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Core Collapse Chapter 19
🕑 Added 2024-03-25 12:44:44 +0000 UTCChapter 19
King Fenard really had to thank Emil for introducing the concepts of modern plumbing to Welsius. With the boiler and the water tank on the roof of the palace providing heat and water pressure, it was possible to enjoy a warm shower whenever he wanted. Or, alternatively, to take a hot bath on a whim, which was the activity he was engaging in at the moment. He soaked in the steamy water, imagining the soil of petty politics being scrubbed from his skin.
The best part of bathing this way was that when the water got cold, he could just turn on the hot water faucet and heat the tub up again. He could soak and luxuriate for hours if--
“Your Majesty, there’s a problem,” Yecha said, standing at the door.
--only he could get away from his official duties long enough.
“What is it now?” he asked.
“It’s the Urbans,” she said. “They’re interested in Tom, Weaver Estate, and the girl from Earth.”
“Of course they are,” Fenard said, leaning back in the tub and trying to think how his father would handle this situation. “It’s not the end of the world. I would have rather had him married to Rowena or swearing oaths to the knighthood before he became known to the other powers in the kingdom, but it was always just a matter of time. And with him opening dungeons beneath cities and building things for Emil, it was surprising that nobody had picked up on the fact that a new controller was in the kingdom sooner.”
“So no official response?” Yecha inquired.
Fenard shrugged. “What would you have me do? Force the mages to unlearn information? Honestly, Yecha, this could have waited until the morning. Fortunately you’re just interrupting my bath and not my sleep, or I’d be more cross.”
“You did ask to be alerted immediately if there were any developments with Tom Weaver,” she reminded him.
Fenard shrugged again. He was too exhausted to argue the point. “Do you know what they’re planning?”
“They’re sending an emissary to Weaver Estate. That’s all I know. Beyond that, my contacts within the Urban organization have been very tight-lipped,” Yecha admitted.
“Well, I’m rather less worried about them than I am about our northeastern neighbor,” Fenard admitted. “Has there been any change?”
“Sir Tirns has continued to shadow the force that is heading towards our kingdom through the wastes,” Yecha informed him. “He reports their numbers in the region of thirty to fifty thousand. It’s hard to tell how many exactly, or what percentage of them are military and what percentage are the baggage train. He does report a large number of children in the group, which could mean that they’re refugees. He refuses to get any closer to talk with them since they shot at his wyvern.”
“An understandable precaution,” King Fenard admitted, although Yecha’s expression showed that she thought otherwise. “Knights are not pawns to be cast aside on a whim, Yecha.”
“No, they are meant to be used wisely. The winged knights in particular are useful for their mobility and capacity for surveillance,” she admitted. “It is a good thing that Sir Tirns managed to escape from the oncoming force, whether they are refugees or not. He has done well to keep us abreast of their movements since then.”
King Fenard sighed. “And how are the recruitment efforts going, Yecha? What number do our forces stand at now?”
“At last tally, we have sixty thousand troops in training with pike, sword, and crossbow,” she informed him. “Commoner troops, almost all of them. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to attract vast forces of Class holders. Perhaps that will change when the enemy is at our gates, but at the moment the adventuring community is too obsessed with the newly evolved dungeons to bother to report to a recruitment station.”
“Even the soldiers we do have are likely hoping to unlock the Soldier class,” he reminded her. “It’s unfortunate, but until I’m certain whether or not the army approaching us has hostile attention or is simply a pack of refugees, I’m unwilling to levy conscripts. We must stick with those who are convinced by promises of steady pay and diet instead.”
“And while I normally support the measured response, if Galya’s army does become hostile, we won’t have time to train the conscripts if we wait until they’re at our gate.”
“I know that,” Fenard snapped. “I’m relying on your own scouting reports in this decision. We outmatch them in numbers as things are. Our numbers and steel are superior, the only variable unaccounted for is the enemy’s class holders. Are they ten percent of the army? Twenty? That is the question we need answered.”
He sighed. The water was getting cold, and this time he decided to get out rather than reheating it with fresh hot water from the tap. He motioned towards his valet, who stepped forward with a robe for him.
“If they are refugees coming to our nation for succor, then I don’t have the heart to turn them way. Not when the alternative is to stay in the blight, or even the wilds and wastes between nations,” King Fenard said, not for the first time. “But the stakes are too high to accept them without vetting that their intentions are peaceful. If they are refugees, then we have already begun making places for them. But then why did they fire upon Sir Tirns?”
“It might have been a misunderstanding,” Yecha provided, answering the rhetorical question. “He approached without colors to identify himself or his intentions.”
“Yes, well, let’s fix that then. Send out a detachment to meet them in the wastes,” Fenard ordered. “A thousand men to scout and report their intentions. It’s not that I don’t trust Sir Tirns’ reports, but perhaps they will respond differently to an armed force than a single man on a wyvern.”
“Of course,” Yecha agreed. “Personally, I felt from the beginning that the attack on Sir Tirns was a misunderstanding. Hopefully this exploratory force will issue favorable reports in the name of peace.”
“Is there anything else?” Fenard inquired. It was late, and Fenard was tired.
“Not at the moment,” Yecha answered. “Pleasant dreams, Your Majesty.”
~~~~~
Sir Tirns was exhausted, forcing himself to stay awake as he tended to his mount’s need. Wyverns were endurance fliers, but they still required rest, food, and water. Tirns’ provisions for his mount had run out weeks ago, and the pair had been hunting ever since. At present, his wyvern had the stains of his last meal covering his face. An unfortunate deer that had been flushed by the wyvern’s shadow.
Tirns sat at the campfire and waited for his own meal to finish cooking. Boiled oats, with a bit of salt and sugar for flavor. It was a plain meal, but he still had a few more days before he ran out of oats. When he did, he’d be forced to try to pull his mount away from her kills long enough for him to cut a slice for himself. It was possible, but it would leave her grumpy afterward.
His mount, who had been curled up on one side of the fire, suddenly raised her head and looked out into the darkness. Up, not at the ground but up in the sky. She let out a deep, rumbling growl, then went silent.
Without further prompting, Tirns kicked dirt onto the fire until it went out. He looked up at the star filled sky, wondering what it was that his mount had seen. He trusted her senses above his own, and if she had gone silent instead of bellowing a challenge, then she was intimidated by whatever was out there.
Five minutes passed, and he had an answer. In the plains beneath his hillside camp, the campfires of the army that he had been trailing over the last few weeks flickered quietly. The army knew that he was out here, trailing them, but they had no flying mounts of their own to chase him down. When he did land, he was careful to do so in Stealth at great distances from the enemy, but close enough to keep an eye on them.
So it was that he had a perfect view as the dragon flew over their camp, bellowing out a cry of fury that chilled the blood in his veins. Even from this distance, Tirns could hear the screams coming from the camp as the dragon made a second pass. This time, instead of a challenge, it let loose its terrible breath, a terrible line of flaming destruction engulfing the camp.
A third pass, a second lime of flame. Another, and another.
Another bellowing roar, and then the shadow of the dragon moved on. To the southwest.
Tirns grabbed for his saddlebags and pulled out the link-pen and a sheet of paper to scribble his report on. He wrote with shaking hands as he described the terrible scene he had just witnessed.
A dragon was on its way to Welsius, and it was only a few days flight before it arrived.
~~~~~~
Lord Gurund shouted orders against the backdrop of the burning tent. He hadn’t been harmed by the dragonfire, yet, but his property was being consumed. That was bad enough, but everyone was running around in a panic and refusing to give him the time of day!
He was infuriated by the lack of respect, although he supposed he could only expect so much out of the commoners in his makeshift army. If you could even call it that; there were perhaps one hundred soldiers in the entire camp. And where were they? Putting out fires in the mess halls and rescuing babes from burning tents and …
Okay, so maybe he ought to take a step back and reevaluate his priorities. His tent possessed most of the wealth he’d managed to scrape together since the system went down in the city that he governed and he’d lost access to the system. The Core Stones he’d visited since then hadn’t given him his proper status back, especially not his Title as Lord. But he was a lord, even if his menu didn’t show it any longer.
Which meant that his life and property took precedence over that of the common rabble, so why was nobody helping him?
Things had been going wrong from the beginning. There wasn’t enough food to go around. The commoners were getting blisters and injuring themselves. The few soldiers they had were barely enough to turn back the monsters of the region, and a number of people had died to monster predation along the way.
Worst, they were spotted by the enemy weeks ago and the fools under him had managed to both tip the enemy scout off on their intentions and failed to capture him. The wyvern rider had been in the skies since then, keeping King Fenard abreast of their movements no doubt.
And now the damned dragon had burned half of the camp to the ground.
This was supposed to be an easy job, he thought. There was a similar refugee train heading north, to Petosh. It was his job, and that of his soldiers, to simply install themselves behind enemy lines. They were to report information back to the primary Velundese army that was still being formed in the parts of Velund where the blight hadn’t reached yet.
Lord Gurund had volunteered to lead the force for the simple purpose of getting away from the blight. He hadn’t really cared about carving out a New Velund in her neighboring countries, but he’d gone along with the plan because he thought that getting back into a land with a properly functioning Core Network was the best way to get his status – and his Title as a Lord – back.
Instead, he was left shouting at someone to try to extinguish the flames of his tent as his property went up in flames.
Suddenly, someone was there, listening to him. A young soldier he didn’t recognize, already covered with mud and ash. He must have been a class holder, because he went inside the burning tent without much concern for his personal safety and retrieved the most valuable of the paintings within. Lord Gurund exhaled a sigh of relief that the masterpiece was still intact. Until the soldier dropped it in the mud and went back inside.
Gurund was apoplectic to see a masterpiece of art being treated with such disrespect. Another soldier came suddenly and, as Gurund described to the man the valuables inside the tent, this one listened too.
The two soldiers, working together, managed to salvage some of the valuables within. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. When they finally stopped returning to the burning tent, Gurund resumed cursing at them, trying to get them to salvage more, but the first man just shook his head.
“Everything in there is on fire,” the man said. “We’ve saved what we can.”
A crack and a pop, and Gurund turned just in time to see the tent collapse on itself and continue to burn. He cursed, then began taking stock of what little of his property remained. He was interrupted by the second man.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the man asked.
“I am counting my worldly possessions,” Gurund answered.
“I believe you mean our worldly possessions,” the man said, gesturing to his friend who had braved the flames. “Rights of salvage and all, I didn’t see you risking your neck to save these valuables.”
Gurund began shouting again. The second man simply struck him with the full strength of a Warrior. The two men worked together to pile their takings into a cart which had survived the inferno as Gurund lie unconscious in the dirt.
Someone stopped by later to strip him of his jewelry. They were in the middle of stripping him of his silks when he awoke.
He wandered off, trying to find his lieutenant, trying to find his stolen property, trying to find anyone to help.
It took him a very long time to realize that he was no longer the leader of a small army. He was truly just another refugee, now. With the coming of the dawn, he set out to the southwest, as did most of the survivors of the last night’s attack.
Hopefully, once he arrived in Welsus, he would be able to establish his identity and claim the funds that he should have in the core network’s financial records. Otherwise, he feared, he would be forced to live life as a pauper.
