NOVEL NEXT Chapter 36: Connections
It was three days later and Marcus still hadn’t awoken. According to Sieg, falling into a coma-like state after being extensively healed was common. Leif held his mostly regrown arm up to the sun, the warming rays had been far more comfortable ever since being trapped underground.
He lay in what had once been a wheat field under a blanket of animals. The spriggan had discovered a powerful new component to his [Gold Iron Physique] skill; multi-petting. Four ethereal hands of amber each attended to a different creature.
A shadow fell over Leif’s body. He squinted up at the deer shaped silhouette. The placid animal looked down at him with accusing eyes. ‘Without me?’ Her gaze seemed to say. ‘Do I mean so little to you?’
He reached up with his real arm and scritched the deer’s chin. The animal leaned happily into his touch. Sieg’s voice drifted over from somewhere inside the village. He seemed to be talking to someone. Is Marcus finally awake? Lief thought, carefully rolling to his feet.
“Shall we go take a look?” He asked the deer. It blinked at him. “Guess that's a yes.” Leif hopped over a partially collapsed stone wall and strode into town. The deer completely flubbed its jump and fell in a tangle of limbs. Leif shook his head, amused, and kept walking.
“-ead… Yeah that's what I said. Where are you?” Sieg said as he held the communication device. The man seemed less than pleased.
Leif looked around but didn’t spot Marcus. Had the expedition gotten within range? As he got closer the response from the device became more audible.
“-See the smoke from our position. Maybe a day out at most. You should come to us instead.” Said the voice.
“No Johan, we’re not coming to you. Marcus still hasn’t woken up so I have no idea how you think we could. Anyway, why are you so far from the city?”
“We pulled back when the light show started. And when we couldn’t contact you until we got closer, the safety of the main expedition members became the priority.” Johan said through the device.
Sieg grunted. “Where is Hera? Shouldn’t she be here by now?”
“Hera is-” The sound from the orb crackled. “Lady Hera is travelling with Adriana and Linus so she couldn’t go at her usual speed. According to her, the monster activity in the region is rapidly becoming abnormal.”
Leif finally got close enough to see the man's face. It was the same person who had demanded Marcus and Sieg kill him earlier. Not the most positive of first impressions. The man’s dark bald head glitched in the orb, then his eyes fell on Leif.
“I see you failed to follow my advice? No wonder you’re both roughed up. Trying to lead us into a trap, Siegfried?”
“You know damn well that isn’t the case. Leaf here is an asset and a witness to the events that happened below Pherin. So get your ass up here and do your duty as coordinator.”
“My duty? Listen to me you damn savage. I don’t know what it's like in whatever shithole you came from, but in civilised lands we don’t fornicate with monsters.” The man snapped. “Besides. If you don’t kill it, Hera will, and she’ll have far more questions for you than I will.”
“You fuc-”
Johan talked over Sieg. The device peaked in volume distorting his voice slightly. “Don’t care. I’m third in command of this expedition so I’m ordering you to meet us halfway. Grab the Mage and carry him, I don’t want to hear any excuses. And for your own sake Fried, ditch the plant.” The image within the device's orb vanished.
“Third in command my ass!” Sieg roared at the construct. He made the object vanish and turned to Leif. “He’s not in the command structure. Little bastard is letting being the coordinator go to his head.”
The conversation had made Leif more than a little uncomfortable. Out of nervous habit he checked his skill fusion progress.
Fusion of skills [Amber Awareness] and [Court Empath] 5/100%
Sieg spat to the side and leaned back against a nearby wall.
“We’re not leaving?” Leif asked.
“Nah, we’ll go in the morning. I’m not too worried about Marcus, he should be fine once he wakes up.” The man sighed. “I’m becoming more worried about you. If you wanted to leave us I wouldn’t blame you. People can get… unsettled by monsters that are not bound by a [Tamer] class.”
“Would I be in danger? If I went with you I mean.”
“Possibly. Johan doesn’t pose a threat, he’s basically a non combatant. But he likes to run his mouth, the power tripping asshole. Hera might be a different story. She’s… she can be quite aggressive. And she likes to do things personally.”
“If we run up on the expedition unannounced she could very well blast us into the afterlife out of reflex.”
That… that didn’t make him feel any better. “I see. Does she already know about me?”
“Not a clue, I doubt Johan mentioned anything. Or at least he hasn’t yet.” Sieg sighed. “If you do come along, how about we get you to wait a mile or two away and let us explain the situation first? Probably safer that way.”
Leif nodded and offered a hand to help the man up, he had slowly slid down the wall during their conversation. Sieg smiled and accepted the offer.
“It’s so strange how heavy you are. I’m a big guy, normally I at least make people struggle to grab me, maybe lose their footing.”
“There are some benefits to being a tree.” The spriggan shrugged.
The two made their way to the house Marcus was sleeping in. A hog came squealing past while being ridden by three forest mice. Sieg eyed the sight but didn’t comment.
“He, um. The man back there, you’re not from the same place as him?”
“No. And I’m better for it. Johan is from a southern imperial province, not sure which one. I’m from the land far north of the empire. Though I suppose most imperials would consider where we are right now ‘the north’.
“I see.” Leif said, though he really didn’t. He wondered if Sieg had a map?
“It’s not the north unless you piss mead and fistfight bears.” Sieg continued. “And the vistas… most beautiful place on earth let me tell you. Fjords filled with the purest of water, mountains wreathed in constantly swirling snow. Ice spirits come out to dance when music is played, and during the turbulence…” The man looked off into the middle distance. “The sky is set alight with rainbow lights, aurora’s as far as the eye can see.”
“Sounds breathtaking.” Leif replied honestly. The man grinned at his words. “So why did you leave? Come south to the empire?”
Sieg’s smile dropped. “The north is beautiful, but it's also dangerous. I inherited the title and class of [Sworn], it's a religious position within the tribes. My tribe… they believe that the system is a test, it pushes us down because it wants us to rise. A twisted kind of offshoot of what Lashivites believe down south in the empire proper.”
He continued. “For months at a time, sometimes years, the north is cut off from the rest of the world. Sometimes it's the weather and sometimes it's migrating monster hordes. The high sworn of my tribe decided that these periods of isolation were a divine test from the heavens. He wanted us to embrace these tests.”
“Did he get his way?” Leif asked as they approached the house.
“Yes, but also no. It took years for his constant suggestions to gain traction. And when they finally did, many of my people chose to leave. Families with young children or the extremely elderly, what the high sworn was suggesting would have been suicide for many. Eventually I opposed him, it wasn’t an easy thing to do and back then, I was quite young, but he would have led us to our deaths.”
“So you left?”
“Aye. He was too low level to pass on his class to anyone else. So it was just me and him. We were two months into our self imposed isolation when I confronted him. It was a shouting match in front of the entire tribe.”
Sieg shrugged. “In the end I just walked away. I grabbed my shit and left, I didn't look back. Kept going until I left the north entirely. From what I heard a few years later many of the tribe had followed after me only a few days later.”
“So you saved people? That's good.”
“I saved myself.” He said without humour. “I didn’t expect anyone to follow.”