Deus Ex Machinarium

Brandt awoke suddenly, with an overwhelming sense of something being wrong. It was still dark, the woods around him were teaming with noises of birds and other animals croaking, chirping, and calling each other. Calm, albeit cold, wind was slowly caressing trees around him, filling the air with creaking and rustling. Yet something was unsettling.

Just outside the tent, the fire was nothing more than a pile of smoldering logs and ash.

Brandt’s mind seamlessly entered a state of hypervigilance. His heart started racing and his consciousness was now fixated on one thing.

Something was very, very wrong.

With as little movement as he could, he slowly reached for a throwing knife, strategically hidden in the sleeve of his jacket. He readied the blade and sprung out of the tent in three quick leaps, ready to fight it. Regardless if ‘it’ was a bear, wolf, a bandit, or a regiment of templar.

There was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere he could immediately see. Nobody had a torch, and no animals either. Brandt slowly surveyed the area around the camp, still holding the blade readied in anticipation, but there wasn’t anything worthy of attention.

Except for one, important detail. Trawins was nowhere to be found.

-” Idiot!”- he uttered through clenched teeth -” Where did this floating dummy go? Certainly hope he went out to take a crap?”

Brandt noted the nearly extinguished fire.

-” Must be one long crap, that one!”

Hoomin crawled back to the tent and collected his sword and scabbard. Then he proceeded to arm himself, and once done, invoked a weak lumehex and set out to find his companion. At first, he approached the battle monument, but the tanai wasn’t anywhere near it. From there he began to search around the clearing, following a circular pattern. This kept him busy for a better part of a quanter before the futility of what he was doing dawned on him. Not only was he trying to find footprints in the middle of the night, but he was trying to find those of a tanai.

-” I’m wasting time” - he let his frustration into the void of the night - “Unless his corpse is anywhere near.”

Brandt returned to the camp. Using his limited ability in pyrohex, he stoked the campfire and threw some additional wood into it. As the flames grew, he sat beside it. Slowly, the mixture of anxiety, rage, and disappointment was evaporating.

-*Where is the tanai? Why did he leave his post? Was it a betrayal or was he an agent?* were his thoughts. He quickly dismissed the former. Trawins was too naive and clumsy to be a mole. Besides, who would want to spy on an honest banker like Brandt Zerster? Mostly honest, at least.

On the other hand, this clumsiness might have been a cover.

-*Perish the thought!*- he reprimanded himself -*The tanai is just a bookworm out of his element.* - seemed like a good explanation - *but then, just how careless is he really? He was supposed to be here, on guard!* - Not that it mattered, really, so far out south and away from even Katzburg, he quickly added.

He took a long look around. It wasn’t long before the Bivos would rise, the faint, glow on the east was already visible above the trees.

Frustrated, Brandt began poking the fire with a stick he found nearby. He concentrated on this for some time, fighting some quite obsessive thoughts about being chased after by ‘them’. But as time went on, his agitation faded away and along with it sleepiness as well.

-” How am I supposed to trust the guy?” - he finally uttered. The night didn’t have an answer. Having nothing else to do, the hoomin remained by the fire, listening to its atmosphere.