SCENE: INNHOUSE at the village of LUTE. ANNA THE BARKEEPER is manning the counter, washing the dishes in a special trove after a full day of serving food and drink. It is evening, and the rays of the setting sun stream through the windows.
NAOFUMI comes down from the second floor, rubbing his eyes, evidently having woken up minutes before. His forehead is redder than usual, and sweat rolls off it: he is running a fever.
ANNA: Late riser, are you.
NAOFUMI: Yeah, last night was a long one. Where is Raph?
ANNA: She and Fredalia woke up a couple hours ago and headed to the mines. Hadn’t returned yet.
NAOFUMI nods.
NAOFUMI: How about Filo?
ANNA frowns.
ANNA: Your giant bird? You didn’t come with it.
NAOFUMI shakes his head.
NAOFUMI: No, usually the woman.
ANNA raises her eyebrows.
ANNA: You named a person after a bird?
NAOFUMI stares at ANNA, then slaps himself on the forehead.
NAOFUMI: Right, you wouldn’t know, and we never told you. The bird can turn into a person, and vice versa. She’s yay high in her human form, with white hair and vestigial wings.
NAOFUMI shows how tall FILO is with his hand. ANNA stares at him, then nods cautiously. She leads NAOFUMI outside, towards the stables with a massive break in one of the walls, and motions to the roof, where FILO is snoring happily.
ANNA: She tried to sleep in the stables, out of habit I suppose. Knocked a fist straight through a wall when I tried to get her to move, and I didn’t bother her more. Then some demihumans came, and she moved away from them to the roof. Don’t think she noticed the wall in the way much, or woke up throughout.
NAOFUMI scratches his head.
NAOFUMI: I’ll pay for the stables. Let her sleep. I am going to see what Raphtalia is up to.
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SCENE: The entrance to the mines near the Lute village. It had been fortified, with a guard house built at the entrance, disguised as a storage building. The nearby buildings have been expanded and strengthened as well. A group of FREEDMEN DEMIHUMANS is working on setting up the scaffolding for a new building.
NAOFUMI approaches the mines from the village. He is greeted by the FREEDMEN, and is lead inside, where CONSTANCE, RAPHTALIA, SYNE and several other FREEDMEN are sitting around an improvised table made out of crates, with sketched out maps of the village surroundings laying on it. RAPHTALIA looks up at NAOFUMI and smiles, getting up to greet him. Her arms are still covered in burns from the fight, and she seems to be feverish as well.
RAPHTALIA: Nothing is on fire. We got enough bedding for everyone so far, and enough food to last us a week or two. The mines are cold, but we have almost no kids or the elderly with us, so I think we should be fine for now, and soon we’ll have more buildings up above ground.
NAOFUMI visibly relaxes, sighs, and nods. They join the others. SYNE nods at NAOFUMI, then goes back to her hushed conversation.
RAPHTALIA: We’ve also dispatched some groups to sweep the nearby forests. Ideally we’d hunt monsters for food, and save grain for when hunting doesn’t work out. We might want to move some people away on longer expeditions. I also told them to be on the lookout for medicinal plants: hopefully we could use them for making potions.
NAOFUMI: Are the villagers alright with this?
SYNE and RAPHTALIA share a look, and SYNE shrugs, letting RAPHTALIA lead the explanation.
RAPHTALIA: There’s been some tensions, but nothing big so far. Current plan is to keep away. We shouldn’t need more than a week or so to get to Shieldfrieden.
NAOFUMI winces.
NAOFUMI: I am not so sure.
CONSTANCE turns to NAOFUMI. Her dress covers her body almost entirely, but what little of her skin is visible is likewise feverish.
CONSTANCE: What do you mean?
NAOFUMI: It’s this curse debuff. All of us have it after the fight - it’s some kind of side effect after using the Curse Shield. Yesterday, FILO was quite a bit slower when getting us to Lurolona, and I am not sure how well she could handle a long march now. We’ll need more time to get to Shieldfrieden - two weeks is optimistic, I think.
CONSTANCE rubs her forehead under the mask.
CONSTANCE: Is this why I have been feeling like death today?
NAOFUMI shrugs.
NAOFUMI: Probably, yes. The Shield tells me that it reduces your stats by a third, so that probably contributes. I think I will head over to Itsuki, and see if he knows anything. Otherwise, we will be stuck with this for a long time - probably until I pull another rabbit out of a shield hat.
CONSTANCE: Wait.
She huddles with SYNE, and they agree on some last things. SYNE nods and heads off. CONSTANCE turns fully to NAOFUMI.
CONSTANCE: I think we should look back on this operation, before we proceed with anything else. Sit down, discuss everything that happened, what we did right and what we did wrong. See if we can do something better next time.
NAOFUMI frowns, but nods.
NAOFUMI: Do a postmortem, you mean?
CONSTANCE nods her head.
CONSTANCE: It’s a novel invention from Faubrey.
NAOFUMI looks towards the entrance of the mine.
NAOFUMI: We should wait until Filo wakes up, then. I’d like her to be a part of this too.
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SCENE: Tavern in Lute. It is night, and the hall is empty of people except for one table, occupied by NAOFUMI, FILO, RAPHTALIA, CONSTANCE and SYNE. CONSTANCE is standing up, addressing the others.
CONSTANCE: In my work we found that after a large project comes to an end, it’s useful to discuss what happened and what went wrong. There are several reasons for this: to see if some lessons can be learned for the future, to make sure that everyone has the same idea of what happened, and so on. I think it’d be good to do the same thing for our evacuation operation from Renlomel. There are some basic rules for how this is done, to make sure it goes smoothly.
She glances at RAPHTALIA and SYNE. FILO is already zoning out.
CONSTANCE: First of all, no arguing or blaming specific people. That tends to make the meeting go unproductive pretty quickly. If your issue is that someone made the wrong decision, then focus on how they could have been provided with the information, skills, training or equipment necessary to make the right decision.
RAPHTALIA nods sagely.
RAPHTALIA: Of course. We are doing materialist analysis.
CONSTANCE ignores her.
CONSTANCE: Second, it’s better to say more than is necessary than to keep something to yourself. The group can sort through the information easily, but if you guess wrong and conceal important facts - there is nothing we can do. Finally, I will be writing everything we say here in shorthand - that way we can look at it later, or give the notes to someone who missed a meeting. Does everyone understand?
Everyone nods. CONSTANCE sits down, and takes out a stack of paper and an inkwell, preparing to write meeting minutes.
CONSTANCE: Good. We are going to start by establishing a timeline of events. Naofumi, why don’t you start us off.
NAOFUMI: How far back do I need to go?
CONSTANCE: As far back as you feel is relevant.
NAOFUMI: Alright. I’ll start with how I met Raphtalia.
NAOFUMI recounts their adventures. RAPHTALIA butts in at times, giving her perspective. SYNE shares what was happening while the party was away, and CONSTANCE explains her organization of the raid on the estate. FILO is napping. When everyone finishes, SYNE has a strange look on her face.
SYNE: So I was right - Raphtalia brought you to us, not our prayers.
NAOFUMI shrugs.
NAOFUMI: That’s simplifying things, but yes. There are thousands of plantations around the country - if not for Raphtalia, the chances of us picking yours specifically were very low.
CONSTANCE shakes her head.
CONSTANCE: I don’t think that’s true.
She continues, in a singing voice.
CONSTANCE: “And the Hero went, oh he went on his way, and the fates followed him”. You are the Shield Hero; was it coincidence that this was the one place that held The Beast of Shrakarsth? If not for Raphtalia, something else would have brought you there, such is your fate.
NAOFUMI narrows his eyes at CONSTANCE, folding his arms on his chest.
NAOFUMI: You know that I hate this mythic angle you are putting on me. Aside from the happenstance of me having the Shield, I am no different from other people.
CONSTANCE shrugs.
CONSTANCE: I am just looking at the facts. Perhaps you should simply accept what is happening?
NAOFUMI’s lip twitches in annoyance.
NAOFUMI: This is anti-materialist thinking. Even if we posit - based on no real evidence, mind you - some sort of magical force that would - somehow - make me come into contact with buried dinosaurs, this doesn’t actually let you predict anything. “Fates” could just as easily make it happen today or in a year, and the monster can be strong or it can be weak. If there is a monster? Oh, I was fated to meet a monster. If there is no monster? I guess I was fated to be safe today. In other words, you cannot predict anything, you cannot plan anything, and it is an altogether pointless topic to discuss.
RAPHTALIA: We could plan for you facing more threats than expected.
NAOFUMI turns to her, looking a bit betrayed.
NAOFUMI: We already plan for that, and level up as fast as we can. What more can we do?
RAPHTALIA shrugs.
RAPHTALIA: I am just saying that there is something we could draw from this. That is what we are supposed to be doing, right? Drawing lessons for the future?
NAOFUMI stares at her, then sighs.
NAOFUMI: Yes, you are right. I just do not want people to get hurt because they assume that because I am “fated” to do this or that this means things will magically work out. Even if there is some kind of “fate” - which I don’t believe exists - it could just as easily be trying to throw whatever it has at me, with no concern for my or anyone else’s survival.
RAPHTALIA shrugs again.
RAPHTALIA: I don’t know if what Fredalia said is true, really. The Beast appeared with a spell - who is to say he couldn’t have cast it anywhere? Who is to say that any number of people, if they knew the spell, couldn’t have released it? He had the same pendant as those assassins that tried to kill us - perhaps their entire organization could have done this.
NAOFUMI frowns and rummages around in his pockets, finally taking out the pendant one of the assassins wore. It is shaped like the symbol of the church, with an eye in the middle.
NAOFUMI: This one?
RAPHTALIA nods.
RAPHTALIA: Yes, it looked exactly the same. It was glowing as the seal was being broken. I destroyed it, but it didn’t stop the release.
CONSTANCE takes the pendant from NAOFUMI, inspecting it, and hums in thought.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
CONSTANCE: Assassins? You should have mentioned this earlier.
NAOFUMI and RAPHTALIA share a look, then shrug.
NAOFUMI: With everything going on, we forgot. This is why we are doing this, I suppose.
CONSTANCE: I do not know this symbol. I’ll see if I can find out more about it.
CONSTANCE puts the pendant into her pocket. NAOFUMI is still frowning in thought.
NAOFUMI: When the monster appeared, the Shield told me that an “area raid” was activated. I am guessing, but I think this monster could only have been summoned in that one place. At best, it’s possible that other places would have their own “area raids”. But now that we are talking about the release, do you think there was anything we could have done differently?
RAPHTALIA bites her lip, a tear in her eye.
RAPHTALIA: I could have stabbed him faster. If I did, it’d have all ended right there.
CONSTANCE shakes her head, and puts a hand on RAPHTALIA’s shoulder.
CONSTANCE: You can’t blame yourself like that, Raphtalia. There were a hundred things any one of us could have done - for example, I could have warned you not to take his gag out. But we only knew he was a mage after the fact. You have to think wherever there was anything you could have done given the information you had at the time - and I do not think you acted wrongly. I have never heard of him being a mage, you didn’t find any magic books on your trips through the house, and none of the demihumans I talked to mentioned any sort of magic. Mages of significant talent are quite rare: it was completely reasonable to not expect any magic from him, let alone something as destructive as what happened. You cannot possibly expect yourself to realize someone is a mage in a second flat, after many hours of testimonials, given that you had plenty of reasons to think they weren’t one, and react accordingly. If you did that, then you would grow mad thinking that anyone around you may secretly be a mage.
RAPHTALIA looks around the tavern, searching for hidden mages. NAOFUMI puts a supportive hand on her other shoulder, and she breathes deeply, visibly forcing herself to relax.
RAPHTALIA: Fine. Thank you.
CONSTANCE: Do not worry about it.
CONSTANCE pats her on the shoulder a couple more times, and then looks around the table.
CONSTANCE: It is the fight itself that I would prefer to focus on.
CONSTANCE looks meaningfully at FILO. FILO seems to be fast asleep. NAOFUMI shakes her a bit, and she raises her head.
FILO: Ah? Yes, I am listening.
NAOFUMI: We are talking about the fight with the beast, I figure you might have something to add there.
FILO: Oh! Right.
FILO sits up straight, stretching to wake up fully.
FILO: The fight… Honestly, I think it went pretty well.
NAOFUMI stares at FILO.
NAOFUMI: You literally got eaten alive.
FILO chuckles, hiding her embarrassment.
FILO: It’s true! That monster really surprised me when it sped up all of a sudden. But you can’t stay hung up on such things. If it didn’t pull this one ability out of a hat, we’d have been totally fine. Pretty quickly me and Raphtalia would have broken one of its legs, and after that it’d have been all over.
NAOFUMI rubs his forehead in frustration.
NAOFUMI: There will always be some new ability or some other problem - we’d die if we keep going off the cuff like this.
FILO: Oh no, we definitely could do things better. For one, we should have either hid in a house or continued to retreat to the forest - staying still out in the open was pretty dumb of us. Should have picked a safe zone and went all the way to it, not dithered around looking at the cool monster. For another, I’ll need to train the others on how to fight big monsters properly - they have the fighting skills, but little understanding of how to use them in practice. Oh, and -
FILO points at RAPHTALIA. RAPHTALIA’s eyes open wide.
FILO: Next time I get swallowed, please cut me out right away.
RAPHTALIA: Next time?!
FILO waves the shocked RAPHTALIA off.
FILO: Well yeah, this is bound to happen again. Not the last big thing we fight, I figure, and I always get up close. I think I passed out inside the stomach at some point, and if not for Naofumi’s magic, it’d have been much worse - but if you cut me out before then, I could just drink potions and get back into it. I tried to get out myself, but until Naofumi’s magic kicked in, it was all too rubbery to find any purchase.
Shocked silence fills the table. FILO taps her cheek in thought.
FILO: Besides that… It’d be better if we had more levels, but everyone knows that already. If we had the time, we could have observed the monster more to figure out its abilities, but it didn’t let us. There was no way to prepare in advance, either. I think this is pretty much it.
FILO folds her hands behind her head and leans back, satisfied. NAOFUMI folds his arms on his chest.
NAOFUMI: Do you think that maybe rushing in to get “up close” isn’t a good idea?
FILO blinks.
FILO: No, of course not. It’s the best idea!
NAOFUMI: But if you keep this up…
FILO snorts.
FILO: What, I’ll die? Yeah, so will everyone eventually. Dying is a risk in fighting, no way around it. The only thing you can do is stack the odds, and the best way to do that is to play to your strengths. My strength is punching people in the face until their skull breaks. If I didn’t get up close, we’d all just die faster.
FILO uses a finger to pick at her teeth.
FILO: ‘Sides, I love it, so piss off.
The table is silent for a while. Finally, CONSTANCE sighs.
CONSTANCE: Alright. I think the only thing that is left is to look at the overall operation, and any strategic errors we made there. Let’s look at it from a point of view of cold calculation. First of all, it was extremely rushed. On top of that, we committed - more or less - Naofumi’s entire forces to it. Because of this, when, unexpectedly, one of the freedmen killed a foreman, we were forced to rush even more.
SYNE has her lips pursed as CONSTANCE is trying to coldly analyze her enslavement, but stays silent.
CONSTANCE: We were very lucky that it didn’t blow our entire operation wide open, but the risk was very much there. It was possible, though unlikely, for Reibia to set up an ambush for Raphtalia, and capture or kill her during one of her scouting missions. What was much more likely was that he could have slaughtered the villagers before we had time to react or even learn about the problem. In terms of long-term costs, there was a serious risk that Reibia could have gotten news of Naofumi’s involvement out, which would permanently sabotage our ability to do this again. Of course, because both Naofumi and Filo were running themselves ragged to support the effort, our ability to react to such unexpected developments was also compromised.
CONSTANCE pauses to take a sip of her drink.
CONSTANCE: The more we rush things, the higher the chance of problems, and the worse our ability to react to them. The key issue here, I think, was lack of information and scope creep. If we tried to find out more about the situation before engaging, we would have learned that Reibia was going to leave for the capital in a week’s time, and could have made better decisions. On top of that, deciding to take out Reibia - while certainly justful - was a separate goal. If we delayed the operation until Reibia returned, we would have minimized the risk of preventable loss of life. Alternatively, we could have slowed down, and accepted that he would get away for a time, and hit him later on in a separate operation.
RAPHTALIA is frowning, fighting with herself to not respond with a cutting remark.
RAPHTALIA: I don’t understand what you are saying. Should I have not brought Raluva to us?
CONSTANCE pauses, then shakes her head.
CONSTANCE: No, I think that was a case of smart improvisation on your part. It’s the later decision to reveal ourselves to more people that was the problem, all things considered.
NAOFUMI frowns himself.
NAOFUMI: Does it matter that much? We don’t really need to go into this much depth on this. At the end of the day, we wouldn’t be doing this for long.
SYNE: What?
NAOFUMI looks at her and raises an eyebrow.
NAOFUMI: Attacking individual plantations doesn’t solve the overall problem. There must be, at a rough guess, more than a million slaves in the country?
CONSTANCE: It’s closer to four.
NAOFUMI: That’s even worse. Even if I worked every day, without stopping, for an entire year, I’d only put a small dent in that number. But that’s not possible, and even if it was, Shieldfrieden would buckle if we tried to move this many people there - their farms simply wouldn’t produce a large enough surplus to feed them all.
CONSTANCE nods, agreeing with the math of it.
NAOFUMI: Fundamentally, this problem has to be solved inside Melromarc, with a revolution that can take institutional power away from the nobles. That is a much more manageable problem - armies, in any period of time, are only a fraction of the population. We trained, what, about two hundred people here?
CONSTANCE: One hundred and fifty one, as of the count this morning, but it’s not clear how many of them would prefer to simply leave for Shieldfrieden.
NAOFUMI: Thank you. That took us five days, but we only trained at night, to avoid suspicion. If we did it during the day too, then in a month we could have, give or take, about two thousand people. That’s the goal to aim for, in my eyes. If we pushed into areas with more dangerous monsters that are worth more XP, then it would be even more. Together with potential support from Shieldfrieden, and by forming the untrained people into levies - demihuman and peasant alike - we could fairly quickly reach the size needed to threaten the country.
SYNE’s lips twitch in annoyance.
SYNE: Demihuman and peasant alike? How the fuck are we alike?
NAOFUMI: What?
SYNE scowls.
SYNE: You talked a lot about “strategic errors”. You know what I think was the biggest error? That we didn’t run the fuck away as soon as that thing showed up. There was no reason to fight it. It would have rampaged across town, whatever, but we’d have all been safe. And the reason we didn’t do that is that you dithered around talking about saving the humans for too long.
SYNE stabs her finger at NAOFUMI. NAOFUMI’s eyes go wide. In the distance, DARK NAOFUMI’s laughter resounds. RAPHTALIA scowls back and leans over the table.
RAPHTALIA: Syne!
CONSTANCE: Quiet down, both of you!
SYNE: What? We have been here a day and already there’d been conflicts. Humans are not like us. They never will be.
RAPHTALIA’s chair falls on the ground as she stalks over to SYNE. CONSTANCE tries to catch her, but RAPHTALIA easily twists under her arms. RAPHTALIA faces SYNE head on and stabs a finger at her chest.
RAPHTALIA: What the fuck do you know? I’ve been all over this country, I’ve met them, and I am telling you that they are in the same goddamn boat. Us and them have the same enemies: the fucking nobles. Us they keep in chains, while the humans walk “free”, but the blood they suck comes out of all our veins.
CONSTANCE and NAOFUMI try to pacify both of them, but they ignore her. FILO is relaxing. SYNE scowls back at RAPHTALIA, growling her response out.
SYNE: A slaver is still a slaver, even if they’ve lost their whip. Those villagers would be all too happy to take the top place and spit down on us, if only they could. You know it, I know it: they think we are little more than animals, and they will treat us likewise.
RAPHTALIA picks SYNE up by her lapels and shakes her. SYNE tries to resist, but RAPHTALIA is much stronger.
RAPHTALIA: Those are lies put into their heads by the fucking nobles! Damn you to the spirit beasts, Syne, how do you not see this? We will barely have enough to fight them if we do it together; separately, we have no chance! If a lion is cut in half, do you think it can still survive? What if those two halves are trying to bite one another to death? What do you think, Syne?!
RAPHTALIA punctuates her words by shaking SYNE. At first, SYNE looks angry, and tries punching RAPHTALIA, but RAPHTALIA ignores it. Soon SYNE’s expression shifts into a panic as she realizes there is no escape from RAPHTALIA’s virtuous anger. After a while, RAPHTALIA releases her, and SYNE stumbles and falls on the floor. RAPHTALIA’s nose is bleeding where SYNE had hit her, but she is otherwise fine. RAPHTALIA wipes her nose off, and looks down on SYNE. NAOFUMI offers her a healing potion, while CONSTANCE helps SYNE up off the ground.
NAOFUMI: Syne isn’t wrong.
RAPHTALIA’s head whips around to look at NAOFUMI in shock. SYNE looks equally shocked on the ground. NAOFUMI looks back at RAPHTALIA.
NAOFUMI: I said she isn’t wrong, not that she is right. The racism problem is there, and we do need to address it.
NAOFUMI looks down at SYNE.
NAOFUMI: But you won’t like how I am going to do this. There were villagers here who wanted to come with me to the waves, to defend against the threat everyone faces. I will train them together with you, in groups of four: two humans, two demihumans.
SYNE scowls at NAOFUMI. NAOFUMI reads her face.
NAOFUMI: Yeah, I don’t care, figure it the fuck out. I will keep you all together until you hate me more than one another if I have to. Raphtalia’s right: either we get out of this together, or we’ll be killed together, there is no alternative. We’ll start tomorrow.
They put the drinks away, and SYNE leaves for the mines. Before they retire for the night, CONSTANCE pulls NAOFUMI to the side and whispers to him.
CONSTANCE: You know, this doesn’t even break the top three worst post-mortems I have ever seen. Nobody even pulled out a knife.
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DRAMATIS PERSONAE
NAOFUMI IWATANI, THE SHIELD HERO. The first socialist. Protagonist. Militant atheist on the subject of his personage.
RAPHTALIA. The second socialist. Stalwart of unity.
CONSTANCE VON MARUKIEVICH / FREDALIA. Postmortem secretary. Great organizer. Secretly demihuman. Somewhat religious.
FILO. Fighting expert. Casual nap enjoyer.
SYNE. Demihuman freedwoman. Doesn’t trust humans.
ANNA. Barkeeper in the village of Lute.