Chapter 37
The rest of the ride was mercilessly slow. My off-hand comment was made mostly in jest to catch Lily off guard, but it led to an interrogation from all my peers. Even Gustav climbed back from the reins to question me about it.
But I wasn’t one to kiss and tell. I avoided giving any particulars and took over manning the reins. In reality, I just asked the horses to carry on as they were and sat there enjoying the view of the ocean. I could catch the occasional glimpse of Kipper flying out from the water in a graceful arc. Mostly graceful, there was often a trail of blood following his descent.
It wasn’t long before the sight of Farrowgate greeted me. A high-walled port town just barely skirting that line between ‘town’ and ‘city’. Its growth had been unprecedented ever since the alliance with the Black Crown Empire was made. Thanks to the trade brought in not just by the empire, but by extension, all their other allies as well, Farrogate’s wealth and influence had been a topic of note for some time now.
“We’ve arrived!”
I called back to my company. Their sudden silence, which followed hours of hushed whispering, did not escape my notice.
“I’m not telling you anything further, so you might as well focus on something that matters.”
Some grumbling could be heard, but Gustav did come back out to sit beside me.
“You can’t just go dropping bombshells like that then running away, they’ll be coming up with all kinds of wild theories now.”
He chuckled, then sat up straight.
“I’ll be doing the talking, just respond simply if spoken to.”
I nodded quietly and clicked my fingers to signal for the horses to stop before the gate.
Gustav gave me a surprised look, but quickly focused on the gate guards and saluted them.
“Sir Falk, silver class imperial knight from the Order of the Watchdog. I have here official documentation signed by my superiors in the empire, and co-signed by a Solean knight of equal rank.”
The guards exchanged a confused glance, but they took note of the two seals placed on the bottom corners of the scroll Gustav unfurled.
“Of course, milord. Open the gate!”
One of the guards saluted respectfully and yelled to an unseen person on the wall. Shortly after, the portcullis rumbled and slowly lifted to allow us passage. The guards stepped aside to make way for the carriage to pass through.
As we crossed the threshold of Farrowgate proper, I took in the state of the place. In terms of infrastructure, it lived up to its status as a place of wealth. Well-kept cobblestone sidewalks, buildings of pure white with vibrant blue roofs, and a large fountain in the central courtyard greeted our arrival. Everything had an aura of cleanliness about it, a carefully constructed aesthetic that appealed to the nobility of merchants who frequented the town.
However, there was something clearly wrong with the atmosphere. The people, although well dressed, were meandering around without much direction. Many of them looked sickly, and those that didn’t appeared fatigued, with sunken cheeks and baggy clothes, it seemed as if they had been starving for some time.
“Seems unlikely they have been holding out on us.”
I commented idly, testing the waters of Gustav’s mind.
“Too early to make a judgment like that. We’ll need to speak to the people in charge first.”
“Would they withhold food from their own guards?”
I nodded at a patrolling guard who was currently talking with an elderly woman. His spear seemed to weigh a ton in his trembling hand, and his eyes bore the signs of recent sleepless nights.
Gustav didn’t respond, but appeared to be reassessing some prior assumptions.
“Come on, everybody, form up!”
Gustav hopped down and called for the others to gather in formation. We lined up in two neat rows of four and stood at attention.
“I’ll be heading off to speak with the mayor, I want another team to speak to the citizens, try and get a feel for what has been going on around here. We’ll reconvene by this fountain by sundown.”
He looked us over one by one and came to a decision.
“Leon, Arnold, you two come with me. The rest will make up Team 2.”
I agreed with his assessment. Out of our group, only Leon and Arnold had the proper education and manners to make a good impression on the upper crust of society. The other three gold class students should have been raised similarly. But their personalities left much to be desired. I wouldn’t put it past them to attempt bribery or blatant flattery that insulted those we needed to ingratiate ourselves with.
As for Lily, Meztili, and me… Well, we’re definitely better at casual interactions.
Nobody was stupid enough to complain about their roles in public. That would only make us look incompetent.
That being said, as soon as Gustav left with Leon and Arnold, the shield trio walked off on their own into the centre of town.
“Guess that leaves the three of us.”
I laughed dryly.
“Chamite sticks together, huh? Where should we start?”
Lily looked between me and Meztili.
“Docks.”
Meztili put my thoughts into words before I could, so I simply nodded and pointed at her to show my approval.
We followed the downward sloping road that led to the seaside. Typically, one could expect the denizens here to be more ‘working class’, and indeed, there were many who looked similar to the fishermen friends we met along the way here.
“What should we be looking for exactly?”
Lily eyed a fishing vessel and gave the men aboard a wink while she spoke.
“You’re the extrovert, go ask the people about the fishing problem. Oh, and see if you can get a feel for the public opinion regarding the government here.”
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A faint warmth in my chest rose at my words, and Lily immediately began sweet-talking dock workers.
I surmised that our little forced pact gave power to any orders I issued her, intentional or otherwise. This would be useful.
“Tilly, can you stay with me? Just keep an eye out for any magic signatures.”
She nodded silently. She probably had enough self-awareness to know she wouldn’t be much help questioning people.
So my first order of business was to meet the first of my pre-arranged contacts. Kipper had already found me and was circling a short distance from the docks. Surprisingly, the sparse number of fishermen who still came to try their luck showed no interest in catching him. Probably because soaring barracudas were hard to prepare for consumption, the numerous gas pockets in their bodies had a nasty habit of exploding when cut into after death.
“He really followed us the whole way…”
Meztili commented, impressed by Kipper’s intelligence.
“Yep, now we’ll see if he found anything useful.”
I put my hand in the water and wiggled it around a little. The ripples I caused soon met those made by Kipper’s rapid advance, then his rough, scaly body brushed up against my fingertips before delivering a slimy, bloodied seagull corpse into my hand.
“Thanks, bud. Let’s see what you found, yeah?”
Putting the mutilated offering aside, I activated and felt the impression of his thoughts enter my mind. It was not as good as mind reading, but it was as close to speaking to animals as could be achieved without magically elevating their intelligence.
“Hmm… looks like the corrupted fish issue spreads out for 10km in every direction from here.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope. But he just got here, let’s give him time and check back tomorrow.”
I gave Kipper directions to look for anything that shouldn’t be in the ocean, and to flee the moment he felt anything wrong with his body. I would keep active as long as possible, which wouldn’t assist me much on land, but would at least let me check his vision periodically.
“Let’s try the locals next.”
***
What followed was hours of the same story over and over. The fishermen were struggling, and people were either eating the catches and getting sick or sticking to other foods, which were not in high supply at the moment. The main issue was that the corruption was not limited to fish, but seemed to run in the very water itself.
Even after being purified, those who consumed the water sourced from the ocean quickly became ill. The birds that ate the sealife would fall out of the sky, and their corpses would contaminate the land where they fell. More than one crop had been rendered useless as a result.
Farrowgate, which prided itself on self-sufficiency, had become crippled. They were totally reliant on trade from the outside, but said trade had conspicuously dwindled in recent weeks.
This seemed incongruent with the report I received. Apparently, messages had been sent asking about the lack of exports, but no real response was ever received. If things were so dire, surely those in charge wouldn’t hesitate to request aid.
“Thanks, you can go about your day.”
I dismissed the latest worker and looked up at the sky. It was nearly time to regroup.
“Don’t suppose you felt anything, Tilly?”
“I picked up traces of magic, but it all aligns with what we were told. Looks like priests and mages have tried their hand at combating the corruption. Nobody we have interacted with showed any signs of magical inclination themselves, however.”
We had lost sight of Lily some time ago, so we went straight to the fountain to wait for orders.
We were the first to arrive, and apparently, Meztili thought this was the perfect time for small talk.
“May I ask you a question, Rex? I hope it does not come off as insensitive.”
“It was a forest nymph, and it happened two years ago.”
“What?”
“Weren’t you going to ask about—never mind, what is it?”
“Are you truly okay working with me? As a follower of Nekrotica, I mean.”
“Oh. Yeah. Couldn’t care less.”
“Even though you’re a Druid?”
“I am aware that necromancy puppeteers corpses, it does not actually torment the souls of the deceased. Even if it did…”
I trailed off. It was a sentence I couldn’t really finish, as nobody would understand the meaning. I was going to say, ‘even if it did, it would still be better than the alternative.’
When I was dead, I would have gladly been stuffed into a rotting corpse forced into servitude and suffering, because that would at least allow me to feel something before returning to the Soul Stream.
“Even if it did, I know you’re not the kind of person who would do that.”
I finished my sentence with a lie to close out the discussion.
“Hey guys, the golden boys haven’t come back yet?”
Lily showed up with a smile and a bundle of trinkets in her arms.
“Check it out. I reminded so many of the old folks of their daughters and granddaughters, they practically showered me with gifts.”
“I feel bad for the men here if there are that many copies of you running around.”
She stuck her tongue out in response to my verbal jab.
“Oh look, here come the others.”
She pointed behind me, and I turned to see Gustav leading the gold class back. It looked like the shield trio decided to meet them directly instead of waiting with us.
“Come on, we’ve got a place to stay, we can debrief in privacy there.”
Gustav sounded tired and didn’t stop to chat before leading us to a residential building. He took out a key and opened the door.
“This is a vacant house, left behind by a family that moved out of town recently. The mayor gave us permission to use it during our stay here.”
Said family must have been only low to middle-class citizens, as the building wasn’t particularly spacious. It was nice enough, but for nine people, it simply felt lacking.
“Take a seat, everybody, I’ll start with what we learned from the mayor.”
Gustav started removing his armour while he spoke.
“Looks like things are more complicated than we anticipated. The mayor was less than welcoming of us, to say the least. If not for this seal, he probably would have turned us away at the front door.”
He pulled out the scroll from earlier and dropped it on the table before sitting and slouching in the chair.
“He berated for ignoring his pleas for aid and effectively stonewalled the investigation. Instead, he gave me this.”
Gustav held up a small notebook.
“It details all the financial losses incurred due to the lack of trade, the costs of hiring various experts to resolve the fish problem, and claims we owe them recompense. They even added an ‘emotional damages’ section to bump up the price. The slimy bastard’s trying to profit off this and shirk all responsibility.”
I took the notebook and flipped through it. The bookkeeping looked legitimate, but the total they were demanding from us was absurd. If this were submitted to our superiors, the only sensible response would be to mount this mayor’s head on the walls.
“If not for Leon and Arnold, our trip would have been a total bust.”
Leon took over to explain next.
“The private force at the mayor’s estate didn’t pay us much mind with a knight in their midst. We used their lack of scrutiny to speak to the cleaning staff. Rumour among the maids has it that those bandits to the south of Farrowgate aren’t just typical highwaymen. Bribes were sent to persuade them to leave after they had killed everyone sent after them. In the end, the messengers were sent back with their stomachs cut open and the gold stuffed into their wounds.”
“So they don’t want money, are strong enough to rebuff Farrowgate’s private military, and refuse to leave even when their location was discovered?”
Donald summed up the information nicely.
“Yeah, other than that, nobody seemed to know who they were or what they wanted.”
“Me next! You might be interested to know that the people here are actually quite happy with the mayor’s governing, and sympathise with his recent struggles.”
Lily told the group what she picked up from her time sweet-talking grandpas.
“As for us, we were only able to confirm that the people here have been unable to meet their quotas for some time due to the corruption.”
I finished up with my own results, and we turned expectantly to the shield trio.
“Ah, well… our families have some loose connections among the nobility here, so we bought them a meal and solidified our relationship. Once we have their trust, I'm sure it will lead somewhere.”
In other words, they enjoyed some leisure time and discovered nothing. With the authority we held, there was no need to butter them up. They should be compliant in answering any questions we had from the start.
“Well, one thing we can do is clear up the ruffians hiding nearby. Maybe we can find a lead there before taking drastic action.”
Gustav sighed and rubbed his hand over his face.
“Drastic action?”
Arnold asked skeptically.
“If they can’t resume their tributes because of the corruption, and won’t cooperate to find a solution, the brass will want some other form of compensation for their previous investments. That will probably end up being paid in gold, which the mayor obviously won’t agree to. What do you think our next orders would be?”
“Probably forceful seizure of goods and approval of hostile force against those who impede us.”
I responded bluntly.
“Yeah, then when relations are damaged, we’ll probably have a larger force sent in to tear down all the governing officials here so more agreeable people can be put in place to prevent any further issues.”
“A hostile takeover.”
I summed it up for everyone.
“Huh… Well, let’s hope the bandits know something then.”
Lily laughed as if this whole mess didn’t concern her.
