The brightwater river is the 3rd longest river in the entirety of Wessamont, only the kenlight and yulehead rivers surpass it in flow length. Both cut from one end of the kingdom to the other. Yet, neither are nearly as important as brightwater in the flow of goods.
Brightwater feeds into over 20 large lakes and its believed underwater offshoots of the river may feed anther 50 smaller bodies. The sheer reach of the river has made it the largest inland supply line in any human kingdom.
This route is usually ocupied by smaller riverboats and outdated cog. Each may carry the goods of a single merchant to the connecting sea port or cities. They rarely transport a weight over a few tonnes.
Recently though, 10's of large caravels have been sighted passing through its waters. These large ships can each easily carry 80 tonnes of cargo, which is a weight no downstream town or city would ever need to accomodate. Yet downstream these caravels go, all heading to the same destination - the temporary port in the brightland region.
Almost every day a caravel arives at the port to unload a large variety of goods. Uncut stone, food, livestock, ore and even people can all be found among the ships cargo holds. Vast swathes of crates lie along the wooden decking of the ports main dock and innnumerable wagons constantly ferry the shipments back and forth between the large ramshack warehouses and the newly forming central town.
Among the newest batch of immigrants is an average height bald man. The only visible clothing besides the boots on the man is a long brown cloak. There is absolutely nothing unusual or suspicous about this man. Of course, his tendency to nervously look in every direction could be considered odd, but this is a new town.
And its quite different from most towns and cities - unlike Wessend, the towns layout is orderly and clearly designed.
Long roads wide enough for a single carriage divide houses and workshops and connect to much larger roads wide enough for two carriages. These roads direct towards the outskirts of the town and the inner town square. Even more unusual is just how well built everything is.
Each building in the housing district seems to be constructed out of small white stone bricks and each is three stories high. The roads are well paved with a smooth orange tinted surface. Curious gutters with strange holes every 30 paces lay within the sides of the roads.
If this were the noble district of an ancient city, nobody would bat an eyelid at the marvelous construction. But this town has only been undercontruction for half a year and no nobles bar the duke live here! The speed of construction is astounding.
It even seems as if its peasants and commoners living in the grand builings.
Still dumbfounded, the bald man continued on down the streets till he reached the pleasure district. He entered a two storied tavern and approached the bar. After sitting down on one of the wooden stools, he called for the older man behind the counter.
"I'll take a tankard of ale, and a room for the night. No need for food" the man growled.
"We've only got small rooms left," the barman said while eyeing his customer "That'll be two muncae if you still want it"
The bald man reached into his cloak and pulled out two dark green coins and placed them on the counter. Swiftly scooping the coins up, the barman turned and began pouring a yellow liquid out of a tap into a wooden tankard. He then placed the tankard down infront of the bald man and returned to work behind the bar.
A few moments later, another man entered the tavern and sat down besides the bald man. He tossed a single red coin on the table and nodded at the barman.
He then turned to the individual he sat besides and began attempting to strike up conversation with this brown cloaked fellow.
"I ana' seen you round here before, you one a' them newcomers then?"
Hearing this, the bald man tilted his head to face his new seating partner. Just from his rough, burly voice the man assumed the speaking individual was a farmer or a hunter but his equipment told otherwise. The man is wearing a thin gambeson, cut off at the sleeves. Underneath the gambeso is a thin woolen shirt that covers his arms and has leather padding on the elbows. Ontop of the bar the man placed a simple iron Sallet-style helment and rest his arm on the top of it.
Obviously, this man is a town watchman who should clearly be on duty right now.
"What makes you think im new here. I doubt you know everybody who visits this tavern" the bald man replied.
"Aye, yer right. I dunno everybody, but that cloak...most people round here imported cause they got a trade, like masonry, and you's can tell what job a man 'as by his clothing. It weren't rainin' when I was out and no trade 'ere wears a cloak, so you must have come recent, looking for a trade I bet"
"Well, you are half right. I was sent here to scout out the potential of this place for the trade of goods"
"Yer saw the caravels. This place is ripe for trade. Food, ore, you name it we need it"
"Im talking about...different type of goods.You see, there's rumors that the duke here is a bit...odd. That he's introduced loads of strange contraptions to the craftsmen, and these contraptions apparently work using magic. There are even rumors that the duke is a mage. If thats corret, mages always have want for rarer materials"
"All true. Mage straight from the capital, and those contraptions are more than strange"
The bald man smiled upon hearing these words. While glancing around the room as if checking for eavesdroppers, the bald man then started leaning in closer to the watchman and began speaking in a much quieter voice.
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"Then, is it true the duke wanders at night, with only a small group of unarmed men, to a place just on the outskirts of the town?"
"Now why'd you wanna know that, then" The watchmans upturned hand completely betrayed the watchmans concerned voice.
The cloaked man pulled out another of the green coins and placed it into the watchmans hand while assuring the man he had no ill intentions.
"As I said, im here to scout out a potential customer for, um ,rarer goods. I can't quite announce my intentions at his front doors now can I? Anyway, for a duke to freely wander with no guards...its always good to know when you are dealing with an archmage, you understand?"
The armoured man bit down on the coin then, confirming it was real, slipped it into a small pouch hanging from his belt.
"Aye, that's all true as well. Takes the path straight down to the forest border with a few o' his architects. Seems he intends on building something oer' there. Anyway, you can't tell this publicly to the duke but yer can tell me? Something fishy 'bout that. Yer ain't even introduced youself""
"I apoligise. Im Herel, a merchant from artistadt. And why I can tell this to you... well, a town watchman, or one of the dukes guards, going to the tavern for a drink in the middle of the day. In full gear, no less. I know this buisness and I also know you can trust a slacker if you pay them enough"
"That so," the guard chuckled whiled signalling to the barman "Nice to meet yer Herel. Bit cheeky of yer, but I can't say yer wrong"
Many hours later, Herel returned to the tavern room he booked. After confirming the dukes nightly path, the apparent tradesmen spent the rest of the day wandering. He had originally hoped to have the newly settled locals direct him through the streets in an attempt to map out the alleys, but he soon found this unnecessary. The roads and pathways were so well organised that as long as one understood the general direction of their destination, reaching it was no hastle. This is a farcry from the usual winding streets the kingdom is known for.
Instead, he spent the day learning as much about the duke and the town as he could. He wrote each thing he learned down on a set of notes, which he placed on the rooms desk. Herel carefully checked through his notes using the dim light of a candle. Each piece of parchment layed out in front of him on the small desk contained numerous lines of text written in both common wessend tongue combined with some odd indesipherable script.
The fact he owned such parchment was already enough to show he was wealthy, or at least had a rich backer. Being able to write in a foreign language on top of that? Clearly, Herel was no normal tradesman.
As he finished reading he began scooping up the notes and slowly piled them to one side. He then reached into the cloak he had yet to take off and pulled out a disk of metal shaped like a wheel. A small lump of pulsating flesh-like material was centered within the objects spokes. Whilst grabbing each side of the disk with finger and thumb, he began raising the object to eye level.
After a stort period of staring at the object, he moved it back within the cloak and swiftly sat up from his chair while grabbing the piled notes and shoving them into a pocket. He left the tavern and set off into the night.
Now that the curtain of night had set the newly formed town looked no less familiar to Herel than any other. A complete blanket of darkness covered the indistuishible roads and houses. Yet, even without a light source, Herel had no issue navigating through the town.
Half an hour of straight paths and 90 degree turns later and Herel reached his target. In front of him lies a large stretch of clear flat land just on the borders of the forest. The road he took lead Herel to a district of much larger buildings, each of different shapes and sizes.
Not far in the distance, Herel noticed a bright light heading towards the clearing in front of him. His target was on his way here. Herel quickly manoeuvred his way into an alleyway between the two builds closest the the clearing. Next, he pulled pulled out the metal disk once again and raised it to face the oncoming light.
As he tightened the grip on each side of the disk the flesh-like object began pulsating more violently. A faint drumming noise, like the sound of a rapidly beating heart, rang out from the object. Seconds later, red crackles of lightning shot out of the side of the disk towards the adjacent buildings and began circulating the disk. As the beating got louder and louder and the pulsations got more violent, the lightning crackles slowly converged to a point a few centimeters in front of the now rapidly oscillating fleshy center.
Suddenly, a voice from behind Helent forced him to drop the disk. The lightning remained converging in front of the disk but the heartbeat stopped.
"May I ask exactly what you are doing"
Helent hurriedly turned to face the direction of the voice. A few meters in front of him he now saw the outline of a city watchmen. Unlike the man he met earlier, this watchman was wearing his sallet. To wear a visored helmet in this darkness, what was the man thinking?
No matter his intentions, Helen did not intend on letting the mans blunder pass. He instead grabbed for his belt and unsheathed a rondel dagger and charged towards the man. Clearly, Helen was no tradesmen- or at least he was a tradesman with malicious intent.
When he had just reached within arms reach of the watchman, a sudden blinding light flashed out infront of him. As the light hit his eyes, the dagger was parried to one side. Once his eyes had adjusted, Helen noticed the light coming from a small hole in the side of a buckler the watchman had parried his dagger with.
With his senses regained, Helen skillfully stepped one foot forward and stabbed up at the incoming arm, which was holding an arming sword. In a manner no tradesman would know, he navigated his entire body out of the way of the blade while using the unarmed hand to redirect the watchmans attacking arm into the path of his upwards stabbing dagger.
As the dagger and appendage collided, instead of the expected screamed pains, Helen was met with the clanking sound of metal on metal. The watchman was wearing plate armour vambraces.
With little pause between the swing the watchmans buckler arm came flying towards helen. The large spike on the center of the buckler left a large gash in the bald mans face, revealing...trickling dark blue blood! The wound even completely sealed itself within seconds.
The watchman looked at the spike on his buckler and saw the odd coloured liquid on the end and unhesitatingly shifted his stance. He placed the buckler arm out in front of him, and pulled the other half of his body back and hid the arming swords blade behind the buckler.
Helen once again jabbed out with the dagger and the watchman once again went to parry. This time, though, the watchman quickly stepped his entire body forward and jammed the buckler against Helen's hand, completely locking in the knife with the bucklers spike. Then, the watchman stabbed into Helens shoulder.
Without stopping, he then looped the buckler hand under Helen's armpit and twisted his entire arm upwards. He rapidly twisted his body behind Helen and kicked out the back of his leg, dropping him to one knee. Intending on giving Helen no time the react, the Watchman then removed a small dagger from his belt and stabbed it right through the side of the bald mans kneck. The act let out a loud crunching noise as metal collided with bone.
The watchman let go of the limp figure and turned towards the place his assailant had dropped the unusual item. Yet it wasn't there.
Instead, it was somehow in the hands of the supposedly dead attacker on the floor and it was pointed right at the dukes party!
The vibrating once again built up, much faster than it had only a minute ago. Before the watchman could move back to stop the bleeding bald man, a powerful shockwave blasted out of the alleyway. Along with it, a ball of spinning red lightning hurtled its way towards duke Walter.
Helen once again lay motionless, with the now melted disk burned into the grilled flesh of his hands. Whatever this "tradesman" had done, it was not done out of good will.