by Eric Ugland
I wiped at my armor, trying to get some of the gunk off me. I noticed a stuck eyeball in the left elbow joint of my armor and pulled it out.
“You look like absolute shit,” a familiar voice called out.
A legionnaire lieutenant swaggered over to me.
“Darby, right?” I asked.
He nodded. “Lord Coggeshall, yes?” He replied.
“That is what they call me these days.”
“Impressive display out there.”
“Seemed like no one was up here for the fight at the start.”
“Ah,” he said, a big smile spreading across his face. “And here I thought you were a showboat.”
“Not following, sorry.”
“The niuclöps, when they attack, they let out a roar before they charge. Very high chance to induce fear. You get hit with that, you will be running and hiding. Not a whole lot we can do to train for it, being magical and all. So we set up in a warded building just down the stairs. Soon as we get word, we set up a shield wall and push the bastards back whence they’d come.”
“Oh. Yeah, I had no idea.”
“You think the Legion would just allow the monsters to overrun the city?”
“I mean, even now, you guys seem a little light on bodies.”
Darby looked back over his men.
“There is some truth to that,” he said. “I assume you know of the goings on in Glaton.”
“In the capital city?”
“And the Empire.”
“Some. I’m new to this whole court game.”
“The Legion is not immune to these problems. Those who seek the throne are gathering armies, and the best source of soldiers, unfortunately, remains the Legion. Thus, many veterans are forgoing their pensions and hiring on to mercenary companies. They feel they are able to make more money in that way. And, perhaps they will. I, for one, feel there is little honor in that. Alas…”
“You are not the one making the call.”
“I am not.”
“That is a shame.”
He gave a slight smile as he shook his head. “Ah, but that is the joy of freedom, one may make the wrong choice.”
“Mister,” came a small voice, “same deal as before?”
Behind me was a familiar little kid, standing there with a big smile, a big bag, and a pair of pliers.
“Hey little dude,” I said. “What are we harvesting today?”
“Teeth and tusks,” he replied.
“Sure,” I said. “You harvest, you can keep half of everything.”
“Deal!” he shouted, already running.
“You know him?” Darby asked, suppressing a chuckle.
“We’ve had a few run-ins.”
“Interesting friends you have here in town.”
“Only the best,” I said, clapping the man on the shoulder. “Thing is, I’m about to leave town.”
“I fear Osterstadt will lose out on that.”
“Have to go build up Coggeshall.”
“Good name.”
“Has a certain ring to it. I’m hoping I can do justice to the memory of the man.”
“Not a small undertaking,” he said. “Building a holding. Are you thinking a country home? Still come visit us in the city?”
“No,” I replied. “I have been charged with building a whole city. At least one of sorts. Maybe you can swing on by when you get a chance.”
Another smile. “If there is anything I can do—”
“You know any guards who might be looking for a new place to work?”
“I do not. The Legion and the city guards do not get along in the slightest, and I fear I am already losing too many legionnaires to hope to assign any your way. No man of mine is coming up for retirement either, so I fear you will need to ask again of me.”
“Know anyone who might sell me tools? Food?”
“That I can arrange. Are you leaving soon?”
“Preferably before nightfall.”
“That is a time table I fear I am unable to meet. I think, perhaps, I might be able to facilitate something a little later on.”
“Léon will know how to get in touch with me.”
“Léon Glaton the Viceroy?”
“That’s him.”
“You do make interesting friends here.”
“Only the best.”
“Then I will speak with the Viceroy when I have managed to get something set up. It will likely be a merchant from the capital, but—”
“Thank you, Darby.”
He nodded at me, and then made his way back to his men.
The little kid, meanwhile, was wreaking havoc on the various corpses about the place, ripping teeth and tusks out of the mouths with wild abandon.
An armored figure walked up to me, and knelt in front of me.
“I have failed you,” Nathalie said, putting her visor up.
“Nonsense,” I snapped, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. “You got hit with a fear effect when those niuclöps roared—”
“And yet you did not. I—”
“I have some abilities which keep me from fear. Not like I can fault someone else for succumbing to something I’m immune to.”
“But—”
“Shut it. We have too much to do to worry about that nonsense. There’ll be plenty of occasions in the future to prove yourself, and, if I’m guessing right, this was the first real taste you’ve had for combat, right?”
“Outside of tournaments, that is true.”
“So, not so bad for a first timer. You didn’t actually leave the battlefield, did you?”
“No.”
“There we go. You did as good or better than anyone else out there.”
“Except for you.”
“Ah, but I’m a duke.”
She glared at me for a second, but then broke into a smile.
“I will not fail you again,” she said.
“Not a thing,” I said. “Just, do you remember how to get back to where we were?”
Chapter 13
I was about to walk off the bulwarks when the little kid ran up to me.
“Yours,” he said, pointing to a rather massive pile of teeth and tusks.
“Oh,” I said, “uh, thanks.”
The kid nodded his head, then ran back to his pile. He took off his shirt, tied it into a sack of sorts, and piling the teeth and tusks inside. There was something really depressing at the situation. Something tugged at my heartstrings, whatever those are. Thing was, I looked out across the bulwarks and I saw the absolute devastation. The death. Green blood covered a massive amount of the stone, but there was no shortage of red blood. Humans had died. Not many other races had engaged in the fighting, at least outside of the Legion. There were a few dead Legionnaires. I thought about what I’d done in the past, and what I hoped to do in the future, and I realized that I needed to start getting back on the path to good now.
“Kid,” I called out, walking over to him.
He looked up at me, a little afraid, a little rebellious, his little belly sticking out.
“What?” he replied.
I knelt down, and still had to look down to look into his eyes.
“You alone?”
“No, lots of people around.”
“What about a family?”
“Got one.”
“Where?”
“Why?”
“Curiosity.”
“You gonna hurt them?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“Your type likes to hurt my type.”
“What is your type?”
“Poor.”
“And mine?”
“Rich.”
“Ah. Well, normally, I would agree with you. But I’m trying to change things.”
“So why you want to know?”
“Because I’m worried about you.”
“Me? You got no reason to worry ‘bout me.”
“Little dude, you don’t even have a sack for your goods.�
�
“Gave you the sack. And I got a shirt — just as good.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“Works?”
“Sure, but you wind up with no shirt on.”
“It is warm enough.”
“Isn’t winter around the corner?”
“I will have a new shirt by then, right?”
“I don’t know — will you?”
“Of course.”
“Look, just, you know, take me to your house. Let me see that you have a place to live.”
He glared at me, as best he could with his shirt off, his belly hanging out, and a bunch of bloody teeth hanging out of a make-shift sack. He harrumphed at me, then stomped off.
You have found a hidden quest:
The Lost Boy
You have worked with a small boy, he might be homeless, it might be worse. Help him.
Reward for success: XP. Perhaps nothing else.
Penalty for failure (or refusal): None
Yes/No
I smiled, wishing it had been as easy on Earth to see when it was time to do something right, and I accepted the quest. Then I signaled to Nathalie, and she came over to me.
“We’re going to follow this little guy,” I said, pointing to the little dude. “See where he lives.”
“May I ask why?” She asked.
“Don’t suppose curiosity will suffice?”
“For now.”
The kid stomped along the streets, seeming to know, for the most part, where he was going. He led us back towards the gate, then into the more industrial part of town. We followed him around a tavern, through some alleys, and finally to a shop specializing in ‘The Fabrication Of Exquisite Items,’ called The Gilded Gears.
I stopped and peeked in the window. It was a small storefront with a large counter and a massive work area behind that. There were various workbenches all the way back, and small figures raced about building all sorts of various things. Two small figures who looked a lot like humans, but shrunk down and plumped up, darted along raised walkways behind the counter. The counter being, naturally, at an appropriate height for humans. I guessed they were both men as they had the most impressive droopy mustaches, and wore heavy leather aprons. They had to be gnomes. Or, rather, they could be a type of dwarf. I shot my identification spell through the window.
Window
Item Type: Common
Material: Glass
Durability: Marginal
Weight: 22 pounds
Requirements: n/a
Description: Made from glass. It is a window. You can mostly see through it. This one is dirty.
Of course.
I didn’t want to go inside, so I just called Nathalie over.
“The little guys, are they—”
“Gnomes.”
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Heard of them? I have spoken to them, played with them, had them as tutors. Outside of this backwater bigoted city, the Empire of Glaton embraces all the races of Vuldranni.”
“Duly noted.”
Inside, the boy waited patiently until one of the gnomes noticed him. The gnome smiled and said something to the kid, making it clear the kid had at least basic familiarity with the gnomes. The gnome pulled a lever, and stairs came down into the public side of things, such that the kid could tromp up to the counter and divest his shirt-sack of his collected goodies.
The gnomes went over the various bits and bobs as presented by the kid, and then conferred with each other for a moment. They pulled some coins out and put them on the counter.
With a quick swipe, the kid snatched the coins from the counter, then darted off.
He pushed the door open, glared at me, and ran down the street. But that said, he didn’t try to make it hard to follow him. Again, we raced behind him through streets and alleys, getting really deep into the poorer side of town until we got to a really nasty area. Tenement buildings. People living on top of each other. The smells were overwhelming and the sounds were dehumanizing. I felt alternatively disgusted and sad. And, to make it worse, we followed the little dude behind one of the worst buildings to a small shack squished into a forgotten alley.
It was little more than offcuts of wood with the hints of nails holding it together, so calling it a structure was kind. The kid slid a slice of wood out of the way so he could enter. He didn’t close it.
I had to duck and turn sideways to get in, and, once I had, it was a grim sight. The space was about three feet wide and maybe ten feet long. The back wall was weeping brick, and either side wall was just the exterior walls from the neighboring buildings. A tiny fire pit was made out of stolen street cobblestones in the center. A rickety shelf hung from the roof, and held a few clay pots. A woman lay on a cot at the far end of the building, a tiny child curled into a ball at the foot of the bed.
The kid held out the handful of coins to the woman, but all activity stopped as soon as I stepped into the space and knelt by the fire.
Struggling to sit up, and grimacing in pain, the woman pulled the boy behind her as best she could at the same time as she wrapped her leg around the kid at the end of the bed.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Just a friend,” I said.
“I will not sell them to you,” she sneered, holding out something that might have been a knife once, but was now mostly a crooked piece of rust.
I had my hands up. “I’m not here for that,” I said. “May I approach?”
She didn’t make any sort of move, so I crouch-walked across the dirt floor.
As I got closer, I smelled something rank. Fetid and familiar.
“You’re hurt,” I said.
She frowned.
“She is getting better,” the kid piped up. “She can stay here.”
“I can heal you,” I said.
“Why?” She snapped. “How?”
“Well, I can get you a healing potion, or I can cast a spell on you.”
The little kid at the end of the bed was staring at me with big eyes as I edged closer. Her terror was evident.
“Magic?” She asked.
“Magic, yeah.”
“You are in league with demons?”
“No. Not at all.”
“That is how magic—”
“No, that is not how magic works.”
“You channel demons into my body and I will become a demon.”
“Still not true,” I said. “Would you feel more comfortable with a healing potion or something like that?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” I said, “I can do that. Maybe also some food?”
She looked at her two kids, and nodded once more.
“I will not give them to you,” she said suddenly.
“I’m not asking you to.”
“I cannot give you anything else—”
“Again, not asking. I am giving you these things with no thought for reciprocity.”
She blinked, and looked at either kid, then back at me. “I do not know that word.”
“I’m not looking for anything in return. I’m just trying to help.”
“But—”
I held a hand up, and set it on her arm. Her skin was on fire, and I desperately wanted to help, but I didn’t want to cast magic without her permission. Closer to her, the smell was worse, and definitely gangrenous.
“Can your son guide me to a shop to purchase healing supplies?”
“You will return him?”
“Of course,” I said. I looked over my shoulder at Nathalie peeking in the ‘door.’ “And my friend will remain here, to make sure you are okay, and that I come back.”
The woman bent over her kid, and whispered in his ear. The kid nodded, and then pushed past me and left the hovel.
I crawled out, and stood up outside, stretching. Nathalie grabbed my shoulder.
“What is it we are doing?” she whispered.
“You’re keeping them company while I go get some health potions.”
&
nbsp; “We have much to do before we leave the city and we ought to get out before nightfall.”
“That’s true. But this is important.”
The look on her face said she disagreed. But she kept her mouth shut, and just nodded.
Chapter 14
The kid didn’t bother to wait for me; he just headed down the street.
I jogged until I could catch up.
“Fast little dude,” I said.
He didn’t respond, just kept going.
“You have a name?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Montana.”
He stopped, then turned to face me. “Heard you a noble. Lord of something or other.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Why are you—”
“Because I like you. Because I see you and I remember my childhood, and I don’t want you to end up like me.”
“Rich?”
“Okay, this is confusing, I get that. But just trust me, I’m trying to help.”
“If you hurt my mother or my sister I will stab you while you sleep.”
“Deal. I’ll even take off my armor for you.”
My answer seemed to confuse him, but also amuse him. After a moment of consideration, he nodded. He kept walking, but now he moved at a more reasonable pace.
“Nolan, everyone calls me Mouse.”
“Nice to meet you, Mouse.”
Three more turns and I was lost, but Mouse seemed to know exactly where we were going. He delivered me to a small store. A few windows across the front of a wooden building with a swinging sign above.
The Horned Buck General Goods.
I pushed through the door, and took a gander about. Like most of the stores I’d been to in Glaton, there was a small space for customers and a large space for the shopkeeper. Rows and rows of shelves took up all of the back space, but a massive man had wedged himself into something that might have once been a comfortable chair by the lower counter.
A small bell rang out as the door opened, and the big dude looked up. He sneered as soon as he saw Nolan.
“You little shit,” he started, “I told you you are no longer welcome—”
