“So it wasn’t you, eh?” Ryu said, staring at the woman before him. She was dressed in leathers and hides with an unremarkable visage and short brown hair. Most importantly, she had curved daggers strapped to her waist.
“No,” the woman, Alea, said. She touched her tent, letting it disappear into the large space of her storage ring. The expedition was soon to be on the move, and the gray light of early morning made the muddy swamp grounds look as dangerous as he knew them to be.
He chewed on the inside of his lip. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to say that under the eyes of a Truthseer?”
“I might if it was quick,” she said, giving him a measuring look.
It turned out she was not the murderer. He had expected as much, but the lack of progress frustrated him.
“Leave it to the specialists Horace gathered,” Bonny pleaded later, giving him a worried look.
“And if it’s one of them? No, I’d have never put my name to it if I didn’t plan on finishing it.” He did not mention he had been forced into the role. A corpse needed no justice, but a group of friends mourning a dead man… Ryu was no philosopher, but he believed they did. And if he cleaned some of the taint from his own soul in the process, well that could chalked up to good luck. A better man and all that.
“Horace would not have contacted them if they weren’t good people,” she said, stepping over a large log. Their pace was a light trot, yet Ryu knew it would have been faster than a full sprint to his body prior to cultivation.
He smiled. “Believe those exist, do you?” His own steps were measured and familiar with the treacherous footing of the swamp’s footings. Trees hunched over the ankle deep water they walked through, the moss hanging from their limbs like grasping arms. Bugs danced through the air like the happy parasite carriers they were, and the stink of mud and other things best left to the imagination left a bad taste in his mouth.
“When I find myself in a hopeful mood, I suppose I do,” she said. They were surrounded by the splashes of other steps and murmurs of the countless subdued conversations. The Climbers marched without formation or rank; with their abundant experience in the Wilds, all knew the dangers of bunching up in hostile territory. They instead spread out in small groups of ones and twos, save for the command group and the scouts out in the field.
“Well, explain it to me,” he said.
“Explain what?”
“The qualities of good men and women.”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “So you believe most people would rather hurt another than help them? A good man is one who acts with the well being of others in mind.”
“Guess I believe most people would rather mind their own business and not bother with it.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“When I’m in a hopeful mood, I suppose not,” he said with a grin. The flutter of a bug that looked like a wasp combined with a mosquito caught his eye, and he rebuffed it with a flair of his aura.
“Surprised you have any interest in moral philosophy,” Bonny said, her green eyes crinkling from her smile.
“Why’s that?”
“Just seems too…” She paused, searching for the word. “Too impractical, I guess. You seem much too grim for such frivolous things.”
He laughed. They continued to talk for a while, but if he was honest, his heart was not in it. His mind pondered the death of a man he’d never known. Maybe it was guilt that made him invested in the murder. Maybe it was the rekindling of a hope he didn’t realize he had. A hope for himself. A hope that was bound to be disappointed.
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His disappointment did not stop there. The group stopped for the night as the sky grew dark above, and while they put up their tents, the first few droplets of rain pattered against the taught canvases. Then the droplets turned into a downpour. Despite Bonny’s attempts to convince him otherwise, Ryu remained outside in the downpour.
The expedition still had weeks left of travel. Progress had been slow, far slower than their leadership had predicted. Ryu remembered the knowing look in Lucius’s eyes. No, he decided, one part of the leadership had known, but that part consisted of a man playing a game the rest were unaware of. Yet.
Some of the expedition members believed the swamp actively thwarted their progress. Others were less civil and blamed it on their fellows. Ryu found he did not care. Things going well would have been more worrying than the slow mess the expedition was now. He cared less about when the group would make it and more about what the group would like when they arrived at the dungeon. Something told him they were not meant to succeed.
It was also strange to realize the murder that consumed his thoughts did not matter. A man had died, and he would not be the last. The justice he had campaigned for earlier seemed a vague, shallow thing. Was justice the execution of a murderer? And if so, why was Ryu still alive?
His thoughts continued their quiet mutiny while the rain soaked through his clothes. The weather in the swamps was rarely cold, and even this rain was a humid thing. For some time, he let himself enjoy the soft whisperings of the swamp’s conversation with the rain.
“Ryu,” Horace’s voice said in his mind. “You’re wanted in the command tent.”
His eyes opened to look at the dark sky above. A small part of him believed the world was crying for the injustices committed on its surface, but then, perhaps he was just looking for some justification of his sour mood. He walked to the tent, his silence like a stiff cloak about his shoulders.
The faces of the expedition’s “leadership” were a mixed bag. On one side of the large table, a man with close cropped salt-and-pepper hair sat with a stony expression. Ryu believed he was Damien, a man considered one of the more senior and respected Climbers in the Fifth. To his left was a swarthy woman he recognized from the meeting to prepare for the swarm, though he didn’t remember her name. On and on, the respectable names went, and in the midst of them all was a grinning Lucius. Ryu suspected the man quite enjoyed playing the capable men and women off of each other until there were no cooler heads left to prevail. Horace sat in one of the corners with a tired smile on his face.
“Mr. Ishida, thanks for joining us,” Lucius said, gesturing for Ryu to stand in front of the table. “We wish to talk to you about the murders within the camp.”
“Murders?” Ryu grunted. He moved to the spot Lucius had indicated.
Lucius feigned a pained expression, clasping an armored man beside him on the shoulder. “Oh, Damien, tell him of the trouble that has fallen upon us this night.”
“Well,” Damien said, rubbing at his temples. “Another body was found not long after we stopped for the night. Believe it was a man named…”
“Something with an R,” a woman said. Ryu sighed.
“Aye, something with an R. I’m afraid we need you to look into it and to share any information you’ve gathered so far. The others are none too pleased their fellows are dropping like flies to some murderer.” Damien said the last with a sneer, as if the entire concept seemed beneath him.
“Okay,” Ryu said.
Damien looked at him expectantly. “Any news to relay, son?”
“Not sure I’m the best to be leading this sort of thing, if I’m honest,” he responded.
“No, no, we are quite confident in our decision,” Lucius said. Again, that smile seemed to say more than his words had.
Ryu worked his jaw. “Then no, I suppose there’s no information to share. Where’s the body?”
“I’ve already taken care of it, Ryu,” Horace said in his mind. “My friends are looking into it as we speak.”
The others at the table showed no reaction, so Ryu suspected the message had only been meant for him.
“We’ll have a man show you the way,” Damien said with a wave of dismissal. Ryu turned with a frown, walking out of the tent. His frown was not for the man’s rudeness, however. It was for Horace. Despite his misgivings, Ryu was still the man assigned to this task. It bothered him that his friend had taken it out of his hands, good intentions or no.
He told the man waiting for him outside he could find the body on his own and then walked back to Bonny’s tent. If Horace trusted his men, then Ryu supposed he would, too, for the moment.
---
Ryu laid the paper down on the dark wood of Bonny’s table. They sat in the section of the large tent she had dubbed the lounge, and across from him were three men. One was Horace, the thin man giving Ryu a concerned glance with eyes that saw too much. The other two were a balding man with a stern look and a blonde woman in white plate armor. The woman- the Truthseer who had been aiding his investigation- gave him little more than an icy look.
“You’re sure of this?” he said.
“Yes,” the armored woman, Sabrina, said. “We are reasonably certain.”
Horace glanced at her before locking eyes with Ryu once more. “Let them handle it, okay? They’re experienced.” He was right, Ryu knew. The two were the only ones in the camp suited to this kind of work.
“Fine,” he said with a wave. He had argued it long enough, and it would not be too suspect for him to give it up at this point.
“We’ll get this bastard, you have my word,” the balding man said. He went by Justice. The name bothered Ryu for its arrogance alone, but he nodded.
The three left the tent, leaving Ryu to stare at the words on the paper in silence. “You’re going to do something stupid, aren’t you?” Bonny whispered, wrapping her arms around him from behind his chair.
He worked his jaw. “Probably,” he grunted. “Can’t lose sleep over a good deed, as my father would say.” He did not mention it was her words and not Jinn’s that drove him to act. A good man is one who acts with the well being of others in mind. The words had played over in his mind since they had left her lips. He supposed they were not profound or particularly deep, but then, simplicity was his preference.
“Be safe,” she said, giving him a sad look.
He nodded his head, not giving voice to the darker thoughts that sprung into his mind. He left the tent.