Sovereign Stones (SS) - Chapter 1 - Rugged Living

“Was this really necessary?” Camille asked warily as we approached the edge of the village.

“Kill the Barghast? Absolutely. You saw the damage it caused to the livestock over the last two days, if we left it alone any longer it could have devastated our food supply,” I replied casually.

“Not that part! Why did we have to bring it back? This thing’s heavy!”

She shifted the carry pole the two of us were carrying, causing the massive dog shaped monster to swing back and forth slightly, forcing me to clamp down on my side to prevent it from bouncing too much.

“We brought it back because the magical stone is too valuable for the village, and neither of us know how to harvest it. If we did, I would have cut the beast open back where we killed it,” I explained. “No point in dragging it into the middle of town though, let’s drop it behind Alvin’s place. He’ll know how to extract the stone.”

“Bout time,” Camille grumbled. 

After dropping the monster off safely, the two of us casually sauntered into the tiny village. There wasn’t much here, just a dozen or so log frame homes, a basic barn and pasture, and a couple farms. 

It wasn’t much, but I found it quite impressive considering there was nothing but untamed wilderness here only three months ago. 

Even though everyone here had been a loyal retainer to my family, people that I’d known for years I still ruffled my long, dark cherry colored hair, so it would fall over my right eye, and pulled the hood of my cloak up. 

Camille snorted, and she was right to do it, I’d just spent so many years hiding the scar on the right side of my face from noble society. I still reflexively hid it whenever I entered a public place.

We wandered past a couple people on the way to the village square, who waved as we passed. Normally I’d stop and chat with everyone, check how everyone was doing, but we didn’t have the time today. Instead, I made sure to smile, and wave back at everyone we saw.

As we stepped into the town square, which wasn’t more than an empty dirt field with plank sidewalks right now, I turned towards the largest building in the village. It was originally constructed to be my home, as most people saw me as their liege lord, but since it was way too big I made them convert the front part into a combination meeting and town hall.

Pausing briefly at the entrance, I made sure to scrape the accumulated mud and debris off my boots before heading in.

“Siegward, we’re back!” Camille called as she skipped inside. 

The front room wasn’t fancy, two long tables with a couple dozen rough wooden chairs lined up against the wall. At the very back of the room were a handful of bookshelves, a couple cabinets, an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair and a well groomed goatee surrounded by mounts of paper. As soon as he saw us he removed his glasses, stood up and bowed.

“Stop that! I’ve asked you repeatedly to stop bowing to me every time you see me. I’m not a noble anymore, there’s no reason for you to continue,” I huffed.

“My apologies young lady. I’ve been serving your family since your mother’s time, and old habits die hard,” he chuckled softly. “Since you two are back early, I assume your hunt was successful?”

“You know it!” Camille exclaimed as she collapsed warily in a nearby chair. “We actually finished a couple hours ago, but Medea insisted on dragging the body all the way back here.”

“We chose to move into this area because only a handful of weak monsters make their homes here,” I explained. “It may make it safer for the villagers, but it means we need to take every chance we can to retrieve magic stones. The last thing we need right now is for our magical tools to run out of power.”

“I know, I know. It just sucks that we had to carry it all the way back here,” Camille mumbled.

“I’ll inform Alvin, and maybe ask him to demonstrate the process so we can have our hunters perform the removal in the future,” Siegward mused, stroking his goatee. “Where is the corpse?”

“We left it behind his house,” I assured the old steward.

While the old man considered the situation I slipped the flintlock rifle off my shoulder, opened one of the cabinets, and slipped it inside. Back in Iskel black powder weapons were seen as a curiosity, something to be shown off during hunting competitions but useless otherwise. 

That might have been true, compared to magic, rifles were slow and clunky weapons, but for exiles that had access to magic and the system severed, a rifle was a potent anti monster weapon. Once it was properly stowed, I turned back towards the table.

“Where are we on the village construction? I haven’t seen the construction crew in a few days?”

“They just finished constructing the last residence, so I suggested they take a couple days off with their families. They’ve been working non-stop since we arrived, and considering the scale of the next project…” Siegward trailed off.

“I know, putting a wall around the village would be bad enough, but since I insisted on extending it out so it encompasses the planned warehouse, and additional residences, the job will be even larger.”

“Don’t worry about it, everyone understood your reasons,” Camille chirped.

“Anything else we need to discuss today?” I asked, scanning the papers strewn out across the table. “Any new issues?”

“Besides the Barghast? No. Everything’s running smoothly, just like it has been for the last month. If something does come up I promise to inform you immediately,” Siegward promised.

“In that case, Camille and I will get cleaned up at the river, then grab something to eat. It’s too late for us to go out hunting for game again today anyways.”

“Food!” the tiny blond exclaimed excitedly as she shot out of her chair, the former listlessness forgotten. “I hope there’s cheese bread.”

“They just finished harvesting the grains two days ago, the growth accelerator artifact doesn’t hold a candle to a sovereign stone’s blessing,” I told her. “Besides we don’t have a mill yet.”

“Non-sense, you know how Paige is, she’d do whatever she needed to bake again. I bet you she spent the entire night either bothering the craftsmen to throw something together, or grinding it by hand in a mortar and pestle,” Camille chirped, already skipping towards the door.

“We’ll talk to you later, Siegward,” I chuckled as I followed my hyperactive friend, “thanks.”

“It was my pleasure young lady.” 

I stepped out of the hall just in time to see Camille disappear down the path behind the barn. 

“You could have waited for me,” I grumbled as I broke into a jog to catch her. 

The livestock were fenced in with a simple wood post fence, which was sufficient to keep them contained, but far too flimsy to protect them against predators, like the Barghast. The real problem wasn’t the predators, it was that half the time they wrecked the fence and let the livestock out. 

Losing one animal to a predator was bad, but losing an additional two because they couldn’t be found the next day? Worse.

It looked like the cleanup crew had not only fixed the fence, but reinforced it with extra timber. It was a nice thought, but I doubted it would do much to keep anything else out.

Right at the back of the pasture was a small stream. It was slow, and fairly shallow, so we just extended the fence over to the far side so the animals had easy access to a water source.

We couldn’t trust it as a source of drinking water, there was a well in town, but it was a decent place to go and clean up. 

Camille was already up to her ankles in the water, splashing water all over her leather armor to clear the last of the dried blood and mud off of it. 

“Took you long enough. Come on, get cleaned, bread is waiting!” she shouted happily as I approached.

A smile broke out on my lips, just for a moment, until I got a good look at the creek.

“Camille, get out of the stream,” I snapped.

“What? Why?” she asked, confused, before looking down.

The normally pristine water had a faint reddish tint, and it wasn’t from Camille’s armor. Every second it grew darker and darker.

“You think it’s a dead animal?” Camille whispered.

“I hope so, but that’s a lot of blood for a single animal,” I replied, biting my lip. “We should investigate.”

“Awww… but bread….” Camille pouted.

“If it’s an animal, it can’t be that far away. We just need to haul it out of the water to prevent anything from fouling the animal’s water supply,” I muttered.

“And if it’s not?”

“Then it’s better we head off whatever trouble is heading our way, before it gets to the village,” I replied, glancing over at her.

Camille sighed and unslung her bow. “Fine, but when we get back you owe me a loaf.”