"We're here. Welcome to your new home, troops."

'Here' is the oppidum I had spotted on the map a day prior, though the little lines on the map did not even begin to encompass the sheer imposing majesty of the manor house in the center of it, nor the extent of the shanty town outside it. It's a start contrast, dozens upon of small hovels built around a walled estate, a wealthy palace surrounded by utter poverty. Good strong walls, that show promise as a defensive position. Given a day or two's work digging trenches, setting up stakes and mines, and tearing down the shanties to create clearer lines of fire, our garrison should be able to defend this place from anything short of an entire division, and be able to keep the road behind us safe for reinforcement. Defenses shouldn't be too hard to prepare given the dismal state of the place...

Which raises its own questions. The town is completely abandoned, the buildings devoid of debtor slaves and other unfortunates. One would expect such a town to be a riot of activity, full of the work of running the mine and simply maintaining life, but it is eerily silent. No noises come from the nearby mine either, this place is simply devoid of people. Surely Cotton isn't going to look kindly upon this abandonment of work. Usually their wrath would follow such a lack of diligence, golemized machinery often ate the lazy and the unwilling... Hopefully our determined soldiery will go some way towards appeasing them, I don't want to be eaten by a loom.

I approach the manor house with Malmo's personal guard platoon at my back in case of trouble, but far enough back to maintain an air of politeness. The kinds of people who own a mining town on the Helvetian border are also the kind to get uppity about that kind of 'disrespect', and I want my occupation of their home as painless as possible for all concerned. The gates to the manor's walls are open and utterly unguarded. This is getting stranger and stranger... I knock.

No answer... I knock again, louder. Not a stirring noise, not a word, not a thing. I knock loud enough to really stretch the limits of politeness... And hear not a peep. This is getting ridiculous, and I have an army. I gesture for the captain of my new guards to knock down the door, hoping that the owners will hear that.

It takes three good kicks for the door to give in, shattering under the weight of Avernian boots. I enter the lavishly decorated foyer and am hit with an abhorrent, yet now familiar odor. The smell of the trenches outside our old fort, of the bodies piled into mass graves. I gesture for the troops to follow. The smell of rot, blood and violence permeates the building, and it is impossible to escape the fact that this is not a case of indolent rich people, it is enemy action... I turn to my soldiers, and they get their rifles to attention while trying to ignore the stench.

Some fix their bayonets, others reach for grenades on their belts. In a small, enclosed space like this the fighting is likely to come down to these things. I draw my own sword and reach for my pistol in its holster. Loaded, ready... I lead the troops from the foyer through a door on the left, ready to clear the house room by room to prepare it for occupation.

The door leads to a formerly resplendent dining hall where I find what I assume to be the owners of this estate. Their heads still hang upon the chandelier, their bodies remain torn and spread across the shattered dining table, as a trio of trolls fight over the meat... Going by the smell, this has been going on for days. The trolls turn their attention to us, finally catching sight of us, and as is their habit they begin to drool at the prospect of fresh blood.

"Guards? Make ready!"

The soldiers raise their rifles, and the trolls begin to lower their meal scraps, both sides are tense and electric.

"Present arms!"

The soldiers adjust their aim, the trolls make up their minds on who to eat first. There is no turning back now.

"Fire!"

Powder smoke fills every corner of the room, mercifully covering the smell of death and the horrors of the dining room. And as the bullets find their mark I hear the sweet sound of large bodies hitting the floor. One, two... Not three. I ready my sword; the third troll is still alive and likely about to strike. The first rule of fighting trolls is to seize the initiative, to never let them build up any speed to charge.

They're large, ugly things that will bowl you over and crush you given half the chance, and must be stopped before they get going. I step forward, remembering well enough where that third troll was before the room became blanketed in smoke, and I thrust my sword as deep as it would go.

I hit flesh. I press onward. I feel it bleed against my sword and take another step forward, putting my entire body's weight behind the motion... And then the sword stops as a foreign force acts upon it. The troll is grabbing my blade, stopping me from stabbing any deeper into it! How dare this horrible beast defy me?!

I draw my gun with my other hand and wait for the smoke to clear enough to get a good shot at its head, getting a bead on its eye. I fire, and it recoils in pain, both hands reaching for its face for but a moment, a moment I use to press on right into the beast's heart. It finally dies after that, bleeding a seemingly endless tide onto the floor, its disgusting blood mixing with that of the mutilated corpses it has left in its wake. The smoke dissipates, and all three trolls are dead upon the floor with their victims. With a sigh I pull my sword free of the disgusting mass of troll flesh and wipe my blade clean on a nearby curtain, one which until now survived this ordeal completely unblemished. There's no saving these boots however; they are simply a write-off…

Pasche bursts into the room, saber at the ready and body quaking in fear. "Serena! I heard gunfire and- TROLLS?!"

She quickly throws herself between me and the trolls, preparing to shield me with her body... It takes her a few moments before she realizes that they are already dead. She makes the grave mistake of breathing a sigh of relief, gagging at the smell soon after. I lead her back to the foyer, the guards following close behind us, and I make a mental note to burn that room to cinders when the opportunity presents itself. Pasche ends up taking a position sitting on the floor, still trying to recover somewhat from her run-in with the servants of Wool. I meanwhile turn to the men, a good twenty in all, men who I had been assured would not blink if a cannon fired right in front of them... They look aimless and anxious. It appears trolls are the limit of military discipline.

"Guards? Reload!"

They snap to attention, loading their rifles haphazardly, hardened veterans shambling like raw recruits on their first battlefield. It’s embarrassing to witness; a mere handful of snarling beasts are enough to completely destroy their morale. And there might be more trolls in here…

"Troops, we will need to clear this house room by room. It's still strategically vital to our efforts and more than that, we have a moral imperative to rid the world of these filthy demons and avenge their victims! Stay together, be smart, fire in volleys, and use your grenades if necessary! And if it comes down to bayonets? Always take the first strike. Do not allow them to take the initiative, do not allow your fear to make you hesitate. These things die, it is their only positive attribute, and it falls to us to make it happen! Not a single beast shall escape this manor alive!"

My impassioned speech does absolutely nothing to restore discipline or assuage the fears of the troops, so with an irritated sigh I cast my magic upon them. Their demeanor changes in an instant, proud smiles replacing worried expressions and lack of discipline… Now the men are impetuous and headstrong rather than moody and afraid. They charge into the other rooms on the ground floor, and finding them clear they take the steps to the next floor two at a time, each ready to single-handedly kill a troll...

Some of them are going to get themselves killed for me, because of me. And any trolls left in the building will be shot to pieces. The sounds of rifle fire and grenade blasts filter in from the second floor, and I want nothing more than to go up and ensure those men are safe.

But the men have each other. Pasche only has me right now, and if any of those beasts dare try to ambush her, I will skewer their heart without hesitation, whether my own heart is beating or not. "... The men will do fine. They'll do absolutely fine..."

Another explosion, more gunfire, and Pasche raises an eyebrow from her spot on the floor. "Why did they not swarm us down here? I mean, we'd made so much noise..."

"Trolls have terrible hearing, Pasche. Their ears are full of Wool, they hunt on a mixture of sight and divine instinct. I have to assume they can't smell either, or they'd kill themselves to escape their own disgusting habits."

"... Are you actually an expert on trolls or do you just really hate them?"

"I know a lot about trolls BECAUSE I hate them! ... I am a devotee of all the gods, of course, but I fail to hold any affection for the servants of Wool and their cruel sense of justice."

Pasche offers me a hand, and I accept it to help her up, and am taken by surprise when she instead pulls me down to sit with her, breaking my fall with her arm. "... Are you okay, Serena?"

"I'm fine! I'm... A troll ate the stable boy back home, a boy by the name of Pierre. He spoke back to his father and ran away in a huff. Wool, it turns out, does not appreciate the petty defiance of teenagers, and we found his body torn to pieces in the woods, his head perfectly mounted on a nearby tree... His sister never spoke again, too scared to say anything that might displease a god somewhere... They were my friends... And then they were gone. And from that day on, I wanted to be able to kill any troll that dared come near me, that dared come near any innocent. I discovered my power soon after, and now that I'm in the army I have my chance."

"... I wouldn't have expected so much anger from you, Serena... You're usually so calm-"

"I am calm! I just... Really hate trolls... Surely you have lost someone to these horrid creatures, you must hate them nearly as much as I do!"

"I was a shut-in, remember? Apart from Chestnut and Marie I never had anyone to lose until I came into your service."

"Oh..."

"Serena, please don't get killed by a troll."

"I don't intend to! I intend to kill all the trolls first!"

"... I guess I'd best get better at fighting them then if I'm to remain by your side."

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

A voice that isn't Pasche's filters into the room from... Somewhere. "I appreciate you starting with the ones in my home."

I almost jump in shock, but Pasche is holding me too tightly for me to move much. Despite being all skin and bones under her armor that girl really is strong! Whatever the voice is, it doesn't seem to be trying to harm us yet, it claims to belong to someone who lived here... But that's impossible, they are all dead, we saw them all dead, they were eaten by trolls!

... "There's no such thing as ghosts, there's no such thing as ghosts."

"Shame that, ghosts would be fascinating sources of information." That voice again, a woman's voice, although slightly muffled... It almost seems to be coming from under the floorboards.

"... I'll... I'll keep you safe from the gh... Ghost." Pasche speaks a big game but only holds me tighter.

"Aren't you two professional soldiers? And you're both scared out of your wits by the mere voice of a young woman? The Avernian Lions are not as impressive as I was led to believe."

Mocking us... The ghost, or the floor, or whatever is talking to us is mocking us! "... You... You come out here and say that!"

The floor opens in front of us, splitting in half and falling away to reveal a stone staircase... And I scream. And Pasche screams. It’s almost enough to drown out the sounds of combat further up the stairs.

Rising from that staircase is a perfectly normal young woman, albeit an exhausted-looking one. "You just fought trolls, how is there still anything in La'an, anything upon the surface of Lutice that can still scare you?"

Pasche keeps holding me, it makes for a rather undignified way for me to meet this young woman... At least it keeps my heart rate up. "I know that trolls die, I don't know anything about ghosts!"

"Ghosts aren't real...” The girl’s tone is entirely neutral, as if she’s barely paying attention and her mind is elsewhere. “I am Xena Helven, and this was my family's home. Well, I suppose it's my home now, none of my relatives wanted to flee into my lab with me. I assume they're decorating the walls by now."

This makes Pasche raise an eyebrow and give this new arrival her full, no longer terrified attention. "... You seem a little casual about your entire family being murdered."

"I never really saw eye to eye with them. They called themselves good followers of Cotton, but when I invented machines to make mining easier, they just shrugged their shoulders, said the slaves were doing fine enough already without help. When I invented new processes to make extract ore to save on labor, they shrugged their shoulders and said the yields were fine as they were. They were boring sorts, not at all in line with Cotton's agenda... Apart from all the slavery anyway."

"... You have a problem with their lack of piety?"

The girl, Xena, shakes her head matter-of-factly "I have a problem with hypocrisy. I'm no follower of any gods, I just abhor people who pay lip service to them while doing whatever they want. Or doing nothing for that matter. I cannot stand inertia; it is simply so boring."

I slowly disentangle myself from Pasche, trying to get to my feet. "Let's... Leave the family problems for now. You survived all this? The trolls, everything?"

"I was in my lab, trolls are big stupid things, they couldn't find the secret entrance... I was getting quite hungry, being stuck down there for half a week, but thankfully you folks have shown up and now I can walk around my own house again... Presumably. You did get all the beasts, didn't you?"

My guards make their way down the stairs with perfect timing... At least, most of them do, and those returning men look rather beat up and bruised... But also very satisfied, their captain giving me a proud salute. "General Pollineux, the house is now secure. We counted twenty dead trolls upstairs, now we just need to get the grunts to clean up."

I smile up at the man... And then do something very cruel in order to spare my heart the strain of carrying their fear any longer. I take away my power, and the remaining satisfied, high-spirited men quickly become utterly terrified, fleeing the house out of fear of monsters they have long since slain.

Which seems to get an actual reaction out of Xena, a raised eyebrow and a slightly dilated pupil. "Now that was interesting, what was that about? Their demeanor changed on a dime, as if by magic."

I decide to demonstrate rather than explain, and at the same time test a hypothesis. I cast out my magic, catching Xena within it. I wonder what a more courageous Xena will be like, given how... Off-kilter she seems to be.

To my immense shock, she barely changes at all. "Well, this feels warm. Could you explain?"

I look down, disappointed that she can't even recognize the effects of my magic. "I uhh... I'm a witch. My power seems to instill people with bravery, to make them their best selves for a moment... I don't know why it's not doing anything to you."

"... Perhaps I'm simply my best self already. Still, this is fascinating. I've never met a witch before; I would love to study you."

Pasche clearly takes objection to this, scrambling to her feet and moving between me and Xena. "Hey, my girl- My general is no-one's science experiment!"

Xena, to the surprise of us all, reaches out and runs two fingers over Pasche's arm, provoking a quite confused blush from the poor cuirassier. "You're also a fascinating thing." Xena spends a few moments 'examining' Pasche, before turning her attention back to me. "So, what brings interesting people to the most boring place in Alemannia?"

I try to regain at least some of my composure in the face of this oddball, once again cursing the fact my power doesn't work on me. "We... We need to occupy your house, to leave a garrison to protect a supply road. We were planning on asking the owners of the mansion, but-"

"They were eaten as part of Cotton and Wool's eternal grudge match, their remains strewn across the walls and floor like a child’s finger painting?"

"... They unfortunately passed away, yes."

"Well, then I guess you're asking me then, aren't you?"

"I suppose I have no alternative. May we use your house for-"

"I have conditions."

I pinch the bridge of my nose, discovering that dealing with eccentrics is exhausting. "Proceed."

"First, no one goes into my lab without my express permission. Or indeed, my enthusiastic request."

"... No one goes into your lab."

"Boring... Second condition? You allow me to accompany you, wherever you are headed."

"... I beg your pardon? You are aware that we are an army, yes? We're going to war."

"Sounds more exciting than being here, and I was almost eaten by trolls this week anyway, so I can handle peril. Besides, nothing is tying me to this old place anymore, I could sign the deed over if you want to make it official. I just want to pursue my lines of inquiry, and you two have given me two new, fascinating ones."

Pasche, still blushing a little, speaks to the floor as if Xena were still beneath it. "What... What are you?"

Xena smiles at Pasche, a sudden and intense smile that makes me fear for my life just a little. "I'm simply a girl who doesn’t want her life to be boring. And who couldn't have that as the thirteenth daughter of a rich mining family, and certainly could not do it as the matron of a dead oppidum."

I look at Pasche, she looks at me, both of us are desperate for some kind of reassurance on this... And yet, we need this house, and apparently this complete and total lunatic is operating at maximum courage... The only reason to say no is fear. And fear, like hesitation, would kill you.

"... I accept your terms, Mademoiselle Helven-"

Her smile quickly disappears; it’s hard to believe it even happened at all. "Call me Xena. I insist. Third condition."

"... Welcome to the service of Avernia, Xena... Now, we should probably get the troops to clean up this mess."

"Oh, I have a chemical solution for that. Give me an hour, it'll be like the place was never the sight of a massacre."

"I... What?"

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it, 'General'... How should I address the two of you anyway? You rather rudely failed to introduce yourselves."

"I do apologize for-"

Xena leans over, and rather bafflingly flicks my forehead. "No, bad. Apologizing is boring, life is too full of wonder to spend our time on Lutice apologizing for things."

"... The girl in the armor is Pasche." Xena's eyebrow raises at the introduction of Pasche, and she pays extra attention to her new ‘fascinating thing’. "And I am Serena... I too would prefer you not make a big deal of my last name."

"Pasche and General Serena."

"Just Serena. You're not bound by our discipline; you're working with us but you're not a soldier." I barely resist the urge to add 'you're a fruitcake', even if it might amuse our new friend as much as it would Pasche.

"Very kind of you, Serena... Now if you'll excuse me, I have some things to melt."

Xena gives a little bow before heading her way back down the stairs in the middle of the floor, back to her 'lab'... Melt? Like, with fire? ... I wordlessly grab Pasche's hand and lead her out of the house, back to the relative safety and relative sanity of the army, ready to deliver the... 'Good' news.

At least we’ve secured our objective, and only lost four men in the process. Technically not a bad day.