Private Tales Something Amiss

[Lia]

She shook her head. Several times one person or another had suggested it to her, but she'd never felt as though she were quite ready.

The test was simple enough in Alliria. One performed a series of duels in front of a panel of five Sword-Master, each one watched and then gave an assessment. Scores would then be tallied, and at the end you would find out if you were bestowed the title. Of course you could also gain the title by killing a sword-master, but that sort of thing was rare now.

No wards being fought. "I was going to once we'd returned."

The Sergeant had made that decision just a few days ago, though kept it to herself of course.

It was a private sort of thing, and she hadn't wanted to go boasting on about it.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska let out a slow whistle, relaxing back into her perch besides her. She fell silent for a moment, musing over the enigma that was Lia. How did a merchant girl end up like this, she truly didn't get it.

She had the skills and the mindset of a ranger, but the blood line of wealth, it just didn't-.... it just didn't seem fair.

"I see now why my father picked you to... manage me," she murmured, her voice a touch thick.

 

[Lia]

Lia perked an eyebrow. "Don't be silly."

Her skill with a sword was impressive, that was sure, but it hardly made her perfect. She was focused on her career, but there were things she still failed at.

"Being able to wave a sword around doesn't make me able to manage crap." The Sergeant said. "I can barely read."

She reminded Kaska. "And I can't use a bow."

A frown touched her face for a moment.

"Your father put you with me because he knew you had potential." She would have bet on it. "You just needed the right mission to bring it out."

 

[Kaska]

"No," Kaska said softly, looking resigned as she murmured into her knees, "He picked you cause you woulda made the perfect daughter. And he was hoping it'd rub off."

She took a deep breath in and out, trying to keep feelings from emerging.

 

[Lia]

Lia frowned for a moment, lips thinning at Kaska's answer.

She wasn't quite sure what to say to that, how to argue. She'd had friends before, but never any that truly understood her drive to be a Ranger. Kaska didn't really understand it either...not really, but she at least accepted it. At least Lia thought she did.

With everything they had been through, she had come to like Kaska. Considered her a friend and seeing her like this was...painful. "I'm not perfect."

Her lips thinned for a second as she crouched by Kaska.

"One time when I was fourteen I set my parents Manor on fire." She spoke quickly, almost as if she didn't want anyone around them to hear. "Almost burnt the entire thing to the ground."

Her fingers tightened. "When I was sixteen I sneaked a boy into one of my father's ships the night before it's departure. Nobody realized until we were half-way out of the harbor."

 

[Kaska]

Kaska blinked, her head pulling up to look at Lia in shock. "Really?" She asked, unable to picture it. Lia had cultured a bit of an image for being flawless to those around her, if just because she worked hard enough and kept her mouth closed so no contradictory impression could be leeched forward.

Kaska knew she had flaws, hell she had seen some of them personally, but having the woman's embarrassing mistakes given to her ... it did put them a bit more at the same level for her.

 

[Lia]

"The year before I joined the Rangers I was being pursued by a young man." This one was less difficult to admit.

The event had been somewhat shameful for her family, but it sat within an odd amount of pride within the back of her mind. A small smile touched her lips for just a brief moment as she went on.

"He wasn't bad, but...he didn't know when to stop." He'd never tried getting physical of course, nothing malicious, but he'd never taken no for an answer. "I broke his arm in three places."

Lia still remembered her father's reaction upon hearing. "His father sits on the Merchant Council, my father nearly lost his Guild Status."

She was far from perfect.

 

[Kaska]

"...Heh," Kaska mused, a noise of mirth bubbling up from her. She stretched out her legs and arms, forgetting her problems and envisioning this. "Your father must have been pissed," she commented, almost as if pleased.

Because she was. Kaska was never above tearing others down to her level. So when Lia openly brought herself there, Kaska's fragile confidence did feel some relief.

Because her confidence was fragile, far more than she ever let seep out through her overcompensating actions. She was petrified of never measuring up. So she just didn't. At all. It was nice to know Lia didn't too for her family.

 

[Lia]

"He nearly sent me to live with my mothers family on the outside of Vel Anir." He had of course ultimately decided against it when he realized that Lia would likely get herself killed there.

Politics were rather dangerous in that area of the world.

"My point is." She was fairly sure that by now her point was more than clear, but she wanted to reiterate it. "I'm far from perfect. I've cultivated an image in the Rangers, and I keep to it now."

One would be hard to find a mistake from her within the past four years. "But look closely enough and I'm willing to bet out degree of family tortures are not too far apart."

She hadn't even mentioned what she used to do in rebellion against her mother.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska manage a thin, sad smile. "I suppose you're right. We're not that different after all." She never, ever thought those words would come out of her mouth, but they were true and they did bring her some sense of comfort. Like maybe she wasn't as alone in this world as she thought.

She half sniffled for a moment, taking this all in and calming a bit. "...Thanks, Lia. I'm glad you're my- ... ... ... Sergeant," she settled for. Which was maybe even more of a compliment than the word friend. That felt like it would devalue Lia just a bit.

 

[Lia]

"Friend." She corrected, smiling at Kaska before she slowly stood up.

The other Rangers were looking at them by now, likely wondering if they had been planning their next move and expecting some kind of order.

She glanced at them for just a few seconds, and then cleared her throat.

"We'll rest here for the night." A few of them relaxed. "Everyone get a full nights sleep, I'll take first watch. Tomorrow we'll continue at pace."

They had been running themselves hard over the last few days, and todays hike had been long. It would be best to give everyone a little bit of a breather.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska smiled tightly back, grabbing her pack and sliding it behind her. "Wake me up for the next one," she offered dismissively, laying back just like that and curling into her cloak.

She kept her back to them all, her face soon masked by her hood as it fell forward. But for a while, she didn't sleep, her mind running through thoughts at an uncomfortably fast pace.

 

[Lia]

Hours passed.

Lia eventually did wake someone up, though it wasn't Kaska. She'd been one of the others that had gone with her to the castle, and Lia decided that they were the most deserving of sleep.

At least for this night.

Dawn came quickly, and before they knew it the Rangers had once again loaded themselves on board the ship and were sailing down the Sayve. The massive bridge from the twin Fortresses they had explored the night before loomed ahead, Lia quietly watching it at the stern of the ship.

"I wonder how they build it." She mused quietly. "Must have taken quite some work."

She spoke to more of herself than anyone else really, lost in thought.

 

[Kaska]

Movement came from behind her as Kaska stepped to her side, silent yet alert as she watched them drift closer. "Anchored boats. Platforms. Support beams until the bridge could be completed and support it's own weight," she murmured, soft yet matter of fact as her eyes skimmed the massive arc-like stricture.

"The books say it took a whole decade and fell down twice before they succeeded." It was impressive. And a pity that it now just sat there, untouched.

 

[Lia]

Lia seemed almost amused. "Perhaps you should join the Ranger Engineering Corps."

The Ranger glanced up at the bridge for a moment.

"They always need people." The Rangers had few scholars and educated people now. Once upon a time it was different, they had an engineer for every soldier, but now? Now they were struggling to keep what Fortresses they had standing.

It was something no one wanted to admit, but it was obvious to anyone paying attention.

"I'm amazed by this." She commented quietly. "I wonder what something like Vel Anir looks like."

 

[Kaska]

Kaska's brows twitched inwards, her first instinct to take insult to Lia's words. But she paused, considering the woman for a moment and seeing that she wouldn't do that to her.

The compliment became clear.

She mused for a moment, wrapping her cloak tighter around her in the brisk dawn air. "Like this. But grander. Kept together, cleaner. Shinier. And bridges like this everywhere," she teased with a grin, glancing at Lia. That wasn't entirely true, but they did have countless grand structures like this and she was using what reference Lia had to help her picture it.

"Just a whole city full of palaces and keeps and towers. Rolling stone, stacked in impossible ways..."

 

[Lia]

She shook her head slightly in disbelief.

It wasnt like the Sergeant had never seen one of the great cities, Alliria was one. Yet her home was a different place all together. Alliria had been formed as two different cities, neither of them holding to any real civic planning or anything of the sort. They were a cobbled together mass of manor houses and great fortress walls. Beautiful in their own way, but not planned out.

Not thought about. "I'll go there eventually one day i suppose."

Half her family was from Vel Anir after all.

"Elbion too." Perhaos even Fal'Addas, though that was something different in it of itself. The elves were a wholly unique bunch, and their cities reflected that almost as much as anything else.

She had no idea if she'd even be welcomed there.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska crinkled her nose, laughing a little at the thought. She tossed Sarah a sideways glance, then murmured lowly. "Seriously? Why there? Elves are the worst lot, you're better off not even trying." Her voice was contained, masking an experience she was not going to explain.

It would, however, lend to a brief understanding of the open hostility she has shown poor Sarah.

Her shoulders squared off, closed down to the topic.

 

[Lia]

Lia glanced at Kaska. "Some of them are fine."

The Sergeant said softly to her friend, smiling for just a moment before she turned back towards the ship itself. The bridge was beautiful, but for some reason she did not want to watch as they went beneath it.

Perhaps a bit paranoid that it would collapse.

"The Next Fortress is away from the River some way." She told Kaska quietly. "Originally built by a country lord, last occupied by us during the Templar Wars and then later abandoned when...our numbers dwindled."

That was something no Ranger liked to talk about.

 

[Kaska]

"Sounds like someone did their research," Kaska murmured softly back, a slight smile to her lips as she listened to Lia tell her things she had learned.

"Well," she stretched, groaning a touch as she did so. "We're pressing closer to the end, so the odds of us..." Finding him, she meant to say. She withheld, growing somber. "Perhaps this time, we move in three groups. One with each weapon. No one should be left undefended."

 

[Lia]

She nodded in affirmation. It was a good plan, though in truth Lia somewhat doubted that Thier would be up to the task of slaying a Lich when it came down to it. Not that the man wasn't competent or courageous enough, but the weapon he was wielding...well it left something to be desire.

Any idiot could see a Claymore like that coming, and the Lich they were hunting was no idiot. 'We'll take everyone on this scout."

The Fortress was nearly a days walk away from the river, meaning that if they got caught out they would be all on their own. if it was just two or three of them they would likely perish before they could even do anything.

"We'll move together until we see the Fortress, then split." Three teams. "Approach from three sides."

 

[Kaska]

Kaska nodded back, the woman on the same page. "I'll tell the others," she breathed, pushing back and wordlessly going to do her task.

Three days later and they found themselves in the thicket the forest, an hours walk from the last leg to the fort. Kaska slowed, her legs burning from the journey as she glanced to Lia. She nodded wordlessly, gesturing for her group to split off and gather around her.

"A simple recon?" She raised a brow, clearly unwilling to accept anything more. No getting themselves killed....

 

[Lia]

"Just recon." Lia confirmed with a nod of her head.

Paranoia was important here, especially given just what and who they were dealing with. The Fortress loomed on a hill top just above them, it's great stone walls still standing stark among the trees. Unlike some of the others they had seen, it had not fallen to ruin.

"Get a good glimpse of what's inside." She told the others. "If you find nothing, simply enter and we'll meet in the courtyard."

A frown touched her lips. "If we find something...meet back here in two hours."

That would be enough time to get a proper look.

 

[Kaska]

Two hours, Kaska returned to the meeting spot, unharmed but pale. They all had seen it-- the army of bandits the Lich has gathered. Kaska had not caught sight of the undead himself, but she sensed there was no other explanation. She approached Lia, relief crinkling her eyes to find her Sergeant there and unharmed. She said nothing, her expression held it all as she clutched a crumbled up letter picked out of the trash.

 

[Lia]

"I counted forty, perhaps fifty."
​

Sarah said quietly to Lia as they walked back into the clearing that they'd designated as their meeting point. The faces were all around glum, something that she could understand. There were only a dozen Rangers, and against an army like that?

There was no way. "Did you see him?"

Lia asked as she spotted Kaska and the other group already perched inside of the small clearing. She herself had managed to catch a glimpse of the Lich, though this time he had appeared far different than before. More...powerful somehow, though his arm had still been missing.

Replaced now by some sort of black steel claw.