each hand.
“Don’t worry, I can still make more.” Gilbert comforted the critter and picked up a new piece of wood.
“There… there was stick in spoon?!” The goblin asked in disbelief and showed the spoon’s handle to the adventurer.
Gilbert sighed. “Yes, but don’t go and snap all of them. I actually put effort into this.” He said but even before he was able to finish his sentence, the mind blown goblin had ran outside to tell its tribe about the incredible discovery.
Kissing his hours of work goodbye, Gilbert started to pack his pipe before starting on spoon number twelve. He picked up a burning stick from the campfire and used it to light the pipe, and while making sure it had lit properly, he absentmindedly used the charred branch to scribble the emblem the party had found on the corpses in the baron’s keep; the left half of an eight-pointed compass rose combined with the right half of a skull.
It was definitely strange, that despite their deaths occurring somewhere around half a century ago, there appeared to be no one that studied their ways or culture. Nearly every ragtag band of knights and warriors was mentioned somewhere in some researcher’s notes or surveys, but not a single clue of the warriors who had killed the baron was to be found.
As he tried to make sense of things and plan where he would take his search next, Gilbert suddenly heard a series of wandering footsteps. The rustling of frozen grass under their feet revealed that they belonged to someone considerably larger and heavier than a goblin, though nothing as large as the adventurer himself. Based on the sound, the person or thing walking outside was almost directly on the other side of the stone wall, but strangely, their movement stopped as soon as Gilbert had noticed them, almost like they knew that they had been discovered.
Gilbert made sure his sword was next to him before speaking up. “I know you are there. If your intentions are to harm these creatures or me, come and we’ll have our tussle – if not, I have a fire with mostly vacant sides around it.” He said firmly but didn’t bother standing up.
A few seconds passed before he got his response.
“Umm… Does this… whatever this is, have a door?” Said a voice of a young woman that immediately sounded somehow familiar to Gilbert.
The voice itself didn’t belong to anyone the old adventurer could have claimed to remember, but something in the way they spoke and their very light accent was definitely one he had heard before, often even.
The person walked almost all the way around the castle, giving up right before they would have seen the collapsed part of the wall that functioned as a door. Instead of waiting for an answer, they started climbing with what seemed plenty of difficulty. Cursing a bit before slipping and falling, only to soon try again, this time throwing their satchel bag over the wall first.
What slowly levered itself over the top of the wall, was a young human girl, in her early twenties. Only ten to twenty centimeters taller than Anastacia and entirely wrapped in what seemed like several layers of fresh, untanned animal skins. They had been cut and stitched to loosely resemble clothing but were still a rather macabre sight. Her short, black hair was messy and partly covered by a light blue hood, belonging to whatever she wore under the slowly rotting winterwear.
From the top of the wall, the girl glanced at the opening only a few meters from where she was and quietly lowered herself inside the castle. Picking up her satchel and sitting down next to the fire, she took her gloves off and began warming her hands.
Finally getting a better look at her face, Gilbert noticed tattoos of ten small icons and symbols on her light brown cheeks, lined directly under her deep brown eyes. Each one different from one another and just slightly too small to make out without getting a bit closer to the woman than he was, at the moment, willing to get. Under two of the symbols, first and fourth from the left under her left eye, there was a red streak that tapered and faded roughly halfway to her jawline.
Now settled into the warm glow of the fire, the mysterious young woman turned her rather intense stare towards the adventurer. She squinted and was clearly trying to figure out something about him. “Have we met before? I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere.” She asked and wiggled her fingers to warm them up more.
“Not that I know of.” Gilbert answered, keeping his own suspicions to himself. There was a remote chance that the girl was a new adventurer he hadn’t met, but more often than not, he would have known about new arrivals to the city regardless.
“Oh well. They call me Iris, pleased to meet you…?” She said, inquiring for a name, and offered her hand for a more formal greeting.
“Gilbert, and likewise.” The adventurer grunted and shook the woman’s hand swiftly.
As if she had come to a sudden realization, Iris rubbed her chin and nodded. “So, Gilbert, you’re an adventurer then?” She asked in a way that made it seem like she was simply confirming something she already knew.
Gilbert frowned. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, the location for one, we’re right next to your precious city.” Iris laughed and pointed in the general direction of Valor. “That and no one besides adventurers and lunatics would willingly camp in this frozen nightmare.”
Iris must have not been used to cold at all, as while it was definitely nippy, it was nothing a cloak, a warm pair of socks and good gloves wouldn’t solve, especially during the day.
“Which one are you then? I don’t think I’ve seen you in the city.” Gilbert stayed on the defensive.
Iris smiled happily and ignored the question. Instead, she opened her bag, took out a small parcel that she rolled open, revealing a rather sad collection of edible roots, nuts and a dry piece of bread that had been nibbled on sparingly. Most of it appeared to be collected from nearby, as the species of plants they belonged to were familiar to the seasoned adventurer. Trying to find food in the forest was considerably harder during the winter, but not impossible.
Gilbert had no intention to trust the stranger, but seeing a young woman excitedly eat table scraps was most definitely not what he was about as a man. It hit him into his being so hard that he simply couldn’t even bear to watch it for more than a moment.
“Do you not have any actual food with you? I have plenty of venison with me, so I was going to make a stew soon and don’t mind sharing some.” He grunted and tossed out the ingredients for a hearty meal from his backpack. Since he never intended to travel too far, the weight of his equipment wasn’t an issue, so the adventurer had picked up more food than normally, justifying it to himself by repeating how important it was to not run out of energy in the cold. For the small keg of mead next to him, he had no excuses.
Terribly failing at pretending the offer wasn’t tempting, Iris, shook her head. “I’m sorry but eating flesh just isn’t something I do.” She said and sadly gnawed on a piece of root.
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“I have mushrooms, we can just leave out the meat if that’s the problem? I’ll just eat it later.” Gilbert suggested and took out the small cauldron he carried. People who didn’t eat meat weren’t uncommon in Valor, as many adventurers hailing from tribes and groups more attuned with nature at the very least avoided it, so knowing some common replacements for it was often useful for someone who led parties on quests. Though it did seem odd that Iris appeared to have killed several animals for her slowly decaying clothes.
“Legitimately did not know that was a thing you could do – I don’t cook much…” Iris admitted as her mouth watered over the prospect for real, nutritious, and above all else, hot meal. “How about this: I will stich your wound in exchange for the stew? And worry not, I qualify as a doctor” She proposed excitedly and gave Gilbert the least trustworthy-feeling thumbs up he had ever seen.
Gilbert nodded. “On one condition. You’ll tell me what a doctor is doing here of all places, alone.” He demanded and began chopping the ingredients into the cauldron.
“I qualify as a doctor, but let’s leave that subject there.” Iris corrected him and collected her meager scraps of food back into her satchel. “Well, I suppose it’s not much of a secret. My… family got the word of a sizeable army gathering some distance from here, so I was dispatched to look into what they were about to do. Seeing that they were heading directly towards Valor, it got pretty clear that those poor bastards weren’t going to be anyone’s problem soon enough. So, since I was here already, I figured I’d get to know the local wilderness – it is a bit of a passion of mine.”
“I see… Why on earth would anyone bring an army here? Well, I hope the officials manage to convince them to just go back to their families, an army isn’t going to be doing much good here.” Gilbert muttered and continued cooking. “And you just happened to stumble upon this place then?”
Iris tossed the piece of bread she had to a particularly curious goblin that kept staring at her from the entrance of the castle. “Well, some of the beasts of these lands told me there were goblins nearby, and I wanted to find some.” She explained, definitely slowly adding weights to the ‘lunatic’ side of the scale in Gilbert’s head.
The adventurer stopped what he was doing for a while. “The beasts… told you?” He worriedly asked for a clarification.
“In a language we all share: biology!” The girl revealed and cheered for herself. “I found some goblin bits in the stomach of a bear. Fascinating creatures by the way; they’re entirely indigestible and come out looking exactly like they did going in – like loud, green corn!”
Gilbert nodded awkwardly and made a mental note to leave, if the girl planned on staying for the night, not only because of the nonsense she spoke of, but because one of the animal skins on her was definitely torn from a bear.
“But what about you, Gilbert?” Iris asked suddenly. “Why is an adventurer camping out here, in the cold, when their city with its pleasures and leisures is right there? Running away from something?”
Thinking about his answer while pouring water into the cauldron, the adventurer figured that either Iris was going to try and dissect him at some point, or they would part ways and likely never meet again. In either case there was next to no risk of her leaking what she heard to anyone in Valor. It could very well have been the only chance he would ever get to have some second opinions on his troubles.
“Running away is one way to put it. You see, there’s this lass-“ He started but was immediately interrupted.
“Half your age plus seven years is the lower limit.” Iris blurted out. “Unless she’s over twenty and you have tons of money, land or power, then the rule doesn’t matter as much.”
“I… didn’t know there was a rule.” Gilbert said and scratched his head. “But that’s not the point. What I was about to say that I’m way older and my job is more than likely to get me killed sooner or later, so I don’t think-“
Interrupting the adventurer again Iris rummaged through her bag and pulled out a slightly bloody linen wrap with something in it. “Yes, yes, how terrible indeed, tragic almost! But what does your heart really say about the whole thing?” She asked while unraveling the worrying lump.
“Is that a heart? Please tell me it’s not a heart.” Gilbert sighed and didn’t even bother to act surprised when Iris revealed a freshly extracted heart that still dripped coagulated lumps of blood on her clothes. “Just tell me it isn’t from a person.”
Iris stared into her bag for a while before responding. “I’m almost certain this is from a boar… or a deer, but I’m absolutely completely utterly sure that this one isn’t from a person!” She smiled and carried on speaking with the organ in her hand. “You see, heart is by far the most reliable of the organs. Your brain gets full of thoughts, ideas, worries and the like, so much so that it clogs up and becomes useless. That is not the case with the heart. Heart has all the answers it needs and will ever need, you give it an issue and it tells you what to do, without hesitation or doubt. That’s why it houses a considerable portion of your will, and why you should at least consult it at times, instead of trying to rack your brains over some non-issue.”
Gilbert couldn’t take his eyes off the spare organ Iris held in her hand like it was a tiny animal. “A good idea, but I still don’t know why you’ve got a heart or why you had to take it out.” He worried.
“Just felt appropriate for the point I was making.” Iris shrugged and flicked off a lump of blood from one of the arteries still attached to it. “Anyway, before my bo- my mother got sick, she told me that my ability to read the room is that of a potato’s, but I have a heart of a saint. That’s why I should do my best to see the world, it’s people and the places they live in, so that it can for sure get the rest of the answers it needs to help me guide my siblings to always do the right thing.”
“I’m not sure she meant it literally, but I don’t know your family.” The adventurer commented, but knowing he would just get interrupted again, he left it at that.
Iris carefully began wrapping the heart with the linen again while resuming to the original issue. “But what I was saying, is that don’t let your brain just look at the reasons to not do something and then decide that it’s not worth it. It’s very good at doing that, but one day it’ll realize that you got old and have nothing to show for it.” She prattled on and put the bloody lump back into her satchel, only to take out a small, leather bound kit of sewing equipment. “Now, let’s have a look at that fingy of yours.”
In her kit, Iris had a few curved needles, a pair of very fine-tipped pliers and a bundle of thin, white strands of something she presumably used as sutures. While holding one of the needles in the fire, she noticed Gilbert worriedly stare at the pieces of thread that were about to hold his thumb together.
“They’re made from sinew, very cutting edge! I just made them not too long ago so they’re in good condition too.” She said proudly and handed the bundle over.
Gilbert took a look at the slightly yellowed thin strands and tested their strength. He had heard of sinew being used for sutures before, but in valor it had never caught on. “These are made from the boar too?” He joked and handed them back.
The supposedly qualified girl paused for a few seconds and stared at the wall behind the adventurer, avoiding his look. “They’re made from sinew, very cutting edge!” She repeated just as proudly as before and smiled brightly.
After carefully choosing between letting the wound fester for a few days or allowing the extremely suspicious stranger to treat it, Gilbert removed the bandage from his hand and showed the cut to Iris.
Grasping his hand with a surprising amount of force, Iris inspected the wound and cleaned it with a bit of water. “Well, at least you didn’t cut anything important, but you got lucky I happened to come by. This could have been pretty bad after a while.” She muttered.
As the girl spoke, Gilbert could feel his hand go strangely numb, to a point where he could barely feel the needle working its way through his skin. Whether it was the eagle-like grip that blocked his blood flow, or some kind of trickery, he didn’t mind. Being sutured without something to numb the pain was not a great experience, but one he was familiar with.
While their stew began to quietly bubble on the fire, Gilbert patiently smoked his pipe and waited as the girl stitched together his finger. To distract himself, he decided to listen to her advice and started to think about the positives in what would happen if he stopped running away from Yulia. The first one that came to his mind was rather obvious and did not need further pondering, but besides that, it would have definitely been nice to have something more than a warm bath and strong drink waiting in the inn. As much as he hated to admit it, he had often found himself to be slightly jealous of what Emilia had.
His daydreaming was interrupted by a faint hum, emanating from his pocket. Though he had expected it to happen, it still caught him a bit off guard. He took a peek at the darkened adventurer’s pearl but didn’t show it to Iris, nor did she question the noise in the first place, in fact, she probably didn’t even notice it from her intense focusing on her work.
Quite a bit of noise from the ensuing battle echoed over to the goblin encampment. Faint screams, roars and explosions were audible even over the general goblin noise that was ever-present in the area, making the lapse in conversation a bit awkward. Whoever she was, Gilbert figured that Iris must have seen her fair share of battles to not be bothered by it, though people who carry around organs probably weren’t the type to get bothered by much in the first place. He was also somewhat glad that Anastacia wasn’t in the city at the time, as the whole thing would have no doubt changed her opinion about it for the worse.
“Aaaaand there you go!” Iris suddenly declared her work to be finished.
Gilbert looked at the neat row of sutures in his hand and was genuinely impressed by the quality of the work, that is, until the returning flow of blood brought the pain back with it. He unintentionally grunted slightly, despite trying to not show it.
“Try not to use the hand for a few days and wash it frequently once it has healed a bit. I don’t know if Valor has apothecaries or whatever, but you might want to pick up something like garlic or oregano ointment.” Iris advised the adventurer and sniffed the blood on her hands. “Also, you should drink less and maybe eat more mushrooms and fish. You’ll thank me later.”
“Oh, it’s okay, I know a priestess that can get this sorted.” The adventurer said and tried to carefully scratch the wound.
Visibly disgusted and annoyed by the mention of a priestess, Iris waved around her pliers and almost began fuming. “OH! You know a priestess, do you? Let me just take those stitches off then, so she can magic up some god farts and heal it with her inadequate knowledge on biology and absolutely no skills for surgery!” She yelled with fire in her eyes, loud enough to attract the attention of the goblins and have them gather by the entrance.
Gilbert pulled his hand away, just in case the girl wasn’t being sarcastic, and the tipping point of the meeting had come, where he would run the risk of becoming the next layer of Iris’ winter clothes.
Breathing heavily, Iris looked around and slowly calmed down. She slowly exhaled and put away her tools before turning back to Gilbert. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve put a lot of effort into this, and having someone completely overshadow it like that just ever so slightly annoys me…” She explained.
“I know how that feels.” The adventurer admitted, as he often thought that actually knowing what he was doing was by far his only useful trait for his party.
“Ana- I mean, are you working with someone like that?” Iris stumbled over her on words.
Gilbert laughed heartily. “You have no idea.”
While their stew slowly and steadily cooked and started to spread its mouthwatering scent, the two conversed and shared their annoyances on various subjects. Every now and then, Gilbert tried to find out more about Iris, but the girl very skillfully avoided answering questions in a way that revealed anything. Regardless, a conversation that wasn’t hindered by the limited speech and comprehension capabilities of goblins was nice for a change.
The sounds of battle faded away soon enough, but they were suddenly shaken up by a few yells from closer by. Gilbert gestured for Iris to stay quiet as he peeked over the wall to see if things were as he feared.
Quickly running towards the camp, were fifteen or so sparingly armored soldiers, who had discarded their weapons, shields and helmets to escape from the adventurers as fast as they could. With the last ounces of their strength and running on pure adrenaline, they appeared to have briefly escaped from their pursuers.
Iris climbed up the wall to see what was going on as well but was pushed down by Gilbert.
“Better we lay low, those men are exhausted, scared for their lives and desperate to survive. They are going to do anything to save themselves. They will not be listening to reason, and if they even for a second think we’re adventurers, they won’t hesitate to kill us or take us hostage.” He whispered. While there hadn’t been a black order issued before during his long stay in Valor, he had been on both sides of battles before that. “If we’re lucky they won’t see the smoke and will just run past.”
Iris nodded. “Okay, but what about the goblins? We can’t let them get hurt.” She asked worriedly.
Gilbert peeked over the wall again and could already see a few of the goblins running directly at the incoming soldiers, either intending to defend their lands or greet what they thought were visitors. “Damnit…” He muttered, knowing Anastacia would never forgive him for letting her goblins get into the harm’s way if it was preventable and to a degree, he himself had bonded with them as well during his stay and wanted to save them.