A Bright and Shiny Life

The promised hole is easily found– just big enough to fit through and hidden from the inside by a convenient bush. I slip in, look around for a patrol, but see only a worker with a cart some distance away.

The granary is a tall cylinder with a staircase spiralling on the outside to the top where workers operate hand cranked cranes lifting sacks of grain from wagons queued below.

I change my cloak to match the dusty brown of the granary’s stone bricks, rush to the staircase and climb quickly under concealment.

About halfway up I hear footsteps going down… my skin itches. There’s just one, I could take the body with me.

No, too hard. I leap off the side and hang off the bottom, cloak dangling below me.

Heavy booted feet step inches from my hands. I hold my breath as they pass without looking down, then agilely leap back up on the stairs to resume the climb.

I reach the top without further incident, only to find one more problem. Standing in front of the small hole where they toss the grain is an imperial archer. I could just take them out, sacrifice them, and shove them in the hole. My skin itches for me to do just that. However, surely the silo will be the first place they will look if someone goes missing?

With this thought I force my skin to behave and try to figure something out. I’m nearly as powerful now as when I sacrificed Ibil. Maybe I could just walk up to the hole, and they wouldn’t notice. But no, they’re specifically looking for people approaching, and there’s a covering I would have to open. They should notice if I’m that obvious.

I find cover to make the final preparations while thinking how to approach.

I cut my palm to apply the final blood runes on the incendiary tube: another resilience and a decay. The latter slowly cracks and breaks apart whatever object it’s placed on. A glass tube like this would normally break in about ten minutes. With the double resilience runes I estimate several hours… hopefully after I leave town.

As I’m thinking how to get past the soldier, a worker comes from a crane with a cart. Seeing opportunity, I crouch behind and approach the hole with it. The soldier opens the covering for the worker who begins dumping the grain. I creep up from the other side of the cart and gently toss the tube into the hole while they aren’t looking.

That done, I walk briskly back down the stairs and go back through the hole in the wall. Once out, I breathe deeply in relief at how much easier that was than expected.

Still under concealment I find a well, fill a bucket and take it to a secluded blind alley where I strip naked, wash myself, burn my bloody clothes while using the smoke catcher and change back to the clothes Tanyth gave me.

Feeling I have completely gotten away safely I go back to the Red Needle and pick up my ordered clothes and exit wearing them. They are delightful. The cloth is good quality, and the fit is perfect. I feel a bit giddy seeing how good they look in the mirror. I never imagined myself wearing clothes this expensive, though I know they’re still only middle class. I never imagined how good it feels to wear them.

And the pockets! I must admit the pockets feel good to thrust my hands into.

This feeling is only exceeded when I pick my boots up a few hours later and see the completed outfit. The boots are worth every raem I paid. So comfortable, like hugging my foot, and padded enough to not worry about stepping on things.

I feel well rewarded for a job well done for Caethlon.

With just about everything done with this town I go to the Flaming Goose where I splurge, spending a medium silver on a hearty meal as I wait on Timos and the rest of my price.

The food is excellent, especially for this town. A white bread trencher with a meaty vegetable sauce and a mug of not watered down ale. A good last meal before a week of hard trail rations.

Timos comes in about halfway through the meal. He’s carrying a hiking staff, a pack and a wooden rectangular case with a leather carrying strap nailed to the sides.

“Timos!” I smile, chugging my third ale– a mid copper each after the first one. “So happy to see you!”

“Are you drunk?” He asks sternly, with slight panic, as he sits down, plopping his packages next to him.

“No! I can’t get drunk. God’s boon. I just feel good. So, is this my stuff?”

“Yeah, your special requests are in the case, the food’s in the bag.”

I open the case to see all thirteen rods exactly as I ordered, held in place by a blue fabric cushion, with a thin wooden compartment to the side holding the tools, ink, and paper. I peek inside the bag and see several loaves of way bread, nuts, dried fruit, and smoked sausage.

Finaly, I look at the symbols engraved in silver running along the bottom half of the staff. The resilience symbols are standard, but the rest are in two complex sentences I have difficulty parsing. Something to do with plants not breaking or snaring for the holder. The other says to plant it? Something about changing its form to reference me, plus the symbols for self repair, resilience, food, healing, strength, and resilience again?

Well, no matter what the exact details are, it seems a potent enchantment. Though the staff itself is a little shorter than I hoped, coming to my shoulder. Perhaps it was meant more as a cane for a tall person than a staff.

“Excellent.” I say admiring the symbols. “Give Lindrid my compliments. A price well paid.”

“Yeah.” He says with a slight bitterness. “You going to cast your spell?”

“Sure.” I say, casting concealment on both of us. “You have something to say?”

“Yeah… Why did you accept Lindrid’s offer?” He whispers.

“For cause and profit, why else? He’s helping with my mission, so I helped with his. I think he more than paid the worth of my help, don’t you?” I whisper back.

“So, you just consign this town to months of more misery for your own benefit?”

“Of course. I’m greedy, just like he is.”

“No, you’re not. At least not like Lindrid.”

“What?” I let amusement slip in.

“…You lied to me.”

“You’re still hung up on that?” I laugh.

He shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. It’s why you lied.”

“I wanted to catch him while he was vulnerable in case I wanted to kill him.”

“No, I’ve seen so many like you. You wanted to prove yourself. You saw he had authority, so you needed to thumb your nose at it. But, like so many others, once you did that you just gave him everything he wanted. You wanted his approval, and he knew it the moment you snuck up on him. Your ‘greed’ was just mirroring his because you thought he would approve.”

…Maybe there’s something to this. Not my needing approval, but the cult training to mould myself to expectations. I matched what I intuited would fit in, and when he rewarded me for it maybe that stuck a little… but what does he know?

“What about you? You say you’ve seen this before? Was that in a mirror? If not, then why not leave? You clearly want to convince me you despise him.”

“I’m staying because somebody needs to be responsible and act for the people of Caethlon.”

I scoff. “If you cared about the people’s short term suffering, you picked an odd assignment.”

“I’m willing to cause suffering if it might reduce it in the long term, but not for one man’s ambition.”

“Well, we do disagree there. I believe my actions today will reduce long term suffering, even if I get to be greedy while doing it.”

He shakes his head. “As I said, it’s not greed, but a hunger.”

“For approval, no?” I say dismissively.

“That too. In fact, I almost think the reason you’re fighting is because you think it will impress the empire. But there’s a deeper, darker hunger too. One that I hope to be very far away from when it consumes you.”

“… I think you’ve said enough.” I say, standing up and arranging my luggage.

Both packs are medium sized and fit on my back stacking on top of each other, albeit a bit awkwardly. On the sides hang the rod and map cases, my rope, and small cooking pot. It’s heavy enough to require effort to balance, but I compensate by leaning forward on the staff. Everything settled, I leave.

“Wait!” He says, catching up a few steps after I exit the inn. His hand goes for my shoulder but freezes an inch away without grabbing.

Sigh. I suppose I should reward his learning. “What?” I say, turning around.

“You’re in over your head. On your mission.” He says, drawing his head in to whisper.

“I think I’ve shown how capable I am.” I whisper back.

“At violence, sure, but not on a social op.”

My blood goes cold. “What makes you think I’m selling soap?”

He stiffens at the slight. “The fighting’s over. What other jobs are there?”

Sound reasoning. “Maybe. But why think I’m over my head? Just because I’m changing roles?”

“That too, but it’s more. You don’t care about people. Social ops are about making connections, and if you don’t care, then all they’ll see is your hunger. That hunger might have served you in the field, but it’ll make it impossible to succeed wherever you’re going. If you’re going to have a chance, you’re going to have to either deal with it, or learn how to care.”

My blood boils as I stare at him, thinking on his accusations. “Of course you’d think that…” I start to say, but am interrupted by an earth shaking roar that knocks several passersby off their feet, and causes Timos to stumble against my shoulder. A second later familiar dusty brown stones begin raining down around us– crushing one person’s head in.

“The granary!” I say, pushing Timos away and rushing across the street to find a view. Looking where it should be, all I see is a cloud of dust and smoke expanding over the town.

“I thought the plan was to burn it, not level half the town!” Timos shouts in my ears, trying to be heard over the panicking crowd.

“So did I!” I shout back, looking around at the people trying to figure out what’s happening.

Did Lindrid know? Did he betray me? No, the divination.

“Shit! The gate!” I say, then run towards the exit. Timos rushes to keep up, but quickly falls behind.

The gate has already been closed by the time I reach it with a crowd quickly forming. A soldier is standing on a wagon shouting at the people trying to leave the town.

“This is a rebel attack! Return to your shelters! Leaving will not be permitted until more is known!”

I press my way through to a guard on the side of the crowd and flash a small gold coin. They glance at their leader on the wagon who’s looking another direction, then back at me and nods. They take me to a room with half filled weapon racks through a locked door on the side of the gate house.

“All right let me see your travel pass.” They say ironically and I drop the gold into their outstretched hands. “Very good, everything’s in order. Right this way please.”

“Hey what’s this!?” Shouts another soldier as they enter the room behind us.

“Friend of the watch.” The first soldier says.

“What’d you get?”

The first one flashes the gold, prompting the second one to turn to me. “Nice, now what about me?”

“I assumed they would split it with the necessary parties.” I say.

“You assumed wrong.” The first one says.

“Yeah,” chimes the second, “gold’s the price of one head turned, now you need another.”

My skin itches.

Right now, with my stacked boons I could easily offer them to Anar, fight my way up the stairs, and lift the gate– burning everything as I go. There’s so much chaos outside the other imperial forces might not notice to send pursuit in time, and are about to be a lot busier anyways. If the gate yesterday is an indication, there might be a squire here, but I might even be able to handle a baby knight right now. If there is a squire, then there’s a good chance at it being a noble which would just sweeten everything.

‘all they’ll see is your hunger’

Timos’ words rings through my mind. Killing everyone is a bad idea. They’ll figure whoever attacked the gatehouse was linked to the granary and send a tracking team.

My hand has been slowly moving to my dagger, but I force it into my coin purse instead and withdraw silver. “A large silver is the best I can do. You’ll have to split them.”

The second one examines the coin, then looks at the first one askingly.

“Fine.” The first one says, agreeing to the split. “Come quickly then, before we have to split it with the whole garrison.”

They take me up the stairs, grabbing a rope along the way. We reach the ramparts, and I take a look over the rugged plane surrounding the town. A few abandoned farmhouses and half ploughed fields, but largely just shallow mounds, tall grass and thorny bushes. In the distance are larger hills covered in forest– though that might be ten miles away or more from the haze.

They tie the rope on a crenelation and dangle it off the wall.

“All, right, there’s your exit. Pleasure doing business.”

I nod in appreciation and quickly rappel down the wall. The rope burns my hands in my haste, but I’ll heal quickly. Once down, I immediately start running through the fields under concealment while changing my cloak to match the pale green grass.

A mile later I hear hoofbeats and look back to see a formation of riders going along the road in pursuit of those who managed to make it out. Loping directly towards me is a chevalier riding a massive armoured wolf.