“YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!” The plantation owner screamed at me from his bound position in the dirt. He was an older man, strangely overweight in comparison to most of the Veredenese I had met. His formerly well-kept grey hair was wild and hanging over his reddened face as he struggled against the ropes I’d bound him with.

And I was currently in the process of freeing all of the Sculpted he had bound with slave bonds.

How the Herztalian upper class had convinced themselves it was okay to enslave the Sculpted, when the institution itself was outlawed, I would never know.

That was nobility for you, I guess.

I only spared the slaver a single disinterested glance before I got back to work. Gently, I lowered my Bond Breaker down onto the exposed back of the female stone Sculpted that was anxiously waiting for her turn. Luckily, this one wasn't one of the near zombies that sometimes occurred with Sculpted slaves, like I had seen with Pete back in Marrowmist. All around me were over a dozen different Sculpted of all different compositions, watching with still disbelieving eyes as I broke the unbreakable.

They were, all of them, free now. This was the last Sculpted I had to free at this particular location.

I exerted the tiniest amount of pressure at the point of contact, and the sharpened prongs of the Breaker pierced the Sculpted’s rocky exterior. She shuddered from the sensation, and those shudders only increased when I depressed the activation rune on my creation.

Below me on her back, her slave brand shone briefly with Aetherial light, and then vanished forever. When it was gone, I stepped back from the Sculpted woman as she rose up from her kneeling position in the dirt of the farm unsteadily. Her fellow former slaves rushed to support her.

I glanced over them briefly, gave the distracted and celebratory Sculpted a nod of acknowledgment, and turned to leave.

I had other plantations to get to, after all.

However, I was stopped by the sound of a voice. I normally wouldn’t care about what they had to say, but the particular words halted me in my tracks.

“Y-you….damned ELF!” The slaver sobbed to himself, catching the attention of the now freed Sculpted. “YOU’VE RUINED ME! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FEED MY FAMILY NOW!?”

I spared said family a brief glance, as I felt irritation well up inside of me. They were watching the proceedings with frightened eyes from the doorway of the farmhouse that rested on this plantation. An older teenage boy was standing protectively in front of his mother and two twin younger sisters, all of them well-dressed, and all of them obviously…well-fed, let’s say.

I don’t even know why. It’s not like I had threatened them.

Oh, fuck it. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know.

It was because of my growing reputation, here on the outskirts of Elderwyck. I had been doing this for four days now, and that was more than enough time for word to spread about the ‘Elf’ that was freeing slaves in the area. And naturally, because I was supposedly an ‘Elf’, I was doing it by slaughtering all of the masters and doing unspeakable things to their corpses.

I resented the implication. I hadn’t killed a single person in my personal campaign against the slave owners of the Duchy of Elderwyck. Maybe a bit of…roughing up, but no life’s blood had been spilled.

Honoka had been irritatingly prescient about how my new features would be received by the populace. It was doubly irksome because nobody had actually seen said ears during my campaign. I had never let down my hood or removed my mask at any of the near dozen locations I’d hit over the last few days. You could only really see the impression of longer ears under said hood, and apparently, that was enough for the Herztalians.

I was finding that cultural fear of the Elvish was pretty common among the populace.

To my dismay, that had even extended to the Sculpted.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw many of the former slaves I had just freed suddenly become wary at the words of their ‘master’.

I’d only been like this for a few days, and I was already sick of it.

I turned away from the sobbing slaver in the dirt without a word and prepared to leave. He didn’t deserve my acknowledgment. Hell, the Sculpted could do with him what they wished. Far as I was concerned, it wasn't any of my business. As I walked away into the nearby forest, however, more words reached me from the last Sculpted I had free.

“Thank you…” I heard the stone woman say in a near whisper.

I smiled slightly, not pausing in my stride. I normally wouldn’t have heard that, but my new ears were good for something at least. They seemed to have boosted my Perception to a degree.

They let me know that at least one of them was still grateful.

I disappeared into the forest to plan my next move.

……………………………..

A few hours later, night had fallen upon the Duchy of Elderwyck. And I…

Was holed up in front of a small tent, looted from a plantation I had raided.

I honestly didn’t feel bad about it at all. Rhazal’s assault on the city of Elderwyck itself hadn’t lasted long enough to spread across the countryside to a huge degree, and thus it had been…mostly spared the depredations of the Revenants.

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With my activities, it hadn’t been hard at all to keep myself supplied and 'housed', so to speak.

I poked at the campfire I had set up in the familiar clearing I had chosen, sending a shower of sparks up into the sky to join the rising smoke. As they did so, I glanced around where I had chosen to hole up while I waited for the Army of the Uprising to reach the region.

I’d ended up where it had all began, here in Elderwyck. The meeting point that Baldric and Liora had arranged for themselves before infiltration. The barn that the Gnoll woman had fought off an assault from SED forces.

Well, former barn.

Baldric had burned it down, after all.

There wasn’t much left of the structure, at this point. His deliberate arson had reduced the battle site to little more than a few charred standing timbers, poking out of a section of scorched grass and earth. It had been a few weeks by now, so there were already starting to be indications of new growth in the patch. Of the previous battle Liora had fought here, no more traces existed.

Which had been the entire point, I supposed.

And…I was brooding again.

Damnit.

It’s not like I was alone here, either. I had more than enough responsibilities at my new camp to keep me occupied.

Speaking of…

I heaved myself to my feet with a tired grunt, and approached the group of horses hitched to a nearby tree, carrying an ‘acquired’ sack of oats and a brush. Their ears flicked in my direction, but they knew me.

“And how are you today, Marquis?” I murmured to the black-coated equine, holding out a handful of oats for him.

The horse that the Thunderheart tribe had gifted to me just snorted at my words. Still, he accepted the offering with no complaint, munching on the oats placidly. While he did so, I did some basic care on the animal, brushing his coat out and inspecting him for any issues. When I was done with him, I moved on to the other two horses. Charlie, the large draught horse meant for Sylvia, gave me no problems at all. Meanwhile, the pony that had previously belonged to Baldric, Poppy…

Well, she was a biter. I swear the little shit tried to take a few fingers along with the oats I gave her. Still, I cared for her just as well as I did the others. I wouldn’t hold her ornery nature against her.

When I was done, I stepped back and considered the three beasts of burden. I was…glad, that I had thought to retrieve them upon escaping the city. They had been left with a stablemaster back in the Stacks before we had slipped our way into Elderwyck, and it had been hard to slip back out to check on them during our campaign. I’d worried about them, but there had been little I could do.

I had been right to be worried, it turned out. I had no idea how the stablemaster had treated the horses in life, but he was…very likely dead by now.

Along with most of the Stacks.

When I moved through that area, it had been mostly a ghost town. There had only been a few frightened faces that peaked through ramshackle shanty-town, when before they had been downright bursting with refugees. Most of the occupants had been lured into Nerexxa’s trap to be used as sacrifices for her ritual to awaken Rhazal, and those that had been left? Well, it seemed like the Revenants had mowed through a good number of them.

Most of the Stacks were little better than splinters at this point.

A sad, tragic end to a cornucopia of already tragic stories.

Thankfully, the stable itself had still been standing, even if it had been abandoned. The horses inside, including my three rescues, had been weak and starving at that point, locked up in their stalls as they had been. I’d put off my plans to free the Sculpted in the countryside by nearly half a day just feeding and watering those horses, before ultimately setting them loose.

Maybe they’d have a better life, out in the grasslands. I sure as hell couldn’t care for all of them.

But I had taken these three with me. Even if Sylvia was too comatose to care for Charlie, and Baldric was…well.

Gone.

It was still the right thing to do.

I kept my breath even as I stood there watching the grazing horses. I didn’t even turn my head before I called out into the air of the clearing. “You can come out now,” I said aloud, my tone calm and unbothered. “I know it’s you, Liora.”

Silence, for a moment, before I heard a pair of padded feet impact the grass behind me. I didn’t flinch, even with as close as she had been to me.

I’d known my comrade had been watching me for a while now.

After all the times I had been surprised lately and paid the price for it, I was keeping a closer watch on Lifeblood Sense. The slow pounding of her heart had alerted me to her presence, even when I had no other indication as to it.

“You’ve gotten better at that,” The Gnoll woman said quietly from behind me. I hummed in acknowledgment as she moved up to stand next to me, but didn’t say anything. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, only mildly surprised to see that although Liora had been sneaking around, she wasn’t in Nocturne gear. I hadn’t forgotten Baldric’s final request to her, after all.

I don’t think she had, either.

We stood there in silence for a moment, simply watching the horses mill about in the light cast by my campfire. I didn’t have much to say, but I eventually became aware of Liora’s attention lingering on me.

She was…just looking at me in silence.

I didn’t blame her. It’s not like I was wearing my hood and mask at my own campsite after all.

What would be the point?

“A final gift…” I said roughly, glowering out at the horizon about the tree line. Elys was obscured by clouds tonight, and I was only slightly able to see her waning crescent form through the haze. “From Rhazal.”

“Yes, I heard,” Liora answered, to my surprise. Her lips quirked mirthlessly at my attention. “I made contact with the remaining Division members. Wisp informed me of your…affliction,” She sighed and changed the subject. “Do you require assistance in your task?”

Wisp, huh. I...guess she had seen more under my hood than I'd thought.

I’m glad we weren’t pretending she didn’t know exactly what I was doing out here. Still, I shook my head. “No…I can handle this,” I said, and then chuckled lowly. “It’s not like a bunch of weak slave drivers can match me. What guards I’ve encountered…well. Let’s just say they haven’t been a problem.”

Liora nodded shallowly. “There are rumors in the city now, about the Elf that’s going around and freeing the Sculpted,” She said, to my frustration.

“An Elf...” I sighed. I changed the subject. “Has the Army been sighted?”

Liora took the change in topics with good faith. She was smart enough to see I didn’t want to talk about it. “Yes, it has,” She nodded. “They should arrive by tomorrow. I thought to come and fetch you from your…task.”

I shook my head. “I’m not done. I…there are only a few more plantations left in the area. Once they’ve all been liberated I’ll…” I fell silent, before speaking hesitantly. “Has there been any change with Sylvia?”

Liora silently shook her head.

“Alright,” I breathed. “Grey can handle it then. He has his task and I…I have mine. I’ll…check in when I’m done. I doubt the Army is going anywhere soon.”

“You would be surprised,” Liora muttered lowly, to my own surprise. When I turned to her with a raised eyebrow, she shook her head. “Simply some unsubstantiated rumors I’ve heard. Don’t take too long, Hart. The war isn’t over, just because of a risen and defeated Calamity. It might accelerate faster than you think.”

With that, Liora abruptly took her exit, as I had long noticed was a habit with her. The Gnoll woman simply walked into the woods and vanished from sight. Moments later, I felt her heartbeat fade into the distance.

I ground my teeth in frustration for a moment at Liora’s suspicions, before turning away from the horses. I strode up to my campsite and started to kit myself out once more.

If I didn’t have much time to finish my self-imposed assignment, then I needed to get back to work.

A night assault would probably work just as well, on my last few targets.