by Pirateaba
She just wanted to punch. To hit something. And now that she’d let out all the bile in her stomach, Ryoka only knew how to lash out. So she did.
Her first blurred and disappeared as it shot towards Yvlon’s face. But it was intercepted and crossed by a flash of silver.
Ryoka felt the punch lift her off her feet. She tried to step forwards, but her body suddenly forgot how to stand up. She sat down, as her arms and legs simply shut down.
The world spun, and Ryoka saw Yvlon’s face full of regret and frustration. Her head fell back—
—-
And when Ryoka awoke, she was alone. Not physically alone, but alone nevertheless.
Dusk had engulfed the sky. The sparring area of the Adventurer’s Guild was empty, save for Ryoka and the Half-elf sitting on the ground next to her.
Ceria looked up as Ryoka sat up. The barefoot girl looked around dizzy, and as Ryoka opened her mouth Ceria tapped her wand on Ryoka’s head.
“[Silence].”
Ryoka was mute. The girl’s mouth opened but no words came out. Ceria looked at her, and shook her head. She reached behind her and picked up Ryoka’s pack and carefully put it next to the girl. Then Ceria sighed and stared up at the sky.
“I’ve seen a lot of arrogance in my time. Mostly from Humans, but from every people, including my own. But someone who rejects the way the world works just because she doesn’t like it—that’s new. It’s been a while since I was hit by someone I call a friend as well.”
She looked at Ryoka. The girl couldn’t meet her eyes.
“If you want to keep fighting everyone who reaches out to help you, I’ll put a flower on your grave. But until then, get your stupid Human head back in order. You’re lucky—very lucky that Calruz is honorable, and that the other adventurers listened to Yvlon and Cervial or you might have suffered quite a bit.”
Ryoka was silent. She stared at the ground, face flushed. Memory only now returning.
“I don’t understand you. I truly don’t. I thought you were sensible, but you’re even more hotheaded than Calruz. And you have less sense.”
Ceria shook her head as Ryoka opened her mouth and tried to say something.
“No. Be silent. I am angry at you. And I am leaving until that anger is gone. The Horns of Hammerad and the other adventurers are heading to the ruins in Liscor. All of us. At least your words stirred some courage in this crowd. But I am still furious. After we are finished with the ruins, we will speak again.”
The Half-elven mage stood up and brushed at her robes. She waved her wand, and Ryoka felt the spell on her dissipate.
“May we meet in new forests, Ryoka Griffin.”
Silently, Ryoka watched Ceria go. A thousand words spun through her mind, and she opened her mouth to call something. But when the doors to the Adventurer’s Guild closed behind Ceria, it was in silence.
The girl sat in the center of the sparring arena and felt the bruises and pain begin to flare up in her body. She was still exhausted, still hurt. But somehow, all of that was a backdrop to the incredible, terrible emptiness in her heart.
She’d done it. As before, now again. See—a girl who destroys everything she touches. Who wanders from school to school, never fitting in, picking fights with friends and anyone who crosses her way.
A child with nothing to hit who decides to fight the world. A barefoot runner who speaks with her fists. A heart full of black fury and hurtful words who spreads her foulness wherever she goes.
Angry girl. Rabid dog. Berserker. Suicidally competitive. Friendless loner. Lost soul.
Ryoka Griffin.
She’d lost friends before. She’d made enemies, burned bridges. Wherever she’d gone, from each school she’d transferred to, she’d left behind only bitter memories. Each time she’d lost control she’d only left tears and regrets behind. She was used to erasing smiles.
But it had never hurt quite like this before.
Ryoka stood up and felt the silence closing in. The silence, and the empty despair that came with it. She looked at the ground and saw the blood of an honorable person. She looked behind her and knew there was no one at her back. A familiar, painful sight.
She could barely feel her hands. She was exhausted, upset, guilty, and angry. She didn’t know what to do.
Slowly, Ryoka’s feet moved. She took one step, and then another. Ryoka picked her pack up off the ground and began to walk.
She left the Adventurer’s Guild. She ignored the voices, the chances to turn back. She saw the decorated carriage, ignored the [Maids] and [Assassins] that blocked her way. She just ran on.
Away, away, always away. Until the dawn breaks and the end of day. Running from fear and friends alike, striving to always run, always be in flight. And though her heart bled and ached, she runs on again.
Towards Liscor and the Blood Plains without a plan. Towards death and the unknown. Running. Always running without pausing. Leaving bloody footprints made of her unshed tears and broken ties.
Running.
Running away.
1.36
When Erin woke up the next day, her eyes were tired and she was full of bleh.
Bleh being her word for her mood.
“Bleh.”
Tor paused and stared at her. Erin blinked at the walking skeleton with blue flames in its eyes and made weak shooing motions until it went away.
She didn’t feel like dealing with it. And by it she meant anything. And that included existing.
Erin stared down into a bowl of chewy oat-equivalents and wondered why the grains had an orange-gold rind. Maybe it was the dirt?
It tasted bleh. And while Erin had money, she couldn’t afford to put much sugar in her meals. She had to save for the future.
And that was bleh. The idea of how much money she needed, the logistics of her inn and the day-to-day work of maintaining it—it was all bleh, and it could go to bleh.
At least now she was able to automate most of the work – or rather, make Toren do all of it. The skeleton bustled around the inn, scrubbing at obstinate stains, hauling buckets of water in, and it had even managed to figure out how to put food on plates and carry them out.
It just didn’t have any idea of how carpentry or cooking worked. Erin had tried—but the skeleton didn’t quite get the idea of not stirring food with its bony arm or how beds were supposed to look.
It didn’t matter. With a little work, Erin had actually managed to transform the upstairs into a livable place. All of the mattresses had been rotted horribly and had to be disposed of, but some of the bed frames only needed a backboard replaced or a few boards changed.
Erin’s inn could now house quite a number of guests. It was just that Erin didn’t have anyone to put up there. And that included her. For the moment Erin was still sleeping in the little nest she’d made in the corner of her kitchen. She had blankets, pillows, and it was a pain to haul all that upstairs and get situated again.
There was always Pisces of course, but Erin really didn’t need a permanent squatter in her inn. Especially because his only payment came in the form of an occasional rambling lecture to Rags.
“Bleh.”
This time Toren offered her a cup of juice. Erin took it and drank. It helped, but even a fully belly wasn’t improving her mood.
Rags. Goblins and magic. Magic. Erin’s stomach gurbled at her, although that was probably just a reaction to the blue juice and the oatmeal.
She spent ten or twenty unhappy minutes in the newly made outhouse, testing the equipment as it were. Afterwards, Erin staggered outside giving thanks that an equivalent to toilet paper existed in this world. But it was just more proof that this day was going to be a bad one, in her opinion.
If there was a bright ray of light on the horizon, it was tonight. Tonight was chess night.
That was to say, every night was chess night usually. Pawn had been bringing groups of Workers over with surprising regularity, and Erin enjoyed playing the Antinium.
They never w
on of course. And even the best players – Pawn and one of the Workers – never even came close. But Erin loved chess in her bones, and more than that, she enjoyed seeing the Workers improve.
But that was later. For now, Erin had to go into the city. She needed pillows for her newly refurbished beds.
“Take care of the inn, okay?”
Tor nodded his head mechanically as Erin stomped out of the inn, her precious bag of coins tucked deep into her pockets. He raised the wet dustrag in his hands like a sword and attacked the dust.
If the skeleton had any thoughts on the day, it was simply that it was a shame he wasn’t killing anything. He understood in a vague way that he would not acquire the [Innkeeper] class because it did not in fact own an inn, but the [Barmaid] class was, he felt, was something of a misnomer.
At least he was Level 2.
—-
As Erin walked through the main gates, the Gnoll guard smiled toothily at her.
“Good day to you, Erin Solstice.”
“Hey…you.”
She had no idea what his name was. But the Gnoll seemed friendly enough. He looked bored, possibly because the only visitor he’d had was Erin.
Not many people used the road south. North was where the action was – where the main road took you to the northern cities and where all the adventurers, merchants, and general influx of humanity was coming from. By contrast, Erin’s side of the plains was a wasteland.
And that was a curious thing. Erin knew there was a road that passed by her inn down south, and she’d seen it. But it seemed a lot newer and ill-kept compared to the well-established northern route. It snaked around the city of Liscor, rather than starting at the gates.
Why? And why had there been an inn so close and yet so far from the city? Was there once a road there?
“Yeah, but it got destroyed ten years back. Ever since then no one’s lived south of the city. Besides you.”
For a few seconds Erin thought the voice had come out of some strange part of her mind. Then she whirled around.
“Relc!”
The Drake leaned on his spear, grinning at her. Sort of grinning. Like the Gnoll, there were a lot of teeth.
“Yo.”
“Um, hi. I haven’t seen you around. What’s up?”
“I was looking for you. You busy? Because you are now.”
“I was going to buy pillows—”
“Really? You might have trouble with that. Did you hear what happened last night?”
“Last night?”
Curious, Erin followed Relc as the Drake walked speedily towards Market Street. It was disconcerting how quickly he could move despite giving the appearance of ambling along. It was definitely some sort of Skill.
Erin stopped as she turned the corner to Market Street.
“Oh man.”
“Yeah.”
Relc twirled his spear idly as Erin stared at the wreckage. And that was all it was.
Wreckage.
Nearly half of Market Street had been destroyed. Burnt, in point of fact. To a crisp. A fire had swept through the close, confined wooden stalls. They were meant to be just temporary structures, easily deconstructed for the next shopkeeper to display his or her wares. But the problem was that wood burned easily, and so when a fire did break out…
Even the stones in the street had cracked from the heat. Erin didn’t know rocks could break from heating up, but the street had been shattered quite impressively.
“Normally someone would have raised the alarm and we’d have put out the fire quick. But it happened late last night, and by the time we got one of the mages out here it was too hot.”
Erin glanced at Relc, and the Drake shrugged.
“Low-level mages. And there’s not much call for water magic specialization around here. We had to let the fire burn out and clear the rest of the street before it spread.”
It was destruction. To starve the fire of flames, the Watch and firefighting teams had smashed and cleared the rest of the stalls, shoving the wood splinters out of the way.
It hurt Erin’s heart to see. And it hurt even more because the street wasn’t empty. She could see Drakes and Gnolls, shopkeepers staring forlornly at their abandoned goods. It hurt her heart, because she could see some of them were crying.
Scaly or furry they might be, but their tears looked the same.
Relc stared grimly at the burnt-out street. He spoke quietly to Erin.
“Everyone’s saying it’s a human that did it.”
“Really?”
Probably everyone was saying that, or at least everyone Relc talked to. Humans might have other opinions. But it probably was a human, at least in Erin’s mind. She couldn’t see Drakes being dumb enough to burn down part of their city by accident, and Gnolls were highly flammable. And the Antinium—
No. There were already Workers picking through the rubble, slowly and methodically clearing away the destroyed part of the street. They wouldn’t have set a fire.
“Why would a human do it, though?”
Relc glanced at Erin.
“Oh, it was the mystery thief. Someone caught them last night and they started a fire to get away.”
“How? With a match or…?”
“A what? They used fire magic. A spell.”
Oh. Obviously. Erin’s eyes were caught by an older Drake trying to salvage something from her shop. She spoke distantly.
“Isn’t there a way to track this thief down? Magic? Or…some kind of skill?”
Relc shook his head.
“This thief has some good magic—and not just the fire magic. A magical item, maybe. And high-level [Guardsmen] do get tracking skills, but almost all of the Watch here are former soldiers. We’ve got more levels in combat classes than our current class. We did have one [Guardsman] with high levels, but that was Klbkch. And he’s dead.”
The comment hit Erin in the gut, and for a second Relc looked guilty. But he didn’t apologize.
“We’re working on it. No one’s happy. Normally we’d have caught the thief, but there are so many of you damn Humans in the city—no offense.”
Erin took offense, but she let it drop. Relc wasn’t happy. He was staring at his damaged city with narrowed eyes and she didn’t have anything to say. Certainly nothing to defend the thief. So instead she changed the subject.
“I…haven’t seen you around the inn lately.”
Relc shrugged again, indifferently.
“Too many damn Goblins around. I’d clean them up, but apparently that’s not allowed.”
Erin glanced sideways at Relc. The Drake met her eyes and then went back to studying the street.
“They’re not all bad, you know.”
He snorted.
“You think the little freaks you’ve been feeding are good? I hear they’ve been fighting a war with the rest of their tribe—when they’re not scaring travelers and stealing their goods.”
For a moment Erin felt a lurch of panic and fear in her chest.
“You’re not—not going to have to hunt them down are you?”
“I don’t really care. So long as we don’t get orders, we’ll leave them alone if they stay clear of the city. Goblins are part of the wild. If you get rid of too many, the bigger monsters don’t have anything to snack on.”
“Oh. Um, t—”
“Don’t thank me. I just don’t feel like doing more than I have to for my job, that’s all.”
Silence. Erin stared at the ground. Relc’s eyes narrowed as he watched the Workers slowly sweeping down the street.
“They don’t even care Klb died.”
“Yeah. They um, don’t seem to care about death. It’s not their fault.”
“I know. They’re bugs. But Klbkch was special.”
“He was.”
“Not just because he was a guard, y’know? He was different. He had a name. I couldn’t believe it when he introduced himself. And he’s the only Antinium I’ve ever heard of with a level higher than 10. He was spec
ial.”
Erin was silent. She stared at the large Drake and saw his chest heaving with emotion. The Drake’s fist tightened on the shaft of his spear.
“But they don’t care. They talk about Klb as if he’s just gone off somewhere. As if his death never happened. Even the Queen didn’t put up much of a fuss.”
Erin thought about the massive Antinium soldiers marching into the barracks and taking her to meet the Queen.
“You think so?”
Relc eyed Erin darkly.
“You’re not dead, so I’d say she took it well. She kept talking about ‘time lost’ and ‘needless valuable resources expended’ when she talked with the Captain. But never about Klbkch.”
The Drake’s head bowed. He stabbed his spear into the paving stones and the stones cracked and shifted around the tip of his spear. He leaned on it, staring darkly down at the ground.
“No one cares.”
“I care.”
“I know. But you’re different.”
For a while the two stood still, awkwardly, alone rather than together. Erin’s heart hurt. But though the human thing to do would be to pat Relc on the back or say something meaningless, she knew he didn’t want anything from her.
He still hated her. Or if he didn’t hate her, he blamed her.
And she would say nothing against that.
At last Relc shifted his weight and pulled his spear out of the street. He looked down at Erin.
“By the way—and not that I care too much, but you should know—there’s a new Prognugator in the city.”
The word sounded familiar. Erin frowned.
“A what?”
“It was what Klbkch was. Don’t ask me what it means. It’s some important role in the Antinium hive. Sort of their version of a guardsman, I think.”
The idea of the Antinium needing any kind of policing sounded ridiculous to Erin. She couldn’t imagine them doing anything criminal, but then she remembered Klbkch herding the Workers like cattle. Maybe a Prognugator was like some sort of sheepdog, only with people.
“Okay. Is he going to be part of the Watch.”
Unexpectedly, Relc frowned.