Further Beyond: Ascension

Freeday, 3rd of Maia, 470th Year of the Fifth Era

The cold air of the mountains of the savage Halaklands did little to stave away the brightly glaring sun of the heathen continent. Despite having lived in Neacordis for all of the twenty five years of his life, Gregory Palmer was never much a fan of the sun and tropical conditions of the continent. Even though the heat wasn't much of a problem, his pale skin still reddened under the sun and so he had accustomed himself to wearing long-sleeved shirts and the black wide-brimmed cavalier's hat that he had kept from the time he was a member of the Newlander Republic's cavalry regiment before he was so unceremoniously relieved of his post as he had defended his brother from an arrest that the republic had placed on him due to accusations of slavery.

Well, to be fair, at the time he thought they were merely baseless accusations. It wasn't until after they were on the run did his older brother George actually admit the truth behind his illegal activities. To say that he was distraught at first after finding out would be an understatement. He had been forced to leave everything of his old life in Newlandia behind when he had sided with his brother. His parents, his job in the cavalry, his house that he had just been able to buy then, and even his fiancee whom he had been due to marry in just a few short months before he had made his escape.

He had been forced to make a living as bandits on the run alongside his elder brother and a couple dozen other men from the army who had their loyalties to his older brother. It was a year of hardship as the men were forced to make ends meet as bandits and they even had to fight other bandit groups within the area of the borderlands to the Hallack peoples where the control from either the republic or the natives weren't significant.

But it was in dire times like these did the wicked genius and talent of his brother managed to shine through. Using his natural charisma and acceptable talent in combat, slowly but surely, their bandit group had managed to grow both in size and also in power. While at first they only had enough power to commit small acts of demanding tolls and seizing wares from smaller merchant groups, they were now able to threaten even larger caravans with a force of almost half a thousand armed men, many of whom were even starred aura users.

Throughout their year of banditry, they had done their best to avoid patrols from the republic and the local Hallack king for whatever reason had failed to put an end to their group's growth and rise to power. For a while, his brother had been content on surviving through the more petty acts of banditry and pillaging without a central base of operations, but as their numbers grew, they realised such a way to conduct their activities grew more and more unsustainable. It would be impossible for that many men to feed themselves on looting and hunting alone and so with that in mind, his brother had come up with the most ambitious plan.

His brother had led the small bandit army to 'conquer' a few of the smaller hamlets and villages around the area and had the villagers cease all manner of trade in food resources to outside communities, having them focus on producing food to feed the bandits. Along with this change in raiding policy, his brother George also changed the group's policy on abducting the young women and children to be sold elsewhere into slavery and instead serve them directly as slaves. In doing so, they had essentially gained free labour as the total number of villages they had under their control numbered around half a dozen.

His brother had picked a hill in a location that was central in comparison to the villages they had conquered and picked it as the new base of operations. He had directed much of the manpower from the enslaved villages to construct a mighty fort and residence there, fit for a petty king, and so for the last year, they had actually managed to build quite the impressive wooden fort with the help of some architects they had captured during some of their minor raids.

All of these thoughts were running around Gregory's mind as he was laying down with his hat upon his face on the grass outside the palisade walls of the fort-village of which his brother had named 'Palmerton' after their own family. He would always laugh as he remembered his brother was never the most creative person growing up. But the lack of creativity in naming did little to hide his brother's ambitions. But despite his outward support to his brother, Gregory couldn't help but feel a foreboding sense of guilt slowly but surely welling up deep inside of him.

He had always been ambivalent as a person to the lives of the natives of the continent. His family didn't personally own any native-born slaves as being the pious christians his parents were - coupled with the recent Ministerial prohibition from the active engagement within the slave trade with native kingdoms - they considered the act as something morally deplorable. But at the same time, Gregory had never gone out of his way like some of the republic's clergy to completely outlaw and criminalise the owning of slaves and indentured servants. As far as it went in his mind at the time, it was the natural cycle of defeated peoples having to submit to the will of their conquerors.

But the past two years of his life as a bandit had rocked his mindset as well as his conscience hard, like the violent sea storms that used to crash against his father's trading vessel when they went out on one of their many trading voyages. The things that he saw his brother do… the things that he himself did which up to that point he had managed to waive away with thoughts that he needed to do horrible things to survive in a horrible world… But lately, his mind has been far too muddled. More than it has ever been wracked before, at least.

The cries of the children as they begged to not be torn apart from their parents, all for them to be captured and sold into slavery to some Povorian slavers. Old crones on their knees begging for their lives to be spared in exchange for all the riches that would have left them destitute and dead anyways. And all of that was yet to include the unspeakable atrocities that were committed by the bandits in the process of their 'kingdom-building'.

The feelings had first started out as discomfort as for the past year he had trouble falling asleep. Yet, as the days became weeks and the weeks became months, the chest-tightening feelings, the nightmares, and the screams had just kept on growing worse and worse. A few months ago, his night terrors would have woken him up causing him to find difficulty in resting himself, but now it was so bad that it felt as if each time he closed his eyes he could feel the forlorn stares of each and every person either he or his brother had wronged. The faces were mixed in his mind as some showed anger, others confusion, but the worst would always be when he was reminded of the one child who had died of starvation in the wake of the forced labour they had imposed on the natives in the construction of their new base.

Gregory's hands had gone jittery as his mind kept drifting off to wallow in his feelings of guilt and dismay as his chest also felt like it was tightened with his heart as if being held by the clutches of an angry tiger. Feeling like actual crap, Gregory had finally decided to get up from his spot, putting on his hat over his dark blonde hair as he decided to take a short stroll along the dirt road that was being constructed to connect Palmerton to the surrounding villages. As he walked on for about half an hour, he saw some of the native labourers who were still hard at work under the scorching sun, sweat evident on their backs and brows. As the men worked, they were being watched over by a few armed bandit guards. Many of the men looked to be about half a century old and didn't look quite fit for hard labour, but that was to be expected as the starred warriors among the villagers had either been slain by the bandits or were captured and sold to slave ships as keeping them around would prove to be a liability for the fledgeling bandit kingdom.

As he was observing the men who were working, he noticed one of the older labourers fall over to the ground and writhing in pain as he twisted and turned on the ground holding his back as several of the other workers stopped what they were doing to help the old man.

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"Oy, you damned savages! Stop wasting your time on the old git and get back to work-..!" When the bandit guards walked in to try and get the workers back to work, Gregory had stopped them as he raised his hand.

"Leave the workers be and give them a break. As I saw it you've had these folk working from dawn without so much as a break for water. Have them grab some water from the stream to cool off…" Gregory said however the bandit guards looked hesitant to do as he had instructed.

"...Ol' George's told us he wanted the roads done by the end of this week but if we let up on the speed we won't manage that…" One of the bandits spoke with hesitation before another one of them spoke up.

"You've grown soft on these native trash, have you now? Hahahaha!" Another bandit - whom Gregory knew to be a two star warrior - spoke up with a derisive tone "Let dogs be and get them back to work! George will have our heads if he finds out about this…"

"If my brother were to find fault in my decision, he can talk to me directly." Gregory reaffirmed his stance "Forcing these men to work far beyond their capabilities would be detrimental to George's ambitions in the long run. Now quit bellyaching and do as I say."

"Oooh, of course, my lord prince…!! What am I - a simple bandit son of a whore - to do when one as kind and as noble as yourself were to-!!!" Without hesitation and in a split second, in the middle of the bandit mocking him, Gregory had unsheathed his cavalry sabre and had it held up against the bandit's neck. Such an action caused a trail of blood to be drawn from the bandit as it dripped down the side of his neck.

"I won't ask twice." Gregory said as he looked the man in his eyes, unleashing upon the bandit part of his own peak three-star aura.

"...I hear ya…! Lads, let the savages take a breather." The bandit finally relented as Gregory sheathed back his saber. But regardless the two-star bandit looked on towards him with such a level of palpable contempt apparent on his sneer. "Your brother will hear of this though!"

"Good. Make sure that he does." Gregory couldn't even bother looking back to the man as he approached the old man who was on the ground and helped him get back up. It was an odd feeling to be sure. While the old man looked somewhat thankful to him, the other labourers couldn't help but look at him with suspicion at best and absolute hatred at worst. Not that he could blame them. For all intents and purposes he was still a part of the people who were acting as their captors.

"Maradian sude… inum aek! (All rest. Drink water!)" Gregory tried his best to speak in the natives' language that he had been learning for the past few months. He had a passable amount of knowledge in the Banuan language but the Hallack tongue was still very much alien to him despite his best efforts to learn. He didn't know how he did with his pronunciation - nor his actual grammar - but judging from the fact that most of the suspicious faces had shown hints of laughter and mild confusion, he must have butchered his attempt. Well, at the very least they don't look like they completely hated him anymore.

"...Mauliate da. Dipasupasu debata ma ho." The old man said as Gregory helped him up. He didn't quite know what the man was saying but he could grasp enough to know that he was thanking him. Gregory could only smile and nod before he bowed his head slightly with the somba position and continued on his stroll to the stream, leaving the labourers to rest.

As he was walking, he couldn't help but think back on the actual lack of discipline even in the midst of his brother's so-called 'army'. But can he blame them? They were after all for all intents and purposes just bandits, none really better than the other. All of them had shared in their acts of petty thievery, raiding, and pillaging. The only real difference was who they were before falling into the bandit life. Barring himself, his brother, and the few dozen of them who were former members of the Newlander republican army, many of the bandits that they had subsumed into their army were from the lower rungs of society. Pickpockets, horse-thiefs, escaped runaway slaves. None of them really 'honourable' folk.

From a certain standpoint, one could see the merit - at least in the principle - of what his elder brother was trying to do. Establishing a new colony of exiles, giving life new meaning to those who had been cast out from society. But despite these perceived ideals, it could not be waved away that the 'kingdom' they are currently building was being built upon a rocky foundation of evil men, oppressed peoples, broken trust, and no real standing force to speak of. While five hundred armed men sounded terrifying on paper, what could they hope to accomplish against even just a single trained and disciplined regiment of soldiers from the republic? Or not even that as a dedicated force of real and trained Hallack warriors would be enough to crush them into dust.

As Gregory reached the banks of the stream, he sat down on one of the rocks as he took off his boots to soak his feet upon the very cool flowing waters of the stream. As he was observing the banks of the stream, he saw a small freshwater crab emerge from the river with a small fish caught between its claws. Funnily enough, as the crab was busy engorging itself upon the fish, a monitor lizard had appeared from between some rocks to consume the crab itself as well as the fish.

Gregory couldn't help but shake his head at the sight. It was a natural occurrence to be sure but the irony was in how much he could relate with what he just saw to his current situation. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. At this point, he just couldn't bring himself to agree with the many things his brother had been doing but on the other hand, due to his own compliance and involvement with such acts of atrocities, he couldn't very well just leave and go back to the republic where no doubt he would be drawn, hanged, and quartered, though… Perhaps if he managed to reach the level of a four-star warrior and surrender himself then, the republic would be willing to negotiate with him and allow him back.

With the news he had been receiving on the possibility of conflict with the Wisnajayans, he would assume the republican army would need all the soldiers they could get their hands on and would be fools to turn away an able advanced aura warrior. Though that would only leave him with the problem of figuring out how to escape from his own brother who had recently become a fourth-star warrior after years of stagnation within the republican army.

He had been exiled in the first place due to siding with his brother and it would certainly be an odd twist of fate were he to then leave said brother even after realising all the depravity he had committed. Gregory wanted so bad to find a way where he could convince his brother to turn back to the republic, but as it stands currently that doesn't seem to be any more likely than the sun spontaneously exploding to plunge the world into eternal darkness. It didn't help that recent trading with the Povorian merchants and slavers had also inflated his brother's ego to think that he was more important than he actually was.

To think just because he had acquired three bronze cannons and some munitions from the Povorian traders that he had all the power in the world to act like a king. Maybe against small, unfortified villages, the cannons could do some form of damage, but against a well-trained and dedicated force of warriors? Such a notion was laughable. Not to mention the amount of training it would require to establish an experienced cannon crew to effectively operate such devices.

His brother was a fool with delusions of grandeur that flew far above his own head, but being the most powerful warrior among bandits where the law of the jungle prevailed, there wasn't much he could do to really challenge his brother's authority save for actually fighting and beating him. However, knowing George's personality and disposition, beating him might actually require killing him and Gregory wasn't keen on donning the title of 'kinslayer' on top of his already extensive list of crimes.

As if it was divine providence itself, while Gregory was busy immersing himself within his thoughts, some bandit guards had approached him from behind. However, different from the many bandits who had joined their troops later on, Gregory actually recognised the faces of these particular bandits as being former soldiers like himself.

"Excuse me, Captain, but your brother would like to have a word with you…" One of the bandits with a tired expression on his face said as he bowed slightly.

Gregory sighed as he knew with what he did earlier regarding the labourers, his brother would summon him sooner or later. He was at least prepared for that. He gave a big sigh before he got up and put on his boots to follow the bandits back to Palmerton to meet with his brother.

"Lead the way, gentleman." Gregory said as he patted the back of the beleaguered bandit.

And with that, Gregory could only ready himself for what foolish nonsense his brother was about to bombard him with this time. He wasn't quite much a believer in God, but even he found himself praying that his brother would be in a better mood than usual.