CHAPTER 8 – DAY TWO

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I had the last watch of the night and was wide awake, not that everybody else was sleeping like they were at a Holiday Inn Express. As the sky lightened with the approach of nautical twilight I added a few sticks to the coals. Mainly for the ambiance, since we didn’t have pots or pans, or any other way to cook or heat our rations.

As it got ever lighter, the rest of my party awakened. I watched Delight. She looked so lovely and special as the rising sun caressed her face. Just looking at her made my heart feel good.

My tiny mind, once no longer running interference for the big mind, appeared to have surrendered some weird limited effect decision-making authority to my heart. The mindless thing. Which started getting all goofy and wanting something deep and real. Maybe it was being denied. Whatever, it drove me down the path of attraction toward Delight.

You’d think my first ‘falling in love and getting destroyed adventure’ would have stopped me cold from wandering down that track. By the current evidence, it did not. The truth shows, I ain’t no quitter, bitches!

As the hours had passed since we arrived yesterday, my need to be close to Delight had gotten stronger and stronger. And I know she didn’t have any spells that could make me fall in love because I hadn’t yet granted her any magic. Although, now that I think about it, maybe she had her own type of magic.

‘Wow. Enough of that shit. What is going on with me?’ I wondered with worry. 'I'm being all needy and pathetic. And that ain't me. I for damn sure don't do needy, and especially not pathetic.'

I decided I had considered this romance shit for way too many seconds this morning. I've gotta quit overthinking this and just roll with it. It's taking up way too much cognitive time and effort that I need to dedicate on observation, analysis, adn decision making. Operationally and tactically, nor romatically and sexually. Although I decided to make sure I kept a few brain cells on idle for the sexual thoughts.

I stood and stretched before I lost my damned mind.

I walked over to where DeSantos had snuggled against Bonita and gave him a light kick to the sole of one foot.

“Rise and shine, twinkle toes. It is a new and wonderful day in my Marine Corps.”

He pulled his cloak over his head and mumbled, “Army of one, fucker.”

With our shared loss of limbs and experience in going through the torturous rehabilitation together, he and I had an unusually comfortable relationship despite the disparity in rank, while still within the boundaries of good order and discipline.

So, I laughed at what was clearly supposed to be funny, and actually was.

“Turn loose of your Louisiana dream and get up, shit-dick. Time to grab chow and strap up. We’ve got an op. It looks like we’re about ten klicks away, so we should be able to get there in about a couple of hours or so, depending on terrain and additional factors.”

Luis was actually a very good troop. He immediately rolled up and gently shook Bonita’s shoulder.

“Time to get up, you beautiful Cajun half-elf. We need to eat and roll-out.”

While he worked on getting his girlfriend up and settled, I went over to Delight. I knelt down and ran my fingers through her hair.

“It’s time, gorgeous. Time to get up.”

Her sleepy smile was like sunshine, and when her eyes peeked open and looked at me, they brightened and warmed. My heart thudded in my chest.

I was feeling all kinds of sappy shit. Love. Affection. Tenderness.

What was going on here? Maybe there was something wrong with this game-world that was messing me up. Whatever it was, my emotions toward Delight were excessively starry-eyed and had accelerated. I’m not just talking about my very reasonable strong lustful desire to knock the bottom out of that ass, but what seemed to be actual feelings or something.

Even though I was slightly freaked out by the realization this woman was getting to me, I didn’t back off from my developing affection. It felt somehow different than what I had felt at nineteen with my first and only soul-destroying life-crushing excursion onto the battlefield of romance.

Even though I had decided less than thrity seconds previously to hold off on this topic, it became apparent that moment I had to invest time and mental effort sooner rather than later. Something was going on, and I'd hate to walk into an ambus of the heart without having even attempted to understand and shape my battle space.

I resolved then to analyze what was going on in my mind and heart, to think about these things while we were about our day. I would apply my extensive knowledge of tactics and strategy to attempt to determine exactly what was going on, what were my weak points, and identify if any defenses had been breached.

Okay, fuck it. Enough of all that shit. We need to roll. Because of the ladies, being civilians and all, I worked to tone down me command presence and do more of an 'ask' instead of 'order'. I felt throwing in some humor would be helpful in lightening the morning drag.

"Alright people! Let's go, let's go. We need to get our shit together and roll out. We've got a ways to go and we are burning daylight, said Rooster."'

Other than Corporal DeSantos looking at me and giving me a thumbs up 'ready' sign, just ... nothing else happened in the campsite.

I've got to admit, somehow, I felt out-of-depth with these women. It seems none of the tried and true techniques of motivation I had used and had used on me for years worked with either of them.

After a quiet few minutes of gathering our tiny amount of gear and smothering the fire, it was time to head out. Minutes. Yes, DeSantos and I were ready to go in a few seconds, but it somehow took minutes for Delight and Bonita to pick up their one or two items and be ready.

Finally.

Ready.

Speaking softly, I quickly reviewed the plan and routes discussed earlier, and we settled into our formation for movement, a route column. I put DeSantos in the rear with the two young women between us. For a number of reasons, I had chosen to take the point position. Higher ranked fighter, more experienced with my weapons, the natural and normal arrogance that comes with the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor coupled with my significant combat time to made me very confident this was the best choice. Differences in rank notwithstanding.

We had only been moving through the olive tree grove for about ten minutes when I resolved to have a significant, frank, and open conversation with the girls about their chattering non-stop during movement. I don’t know if it was a form of denial or what, but instead of behaving as if we were moving through potentially hostile terrain facing unknown risks, they were yammering with each other like a couple of besties at the mall.

They were laughing out loud. Giggling even.

About the time there appeared a natural lull in their previously ceaseless conversation I crossed a small rise and came to a sudden stop on uneven ground. With my dory gripped along with shield in my left hand, I threw out my right fist in the ‘FREEZE” signal.

There was a fairly thick brush line immediately ahead through which I could see what appeared to be a dirt track, probably the one we were seeking. I was thinking about the best way to conduct a quick clear of the danger area, maybe have DeSantos run a box recon, when the desperate need to discuss tactical details, such as the use and meaning of hand and arm signals, with the women of my party made itself known.

Again, I’m not demeaning them because they are women. I’m describing them as behaving exactly as they should have; as untrained, inexperienced civilians in an environment and under conditions for which they have no reference point. I view the fault to be mine, not theirs. I was operating as if I had a team of veterans, when fifty percent of my people had no business being held to that high standard. I resolved to get myself together at the first opportunity and do a full assessment of our capabilities and deficiencies, then work up a program of development that would allow us to see this adventure through to the end with minimal casualties.

Regardless, I’m still not sure if it was Bonita or Delight that walked straight into me at full speed. It doesn't really matter. What is important to note is that the unexpected impact caused me to lose my balance and I slipped and fell, crashing head first through the brush onto the track.

Thankfully, the only people present were a family of five still in their sleeping gear laying around a wagon parked within a few yards of where my helmet covered face smashed onto the dirt.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

And they were dead. With big zombie hyena sized bites taken out of each of their skulls. My instinct was to prep for a fight. That reflex was quickly set aside as I noticed the reliquaries spinning above each of their bodies and the color of the dried blood pooled around each of their heads. Plus the fact that they were all in poses that suggested they had been killed in their sleep.

Last night.

I decided immediately that there was no current threat and that nobody had come by as the corpses had yet to be looted. In fact, I pretty much decided we had already avenged these poor folks on the zombie hyenas that had most likely been the cause of their unfortunate and unpleasant demise.

So, time to see what the reliquaries have.

I know. I sound like an asshole waiting to loot the bodies of an innocent family of farmers, if the load of produce in the wagon was an accurate clue. But, based on our discussions of the previous night, touching the reliquaries released the souls or spirits to move on. That’s the theory of how the game might work that Bonita was selling last night, so that’s what I decided to go with.

Oddly enough, I was not nearly as pissed off about getting knocked down as I expected. I don’t know if it was my changing attitude towards Delight, feeling more comfortable in this world as a game and not a do-or-die combat environment, or if it was simply the wonder of it all. I can’t explain it. Regardless, I called out quietly for everyone to move up and gather round.

Really, I should have taken into consideration the effect that seeing a family in that condition, especially the dead children, would have on two ladies from 21st Century America.

I realize that games don’t truly prepare one for the realities of gore, or the grotesqueness and horror that is always attendant upon violent death. I just didn’t understand how far off the mark I was regarding what normal people, American civilians, in particular, would find objectionable in the extreme.

With my background and history this situation was far below the level of the worst I had seen, or even experienced first-hand. So, instead of having the same or similar fairly blasé attitude DeSantos and I did towards a loss of this type, the young ladies responded appropriately to their milieu and backgrounds.

They both freaked. They came unglued.

As I have noted previously, I have a lot of ground time in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Having observed others' behavior in similar circumstances, I consider myself somewhat experienced and knowledgeable about stuff like this. I wasn’t sure about DeSantos, however. I’m not knocking him because he’s Army, I just didn’t know if he had the same type of background with these types of situations.

I waved him close to me and leaned down to whisper.

“Okay, this is kinda like a deal when we showed up at a village a day after the CIA had used a Predator to Hellfire a wedding party. Lot’s of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, rending of cloth and casting ashes upon foreheads. It’s a big deal. So, what you and I need to do is fake sincere distress about this. Don’t overdo it. If you try to sell it too hard they might realize you don’t mean it. And don’t say too much. If a person is really upset their voice will sound different. Got it? Mainly just hug Bonita and I’ll hug Delight. And, most importantly, don’t forget to maintain a good watch for tangos, or whatever. Good to go?”

I’m pretty sure the look he gave me was one of amazement at the clarity of my analysis of the situation and ability to work tactical aspects of the sympathy slash empathy program.

He nodded with apparent distraction and walked over to Bonita and took her in his arms as he murmured to her. I told you he was a good troop. But, I had no more time to overwatch his acting skills as I needed to go provide emotional support to Delight.

She was totally distraught. When Bonita turned to DeSantos, Delight’s shoulders slumped and she began weeping. Yep, I called it. Step number one.

I took off my helmet to indicate accessibility and my shared distress, then gathered her close. Her hands grabbed at my shoulders as her tears wet my chest armor while she sobbed. I didn’t worry about rust because it was bronze. Checking the area quickly for threats I noticed how well DeSantos was doing. Oddly, he was actually better at this than I was, so I decided to emulate the whole quiet murmuring thing.

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I know it’s terrible. Just terrible. I’m so sorry for them. I can’t believe it. This is simply horrible. Just horrible. These poor farmers. The children.”

I was getting a little worried because when I was in that village in Afghanistan, I was just a lance corporal so I didn’t have to do any talking to villagers. I'd just monitored my fireteam and watched my sector. Our lieutenant and platoon sergeant were the ones who had been interfacing with the elders and whatnot.

My ability to feign emotional distress over dead farmers I didn’t know and wasn’t responsible for was quickly reaching its limit. Worriedly, I glanced over to see about getting some pointers from DeSantos.

He had reached his arms all the way around Bonita and was just holding her and rocking side to side very gently and only speaking intermittently with brief phrases. Not even sentences.

Brilliant!

I did the same. I kept my eyes on the environment watching for threats, but, I’ll admit it, I would cut sight over to Luis to see what he was doing and just mimicked him. Hey, why try to reinvent the wheel when you’ve got a behavioral template just a couple of feet away.

“That’s right. Let it out. I’m so sorry. The children, the children.”

From that village in Afghanistan I knew through observing my platoon commander and platoon sergeant that this kind of a deal could last a while. I really wasn’t sure how to go about closing the grief session and getting a move on. Thankfully, DeSantos delivered the solution.

“El-tee, we can’t just leave them like this. They were just simple people trying to live their lives and deserve a dignified closure.”

I thought, ‘Whew. Good save, DeSantos.’

Gently letting my arms pull back from around Delight, I lightly gripped her shoulders and spoke quietly, “Baby, DeSantos is right. We need to let them go on to their next station.”

What was I thinking? I don’t know, just making shit up as I went along.

“Let’s touch their reliquaries so their souls can be released. Okay? You know I hate to see these poor people just laying out like this. Can we do that, sweetheart? Can we give them the closure they deserve?”

As might be expected, it took somewhat longer before we could actually start closing this thing out. Eventually, I had to just state that DeSantos and I would handle the kids and asked if the ladies could manage the man and his wife. Naturally, the reliquaries of the children had minor crap, a shiny rock, a piece of string, and a dead lizard. When Delight indicated she’d found a ruby or something from the farmer’s reliquary, I told her to just bag it and we’d try to get it to his family if we could find any living relatives. As I said, we weren’t trying to loot the dead, just let them go.

Which, they did not. That was our first experience with recently deceased NPCs. Unlike our recent experience with monsters, these NPCs didn’t twinkle away to nothing once we popped their loot box.

These stayed there. Like real people do when we die. I mean from before, not here and now in this universe.

It took some time before we figured the gig as to why some NPCs disappear and some don’t. I’ll explain later.

Moving on with the story.

I decided the best thing for everyone was for me and Luis to go ahead and roll the bodies up in their cloaks, toss them, gently and respectfully, onto the wagon. Because it was one of those ancient style hand cart wagons things, I realized DeSantos was going to have to handle pulling it with all of us pushing as needed on the uphill areas and holding it back on the downhill sections of track. Which we did, for the next six miles into Syra.

I had to take over for DeSantos. Once we crossed a final ridgeline we intersected a fairly decent road. As decent as a dirt road to a village during the Hellenestic period could be. All in all, not too bad really. For our purposes, however, it was too much of a strain on Coporal DeSantos to try to walk down hill while managing the weight of a hand cart loaded with carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, and corpses. So, being larger and stronger, I took that duty.

Anyway, the road rose up from a pretty sweet village. A small cluster of white washed buildings, mostly single story but a few of two or three levels, perched upon a hill to our left. Below us was a very large valley that was mostly cultivated, with a few copses of trees scattered about. A stream fed almost directly through the center of the valley leading towards the base of the hill the village sat on, so I was guessing they either had some wells dug fairly deeply or some organized system to access the stream and move the water up to the village.

My musing about the hydrographic concerns of Syra abruptly ended with the appearance of a short, and more than slightly plump, female elf. By then we had moved to maybe fifty yards away from the first of the structures when I saw her jump to her feet and focus her attention my way. She had been sitting on a split tree bench beside the house with two others whom I immediately identifed at a distance as gnomes watching some villager dude splitting wood across the main dirt road.

How did I do that? Hell if I know. I just instantly knew they were gnomes, just like I recognized this young woman as an elven maiden.

Anyway, she started walking toward my group, then stopped and put her hand over her mouth in a gesture that immmediately identified her to me. Coming toward me, with rich curling red hair cascading down to her waist, was my sister, Erika.

Holy shit.

She’s an elf.

And she looks like she’s packed on a couple of el-bees. What the fuck happened? Did she secretly inherit a Twinkie factory and eat all the production? What happened to the svelte twenty-one year old college athelete I saw in the hospital just a couple of months back when my family came to visit?

I’m not saying she was a beast or a sweat hog, but easily twenty-five to thirty pounds heavier than she was when I saw her last.

As she came closer, I could tell she was shorter as well. Instead of her normal, or previous human state, height of five-ten, she couldn’t stand more than five-two, maybe five-three. Maybe it’s just the loss of height that makes her look a touch or much over her ideal weight? Yeah, that’s what I’m going with.

Regardless, she was definitely my beloved little sister.

I grinned and opened my arms in the same wide ‘come-get-a-hug’ move I’d done since she came home as a newborn from the hospital in Buenos Aires.

As usual, she jackrabbited straight into my arms and started squealing happily.

As usual, I picked her up and swung her around, then set her down, though still wrapped in my arms.

She looked up at me with her bright and cheerful grin, then her mouth drooped a touch.

“Ulrich, I’m so glad to see you. Oh my nothing.” She gestured back over my right shoulder toward the gnome couple still sitting on the bench. “Mother and Father will be thrilled to see you as well. But, I have got bad news. Grandpoppi died yesterday morning. We were all there. Before he passed, he declared the entirety of his estate, lands, and titles were to invest to you immediately on his death. I am so sorry, Ulrich. You are now the Reichsgraf Ulrich von und zu Schaumburg und Rhinestadt.”

I felt mule-kicked.

My grandfather was dead, and I was the unfortunate inheritor of everything I'd run to avoid.

And the fucking monstrous screen flashing across my entire vision gave me a bit of a start as well.

Inheritor 1 [https://i.postimg.cc/mr5N2rzN/Screenshot-157.png]

Naturally, this note blocking my vision came in totally handy as my group started shouting or screaming as was appropriate to each.

In Delight’s case, I think a shrill piercing scream is an accurate descriptor. An uninformative noise that almost prevented me from understanding DeSantos shout of “Tango, Tango.”

Instinctively I spun around and cocked my head back to see under the notice blocking my vision. My ultra-heightened combat senses kicked in. My perception of time slowed enough so I could see a woodsman’s axe slam through Erika’s head, and my nose went all super-duper and allowed me to get a whiff of apple and cinnamon shampoo as the top of her skull bounced on my nose right as the axe continued onward, punched straight through my very cool-looking yet, in this case, useless armor and buried itself in my chest. Quite neatly splitting my heart.

You have died. [https://i.postimg.cc/437HPQyV/Screenshot-159.png]