Korolm was days behind us as we made our usual midday stop, still in the midst of endless rolling hills. As stated, I checked on my captives during each meal. They were in as good of spirits as I could expect them to be in chains.
Without giving away any of my secrets I offered to answer any questions they may have. The one that I still couldn’t answer was what I would do with them. To assuage their fears I had said that I did not plan to end their lives. It was true enough for now.
Those with families still did not want to discuss them, but I would keep asking. Again, unsure of why exactly I wanted to know. Perhaps that knowledge would keep me from making the decision to kill them in some way at a later time.
I would eat one meal with them and another with one of my units, trying to spread out my presence a bit more. This took more time of course, but I wanted to know these people whose lives I held power over.
Ruko approached and sat next to me while eating with my shackled lunch guests. “Why do you keep these offenders, Lord Sully? And why ensure they are cared for?”
The meals I ate now were not typical noble affairs, but the same that I fed the prisoners and what my soldiers ate. For that reason, it took a bit of chewing before I could respond to the masked minister.
“Compassion, I think.”
“You are a curious person. And you understand that it is contrary to what most would do in your situation?”
“Somewhat. What others would do is not something I try to concern myself with overly much.”
“There is wisdom in that I suppose.”
“I think time will show whether it is wisdom or folly in one’s choices.”
“Certainly full of clever words today.”
I shrugged, “Perhaps full of stupid questions too, if you would not mind humoring me.”
“Please, ask. I am at your service, my lord,” she said with a deferential bow of her head.
“Do you ever take the mask off?”
She giggled, “It is not permanently affixed to my face, if that is what you are asking. Yes, I do.”
“Why choose Verot?”
That mask hid her face, but the way she looked upward slightly seemed like she thought about the answer before responding.
“His domain is what I believed to be my greatest weakness at the lowest point in my life.”
“Gambling problem?”
“Nothing quite so obvious. No, I blamed my own terrible luck on anything else but me. The irony is that after turning to Verot, I found that it had more to do with free will and chaos than anything.”
Immediately I envisioned some dark forces of chaos working against the order in the world. “What do you mean when you say chaos and free will?”
“Simply that individuals’ decisions have more to do with outcomes than luck. Chaos has little to do with chance by itself. Rather it is one’s proximity to a particular event which dictates their likelihood of being swept up in its vortex.”
“Interesting. Yet you remain with Verot nonetheless. Can you ever swap for a different god?”
“I could, but do not see why I would. His will is the most interesting of the favored gods in my perspective.”
“How so?”
“The domains of most gods are rather boring, to me. Verot watches over all luck; good and bad. Many seek his favor for trivial matters. Others do so for a more generalized improvement in their life, believing it will help. The most intriguing are those who offer thanks for what they perceive to be their good fortune, being a sign of his influence to them.”
Her answer surprised me. “You do not sound like you believe.”
“Oh, I do. What I will never know is which of those things he has touched and which he has not, which is why it fascinates me,” she said. “Have you read that book, Lord Sully?”
The book she had given me was a collection of legends and fables all involving the god of chance. Most of them had some moral to their story. Little of it was written about Verot himself however.
“I have yet to finish it, but I have started it - yes.”
“Would you mind sharing your thoughts on it thus far?”
“A common theme throughout the book almost appears to be that Verot prefers balance in the world, which struck me as odd. It also says remarkably little about him directly.”
She nodded, “That is the right way of it I believe. His purview is that of advantages and disadvantages, as well as weighing them against one another. In most things someone must lose that which another gains.”
“Has he ever granted some great bounty or prosperity without balancing the scales?”
“That I could not begin to know and would not assume to understand. Who would say if, in doing so, it was not balanced in a way we could not fathom?”
“True enough I suppose. One last question and then I must get back to my carriage so we are not delaying our departure. Is he missing an eye or are you?”
Again she reached up to touch the mask’s mangled left eye. “Both, actually. That is a longer story for another time I fear. Have a wonderful day my lord,” she said as she began walking away, before adding, “And thank you for your compassion toward others.”
I watched her walk away, thinking about life and luck. It didn’t seem plausible that the entire universe, or even just this world, were a zero sum or closed loop. The whole of existence is owed to entropy… if my understanding of it all is correct anyway. “I hate philosophy,” I thought with a groan on the walk back.
If there were ministers for various gods, I wanted to find one for Kuriy as well. Why had there not been one at the noble’s temple? It could be that there was one and I had not encountered them. Were there clergy for each god represented at a temple? Would that be true of every temple?
With my thoughts wandering as far and wide as they were, I nearly let my feet meander right by the carriage. My argenti were waiting inside for me to return, having likely eaten quickly before hurrying back to look over more rune-stuff.
As we did every day, we set off again.
Thinking of my soldiers’ morale after we set camp for the night, I decided ‘movie nights’ should be something we do. Projecting onto canvas worked remarkably well. The portable speaker was loud enough for everyone to hear at first, even if they couldn’t understand any of it.
Everyone was amazed with my ability to conjure moving images. It didn’t do anything to hurt my image or the way they looked at me, that’s for sure.
After the first night of this the crowd grew too large, so we started a rotation of them. I would have preferred to have showings in a tent or obscured area, to keep it a secret. Instead, we began setting up a tent just outside my area of camp - to keep the extra bodies away from my stuff.
I began charging admission from outsiders as well on the second night. Free entry was also extended to any member of the Resolute as well. This way they would not have to ask their benefactors for money to attend.
Troops paid two copper, camp followers and non-troops paid ten copper, and nobles paid five silver. At first they balked at the high cost, until they were left out of this new form of entertainment and acquiesced. They also got front row seats.
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Movie nights were a hit and I finally had some form of income. It was a drop in the bucket compared to the stores of wealth I already held, but it was nice to be bringing in my own money as well. Just counting the nobles, each showing brought in more than a gold. Which is why I started two a night of the same movie.
Nespolan was happy at first… until the crowds grew too large by the third night, taking up quite a bit of ground. We worked out a way to manage it, using the hillsides to our benefit. Natural stadium seating! At least the lighting conditions were favorable and I managed to stretch it to a two and a half meter screen size.
We had more than a hundred people attending each showing on the fourth night. Around that number is where we cut off admittance. More people would only make viewing quality go down. And I bumped it up to a total of three per night. Myself or one of my argenti ran each event.
The nobles produced about eighty percent of the revenue. Each night totaled at least four gold, fifteen silver, and some copper coins. If we kept this up, I might make back the money I spent during my first shopping trip… if not the second.
I had a large library of movies, so we wouldn’t run out of content any time soon. Honestly, it was fun. The best bonus might be the change in some of the nobles’ demeanor toward me. No, the dark dreams easing up on me slightly was better than that.
The added task did make for longer nights, but our productivity had not been hindered at all. If anything, it helped. Dorstark and Morslon both had a sense of pride in being allowed to openly operate the laptop and projector.
My argenti were also both given access to my grimoire, journal, and book - which I was surprisingly comfortable with. Months ago it would have been inconceivable, by all present, that they would be allowed to handle and read them. Partly due to my own insecurities or paranoia, and also in part because of their extreme respect for personal property.
Culturally speaking, it turns out that magical thievery is one reason for the aversion to touching things that one does not own. Wrist clasping existed for a similar reason; mutually assured destruction. Kinda similar anyway.
It was one of the few accepted means of touching another person openly. However, if one mage were to attempt to perform something to another, there were methods of reflecting and duplicatings spells. This was even easier for those which are contact based.
Almost all of that went out the window where societal hierarchy was concerned. The King could do as he wished to other people and their belongings - mostly. That would be true of others down the chain from royalty and nobility, ending with commoners. Or skane, I suppose. They were considered the bottom of the barrel, or the ground the barrel sat upon. Chattel, similar to livestock... only cheaper.
So, it seemed that my station, presently benefitting from the King’s and High Commander’s ranks, placed me directly below Nespolan in the pecking order of our caravan. It was in part due to that ranking that my argenti were elated when I announced we three not-kings would be working together on my favorite five thousand piece puzzle…
If it were a puzzle with no edge pieces. And we lacked the full picture to work from. And they were all scratch offs too, obscuring even small pieces of the mystery image.
Their exuberance was mostly because it was an unknown magic though, if I’m being honest with myself. Borrowed ego aside, I was glad to actually have them working alongside me in this endeavor.
While I spent a great deal of time reviewing and studying the contents of my grimoire, it usually felt as if I was stuck in a loop. Their fresh eyes looked at the problem with new perspectives and vigor. It was akin to running with someone else; a constant source of motivation and means of externally judging pace.
Each had a blank book to write in and my own pens to use, which they marveled at. Though we wrote very little during the day, quills and inkwells would have been a terrible option on the road.
Dorstark remained focused on everything remotely related to the symbol he recognized. He wanted to know if it was a fire rune of some sort. Runes found alongside them frequently pulled him down tangential paths, until he would wind his way back toward the root of his chosen area of study.
Morslon focused on grouping like characters together in novel ways. I had been down this path many times and had dedicated dozens of pages in the grimoire to that area of research; constantly to no avail. His approach however was different than many of mine had been.
After the hills gave way to open plains with mountains looming in the distance, we had our first potential breakthrough since working together as a team. During Morslon’s attempts at cataloging symbols from most simple to most complex he found possibly related symbols being used with some wholly different. In one case there was a complex character that resembled another being used among far more simple symbols.
“It resembles a translation error in our magic manuscripts,” he gasped.
“I thought it was a massive ‘faux pas’ to translate them from their original, dead languages.”
“‘Faux pas’?”
“Bad form. Wrong. Something that was not done.”
“Right. It is. But it has happened. Some texts were translated thousands of years ago from one ancient civilization to a newer one, still long dead to us.”
Lightbulb!
“You are suggesting that the newer old language lacked a proper translation for something from and older… old language!”
“Correct. Look here,” Morslon said, laying his finger on a line my great-grandfather had written. It was copied from a tablet in a museum. He flipped to another page and pointed at another piece my grandfather had examined in a tomb on an entirely different continent, “And… here.”
The second was an entirely complex set of symbols. In the first set there was only one complex rune, surrounded by more simplified runes. The two complex symbols were close enough that they may have meant the same thing but those around them seemed to have no correlation.
“So they could be from the same language family then,” I said.
“I think so.”
How could I have missed that? I was so close to it enough times that I should have stumbled across this. The choice between kicking myself over it or diving in this rabbit hole was a simple one though. I would only beat myself up over it for a little bit… while working through it with Morslon.
The three of us explored this concept quite a bit further, finding more and more to lend credence to Morslon’s theory. If he was right, there may still be multiple related, but different, languages in this archaic tree. Again, if they even were languages. It also meant that there should be a source for the many varied derivatives.
My own thoughts continue to be pulled back toward figuring out how to use these runes to make a damned bottomless bag. Using game knowledge, it would be a pocket dimension or something of that sort. Whether it was possible or not, I didn’t know yet - nor would I know if I didn’t at least explore the idea.
Walking helped clear my head and just think about things. I strolled through the camps after I finished the first movie, leaving my argenti to handle the rest. One night, halfway between the hills and mountains, I came across a spirited game being played by some soldiers well away from my camp. Money changed hands frequently, with one lucky guy winning most of the rounds.
I pulled up a stool to watch the games, unaccustomed to the rules or how it was played. They greeted me warmly, going so far as to extend an invite to me out of courtesy.
“Appreciate the offer, but I do not know the game,” I said.
“Watch and learn, Lord Commander Sully,” the fortuitous soldier said. “If you want to learn how to win at swords, spears, and shields that is.”
“That cretin will show you how to rutting cheat, my lord.” The group of them shared in raucous laughter.
The game involved some skill, luck of the dice, and quite a bit of bluffing. Each die was in the shape of a pentagonal prism; five sided and long. Pips for one, two, four, and five were represented with the remaining side showing a crude sword shape.
Dice were rolled in the middle of the play area, one per person, remaining visible in the ‘mercenaries’. Each player rolled two dice in a cup, also called a ‘shield’, keeping them hidden. A round of betting followed this first ‘shield phase’; the term for player dice turns. Then players could trade dice in the center of the table, costing more coin each successive round, until a single person passed the option to do so. Any traded die remained shown instead of being hidden beneath their shield cup.
A second shield phase followed with another two dice under a cup, then betting and another trade. Then the third shield phase and standard follow up. Players placed a single coin in their fourth and final cup with a single die. The coin could be any denomination and provided some advantage I didn’t quite understand.
Seeing silver or gold revealed in a cup was rare for a game with standard bets of bits and copper. A last round of betting happened before every player revealed their ‘army’.
That same soldier won this game as well, rewarded with the pot and a round of cursing. “Easy my lord,” he said.
Looking at the table the method of scoring still eluded me. Shielded dice were worth more than mercenary dice and swords were worth more than five, I think.
“Swords and shields you have explained. What about spears?”
One of the soldiers stood one of them on its end and gestured toward it, “That is a spear, my lord. It is valued higher than swords.”
“Seems like it might be a rare occurrence.”
“It is. Can not buy them from mercs, so you can never tell who is hiding one. This lucky rutter manages to pull a spear every game,” he said, using a short form of mercenaries.
Listening to them more and more, I began to realize they had a different manner of speaking or wholly different dialect than what I learned. Their accents were even distinctly different.
The winner shrugged, “Stole a bit of the caravaneer's luck, I did.”
“Rutting bastard showed up with a king’s mark and refused to lose since,” said one of the losers, supported by agreements from the others.
King’s mark was another term for a gold coin. Rare among these men and women to be sure.
“Mind if I see the coin, soldier?”
He plucked the coin from the table, next to a spear die. It had been used in his final cup’s wager.
“Did not steal it my lord,” he said, quavering. “Promise.”
My eyes widened with the realization. The coin bore a stylized engraving of my initials. Rubbing my thumb across the inscription I could feel a faint tingle of energy. It wasn’t radiating nearly the power of my grimoire, but it was there all the same.
“Take me to who you got this from,” I said, not looking up.
“It is not… I did not,” he stammered.
His stool fell, pulling my eyes up from the gold coin. Drinks, dice, and coins all tumbled through the air as he kicked the table in protest. My guard detail, whom I rarely thought much about, held him by the arms.