Author's Nightmare: Chapter 165 (Patreon)

Solitaire POV: Day 154

Current Wealth: 168 gold 12 silver 35 copper

The town wasn’t far from Barbed Point, and it wasn’t very big. The orcs knew ways through the hills that local humans didn’t, and with their stride sizes and robust bodies a single day of marching was enough to bring our group to its destination. I wished it’d taken longer. 

Nice place, and with decent defences. Walls made from what looked like entire tree trunks, circling the whole thing and with enough guards to man them lightly. It seemed like a logging town. Rather, it had to be one, because I doubted any crops would grow for shit on land like this, and there was a great big woodland next to it. 

Someone knelt down beside me, and a quick glance showed me it was Adravigi. 

“Any thoughts on invading the place?” She asked. I blinked at her.

“You’re aware I’m not a tactician?” I asked. 

“Could’ve fooled me, with the mess you made of our Swanhen occupation.”

“That was different.” I shrugged. I knew people, and panic, and I knew the basic logic of moving things across distances, delaying around corners, the simple mathematics our world was based on. Outside of tactile reasoning and emotional intuition though I had no real background in command or tactics.

Still, I supposed neither did she. 

“Why should I tell you?” I asked, after a moment. “If I want to, I can choose to just not help you. You can try torturing me but that won’t work, torture in general doesn’t work. Whatever I end up saying could be the truth, or a lie, or something I only think is the truth because having all my pubes torn out left me frothing mad.”

To her credit, she met my eye with as cool a look as I’d seen anywhere and replied with words that were even cooler. This wasn’t a woman to be easily thrown off. Unfortunate, that, my escape would’ve been easier otherwise. 

“This is your chance to prove yourself.” She noted. “To them, the orcs, not even just to me. How much easier will escape be for you if you have half the settlement convinced you can be trusted not to try and do it? More than half even, let’s be honest here orcs aren’t the brightest.”

My blood ran cold. Of course she knew I was thinking about escape, she was clever. And of course she’d timed telling me until now, where I was staring down a town I knew was doomed and left weary and irritated by hard travel. My face slipped and gave away my reaction before I could cover it, and that instant’s lapse was enough for her to confirm whatever she’d suspected.

Clever bitch. She’d been right, on many levels. My choices were being made for me by sheer practicality. When were they not? 

“Obviously they’re aware of how close Barbed Point is,” I observed, “Or some orc settlement at least. Those walls would’ve been hard to make, expensive. Which means they’ve probably gone to the trouble of at least drilling on how to use them since they’re too well-maintained to be some generational inheritance of long-dead paranoia.” 

“So you think they’ll put up a fight?”

I glanced over to Adravigi. 

“Definitely, they’ll be terrified and have their backs to the wall. And that defensive structure will be a force multiplier for them.”

If ever there was a kind of fight for me not to pick, it was this one. Then again, we had the advantage in sheer force. We had that ten times over. 

Huh. Numbers were on my side this time. That was a nice feeling, almost. Spoiled of course by the fact that I was now on the side of massacring innocent people instead of protecting them. My mouth tasted foul, like other people’s misery. But then when did it not?

“I was thinking the same thing.” Adravigi replied, glancing at me and reeking of suspicion. Funny smelling that from the other side, and also not unexpected. This one glorified intelligence so much it was a wonder she didn’t distrust me for not revealing the secret of immortality to her. I wondered how she’d react to finding out about my hilarious ignorance compared to an actual engineer. 

“Why are you doing this?” I asked abruptly, finding the curiosity all too overwhelming to resist satisfying suddenly. “Surely you’re just as capable of escape as me.”

More capable, really, considering she didn’t need to worry about her escape attempts being overlooked by a person with considerable intelligence and completely reasonable paranoia. 

Adravigi stiffened at my question, and I smelled, instantly, a cocktail of emotion I’d half-expected. One didn’t make the life choices she had without a very strong motivator one way or the other.

“Once upon a time, there was a woman.” She replied, eyes suddenly distant and unfocused. “A clever woman, but a poor woman. And a woman. This world wasn’t kind to her, for obvious reasons, and she found her gifts going to waste. People didn’t care about her head for sums or her mind for estimation, they only wanted to know how well she could scrub floors, clean dishes…Suck cocks. But this didn’t stop her from trying. She believed, you see, that she could get somewhere, could make things better for herself. And you know what? She was right. It took her years- fucking years. But one day she’d succeeded in stealing enough spare hours in her master's study to have taught herself to read and write. She’d gotten somewhere, she had options. And then the orcs came.”

I saw her stiffen, and suddenly that distant emotion was twisted back with rage. With hatred.

“She’d been in town on business, you see, sent to deliver a message with her master. And she’d taken that opportunity to spend the coin she’d been hoarding and find the bargains she’d been studying, and finally set up her own, small shop. The orcs burned that shop, they took her. They raped her. They dragged her back to Barbed Point. And the ridiculous thing was that over time, she found more opportunities there than she had anywhere else. You see, this world isn’t kind to its people. It doesn’t care about your abilities or your potential, it just wants you to do whatever arbitrary fate it’s decided for you.” She spat on the ground. “Well fuck that, I’m not going to listen to it and I’m not going to limit myself to what some fat, stupid men have to say about the way my life should go.” Her eyes came back around to me, now, burning with passion and belief. “Can you imagine what it’s like to have the whole world tell you you’re worthless while seeing it exclusively populated by idiots?”

Of course I did, insofar as my limited experiences allowed. And of course, then, Adravigi was so desperate to do what she was doing. She’d found her path of least resistance, and not moving forward was simply unthinkable for her.

Could I blame her? Perhaps, everyone was fundamentally in control of their actions- barring those who deserved help rather than hatred- but plenty of people did worse than her, and without a tenth of her justification. Adravigi had been forced to pick between herself and the world, was that any different than what anyone else did?

Yes, it was. Because her self was being threatened with a far worse fate than most would ever even come within a whisper of. By all metrics I knew, whether I liked it or not, I had no choice but to give her the label of ‘more moral than average’. That should tell you a lot about my average view of humanity. 

Should get you thinking about the relative merits of mass murder, while you’re at it. 

I looked out at the town. From our distance there was no way to actually hear children playing, but I could imagine it easily enough. The weather was warming up, but the snow was still there. About as perfect a day for fun as little kids might get. Doubtless the day of our raid would be just as perfect. 

But I was being forced to pick between myself and them. Was that any different than what anyone else did? 

Most anyone else wouldn’t tell you they were better than other people, evolved, intelligent, moral. But then, most anyone else wasn’t constantly being force-fed so much of everyone else’s humanity that they forgot what their own tasted like. Maybe less people meant less people to suffer, less people to hurt others. Maybe the dead children of today were the absent killers of tomorrow. 

“We’ll need siege engines.” I whispered. “Those woodlands will produce a lot of lumber, I can think of a few designs to make use of it.”