It's a Healslut's Life for Me Chapter 8

The Eagle glanced down at the ruined city beneath him, surrounded by a high wall that stretched out into the distance. The capital of the old empire, it was nearly thirty miles across, though he was mostly interested in the surrounding area, noting down streets and back alleys that might provide him some use in the future.

The city was a great chalky red and yellow mass because of the old bricks and types that had been commonly used in the old empire, and we're still the common construction material in Veluca. It's streets however were grey stone, especially easy to pick out with his eyes even at this height. Stone too was the wall around it, which had once served as its defense, but now had been refurbished to function more as a cage for the shambling dead that frequented it's streets. The occasional guard patrols kept watch on the walls, and the flags of the Silver Prince hung slightly above the flags of Bryndon on the rare watchtower that still stood, mostly near old  sealed gates.

The river, of course the Greater Montauk  in the human tongue, or as his people called it, the Blueflood, cut through the city like a knife, splitting it in half, and crossed only by the enormous partially collapsed river gates, and by the crumbling ancient bridges of the city, carved with the images of the Old Empire’s triumphs.

His animal mind told him to go snatch a mouse that was wandering a field just outside the walls, but he overrode it, he had experience with such things, having long ago gained a good deal of control over his emotions in this state. Instead, he chose to settle in and rest his claws by perching atop the roof of the Silver Prince’s “Castle” Really just a fortified old barracks inside of the only part of the city still inhabited by the living, Fort Smith. The small walled area was where the city’s current “ruler” lived, though the prince was really just an overseer of sorts for the explorers and looters going into and out of the city. That said he did have semi-autonomous governing rights due to the various treaties regarding the ruins as a neutral location between the three countries.

Around the palace as always there was movement, especially in the morning, when the vagabonds and wayfarers who clustered hear made their way into the city looking to strike it rich or die trying. Most of them would suffer the latter fate.

‘perhaps I as well.’

He had come to the city at the behest of the spirit of the Willow-Glade, a refuge in Veluca or his oft-wandering people, sage from the predations of those who would seek to enslave his kind in that land. The old Tree-spirit had told him that an upheaval from these ruins would soon shake the land if nothing was done to prevent it, so here he had come.

Still, while he had acted as a guide or several parties of looters into this cursed place, he had not yet found the source of the future calamity, and he was beginning to worry that he might not be able to prevent it.

He glanced up river and noted that the ferry from Brindon was arriving, likely with a new crop of adventurers, so he kicked off the roof, flapping his wings, and flew over to follow it into dock. At the very least he might find his next party of vagabonds here.

‘Is, that… singing?’
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“Row Row Row your boat, Gently Down the stream”

“Make it stop Karstenn.”

“I'm not sure how.” Karstenn mumbled as Mary pressed herself against his chest, hands clamped over her ears.

Honestly he was just gaping mouthed at the fairly ridiculous sight before him. His captain had spent two days more quiet than he had been since they met after leaving Brindon, spending all of his time scribbling in some strange language he'd never seen before in a journal that he had bought as they left Brindon, before he had woken them up this morning by getting the entire ferry crew and half of the on board adventurers involved in a ridiculous series of singalongs. What's worse, the tone-deaf throat singing musician from the tavern was on the boat as well, and Abbot seemed to be getting along great with him.

While it wasn't that off-putting for him, Mary evidently had issues with the constant singing that Abbot seemed to be determined to fill every day with.

“Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily life is but a dream.”

“One more Time!”

On the other hand, he was certainly appreciating the close contact with Mary, it was as good an excuse as any to hug her to him. And since she was in her armor today it let him get a real grip on her smooth sides. All in all he couldn't complain.

Still, he knew that the contact with the woman would soon end as he had spotted what he presumed to be their destination approaching in the distance some time ago.

“Row Row Row yoyWhoaaa!”

Karstenn glanced up from Mary to see his charge apparently being landed on and pinned down by an enormous brown eagle.

“Hold on there, hey, cmon.” the child, who was maybe half the size of the bird, was frantically pushing it away, as the bird seemed to be trying to nuzzle against him, he let go of Mary, and started moving to help Abbot along with a couple of other adventurers when the bird suddenly stopped.

It turned to stare around before kicking off of the boat frantically and flying away as fast as possible, all the while flapping clumsily as if it was drunk.

“What on earth..?” Abbot mumbled, climbing up off of the ground, fixing his robes. “I know animals like me, but that was a bit much.”

“Perhaps he thought you were a mouse, you are the same size after alll.” a warrior wearing full plate who he believed was named Karl commented, sending a chuckle through the boat.

“Yeah, yeah, hyuck it up” The kid nodded, before picking his staff back up. “It did interrupt the song though.”

“Shuld we sing anuda?” The foreign throat-singer asked, sounding hopeful.

He didn't even see Mary go by, but she was somehow in front of him clutching Abbot tightly. “NO!, er… I mean, we're about to reach dock, so we shouldn’t.”

“Ah, I see.” The man looked down, though his body language was odd, “anuda time then.”

“Awww…” Despite knowing quite well that his captain was far older than his appearance dictated, the priest was clearly quite capable of laying the puppy eyes on thick, giving Mary a look that could be described as sheer anguish.

It was interesting watching the beautiful woman's face twist over itself trying to decide between righteous indignation and sympathy for something like a minute.

Eventually however she settled on a look of grim acceptance. “You can sing later Abbot.”

The child priest looked down for a moment, apparently in consternation that his transparent ploy didn't work, before he came right back up smiling.

Then he started whistling some odd, but catchy tune.

Karsten moved forward, placing a hand on Mary’s shoulder before the girl decided to strangle his sworn boss.

“Let's just go find some party members, alright?”
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OK so, maybe I was being a bit of a petulant brat about the whole thing. Mary was perfectly in her rights to dislike my singing, and driving her up a tree whistling was just me being annoying.

On the other hand, a few of the other people were catching on to the tune of ‘Centrefold’ so maybe I could introduce good music taste to these primitives anyhow.

It'd be ironic at least, a priest spreading rock and roll, the Devils very own music out across the world.

Heh.

Anyhow, we made our way off of the boat and onto the paved road into the city, it seemed that the adventurers operated in a sort of enclosed town area which was the staging point for people going into the ruins. It made sense I guess, the ruins were a resource for the three southern countries after all, though most of the easy to get to parts of them had been picked over centuries ago from what I had heard back in Brindon, meaning that only the center of the city and the catacombs beneath it were really worth exploring.

We passed under a reasonably well maintained gate and into the enclosed fortress, inside there were around twelve bunkhouse buildings, a stable, a tavern and a larger barracks building which had the local leaders flag draped prominently over it. There might have been a few buildings further back, but I could spot them since I couldn't see past anyone else as short as I was.

Still, the difference in architecture compared to Brinson was immediately apparent, the rock here was of a different, much darker grey texture, and the buildings were made of red-cut clay bricks that reminded me of home, though the yellow tiled rooms were a little odd. The smell here was also different, I had been on the river quite some time, and Brindle certainly smelled like that as well, if mixed with the gross smells of a medieval city, This place however, despite the River only being a few hundred yards away, had little in the way of smells at all beyond that drifting out from the taverns open doors. The animals too, what few there were, we're quieter, well, barring the crazy eagle from earlier.

If I were to describe the feeling that I got here it was that there was more life present even on the rocky parts of the Plains of Kelmo than there was here, despite the well kept grass growing off of the paths in the fortress. I had to wonder if what I was feeling was the undercurrent of the ancient curse that applied to this place.

I shivered involuntarily at the thought, a spell that powerful? Lasting that long?

I could only imagine how horrible whatever was at its center was.

“Where do we sign up for a room?”

“In the tavern, I imagine.” Karstenn gestured, and the group of us mostly shuffled that way though a few broke off, dispersing to other business around the fort.

The tavern’s sign referee to it as the Blue Horse, and it was just about as standard an establishment as what I might imagine in this world, save for one thing. It's patrons.

One of the few aspects of society that my father had given me a full education on, after some prodding on my part, was the racial politics of Mirno, it just wasn't something that one could get around and hope to avoid, so I had received a full briefing that might be a few decades out if date, but was nonetheless useful.

To sum it up, most of the intelligent races on Mirno loathed, or at best barely put up with each other depending on the group. With some, like Orcs, it was obvious, they raided everybody, and everybody killed them if they got the chance most of the time, they would only ever occasionally be hired as mercenaries in warfare. Other national relationships were more complex. Brindon for instance had open trading relations with the Dwarves of the Red-Foot Mountains, their small empire quite happy to supply mineral wealth in exchange for dyes and the like, but Humans generally didn't enter Dwarf Holds and Vica-Versa, it wasn't that they'd be killed if they did, but they would never truly be welcomed there, always a foreigner. Other nations and races were more or less complicated. Brindon was generally on poor-terms with most non-human species, though Elves were ostensibly tolerated, mostly because no’one could actually capture an elf most of the time, and because they were strongly light aligned, and the church tacitly approved of them.

Polnia on the other hand was a dangerous place to be for basically any non-human, they had inherited a significant hatred because they were the victims of the Velucan’s allies during their civil war a decade ago, and there was still a large movement there intent on taking revenge for the brutal pillaging that they recieved. A dwarf or an elf might barely squeak by, but anyone else would likely be shot and left in a ditch to die, or in some more radical parts, thrown up into a Gibbet for all to see how they felt about them.

Veluca on the other hand was positively egalitarian, if vile in their own way, the Velucans still maintained the Old Empire’s model, meaning that people of all races are allowed within their territory, as long as they're willing to uphold a citizen’s duties, primarily soldiering. This comes with the caveat though that around a third of their population are slaves, a practice that while not unknown in other countries, is only widely utilized in Veluca, and formerly Polnia. This is also combined with the fact that while the Velucans themselves generally are only a bit more abusive than an average army, many of their “tithed” auxiliary units come from excessively barbaric societies, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Cobolts, and most infamously the Brutal Beastmen of the Furred tribes, who's rapacious slaughter of the Polnian south was the primary reason that Polnia was pointing it's guns towards Veluca these days.

Still, all of this interracial conflict seemed utterly irrelevant within the walls of the Blue Horse Tavern, indeed, I spotted a couple of orcs, some dwarves, a man who I presumed was a half-troll by his size, and even a hobgoblin towards the corner, or at least I figured that was what the red skinned humanoid was. Not to mention several halflings wandering about at around my height. The tiny folk were often forgotten, but they lived pretty much everywhere humans did, and given that crossbreeds not only existed but we're common and themselves fertile, the church actually considered them human, as did most countries.

There were more non humans here than I had seen in my entire life up to this point, understandable since I had grown up isolated on the holy mountain, but nonetheless surprising.

Karsten seemed to be more confident about this place than Mary or I, so we followed his lead as he ordered drinks for the two of them and a mug of fruit juice for me.

“So…” I askes as we sat down at one of the emptier tables. “Do either of you have any idea how to recruit people into our group?”

“I saw a noticeboard our front.” Karsten said, sipping his drink. Mary just seemed to be lost in her own world again. “I bet that we could post an offer up there, you're a priest so it shouldn't be hard to find recruits.”

“Yeah that sounds-”

“Excuse me,” a man pushed his way into our table, or rather I should say, an Elf. “I couldn't help but overhear that you are looking for party members.”

The Elf was surprisingly bulky for what I'd expect of the race, and he wore a fairly simple sleeveless green shirt and leather tights. With short golden blond hair. He stared at me with steel grey eyes as he asked his question.

“Would you perhaps, like the company of a scout who knows the city?”

I glanced back and forth to Karstenn, who seemed surprised but thoughtful, and Mary who was still just looking at her drink.

‘Right, it's going to be up to me then.’

I turned to meet the Elf’s stare. “That does sound useful, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us what you can do then?”

“I am Green-Knife, one of the fair folk, as I'm sure you can tell. I can fight with my bow and my dagger as well.” the Elf giggled a little bit. “Sorry, old habit. I know the city well, and I have scouted for many parties, and while they have found much battle they have found little success, still, I seek fortune here.”

“Ah, well we aren't actually here for the loot in truth, though it would certainly be nice to find some. We're here to improve our teamwork, and perchance find new allies.”

If the elf was surprised by his, it didn't show on his slender face.

“Very well, when do you plan on venturing into the city? For a share of what you find, I will be happy to guide you.”

“hmm.” I nodded slightly, it wasn't an unfair offer, though I would ask the barker and others here about his character if I could. “Meet us by the gate tomorrow and we'll make our way into the ruins.”

“Certainly, ah, and mat I have the pleasure of knowing your names?”

“Abbot, Mary, and Karsten” I said, gesturing with my hand. I thought of asking him if he knew anyone else who might want to join our party, but decided against it. No reason to put more trust in him than neccessary.

He Semmes to linger on his thoughts for a moment before waving his hand. “Well, I shall be off then, I will meet you in the morning, Sir Abbot.”

After that we carried on with a cheerful attitude until going to seek out other party members after dinner, little knowing just what trials we would face beyond the walls.
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