B5 Chapter 565: Tour of the Duchy, pt. 1 (Patreon)

A long, winding highway of hardpacked cobble snaked through unending fields of gold and emerald. Wheat and rye that should have towered over the height of a man lay bowed beneath the weight of their bulging husks, and sprawling rows of carrots and cabbage glistened in the dawn.

It was one thing to know that the Greenseed Dukedoms was a bread basket, another to see the truth so plainly. It had been hard to appreciate when they’d first left the city — even with his night vision, the greyscale sapped some of the wonder. Now, alone atop the deck of his landyacht, Kaius couldn’t help but stare.

How many legions of farmers did it take to manage it all? He could still see a few of them, scattered through the fields as they plied their Skills to make their crops grow faster and produce more. Most stared as he passed, taken aback by the great mechanical spider that crawled along the road.

It was moderately nerve-wracking. The artefact was extremely valuable, and it would get them attention. Ultimately though, half of Deadacre had already seen them use it when they had rescued those refugees at the start of the siege. Rumours would already spread eventually — and they were no longer so weak that they had to worry about any old highwayman relieving them of their valuables.

Its speed was far too important to them reaching the Vainblood Forest as fast as possible.

Waving at one farmer as they passed, Kaius wondered how frequently they harvested. Once a month? More? It was seriously impressive how well they’d kept up with production — he’d seen almost as many soldiers and hired hunters as he had fieldworkers. They roamed in packs, constantly on the look out for beasts that might wander out of the woods at the edge of the cultivated land.

Perhaps the nobles weren’t entirely morally bankrupt by default — fielding so many men must have been a nightmare for both logistics and his vault. The soldiers, at least, seemed to have benefited. They'd passed a squad returning to the city only an hour ago — the weakest of them had been Iron. It was an impressive achievement for what looked like a normal squad in standard issue gear.

For a moment, he wondered where they’d all come from. Greenseed didn’t have any territory disputes, and Kaius couldn’t remember seeing any major recruitment drives during their time in Baanswell. Besides, most of the soldiers he’d spotted looked middle-aged, with only a couple of younger men fresh into their classes. 

While he pondered the thought, the fields abruptly cut off, replaced by an unkempt meadow full of roughly hewn stumps. Kaius looked over his shoulder and saw the tree-line a good quarter league away. They must have pushed the woods back intentionally — a buffer that would stop beasts from sneaking into the towering grain unnoticed.

He paused, a memory jumping to mind. Hadn’t Ianmus mentioned signing up for some sort of battle in Greenseed when they’d first met? Plus, he vaguely remembered a few other people talking about something similar.

Pushing himself to his feet, Kaius made his way to the hatch at the far end of the deck. The Pegleg swayed under him, bobbing gently with every step it took.

Below deck, he found his friends lounging in the main room. Porkchop and Kenva were sprawled across the massive U-shaped couch that wrapped the rear of the vessel, peering out of the thick viewports towards the retreating fields. Ianmus, on the other hand, was bent over the map that was engraved into the central table.

Kaius threw himself onto the closest end of the couch, sighing slightly as the plush cushions welcomed him in.

“Ianmus?”

“Hmm?” the mage replied, looking over.

“What’s up with all the soldiers? I feel like I've seen more of them than I have farmers. You were going to join up with them right?”

“You were going to join the army?” Kenva said, swivelling in her seat. “I thought you were coming here to work with Kanmost?”

“No, I wasn’t going to join a foreign military,” Ianmus replied, rolling his eyes. “Each duke has a standing army they use for ritualised warfare. They use it to settle disputes and the like. Usually it's just small skirmishes, but there’s a big one every now and then — especially when it's time for them to pick a new archduke.”

The dukes kept armies for civil war? That was brutal.

“Wait, wait — back up,” Kaius said, holding up a hand. “That sounds senseless — and why would you want to join?”

Ianmus cracked a smile. “They’re barely real wars. Fatalities incur reparations, and the Dukes hire almost as many healers, alchemists, and support staff as they do mercenaries and soldiers. It seemed like a good way to work on my skills and earn a bit of coin before I met up with Kanmost. The Duke of Flowers was clashing with the Duke of Heartwood over rights to some mine — I suspect the phase change made them reconsider.”

“Oh! Those. I’m going to be honest, I thought they were duels,” Kenva replied.

“They basically are, just with a thousand men instead of two.”

Kaius leaned back in his seat and shared a look of disbelief with Porkchop — that seemed mighty excessive to him. Though, perhaps it helped to stop more serious conflicts from boiling over into something more lethal. The custom had definitely put Greenseed in a good position to defend their lands against the sudden surge in beasts, that was for sure.

“What about Vainblood Forest?” Kaius asked. “Did the Guild archives have anything for us?”

They hadn’t had a chance to talk about it yet. He and Porkchop had been busy securing their supplies, and it had been late by the time they’d left the city. Once he’d given the Pegleg their heading it didn’t need his continued minding, so they’d gone to sleep.

“Plenty,” Ianmus replied, nodding to a notebook that sat at the edge of the table. “It’s red, for one.”

“What, like autumn?” Porkchop asked, looking pointedly at the yellowing trees that streamed past the window beside him.

“No, like blood. Year-round, too. The trees are supposed to be hazardous and magical — think razor edge leaves and the odd carnivorous plant — and the whole zone is soaked in hostile mana.”

Well, that certainly sounded ominous. He thought they could handle a few hungry plants though. They couldn’t exactly sneak up on them, and he and Kenva had more than enough sensory skills between them to pick them out. The mana though, that could be annoying. It wasn’t unheard of: deserts that could make even those with the highest Vitality reach for their waterskins, and rivers that sought to pull you under like they had a mind of their own — that sort of thing.

“How bad are we talking?” Kaius asked.

“We’ll bleed harder, and feel its loss more keenly. Supposedly it can dampen resistances somewhat, but not completely, so you’ll still be better off than the rest of us. On its own, it’s not so bad, but the local beasts frequently have skills that use the effect to their advantage. And, well, the knife-trees.”

“Think we’ll have any trouble?” Porkchop asked.

“Not if we’re careful,” Kenva replied, kicking up one of her legs onto the couch. “There aren’t many recent records, but a small number of Silvers could be found before the phase-change. I’d say we should expect more of them. Maybe the odd Gold too.”

“Sounds like good experience to me.”

Kaius could agree with that. Although, they were on a rescue mission, so they’d need to avoid being embroiled in back-to-back fights, or wearing themselves out right before they found Brokenlight’s camp. Steering clear of any Golds seemed wise.

“What about the Midnight Crater?” He knew that it lay at the center of Vainblood, and that their target was somewhere near its edge, but that was about it.

Kenva winced. “To be honest, it sounds like way more of a pain in the ass. It’s big, for one, and covered in a magical darkness that’s supposed to be very persistent. I expect Truesight will hold up better than most Skills, but the rest of us will be far more limited.”

“Not just that, either,” Ianmus added. “Any spell that is too ‘bright’ is suppressed — though the records were annoyingly vague about what counted. It seems reasonable that my solar spells and Stormlash will be heavily affected.”

Hells. Stormlash was part of his basic kit, and Ianmus’s solar magic was the cornerstone of the mage’s healing capabilities and their greatest source of single-target damage. 

“Not your lunar spells, though? They glow plenty,” Kaius asked.

Ianmus shrugged, before he circled the map-table to join them. “It’s hard to say. It’s possible the darkness simply suppresses affinities close to light, in which case both my lunar magic and your Stormlash will be fine. It could also affect anything that creates a substantial amount of light at all, which will be all of our magic  except your Nails. Or, it could be conceptual and selective. If it’s the last one, I suspect that lunar spells will work just fine — the moon only shines in darkness, after all.”

Kaius scratched his chin, considering what that would mean for them. If they were forced to enter the Crater itself, they might have to switch up their normal strategy. Normally Ianmus spent most of their battles preparing warmagic to end their fights decisively, or at least tip the odds heavily in their favour. Without that, he and Kenva would have to pick up the slack.

“I imagine the creatures within are stronger, too?” Porkchop asked.

“You bet,” Kenva said, snorting in amusement. “Stranger too — I saw a few scattered reports of incorporeal spirits or wraiths, but nothing concrete. Barely anyone has properly explored the place. There’s supposed to be some valuable materials and reagents, but nothing worth the risk when most teams would be moving blind.”

Incorporeal enemies could be a problem if they were cut off from most of their magic. He had his blade, and Mystic’s Rend, but Hateful Nail was a decidedly physical spell. Kenva and Porkchop also lacked much in that regard, though he expected that Kenva’s two second-tier archery Skills would have some sort of effect.

“Sounds like it might be up to me if we face anything like that, then,” Kaius murmured.

“Well, hopefully we don’t even need to enter the Crater,” Ianmus replied. “But I'll try to spend the next few weeks working on my lunar keyseals anyway. Just in case.”

A reasonable play. Kaius intended to slip in some practice himself. He’d been wanting some time to dive more deeply into VOS for a while — and as a bonus, he’d get to work on his inscribing at the same time. 

Ultimately, VOS was one of the most unique and potentially most powerful parts of his class. Up until now, his constant use of Redoubt of the Speaker had made the experience of the great rune slightly more tolerable, as had his Authority and ascension to Silver. That said, he was damned sure he was only scratching the surface. There was so much more to it than simply empowering his spells — any new insight would be worth its weight in gold.

“Well, training is all well and good, but we should probably take a short stop soon.”

“Oh?” Kaius said, surprised. They didn’t exactly have time to waste, considering that Kanmost’s journals were likely already on their way to Brokenlight. Who knew what the man would do with the Archivist when he had them.

Porkchop looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “You have a dead body in your ring, remember?”

He groaned, sliding down the couch until his head rested on the hard wooden ledge behind it. 

He’d been trying to forget about that.