THE HERBS THAT KEPT CHAOS AWAY

Conrad found the homesteaders to be surprisingly sympathetic to the story of his parents’ shop. The robbery, as it turned out, transpired in almost the exact same way as it had for them.

“He shows up, him and his goons all masked up to hide their faces,” Gunny said taking a big, frustrated gulp of ale, “and starta making demands.”

“Tower doesn’t say much, just stands there looking menacing,” Trish added.

“What about your Warrior? Benny? Where was he when all this was going on?” Conrad asked.

“Oh he was there,” Trish said, “That was when The Tower stepped up and slammed that shield of his. Knocked Ben right down without even touching him!”

“We told him to keep back and just let the bandits take what they wanted,” Gunny’s wife, Cora, added, “No sense in getting killed over a little bit of stealing. We’ve been through hard times before.”

Gunny wagged a finger to emphasize a point, “Aye, but also that was the strange thing. They didn’t just take the raw goods but they also didn’t take everything we had. Sure they took some barrels of ale, vanished ‘em all into inventories so the thieves are all classed up, and they took as many of my animals as they could tie up, but the rest of it was almost random. More of an inconvenience than devastation. A spare pitch fork, my hoe, even the brush I used on the cow and some of the spare wire I had for mending the chicken coops.”

“Took spare parts for my distilling equipment but didn’t bother to take any of the rest of it apart. More like whatever wasn’t bolted down. Like he didn’t even know what he was grabbing or what it all might be worth,” Trish added.

That was interesting. In the quest prompts it had seemed that The Tower was taking primarily basic ingredients, but if he was taking the means to produce and maintain things as well, then his robberies would have greater consequences than just the loss of the goods themselves. But leaving things behind? Inventories had limits on space so it was possible he was just taking what he and his cronies could hold. But what else could it be?

Conrad posed a question to the group, which seemed to be waiting on him, “Do you have any sense of his plan? The variety of things he’s been taking doesn’t make sense.”

“What’s any thief do with stolen goods?” Gunny asked.

Head tilted in consideration, Conrad replied,“But he’s robbing shops as well, and nobody has seen him trying to fence his goods in Edge. The closest major city where he might be able to is Point Progress and that’s more than two days from here.”

“Probably working for the damn government,” Trish muttered angrily, “Tax collecting types don’t care how they get their cut, take the copper straight from a still and not give two points whether or not I can keep brewing to keep paying ‘em!”

“Which government is that, Trish?” Cora said, relaxed and seeming as though prodding Trish was one of her pastimes out her, “The ruling council of Edge? The General in Exile at Point Progress? Or do you think the conspiracy to rob you of your copper pipes comes all the way from the highest of the high, the royal family in Confluence?”

“Ha Ha,” Trish said, “You got a theory to go with your jokes?”

Cora was about to shoot back when Conrad butted in, “What about the herbs? How come the rock dogs came in to attack today?”

“We’re all spread out out here, but we’re a lot closer knit than it might appear,” Gunny said, “Eloise the Horticulturalist grows node root, we keep a little of it growing here but without her skills we can’t get enough to ward the area.”

“Node root wards off monsters?” Conrad asked.

“Sure, almost as good as a node of Order. Hence the name,” Gunny said.

Cora chimed in helpfully, “Only Eloise hasn’t shown up in close to a week. She’s usually here every couple days trading her herbs and skills for whatever we have on hand - eggs, ale, wool, simple stuff. We can’t all make everything.”

Conrad took a sip of his beer, savoring the cinnamon tinged flavor before asking, “I take it you’ve been too hard pressed to get out and find out why she hasn’t come.”

The group nodded, “The herbs only maintain their potency for a few days,” Cora said, “Usually Gunny and Benny would walk the perimeter and change the herbs after she’d come by. We have a few posts out about a mile in every direction that can catch the wind and keep the monsters away except for the most determined. Lets us live in peace here.

“But that’s failed without Eloise, and without the wards and no real combat experience - well none now,” they all made the same circle motion over their hearts as before, and Cora continued, “we can’t exactly leave. The quest is over two weeks old and that’s the last time any of us has been to Edge.”

Conrad thought that over. There was something he wasn’t seeing here. His parents had been robbed just the other day, hours from here by foot, the quests these people reported were over two weeks old. The Horticulturalist, Eloise, had stopped coming in only a few days prior… supplies, herbs, and now weapons, armor, and other adventuring gear.

Was he working up to something larger?

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Maybe you’re onto something, Trish,” Conrad said, mulling over the timeline in his head.

“Eh? Which part? I already know the ale’s good,” Trish said.

Conrad tipped his glass in acknowledgement, “Not that. The tax man thing. It’s that detail you mentioned, about him not disassembling your stills, or how he took tools from you, Gunny, that you can do without. Did he leave your breeding animals?”

Gunny rubbed his chin in shock as he shared a look with his wife, “Matter of fact he did. We took it for blind luck or an inexperienced eye. But are you saying he did it on purpose?”

“Could be,” Conrad said, “Real tax men don’t try to ruin you. They know you need certain things to keep producing, otherwise their taxes dry up. All governments work that way, except when they’re making examples.”

“Gangs,” Trish said derisively, “Use the proper term.”

“In the case of my parents shop he took enough for it to hurt, but when I think back on what was left over it was all what we could think of as our mainstays, items that sell no matter what and have good bartering value too. He took the expensive pieces, and he took a lot more to boot, but given time my parents will recover,” Conrad said.

“Saying he’s part of a gang or he’s got morals?” Trish asked.

“Why not both?” Gunny mused, “But what about Eloise? Without her everything falls apart around here. Doesn’t matter what he’s left us to rebuild if the monsters kill us before we’ve had a chance to build it.”

“That’s exactly what I mean to find out next,” Conrad said, standing. He swayed slightly, the alcohol affecting him more than he anticipated.

“Maybe stick around for the night,” Cora said, “The rock dogs you killed’ll attract more than a few beasts so might as well wait until it’s clear. And you’re sober.”

“Light weight,” Trish said teasing.

“Hands off Trish,” Cora said, “You’re alone out here with us for a reason and it isn’t your politics.”

The group laughed and moved on to other, lighter discussion. With the plan for his next move in place, Conrad figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a night and enjoy himself with these people.

Thoughts of The Tower kept playing around in his head, though. He had taken the man for a simple bandit, one smart enough to exploit the isolated nature of the people out here in the homesteads.

But he was smart, or it appeared so at least, but not in the animal cunning way of simply picking out the weakest and most vulnerable of the group. He understood what the Brewer needed to keep her trade moving, knew which animals to take from the Herdsman. The Tower knew enough about shops and the trends of outfitting sales to not completely bankrupt his parents, “Damn near cleaned us out” his mom had said.

But he hadn’t. Even without Conrad’s money and equipment he had lent them to get back on their feet, they would have eventually anyway.

The other possibility was that he was part of a gang or, Conrad hated to give Trish the satisfaction of saying so out loud, but maybe even a larger entity. Quite possibly a government, or at least an up and coming warlord.

The events of the day and festivities of the night kept them up late, but it was with the rising of the sun the following day that Conrad rose.

He donned his armor and accepted some food and other provisions and set out toward the location on his map that Gunny had marked for him. The Horticulturalist, a tier two class specializing in gardening and special classes of plant, he learned, had not reported a quest regarding The Tower so, this was the best possible lead he had.

The scale of the map didn’t always translate well, but Conrad figured if he avoided the mistake of running the entire day and instead took it at a run walk, he could probably be there by midday. “Should probably just get a horse,” he muttered as he took off.

At Cora’s urging he had tucked a little node root into his tunic to keep from getting ambushed along the way, and after a few hours he noticed a scent in the air. It was like the Chaos Lands, clean and fragrant with life, only so much moreso. The trees grew more lush, the flowers more frequent, and here and there Conrad saw herbs in abundance that would take hours to find when searching normally.

He sniffed at the node root herbs he had brought along and noticed that the same scent was here among the trees. Up ahead the forest path he had been following opened into what appeared to be a clearing among the trees, and he could just see the edge of a small cottage.

The building was brightly painted, with paned glass windows as opposed to the usual metal shutters of other Chaos Lands homesteaders. The fence that surrounded it was painted white and made of sturdy, but largely ornamental planks no higher than Conrad’s waist. In total it all stood as a comfortable, homey testament to its owner’s obviously abundant confidence in its herbal security against the monsters that plagued the rest of the world.

And so it was with some surprise that Conrad, upon opening the small latched gate and entering the fenced in garden, discovered that it was in terrible shape. Plants of all types and sizes lay in rotting heaps. Broken off stems or small furrows from beds haphazardly ripped up made for the majority of what might at one point have been a very impressive array of plants, both mundane and magical.

The door to the cottage itself was slightly ajar. Conrad took out his weapons and gently eased it the rest of the way open, calling out a stern, “Hello?”

There was no response, and with all the windows in the cottage the interior was well lit and easy to make out. One extra room in the back, likely the bedroom, was still closed but the entrance made for a combined kitchen and living area with a small two person couch and a fireplace, as well as similar settings for sitting and eating in the kitchen.

It looked, for all Conrad could see, like a house a young woman would keep and he wondered immediately how she had taken to the life of a hermit. He walked in and checked the corners and nooks he couldn’t see from the entrance, and called out one final warning before opening the bedroom.

Empty. Bed made. It was as if she simply went out for the day. Maybe that was the case, he thought to himself. She could have gone out, and not even known the theft (or destruction, but Conrad’s money was on theft) of her garden had taken place. Unlikely, but possible. As he made to leave one small detail stuck out, just off to the side of the only door in or out of the small home.

It was a shoe rack. With three rows of shoes clearly belonging to a woman for various types of wear, but right next to all of it and too large to fit alongside the others was a set of boots. Boots so big Conrad probably could have put his foot in without even removing his own boots.

Just outside the sound of voices pulled his attention back to the garden where three men stood. Two of them were of average height, maybe even on the short side, but the third?

If the man’s size hadn’t been signal enough, the huge shield slung over his back was the only other piece of confirmation needed.

Conrad had just caught up with The Tower.