I got everything sorted out as I left, informing the guards that I was supposed to come back so when I did, I didn’t get decapitated. As interesting as that might be in a morbid way, after all, there were quite a few questions it would answer, and as far as showing off went, walking off a decapitation with either a head or extra torso to show off would be up there in how to do it, but it wasn’t something I wanted to show off.
Not only would it be gross, and the result of being negligent in the extreme… But it wasn’t the pace or time for something like that, no matter how you cut it. What would someone think watching me carry around my head? This wasn’t a carnival; it was a rainy hell.
Speaking of rainy hell, the world was that. The runoff was just shy of an inch at its highest, though there were some gutters that helped, carry it; the only way to make it better would be to have storm drains. I spent as little time as was possible under the darkened sky as it continued to weep a torrent, making my way out once I had gotten my shit straight with an uncaring guard and made my way down the road and out of the inner city.
I avoided the pools that formed around low spots and spent as much time as possible in the shadow of the rain the buildings cast.
By the time I got to the district, I could see just how badly the entire city had been hit with my own eyes. Buildings burnt to a crisp, with people numbly sorting through the ruin, seeking anything they could retrieve. Some searched for clothes or heirlooms. Some searched for bodies. People were already checking for the cracked bones of their loved ones.
People, some not many, stumbled through the wreckage and down streets in confused husks.
It was bad, and you could tell how bad it was by the dress of the person. There was a kind of look a place got when there was a lot of death. People often wore black or dark clothes, and some people had other ones, but in human cities, you flew human colours. I had seen it once: a levy had been called, the able-bodied men had been called up, and then many just hadn’t come back home again. The whole city went dark overnight; their clothes stayed that way for weeks. Humans showing humans sympathy.
It was much like that now. Some were in darker tones under a cape while they looked in mourning, but it wasn’t bad enough that they couldn’t go about their days. Then there were those who went unseen, locked in grief, hidden away, but they had enough to overcome the adversity in their way. Those out and about without dark clothes… Those were a wretched sight. They likely didn’t even have the clothes to show it. Amongst them were the stumblers. They looked drunk, many a person holding the look of a man passed out, but not.
They simply couldn’t get back up. They had given up.
A few had died of exposure, their souls I swept up where I could, each a belligerent, confused mess. They went to their afterlife, a wreck.
It was enough to keep me straight after the confusion of my prior conversation.
The destruction where I was moving was muted and contained. People were going through and clearing bodies here. Guards making barricades and firebreaks along the main road had caused the destruction more. Down the streets, toward the edge, the damage would be.
Notably, though, the damage caused by the fighting dwindled even more as I approached the caravans.
There was also a presence of [Caravan Guards], their irregular equipment and dress different from one another and the regular people. While not armoured like a knight, they were visibly armed, even covered in a cloak for the downpour.
Hard stares and heavy hands, weapons meant to keep enemies and arms in reach. Each was trained with more than one weapon and carried them openly. Oiled cloth stretched above; stalls moved to maximize the coverage. There were a dozen types of guard, guarding a dozen caravans worth of merchants, and the one with the biggest sticks wore green.
They dressed lightly, easily covered from a lack of odd shape, with multi-part outerwear. It was a strange kind of wear, held over very little armour, but then again, how could you pull a set of armour over a foot of fur? The mana in the cloth was interesting, though I couldn’t put a finger on why, and I didn’t feel like staring.
They were Beastkin. Almost unanimously. They had a uniformity that was both odd and not odd in that they almost had the exact same weapons, but they were so very strange in the choice and not odd in that they had good picks.
Where some guards would carry a crossbow and a sword or a halberd with a good bord, they had very light weapons: a longbow and several short weapons, a small shield, a long belt knife, survival tools like a hatchet and a small knife, and a leather wrap bound around the hand and made to add to a punch and a short, agile blade. They were built to harass an opponent, not to fight fair and square.
They were more than just [Caravan Guards]; that was obvious; they were more like that crossed with a [Hunter]. Whatever they were, they were not meant for picking off [Bandits], that’s for sure.
I accidentally met some of their eyes for long enough that they paid attention to me specifically, but when they did, when they took me in with their thousand-yard killer stare, they saw something and gave me a brisk nod.
Guthers's talk of the quality matching the Guards rang back to me, about how my gear would match the Human guards, and I could see why she would make the distinction. There were fewer of them, and they were more the common [Foot Soldier] type of the other [Caravan Guards] than the strange Beastkin.
Though, I certainly wouldn’t scoff at some clothes that didn’t cost an arm and a leg to mend. I was wearing a dress, for crying out loud. Even if it wasn’t a fancy one but more of a simple fetching gown, it was still an undersized bedsheet in comparison.
Pushing down the urge to check them with [Inspect], I decided to simply avoid getting flustered and keep dry while I made my way to Gunthers' place.
Quickly letting my legs eat up ground, I slid from cover to cover, doing my best not to drip on goods, making my way through to the main building for her caravan.
As I did, I spotted one and only one building with fire damage, the bodies of what had to have been undead and Gremlins ready to be carted off.
Suspiciously, I found no soul on them, but to the east, some ways I did, as if they had been sliding downhill, slowly but surely being whisked away by non-existent rain. They were spluttering to my senses, the mana of the environment scouring the protective film of experience that gave them their flame-like visage. I plucked up the souls, though one was too far gone, leaving me to pour it into a pot that I quickly slapped some mana into so it would hold the soul safely.
It was an odd sight, surely, but it was unattended. Finders keepers were the law of the land out here, and the cause was worth possibly pissing a random merchant off.
Taking the poor thing underarm in its sealed pot and the souls of the others sent to their final destination, I finished my trek to my target of choice.
Gunthers' lobby had a big wet spot in the middle. A maid tirelessly dried the floorboards beyond where a makeshift mat had been set up to dry shoes.
I had no shoes, and the maid took one look at me and looked like she was biting back a scowl. A passible servant's face barely clawed its way across her, like she had to drag it kicking and screaming.
“I, uh. I don’t suppose you have a spare so I can keep the mess here?” I asked her.
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“I’ll make sure to get that for you. May I ask about your business, miss?” She said in passible cheer, ‘Please leave before you ruin my day any further.’
That was a bit of a read on my part, but I had to try. The woman looked pale and tired. I noted Beatrice's absence. Tuning into the only other person in the room, I answered, “Hello. My name is Saphine. I’m here to meet with Gunther for an order, but I can see Beatrice is out. Is there any chance you’re her second counterpart?”
“Indeed… Honestly, you get sick for a few days, and the whole world changes,” She sighed. “My name is Bellatrix. [Caravan Master] Gunther is in her office, though you will stay until you’re unlikely to rot the floorboards. I’ll be back with a cloth. Don’t shake yourself dry in the meantime, or I'll clip your ears.”
“I…” How the hell was this woman a [Receptionist]? “Yes, eh, I will,” I told her.
She didn’t care to wait for me to agree; she simply demanded it and waltzed off like she was carrying thirty pounds of steel armour and could break floorboards by will alone.
Perhaps she could, if she was strong enough, but why a [Receptionist] would have that kind of strength only confused me. Perhaps it was a secondary class. Perhaps she was some kind of [Labourer]… or a [Warrior Scribe] or something.
Either way, I wasn’t going to piss her off, it would be crossing a line. One where I dripped on her floor and got Gunther, and she pissed off at me. According to Sophy, I was supposed to make friends, not enemies, and I wasn’t going to slip and slide over this. I could be on speaking terms with two [Receptionists]. That would be a 100% improvement.
She came back waving the cloth before hucking it over to me, the ball carrying an inordinate amount of force.
“Ow,” I said reflexively.
“Don’t be a baby. I can tell you were fighting by how ripped up your clothes are. Even if the rain washed you clean, a little towel won’t hurt you any, " she told me crossly before getting back to whipping up.
“The hells is your deal, miss? If you don’t mind me asking. I can understand needing to wipe up after morons, but you’re as cross as a [Aristocrats] family tree,” I told her, getting on with whipping myself down.
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” She said.
I looked out from under the towel and stared at her, unimpressed. “Just spill it already. Don’t give me that incomprehensible nonsense. Believe you me, I can believe in a lot.”
“Hells. Sure. Why not. It's Beatrice; you notice she’s not here?” She asked; the obviousness of her statement got me to huff.
“I can see that. Are you going to spit out why, or are you going to give me a riddle? Out with it!” I told her.
“She was out last night. Visiting a paramour, of all things. What a shit sense of timing.” She said, a note of something I did not like in her voice.
“Are you telling me… That Beatrice when out last night… And she’s?” I asked, hoping that it wasn’t what I was thinking.
I didn’t know her well, but that would just be the fucking way it went, wouldn’t it? I would need to go shepherd her over to the afterlife.
“Yeah. She went out and got jumped. The cow. She went and twisted an ankle, and now she’s piled me with her work… Of all the stupid things,” she said with a huff of indignance.
“Oh, thank the gods. You had me going there, thinking the worst!” I told her, letting out a sigh of relief.
She had only gone out and twisted her ankle.
“What? Oh. I wouldn’t talk ill of her if she was dead. Who do you take me for?” She asked, slightly taken aback at my train of thought.
“The kind that says things in a way that makes people think the worst. Or are you unaware of what happened to the rest of the city last night? Gods above woman, you’re bound to give someone a heart attack after a night like that.” I told her.
“You’re the one that jumped to conclusions. Don’t blame me for an overactive imagination. Honestly, thinking that I’de talk about a dead woman like that. The nerve. Finish drying your feet so you can get out of my hair, you half-naked thing!” She said sourly, turning to get the rest of the spill off the floor before heading into the back.
I did, patting myself down, my thinnish clothes.
I wasn’t naked, the dumbass.
At least she didn’t seem like an asshole, even if she was rough enough around the edges to file down a sword.
Folding up the sheet, I stepped off onto the wood floor, perched the towel atop Bellatrix’s chair, knocked on Gunthers' door, and then showed myself in. I went around to the desk, crouched down, and poked her while she lay in her nest.
She awoke hissing in a feral way that made her sharp-toothed, pointy-eared form look remarkably like a threatened possum or raccoon.
“Gunther, are you allergic to sleeping in a bed? You little goon of a [Merchant],” I told her.
I could practically hear the heart in her chest pounding, with my ears facing straight forward. It was the kind of reaction you only got from a very bad wake-up or a series of them. She was barely lucid, but she was also zoned out, a kind of unresponsiveness to her.
I didn’t poke her, instead letting her come back to herself. She figured out her mouth early on in that process, shouting, “Hells… How long was I out? What time is it?”
“How should I know? It’s early, so I’m guessing you weren’t out long.” I told her.
“Check my desk; there are markings.” She said, “And stop standing around like a horse. Back off so I can get up.”
I did so, letting her crawl up, bed head and all, while I checked the desk. There was indeed an hour glass, though it was a larger one. The glass obviously held more than an hour of sand. Lines marked the glass, banding around the edge.
The rim of the pile lined up halfway between the one and the two.
“It looks like an hour and a half? Or less. Over an hour, though, assuming you didn’t wake up to reset it,” I told her.
“I didn’t, and it took me a bit to get to sleep in the first place. I suppose it's better than nothing, however.” She said, though only half to me, as she got up and stretched out, arm crossed above her head as she stretched backward to pop her back in her night gown.
Looking down at the pipsqueak.
Letting out a tired little sigh, she turned to look up at me. Her messy blond locks, with a slight tint of green, made her look like a four-foot fantasy prince.
“This is just too weird sometimes,” I told her before looking away, “Get dressed, you shameless little tree goblin.”
“Shame is for lesser people,” she said smugly. I’m far above that and your limp insult. You woke me up, so let's talk.”
“Listen, I want and need to talk to you about stuff, but you’ve got to get dressed. Don’t make this weird. I can understand that you’re a wood elf or whatever, but you look too childish for this to be anything but creepy.” I told her.
She sighed, muttering, “I’m more dressed than you are, twig leg. You’re going to have to get used to wood elves eventually. We don’t get to be tall and have colour in our hair till middle age. You’re reliance on the visual outs you as the only child here; if you so fixated on how weird it feels to talk to me, think about how weird it is to talk to someone a fraction of my age, with the same fraction of my experience.”
She made sense, but she also walked over to a cabinet and pulled out some extra clothes, pulling them on and thankfully making herself a little more decent.
“Thank you, oh ancient crone. Though I’ve not come for your ages of experience, I’ve come to pick up the clothes and make sure everything with the caravan is going to go well. We’ll need covers to stop the books from getting wet. I won’t go forward with it if it's just going to destroy them,” I told her.
“I’m not a crone yet, though I do have all the upsides, with none of the downsides. My experience lets me know what we’ll need to excavate those books. I have that covered, even if it means I need to bring some more people. That’s all covered. As are your clothes. Might as well get my cloak out if you’re that impatient. Go and pick them up.” She said, returning to the cupboard to retrieve a hooded cloak.
It was an unfitted length of cloth like the Beastkin's, a square-patterned cloth. Deftly, she wrapped it around her, wearing the cloth like a cloak and holding it to her with a length of similar cloth.
The cloth was very minorly magical, though it was a kind I hadn’t seen before, some mix of Beast and plant mana that flowed, wavering across the fabric like a ripple across a pond. It wasn’t a spell so much as some kind of passive magical effect.
“Is that enchanted? The mana in it is active…” I asked her.
“No, it's from a beast they raise east of the river. Some kind of weird carnivorous sheep. They eat monsters, apparently, so the clan raises them to deal with pests like a guard dog. I have no clue what it does, but it's good stuff. It's ceremonial, so they won’t let me sell it at a price that anyone would buy.” She said.
“What kind of… A guard dog? What’s your go-to answer? That sounds like a monster. A monster-eating monster.”
“Ehh,” Gunther said with a shrug, “Whatever.”
“Sure, let's go,” I said with a sigh before heading to the door. Dressed in her ‘ceremonial’ cloak. We got most of the way to the door before Gunther asked, “Where’s your cloak? And your shoes?”
“My sandals exploded, and I don’t have one. Though I wouldn’t mind getting one, I don’t have a coin on me,” I told her.
She looked me in the eye, squinting like she was trying to stare me in the soul and figure out if I was lying before she sighed sharply.
“Of course you did. Hold on. Bellatrix, can I borrow your cloak for a glass?” Gunther called back to the front desk.
“Sure, I’m not using it,” She called back, not even looking up.
“Go on then,” she said to me, “Take that one over there, on the rack,” she continued, pointing over to the side of the door.
The rack hadn’t been here before, but obviously, Bellatrix didn’t want to do more work than she needed to. It had a mat under it to catch rain.
Reaching out for the only cloak, I took it, wrapped it over my shoulders, and pulled up the hood. It only got down to my mid-thigh, and I needed to tuck my ears down for the hood to cover my head, but it would keep most of me dry and warm me up.
“Thank you Gunther, Bellatrix. I’ll make sure the cloak gets back to you in one piece,” I told her.
“If it doesn’t, I’ll charge you for it,” she said, not looking up from her work.
“Good, I’ll lead the way,” Gunther called, opening the door, nob twisting before we headed out into the cold, wet morning.