Loremaster of the Amaranthine lands

In the end, the wood elf tomboy couldn’t stop herself from breaking the silence.

“And then what?” Cruz growled. “These people don’t want us here. You’ve seen it yourself. Are we really going to stick our necks out for people that would rather spit in our face and then thank us for our help?”

“For now,” Osmond sighed. “Yes. You’ve seen how many fallen shambled about on the streets. There’s plenty of Amaranth to gain here and hopefully just as much loot. We need this opportunity more than these people need us. So we’ll grit our teeth and get out there to do their dirty work to help ourselves to what we need.”

“Knowing Natalie, she must have already rallied up some of her lapdogs to come after us. It would be bad if we get caught between two fires.” Fabien added oil to the already heated situation.

“We’ll keep our heads down and stay here for as little as possible before getting out of East Fork towards the next town. Hopefully, we can stay ahead of them.”

“Are we going to keep on running from a few wimpy dark elves?” Cruz asked before turning towards the spell weaver with a somewhat apologetic expression. “No offence, Regis.”

“Some taken, but the answer is yes, for now. We don’t have friends here besides the ones we rowed along with and even that’s a shaky alliance.”

“We don’t know how much power the Argent family amassed in the past few days,” Valerie sat beside her brother. “If we must fight them, then it must be on our terms and our turf.”

As the others continued expressing their dissatisfaction about how things went down, the young spell weaver tried to find a relatively clean spot for himself to lay down to rest. He walked beside a wall that had a crate-sized piece of it broken out, and a somewhat stupid idea came into his mind, fuelled by curiosity. He reached out to touch the wall and cast charlatan’s wisdom on it. A moment later glowing grey word appeared in the air in front of him.

{Thatch roofed shack (half collapsed)}

{Building rarity: common}

{Building quality: ordinary}

{Durability: 231/500}

“Well, this is interesting.” He mumbled somewhat loudly as he read the building’s description.

“What’s wrong?” The others asked as one as they turned their attention towards him.

“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just that I tried to identify the building and it seems to have worked.”

“Oh. What does it say?” Sophie inquired as she walked closer.

“It’s an ordinary quality thatch-roofed shack that has somewhat over half of its durability left.”

“Well, it is close to collapsing after all.” Amanda pointed out the obvious as she picked up a piece of rock that broke out from one of the walls long ago.

Regis kept his hand on the wall and whispered the incantation of the lesser mending spell. A faint light seeped out of his fingers, only to be swallowed by the broken wall. Nothing happened at first, then it was as if time itself began to rewind itself. Small pieces of the broken wall floated up from the ground, moving into their original place, and fusing back into it.

“I guess that answers the question of whether it can be mended like any other items or not.” Osmond stated in a matter-of-fact tone as he joined in, casting the same mending spell for as long as he had any arcana left.

Pieces of stone and thatch floated all around them, moving back into their place under the will of the magic that was cast on them, the building’s deterioration erasing itself right in front of their eyes. Seeing the strange yet comforting phenomena, everyone joined in as one, giving their all to make their temporary accommodation more passable. By the time they ran out of juice, the shack was almost back to full durability.

“We should barricade the door,” Letty said as she kept staring at the entrance. “You know, just in case.”

“I agree.” Valerie nodded as she looked over to the flimsy door.

“I’ll just pull this thing over then.” Quentin offered as he grabbed the only crate inside the small shack, dragging it in front of the door.

“What’s inside?” Khan questioned his friend while tinkering with some bauble he got from a corpse not long ago.

The wannabe paladin slid his blade beneath the cover of the crate, prying it open to see its contents. Inside the heavy oak wood box, a large assortment of various scraps could be seen, most of them being failed pieces of stone carvings.

“Who the fuck would leave junk like this out here?” Cruz cursed as she grabbed one of them, the shape of the figure reminding her of one of the seven saints as it had a similar art style to the statues they’d seen in Hunor’s church.

“At least they’re heavy.” Her sister chuckled while picking up an almost decent sandstone carving that was shaped like a cow.

“Now that the mystery is solved, how about we get some actual shut-eye?” Regis inquired from the others with a weary tone as he laid out his cheap bedroll and lay down on it.

With no firewood at the ready, nor having any fireplace that could lead the smoke outside, the outlanders had to give up on the warmth of the previous nights. Everyone laid down on their makeshift bedrolls and they soon fell asleep with Quentin being the only one to stay up. He kept guarding his companions for about 3 hours before shaking Regis awake to switch places with him. The dark elf yawned and sat up, looking at the others before walking over to the crate and sitting on top of it.

He kept staring in front of himself, deep in thought for a long while, only the sound of slight snoring making him aware that there were others in the shack as well. Bored out of his mind, the young spell weaver turned towards the door and placed his right hand on it. Focusing on the somewhat fragmented memories and knowledge he gained earlier, Regis began to weave his arcana into threads. Thin lines of glowing blue sneaked out from his palm, moving across the surface of the rickety door. Once the threads reached their destinations, they began to shape different-sized rune fragments that were soon connected to each other.

Slowly, a formation of runes took shape on the door’s surface. With a final push that left him somewhat dizzy, Regis filled the runic outlines with power, a thin wall of faintly shimmering energy encasing the door in their wake. ‘Damn, this thing looks dope!’ He admitted to himself as he looked at his first ever ‘barrier ward’ with a discerning gaze. It wasn’t much, but any extra protection would come in handy. A few hours later when he couldn’t keep his boredom and tiredness at bay any longer, he traded places with Khan before going back to sleep once again. Hours later, the sound of the roosters’ cry woke up the still tired outlanders.

“I’m going to cook that fucking bird.” Amanda grumbled as she got up, the others barely noticing her antics while shaking off their still lingering drowsiness.

After silently eating the remnants of their meagre rations, everyone packed up while Khan pulled the large crate away from the door.

“What’s with the door?” Sophie asked as she noticed the faintly shimmering barrier that covered it.

“Oh, right.” Regis stepped beside it, touching the barrier for a moment, willing it to dissolve.

“Was that a ward?” Osmond asked as he watched the runes fade away into nothingness.

“It was an initiate ranked barrier ward,” the spell weaver admitted. “It’s one of the few I learned from my skill’s tier up.”

“Nice.” The pale young man nodded before the group left the shack.

The outside air felt slightly cold as darkness still permeated the town of East Fork.

“To be honest,” Fabian spoke. “I half expected them to light the shack on fire with us still in it.”

“You’re not the only one who thought of the possibility.” Cruz agreed with his statement as she cracked her neck.

Despite the inner city supposedly being overcrowded by refugees, they couldn’t see a single person near the abandoned shack that was given to them. It took about a minute to reach far enough from it to see people once again. The sight was quite familiar to the one they experienced in Hunor. Ragged families clung to each other for warmth under whatever they could use as a roof. The air was stale and stunk of sewage. Guards could be seen patrolling from time to time with most of them actively walking about on top of the inner wall that protected the people from the fallen and whatever other horrors lurked out during the night.

“So what are we going to do now?” Amanda looked at her companions, hoping to gain some reassurance regarding yesterday’s plans.

“We should ask some of the local guards about the situation and then head out towards the local spell weavers’ guild. Hopefully, there’s still something of use left around for us to scavenge.” The dark elf answered as he was looking for the nearest soldier to talk to.

“We also need to get some food from somewhere,” Sophie reminded them. “I’m out of rations and Amanda should be the same.”

“I’m pretty much out of supplies myself as well.” Osmond stated as he checked his satchel for any food left.

With everyone else nodding in agreement, their priorities slightly shifted towards their more basic needs. As they reached the nearest guard, Quentin cleared his throat, earning the man’s attention.

“Apologies for bothering you,” he spoke with a slight nod. “I’m sure you know that my friends and I arrived yesterday with the reinforcements from Hunor.”

“I do.” The short answer came from the guard as he eyed up the outlander warband with obvious vigilance.

“We would like to ask if you could point us towards someone that could give us a quick rundown on what’s going around here and where we would be of most use. We also hoped that you could point us towards any food source if possible, seeing how our rations have run out.”

“Elder Jonah has returned to his quarters to get some rest, so if you want information on our current situation then you have to talk to Captain Fletcher. He should still be at his station over there.” The guardsman pointed towards the pair of guard towers at the inner city’s wall.

“Thank you, sir!” The wannabe paladin nodded curtly as they headed out towards their new destination.

At the base of the pair of guard towers that framed the gate they used to enter during the night, now stood a pair of weary sentries. As soon as the group got near them, the soldiers snapped to attention.

“Halt!” one of them ordered as they reached for their weapons. “State your business!”

“We came to seek out Captain Fletcher,” Regis said with a calm tone as he looked at the guards. “One of your fellow guardsmen said that we have to talk to him if we want to get information about the current situation of the town.”

“Wait here.” One of them said as he turned around and headed inside.

After a good minute of awkward silence, the door opened once again as the soldier returned with a much better-equipped warrior standing behind him.

“So you’ve finally come to see me,” the heavily armoured man said as he eyed them up. “I take it you managed to get some rest and you’re finally ready to be of some actual use.”

“We are,” the young spell weaver agreed. “But we need to know about the situation first. I’m sure you can understand that.”

“Come in,” the captain waved them closer. “It will be easier to explain with the map in sight.”

The group of outlanders followed the man inside under the not-so-friendly gaze of the guards. Inside the ground floor of the right tower, they found themselves in what seemed to be the common room with a large table that was surrounded by a few rickety chairs. A sizeable sheet of sheepskin was laid out on the table with several discernible lines and drawings filling it.

“I’ve already explained our troubles to the captains of the guards that came with you, along with the leaders of the mercenaries and they already took up their positions along the more important parts of the inner wall. One of the larger mercenary groups even volunteered to close the northern gate.”

At this point, the soldier stood beside the map and tapped the edge of the drawings.

“As you can see, we have four gates on the walls of the outer city. One gate was built beside both ends of the river entrances to allow the people who use the forest roads to pass through. The gates on either side of the city were meant to be used by the people that came from the more remote areas of the forest and the marshes. With your fellows taking on the northern river gate, there are still three others that must be closed to prevent more of the fallen from entering the city.”

“I presume that once the gates are closed, your people are supposed to sweep the city and deal with the fallen so that you can re-take the place entirely.” Osmond presented his theory, earning a firm nod from the captain of the local guards.

“That was the plan,” Fletcher confirmed Osmond’s theory. “Of course, we’ll have to see what the demons have to say about it.”

“Demons?" Everyone asked as one as they stared at the man with incredulous expressions.

“Yes,” he nodded. “A few days before your scouts showed up at our gates, we had to repel a large wave of fallen that tried to break through the gates. During the battle, a small army of demons appeared, joining the fray. Although we managed to fend them off, we lost several men to those horrific creatures. Our priest recognised the one leading them to be a lesser demon of wrath.

“Shit,” Valerie cursed as a shudder ran along her spine. “It just had to be a Sin-marked demon out of all.”

“Looks like you know of them.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Cruz tried to fight her urge to spit on the ground in disgust. “Any family with records regarding magic would at least have some passing records about them. Demons that bear the mark of one of the seven sins are nothing to scoff at. They’re supposed to wield powers beyond what a normal mortal can even comprehend.”

“Not to mention that they always command a small army of their own,” Fabien added. “If there’s a Sin-marked here, that means that there are at least another hundred lesser demonic wretches with it."

“Were,” the captain corrected the infernal young man. “During the battle, we managed to destroy more than two dozen of the foul creatures before they decided to retreat.”

“Demons don’t just decide to retreat. Especially not the marked ones,” Regis shook his head. “If it left, that can only mean one of two things. Either it was commanded by a greater demon to relocate to somewhere else, or it decided to regroup and plan for a different way to approach you.”

“Have your men seen any sign of them after that night?” Amanda asked, but Fletcher just shook his head.