Further Beyond: Ascension

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

The fortified village of Palmerton was exactly that. A village constructed from scratch situated upon a hill surrounded by naturally defensible cliffsides, several layer of palisade walls, as well as several watchtowers strategically placed on several spots along the walls that gave the defenders of the village a large field of view to keep watch in case any hostile force would dare march against the bandits who fancied themselves a new kingdom in the area. All things considered - though Palmerton was still very much undergoing the process of construction - it was quite an astonishing feat that the bandits were able to build what they were able to in barely a year's time, even if much of the work was done by forced slave labour.

Most of the fort-village was still made out of wood as Palmerton was still lacking a reliable source of stone and also the fact that no one both within the bandit group itself nor the surrounding villages were particularly skilled in masonry. Though the bandits had a few mages among their ranks, none of them were Earth mages therefore they didn't have the luxury of being able to quickly construct stone buildings, though to give credit where it was due, much of the foundation upon which the wooden structures of the village stood were indeed made of stone. Regardless though, all things considered, it was still very much a defensible position

As Gregory was walking through the village, he couldn't help but also inspect the general living conditions of the settlement while he was at it. As he saw it, Palmerton looked more fort than village as many of the bandit soldiers were lounging around the free areas doing whatever miscellaneous tasks as sharpening their weapons, polishing their equipment, with some even playing around and drinking in the open on some tables. A couple of the bandits were even brazen enough to go around flaunting their acquired 'pleasure slaves'. Now that was an upsetting sight to be sure.

There were indeed several bandits who were training earnestly in the courtyard under supervision, drilling formations and what not, some doing target practice with their bows. Seeing Gregory pass by, the older-looking bandit who was supervising the training gave him a small salute which Gregory had returned. That man was one of the other original deserters who had escaped with him and the bandits who he had been training were also mostly of the younger generation and of either mixed-blood or native stock, being inducted into the bandit life because of their difficult childhoods of either being born into slavery, sold to it, or escaped it. Some were perhaps even bastards, abandoned by their parents to the wilds when they were young.

Most of the maintenance work in the village - that of cleaning, taking care of the laundry, tending to some livestock, cooking, et cetera - were handled by the young women who were slaves either sold or gifted to the bandits by various parties or the young women of the surrounding villages that the bandit clan had abducted. Some of the women were even taking care of babies and toddlers, most definitely the spawn of one of the bandits within the walls of Palmerton, though some might be the children of the labourers who were toiling away building the infrastructure required of them by George Palmer, 'The Bandit King'.

After a few more minutes of walking and scaling up the inclination of the hill that led to the main wooden keep, Gregory had reached the doors to the wooden keep of Palmerton. Seeing that Gregory had walked up there, the bandit guards immediately recognised him and bowed before stepping aside and granting him entry for his summons.

Once inside the keep, Gregory's sense of smell was immediately assaulted by a vast arrangement of incense or other such aromatic substances which was being burnt as the main hall of the keep was filled with the smoke from these burning devices. The keep itself was built to be relatively large and imposing and from the inside as Gregory could see that the ceiling stood at about six to seven meters at the peak of the ceiling with ample enough ventilation though apparently not enough that the whiff from the room's aroma could escape.

At the end of the great hall was a large empty wooden chair which acted as a sort of throne for his brother when he played king. His brother who was currently on the carpeted ground in front of the throne, in the throes of three young women who were busy 'entertaining' him so to speak. Around the great hall were several other bandits who were disciplined enough to stand guard but Gregory could see that a few of them were stealing glances at his brother's fun. Within the great hall there were also many other servant girls and women who had a far less intrigued expression, in fact looking rather terrified as doubtless depending on the whims of his brother they might be chosen to please his brother next.

At one corner of the room was an iron cage with a man sitting slumped on a stool chair inside it with a disheveled appearance. He had tired eyes, greyed hair, and an unkempt beard and would've been mistaken for a vagabond were it not for his tattered priest's cassock. Gregory couldn't help but feel slightly horrible as it was because of his insistence that the priest remain in the cage, but he had little choice considering the alternative was for the man to be murdered by his brother. Though neither Gregory nor his brother - not especially his brother - were particularly religious or devout, some among the other bandits were and to kill a man of the cloth would only serve to provoke needless conflict within the group.

Scanning around near the caged priest, Gregory exchanged glances with one of the servant-girls who were standing at the edge of the room. She was a native Hallack woman who was captured months ago along with the priest from one of the nearby villagers. She was one of the christianised Hallack, and besides being very pretty, she was also very intelligent and could even read and write in Newlander Archioric.

Her name was Lasta and was only a few years younger than he was. Gregory had grown quite close to the woman for the past few months as she served as the priest's caretaker and was also helpful to the other girls of the fort. Being one of the few women there who can read and write, as well as being one of the few people in general who could speak both the Native Hallack tongue and Feldonian, she was needless to say a valuable 'slave' so to speak. In fact it was Lasta who had been teaching Gregory how to speak in Hallack recently, though with a varying degree of success.

Luckily enough for the both of them, Gregory's brother had yet to do anything unseemly towards Lasta, but knowing the man's lack of inhibitions, Gregory wasn't too sure it would stay that way. George's current form being entangled between three women in various states of undress in the middle of so many people was proof enough that self-control wasn't quite in his vocabulary. Two of the 'women' didn't even look quite old enough to be called that, but despite all that, Gregory could only hold his tongue.

Looking at the obscene sight, Gregory couldn't help but notice that the older of the three women currently 'playing' with George had looked up from kissing his neck and gave Gregory quite the sultry yet condescending look as if to entice him to join. Gregory couldn't help but squint his eyes and scowl at the woman.

The accursed whore was the worst thing that could've happened to George. Gregory had to admit that his brother was never the kindest or even the most decent person he knew, but that bitch of a woman had the ability to bring out the absolute worst in his brother, being the enabler of so many of his most horrid depravities.

With luscious raven-black silk-like hair and skin as white as ivory, the woman who called herself 'Yonemi' was indeed a beautiful creature to behold. But of course the most distinctive of her features were white fox-ears that were apparent on her head as well as the fluffy white tail that was apparent from underneath her robes.

The bandits had 'acquired' Yonemi as a gift from one of the many Povorian merchants who had trade relations with them but there had always been something that didn't sit right with Gregory. Growing up, he had of course heard tales from his father that in the Far Eastern Lands where the eastern beast-folk reside, the Fox Clans had been one of the most revered and powerful of the clans. Yet here was one of those fox people, a lowly slave not much better than the rest, traded between merchants and robbers like a rare commodity. But worst of all was the fact that Yonemi didn't even seem bothered by her lot in life. At the very least, even if she did, she made a damn good job of hiding her feelings.

As Gregory continued to glare at the fox-wench with disdain, she merely laughed before tapping the back of George's head that was currently being buried in the bosom of a young Hallack girl. Noticing the tap, George had raised his head a little before Yonemi had whispered something into his ear. Finally, George had raised his gaze and caught sight of Gregory before he smiled a wolfish grin at his little brother and sat himself up on the carpet.

"Ah, finished with your little stroll are you, Greg?" George chuckled as he caressed Yonemi who was laying her head on his shoulder while her arms were still feeling up his well-toned muscles.

"I heard you were calling for me, brother?" Gregory had stood at attention as he placed both his hands behind him "...Though it would seem I'm interrupting your activities here. Perhaps I should return at a later time?"

"Oh, don't bother yourself with that. I did indeed have something I wanted to discuss with you, brother. Which means my fun for now is over, which is quite the shame…" George said as he got up from the carpet and fastened on his pants before abruptly stopping as he looked Gregory in the eyes with a smile "Well… that is unless you want to join us, Greg? Whaddya say we have some fun eh? Plenty of flesh around here to get around the both of us!"

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

George had playfully given a slap to the rear ends of the two younger girls before finally moving back to sit upon his modest throne as the girls hurriedly got up as well as they walked out of the hall while holding their clothes to their chest to hide their bare chests.

"I'm afraid I have to decline your offer, brother." Gregory shook his head as he flat out rejected his brother's proposition "It would be improper to do so in front of Father Hazelby here."

"Aw piss off, Greg. Lord only knows the old codger enjoys all the free shows I give him! I bet it's worth more than all the tithes he's ever received in his life, ain't that so you geezer?" George mocked the old priest as he slumped himself upon his throne while Yonemi had followed him and proceeded to sit upon his lap and made herself comfortable there. George merely indulged his favourite paramour as he continued to stroke her hair like some sort of lapdog.

Father Hazelby didn't even bother answering the bandit king as he opted to just stare at the iron bars of his cell.

"Ah, you're no fun, anymore, Father Hazelby! It's been three days since you last talked. Don't you know we miss your insufferable voice?" George continued to insult the priest but as it had been for the last few days, the priest remained silent. "Tch. Arrogant prick who thinks he's better than everyone else! That's what you priests really are. Ravenous wolves who are worse than any bandit. And people call me the robber, hah!"

"Ahem..!!" Gregory had purposefully cleared his throat to turn his brother's attention back to him "...So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Ah yes! Right… So some of the boys have told me that you had some of the labourers stop working on the road infrastructure that I specifically told them to finish by the end of this week?" George's tone was full of 'playful' venom as he questioned him.

"I did. No shame in hiding it." Gregory answered his brother straightforwardly.

"May I at least ask you why?" George's tone became more serious the more he questioned his brother.

"The men had been working since dawn and were yet to be given a break. Any more to their labour and I'm sure some of them would either drop from exhaustion or outright die."

"And so what if they die? They've served their purpose and that would mean less mouths for us to feed. It's good enough that we let them live, but now you're saying we should care for the well-being of savages?"

Gregory was at his wits end trying to talk with his brother. Part of him was thinking that his brother was purposefully obfuscating stupidity just to torment him but the other part can't help but feel it was indeed a side effect of the fox lady's bewitchment.

"Brother, if you're truly trying to build a kingdom in these lands, you know as well as I do that we require manpower and squandering available manpower with needless cruelty is stupidity of the highest level." Gregory dug in his heels on his position "If we were to show kindness to the people we rule over, that would help with our long-term goals of development."

"If all the savage men die then we'll just have some of our boys put our own seeds into the soil, hahahahahah!" George finally laughed quite a bit before waving his hand and calming down "But yes, you're right. Regardless of how true of a man any of us are in comparison to the savages, it would take twenty years to replace such a loss of manpower."

Gregory could only inwardly sigh in relief as he saw his brother wasn't completely insane as of yet. He had already prepared a whole treatise's worth of arguments had his brother been fully intent on dogging on him for his choices.

"But, that brings us to the real reason why I called you here, dear brother." George finally put on a completely serious tone of speaking though his hands were still caressing Yonemi "Though we already have a few villages and hamlets under our name, the total number of people we have paying tribute to us is still laughable. With that being said, there are still a few villages short of the Skyhead mountain valley that our scouts say are abundant with resources. I need you to take some of our boys down there and see if you can't persuade the good folk of those villages to join our little kingdom. As a bonus to entice them, I'll even let up a little more on the labour we have the savages do. As you said, we can't run a kingdom on a pile of corpses."

While his brother's reasoning was sound, Gregory couldn't help but frown at his new charge. "Brother, I don't think it wise for us to venture any further into Hallack territory. Though the native king of these lands has yet to do anything about us, putting ourselves in a vulnerable position like that would be foolish." Gregory had no choice but to voice his objections however it was not George's turn to frown and question his brother back.

"Was it not you who said that we were in much need of manpower?" George's tone was pointed as if it were a spear upon Gregory's throat. "Or was all that talk of justice merely you grandstanding to the other boys just because you're my younger brother?"

"Of course not! I truly have your best interests in mind when I say that such an act is a foolish one."

"...While I appreciate your concern, I still find it rather unfounded." George's shoulders appeared to shake slightly as he chuckled before opening his arms wide "Look around you, brother! See what we've built here! We've been here for well over a year and have even managed to establish for ourselves a mighty fort as a seat of power! If the useless savage king of these lands wanted to do something about us, he would've done so months or even a year ago! And don't you remember the savage envoy that came to us a month ago? Did he not come bearing a letter with the signatures of the so-called elders of these lands, ensuring us that so long as we let a few of their merchants through that we wouldn't be troubled by them?"

As George had said that, Father Hazelby could only stomp his foot in anger within his cell as his frustrated expression caused the bandit king to laugh with such mirth visible on his face. Gregory wanted to protest a little more, but what George had said was indeed true. He didn't know what sort of internal power struggles the Hallack of the land were having amongst themselves, but what was indeed true is that they had not been even the least bit accosted throughout their occupation and later foundation of Palmerton.

As if seeing that his brother was still somewhat unconvinced, the bandit king of Palmerton once more got up from his seat as he approached his brother with open arms.

"Besides, with the war that the accursed republic is about to have with the Banuans, it'll force the nearby savages to fight amongst themselves. Is it not true what you said to me a week ago, Father Hazelby? The so-called Christian savages will be forced to divert their attention to their own borders with the pagan savages and that would mean little attention will be paid to our activities here…" George had said before he finally reached Gregory as he held his little brother's shoulders with a proud smile.

Gregory could only look at his brother with a troubled expression as he was still somewhat unsure. There was just something in him that was telling him of the absolute folly of the mission, but he couldn't point out what exactly. Finally though, as he felt his brother's hold on him, he couldn't dare to voice out his disagreements completely.

"My beloved younger brother, you know that you are the person I trust the most in this wretched and accursed place…" George had said seriously to Gregory "You saw yourself how those newbloods treated you even though they knew you were my brother. I am giving you this opportunity not just to make you my errand boy, but to give you proper command, something of a chance that I've laid out for you to properly prove yourself to the men of your skill."

George's reasoning was true on this occasion and it was a reason that hit the nail on its head so to speak. Finally, giving up on any notion of debating further with his brother, Gregory could only bow his head and nod.

"That's a good boy! Hahaha!" George had squeezed the face of his little brother before embracing him and finally returning to his throne where Yonemi was playfully making herself comfortable. Finally, as he lifted the fox-lady off of her feet and retook his own place upon his throne, George had spoken up once more. "You will travel to the villages down toward the mountain range and valley. Take with you a hundred to two hundred of our boys. Leave our inner circle here and take with you the newbloods and outsiders."

"...Very well, brother." Gregory finally relented to his brother's command.

"Oh! And before I forget, let it not be said of me that I do not care for my brother. Lasta will be assigned to you as your personal interpreter… Also, if you want, you can do other things with her… Hahahahahah! Just slow down on giving me nephews, brother!"

Gregory couldn't help but frown a little at his brother's lack of scruples in regards to his relentless teasing of him. Exchanging glances with Lasta once more, he couldn't help but smile when he saw her smile at him as well.

"Anyways! Off you go to pick your own personal bodyguards today. Tomorrow at dawn, I'll have the rest of your men ready and waiting to be led." George finally clasped his hands signalling the summons was over before getting up once more from his throne with Yonemi still in his arms. "While you do that, I still have a couple of things I need to discuss with Lady Yonemi and so if you'd excuse us, we'll be busy having the 'discussion' in my room, hahahaha!"

And with that, George had left the hall as he headed towards his personal bedchambers while Gregory couldn't help but sigh as he felt all the energy he had within him evaporate. His brother was trying to do too much with too little. As he sighed to himself with these thoughts in his mind, he finally heard a voice coming from the cage.

"You're too kind for this wretched place, Gregory…" The old ragged priest finally spoke when the bandit king had completely removed himself from the hall. "You're better suited living the honest life of a soldier than this farce."

Gregory merely shook his head as he gave the old caged priest a difficult smile. "I've left that life long ago and am too far gone…" Gregory couldn't help but reply before he looked at the priest's sorry state "...I'll see if I can't convince my brother to afford you a better living station and fresh clothes. If you would excuse me, reverend."

Gregory had slightly bowed before he turned towards the doors to muster up some of his trusted men. Just before he exited the halls as the guards had opened the doors, Father Hazelby had called out once more. "No one is ever too far gone, son…" the old priest said. Gregory merely glanced back and smiled before exiting the halls.

It would certainly be nice if that were true.