5: Where there's smoke

Fantasy isn't always fun and games.

Though he had his rucksack the only things Kire had packed into it for this excursion was some small dried snacks, extra water and rope. The further down the trail he goes the darker the woods get and the more eerie the atmosphere. He slows his jog for a while to munch a nut bar he had taken for the road and stops to urinate on a tree trying to make sure he was fully ready for the encounter. The vast and ancient upper branches of the enormous trees like sequoias muted the sunlight enough that things went from shady to a dim twilight as he ventured into more mature growth. Trees had chunks of bark scraped off of them and a large rock had even been shattered while everything else up to ten feet in height had been mangled and crushed. (Job couldn't be made easier if it had posted neon signs the whole way. It got some mileage in but that's about the only favour it did itself.) He could understand the many superstitions and stories around these woods now that he was in them although the crashing wave of pork seemed to have deterred most other wildlife and he saw little despite feeling the presence of a great deal. Most disturbingly he thought there might be eyes on him and not in the same way as he had ascribed to the usual presence of System.


The forest gets quieter now except for a shifting and rustling ahead. He slows his roll where there is a bend in the broken bushes and trampled undergrowth and peeks around the corner to finally find his quarry. Eighteen hands high to the shoulder there stood a bristled tank with its back to him while it rummaged over something on the ground. "Damn, that's a huge bitch!" Kire calls out loud to provoke its attention while quickly scanning the canopy above and spaces around between the trees to map out escape routes having already considered a plan about how to use the terrain along the way. As an apex predator the boar only startles insofar as all of its muscles twitching visibly beneath its course fur coat. It stomps around to turn and face its new victim and Kire sees it is crunching on something that might have been a deer, bloody strips of flesh hanging from its jaws and bones snapping loudly between its teeth.


(Fuck.)
Acting quick Kire thrusts his right arm straight above himself and repeats the motion he had practised at the training grounds to send a cable at one of the lower branches above. His ascent aligns with the boar's charge and the tang of adrenaline fills his mouth as it looks like he might not be pulled up out of the way in time. As he reels up he throws out his left hand and fires his flamethrower ring at the monster's face, the oxidizing mana hitting with rocket force but not deterring the porcine predator with the flame raking over its back as it passes underneath Kire nearly close enough to clip his boots and crashing into the wilderness past where the adventurer had just stood. When he gets to the branch he wastes no time swinging his legs up and untangling the hook just as he'd practised and jumping on the adrenaline high before he can register how high up he is he runs across the branch to where it passed by another from the tree the boar had been standing by when he arrived. (Not surprised that didn't work, it's just too tough on the outside.) Digging a hook into the bark he rappels down in a controlled descent, shaking his line off and retracting it in one fast snap. "Heeere pigpigpigpigpig! SoooEY! SOOOOEYYY!"


The upscaled snorting of the hog had been a threatening rumble sounding more like a tiger than a pig but now it responded through the growth with an almost deafening squeal. Stomping and bucking in fury its head peeks back into the space between trees to find its high-visibility taunting loudly. "As every good foe needs a name I shall dub thee...Biggus Piggus!" Another dreadful squeal and it drives its hind legs back mulching and shredding large roots as easily as the soil. Kire had to time this part very carefully and activated his speed ring the instant the boar kicked off. With only 6 metres between them and the wild hulk having uncanny acceleration for its size he crouched enough to put tension in his legs and waited for it to close the gap until he saw its eyes close-a detail only made possible for observation by his magically accelerated nervous system.


With the boar's pre-impact reflex in play expecting to turn the ridiculous man into a mist and a memory Kire leaps to the side. The colossal ancient tree thunders and cracks but does not give way to the demonic swine. The sound rings through high and far sending flocks of birds scattering to the skies and Biggus Piggus, who had thus far managed a lifetime of instinctively avoid ramming things stronger than itself, spasmed as the impact rattled through its brain and spine. Blood ran from its nose for the first time ever and one tusk took on a deep fracture matching that of the tree-But Kire saw none of this for as soon as he had hit the ground he starts off on all fours then pushes up to his hind legs scrambling to get behind his foe. Biggus staggered, stunned, and Kire found his point of attack.


Kire takes a running leap and just before contact he holds his breath and closes his eyes to slam his fist as deep as he can manage into the stumbling animal's asshole. Though its senses were still too scrambled to react to the invasion it found the strength to scream and buck when Kire ignited the second charge on his flamethrower ring inside of it. He winced and cried out himself as that much force poured into the body cavity had some kickback onto his own hand and arm buried virtually shoulder-deep. His senses were hammered in short order by the flash of burning and his arm dislocating when the hindquarters he was fastened to suddenly bucked up with more force than inertia would kindly allow for Kire to handle unpunished. Using his right arm and drawing on the strength ring he is able to push himself off and dislodge, trying not to land on his lamed arm and protecting it as he rolled out of the way on his forehead and knees.


Biggus stamped and thrashed from the pain, blood still gushing from its nose and now eyes. Kire scrabbled to get up with his balance thrown by the injury and shuffles to get behind one of the nearby trees for cover. The ground shakes with the fury of the grievously wounded boar but the injuries were hardly immediately fatal and Kire carefully lines himself up against the tree by his shoulder, aligning his arm by feeling the feedback of bone to bone and thrusts his weight on to it to pop it back into place with a strained hiss through gritted teeth.


(Now how the hell am I supposed to finish it off? How long will it take to succumb to its injuries?)
The boar no longer had the thoughts or working vision to negotiate its way through the woods crashing and stumbling against the giant trees that now served to act as its cage like a pinball. Kire didn't think he would get a second chance at the internal ploy and crinkling his nose in disgust at the sight and smell of his arm he didn't want to anyway. He considers a poison he could try to use but he doesn't have any real experience with such things to synthesize one. (Make some spears that it could drive itself on to? No no they would probably just snap and this would take all day...) The squealing and snorting out of sight has started to dim into faltering whines and the ruckus kicked up by its protracted death throes calms into an irregular pattern of hoof beats. *Maybe it won't take so long after all.* He goes the opposite way around the tree as where he came to put some distance between him and where he thought the wounded but still dangerous animal was. It was still stumbling, eyes shut from the blood that had wept out from internal injuries and its breathing was laboured from the mouth. Its snout was flush with blood and other fluids as was the curtain of drool where it panted. Finally losing strength it looked about to lay down but crashed over to its side halfway there. Kire approached cautiously in case it got a second wind but Biggus did not react to his presence.


*I'll be damned, looks like you actually pulled this off.* The creature was still breathing but barely and Kire tossed a snapped twig at it which only produced a faint whine and flimsy kick of a foreleg. "Well I'll be damned, looks like I did. These things make for good cooking?" *Even for you I wouldn't expect such poor tastes as to enjoy parasite-ridden leather so I would suggest against it. One of the additional reasons they are hunted long before they reach this size.* Kire imagined something like this reaching Thornwick. "That and they'd be a gods-damned catastrophe for any settled area. Like a bulldozer against mice. Alas, it can be out-thunk in an arena like this." Kire steps behind a tree again feeling an inexplicable need for privacy and uses his item creation power for the first time today to make a wooden wash tub with hot water and soap to clean his gear. Stripping off his tunic and chainmail he also makes a second smaller tub of cold water to handle the first degree burns on his hand. When he's done he dumps the basins but otherwise leaves them for the forest, returning to the felled mammoth of a swine whose breathing had stopped and their body going cold.


Drawing his falchion Kire starts hacking at the tusks and remembering how one of the first people he met at the gates of Thornwick had a crate tied to their back he uses his rope to fasten the cuts to himself. Flipping up the time piece from his belt he takes a deep and satisfied breath. "And I can still be back in time for dinner." As he left he felt eyes again, sending a bit of a shiver up his back. (Are these woods always this spooky though?)


More of the crew than not were on break when he returned, heads turning to follow and gawk at the two enormous curved tusks strapped over his shoulders. It had been a tremendous workout bringing them back but he wanted proof for the guild and thought Jameson would appreciate a trophy. The valley looked later than it really was with the sun starting to settle beyond the mountains and a body by the door of the house dropped excitedly ran inside when they spotted him. Before Kire could close the gap Jameson hobbled out supported by a pair of crutches and his wife with the additional close supervision of the healer. Unslinging the tusks to plunk them on the ground with a relieved sigh he turns to hoist up the unbroken one and present it. "Biggus Piggus the demon boar is no more...And here's the interest I promised to charge them." The old farmer's mouth twitched and worked independently at both ends like it was trying to decide on what expression to make. Kind of looked like it wanted to be a smile. He shifted looks between Kire and the two tusks. "I'll take the cracked one."


--


Strolling down the laneway to Arnes' home Kire wonders about the contents of the sealed letter Jameson had provided him. Confirmation of job completion obviously, but it seemed odd that he wasn't allowed to read it himself. Having carried all he could of the enormous tusks and absolutely famished from the effort he'd left both at the Jameson farm to pick up the other on his way back into town later. "So uh...Your party never showed up huh?" Arnes tried to play coy about the question but Kire looked down quizzically. "My party?" The old Dwarf let himself register the stress he had been trying to push off as his suspicion is confirmed, aggressively craning his head to the young man in the waning light. "You seriously signed up to hunt THAT all alone? And then you ACTUALLY managed to kill it? If you hadn't thought to bring back those tusks everyone would call you a liar!" Kire shrugged with a light cackle and a grin. "Thought they'd make decent souvenirs." There is a bit of movement in one of the lit windows and seconds later the front door swings open with three Dwarven children storming out to swarm their dad and guest: Two daughters and a son between the three of them roughly between the ages of 6 and 10.. "You brought someone! Is it a coworker?" "Is he from the farm?" "Why is he a human?" Kire was probably more amused than he should have been at that one but the indefatigable Arnes grabs the smallest to throw over his shoulder like a screaming sack of vegetables and tickled her bare feet. "Give us room to breathe will ya!"


Inside was Arnes' wife and elderly mother having already set everything for the evening and tending to a large boiling pot. "If it's no trouble my dear I thought we could make room at the table for one more. Actually I had expected at least three more but today has been a day of shaken expectations." The wife who's name had been mentioned along the way as being Isadora gave Arnes a run-through of looks that Kire couldn't fully name but he took it as Arnes not being the type to host often. "Shaken expectations indeed," she said wrangling their son and pointing to the cupboard to retrieve another table placement. The kids are introduced as Jaina, Arnes (Jr.) and Isanna and his mother as Isolde.


They try to make small talk over dinner but it involves a lot of bombarding questions from the kids about the orange-clad human, and then the giant pig, and then how many ghosts are in Eldergrove, and then and then... Eventually they are shooed off to their baths and day-end routine while the adults got to talk more freely. Arnes' parents had moved from the mountains to settle in the area before he was born as his mother had a chronic illness that did not agree with the air higher up. His father had also succumbed some years back to something that was described like a tetanus infection, and Arnes had a brother but they worked abroad and visited rarely. For his part Kire had to deflect a great deal and kept his hosts on their toes with a sustained offensive of questions since he could only be so vague about his own home and travels. The kids return and with the sky having darkened they and Isadora start doing some heavy work persuading Kire to spend the night rather than be on the roads after nightfall while Arnes had disappeared. Conceding his great fatigue from his hiking, the fight, and especially hauling his spoils it is revealed that Arnes had already set to preparing some blankets over a straw pile in a small and vacant stable attached to the house.


Apologizing that they did not have a proper guest room the space had been made quite comfortable just the same and he would not have turned down such lodgings even if the circumstances had offered more choice. Goodnights said and he settles in, propped up like it was a colossal bean bag. Weapons and armour were stowed in his sack and tucked away though it did feel weird to not be doing his usual grooming routine. He did his daily journalling briefly before bed catching giggles and eyes peeking around the corner into the stall. He pretends not to see them and gets up to put out the light, a glass-contained lamp set apart from the straw. Slumped back he counts the seconds until slight footsteps catch his hearing patting along the stonework. One body slinks less than gracefully beside him to one side, and then a second crammed on below them. A third adds itself to his right side. *Hm, seems for whatever reason they took a liking to you. Truly the standards of children cannot be trusted.*


Kire didn't talk back, or move or even really think. He didn't respond to system and he didn't haywire himself trying to plot out his next device or quest. His lip trembled and he closed his eyes as another storm of confusing emotions hit. (Maybe...I could...Possibly open up to new connections in this world.)
--


There was a rooster somewhere on this property and it took mornings serious. This was the first time Kire hadn't woken up on his own and with a little more light visible through the narrow slotted windows than he was used to greeting him. He was alone on the straw pile but a broad sliding door to the outside opened up just enough that small hands with whispered schemes coaxed the rooster into the space he'd slept. Its feet dutifully pattered like a drill sergeant, advancing on the lazy guest for reveille. Its crowing reverberating off the walls in the small space said it would not tolerate such insubordination as to stay laying when it has so clearly announced the time to do otherwise and Kire stretches, sitting up and mock tipping an invisible hat to the pushy fowl. "Yes sir, right away sir."


Shaking dust and loose bits of wandering straw from his hair Kire grabs his bag ready to leave immediately. Breakfast is offered but he declines, not wanting to take up more of their food after they spoiled him so already and using the excuse that he needed to check out at the hotel. He does snack on the last of his rations on the way back to Jameson's farm to get his energy up before having to haul his trophy tusk all the long way back to town but to his great fortune one of the wagons from the supply run the day before was preparing to take people back into the city.


Back in Glimmerforge his first stop is the guild hall , the singular tusk slung by rope across his back by a single over the shoulder cord now being much easier than two but he is eager to unload the burden just the same. Presenting the letter from Jameson, his guild card and job ticket he slumps the tusk against the booth and stretches again still feeling where the ropes pressed him the day before. The clerk reads the letter in silence but their forehead steadily gains wrinkles and their mouth becomes steadily more pursed as they get through it. For the look they gave Kire when they finished he may as well have just pulled a gun on them. They lean forward to regard the tusk. "Is it that bad? Is he mad at me?" Kire put on a fake nervous smile, eyes shifting between the tusk and the human woman behind the counter.


"So to clarify, you did this without a party?" She skipped to answering his question with a question. He gave two thumbs up and beamed. "You followed an adult Hammertusk Boar of all things alone into the Eldergrove, killed it, and went to the effort of bringing back its tusks? Just like that?" Kire's smile diminished nervously and he slowly lowers his upwards thumbs. "Was I...Not supposed to? Was that not the job?" (Oh gods did I fuck this up? What did I do wrong this time?!) *Oh you didn't read the fine print? You were supposed to capture it alive.* (That's bullshit! It's bullshit and you know it!) *I know but I thought it was worth a try.* Kire's face twitched slightly from the internal conversation. The clerk had signalled a runner to retrieve his file.


"No, Mr...Kire. You did the job correctly and in fact the client had quite the feedback about the outcome-Positive feedback, don't worry! But-oh thank you-" she'd been handed the same envelope as had been handled a couple days prior. "-But this is..." She stalled again flipping between the few pages inside his folder. "Clarify for me again. You're a D rank?" "Yes." "You've been in the guild for a week?" Kire's eyes roll back as he recalls his journal entries. "...Yes?" "You killed this Hammertusk Boar?" "If it makes you feel better I had to shame myself to get the win." She did not look like she felt better about that and sighs. "Without rehashing his words Jameson the Rooted is strongly advocating a commendation for your work. If nobody has told you yet, that's quite unusual at your tenure. ESPECIALLY not getting two in one week." Kire shrugs and tries to look cute. He honestly wouldn't know what normal is or isn't in this world. She narrows her eyes at his reaction. "We will conduct a follow-up interview with Mr. Jameson to ensure this is not falsified while we check that tusk for authenticity as well. We'd ask that you wait within the guild hall while we verify the tusk and if it checks out we will consider the quest completed. If the client interview can also verify the letter a commendation will be added to your record as well but this may take a couple days until we can afford the manpower."


Kire nods sagely. "Will the inspection take terribly long? I could do with lunch and I have a room to check out of." As if to answer the runner from before along with a second are picking up the tusk to haul off to one of the offices. The clerk indicates for him to stand to the side while she takes the next person in line. "It'll just be a moment." She manages to clear two other visitors before the tusk is brought back and restored to the position it had been lifted from and the first runner reports its authenticity. Kire's card is punched for completion, his file annotated and the payment retrieved. "Anything else?" Something about the way she asked reminded him of the way he had recreationally stressed Arune. "Yeah, I'd like to take a guard position for Route 33 back to Thornwick."


--


One final bath in the narrow margin of time before he is due out of his room with a full round of shaving and grooming. Everything packed he takes the last seconds of his bought privacy and uses them to make a woven straw hat, as durable as he can and wide enough to protect from the sun. He hits up a lavatory and binges a good lunch before the run of road rations he now knows is coming and waits at the appointed place until he hears Thrain calling out the job number. This time there are five other guild members, true to what Arnes said previously about certain trips being higher value and Kire doesn't wait for directions to stake his place on the sturdier cart where another one of the assembled party called him a cheater for jumping the gun. "Oh by the way old man, isn't it about time you stopped baking in the sun like one of Jameson's potatoes?" He carefully lines up and drops the hat he'd made so that it falls straight onto the Dwarf's head, spooking him. "Not that bronze is a bad look but from all the sun I thought you were way too old to be having tots that young."


When the wagons get mobile he and Arnes talk about the outcome of the previous trip. A quest had been issued to investigate the bandit activity but when a party went out the results were largely inconclusive; their assailants had packed and moved swiftly and been laying low with no sightings for three days of monitoring afterwards. "Just our bad luck they were out that day," Arnes had concluded. That made Kire feel better about how this trip might look and having twice as many guards didn't hurt either. At least one of the team riding in the vanguard wagon seemed to be a well-worn veteran. There was talk around the guilds and markets that criminal activity in the area had been spiking but neither Kire nor Arnes had lingered on it enough to gleam any details.


Eventually Kire settles down to rest as before but a whistle blows and he remembers the signal from their first trip, the horses stopping immediately. This time it is a runner from the lead wagon, Eshin himself, coming to them. Kire lifts his head to a wall of smoke over the hills...But no signs of fire. Having already tied his bag to the railing he feels inside for his telescope, slowly sweeping the length of the now smoke shrouded hills where they had been ambushed previously. He had put all his focus into watching rather than listening and did not catch the opening of the conversation below, but it was a fearful and uncertain one. When he does tune in it is Eshin talking. "The party who came out to look reported no further evidence of activity for three days, and now this? Just as we're on our way back with three towns worth of inventory? It stinks, and I have a dangerous feeling about it. Thrain agrees."


"As do I." Arnes' knuckles gripped the reins with clear fear. "Suppose they'll be more ready for a ram the second time...But I can't see anything with all the smoke. They're doing a good job keeping their play hidden." Kire called down giving another sweep of the hill. Thrain and one of the senior adventurers who had probably been appointed party leader approached now as well. Thrain established the fact. "We can't charge them again. We can't risk losing another horse and especially not with us only being hours out of Glimmerforge. Their smoke gave us enough warning this time that we can divert ourselves but we have no idea what kind of numbers or traps they have out there and the unkempt hills would be perilous enough for the wagons at speed even without an ambush."


The rest of the adventurers moved to disembark but were waved back to stay out of sight. Ennes spoke next. "Turning around is also not so much an option. We can't see numbers or emplacements but they also shouldn't know how many we have on board. We could approach normally until we are reasonably clear of barriers and hope to fend them off but that goes south if the horses panic and run."


There is a long silence between them and eventually Eshin holds up his hand with his index finger raised. A solemn sigh and shake of the head Ennes closes his eyes and raises his hand with two fingers raised.Arnes looks at the party leader who in turns checks over his shoulder to scrutinize the others aboard the cart. Reluctantly the senior adventurer holds up a hand with one finger and Arnes follows suit. Eshin's breathing is nervous when he opens his eyes and his face drops to see the vote. "So we proceed."


"I'm sure I don't count but I agree with the first assessment. This feels dangerous." Kire spoke around the telescope. On the one hand, excitement! Battle! Adventure! It had even been thrilling the first time. On the other hand there was an indisputably ominous feeling in his gut when he looked at that smoke. *Good thing you took a shit before we left.*


--


The plan was in place: With adventurers ready on the defensive they would enter the pass at a steady pace to avoid crashing into any fences. Kire was partnered with another adventurer sent to his wagon to reinforce their defence, a spearman who could slay would-be boarders without leaving the roof and Kire was pretty sure the same one who initially protested having this spot taken. Two more men had spears on the lead wagon but all were positioned to protect boarders and, if they came to a barricade, to disembark and fight their way through. Kire's job was to react accordingly to the enemy either defending his own wagon or running up to assist the first as necessary. It wasn't an ideal plan but they didn't have the time or resources for an alternative. With this in mind he opted not to tie himself to the railing this time, waiting with bated breath as the air closed in. Anyone who had a cloth to do so tied it over their faces. Eshin had protested that the horses would not be able to handle the smoke so everyone was ready to see how this complicated things but to his surprise Kire found that the smoke did not burn his eyes and in fact had no more effect than mist. He exchanged confused looks with his fire team partner who pulls down their facial covering. "Must be magically wrought, otherwise their own troops would be affected." (Yeah I guess I keep forgetting that straight up magic casting is a regular thing in this world since I see it so rarely.)


The atmosphere is tense, ears straining for any sound in the smog besides their own transports. Wound so tight they could almost hear nothing over their own heartbeats and breathing there was the meaty slap of a rock fired from a sling striking one of the horses' flanks and no time to process it before both carts were sent bolting by simultaneous such strikes. The adventurer sharing the roost hooked his feet and managed to stay aboard but Kire was sent spinning off into the air to slam into the ground just able to make out a few arrows peppering the cart that was now rushing ahead. He pushes himself up to give chase and hears a crash-different than before and with a great deal of cries and screams. He advances and sees other bodies converging from the haze in the same direction of his ward but not having noticed him.


He runs and weaves, swiping his sword across the back of the first and dropping him, remembering the previous conversation about how they would take no hostages. With the risk to the caravan's lives he resolved to waste no time neutralizing threats either. Great strides caught him up to a second before they knew he was there and hacking at the back of their legs sent them tripping with a cry that had another turning to see what happened but all they saw was Kire's body check sending them to the ground and aggressively trampling them as he ran to the next. "Hey dog fuckers! I'm going to feed you your own assholes!" His yelling provoked an arrow shot into the ground where he'd been running by as he called out and he swerves in the direction its fletching pointed. Now he was pounding up the hill to the right of the road, shallow as it was and he made out the silhouettes of three bodies. The nearest saw him too and lifted their bow but he engages his speed ring and by the time they shoot the arrow his already great reflexes turned otherworldly bat it away with his sword. They shout for their fellows but it's cut off with their head and the others know only a weaving blur through the fog that comes to batter them at odd angles.


Back on the road the first cart had hit a different kind of obstacle and was overturned which sequentially trapped the second cart. There was no fence but a hard packed steep dirt speed bump eighteen inches high and while the horses managed to somehow miss or jump it the impact shattered the front wheels and threw the cart on collision with the back. The two horses on the left side were pulled down to the ground, kicking to get free while the horses on the opposite side were sprung loose where the buckles in the breeching straps popped open rather than lift the horse's weight and they tore off into the mist. The carefully arranged defensive plan of the party inside was for naught as they were now tumbled in a hazardous spray of gear, battered and prone with the orchestrators of the attack closing in for the kill. As soon as the horses had spooked arrows had come through the canvas and one of them struck a member of the party who now lay dead at the bottom of the pile, the others desperately scrabbling to defend their position. Three assailants stood outside of the open back, bracing themselves to keep the adventurers trapped while their comrades cut through the cloth cover on the wagon's roof to breach an attack from the side. For one, his scimitar easily opened the canvas just to have a spear spring out and catch him in the neck but the others only hesitated for a second in continuing the work. On Arnes' wagon the man above had also been wounded in the initial arrow volley but managed to fend off a few aggressors before succumbing to a follow-up shot.


Kire descended the hill, seeing the second wagon move as the panicking horses tried to jam their way past the first. They stamped over the dirt blockage and slowly managed to heave the cart out of its tracks and over the burm , scraping its side along the broken wheels of Thrain's ride. The three men armed with pole weapons guarding the back of the wagon to contain the guards looked indecisive about what to do but held their post and left it to their fellows to try and reign in Arnes' cart, unsuccessfully as the otherworlder viciously reaved through their ranks to protect the man who had shown him such kindness. Once there was enough panic and confusion among them with his speed and strength rings flickering on and off in bursts to create an off-setting tempo and power he slides to the ground in line with the three trying to hold their position and ignites the flamethrower ring to douse them all at once. The men scatter in screams of agony and Kire has to roll out of the way as one runs right past him.


The adventurer's party charges out from the wagon with the senior giving an incredulous look at the burning men. His discipline almost immediately overrides his surprise and he starts calling formation orders after they cut down the others who had been hacking at the roof to flank them. The party leader takes a tube off his belt and holds it aloft pulling a ring from the bottom which triggers a green flare crackling up and beyond the smoke like a firework. The adventurers were reasonably well equipped and organized but outnumbered three to one by the next wave that emerged from the obscurity of the smoke spell to assail the cart, crew and cargo with reckless abandon.


As the fighting continues another one of the adventurers are felled by a bident to the side and when the fighting is subsided the two who remain alongside Kire are visibly much worse for wear. A few of the wounded bandits are gathered and bound for later interrogation and the smoke starts to clear. Worrying still Kire clambers over the bump in the road to see if Arnes' cart had gotten free but in the slowly improving visibility he thinks he sees its outline. He also hears Thrain try to get his attention between bouts of coughing which is all that could really be heard over the kicking and whinnying of the still stuck horses. Thrain was battered but had fastened himself down and been spared getting thrown from the cart entirely which almost certainly spared his life. He cuts the Dwarf free and tries to ease his landing to the ground but the dwarf immediately crawls towards the horses to try and calm them. Seeing a figure at the cart ahead Kire takes on a dead sprint, sheathing his sword to make running easier. The cart had been locked up in vines magically summoned from the ground to wind the axle. The interloper catches the movement out the corner of their eye and tries to break away but Kire slams them between himself and the door at high speed and they slump to the ground.


"Arnes, are you-!" Clearing the corner of the reinforced cart his words choke at the sight of the man sat still and low in his seat. Kire knew that stillness immediately. The hat had settled over his face and an arrow into his chest. "No, no nonono no...!" Kire whimpered and panicked, scrabbling up onto the drivers seat to put his hand on Arnes'chest to feel for breathing he knew wasn't there, tearing off his right glove and lifting the head gently to feel for a pulse he knew he wouldn't find. The veteran caravaneer's eyes had gone cloudy and Kire's vision did too as tears swelled. "Arn-A-Fuck...FUCK!" Footsteps approached and Kire leapt down with a feral snarl drawing his sword. It was one of the only two other surviving adventurers who jumped back with their hands up. He saw the ugly cry that was setting in on Kire and recognized grief. Now it was the guildmate's turn to cuss. "Damnit...DAMN IT!" The adventurer started to turn back to the overturned wagon but the prone brigand who had been trying to get into the cart the cart groaned and stirred, rolling over to see themselves caught between two of the defenders they and theirs had collectively just tried to off.


--


Kire was no good to the regrouping effort, ignoring the party leader's instructions to storm about the hills in a screaming tantrum looking for stragglers. The party leader, Dravein and the other survivor, Nils, attended to Ennes. "I guess that will have to qualify as a lookout, we don't know if there are more around to try and finish the job but it could be half an hour still before backup arrives." Dravein grimaced as he spoke. The three bodies of their own fallen plus Arnes had been lined up along with the five live but wounded foes they had captured. The horses had been liberated from their sidelong hold one at a time and coaxed down enough to be tied to the broken wheels instead but now having finished that Thrain collapsed alongside his longtime companions. Nils stood and walked over to kneel beside him. "Lift your shirt, I don't like how you're moving." Thrain complies, exposing a broad and terrible welted bruise across his abdomen where the belt had fought against his would-be flight. Being dangled from it for several minutes had chafed him to light bleeding on his left side.


Between the others Eshin had been pinned under a crate that shifted in the attack and although his leg wasn't broken it was battered at least as bad as Thrain's midriff was. Ennes was in the worst shape of the three having taken a slash to the gut and nearly disembowelled. He was in critical condition, poorly wrapped with Dravein applying constant pressure to the bloody-soaked patch-job that had to pass for emergency care but the Dwarf was getting feverish. Satisfied that the worst of the bleeding had been staunched Dravein lifts his hands, grabbing the hose for the water barrel and twisting a valve at its head to try and rinse off any of the blood that hadn't dried on too much yet. Kire returned, face taught and grim. Seeing Arnes laid out riles him up again and he seems to...contort. A fury boils over and he advances on the captives, grabbing one at random who tried to look brave and make eye contact. He starts beating them with several blows to the face, screaming and thrashing them. Nils jumps to stop him but Dravein grabs his arm. "Not too quickly, this might help in getting the others to talk."


Kire's punching bag sputtered blood and teeth and tried to beg him to stop but the outraged otherworlder switched to body shots. At Dravein's direction Nils finally steps in and hooks under Kire's arms, hoisting him back to remove him from the whimpering mess on the ground. Dravein steps in with his script. "Easy, easy! We still need them to tell us what they know. You can beat them to death when they refuse to talk. After all if they choose to be forthcoming the right thing to do would be to negotiate a modest, but safe cell." Kire's eyes were glowing with hatred as he stared down the other four tied, ignoring Dravein but eventually exerting control over himself and lessening his resistance to Nils' hold. Loosening up enough to turn his palms up Nils releases him.
"Right. Call me when they try to play hard to get." Kire strides back up one of the hills to keep watch from a higher vantage where he could be alone and Dravein turns slowly towards the other captives. "So. Who's feeling talkative?"


--


The backup summoned by the flare had arrived sooner than expected with a contingent of reinforcements, medics, supplies, and even a proper knight. Divided into four wagons including a jail cart to keep the loads balanced and swift they set up an emergency care tent around Ennes and rushed to get him ready for immediate surgery, prepping an IV for medicine. Thrain and Eshin were triaged aside and given basic first aid with liniments for pain until the experts were done with Ennes to clear them properly. None of the captives had yet offered to talk and Dravein conferred with the knight leading the rescue.


"The captives are shaken, we should capitalize on that now while it's fresh. We start our interrogations here and now so they don't feel the safety of due process and get comfortable about making it through the night." The knight stroked his chin with the back of his hand and regarded their band of bound misfits while Dravein spoke. Despite talking in a low tone to not be overheard Dravein made a show of pointing up the hill to where the speck of Kire's hunched form could be seen more for the benefit of the captives than the knight. "Another one of ours survived and is sulking on the hill. He offered the others to repeat the welcome he gave the unconscious one and though I doubt he has the energy left it could benefit us for them to picture it." he whispered before turning to the offenders in waiting. "Man, I've seen conviction in crooks. True believers, thinks there's glory in dying for what they believe in." Now that there was more adventurers and guards they had started rounding up all the bodies of the slain highwaymen and piling them up unceremoniously in a heap swarming with flies. "But it's not often they get to see what that looks like before it's their turn." Dravein walks over to the one Kire had assaulted who had passed out some time back, nudging them over to reveal they had pissed blood on themselves and one of the captives who had been following with their eyes turns away in disgust. "Or say you don't die and get your promised after life, instead rotting as an invalid in your own shit unable to even dress yourself for the rest of your life." Seeing their chest rise and fall Dravein rolls the unconscious one back over in case they vomit.


"We have four of you perky and only one needs to talk. Sir Engram here is an acclaimed artist with a halberd and he's very disappointed to be called out from his spa day so this is what we're going to do. One of you will be taken into that tent over there," he gestures to the cage on wheels which now had a privacy curtain being drawn around it and produced a small one minute hourglass from a belt pouch which he held up. "You will be given five turns of a timer glass to tell us what we want to know. Just five. No more. If we aren't satisfied..." He broadly indicates the battered man on the ground with one hand and the corpse pile of their fallen fellows with the other. It was up to a dozen bodies by now. "And then one of you will be taken into that tent over there. You will be given five turns of a timer glass. No more."


Kire sat cross-legged sulking on the hilltop, hunched over with hood drawn not caring to involve himself in whatever was going on at the moment. His energy had guttered out between the fight and the emotional outburst where for a moment this world felt a little too real. He'd tried instinctively wiping the tears and snot from his face but ended up smearing some of the blood from the bandit he pulverized on and overall made the mess worse. *Remember this well, Kire. This world will contend.* System interjected into his storm of thoughts; 'Is it my fault?/I was supposed to protect them/I failed/They knew the risk and made their choice/They voted to proceed/I should have kept up/You were thrown from the wagon it couldn't be helped/His family.../But is any of this even real?/His family!/I FAILED!' He tried to drop into his meditative state to get his mind back on track. Others were dead, wounded and critical. Now wasn't the time to be self indulgent with pity.


Every time he tried to calm down about how he only barely knew Arnes for a couple of days and he didn't really have a stake in whatever happened in this world he just kept remembering the family Arnes solely supported and he couldn't shake that sense of remorse. Eventually chalking up his outburst as largely being driven by years of pent up stress overdue for release he corrals himself back into immediate priorities. Making his way back down the hill a crew was working on the wheel repairs for the transport wagon and the reinforced cart had been pulled back and secured. He made for the ladder to the roof so he could collect his bag finally pulling out decent rags to wipe his face down with. Someone stood behind him and he took his time acknowledging them, getting his face dry if not clean. They cleared their throat getting impatient. "Are you the one called Kire?"


Eventually he turns and has to lift his head to look the tall woman in the face. Long black hair was pulled back into a bun, her facial features narrow and slight but her body strong with frosty blue eyes. She had fine leather armour of impressive make with a quiver at her waist and a longbow peeking over her shoulder. "I am Alanna the Arrow-Hail, and I'm to collect you for debriefing."


--


Kire sat dead-eyed from fatigue in yet another tent that had been quickly erected. Bigger, this one, than the emergency medical tent and the curtained prison cart that had concluded its business after disposing of only two of their captives.


The medics were still going with the wounded and over time Dravein, Nils, Sir Engram, Alanna, and several others Kire did not know filtered in. Kire stood up off the ground to slump over a table that had been rolled in to the middle. Formalities began with the Knight who for all purposes held social rank over everyone else present, and the only one of formal military standing. "For those who don't know, I am Sir Engram of the Order of the Glistening Fields..." The Adventurer's Guild was a fascinating machine, actually. It served as an officially and publicly entrusted security and job agency that allowed freelance contractors to handle anything from odd jobs to deputy and militia roles. The Kingdom maintained a small standing force of men-at-arms and an elite knightly order but to keep peace across the fiefdoms it often came down to the chapters of the adventurer's guild to secure roads, fight crime, and support communities with the double advantage of providing a steady source of jobs and should the time ever come for war, a body of capable and experienced warriors. This over time expanded into offerings for virtually any kind of task as long as it was deemed appropriate and in line with the Guild's values and though the chapter houses were operated on assistance with regional tax breaks and provincial funding the adventurers themselves were often paid by the private entities who commissioned the jobs reducing the burden of the Crown to salary a constant armed force.


Sir Engram, as an actual knight, therefore held the official capacity of representing the Crown. "Few of you already know what is about to be discussed here now and it is under penalty of treason that nothing discussed here leaves this tent. Understood?" He gives a heavy gaze to everyone assembled in turn, checking for any signs they may falter. "Dravein the Dire, as the Guild lead on this assignment I will have you break it to your guild mates in the way you think best parsed." (The Dire. That's quite a name, but I suppose he looks the bit.) Most people in Misterra did not cling to family names to pass on except in some regions and among nobility. Much more common and especially among the guilds was to be assigned a moniker typically based on some aspect of your character or career, sometimes multiple titles. Dravein had a strong squad leader vibe even from the get-go, a bald man around Kire's real age with dark patchwork armour of lamellar and the moniker made Kire curious about his history.


"It is suspected we have a mole in the guild, possibly multiple, who have been working with these outlaws by feeding them information and sabotaging guild intel. The inactivity on these hills the past week was reliably verified but there was enough suspicion that a backup caravan for emergencies was prepared. The fact that an ambush happened to be set up yet again on exactly the same day as an outgoing shipment is confirmation enough to proceed with a thorough internal audit. Everyone in this tent or involved with the search and rescue is vetted enough to have been entrusted with the job even without being told the details. I thank you all for your readiness and integrity. The exceptions to this trust are you two." Dravein stood tall and turned to Nils and Kire. "But especially you." He homed in on Kire. "Fact of the matter is I was sent to keep an eye out for traitors in case someone among the guards turned and I was ordered to give special care to the unnamed newcomer who came out of nowhere, allegedly completing jobs above his rank by wielding enchanted equipment that should be above his pay grade." Kire understood where this was coming from and he just nodded along but neither expressing or saying nothing. "That said, you both performed your duties with honour as did everyone else in this tent today."


Sir Engram takes it from there. "The guild forwarded a letter to the capital three days ago making us aware of a significant uptick in organized crime activity the past couple weeks. Subtle at first but escalating. There has been more incidents in the last week than would normally be posted in a month. Something is happening and someone in with access to the city is feeding it."


--


Night fell and a camp was set up. The carts were patched enough, the corpse pile was torched and night shift was scheduled in pairs. 'It's hard to imagine they could still have the numbers to strike out at us but we can't rule anything out', Engram had said. Dravein, Kire, and Nils had been exempted from overnight sentry with a dozen other adventurers to keep watch but everyone except Dravein seemed to stay up quite late around the fires unable to sleep after all the excitement. Nils the Fleetspear was still pretty shaken, his signature weapon having been broken during the battle and temporarily replaced with the bident that had slain his party companion. Kire was still stone-faced and numb, giving up on the day and parking himself on his usual roost to sleep or not sleep as chance would allow.


There was whispers around the fires and Kire thought he was catching some looks as he settled in but the void in the driver's seemed louder and more commanding to his attention than the two whispered words he'd picked up as he passed: "...the madman."