Chapter 78: Chapter 78

Vraxious—The Ravenous Grove

Vrax woke up from a very needed near day of sleep and began his preparations for heading back to Hopes End. Dad always joked I’d end up a politician with my smooth tongue and ability to weasel out of real consequences, but king wasn’t on his list of where Vrax would end up, though. Hell, it wasn’t on my list of where I’d end up either, but I can’t think of a much better way to make sure I get to explore unimpeded than “This is mine now. Fuck off.” Just have to deal with...well, everyone first.

Vrax nearly ran straight into Torvald; his hulking form was facing away from him down on one knee, fiddling with something in his own pack just outside of Vrax’s greenhouse. “Oh good, you ready to go? This time you will have a guide, so, you know, if you actually pay attention, none of the flowers will get the chance to try and eat you.”

Torvald slowly rose, turning towards Vrax disconcertingly slowly. His face was devoid of his usual smile. Instead, a slack, almost glazed look was draped across it. Vrax took a step back cautiously. “Uhh, hey, Torvald, are you okay, buddy?”

The mountain of muscle before him slowly grabbed its hammer with a jilted movement. Vrax could see veins beneath Torvald's skin seeming to tighten and shift unnaturally with every movement. Torvald’s mouth opened oddly, and he spoke with a flat, emotionless monotone: “Torvald is gone.” There is only Geoffrey Warlord of the Forsaken Lands sleeved in the greatest of flesh palaces.” Torvalds's jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

Vrax’s features darkened, and he slid back, drawing his spear in a smooth motion. He glanced left and right, looking to see what he could use to incapacitate Torvald; unfortunately, all of his nearby creations were either lethal or useless against someone as strong as Torvald.

Torvald took a deep stance, raising his hammer up poised to strike. Vrax matched his ready stance, a smite already flickering along the edge of his spear menacingly. “Jeff, you have one fucking chance here before I cut you out and turn you into something that even I will weep in guilt over.”

Torvalds's head snapped towards him, the blank face twitching uncomfortably. “Torvald Is Gone,” it rasped. Vrax stepped in with a lightning-fast lunge, miasma lashing out from his spear-tip like a hooked scythe towards Torvald's leg. Torvald swung down so fast Vrax didn’t even register the counter until it blasted his spear from his hands and carried on cracking the solid marble below them.

“Wait! Wait! Wayyyyy too far!” A shrill voice emanated from a pair of eyes peeking out from the back of Torvalds's hand.

Torvald's entire body language changed, relaxing and utterly heaving as he let out the most obnoxious booming laugh Vrax had ever heard. Vrax looked at him in sheer disbelief. “You fucking asshole! I thought this little shit scooped your brain out or something equally fucked up!”

Torvald tried to respond but just wheezed harder, eventually doubling over and taking a knee to try and gather himself. “OH MY GOD! That was the best prank I have pulled yet!” Torvald wheezed past his tears.

“You almost got us melted!” Jeff grumbled, but he was holding back a snicker himself.

Vrax looked at him aghast. “I tried to chop your leg off!”

Torvald stood up, wiping tears away. “Yeah, but you are a weak little bitch, so I wasn’t too worried. Ready to go?” Torvald turned and headed straight for his mount, hopping right up into what had to be the worst-crafted saddle Vrax had seen in his life. It was just a few sort of tanned hides attached with a rope.

Vrax tried to come up with something quippy but looked at the unnatural tree on the bear's back for too long and had to lean against a wall and close his eyes for a moment. The non-Euclidean geometry on that tree fucked with his equilibrium something fierce. He settled on just grumbling loud enough to be sure Torvalds's dumb ass could hear it before he grabbed his stuff and went to join him.

Torvald looked at Vrax's pack on his back and cloak draped over his ever-thirsty cape as always. “When are you going to get a fucking mount, man? It’s unseemly for a king to walk!” Torvald said, still chuckling to himself.

I could have tried to ride Duchess now, but she would absolutely kill me. Vrax put on his best smile. “Whenever I find a mount befitting of my title!” He proclaimed with as much regal bearing as he could and then stared daggers jealously at Torvalds's bear.

The journey to Hope's End was a laughably smooth affair compared to Torvald's painful trek. Between Vrax’s guidance and the duchess’s murders, they didn’t even have to fight anything themselves. Vrax’s bizarre adapted life was also starting to fan out from the city, and that was keeping most minor predators busy. They were struggling real hard against ending up farther down the food chain than they were a month ago.

They made it past the rolling field that had been mostly reduced to a crater or dried glass during the monster surge. Torvald went to do a quick last restock, and Vrax wandered around until he found his dad in the market. The market was surprisingly slow for this time of year; there wasn’t a single out-of-town merchant to be seen, and Vrax only spied one adventuring party.

He walked up behind the slightly stooped figure that was his father and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He didn’t even turn around; instead, he peered over a small collection of mana crystals that were for sale in the stand before him for staggering prices. “One moment, please, Vrax.”

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Vrax impatiently followed William around the market as he bought a really odd collection of items. A mana crystal for over fifty gold coins. A collection of herbs from both the forsaken lands and from the kingdom's breadbasket, and finally a very expensive glass orb that was enchanted with reinforcing magic and enhanced divine skills.

Vrax’s curiosity got the better of him. “Dad, what the hell are you doing? I just watched you spend over a hundred gold. I didn’t even know you had that kind of money lying around.”

William chuckled in amusement. “Boy, you don’t even know how old I am; don’t assume things.”

Vrax rolled his eyes as they headed back towards the chapel. “I don’t know anything about you because you won’t tell me a damn thing!” Vrax gestured towards the eclectic mix of materials. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

William stared towards the sky in exaggerated reverence. “Some skills have a cost beyond just mana…” he said cryptically.

Vrax sighed. “Alright, fine, I’m just going to assume you have finally gone senile and are just squandering my inheritance, but at least tell me how things are going here; they have gotten a bit...bloody in my new...home.” William cocked an eyebrow at the obvious hesitation to talk in public and ushered him into his office, immediately activating his anti-scrying ward. Vrax sat down and caught him up, answering some very pointed questions William had and avoiding the whole king’s visit part.

William looked at a map of the town on his office wall for a long time. “Things here are getting interesting...merchants are being intercepted or turned back en route. There have been a few attempts at sabotaging our food stores. I would have loved to have been able to question them and get confirmation they were working for the duke or the paladins, but ahh, how to put this. One of them stabbed Torvalds’s mom; don’t worry, it was barely a flesh wound to her…”

Vrax interjected suddenly. A look of realization on his face: “Oh fuck, Cedric got to them first. I can’t imagine how he would react to someone hurting his wife.”

William chuckled darkly. “Yeah, it’s hard to get answers from puddles of organs and regret.” Vrax flinched. Cedric was a scary man at the best of times; he had never seen him actually mad, and he really didn’t want to.

William continued on, “No uniformed duchy men or paladins have set foot here since they announced the crusade, but it’s obvious they are escalating their attempts to weaken us. The border was holding steady with their scouts culling the surroundings and looking for you, but now…” Vrax nodded; the border would retreat again until they committed more forces.

“Well, I hope they run themselves ragged looking for me. I have some meetings to attend; I’m going to try and get a guild hall going and see what noble houses want to plop their most insane recruits into the forsaken lands for training.” Vrax said, getting up to leave.

“It’s a good idea; anything like that will make it much more politically difficult for the paladins to attack your...uhh...capital? Whatever you want to call it. Oh, one more thing before you go, Vrax. There have been a couple villagers coming here every damn day for a week now asking for you. They are from Folstien, that little village northwest of here that we get all our fresh fruit and livestock from.” William explained, somewhat bemused.

Vrax smiled. “Yeah, I’ve been there a few times. Nice little place, more cows and chickens than people, but the folks are real. ‘Come on in and have dinner’ type of folks. But what do they want with me?”

Williams smile grew even wider and slightly mischievous. “Well, it turns out some of the brigands waylaying shipments have made residence there; the duke’s men aren’t doing a damn thing about it, and…”

Vrax sighed. “And they saw a paladin or someone similar paying or supplying the brigands and immediately thought, ‘Oh, maybe the boogeyman will come kill them all if they are friends with the church he hates.’” Vrax trailed off, slightly amused himself.

William nodded. “Ahh, the price of fame, my boy; they are camped just west of town.” William rose up and gave his son a big hug with a final squeeze and stern look at the end that conveyed his unspoken desire for Vrax to be careful.

Vrax caught up with Torvald, and they headed to the nearby campsite to see what the Folstein villagers wanted.

Vrax saw the campsite right away; they were lucky nothing had eaten them yet. Guys, I know you are farmers, but ten feet from the road with a highly visible campfire is not a good idea less than a league from the forsaken lands… The campsite itself was a ratty, almost desperate-looking affair.

A single too-small tent was set up using a tree in place of one of its support struts. The two adults huddled around the campfire both looked like they hadn’t had the chance to bathe in a month, and they had a sallow, hollow look to their faces that tugged at Vrax’s emotions. The too-skinny mother was softly humming to a small swaddled form she gently rocked near the campfire to keep warm.

The husband stood up as they approached, ripping a dagger from his side. From the fearful way he held it alone, Vrax could tell he didn’t know how to use it. The man's voice shouted out with a surprising amount of determination. “No farther, traveler! What business do you have at my camp at nightfall!” Google seaʀᴄh NoveI(F)ire.net

Vrax chuckled to himself before summoning his armor across his form and dropping his cloak from his shoulders. He let the ever-thirst cape writhe around him hungrily for extra dramatic effect. “I believe you asked to see me?” His voice growled out from within his armor.

The man’s face grimaced in surprise, with a twinkle of hope in his eyes. The woman stifled a startled scream. “Sir Paladin! You came…” He said, almost in disbelief.

“That I did. I heard you have brigands in need of killing, and that they might be connected to my friends in the church.” The way Vrax said “friends” with a spiteful tinge left no room for misinterpreting his words.

Slev Richter-Kings Road

Slev let out a deep sigh from his camouflaged dugout a few hundred strides from the farmer camp. Finally the blasted paladin had taken the bait. It had taken him no small amount of effort to set all of this up. The right banners were left out for slightly too long. A sword here and there with a maker's mark that should only be available in the church.

The right words whispered to the bravest villagers with the most to lose. Using the Paladin's own budding legend against him. As far as they knew, Slev was just a down-on-his-luck tamer who had been caught up in the predations of the brigands, just as scared and trapped as the rest of them.

Not to mention corralling the brigands so they didn’t just escalate to the point that someone that mattered from Hope’s End wandered over and solved the problem out of sheer annoyance. But he had done it the murderer with a hero complex certainly wouldn’t miss the opportunity to help his neighbors who came on their knees to beg for help.

Now he knew where the paladin would be; he had allies in place. More fodder to distract the paladin than anything else, but they would serve that purpose. All Slev needed was a moment, a single moment of distraction, and he would dive into the paladin's sanctuary and destroy this monster before he became too much to handle.