Valkyrie's Shadow

Legacy of the Plains: Act 1, Chapter 10

Legacy of the Plains: Act 1, Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Nabe was already at the site of the burned-out mill, arms crossed as she waited for them in the shade of a gnarled oak tree. The Adventurer’s dark eyes betrayed none of the impatience conveyed through her Message spell as Ludmila, Andrei and Sanju came up to join her.

From what remained of it, Ludmila saw that the lumber mill was of a type powered by physical labour, like many forested locations in the duchy that did not have access to large enough streams. Its charred frame had already been taken apart and dumped in a pile nearby. Building materials were being collected in the village not two hundred metres away in the county administration’s bid to display how indomitable their will was against the unknown troublemaker.

Ludmila walked around slowly as she read over the report, trying to create an image of the freshly destroyed facility in her mind.

“There were two other Rangers present when you came here last?”

“Yeah,” Andrei replied. “Local men that knew the place better than me. I was hoping they might notice something that I couldn’t. We only got as far as every other incident. Do you want to see the girl?”

“The girl?”

“Mhm. About eight years old.”

“I suppose that targeting a child would nearly eliminate the chance of resisting a charm spell.”

She looked over to Nabe, who inclined her head slightly in confirmation. Ludmila frowned down at the report again.

“It says here that she was foraging for summer berries when she was charmed, but the three of you couldn’t find any trace of the spellcaster in the area. Is it even possible for a low-level caster to elude three experienced Rangers?”

“‘Low…low level?’” Andrei struggled with the foreign term.

“Erm…low Difficulty Rating, by Adventurer reckoning. You should’ve been able to at least find some trace of this person after so many attacks. The victims must be within the range of the spell, and they must be visible in the caster’s line of sight.”

“That’s what Sanju here said,” Andrei jerked his head over at the Elder Lich. “The part about what the spell needs to work, that is. For the last three incidents, I’ve tried figuring out where each charm victim might have been targeted from without leaving any sign of their passing. There are only so many places from where you can charm someone in their bed through the only window in their house – even then, I couldn’t find anything.”

Ludmila considered the options that such a person might have. A stranger carefully studying a village and potential victims to cast Charm Person on would probably be noticed by the villagers. Being careful about it might have been plausible when it only happened once a week. The distance between incidents in the past week, however, made for a day’s walk each. Two days to travel, carefully observe the locals and commit the deed from a perfectly untraceable location felt like a stretch.

“Do you feel that anything has changed in the way things are being carried out this week?” Ludmila asked.

“Not really,” Andrei answered. “Every incident uses one of a handful of methods that we’ve seen in the last month. As long as it’s untrackable, it doesn’t seem to matter.”

She started flipping through the reports again. Even the motive of their mysterious suspect was not clear. They were all carefully conducted attacks on industrial bottlenecks that were processing high volumes of goods. All of the attacks were damaging the property of every noble but Count Völkchenheim, but the Count was allocating his resources to help with repairs.

“What would House Völkchenheim have done about this if it were still a part of Re-Estize?”

“Gone broke, probably,” Andrei grimaced. “It might have been a Count’s title, but we weren’t anything like those highlords that fairy tales describe. I’ve heard of minor nobles being driven into a corner like this in the past. A criminal group putting pressure on an honest lord; someone keeping their rival from getting ahead, or even just a big noble keeping all the little ones around him down. Most nobles in Re-Estize were even more small and poor than we were. It doesn’t take much to put a house like that in a really bad situation.”

“Is it possible that this is what’s happening here?” Ludmila asked.

“Hm…no. All the nobles here have an Elder Lich looking over their shoulder, and I don’t think they’d do that sort of thing anyway. Re-Estize is scared spitless of the Sorcerous Kingdom, so they wouldn’t dare. When criminal groups do this, it’s one of two things: coercion or retaliation.”

“Retaliation?”

“Yeah,” Andrei nodded. “Say someone takes a moral stand or at least makes an effort to enforce the law. A group of criminals would act to show that they’re not to be challenged. It doesn’t matter to them that they’ll ruin the lives of innocent people: it only matters that they have free reign over their turf to do whatever they’re doing. Unless their target has the information and strength to strike at them directly, it’s a battle that they’ll inevitably lose. It doesn’t seem very fair, but those that live a life of crime always seem to be stronger than their victims. When a group of Platinum-rank thugs shows up to break your legs or sell your family into slavery, all most people can do is pray. Against something like this, they’re even more helpless.”

Every time Ludmila heard something about the criminal elements of Re-Estize, the darker her image of the place became. How could one even fight against people that were willing to stoop so low?

The vast majority of people, as Andrei had pointed out, were not strong. This included members of the nobility. At even the slightest hint of resistance, a single thug with the power of a small army could walk up to a manor and kill an entire household and family before word even got out to the next nearest village. By the time any response arrived, it would be too late. The initiative appeared to lay entirely within the grasp of the aggressors, who could pick and choose likely targets at will.

“I take it that you know about this because of House Fassett.”

“There were a lot of stories like that, yeah. From our neighbours to the west, too. Most nobles know, but Frontier Lords probably wouldn’t. Anyone like that shows up in your territory, you’d probably squish them in some unspeakable way as a warning to everyone else.”

“They would just quietly disappear.”

“Well, that’s terrifying in its own way,” Andrei smirked. “The more twisted a person is, the more twisted the things they can imagine. At any rate: coercion or retaliation. If it’s retaliation, the targeted lord would know why and we don’t have any clue. If it’s coercion, there would be a demand. A demand hasn’t arrived and anyone arriving with a demand would end up in Sanju’s clutches.”

Ludmila nodded in agreement. Criminals whose motives revolved around direct gains would gain no ground in the Sorcerous Kingdom.

“I don’t like the way this is going,” she muttered.

“Have you figured out what’s going on?” Nabe suddenly developed an interest in the conversation.

“No,” Ludmila replied, “but without a motive like the ones we went over, the problem has either become bigger or smaller. Either way, it expands the list of potential suspects greatly.”

“Explain.”

She glanced over to Andrei and Sanju, hoping that they might have latched on to something, but they looked at her just as expectantly as Nabe.

“I don’t think like an inland noble,” Ludmila said, “so I hope you can understand how I express this. If the problem is bigger, then I can only envision it as a part of a greater strategy. There are two that I can think of offhand. The first is that someone is testing how vulnerable our supply lines are. The second is that there are indirect or relative gains to be made from these acts – that these are tactics employed to achieve broader strategic goals. Both can be from domestic or foreign sources, and not necessarily involving militant organizations.”

“None of His Majesty’s servitors would do such a thing,” Sanju said.

“What if you were commanded to?” Ludmila asked.

The Elder Lich offered no response. Nabe narrowed her eyes.

“Are you suggesting that we’ve been sent by His Majesty to solve a problem that His Majesty intentionally started…so we could be sent out to solve it?”

Whether she was angry or incredulous, Ludmila could not tell.

“It would be nice if that was the case,” Ludmila replied. “It would mean that the state of the Sorcerous Kingdom is now stable enough that the administration is willing to start testing for weaknesses. Something like a combat exercise – though I’ve never heard of it being done with administrative and judicial systems.”

“I’m not sure whether to be worried or relieved hearing that,” Andrei said.

“What we have to be worried about is everything else it might be,” Ludmila told him. “Another nation might be feeling out our capabilities, or a local interest might be investigating whether there are opportunities for crime in the future. Someone might be suppressing production because it’s slowly starting to affect prices for goods in the region. That it’s only happening in Völkchenheim County might suggest that it’s someone from the Sorcerous Kingdom trying to tilt the economic scales between territories, or it could be a foreign agent trying to sow the seeds of discord.”

“Alright,” Andrei sighed, “that just got too big for me. What if the problem became ‘smaller’? It goes from some unfathomable grand strategy to…”

“Something manageable by local authorities,” Ludmila replied. “Yet it still means that you will have to expect that behaviour from now on. Countermeasures will have to be developed for when these incidents start again.”

Andrei frowned at the last, eyes turning sharp.

“‘Start again’? You mean we’re never going to be able to stop this?”

“This particular string of cases will end eventually,” Ludmila said. “But what is happening here represents the administration’s inability to deal with a particular problem. A weakness. If you don’t address a weakness, your enemies will keep attacking it. Sooner or later, everyone will know about that weakness and you will be at their mercy.”

“But once we catch this guy, we’ll know what his trick is and why he’s doing it.”

“Knowing what methods are being used don’t always end with a working solution,” she told him. “One may learn how a monster or a Demihuman behaves, but it will not save them if the gap in strength is too great. All one can do is struggle until they die, knowing how they’ll die every moment of that struggle.”

“We’re not dealing with a monster or Demihuman, I hope.”

It was still a possibility, but Ludmila couldn’t imagine why a monster or one of the local Demihumans would attack in such a broad, yet specific way.

“I have no idea yet,” she said, “but the basic situation is the same. I know of no way to stop a random person from charming another person at a random time in a random location to attack a random target in a place as large as Völkchenheim County. All we can do is try and figure out who did it and dispense the appropriate justice. The motive, in the end, may also be seemingly random. People have rational and irrational sides, and sometimes that irrational side is unavoidable.”

“Okay, we went from monsters and Demihumans to…crazy people?”

“How many crimes result from unrestrained emotion, irrational thinking or plain madness? Do you believe that our current measures in any way prevent crimes of passion or those committed by people who have lost their grasp on reason and sense? Whose perception of the world has warped to the degree that their reality has become irreconcilable to ours? A Death Knight should be able to stop such an act if they’re there just at the right moment, but His Majesty’s servitors can’t be everywhere. Also, monsters and Demihumans probably have their different types of crazy, too.”

“That’s the last thing I needed to hear,” Andrei rolled his eyes. “You speak as if we need an answer for every possible weakness because motives can be entirely irrational.”

“Something like that,” Ludmila smiled slightly. “Nobles in all situations have their own attacks to deal with, I suppose. As the world always changes, so too can the attacks that are directed against us. For as long as House Völkchenheim holds their title, the defence of it will be their duty.”

The nondescript carriage returned to Crosston well after nightfall. Andrei dropped them off in front of the inn, and Sanju returned to the town hall. Ludmila and Nabe returned to their room, heads drooped in defeat.

Well, not Nabe. She had never seen the Adventurer do anything remotely close to drooping. After shutting the door, Nabe sat down on her bed and resumed staring at Ludmila.

“Shall we head down for a late dinner?” Ludmila asked.

“I’m fine.”

An hour passed as Ludmila pored over her notes for the day. She stopped after reviewing her initial thoughts for the third time.

“Miss Nabe, as someone from a different land, did you find fault with anything that I said?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Insight from someone with different views can be helpful.”

Nabe shifted on her bed, then drew her legs under her. For the first time in Ludmila’s recollection, the Adventurer appeared to relax somewhat.

“Your thoughts were expressed in a way that was easy to understand for me,” Nabe told her, “but I don’t understand how you can tolerate any of this, or why.”

“I’d think that someone so well-travelled as yourself would be possessed of a much wider range of tolerances than my own.”

“Perhaps,” Nabe’s tone lent the impression of a shrug, “but living amongst these people has been especially vexing. It’s as if you cannot decide what you are or where you stand.”

Ludmila looked up from her notes, then chided herself for being self-conscious again.

“You might be right about that,” she conceded, “but at the same time, I haven’t seen any…advanced nonhuman societies. No – that’s not true. There’s the Sorcerous Kingdom – particularly the servants who came with His Majesty. They are not any single race, and they vary widely in their nature, attitudes and personalities. As someone who has a growing number of different peoples in my territory, I occasionally wonder how the Sorcerer King plans to achieve harmony.”

Nabe’s lips opened slightly, then closed again. Though she had met her months ago, Ludmila still did not know much about the being that lurked behind the Human guise of Nabe. Was she an entirely different person? What did she truly think about the Sorcerous Kingdom? Momon had stayed to stand in opposition to the Sorcerer King on behalf of the people, but in recent times he was reportedly developing a rapport with the Undead sovereign.

The ‘Beautiful Princess’ was a different story, however. Nabe followed silently in their wake, and she betrayed nothing of her thoughts on the matter. She still might harbour the same notions as Momon when the Dark Warrior first stood for the people, or her loyalties might only belong to Momon.

“Forgive me if it seems like prying,” Ludmila said, “but is there a reason why you act in such a reserved fashion all the time? I thought you might be more sociable in private, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“Reserved…”

“I’m sorry,” Ludmila quickly put in, “I was considering it in Human terms. Maybe it’s normal for your race.”

Nabe remained silent for a moment, a series of complicated expressions playing over her face.

“It’s just the way I am. Other members of my race are far better at blending in with strange people…”

The Adventurer’s eyes narrowed.

“Did you just do something?”

“I-I wasn’t aware of it if I did.”

Nabe snorted. She cast a derisive look in Ludmila’s direction.

“For all of the superior qualities you hold relative to others of your kind, you still possess many of their fatal flaws. How can one not know what they’re doing?”

“Someone mocked me over something like that recently.”

“And rightly so. I can only wonder how much time you wasted today with your ‘investigation’.”

“I did ask if you found fault with anything I said.”

“Nothing was wrong with what you said. Everything was wrong with what you did.”

Ludmila could only offer an uncomprehending look in reply to Nabe’s statement. The Adventurer closed her eyes, releasing a sharp sigh.

“I truly don’t understand,” Ludmila said weakly.

“So it seems. Do you believe that His Majesty would specifically send you here for something that any Human with a modicum of intelligence could do? Why didn’t you use any of your Skills or Abilities today?”

“Ski–what?”

“Maybe you are forever doomed to fall to your own ignorance,” Nabe looked away. “I believe you died several times for a similar reason.”

“You knew about that?”

She wasn’t sure why she asked. Darkness stood at the pinnacle of the Adventurer Guild, and it was Momon that made her aware of her deficiency.

“With how much time Momon spent studying the problem,” Nabe said, “one can hardly forget. It is the foolishness of Humans: your ‘rationality’ only exists at the same level as the teeming masses of your kind. Skills, Abilities and magic are an undeniable part of reality, yet most of them somehow fall last in line when considering the tools that are available for your use or consideration. Even the simplest of them can awe your kind with how they can so easily solve your problems or confound your enemies. It is an unbelievably idiotic achievement to lay claim to – even insects know better.”

“So you’re saying that I have some Skill or Ability that might help resolve this issue in Völkchenheim County…”

“Obviously. Lady Shalltear mentioned to Momon that you once possessed such an Ability – until an episode of the abovementioned idiocy caused you to lose it.”

As caustic as her tone was, she could not refute her words. Ludmila thought exactly as Nabe had described. Classes and the powers that were derived from them were considered ‘special’. They were exceptional qualities mostly set apart from mundane life and normal patterns of thought.

After many weeks of neglecting to do so, she stretched out with her senses, checking for her long-lost Ability.

Its response was immediate.