I was getting a very bad feeling. It could have come from the fact that one of my closest links to this entire realm was panicking and freaking out in a cold sweat, or it could be because the word “Heroes” did not sound like some sort of light, easy to deal with group. No, in fact, it sounded like the exact type of thing that meant I should run for my life.
“Selve… who, or what, are the Heroes?”
Selve stared at me, still in cold terror but now with the added spice of absolute confusion.
“You... don’t know?” He asked it like I didn’t know the planet had a sky.
“No Selve, or I wouldn’t be asking. So, please, hurry up and tell me.”
Spit it out man! Do I need to run right now or what?! That sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach was getting worse by the second. I had vague ideas and notions of a plan, nothing concrete. I didn’t expect to have to start making solid decisions right the hell now. It wasn’t like I was experienced with camping or traveling or with this god damn planet, if it even was a planet. And I had spent the last few days recovering and relaxing and enjoying myself, not exactly preparing a bug out bag. Something that apparently was going to bite me in the ass.
Selve took a deep, steadying breath, shook himself, and launched into an explanation. Well, he tried before he came to a stuttering halt.
“The King, wait, do you not even know about the old heroes?”
This had gone past the point of allowed.
“Selve, I need information right the hell now if you’re this freaked out, not a history lesson. No, I don’t know about the old heroes, and don’t explain. Do I need to run away or not?”
His face seemed to war with itself before morphing into the resolution I was more experienced with.
“The Heroes are an incredibly strong group of adventurers sponsored by the King. They’ll kill you if they find you. You need to get out of the village right now.”
Good enough for me. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I sprinted away from Selve, shocking him as I slid past him, moving faster than I knew I could move. I hadn’t really tried running and my own speed surprised me to the point I nearly ran through a wall. My plan was simple: Don’t die. Grab some food, grab some water, and run directly away from the village.
“Wait!” I could hear Selve’s voice behind me in the distance but there was no time. That sinking feeling was getting worse and I needed to get to the kitchen already. I ran inside, only to blink at seeing Celena. She was wearing an apron and making something. My heart panged. I wasn’t planning on running running. Just go out camping in the woods for a few days… or weeks… until The Heroes left. Then I’d come back and go from there. Still, even if we hadn’t exactly had deep talks, Celena was someone who I’d fought with, bled with, and had sex with. Just leaving without a word left a pit in my stomach.
“Derek?”
“No time, have to flee, Heroes are here.”
I didn’t understand the strength of the Heroes but I sure fucking understood ‘Sponsored by the King’. At the minimum, a group sponsored by any leader of any country, would not be something confident I could deal with. I was also influenced by the horrible, terrible gut wrenching feeling that was growing worse and worse. I actually tripped and fell, face frozen in terror as I turned to look at a wall.
That feeling wasn’t some intuition. It was something I had felt before, but never like this. My ‘Power Gauge’ was going fucking wild. If the pressure I had previously felt had been close to non-existent or only slightly strong, this was like two magnitudes more. It felt like I was suddenly in the deep sea and the pressure was only mounting, trying to crush my bones. Every moment, every second, it was growing stronger and stronger.
The Heroes were coming this way.
My heart began beating, heavier and heavier, as I felt the pure weight of the existence coming near me. Jesus Christ, the difference between Selve and me was less than the distance between me and the force coming at me. It felt like I was being approached by a hurricane while stuck in tar.
I was not their opponent. It would be as easy for them as killing a chicken.
“Derek? Derek!” Celena was yelling and I tried to move, to get up and escape, but the pressure was overwhelming.
Selve came running through the hall, carrying my pants. I hadn’t even noticed that I was running around dick swinging in the air. I might have felt embarrassed if I wasn’t feeling cold sweat drip off my back. Maybe I could hide? The Heroes had only recently shown up. There was no way they could have learned that there was a demon in the house.
I slowly put on my pants and underwear as I thought more on that. And I grimaced.
If The Heroes weren’t absolutely stupid, they’d easily have noticed the mood of the villagers. I hadn’t seen any besides the ones that had been in the manor, but I didn’t need to. No one goes through such a tragedy and doesn’t look distraught. That mixed with the lack of men, the haggard state of the women, and the fact that there was no Baron here for them to meet, but instead a demon that had killed him, painted me in pretty much the worst light possible.
I looked at Selve. He could probably pretend to be the Baron and make up some bullshit while I escaped. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was I could move faster and was noticeably stronger than over a dozen armed men. If that was me, and the people approaching were at least ten or twenty times as powerful, what were my chances of getting away or staying hidden?
My mind spun, thinking quickly. Another disaster had just dropped on my head and I had to figure out a way to deal with it, or probably die. Options, I need to think through my options.
Escape. If the Heroes were only able to punch through steel and run as fast as the wind, there was a solid chance I could just go out the backdoor and be just fine. Except for one massive, glaring issue. I had taken a walk outside and Selve and the women had just dug a big pit to throw the bodies into. It wasn’t exactly hidden. Even if Selve spun a lie and bought me a full day, would this group leave well enough alone? And I was betting, hard, that none would be both suspicious and could track. I knew I was being pessimistic but the pressure of their existence was getting to me. It was so, heavy. It made me feel like every action or plan I could do was pointless and useless.
Hiding was a better option, overall. Put my tail away, wear a hood, and pretend to be any other human. Right, and that would go without any problems at all. A man wearing a hood indoors is totally normal after all and not one of the first things you’d look for if you suspected someone had horns. Maybe I could just squirrel myself away in one of the random rooms. There was a shit ton, there’s no reason they’d check all of them. And them finding me surely wouldn’t happen if they decided to stay for more than five minutes.
I shook my head, this wasn’t working or helping, I couldn’t think while my mind was freaking out. The pressure was like trying to think while having a hangover and the sword of damocles over me. I looked to my two companions, who had been trying to talk to me, only to see them both white as a ghost. I hadn’t been trying to ignore them, but I needed to deal with myself first.
“Derek! Listen to me! You need to run away!” Selve was almost shouting in my ear. He’d probably said the same thing a dozen times by now. He wasn’t wrong but an unnatural pessimism had grown solidly in me that said I would die if I did that.
I looked to Celena, who just looked stunned. Right, yeah, this was bad.
I took a deep breath and let it out.
“No.”
“What?”
“I don’t think I can run. I can feel them Selve. They’ll find me and slaughter me.”
“You can’t stay here! You’re going to die!” Selve was practically frothing at the mouth. He was a good man, a comrade. My mind had been ruined and I’d focused on pure hedonism to deal with it all, but I had never been blind to how great of a person the people around me were. Selve was my friend, and I his, and he wouldn’t let me just die.
Celena finally spoke up. “Selve’s right, the current Heroes are Grade C adventures, you’ll be massacred if you don’t get away.”
I shook my head at them both.
“Seriously, you’re not listening. I’m telling you, I think that way lies a death sentence. They’ll find me, kill me, and that’ll be the end of it. I’m getting the strong feeling that they aren’t just randomly here, on the outskirts of the kingdom, in this particular village, for no reason. I could be the reason they showed up, somehow. If that’s the case, running or hiding aren’t options. They’ll be looking for me.”
My two friends looked absolutely distraught at that.
“Then… what do we do?”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
******
“Stupid ruins”, Riary said before kicking a rock. She had been grumbling for a solid day and a half at this point.
Tyler just shook his head. He had told them they should just go to the village first to ask around, but instead they had headed straight to the ruins, searching for the gem. He’d tried telling Riary that it was just a rumor in an old book but she hadn’t listened for a single second, saying they shouldn’t ‘waste time’. He suspected she just didn’t want to have to deal with anyone.
“Perhaps the Baron will have answers.” Konahora said with a gentle smile on her face. Tyler and Riary’s faces screwed up at that. The village had not been normal, not one bit. He couldn’t figure it out but the people were… charged for lack of a better word. Suspicious of them as well.
“What was up with the village anyway?” He might as well ask his companions. They often were more right than he was.
Riary’s face was dark as she answered. “It’s like they thought we were going to kill them. But they also looked like they had suffered a drought for ten years only to receive rain yesterday. It’s weird.”
“Something must have happened recently. There were many lies in the few words I was able to share with them. There was also a lack of men. This close to the border, it might have been bandits.”
Tyler grimaced. That made too much sense. Happy to be alive, suspicious of outsiders, lack of men. They probably managed to win if that was the case, otherwise the village might not even be here anymore.
His suspicion of that only grew stronger as they approached the Baron’s manor. You’d have to be blind not to see the massive recently dug and filled in pit.
“A mass grave.” Konahora said with absolute certainty that made him shiver.
“What if the Baron’s dead?” Riary asked, annoyance clear in her voice.
“Unlikely. I saw a runner heading up this way the moment we showed our face in the village.” Konoahora said. Tyler nodded at her words.
As they walked up to the door to knock, a horrible thought suddenly occurred to him. That pit might not have been for the bandits, but for the men that had died. A manor would make a great place for a hideout and taking over a village might have been their goal.
He stroked his blade as he walked forward.
If there was an enemy within, he’d make sure they died today.
I was getting a very bad feeling. It could have come from the fact that one of my closest links to this entire realm was panicking and freaking out in a cold sweat, or it could be because the word “Heroes” did not sound like some sort of light, easy to deal with group. No, in fact, it sounded like the exact type of thing that meant I should run for my life.
“Selve… who, or what, are the Heroes?”
Selve stared at me, still in cold terror but now with the added spice of absolute confusion.
“You... don’t know?” He asked it like I didn’t know the planet had a sky.
“No Selve, or I wouldn’t be asking. So, please, hurry up and tell me.”
Spit it out man! Do I need to run right now or what?! That sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach was getting worse by the second. I had vague ideas and notions of a plan, nothing concrete. I didn’t expect to have to start making solid decisions right the hell now. It wasn’t like I was experienced with camping or traveling or with this god damn planet, if it even was a planet. And I had spent the last few days recovering and relaxing and enjoying myself, not exactly preparing a bug out bag. Something that apparently was going to bite me in the ass.
Selve took a deep, steadying breath, shook himself, and launched into an explanation. Well, he tried before he came to a stuttering halt.
“The King, wait, do you not even know about the old heroes?”
This had gone past the point of allowed.
“Selve, I need information right the hell now if you’re this freaked out, not a history lesson. No, I don’t know about the old heroes, and don’t explain. Do I need to run away or not?”
His face seemed to war with itself before morphing into the resolution I was more experienced with.
“The Heroes are an incredibly strong group of adventurers sponsored by the King. They’ll kill you if they find you. You need to get out of the village right now.”
Good enough for me. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I sprinted away from Selve, shocking him as I slid past him, moving faster than I knew I could move. I hadn’t really tried running and my own speed surprised me to the point I nearly ran through a wall. My plan was simple: Don’t die. Grab some food, grab some water, and run directly away from the village.
“Wait!” I could hear Selve’s voice behind me in the distance but there was no time. That sinking feeling was getting worse and I needed to get to the kitchen already. I ran inside, only to blink at seeing Celena. She was wearing an apron and making something. My heart panged. I wasn’t planning on running running. Just go out camping in the woods for a few days… or weeks… until The Heroes left. Then I’d come back and go from there. Still, even if we hadn’t exactly had deep talks, Celena was someone who I’d fought with, bled with, and had sex with. Just leaving without a word left a pit in my stomach.
“Derek?”
“No time, have to flee, Heroes are here.”
I didn’t understand the strength of the Heroes but I sure fucking understood ‘Sponsored by the King’. At the minimum, a group sponsored by any leader of any country, would not be something confident I could deal with. I was also influenced by the horrible, terrible gut wrenching feeling that was growing worse and worse. I actually tripped and fell, face frozen in terror as I turned to look at a wall.
That feeling wasn’t some intuition. It was something I had felt before, but never like this. My ‘Power Gauge’ was going fucking wild. If the pressure I had previously felt had been close to non-existent or only slightly strong, this was like two magnitudes more. It felt like I was suddenly in the deep sea and the pressure was only mounting, trying to crush my bones. Every moment, every second, it was growing stronger and stronger.
The Heroes were coming this way.
My heart began beating, heavier and heavier, as I felt the pure weight of the existence coming near me. Jesus Christ, the difference between Selve and me was less than the distance between me and the force coming at me. It felt like I was being approached by a hurricane while stuck in tar.
I was not their opponent. It would be as easy for them as killing a chicken.
“Derek? Derek!” Celena was yelling and I tried to move, to get up and escape, but the pressure was overwhelming.
Selve came running through the hall, carrying my pants. I hadn’t even noticed that I was running around dick swinging in the air. I might have felt embarrassed if I wasn’t feeling cold sweat drip off my back. Maybe I could hide? The Heroes had only recently shown up. There was no way they could have learned that there was a demon in the house.
I slowly put on my pants and underwear as I thought more on that. And I grimaced.
If The Heroes weren’t absolutely stupid, they’d easily have noticed the mood of the villagers. I hadn’t seen any besides the ones that had been in the manor, but I didn’t need to. No one goes through such a tragedy and doesn’t look distraught. That mixed with the lack of men, the haggard state of the women, and the fact that there was no Baron here for them to meet, but instead a demon that had killed him, painted me in pretty much the worst light possible.
I looked at Selve. He could probably pretend to be the Baron and make up some bullshit while I escaped. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was I could move faster and was noticeably stronger than over a dozen armed men. If that was me, and the people approaching were at least ten or twenty times as powerful, what were my chances of getting away or staying hidden?
My mind spun, thinking quickly. Another disaster had just dropped on my head and I had to figure out a way to deal with it, or probably die. Options, I need to think through my options.
Escape. If the Heroes were only able to punch through steel and run as fast as the wind, there was a solid chance I could just go out the backdoor and be just fine. Except for one massive, glaring issue. I had taken a walk outside and Selve and the women had just dug a big pit to throw the bodies into. It wasn’t exactly hidden. Even if Selve spun a lie and bought me a full day, would this group leave well enough alone? And I was betting, hard, that none would be both suspicious and could track. I knew I was being pessimistic but the pressure of their existence was getting to me. It was so, heavy. It made me feel like every action or plan I could do was pointless and useless.
Hiding was a better option, overall. Put my tail away, wear a hood, and pretend to be any other human. Right, and that would go without any problems at all. A man wearing a hood indoors is totally normal after all and not one of the first things you’d look for if you suspected someone had horns. Maybe I could just squirrel myself away in one of the random rooms. There was a shit ton, there’s no reason they’d check all of them. And them finding me surely wouldn’t happen if they decided to stay for more than five minutes.
I shook my head, this wasn’t working or helping, I couldn’t think while my mind was freaking out. The pressure was like trying to think while having a hangover and the sword of damocles over me. I looked to my two companions, who had been trying to talk to me, only to see them both white as a ghost. I hadn’t been trying to ignore them, but I needed to deal with myself first.
“Derek! Listen to me! You need to run away!” Selve was almost shouting in my ear. He’d probably said the same thing a dozen times by now. He wasn’t wrong but an unnatural pessimism had grown solidly in me that said I would die if I did that.
I looked to Celena, who just looked stunned. Right, yeah, this was bad.
I took a deep breath and let it out.
“No.”
“What?”
“I don’t think I can run. I can feel them Selve. They’ll find me and slaughter me.”
“You can’t stay here! You’re going to die!” Selve was practically frothing at the mouth. He was a good man, a comrade. My mind had been ruined and I’d focused on pure hedonism to deal with it all, but I had never been blind to how great of a person the people around me were. Selve was my friend, and I his, and he wouldn’t let me just die.
Celena finally spoke up. “Selve’s right, the current Heroes are Grade C adventures, you’ll be massacred if you don’t get away.”
I shook my head at them both.
“Seriously, you’re not listening. I’m telling you, I think that way lies a death sentence. They’ll find me, kill me, and that’ll be the end of it. I’m getting the strong feeling that they aren’t just randomly here, on the outskirts of the kingdom, in this particular village, for no reason. I could be the reason they showed up, somehow. If that’s the case, running or hiding aren’t options. They’ll be looking for me.”
My two friends looked absolutely distraught at that.
“Then… what do we do?”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
******
“Stupid ruins”, Riary said before kicking a rock. She had been grumbling for a solid day and a half at this point.
Tyler just shook his head. He had told them they should just go to the village first to ask around, but instead they had headed straight to the ruins, searching for the gem. He’d tried telling Riary that it was just a rumor in an old book but she hadn’t listened for a single second, saying they shouldn’t ‘waste time’. He suspected she just didn’t want to have to deal with anyone.
“Perhaps the Baron will have answers.” Konahora said with a gentle smile on her face. Tyler and Riary’s faces screwed up at that. The village had not been normal, not one bit. He couldn’t figure it out but the people were… charged for lack of a better word. Suspicious of them as well.
“What was up with the village anyway?” He might as well ask his companions. They often were more right than he was.
Riary’s face was dark as she answered. “It’s like they thought we were going to kill them. But they also looked like they had suffered a drought for ten years only to receive rain yesterday. It’s weird.”
“Something must have happened recently. There were many lies in the few words I was able to share with them. There was also a lack of men. This close to the border, it might have been bandits.”
Tyler grimaced. That made too much sense. Happy to be alive, suspicious of outsiders, lack of men. They probably managed to win if that was the case, otherwise the village might not even be here anymore.
His suspicion of that only grew stronger as they approached the Baron’s manor. You’d have to be blind not to see the massive recently dug and filled in pit.
“A mass grave.” Konahora said with absolute certainty that made him shiver.
“What if the Baron’s dead?” Riary asked, annoyance clear in her voice.
“Unlikely. I saw a runner heading up this way the moment we showed our face in the village.” Konoahora said. Tyler nodded at her words.
As they walked up to the door to knock, a horrible thought suddenly occurred to him. That pit might not have been for the bandits, but for the men that had died. A manor would make a great place for a hideout and taking over a village might have been their goal.
He stroked his blade as he walked forward.
If there was an enemy within, he’d make sure they died today.
