9th of Summer, 5859
Casamonu, Empire of Gemeinplatz
Count Leon had done it. He had, with diplomacy of upmost adroitness, gathered a force without much financial strain.
Favors, politicking, a whole lot of letters and some threats later, a force consisting of a hundred men had gathered in his castle’s garden. This “army” definitely wasn’t big, but the count didn’t need anything big to take care of a few errant slaves hiding in the mountain. It consisted of indebted adventurers, retinues of close noble houses, and donated troops from those wishing to gain the favor of the count.
The count rode atop his horse, inspecting his little army with pride. Of course, he himself would also be participating in the battle… as a commander staying in the backline. Getting his own hands dirty wasn’t in line with how Leon operated, nor was he an experienced military commander. He had delegated command to those who had brought the forces, which was more than good enough for a force that was meant to beat down a few lightly armed slaves.
How he operated did include speeches though. “Men! You are doing a great service to the county today.” Leon’s horse moved to-and-fro to make sure that everybody could hear at least a little bit of his speech. “Those savages up in the mountains have been terrorizing this land for a while now, terrorizing our spouses and children. Today we shall say ‘No more!’ as we drive these uppity darkskins off of Curry and into an otherworld!” The count raised his sword, and pointed it toward Mount Curry.
His speech hadn’t exactly motivated the men too much. None of them were all too motivated from vague notions of “protecting the realm” and “uppity darkskins”. What motivated them was whatever reward laid ahead after their job was done: fame, reputation, and most importantly, sweet dosh.
“Now, as you may all know, the former owner of the mine we’re about to head off to has been brutally murdered by the fugitives.” Leon wasn’t done with his speech, however. He continued to ride around while keeping his sword pointed towards the mountain. “Whoever, at the end of the battle, brings me the most heads of these fugitives dead or alive shall receive this land and the honor of knighthood!”
This promise was a whole lot more motivating. The men’s reluctance turned into enthusiasm at the prospect of nobility and owning a mine for themselves. “Your Excellency! What about the slaves we capture?” This question came from an old adventurer in the audience.
“You can do whatever you’d like to your captives. Own them, sell them, kill them…” Leon had truly gotten the attention of the crowd now. They seemed pretty excited to get to looting the human chattel of the abandoned estate. “Let me remind you that we won’t get to do that if we don’t march.” This prompted a few laughs from the crowd. Leon led his horse towards the gate of his castle. “Forward, march!”
With his command, the disorganized mess of men organized themselves into a loosely column-shaped line of men; it was impossible to march in formation effectively without training, nor was professional military training a common occurrence in Gemeinplatz. They didn’t need fancy formations for what they were about to do anyways. A hundred armed men could defeat whatever measly force had taken control of the mine.
They knew not what, or who, they were facing…
9th of Summer, 5859
Mount Curry, Casamonu
It was a foggy and rainy day as usual in Mount Curry, and marching through it was quite a bother. This was especially true if one was marching with a hundred people in tow.
Just one person pausing due to the mud meant that everyone behind them had to stop while they got their precious boots unstuck. The mountain road was quite narrow, meaning that nobody could reroute when anyone in front of them had to pause. Reduced visibility in the fog meant that there were quite a few false alarms: a few errant farmers and miners had almost been murdered on the spot by paranoid adventurers. Thankfully, the count’s army had managed to keep the number of civilian casualties to a somewhat acceptable 2, the casualties being a goatherd and his dog. The men quickly buried the bodies before anyone had time to have any bothersome qualms about what they had done, to get them out their sight and out their mind.
The march was quite slow thanks to these problems, and the small army had barely made it halfway toward their goal by the time the day ended. As the sun went down so did their enthusiasm to march any further. Camp was set up on the road, for they had failed to find a plateau to settle down for the night. The night began, with the men flanked by darkness and mountains.
“Shakira, come here. I think I’ve finally found a spot.” Among the ones in camp was a familiar figure, that of Shakir and his adventuring companion. He had been looking for somewhere safe and reasonable to settle for the rainy night, and he had found a spot under a few trees that seemed to have stayed dry.
“Coming!” Shakira ran toward the spot, still carrying her ridiculously large sword. Everyone who she ran across turned their heads to gaze at the sword, wondering how the hell she had carried it all the way. Most of them concluded that it must be some sort of magic metal that was lightweight, like mithril, but this was false. Shakira was indeed carrying a weapon made out of run-of-the-mill steel. She was able to carry it thanks to fantasy logic that’d take way too long to exposit.
The adventuring pair sat touched grass as they sat down to take a breather. Shakir and Shakira put down all their worldly possessions that they had been carrying. “Damn that Shinasi. He’d at least help us carry all this.” Shakir grumbled while his old legs wept tears of joy from all the weight that had been lifted off of them.
“If he hadn’t disappeared.” added Shakira. They still hadn’t figured out where that man had gone off to. It was most likely to escape some grave debt he had accumulated while under influence of foreign chemicals (a.k.a. alcohol). On the topic of debt, the financial situation of Shakir and Shakira had worsened considerably since they had lost their one and only tank.
The pair stayed like this for a while, voicing a few complaints here and there while they waited for sleep to finally take them. It didn’t take long, however, for visitors to show up. Shakir saw a small group, of what looked to be a petty nobleman and his retinue, show up to construct a tent next to them.
The servant of this nobleman approached the adventurers. “Could you please move to somewhere else?” It seems that the petty noble had eyes on their place of rest. There wasn’t much that Shakir and Shakira could do, so they got up to find somewhere else.
“Wait a second, Ted.” The nobleman leading the group stopped his servant. “We should have enough room in the tent. Let them stay with us for the night.”
“Yes sir.” Ted immediately changed his tone to be a whole lot less dismissive of the adventurers. “Help us set up the tent, if you could.” He handed Shakir(a) a couple of stakes to be staked down.
“Thank you, sir, for your generosity.” The pair bowed down to their overlord in a sense of slight genuine gratitude. A large tent was quickly set up with their help, and they all got inside to breathe a sigh of relief. Not being under the rain felt great.
What felt a whole lot greater was the drinks brought out by Ted, who handed everyone a cup filled with suitably high-class wine. Cups clanged together as everyone in the tent cheered.
“Thank you again sir, for letting us stay dry tonight.” Shakir retracted his cup and took a sip. He was a understandably nervous; someone like him didn’t get to frequently dine with the upper class. “I’m Shakir, and she is Shakira. It’d be a pleasure to know the name of the one keeping us dry.”
“I am Sir Baha Earlywatch, loyal knight of His Excellency.” This nobleman was truly petty, only having a knighthood and a meagre amount of land and wealth.
Shakira paused upon hearing their host’s name. “Earlywatch? Wasn’t your sister, Lady Leila, married to the mine’s owner?” Leila’s predicament was pretty well known thanks to Leon having revealed it to everyone in his court.
Baha didn’t answer, showing that he didn’t wish to discuss this matter further. He sufficed by staring emptily towards particularly nothing. The petty noble did actually have a lot of things to say, but most of his thoughts would amount to treason against the count. Unlike Algernon, Baha still had a head that he had to keep attached to his shoulders.
Shakir noticed the awkward environment. He coughed in an attempt to cut the silence. “Let’s not speak about distasteful topics like that, Shakira.”
“Right! Right.” Shakira shook herself upon noticing the faux pas she had just committed. “Sorry about that, sir.” She prayed that she hadn’t offended the nobleman in front of her, and he eyes drifted toward the ground to avoid the noble stare of Baha.
“You are excused.” Baha was a petty noble only in the material sense of the word “petty”. He didn’t intend to lash out on some rude adventurers. That wouldn’t help out his situation by much. “Your… our job is to clear fugitives. That’s it. You needn’t ponder too much.” Baha himself had only participated in hopes of winning a crumb of favor from the count, perhaps convincing him to hand over the estate to a member of the Earlywatch family. He didn’t actually intend to join the fight when he arrived at the estate.
“Yes, glorious battle! As glorious as a battle against a bunch of darkskins can be, anyways.” Shakir laughed at his own joke as he gulped down the wine. “You know, we’ve only gone to battle against monsters in the mountains. I guess we can consider this as a dungeon raid, considering there’s little difference between a monster and a darkskin.” This time Shakira and Ted joined in laughing at this cheap joke. Baha found less humor in it; he had a teeny tiny issue with making jokes about a place that probably contained his sister’s corpse at this very moment.
“Ah! By the way, by the way…” Ted had decided to get a speaking role in this chapter. Being tipsy did wonders to his sociability. “…you know, there’s some pretty good loot to be found in that place. I’m speaking as a fellow adventurer here, albeit a former one.”
“Oh? What kind?” Shakira got a whole lot livelier at the mention of loot. She leaned a bit closer towards Ted to hear him more clearly.
“I’m talking about the darkskins, you know.” Ted had gotten a chance to take a much closer look at the residents thanks to having been the one to attempt negotiating. He leaned back while reminiscing of the freemen he had seen. “Most of them are miners, the strong muscular kind. I’ve seen those sell for a lot on the market, laborers are always in demand.”
Shakir nodded along. “I’ve seen them sell for a lot as well. He made plans to use a bit of magic to knock some slaves unconscious for capturing. Perhaps I should bring along some rope…
Two remarkable figures among the slaves suddenly jumped into Ted’s head. He leaned forward, to better address his interested audience. “And, and, there was also a slave that looked like a lightskin among them.” Slaves with lighter skin weren’t an impossibility, there was often intermingling (to put it politely) that resulted in mixed children. “Those go for a lot of money, you know. Along with him, there was also a female demihuman, of the catgirl kind, among the slaves. I believe she’d also amount to a nice sum of money, if you don’t intend on keeping her yourself.” Ted sent a wink toward Shakir while saying the last part.
“Mm? A catgirl in the mines?” Shakir’s brow trended upwards. “I haven’t seen their kind be used often for manual labor.” He quickly realized what this implied but kept quiet. Noblemen keeping enslaved mistresses, even whole personal harems, was an openly known secret; implying that the cousin of the count did just that wasn’t a thing that Shakir was about to do. Still, a catgirl didn’t sound too bad. “Maybe I’ll-”
Suddenly, a javelin tore through the tent’s roof and skewered Shakir’s head. His entire body went limp. A cup of wine rolled on the floor, ruining the tent’s flooring, not to mention the blood and other brain matter that had found itself on the wrong side of Shakir’s skull.
Everyone in the tent screamed in unison upon seeing a man dying in front of them. They weren’t alone in screaming, for they were joined by other men from outside the tent.
Hell had suddenly broken loose.
