An Old Legend

I was starting to notice a pattern with the events of today. It was making me wonder if the Mayor was capable of having a sustained conversation, given how quickly he turned me away every time we talked. This time, he had given me an entire city to explore; it was quite literally a needle in a haystack, and I didn't even know if the needle was there to begin with. 

I figured the side of the city with the most damage, were it to have survivors, would be the best to clear first. I walked slowly, keeping my ears open and throwing a glance into the windows I passed. Almost all the buildings in this part of the city were untouched. It was the back corner of the city, as much as it could be in a vaguely circular city, meaning that all the people here were the ones to get out at first notice. No targets meant the beasts had no reason to destroy buildings to get to people. It also meant that I was wasting my time here, since no people getting attacked meant no one surviving getting attacked. I picked up my pace.

I quickly found myself in the rubble pile that was the front of the city. This was the first time I was truly taking in the scale of it. The dust had settled, leaving me with a clear view of it all. 

Starting with the outside edge, I made my way through the ruins. It was hard to make out the roads; the rubble had been tossed around quite a bit. I was placing my steps carefully, trying to not twist my ankle or stub my toe. There were raised parts of the rubble at somewhat regular intervals, and if someone was still alive, it'd be under one of those piles. I looked over all the piles I passed. For all the ones that looked a bit lumpier, I walked over and shifted some of the rubble around. It was a very tedious process.

I found nothing. Every now and then, I'd find a limb, sometimes connected to something, but never moving. It was quickly getting depressing. I checked spot after spot, time after time, but failed to find anything. My mind began to wander as I paced the streets, thinking through everything. The fighting was all a blur. The big moments, mostly just watching the Mayor fight, were still relatively clear, even though most of it was just things exploding following a loud bang. The speed at which things had happened in my memory didn't match how long it had felt. I felt like I had been awake and fighting for days straight, even though my logic told me it hadn't been anywhere near that long. 

There was no one left. It was something I knew, something I fully recognized, but I kept walking. There was a part of me hoping I'd find someone, but admittedly, there was a bigger part of me hoping I wouldn't. I didn't know what to do even if I did find someone, nor did I want to have to figure it out in the moment. I kept walking. I debated the intellectual dilemma I had. I knew there was no one left alive, I understood it, but I was still in disbelief over it. I wanted there to be people left, for the destruction around me to not be absolute, but only insofar as making my fighting worth it. I kept walking. Despite wanting someone to be alive, I was hoping I wouldn't find them. I didn't want to know that there was something more I could've done. Of course, there wasn't anything more I could have done, and I knew that, but I couldn't accept it. I couldn't let myself accept it. I kept walking. Hours that felt like days of fighting had to have more of a purpose than just survival. I barely struggled; all things considered, I didn't even come all that close to death. I didn't know why I had such an easy time while half the town was getting destroyed. It made everything just feel…. 

I found myself before a particularly large collection of rubble. At some point, I gave up on finding survivors and wandered farther into the city. There was something familiar about the area, which pulled me out of my thoughts. It was just this building that was destroyed. Every building around it was still standing, completely undamaged, and the fact that they were was what let me pick up on where I was. This was the Forge, what was left of it. It should have been the most stable and safe building in the city. As I stood there, it started to rain lightly. I looked up to see the clouds had returned.

I stepped into the rubble. The building was big to begin with, with a large footprint and high walls, and the pile of rubble it had become was similarly large. There were large chunks of stones interwoven with wooden beams, the collections of rubble in some places nearly as tall as I was. My memory of the place was overlayed onto the scene in front of me. I started to sift through the rubble. It wasn't long before I found a limb. I kept a mental note of where it was and moved on. I went through the whole building. I found another body, then another. There were two, sometimes three people who worked here, yet I very quickly found about ten people. I say about because I had no way to know how intact the bodies were. I'd find a leg in one spot and an arm in another, and they very well could've been from the same person. 

It didn't take long to figure out why so many people were here. Before the big event started, the clerk offered me shelter, and given her personality, it was likely she extended the offer to the people nearby who were still around. Focusing all the people into one area drew all the beasts' attention to this one building, and it seemed they all placed too much faith in the walls around them. That, or someone left the door open. It didn't matter either way, the result was the same. 

I walked back to the first body I found, which was about where the front desk was. I knew who it was, but I still wanted to confirm it, which only took a few seconds of clearing rubble. It was her. She had stayed at the front desk until the end. It was admirable. I could only sigh. I chose to fight, what should have been the most dangerous path, and ended up stumbling into the one person in the city who could make it possible, all while only thinking about keeping myself alive; she chose what should've been the safest path, staying in what should've been the safest building, and even choosing to try to save as many people as she could. Yet after it all, I was alive, and she was dead. It really made everything just feel…

Pointless.

Sighing again, I looked around the rubble again. My eyes landed on what used to be the weapon storeroom. My mace was bent to the point of being almost unusable and my sword was completely broken. The memory of the last conversation I had with the clerk flashed through my mind. Her scolding me for never really buying anything was an oddly comforting experience; she would use almost the exact same words and phrasing every time. I smiled softly.

I spent a bit sorting through the rubble of the storeroom. The weapons were unsorted to begin with, but it was somehow even worse now. Many of them were broken, or at the very least chipped and dented. As always, there was nothing I particularly wanted, although now I had a valid excuse. I kept looking though, now determined. I found a few weapons that were more or less intact, but they were all daggers, knives, and flails. The small size made them much harder to break, and chips on a smaller blade were easier to buff out. It was just unfortunate I didn't know how to fight with them.

Just before I gave up, I decided to check one more spot. In what used to be the inside corner of the room were a few particularly large pieces of stone and wood. They'd be difficult to move, but their size would leave gaps that could let weapons survive. It was worth checking. 

It wasn't as difficult to move stuff as I thought it would be. Clearing the last piece, I was hit with a wave of a strange sadness. It was then I remembered that this corner was where they had stored the "recovered" weapons. The messy pile of weapons remained, somehow undamaged. I started sorting through them, but something quickly became apparent to me. Each of the weapons I pulled off the pile did nothing to diminish the pain of loss I could feel. It was intriguing. I kept pulling more and more weapons off the pile, and the aura around it only got stronger. Eventually there was only one sword left.

It was a fairly simple longsword. The hilt was plain, wrapped in leather with a small round pommel. The blade about three feet long and few inches wide at the base, with a shallow groove down the middle. It was moderately weathered, but still sturdy and certainly useable. There were only two odd things about it. The first was the complete lack of a guard; the second was the adornment of a snake wrapped at an angle around the base of the blade. It formed an oval, serving to hide the joining of the blade with the hilt, leaving more of the metal exposed on one side than the other. This was the source of the pain radiating from the pile of weapons. It was a bit longer than the sword I had been using, but it'd work. 

I picked it up and examined it closer. What I had taken to be weathering was actually an intricate web of scratches, but the blade was otherwise incredibly well kept. Even after so much time and having a building collapse on it, the edge was perfect and razor sharp. The only sign that it had been used was that the hilt had a clear coating of sweat and the leather was nearly worn away in parts. Even with the wear, or perhaps because of it, the grip was comfortable, and the sword was well balanced. It had been well loved while it was in use, and its forceful separation from its owner caused both of them an immense pain. Given its company here, there was likely no chance of it being reunited with its owner. I had a few coins left in my pockets, not enough to cover the cost of the sword, but I still placed them in a neat stack where the sword once was. I replaced the broken sword with the new one, finding that the width of the hilt at the base of the blade stretched the sword loop on my belt just enough for the snake ring to catch on it. Due to the angle the snake was placed at, the sword sat at a fairly steep angle, which actually made it easier to draw. I patted it softly against my hip. 

"Let's find you a new purpose."

I felt its pain lessen a little.

***

By the time I made it to the town hall, the four of them were already waiting outside. The Mayor now had crutches, clearly fashioned from some scrap wood. He was putting weight on his former bad leg, likely only because he now had four people around him who could act as his arms. Bear had a large crate strapped to his back, containing, I assumed, whatever they wanted to get from the town hall. 

"Sorry to keep you all waiting."

"Find anyone?"

"Sort of."

"Good. Let's get going then."