Heart of Dorkness

Terror Two - Cloak

I whistle as I walk towards Santafaria in the distance. It’s a nice day for whistling, I think. Unfortunately, I’m really bad at it. Mom always gives me this look when I make strange noises. She never tells me not to, she just radiates so much annoyance that I can feel it.

I even asked her if that was a magic trick and she did it right then and there to prove the point.

I... kinda miss Mom. I know, it’s silly, I’m only a few hours by wyvern away from home. Maybe two days on foot. I could get back there no problem. Still.

It’s hard to tell the monster pups that they can’t come with me, but eventually I manage. It requires some cajoling and a lot of belly rubbing, but they get it and stay right on the edge of the nearest forest as I walk out.

There are roads leading from Santafaria to the north, to home. That’s how we get our deliveries of stuff, I imagine.

I hop down an embankment, and manage to scuttle my way out of a small ditch and onto the road, all without getting anything but my shins dirty. Not bad! The road isn’t that impressive. It’s these twin lines of packed dirt, squished into place by hundreds of trips back and forth by wagons.

Mom made a point of directing her monsters away from the road, and only letting the smarter ones live right next to it. That way, they can spot a clever army coming and do something about it. I’ve never seen that kind of thing happen, but there are a few mentions in the history books I’ve read.

So-and-so the Great! Powerful leader, master whatevermancer, coming to slay the Dark Goddess with his mighty army! And then the book would go on about how the army broke after like, five hours of being eaten.

Well, at least I live in a place that has some historical value. That’s cool!

My whistling stops on a discordant note as I start coming across homes. Little shacks, mostly wooden, and nearly always right next to a fenced field. There’s something growing there, but I can’t begin to guess what it is.

Corn? No, that’s not likely. It’s the wrong colour for wheat.

The stalks are too narrow to be something like broccoli.

I hum to myself as I walk along. Santafaria looked so close from the edge of the forest; now I’m not so sure. The city’s not supposed to be a very big one. This isn’t even the first Santafaria according to my books. It was burned down a couple of times already.

There’s a kid at the next little farm, some boy maybe five or six years younger than me, in dirty pants and without even a shirt on, though he does have a big straw hat to compliment the stalk of grass he’s chewing.

I grin. Not what I expected for the first person outside of the castle I’d talk to, but it’s something. “Hey!” I call out.

I want to ask a few things. Little things, really. My talking skills are probably really bad, but hey, they won’t improve if the only people I talk to are monsters.

The boy looks over to me, the grass stalk in his mouth moves from one side to the other, then it drops.

“Uh,” I say as it hits the ground.

“Monster!” he screams.

“What?”

Before I have time to do anything at all, he’s scrambling back and running to the nearest house. He’s screaming, with the screams cutting off and starting again every time he catches his breath.

“Hey, wait!” It’s too late though, he’s long gone.

I let my arm drop to my side. It’s... probably not a reaction that I should be surprised about.

The kid isn’t wrong, I am a monster, but I kinda hoped-- well, it doesn’t matter.

Mom had warned me that this might happen. Would happen.

Sighing, I pull up my hood. The cloak is probably the nicest piece of clothing I have. All dark cloth and embroidered with silvery patterns. The hood is deep, casting a good amount of shade over my face.

I hope it’s enough to keep people from screaming. I might be a monster, but I’m not an unthinking, unfeeling beast.

The walls of Santafaria are bigger than I thought from afar. Maybe three stories high? Not much bigger than some of the shops I’d seen on Earth, and certainly not as impressive as something like a skyscraper, but still, the sheer mass of stone and rock makes them kind of imposing. That they’re not the first walls to be set here only makes them cooler.

There’s a gate, of course, for carts and such, and a lot more homes right up against the walls. I figure that building codes aren’t the same here. These places look like shacks, half of them using the city walls to stay standing.

It stinks.

That’s not something I was expecting.

The castle Mom and I live in is clean. Not super-clean, some of the floors aren’t dusted daily, but still. We have a literal army of monsters who do nothing but pick up trash and trim the bit of grass we have and dust the windows. All day, every day, without sleep. It means that home’s pretty clean for a millenia-old castle.

I shake my head and refocus. There’s a guard by the gate, not guarding the gate itself, but instead a door set into the wall next to it. I guess it makes sense to keep the gate closed when there’s no cart or wagon traffic.

I lick my lips, then step up while clearing my throat.

Attempt number two at conversation. “Hello!”

The guard jumps on the spot, his helmet—a cabasset if I’m not wrong—is tipped way forwards. He blinks at me. Was he sleeping?

I stare at him a bit, not really caring if he’s sensitive enough to feel my inspection.

[Vicente Arroyo - Watcher of the Monster Gate]

Novice Guardsman

Initiate Heavy Sleeper

Oh wow, he’s weak. I mean, I’m not that much stronger, but this guy looks like he’s in his early twenties. He could be like, ten years older than me.

“Go on in,” he says.

“You’re not going to ask me anything?”

He blinks a few times, but that doesn’t sharpen his gaze much. His grip on his pole arm- a halberd?-- shifts. “Uh, right. Do you have anything to declare?”

“No?”

“Then go on in,” he says, this time more insistent.

“Right, okay, bye?”

I move past him and into the tight confines of a long tunnel that cuts all the way through the wall. It’s not a very thick wall, maybe a metre deep.

The smell on the other side hits me like a fly swatter to the face.

It smells like an unwashed bathroom.

I blink to keep my eyes from watering, and consider finding a handkerchief for my nose.

No, no, I can’t be defeated by a bad smell.

Stepping to the side, I glance around. The road here isn’t all that wide, just enough that two carts can move past each other side by side if no one else is on the road. Not that there’s much traffic.

People are walking around, some women in long but simple dresses with baskets at their hips, men in tough clothes moving around and carrying stuff and doing... city people things.

I don’t know how they can stand the smell.

A window opens up on the second floor of a house across the street, and a woman tips a bucket out of it.

I gag.

That’s disgusting!

And it’s going to wash into their water supply! There's fresh water in the lake, but it’s a good walk away, so I bet they have wells.

I decide not to start shouting at people about cholera. I’m not supposed to be noticed much.

Not that I stand too much of a chance to be noticed. I’m maybe a little, tiny, insignificant bit shorter than the average

One day I’ll be as tall as Mom and then I won’t need to worry about navigating crowds or anything.

Sighing, I reach into one of the pockets on my backpack and tug out a bit of rolled parchment. The map I have might be a few decades out of date, but I’m pretty sure most of the districts are in the same place.

West it is! Out of the North Quarter and onto... Innstreet? Or maybe I should get to the temple first. Would it be with the others in Templetown?

I hold my map up ahead of me as I walk and very promptly get lost.

I think I turned into an alley that I misread as a road.

That, or the thugs in this city mug people out on the street.

I eye the three men, all of them with some kind of weapon, and with very ugly looks on their faces. On the ground behind them, coughing and curled up in a ball, is what looks like their last victim.

“Do any of you gentlemen know where the temple to the Dark Goddess is?” I ask politely.

***