Somewhere Someplace

“Alrightly, seems fine to me, we will defer to our trust in the Company, then, that you are not smuggling; you may pass through the Vice Petty Kingdom of Tinfield. Fortune’s luck to your resupply, and stay safe when reaching Huckleberry…”

This exchange concluded, the convoy speedily began to make way once again.

Novea, maskless, sighed a gentle breath of relief, having overheard; “Finally…” she blurtfully said, before her nose began to sniff and sniff, “Smell that?”

Antica promptly shook “No. I do not.” Indeed, smell was not exactly…an affair her Remnant face-covering permitted in detail.

“…” Novea stared, though quickly continued on as if Antica was cooperating; “That’s the smell of endless tin mining! We are finally in Tinfield!” she announced with apparent enthusiasm.

“I see…” Antica replied rather flatly.

“…and it only took…one more day or half than it ought to have” Novea quickly…added, not as…enthusiastically.

Indeed, it had been a couple or so days since they had left Coastfield; a day-and-a-half since that first night in the greater lands beyond. As expected, it was an unremarkable and uneventful journey so far. This day was the same as the day before, and likely the next day was going to be the same as this day.

A change in environment and scenery would be the only significant deviations, though such was something neither of them could really see and observe.

Regardless, at last they had reached the Vice Petty Kingdom of Tinfield, a rather small realm located much farther inland and away from the coast. Tinfield marked the proper transition from the high northwestern realms to the middle northwestern realms, which were all landlocked—obviously. This region was occupied by larger sovereignties with greater authority over their vassals… nominally, at least.

“Hmm…” Antica, musing, began to murmur aloud; “… ‘Tinfield’, the name is?”—her attention shifted to Novea—“…tell me about this ‘Tinfield’ place we are in” she requested. She could not see Tinfield in detail, though she could at least hear about it from her…presently most doable source of such information.

Novea sprung with more energy, “Oh, rightly! Certainly… Uhm…what do you want to know?”

“General details. It does not matter. Just speak.” Antica replied frankly. She just wanted to pass time…and her boredom.

“Alrightly… so, you just want me to talk…? Huh…” Novea was uncertain as to how she should feel in this specific moment…about the implications of Antica…actually wanting to hear her speak. She tended to presume she was more of a nuisance in this regard, to be frank.

Blushing, she quickly ahemed and began to speak.

“Well…the Vice Petty Kingdom of Tinfield, as the name suggests… it is a…vice petty kingdom—a petty kingdom that was once within…another petty kingdom, hence ‘vice’. Though, they’ve been sovereign for centuries, the entire area around used to be unified under one fat kingdom ages ago…that, well, it dissolved, so…

Anyway, Tinfield, despite its title, is about the size of a small dutchy…or large county, but it’s the dominant producer of tin—most of the tin in these lands can be found here… If you were to peep out, all you would see are rock-grassy hills and tin mines everywhere, though most of them are probably…old and or abandoned… Tinfield hasn’t been doing that well…since the collapse of bronze—not as much use for the tin anymore” thus Novea explained.

Indeed, this small realm had approximately 89.7% of the whole continent’s tin supply; its entire establishment was centered around the mining and processing of tin. Instead of peasant villages of tenant farmers dotting the realm, it was dotted by villages of tenant miners; the feudality, likewise, was dominated by petty competitive mining lords. Once a fairly prosperous realm, it was now among the more struggling bunch—not the safest to travel through, either, but…more than enough for a half-platoon of Company soldiers.

Antica tilted her head ever-slightly. Hmm…she had heard of ‘bronze’ and ‘copper’ once being commodities of exchange such as silver, gold, and platinum. She knew by now, obviously, that such had been rendered ‘effectively valueless’; in fact, when she had been working as a tavern maid all those so many months ago, none of her peers had kept bronze and copper on them…tossing such as if junk—always complaining about being tipped in such too.

But she…never really understood the why.

“…the ‘collapse of bronze’? Can you explain? Why is bronze no longer with value?” Antica inquired.

Novea…tilted her head slightly in kind; once again, Antica had asked a question with such an… “…obvious answer—ahem—rightly, Nilia… Still have to—ahem” her thoughts bled out into tongue. Indeed, she was still getting used to Antica’s knowledge base being…sometimes child-like despite everything Antica seemed to be and clearly knew already.

She ahemed again, “Well…that is a very…very complicated thing to ask, uhm…and it is a long story, also…”

“Yet all of the time is to us” Antica simply remarked.

“…but my throat” Novea countered.

“A necessary sacrifice. Though, you can simply try to summarize” Antica replied bluntly.

Novea sighed; “Alrightly then… to summarize—ahem: it all started well more than one-and-a-half centuries ago when the Rejinards, facing some kind of economic trouble, started to really—and I mean really—overextract gold from the New World to the point where they had to get rid of it… So, they began to export gold to…basically anyone and everyone, and basically burned the value of gold in the entire Far West to the ground, causing platinum to take the place of gold, shifting the Far West’s silver-gold duo with a silver-platinum duo…

So… with platinum being the new gold the Far West traded with, this…value-change ended up spreading wherever they traded…including our lands, which…already was going through a silver-rush at the time… And it was discovered that our lands also has a lot of platinum and gold on top of silver—and I mean a lot…”

“…duhuh” Antica mumbled. Already, this was…going straight over her head.

Novea continued, “So many things led to many other things, and our lands began to mine more ‘nd more platinum and gold on top of the silver-rush, and unlike the Far West, all the coins of our lands have a fixed inter-exchangeable value mandated by the God of Commerce and Coin himself… And soo, this gigantic influx dragged them all.

The sheer circulation of the others made copper and bronze more useless…until being made completely worthless about…two decades ago when…a lot of the merchants’ guilds of these lands began to…stop accepting them in bartering, making silver the lowest… And even now, most realms are still adjusting to…the change, hence why silver is kind of…turbulent” thus she rapidly ‘summarized’, taking a deep conclusive breath.

Antica…nodded her head away, “I see…” Her mind was still processing all of that, having been spoken rather quickly.

Even after all this time…that she has been stranded in this place, such still remained as abstractions beyond her comprehension. She still did not quite understand how too much of something could make its ‘value’ lower when that very thing was only ‘valuable’ because all of the denizens agreed that it was valuable and had prescribed that very value… So why could they not just keep agreeing that it was valuable?

Truly, denizens and their abstractions made everything so needlessly complicated; though, she was not exactly in the position to scorn in full, for the Remnant too was not without its own unique quirks and…abstractions, she…perhaps…admittedly recognized.

“Well…that is enough, I give thanks… I will understand this…eventually” thus Antica finally said before withdrawing her attention away. She simply opted to retreat into her mind, detaching from the world around, letting time pass her by faster and faster…as nothing continued to happen.

-||-

“So…wait, Tinfield is where most of your tin comes from…but Bronzegate is not where most of your bronze comes from? They just happen to make a lot of bronze?” so inquired a Company soldier.

“Kind of…? They don’t just make the metal anymore, they trade finished stuff too—like bronze weapons, armor, structural parts, fancy statues, and so on… They have a long history of bronze smithing, craftsmanship, and artisanship… so their bronze and bronze-stuff are still the best” Novea answered.

“Ah, interesting… All that is needed now is a ‘Copperfield’ to complete this set, ha!” a Company soldier remarked, humored.

“Well…there is…a Copperfield…actually, but it swears fealty to Bronzegate… and… doesn’t have a lot of copper these days…” Novea…stated.

A few soldiers blurted out laughing; “[Haha! Copperfield not having copper, much like Treegate not having a single tree! This continent and its names!]” Humored, they were indeed, by the contradictions in some of these names.

“[And this assassin is more of a traveler’s guide! Haha!]”

“[Least she has a fetching voice; I wouldn’t mind listening to her after spending so many months around all of you lot and your dangling sausages!]”

“…I can understand your tongue, [donkey-buggerers]” Novea…stated rather bluntly.

The soldiers, hearing, all froze…before blurting out into even more laughter; “[You hear that! Haha! ‘Donkey-buggerers’! She knows our tongue’s details well! Haha!]”

Antica sighed…standing static besides the supply wagon. She was now outside; her eyes were closed shut, unable to see anything around. What her sight was missing, her hearing could pick up in ever-greater detail from the bouncing sounds around; though, such was no replacement to vision, for it lacked…color…and the same experiential depth.

It was dark. They had stopped yet again…for yet another camp, for yet another night. Truly, denizens and their needs…would that they could continue moving all day and all night. The amount of hours wasted, indeed. Though…it was not just the denizens, the horses had needs too… Right, animals, not automatons.

Much like before, the wagons had formed a triangular formation around the central camp. The Company’s soldiers were all out and about, enjoying this moment of pause, relishing in…whatever it was they were consuming. A fire. She could hear a fire’s cracking embers—multiple, in fact, not just one. That was where they were concentrating themselves.

Unlike before, however, there were now sentries stationed and on patrol—five or so…scattered about, tasked with being the nightwatch. Indeed, those forest lions—still convinced that such had been ‘banshees’—had made them more…cautious. Thus, on a rotating basis, five were to remain awake and watch throughout the night.

Though, banshees and night monstrosities were not the only concern. They were now in a realm called ‘Bronzegate’—a larger sovereign realm which bordered Tinfield and was…one of its primary trading partners, because of course. However, much like Tinfield, Bronzegate had seen better days and tended to have a few risks with traveling through. Thus, they did not want any so-called ‘rapscallions’ to attempt anything…stupid while they all slept.

Much of these details Antica had picked up by…listening to their conversations with Novea—ever the information provider, indeed. Antica herself had yet to really interact with these others. It was best, Antica garnered, to allow Novea to…build this ‘repour’; she was better at it.

Quite frankly, Antica was pleased enough to just be standing again. Truly, her back…felt so much more liberated. Her backpack combined with her Remnant portable storage unit did not make for a comfortable sitting, never mind all of her other equipt…stuff.

Footsteps, she began to hear, withdrawing from the rest… stepping closer and closer to her, casually and cordially.

“Hey… uhm… how are you doing?” Novea greeted and inquired upon arrival, standing next to Antica with her corvid on shoulder.

“I greet you, and I am not different from before” Antica frankly replied, voice flat affect.

“…yeah, sorry, just thought you must be…very bored” Novea replied; “Traveling’s more boring these days, as the Guild would say… but it’s more peaceful, at least… Used to be so much more…dangerous and risky to travel without an adventurer or any escort, with monsters being everywhere, but…they aren’t the same problem they used to be” she remarked, reminiscing in mind.

“Why so?” Antica inquired, now making small-talk.

“…well…lots of reasons, I don’t know all of them. Dungeons are not appearing as often, and that is where monsters tend to appear from… but even the monsters that aren’t spawned by dungeons…aren’t appearing as much either; we hunt them, we control them, but they don’t come back and they used to always came back…someway or another” Novea explained.

“I see… That should be good, then, no?” Antica replied.

“…for everyone else, yep, but not for the Guild… We exist so as long as these problems exist… We hunted monsters, set and accepted bounties and quests, and cleared dungeons as usual…but they were not coming back… And the Guild did not really realize what was happening…until too late” Novea answered, rather honestly.

“You butcher too much before they can birth more and recover, this is what happens.” Antica bluntly replied.

“…just to clarify, monsters are not just animals—we know the difference. This is something Far Westerners and other aliens don’t always understand: monsters do not just have babies, they are twisted magical creatures that are…spawned… Products of the wickedness that continues to bleed forth from the corrupted Crown… as the legend goes” Novea clarified.

Antica sighed somewhat… As if she knew what such was supposed to mean. “That does not matter, the same logic stands” she frankly stated.

Novea…went quiet, musing in mind. “Hmm… I guess so…” she began to reply, “there was a major surge in…monster-related quests…at the turn of this century, and especially after the Last Demon War… and not just monsters, but…benign magical creatures too—there was a giant demand for…weird stuff in the Far West and Far East, so…”—she paused briefly—“so… yeah, pegasi…dragons…all gone, now monsters are fading… Even if the top-eggs…hate to admit it, we probably did overdo it, and now are paying the cost…at everyone else’s benefit, so…it’s hard to truly complain…”

“I see” Antica simply replied.

“But, you know, monsters aren’t the only…problems the Guild handles—goblins, orcs, ogres, all those other related nuisances, as well as demon remnants and…also…demi-folk bands, them too” Novea stated, the tone of her voice…abruptly shifting near the end.

Antica noticed the shift. “ ‘Demi-folk’?” She tilted her head, “I have…heard of these before, but I do not know… What are these ‘demi-people’ whoevers supposed to be?”

Novea went silent; there was a certain…tension in her stature. “Wait…you really do not know?” she asked.

Antica simply nodded with a blunt “Yes.”

“Well, honestly… I’d rather not to talk about them… I mean, if you thought mankind treated itself horribly enough… Yeah…let’s not, it is…yeah”—she sighed—“I will just say that…us Ravens have always had a…softness in our hearts for them…due to ancient ‘nd ancestral associations…and that is one of the reasons why, even now, people have…not-very-great feelings about us—just to give you an idea of how deeply seeded all of this is…” Novea…replied, atypically vague.

“…I see” Antica…replied; that was certainly a non-answering answer. Novea had been rather forthcoming about the general factoids of this continent so far; thus, it was a bit peculiar that she was being more…closed with this specific subject—or rather too uncomfortable to answer…in detail, very much so, judging from her voice.

“To be left here, then” Antica simply said. Oh well, she was merely just trying to waste time.

“You’ll find out yourself… It would be impossible not to…” Novea stated, her voice more…lowly; “Anyway, I have been explaining all day…like a walking-talking book… I am going to sleep” she said further, before stepping off and making way to enter the wagon.

“And as will I, then…” Antica replied, joining in kind.

-||-

It was the dead of night. Silent. Boring. Uneventful. The only happening and disturbance to unfold being the yawning of one nightwatching Company soldier…which chained to the rest in a kind of yawning choir.

This was the second rotation. The first now slept as these ones now patrolled.

Four out of the five men found themselves congregating in place at the camp’s edge, the other…patrolling about.

“[Son’s most holiest of dicks… the air here smells so…]”

“[Miney? Tin-esque? I haven’t the clue…]”

“[My back… What I would do for a warm bed and nice woman…]”

“[Heha, why don’t you try your odds with those assassins? They’re the only women we’ll be with for Heaven knows how long]”

“[I value my manhood—and my life—but my manhood more doubly, so no…]”

“[Well, if you had to take your pick, which one?]”

“[The one that speaks, of course… The silent one is… rather intimidating with all those hexagons, as if wearing a bee-hive—and I do not fancy being stung]”

“[A rather odd one that one is, must be one of those ‘adventurers’ I’ve heard about; always with the strangest of things, I’ve heard]”

“[Meh, once we reach the first city…you know where I’ll be going: a ‘Temple of Fertility’ as the natives call it, heha!]”

“[You know, we should buy a slave to keep around, to be honest… That would solve all of our problems and boost moral!]”

“[Oh, to avoid issues, it could be one of those… one of those… What’s the word? One of those…animal-eared folks?]”

“[Bah, you three would be force-fed your balls and hanged by your dicks if you were caught with a pleasure-slave of any kind and creed]”

“[Beha, why? The United Company sells those very slaves? Should not matter if we partake—]”

“[Fresh off the shores, you are? The Company’s higher officership are not the Company’s merchants and business-makers—that ensign of ours might not care, but his superior officer and his superior officer will]”

“[Oh, the great irony! Are you saying pompous abolitionists dominate the United Trade Company’s army? They never told me that!]”

“[No, worse: exiles of the Revolution—surely, you bunch are literate on recent history?]”

“[…exiled revolutionaries? Seriously?]”

“[…ah, so you were not jesting a yard: they would without a doubt hang us by our force-fed balls…]”

“[Well, off to the whore houses it would be for me, then]”

“[The way you spoke that, you imply you will make yourself the whore? Ha!]”

“[…]”

“[Wait… Did any of you hear that?]”

This bantering immediately ceased, as suddenly: a sound… a very strange sound… echoed from the distance afar. It was hard to see from where in this darkened night, the atmosphered moon obscured by thick passing clouds.

Such a…strange scrappy sound… digging as if clawing out from the ground. Clanking…squeaking…sharply metallic…

“[Yeah… sounds like a statue being bent and moved apart]”

“[Shh-shh! Listen…]”

Clanking, shrieking metallic sounds as if joints squealed as they bent and moved… approaching closer… maybe? It was hard to tell; their ears could be playing tricks.

“[Sounds rather far away, quite so]”

“[Yet if we can hear it…]”

The fifth nightwatching soldier quickly arrived to these four, confused; “[You bunch hearing that too?]”

“[Of course we are…]”

“[I am going to investigate]”

“[Not alone, you are not…]”

“[Let me guess, it is going to be a ‘tin lion’ or something… I’ll… We’ll follow]”

“[You, stay here… We will go investigate]”

“[At least wake the carbineers!]” the fifth implored in shouting whisper.

“[And waste their time if it’s nothing? Just stay here and be our witness!]” so instructed the other, as the four Company soldiers began to make way…towards the source of that…strange…sound echoing far-off and away, yet too close for comfort.

-|-

{AL-RT}

Abruptly, Antica’s communicator device buzzed with alerting sound and a blinking cyanic light. Her ignited eyes sprung wide open as she lunged herself up, alert and attentive by the sudden…notice.

Novea was still asleep, her corvid the only thing having been awakened… or wait, no…it was already awake, attentive too… staring in the direction of the covered wagon’s entry-split.

Without delay, Antica fixed her hood and stepped out into the nightly world beyond; she distanced herself as her finger pressed onto her communicator-scanner.

« Audjo: Quid evenitù? »

What happened?

Bee began to beep-boop rather quickly, bweeping away as if it had made an…error and was attempting to explain itself.

Antica looked at the sky up high, noticing rather the heavy and dense clouds… No wonder it was darker than usual…and…right, Bee’s usual altitude tended to be above the altitude of such clouds… Ah, she knew what happened.

« Cloud vișionem tuam obscuravat, éd éntelliģeo, but what did you notice? »

Bee bweeped in rather the attentive and serious beep-booping; her terminal device’s screen flashed on as a tiny cyanic dot-light began to blink…transmitted information being received, words and text generated.

Antica promptly inspected; if Bee was skipping straight to this, then it must be a potential…problem.

« Brown-highlight? Et… gray-blue? » she mumbled. Two rather specific highlights of two completely different sorts; one defined and one undefined as well.

She began to read what Bee had managed to infer from its limited assessment; her perpetually tired cyanic eyes were flat affect… yet became more concerned…the more she read.

« Ubí? Ubí est? »

Where was this?

Yet it was as if chance had schemed to create this moment, for as soon as she asked, the answer came with frantic gunshots which cracked and boomed in the air afar, followed by an echoing, yet rather distant, metallic shriek of annoyance.

« …merda. Bí, lower altitude and target monitor »

Bee beep-booped in acknowledgement. Antica’s finger pressed her communicator device again, its cyanic light dimming, her attention lancing towards the direction of that…shrieking sound and popping shots.

The squeaking clanks and metallic stomps only grew closer and closer…

“[RUN! RUN!]”

As did the echoing clamors of those…retreating from it.

« …ôch de corsad… Çertissimë, ģe duçhentes hûc sont élla » she muttered out; oh, of course, they were leading it right back here…towards everyone else.