BrokenTree Village, Monster Territory

Everything is so dirty.

Rowan brushed a fleck of ash off his silver armor and moved toward what appeared to be some sort of healing tent, away from the flaming structures in the center of the village—if you could call it that. The structures were all made from scrounged branches and piles of dirt. Hideous living arrangements. They'd be doing these Monsters a favor in the end, rescuing them from this heathen domicile.

The cages were almost full. He avoided eye contact with the beasts within. He couldn't help but feel guilty about his presence for this event—the way it had to happen.

But this was what had to be done. Much preferable to any alternatives. If they asked nicely, the Monsters would resist. This was their home after all, despite the... filth. And they certainly couldn't come in and slaughter them all.

These poor creatures probably had no idea what was going on.

Rowan swallowed the bile rising in his throat as soldiers poked and prodded the Monsters into submission within the cages.

"Be strong," he mumbled to himself, gritting his teeth. This is better.

He'd always been broken like this. His memory flashed back to when he was young, barely able to lift a sword. His brother had been shooting arrows at rabbits for fun. He'd hit one in the neck, the dark blood pouring into the grass, staining the lush, life-filled plants with death. Rowan had found himself curled up in a corner of his bedchamber afterwards, knees tucked to his chest, rocking back and forth. He didn't even remember how he got there or where his mind went during that moment, but when he'd come around, his mother had been sitting beside him, hugging him close.

She’d told him it was okay. That she loved him. That she understood.

He’d believed her for a time. But he knew now that it was the pity speaking for her. He didn’t blame her for feeling that way. How could he, when he felt the same himself?

There was nothing to be done but accept that he was different and fight it.

Watching these Monsters suffer felt the same as that rabbit, though he'd learned to control his visceral reaction more since then.

He didn't want to be here. But, of course, Father had come bursting into his room as he was being fitted for a new uniform, the biggest grin Rowan had ever seen on his wrinkled old face. "It'll make you a man!" he'd said. "It'll remind you where you stand relative to those fodder before you head off to the Academy."

Well, here I stand, Father. In the mud with the rest of them like some wild man.

It had been a hard day's ride to get here with his two personal guards to meet up with the Monster Relocation Squad, though Rowan didn't mind that part so much. Father had insisted he visit Bernadias and request a transportation stone, but if the point of all this was for him to 'become a man,' he wouldn't' take some pathetic teleportation artifact to get here. Why bother the old troll with something to trivial? Besides, it'd been a while since he was free to ride through the countryside.

Rowan glanced back to his white stallion, tied to one of the supply wagons—gifted to him as a foal from his brother on his tenth birthday. They'd both grown much since then. Truviant hadn't even blinked an eye amid all the chaos, though a layer of black ash coated his back.

"Good boy, Tru," he whispered.

The horse nodded, as if he could sense the attention.

"Go search those tents!" one of the squad leaders barked at his soldiers. "And scout the surrounding woods. I don't want any loose ends here."

Two men stomped past, heading toward a row of bushes at the periphery of the village, their weapons drawn.

A form exploded from the nearby tent and barreled into the two men. A mountain of a hammer swung down and crushed one soldier's chest through his armor. The other backed away on his hands and ass. The assailant swung once with his hammer and took the man's head clean off. It flew through the air and rolled to Rowan's feet, disfigured to the point of being a hunk of raw meat and shattered bone rather than a human face.

The killer turned toward Rowan, blood speckled across his face—not a Monster, but a dwarf. What in the Creator's name is a dwarf doing here, living with all these animals?

Rowan glanced around for help as the dwarf stalked toward him, war hammer swinging about his wrist, but no one was close enough. He drew his sword with a sweaty hand as the attacker picked up speed and primed his weapon to strike.

A small blur whizzed through the air over Rowan's shoulder from behind. It felt like it was an inch from his ear.

The dwarf slid to his knees. Blood trickled from a black-hilted dagger in his throat and dribbled down his lips into a mangled beard. He mumbled words as his eyes rolled. A last wish, perhaps? A curse? It didn't matter. Rowan ignored them. Instead, he swung his sword and took off the dwarf's head.

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A fitting retribution.

Leaves rustled behind him and a shadow disappeared into the trees.

Who saved me?

One of his guardsmen came running over and fell to a knee before him, smearing his golden greaves in the dwarf's pool of blood. He wore a horrified expression, likely more worried about his own fate than Rowan's. He gasped for breath before speaking. "Prince Rowan... Are you alright?"

Rowan wiped the blood from his sword on the shoulder of his guardsman's white cape, then sheathed it.

"Sir Auren," he said with as little emotion as he could muster, though his heart was still pounding from the attack. "Please rise. You're making a mess of perfectly good armor." By the Creator, I sound like a prick... Be regal, they say. Speak like royalty, they tell me. He groaned internally.

"Y-Yes, my Prince," he said. Blood dripped from his knees into the brownish red sludge at his feet.

"Where is Dame Killian?"

"She's over there." He pointed toward a wagon near a slovenly mound of mud. "We were helping... One of the cages broke open. I-I came running as soon as I heard something happening."

"Oh, stop your fribbling, Auren. You've been my brother's friend for how many years? Nothing bad is going to happen to you." Rowan held out his arms. "Look, I'm fine! No harm has come to the second son."

He looked down at the guardsman, four years his senior, and wondered how he felt being ordered around by someone younger than him. Talked down to like a servant. That's not how I want it to be, but that's what's expected of me. I'm a prince. Surely, this was the last thing Auren had dreamed of doing after finishing near the top of his class at the Academy and being assigned as a royal guard. He'd much prefer being Uthen's guardsman.

"I hope the King feels the same. My job was to protect you and I failed. Your sword was to stay clean on this venture."

The guardsman clearly hadn't seen the dagger end the dwarf's life before Rowan's swing. Unsurprising, considering it happened so fast. And probably for the best. A few of the other soldiers may have seen something, but they were loyal to the pouches of money they received from the Monster Relocation Squad, not the King, and probably couldn't care less. Their hefty stipend also paid for their silence.

Rowan winked at Sir Auren. "I won't tell my father if you won't." His eyes drifted back to the spot in the trees where he'd seen the shadow, hoping his father didn't already know. The King often sent agents on missions in secret. On one hand, it was comforting to think he cared enough to send someone after his less favored son. On the other hand, Rowan knew he could have handled the dwarf on his own if given the chance.

Always need to have your fingers in everything, eh, Father?

Unless this mysterious savior wasn't his father's doing at all...

He held a hand out to Sir Auren, who smiled weakly as he shook it. "There," Rowan said. "I've already forgotten the entire thing even occurred."

"Well, I'm glad you won't be losing sleep over it," Auren said, finally dropping his formal air.

Rowan laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, forgetting that's where he'd wiped the bloody sword. He wiggled his gloved fingers, now stained red, then removed the glove and tossed it into the mud. "Go fetch Killian and ready the horses. The Squad can finish up here. Now that we've settled the matter with the Monsters, we have an elf to meet."

Rowan arrived at a large cave not a far ride from the Monster village, Auren and Killian riding by his side. Guards sent earlier by his father waited at the entrance. He presented the royal family seal from the chain around his neck and a wax-sealed scroll inked with his father's name: 'King Uthen Regicast VII.'

The guards took their horses and allowed them to pass without fuss.

"This place smells like rat dung," Killian said, brushing back her curly red hair and stretching her arms behind her neck.

"That's probably because you just stepped in rat dung," Auren noted, pointing to her boot.

"She wrinkled her freckled nose. "Well, literal shit. This was my good pair, too."

"You wore your good pair of boots on a mission to a Monster infested swamp and a musty old cave?" Rowan questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Not all of us can afford thirteen pairs of shoes, Rowan," she joked.

"Ten," he said. "I only have ten."

A purple-skinned elf rushed up to greet them from deeper down the tunnel. He bowed—not deep enough to be truly respectful, but just enough that someone less keen might not have noticed.

I'll remember that.

Auren stepped forward. "You're in the presence of Prince Rowan Regicast." He took the scroll from Rowan and unfurled it. "You're the one we were sent to meet? Lakedesh Thorncloak?"

"Yes. Yes. I'm honored and humbled that the King would send someone so... important as his own child to come oversee this discovery."

Rowan couldn't hide the sneer the slid across his face. That tone... What a condescending piece of cave vermin. Few were truly 'honored and humbled' to see the second in line to the throne, a virtual nobody. The first son of the king, always named after the father—Uthen Regicast the whatever numbered—had been crowned king after his predecessor every generation for the past five-hundred years. No one remember the other children's names. No one cared.

This elf certainly didn't. He almost seemed to see it as an insult.

"I'm not here to oversee anything," Rowan said, lifting his chin to present with more decorum. Take the high ground, Rowan. Take the high ground. "I'm merely here to provide a much anticipated report to the King. The mages will be here shortly, led by High Auroch Bernadias himself. I've personally seen to it that the local Monsters have been cleared so evaluations can begin."

"Of course, my Prince." He bowed again, deeper this time.

"Now, show me the Gate."

The elf turned and headed further down the tunnels. With his back to them, Rowan allowed his shoulders to slack and chin to droop as he followed. It was exhausting pretending to be regal all the time. Auren gave him a thumbs up, paired with his winning smile, which only caused him to roll his eyes.

Workers were bustling about the tunnel examining rocks and cave flora, likely investigating for any unusual or magical properties, trying to answer that ultimate question... Why here?

Then they arrived.

An obsidian arch crested above Rowan's head, just like the ones in the Gate Concourse back in New Valour.

"So it's true..." Killian whispered.

The surrounding rock and soil had been dug away, leaving the World Gate alone in a large clearing. It was easy to become complacent at the sight of a Gate when they were all stuffed in a single chamber together. But here, in isolation, illuminated only by the torchlight... there was something imposing about it.

Is the stone of this one darker than normal? Or is that a trick of the shadows?

Where the World Gates in New Valour held shimmering liquidous portals, nothing breach the gap in this arch. The gem embedded in the keystone emitted a faint glow, unlike the brilliant sapphire sparkle of an active Gate.

They all stood there, speechless, and though no words crossed Rowan's lips, many questions raced through his mind. Most importantly, why was this Gate deactivated?

And why was it hidden within a wall of rock?