Saga of Ebonheim [Progression, GameLit, Technofantasy]

The merchant quarter occupied Corinth's eastern sector, near enough to the gates for easy loading but far enough from the central square to avoid disrupting civic functions.

Ryelle helped unload Roderick's trade goods into rented storage space while the merchant negotiated terms with the warehouse keeper, a middle-aged woman whose smile never wavered even when Roderick tried haggling.

"Thirty silver for the week, including meals." The proprietor, a round-faced woman whose apron bore no stains, quoted the price without haggling. "Payment in advance, if you please."

Roderick's eyebrows climbed. "That seems quite reasonable. Almost suspiciously so. Perhaps we could negotiate a longer-term rate? Say, two weeks for fifty silver?"

"Thirty silver per week is the standard rate for merchants. Two weeks would be sixty silver." She smiled, patient as stone. "We don't offer discounts for extended stays. The rate is fair and consistent for all visitors."

"Yes, but surely there's room for discussion? I'm prepared to pay in advance, guaranteed occupation, minimal fuss..."

"The rate is thirty silver per week."

Roderick tried three more approaches, each met with the same pleasant refusal. Finally he paid, counting out coins with the bewildered expression of a merchant who'd just lost an argument he didn't know he was having.

"She didn't even pretend to consider it," he muttered once the woman had left them with their room keys. "No counter-offer, no bargaining dance, just... flat refusal delivered with a smile."

"Maybe she's just bad at business," Ryelle suggested, though she didn't believe it.

"Bad at—" Roderick sputtered. "My dear girl, haggling is to commerce what breathing is to living. You don't just refuse negotiation. You at least make the customer feel like they've won something, even if the final price was what you wanted all along."

Th'maine shuffled past them toward his assigned room, muttering. "No flexibility, no variance, no life in the exchange. Like talking to a well-trained parrot. Pretty words, no meaning behind 'em. Bah."

They established their base in a modest inn called the Copper Kettle, taking three rooms on the second floor. The innkeeper, a portly man named Thomas, proved as unsettlingly pleasant as the warehouse keeper.

Yes, they had rooms available. Yes, the rate was fifteen silver per room per night. Yes, that included meals. No, there were no other options. Everything delivered in the same measured, cheerful tone.

"We'll split up tomorrow," Ryelle said once they'd secured their lodgings. "Cover more ground, see different aspects of the settlement."

"Agreed." Evelyne was already unpacking her equipment, transforming the room into something between a surveyor's office and an arcane laboratory. "I'll need to take readings from multiple locations to triangulate the artifact positions. Th'maine's estimations are useful, but I prefer empirical data."

The old arcanist snorted from where he'd claimed the room's single chair. "Empirical. Fancy word for 'I don't trust magical sight.'"

"I trust magical sight when it comes with measurements and reproducible results."

"Bah. In my day we trusted our senses and didn't need brass contraptions to tell us what we already knew."

"In your day, you probably used bone divination and sacrificed chickens."

"Nothing wrong with a good chicken sacrifice. Worked for centuries before ye modern sorts decided everything needed gears and crystals. Though I'll admit, yer toys sometimes see what flesh can't. Different tools for different tasks, aye?"

Simon had positioned himself by the window, mask angled to watch the street below. He hadn't removed his cloak or set down his sword. Ryelle suspected he wouldn't, not until they left Corinth entirely.

"Get some rest," she told the group. "Tomorrow we start looking closer."

Sleep came in fits and starts, broken by sounds that weren't quite wrong but weren't quite right either. Footsteps in the hallway moved in patterns too regular. Voices from the common room below blended together into a murmur without individual texture. Even the night insects seemed to chirp in unison.

Ryelle gave up on sleep around midnight and sat by the window, watching Corinth's darkened streets. Lanterns burned at intersections, spilling pools of amber light across cobblestones. Guards walked their rounds with steady precision, boots striking stone in metronomic rhythm. Somewhere distant, a dog barked twice and fell silent.

No drunks stumbling home. No lovers sneaking through alleys. No sounds of arguments or celebration or grief. Just the settlement breathing in its sleep, eight thousand people dreaming the same dreams.

The predator in her chest prowled restless, sensing wrongness it couldn't identify.

They split up the next day.

Roderick and Simon headed toward the market square to establish their merchant cover and make actual trades—the best lies were built on truth, after all. Evelyne claimed she needed to calibrate her equipment and disappeared into her room with armfuls of magitech instruments. Th'maine wandered off without explanation, his frayed robes and distant eyes marking him as exactly the sort of eccentric traveler who'd get lost examining architectural details.

That left Ryelle to play the role she knew best: the curious bodyguard with time to kill and eyes to see.

She walked Corinth's streets with no particular destination, just observation. The settlement's layout made sense from a defensive standpoint—concentric rings that could be defended in depth, with the central square offering a final strongpoint. Streets radiated outward like wheel spokes, allowing rapid troop movement while making it difficult for attackers to flank positions.

Strategic planning. Military thinking. The mark of someone who'd built this place expecting conflict.

But the people moving through those streets showed no signs of martial readiness. They went about their business with calm efficiency, carrying baskets or pushing carts, stopping to exchange greetings with neighbors.

Normal town life. Peaceful. Productive.

Ryelle watched a baker arrange loaves in his shop window. Each loaf identical in size, color, shape. She'd seen enough of Hilda's baking to know that bread didn't work that way—ovens had hot spots, dough rose unpredictably, each batch carried its own character. But these loaves might as well have been carved from the same mold.

Further down the street, three women swept their doorsteps. Same motions. Same timing. Same slight pause to exchange waves before returning to their work.

Not synchronized like dancers, but like three people following the same instructions they'd memorized perfectly.

A street musician played a lute near a fountain, his fingers dancing across strings with genuine skill. The melody was pretty, technically flawless. But it never varied.

He played the same song six times while Ryelle watched, identical down to each trill and flourish. When she dropped a copper into his hat, he smiled and thanked her with words that sounded practiced enough to be prayer.

The wrongness accumulated like dust in corners. Small things. Individually meaningless. Together they painted a picture of a settlement that had forgotten how to be imperfect.

She found Roderick in the market square two hours later, surrounded by local merchants examining his wares. The merchant's usual bombast had diminished to quiet bewilderment.

"...finest Hrafnsteinn wool, you see. Dense weave, holds dye beautifully. I was thinking eight silver per bolt, but for a bulk purchase—"

"Eight silver is acceptable," one of the local merchants interrupted. "I'll take six bolts."

Roderick blinked. "You don't want to examine the quality first? Check for flaws?"

"The description was adequate. Eight silver per bolt, six bolts, forty-eight silver total." The merchant counted out coins with mechanical accuracy. "Thank you for your business."

Another merchant approached, looked at the remaining wool bolts for perhaps five seconds, and made an offer that matched Roderick's asking price exactly. No haggling. No questioning. Just acceptance.

By the time the sun had tracked past noon, Roderick had sold three-quarters of his inventory at asking price, concluded trades that would normally take days in mere hours, and looked like a man who'd just discovered his favorite sport had been outlawed.

"It's not natural," he told Ryelle over a late lunch at a public house near the market. Simon sat silent beside them, his masked face revealing nothing. "Commerce is supposed to be a dance. Thrust and parry, offer and counter-offer. You build relationships through negotiation, establish trust through finding common ground. But these people..." He gestured helplessly. "They just agree. Like I'm reading prices from a divine mandate they're required to accept."

"Maybe Xellos has established standard pricing?"

"Then they should complain about it! Grumble about divine interference in free markets, try to sneak around the rules, something. But they just smile and pay and say 'thank you for your business' like they're following a script."

Ryelle pushed food around her plate. The meal was well-prepared, properly seasoned, completely forgettable. Like everything else in Corinth, it achieved adequacy without approaching excellence. "Did you talk to any of them? Beyond business?"

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"Tried. Asked about their families, their histories, how they came to Corinth. Got pleasant answers that said nothing. 'My family is well, thank you for asking.' 'We arrived six years ago seeking opportunities.' 'Corinth has been good to us.' All delivered with those same empty smiles."

Simon leaned forward slightly. "The servers here. Watch them."

Ryelle followed his masked gaze.

Three servers moved through the crowded public house, delivering food and collecting empty plates. Their routes never intersected. Their motions never overlapped. Even in a packed room, they never stepped around patrons or wove through tight spaces.

"I need air," Roderick muttered, pushing back from the table. "This place makes my skin crawl and I can't even explain why."

They left coins on the table and returned to the street.

The afternoon sun painted Corinth in warm light that should have been welcoming. Instead, it felt like illumination exposing something that preferred shadows.

Ryelle left Roderick to his misery and wandered toward the settlement's edges, where buildings gave way to farmland.

She needed space. Needed to see something that wasn't quite so perfect and managed. The fields beyond Corinth's walls stretched toward the forest, and surely farms would show the chaos of actual agriculture rather than this sterile order.

Ryelle found the farms at Corinth's eastern edge, where cultivation met forest and the settlement's influence started to thin. The fields stretched in neat rows, crops growing with suspiciously uniform vigor. A figure worked alone in one field, movements sharp and angry as he hacked at weeds with more force than necessary.

She watched him for several minutes. Unlike every other person she'd seen in Corinth, this man moved with genuine emotion. Frustration lived in the set of his shoulders. Exhaustion showed in how he leaned on his hoe between strikes.

She approached slowly, calling out when still twenty paces away. "Morning."

He spun, face going pale under sun-darkened skin. Blonde hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, and green eyes tracked her with animal wariness. Tall and muscular, probably mid-thirties, wearing a farmer's simple clothes that had seen hard use.

"Who are you?" His hand tightened on the hoe handle, knuckles white.

"Merchant from Ebonheim. Just arrived yesterday, exploring the settlement." Ryelle kept her hands visible, stance relaxed. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"Merchants don't usually wander out to the fields." Suspicion edged his voice, but underneath ran something else. Hope? Desperation?

"I like seeing how settlements work. The farms, the people, the actual life behind the market squares."

He studied her face, searching for something. Whatever he found made him relax slightly, though the hoe stayed ready. "You're not from here."

"Just said that."

"No, I mean—" He glanced toward the settlement, making sure they were alone. "You're not from here. Your eyes don't have that look. Like you're actually seeing me instead of looking through me at something else."

Ryelle's pulse quickened. "What look?"

"The look everyone in Corinth gets after they've been here long enough. Like they're awake but dreaming, going through the motions of life without actually living it." His voice dropped lower. "How long have you been here?"

"Since yesterday."

"Leave." The word came out harsh, urgent. "Today if you can. Tomorrow at latest. Don't stay. Don't let this place sink its teeth in."

"What happens if I stay?"

He laughed, bitter as winter wind. "You stop being yourself. Slowly, so slowly you don't notice. First it's just accepting things that feel wrong. Then it's thinking thoughts that aren't quite yours. Then one day you wake up and realize you haven't had an original idea in months, and that doesn't bother you because everything's so peaceful and orderly and right." His hands shook on the hoe handle. "Get out while you still can."

"What's your name?"

"Rhys." He glanced toward the settlement again, fear sharp in his eyes. "I shouldn't be talking to you. They notice when people act differently. When people resist."

"They?"

"The ones who make sure everyone stays happy and productive and obedient." Rhys spat to the side. "Guards, council members, some of the merchants. Can't always tell who's fully converted and who's just pretending. Learned to keep my head down, do my work, play along."

"Why stay if it's that bad? Family?"

"Wife. Two children. They love it here. Love Xellos, love the order, love the perfect peace." He drove the hoe deep enough to strike rock. "They're happy. That should be enough, right? What kind of man wants his family to be less happy?"

The question hung between them, heavy with implications Ryelle couldn't quite grasp.

"How long have they been happy?"

"Six years. Give or take. Started slow, little changes. Miriam stopped complaining about the neighbors. Thom stopped arguing about chores. Aleya stopped asking questions about why things work the way they do. They just... accepted. Everything. All of it."

He straightened, wiping sweat from his forehead. "And I'm the problem, you see. The bitter old bastard who can't just appreciate what we've got. Good land, good harvest, safe walls, divine protection. What more could anyone want?"

"Freedom to be unhappy?"

The bark of laughter that escaped him sounded like breaking glass. "Gods. When did that become a luxury?" He glanced toward Corinth again, longer this time. "You should go. Being seen with me too long might... people notice things here. Patterns. Deviations."

"You could leave."

"Could I?" His smile held no humor. "Leave my family? Watch them smile that empty smile while I explain why their perfect happiness isn't good enough for me? No." He returned to his work, putting his back to her. "Go on now. Enjoy Corinth. Most visitors do. It's a lovely place, long as you don't look too close."

Ryelle walked back toward the settlement, her divine senses questing outward, trying to understand what Rhys had described. The wrongness she'd felt since entering Corinth took clearer shape now—not the presence of evil, but the absence of something essential. Like a painting done in perfect technique but lacking the artist's soul.

She found Evelyne in their boarding house's courtyard, surrounded by equipment that hummed and clicked with barely contained energy. The artificer's lavender eyes held the distant focus of someone reading data invisible to normal sight.

"Finding anything?"

"Everything." Evelyne didn't look up from her instruments. "Seven distinct sources, just as Th'maine predicted. Each one broadcasting on overlapping frequencies, creating a web of influence that covers the entire settlement." She adjusted a crystal array, and phantom light rippled across its surface. "But it's not direct control. More like... constant suggestion. Background radiation that shapes thought patterns over time."

"Can you map the sources?"

"Already done." Evelyne produced a sketch of Corinth's layout, marking seven locations with red ink. "Council hall has one. Main temple dedicated to Xellos holds another. Three are in public buildings—the market exchange, the public house, the civic bath. The last two are in private residences that I suspect serve as secondary command posts."

Ryelle studied the map. The pattern made sense from a military standpoint—overlapping fields of influence that left no gaps, redundant systems that could compensate for individual failures. "How many demons?"

"Unknown. Their signatures blend with human patterns, making them almost impossible to distinguish without direct observation." Evelyne began packing her equipment. "But I've detected at least a dozen separate demonic presences moving through the settlement. Could be more. Could be many more."

A bell rang from the direction of the central square, clear tones carrying across the settlement. Ryelle felt more than heard it—a vibration that resonated through the ground, through the air, through something deeper than either.

People began moving toward the square. Not running, not hurried, just a general drift of population responding to an unspoken summons. The boarding house's proprietor emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her spotless apron.

"Evening observances," she said, smiling. "You're welcome to attend, of course. Visitors often find them quite moving."

Th'maine appeared from somewhere, his pale eyes bright with knowledge and warning. "Aye, let's attend. See how the shepherd tends his flock, as it were."

They followed the flow of people toward the square. Hundreds gathered as the sun touched the western mountains, painting the sky in shades of copper and gold.

Not thousands. Not everyone attended, Ryelle noticed. But enough to fill the square with bodies standing in loose formation around the central fountain.

A priest stood on the fountain's edge, an older man whose voice carried across the gathered crowd. "We gather in gratitude to give thanks for another day of prosperity and peace. We acknowledge Xellos, who guides us toward harmony. We remember his wisdom, his strength, his unwavering devotion to our well-being."

"Xellos preserve us," the crowd responded. Not shouted, not chanted—spoken, like people reciting something memorized but not necessarily believed.

"He shields us from chaos. He provides order. He ensures peace."

"Xellos preserve us."

"We walk his paths. We follow his wisdom. We trust his guidance."

"Xellos preserve us."

Nothing overtly wrong about the words. Nothing obviously sinister. Just a settlement thanking their god for protection and prosperity—something Ebonheim's people did regularly, in their own chaotic fashion.

But where Ebonheim's people offered varied prayers, personal thoughts, individual expressions of gratitude, Corinth's citizens spoke the same words. Not quite simultaneously, but in a wave of sound where individual voices disappeared into collective response.

The priest continued, leading them through acknowledgments and affirmations. Each phrase was reasonable, each sentiment appropriate. Gratitude for harvest. Appreciation for safety. Recognition of divine guidance.

The crowd followed, speaking words that sounded memorized not through repetition but through deeper saturation. Like the phrases had been written directly into their thoughts and they were simply reading what they found there.

"See how they smile?" Th'maine whispered beside her. "Not joy, that. Recognition. Like students reciting lessons they've learned well enough to please the teacher."

Ryelle watched faces in the crowd. Saw mothers standing with children, husbands beside wives, neighbors shoulder to shoulder. They looked content. At peace. Happy, even.

But happiness wasn't the same as joy. Peace wasn't the same as freedom. And contentment without choice was just another word for comfortable slavery.

The observance concluded as the sun touched the horizon. The crowd dispersed in good order, no pushing or shoving, everyone moving efficiently back to their homes and evening meals. The priest blessed them as they went, his smile as empty as the words he'd spoken.

They walked back to the boarding house in silence.

What was there to say? They'd confirmed what Ryelle had reported, seen what Ebonheim needed to know. Corinth was a beautiful lie, prosperity built on stolen autonomy, peace achieved through the systematic theft of individual will.

"That," Roderick said, materializing with Simon at his shadow, "was deeply unsettling."

Th'maine had gone silent again, his pale eyes tracking things invisible to others. When he finally spoke, his voice was grim and distant.

"They're not puppets," he said. "Puppets would be easier to spot, easier to free. These are believers who've forgotten how to doubt. Faithful who've lost the ability to question. They think their devotion is real because the artifacts have convinced them it is."

"Can they be freed?" Ryelle asked.

"Break the artifacts and we'll learn." The old arcanist shuffled toward their inn, bent under weight visible and invisible. "Though I wonder sometimes if freedom given is freedom at all, or just a different kind of cage."

"Tomorrow we find the artifacts themselves," Evelyne said quietly. "Map them exactly, understand how they function. Then we can plan how to destroy them."

They returned to the Copper Kettle as dusk settled over Corinth. The common room hummed with evening activity—travelers eating dinner, locals sharing drinks, the innkeeper moving between tables with practiced efficiency.

Everyone smiled. Everyone laughed at appropriate moments. Everyone played their parts in Corinth's performance of normalcy.

Ryelle climbed to her room and stood by the window, watching the settlement transition from day to night. Lanterns sparked to life at intersections. Guards began their evening patrols. Families gathered for meals behind lit windows, silhouettes moving with coordinated grace.

Beautiful. Prosperous. Wrong.