Brand-Bound: Hallowed Be The Menu [Rivals-to-Lovers Slowburn Fantasy Romance]

Chapter 133: Wanted (Wanted) Dead or Alive



The pilgrim's road through the Olde Capital came in from the south, went through the grand bazaar, and turned east. Both gatehouses had a wayshrine tucked within their walls. The group stopped to pay their respects to the statues of the Olde Heroes, whose footsteps they'd been shadowing for a month. The Scout shrine's +10% movement blessing was a good bonus too.

The party set off to the west, over the plateau. In time, they would reach the Fellmarsh. But for now…

"Psst. Yonah. Zil here. Do you read?" their youngest member spoke into a porcelain snail.

There was no response.

"Right. It's only one-way. We should get more of these things. Anyway, uh, Enkidu said to track a certain someone…"

At the back of the group, Enkidu exhaled.

"Okay, assuming you can hear this," Zilara continued. "Track. 'Oromund.' The location will be the High Plateau. Rank: Swordsman. Should help the filters."

A half-minute passed, after which a distant marker appeared. Their target was 4.53 leagues away, north and west. He traveled far in barely over a day.

"That'll do it. Just leave it up until we let you know to cancel it via Snail again. I'll make sure Enkidu, I dunno, pays attention to you next time we're at the hideout."

Having a 'mission control' party member stay back to provide support from long distance brought unexpected benefits.

"Should do this more often," Jelena said. "Alright, let's head out."

The plateau terrain was flat but rough. The party marched at a steady pace, the walls of the Olde Capital receded into the distance, still ever-present in the east.

Dire-beasts frequently neared level eighty, and they would only grow stronger the further east they traveled.

Signs of their quarry presented themselves after a league and a half of travel. A Camp item was still set, its tents having yet to fold themselves up.

A campfire still smoldered.

"Someone left in a hurry," Zilara reported.

With the Lockpicks of the Thief boosting their tracking abilities, Calaf and Zilara took point. Not a quarter-league away was a slain dire-sabertooth, a common predator in the region.

Name:

Striped Dire-Sabertooth

Rank:

Beast, Large Cat

Level

76

Status:

0/730 (Medium-Rare)

The beast roasted over a smoldering fire fueled by local, barky bush-wood. The cooking process preserved the decay status at 0, purifying the corpse while continuing to slow-roast it into a succulent feline steak.

Zilara pointed out the tracks at the edge of a rocky crag. Another altercation had ruined dinner.

"Another ambush. Somebody got smashed with that big rock-sword."

The path ventured south through a winding maze of stone. With the Target spell active, the party could bypass this labyrinth and pursue a straight path to Oromund's target location, now north-northeast. After a brief delay, whereby Zilara was beset by a level 68 dire-tick trying to latch on to her leg. With this dire-bug removed and squashed, the group moved on.

Dead arbitral auxiliaries waited beyond the next clump of brush. All level sixty-eight or above, and all dead, strewn about a narrow crag.

"They followed him through that rock maze," Jelena guessed.

"Then caught up right at the exit, here," Zilara added. "Then got wiped out."

Sounds of distant sword-clashing carried far on the plateau. It wafted over from a half-league away, the exact direction their Target spell was indicating.

"Who else could be fighting if the auxiliary arbiters got whacked?" Zilara asked.

The question went unanswered. They would find out soon enough. The crew picked up the pace.

Calaf burst out of the brush, shield drawn.

Bedlam reigned. A dozen high-level bounty hunters surrounded a familiar figure wielding an obsidian sword.

"Surrender, knave, and become the conclave's inauguration gift," said the highest-ranking level 81 bounty hunter.

Oromund the swordsman, both clad in and wielding black-hued weapons and armor, swung in a wide arc with all his might. The slab-sword flew with surprising speed, evidence of a prodigious Strength stat. The bounty hunters were two well-balanced parties, but even their tanks hesitated rather than try to withstand that flurry of obsidian death.

The swordsman just kept swinging! A whirlwind of paltry plateau topsoil was kicked up in his attack. While the arbitral auxiliaries were duty-bound to stand and fight to the death if need be, these bounty hunters were in it for reasons of self-preservation. When the sword of high-velocity obsidian death approached, they wisely slunk away.

"They're retreating. You've won," Calaf reported.

But the sword did not stop. Oromund shifted his weight, aiming directly for Calaf! The Paladin braced as the full force of the blow struck his shield. His new equipment would receive a trial by fire.

No hit thus far in the adventure had struck Calaf with quite such fury. The Paladin held his shield with both hands to prevent being thrown off-balance. The Towering Duran Shield held its own, and the shielder and swordsman were mutually pushed back.

"Peace!" Calaf brought his spear back into Inventory to show they were not another party of bounty hunters.

Oromund the swordsman jumped back, sword still in a neutral stance that could block or strike with ease.

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"We come in peace," Zilara said. "Plus, he thinks he knows who you are."

The arrival of a child on the scene softened Oromund's stance. Enkidu wisely hung back, as the existence of the giant blade-wielding wildman risked exacerbating the situation.

"Now that you're close up, I kind of see it, too," Jelena said. "You can't read my Interface, but my name's Jelena. Jelena Turandot. Tall guy hiding in the shrubs there's name is Enkidu. You can read my other associate's names off the Menu, yeah?"

"You're not here to kill or capture me?" Oromund's voice was growly with a curt and non-rhothic plateau accent.

"Not at all, good sir," Jelena began. "Why, my boyfriend here—"

"You'd be the first friendly party in a month," Oromund interrupted.

"As we were saying, I think we know who you are," said Calaf.

"Is my cookfire still burning?"

Calaf and Jelena looked at each other.

"What, the dire-tiger?" Zilara answered for them. "Still roasting. Few leagues back."

Oromund stashed his sword in the Inventory. "Very well. If you have anything to say, you can do it while I eat."

With lawmen and bounty hunters off their backs, the group followed Oromund back to his cookfire. Dire-sabertooth steak was almost perfectly cooked at an even medium. There was enough for Oromund's meal, sufficient rations sent to Inventory, and a few slices for the party as well.

"We saw you in the capital," Calaf began.

The swordsman continued to chew for some time before he was in a position to respond. "Get the arbiters on my trail every time I head back into town. Only stop by every few months to pick up a new job from an adventurer's guild or sellsword company. Pays well. But it's rapidly becoming too much trouble."

"So, what's an accomplished swordsman such as yourself doing out here dodging bounty hunters, anyhow?" Jelena punctuated this with a small bite of her dire-sabertooth steak.

The waning fire and a natural windbreak from uplifted rock walls kept the chilly gales from the north at bay. Their new swordsman acquaintance downed his saber-sirloin with Autumn's Redoubt merlot, then prepared to regale the party with his tale.

"Up until last year, I lived in my family's holdings in the far western plateau. It was an easy life, with education handled by frequent trips to the capital."

"Hmm. A noble, hmm?" Zilara asked.

Jelena's lips pursed knowingly.

"Everything went about as well as possible, until last year. The year of my pilgrimage…" Oromund continued. "It was then, while I was trudging through the river delta, that I heard word of the sacking of Fort Duran. I rushed through two zones in a day but arrived too late. The fort was burning, and my mother's corpse was already defiled with scoured brands as an apostate."

"I knew it." Calaf chewed his steak faster.

"Rushing to the front, I was quickly out-leveled by local dire-beasts. I'd arrived at the pilgrimage's start with fifteen levels on the average initiate, courtesy of a youth spent in the rough-and-tumble plateau. But it didn't matter, having advanced so quickly along the path, every creature was a threat. It took a month to make it back to the western plateau. There, I found the ancestral manse appropriated by the newly formed arbitral auxiliary corps. My other siblings are all either slain or imprisoned, I know not where."

"Your mother was Paladin Joan," Calaf said.

Oromund nodded. "Mother didn't want me going on pilgrimage. Began to speak about how the path was too dangerous for your average initiate. I snuck out anyway. If I'd stayed, maybe I would have been there…"

It was growing late in the day. This far north, though, daylight hours grew hazy and inconsistent. Back in Riverglen, it would be sunset by now.

"I've spent the past year in near-continuous combat between the Redoubt, plateau, and Fellmarsh. Fighting – and leveling – almost constantly. As the heir to the family, I already had a bounty on my head. It's grown exorbitant since I've become strong enough to challenge the bounty hunters directly."

What was left of the dire-sabertooth was thrown into the swordsman's inventory.

"My current bounty is to investigate a remote monastery on behalf of a concerned citizen." Oromund rose and equipped his sword. "You all seem to be good-natured. You can come along if you wish. So long as you're okay with me keeping the bounty. Feel free to take whatever you want off these bounty hunters…"

With an offer like that, Calaf wasn't about to refuse the opportunity to come to the aid of Joan's son. The party packed up, then backtracked to the spot where Oromund had done battle with those bounty hunters. They continued onward as the ground grew frigid and rocky.

The target icon still existed in the Interface, hovering over Oromund. Visible only to Calaf and Zilara, they kept it active in case they were separated from their new temporary partymate.

"Ah, breathe in that fresh glacier air," Zilara said with a surprising spring in her step.

As with the rest of the plateau region, their destination was visible on the horizon, obscured only by atmospheric haze off the Fellmarshes.

The rocky terrain of the high plateau gave way to glacial ice plains stretching endlessly into the north. To the east, the swamp-laden volcanic fumaroles were encroaching on the plateau. At the confluence of these three regions sat a raised uplift with a simple, secluded priory built atop.

"There it is," Oromund said. "Priory only sends a monk out on a supply run once yearly. They're three months overdue."

"The adventurer's guild hired you for this?" Calaf asked.

The swordsman shook his head. "No. A distant relative of one of the residents."

Oromund's eyes were a steely grey-blue. Calaf had seen them before. He lingered towards the back of the group as Oromund took point. Those eyes, he'd seen them before, and not on Joan.

"So, mister sword-guy," Zilara began. "Your parents brought me down from the northern sea."

"Oh? You knew my mother?" Oromund said. "My father has been dead for a decade now. Slain on his final pilgrimage somewhere in Fellmarsh."

It seemed Zilara also realized the significance of those grey-blue eyes. Joan had entered an arranged marriage with a fellow noble, star-crossed with her more organic love, Cayo. They'd been separated for at least twenty years, during which Joan had produced many heirs for the combined noble houses, while the latter had been sent to a monastic institution. The timeframe was such that Cayo appeared to have left the noblewoman with a surprise to remember him by before fate tore them apart.

Jelena slowed down to interlace her arm into Calaf's.

"Soooo, about our mystery swordsman…" she began, whispering.

"I know." Calaf nodded.

As a male heir, Oromund wouldn't share Joan's collarbone brand. His lost siblings likely only shared their mother's line with the oldest brother. The party hadn't seen Cayo's Brand during that fateful night at Fort Duran. There was no definitive way to know for sure by brand-inheritance. Still, those eyes didn't lie…

The twin doors of the isolated priory were busted inward. Their hinges weren't broken so much as they were disintegrated. Oromund and Calaf entered first. The former held his hefty sword out like a makeshift shield, while the latter used his tower shield for its intended purpose.

"Nothing here," Calaf said.

"No bodies," Oromund said. "Plenty of signs of an altercation, though."

Calaf gave the all-clear for Jelena and the others to follow. Enkidu would enter last; better to have a strong combatant at their backs, lest they be ambushed from behind.

They cleared each room, from the main sanctuary to the walled garden in a back-facing courtyard. Individual books had been burned and thrown into a pile in the library. Living quarters were bare, with the roof having been torn right off and the austere bunks thrown about.

"Would've happened a year ago," Oromund said. "Not long after their previous resupply. Just before the anti-crusader actions down south. The place has been dead since the last pilgrimage."

So far off the route, there was little reason for pilgrims or travelers to venture to this secluded abode. That's why the priory existed so far off the trail. It also meant that the residents of this priory were wiped out in the dark.

As for what wiped them out, the environment provided ample clues. Doors were disintegrated, often at their hinges, but occasionally just deleted wholesale. And the walls were marked with tell-tale streaks from a slender, six-armspan wide blade.

"There's nothing here," Oromund said. "Have more than enough evidence to bring back to the concerned party."

"Might be something here." Zilara pointed towards an undisturbed floorboard, marked orange with their relic-enhanced senses.

Silently, Oromund leaned down to examine this floorboard. He swished his dreads behind his neck to get them out of the way, then revealed a cubbyhole. He pulled something into his inventory too fast for Calaf to make out the details.

"I see," Oromund said after many moments of reading descriptions in silence. He turned to Zilara. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Zilara said with a wink.

"I must return to the capital to inform my client."

The party and Oromund gathered at the ruined priory's front door. Oromund stepped out into the chilly northern plateau.

"We're headed for the nearest road," Jelena said.

Calaf nodded. "Braving the Fellmarsh."

"I'll be heading that way as well." Oromund tested the grip on his back-mounted slab-sword. "Don't wait up. The Fellmarsh is perilous, and paths are known to… alter, if you delay. There's no better time than just before the pilgrimage. Archbishops from all the major stations should be making their way through even now."

"Oh? Going to introduce yourself?" Jelena said.

Oromund shook his head. "Their retinues often just skip the capital. The only reason to go there is for ceremonial purposes or to visit the Priestess's shrine. I've already introduced myself to the city's archbishop, who was promptly replaced. No, after I inform the aggrieved party of the fate of their cousin at the priory, I will carry down the main road towards Demon Lord's Fall. Should make it in time for the conclave."

"And then?" Zilara asked.

A cocky smile adorned Oromund's face. "The ecumenical council and I shall have words."


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