One Moo'r Plow

By scrunched nose, wrinkled face and sour expression, one could tell that the stench approached.

“You stink.” Ishila put it bluntly. Le’rish glanced down and indicated that yes, she did indeed reek of sweat and dried blood. A foul odour, I had to admit. Several other smells I did not particularly want to identify were mixed in there as well, and I was more than happy to leave them a mystery.

“Yeah.” She grunted. “Should go wash.”

And just like that, we finished work for the day. With a sigh, I instructed Artyom and Gol to carry a final load of stocks and led the group back to the house. Ishila hobbled off towards the storage shed and emerged with an empty bucket in hand. I guessed her intent, took it from her and set off towards the stream. One quick dip later, I had procured a full load of crystal cold streamwater, balanced carefully as I lumbered back across the yard.

Le’rish seized the bucket from my hand and unceremoniously dumped it over her head. A small yowl escaped her mouth as the sheer cold struck her, some of the feline within slipping out. Ears flattened against her skull, she scrubbed herself with a rough towel I recognized as my own from the house. One furious shaking later, she proved to still be covered in various substances, and more buckets were brought forth.

I could see the hiss that formed on her lips as the fourth bucket approached, but she allowed Ishila to dump it on her without comment. Only once the multitude of fluids were solidly washed off her form and into the grass below did she seem satisfied.

“Once would assume there is quite a tale behind that.” I nodded solemnly once she had stood back up from her stool.

“Yes.” She grunted. I left it at that and gestured towards the usual place. I found myself beneath the massive oak tree shortly after, gathered in the company of those I had perhaps bonded with in my time upon this world. Those whose opinions and well-being meant much to me.

“That horse is about to slump over and trot on to meet its maker.” She remarked. “Brave, foolish thing has been running hard for. Well, I don’t know how long.”

I turned to look, and yes, that looked to be the case. Alone and forgotten, it swayed in the middle of the yard, quite literally upon its last legs. A grimace rose unbidden, and Artyom hurried off seconds later, instructions given to feed it cleric-shine petals and lead it to pasture. The weary animal gave no resistance as the felinid gently guided it along, too tired to protest.

There was writ anger upon the huntress’s features as she sat and mused in silence. A single sunken eye moved between my form and Ishila. Weighing the weight of her words as Ishila launched the third retelling of her story in my presence. One that became more dragged out than the last as Le’rish frequently stopped her to expound on more details, provide descriptions for nearly everything. Any hint of emotion was abruptly brought to an end when the lass mentioned Valencia.

Le’rish sat still, quiet as a tomb while Ishila continued her narration uncontested. Her features were cold now, hard and withdrawn, all trace of feeling erased.

“Of course. She knew.” My ears had never been graced by a tone quite so thoroughly dead. “All this time. Wasted.”

Although the knowledge was already firmly within, I was once more tempted to simply ask what.

Silence fell as Le’rish sat and almost seemed to tremble with restrained frustration. Deep heavy breaths were taken, and not because of her lungs being damaged. Her singular eye gleamed with dull light, cold and lifeless as she chewed over words.

“I trust no one.” She started with a grunt. “Not fully. Not even you.”

There was no proper response to those words, and so I held my silence.

“This knowledge will come forth. Sooner or later. And I would rather you know it from me than her.”

There was no glazed, faraway look in her eye as she began to recount something, only a frozen intensity that sheared through her facade of emotionlessness.

“Secrets should sometimes remain so. This knowledge had remained buried for my safety. And that of others. Yet now, all I have wrought is becoming undone. So let the truth me free, and judge me not.”

“Back in a time when the Baron had just returned from his long campaigns. When you were still a child and I was a young, eager adventurer. Things were..largely the same. The only adventuring party of note here was myself and several close friends. Eager for adventure. Hungry for a taste of power. Too hungry. We came to the attention of Ironmoor and his captains after overhunting the monsters that inhabited these lands.”

“For such a small group, this was it. This was the chance we needed. The breakthrough. And yet, we all know where this story goes.” Le’rish let slip a small sigh. Within the past half hour, she had displayed more emotion than the sum total of all our other time together, I realized.

“Perhaps Ironmoor knew. Perhaps not. One of his captains approached us with an innocuous task: Investigate a possible mine at the peak of the Redtip. It was specified that this mission was to be kept secret, even from the Baron himself. At the time, he -and Valencia- were thoroughly occupied by a rebellion near the northern borders. The coin was good, and the man himself friendly enough, despite his affiliations.”

“There is a long and tragic recount here. Don’t want to dive into it, even now. The mine was not what it seemed. We discovered a dungeon, and a trap. My story echoes yours.” She addressed Ishila directly now. “Everyone died. Only I escaped back to the remnants of the camp. I had lost my friends, had my eye taken in exchange for power. But another ambush awaited me there. The captain wanted credit for this discovery himself. A fool who had failed his way upward into a position over others. He died that day, his men with him. They had me dead.”

She stopped now and stared at the darkening sky, her head tilted back.

“Nothing less than divine intervention is why I sit with you today. The Apex appeared and tore through the captain and his soldiers. From within the dungeon, or summoned by the seal breaking, I don’t know. Don’t care either.”

“This was the first sighting of the beast?” I questioned.

“For all intense and purposes.” Le’rish grunted.

“I learned after that this captain was greedy, not stupid. We had rested overnight at this camp. Been given fresh fleshknitter potions. Or so I thought. They were fire-breath draughts. I lacked fire resistance. Only actual fleshknitters I had kept from before prevented this secret from dying with me. Death surrounded me. Spite burned in me.”

“I buried the camp and its corpses. Resealed the dungeon and helped hide it. Tried to keep it’s existence secret. I was determined Ironmoor would not get what he wanted. If that demanded I kill all that came near, so be it. Under my watch, it would never be unveiled.”

“Over time, it dawned on me that perhaps Ironmoor lacked knowledge that there was a dungeon there. Had perhaps accepted the story that this captain tried to betray him for his own gain. No one had ever accused the man of being virtue’s paragon. I lurked among the mountain-tops, ever on guard. Keeping the watch. A year passed. The another. Small teams came to investigate, and were frightened away by the Apex.”

“All this time I have hoped, I have believed that the dungeon was truly hidden away. Sealed. And now I am shown that that was a false hope.”

Worse than any sort of despair, there was a dangerous emptiness in her voice.

“So Valencia knew.” I stated the obvious.

“More than that, she has created her own way into that place. From what Ishila has described, she has grown adapt at traversing it. Without waking the place. Only the Gods Above know how much sheer, raw power she has harvested from within.”

“Then why did she let me go?” The orc posed the question quietly. “If it’s such a secret.”

“The ruse is up.” Le’rish spoke simply. “The knowledge has spread like wildfire. Every straw-chewing hick and their mother and their dog knows. It can no longer be contained.”

“She wants us to know.” I hazarded a wild guess.

“Arrogance, or confidence supreme, I know not.” The huntress shrugged quietly. “But what I know of her, it is very much in line. She knows her position is impeccable. And now? She holds all the cards. Valencia knows the dungeon, what it contains, who woke it and all else there is to know.”

“So, there are now a scant few here that know the entire truth behind this matter.”

“No.” Le’rish groaned. “There is another.”

“The dwarf survived?” I queried, eyebrow raised.

“No.”

“Then who?” Ishila all but demanded to know.

“Whoever told the dwarf. Someone informed the fools who dragged you to die with them.”

“And?”

“And the less you know of what I did, the safer you are.” The smile on her lips was obviously forced, sharp teeth gleaming on the last hints of sunlight.

“He refused to talk, once I had ran him down. Yet I have ways. Methods that proved insufficient. Something scrunched his body as he finally gave me a solid description. A very powerful, very well-placed Skill he did not know about.”

There was disgust on my face as I attempted to imagine that.

“That blood, those fluids on you earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Gods Above.” Ishila grimaced and made a sign across her chest.

“And now?” I sighed, eyes rubbed at my tired eyes. Every day revealed new secrets that threatened to shake the world around me, yet the farm life continued on.

“Now, you keep this to yourselves, and you deal with Valencia even more cautiously than before. Arm yourselves with this knowledge, so it cannot be used gainst you.”

“And you?”

“And I will hunt. Wherever this tower is located, I will find it and whatever secrets it holds.”

I would have offered her some words of caution, but those would have been worth little. More than perhaps anyone, the huntress knew what she was getting into.

“If you were the dungeon’s supposed guardian, why did you let this happen?” Ishila spoke quietly. Everything stopped, and all eyes turned to Le’rish as the orc posed the question I had been dreading.

“I didn’t.” Le’rish returned softly. “Please, understand that I am not all-seeing, all-knowing. It happened at such a rapid pace, while my attention was focused elsewhere. Had I been there, knowing you were about to walk to that doom, I would have ripped the mountain itself apart to stop you. To spare you from that horror.”

“Did my parents know?” Came another question, an almost accusatory edge to her tone.

“Somewhat. They knew there was something up there, but not its full extent. A dungeon perhaps, but for all they were aware it was a small one, jealously guarded. And yet, they loved you enough to let you go.”

Ishila was not an irrational person, or even an overtly emotional one, yet I could see her struggle to contain herself then.

“I cannot say that this was the worst possible outcome, however.” Le’rish smiled faintly. “You survived, and that is what truly matters.”

It took several moments of silence for me to realize the two were about to have a moment. With a sigh, I stood up, dusted off my pants, and bade them goodnight. I was not quite sure if they heard my words, but I thought it best not to check twice.

Some moments were best left undisturbed.

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