PreCursive

  The hunter waited patiently on a hill overlooking the town.

  This must have been the fourth such small settlement that the hunter had iigated over its months-long search, but they were optimistic about this one. So many of the towns that they had observed and searched in their quest had been nothing more than they seemed, but this one was strangely fortified. The hunter had hat this one possessed far more intricate wards than most small vilges owned, indig a great deal more money poured into them. No doubt their quarry would describe these wards as ‘standard’, but he’d always had a skewed sense of scale.

  They had very briefly, and very lightly tested them and found that this town actually had intruder trag aion wards. Unusually strong ones, at that. Some further testing had determihat whoever had set these wards up, they’d paid top dolr for the kind that surrouhe etlement like a dome. No digging up from underh these wards. Not only that, but the hunter could tell from long experiehat these were the kind that required a specially keyed pass device to not set off the intruder arm. Tricky, but not without its own weaknesses. Unfortunately, those weaknesses required specialty equipment that the hunter simply didn’t have at hand. They could acquire that equipment, certainly, but they were still unsure if this toorth the effort of the lengthy round trip that would take.

  Despite themselves, however, they were ined to stick around for other reasons. The hunter had been this particur town for close to a month, now. Not only was this the rgest sve-owning pntation that the hunter had seen so far, but it also seemed to be one of the bad ones.

  Several weeks ago, the hunter had been the town from far, far away when they had noticed a cart e trundling into town. Shortly thereafter, the octs of the cart, a burly dwarf and his human sve, had been fronted by a force of guards led by a much fancier-looking dwarf. After a short frontation, the burly dwarf and the sve had been captured and then marched to the back of the town and into the small clearing beyond the walls. They had watched, aghast, as the fancy dwarf had forced two other sves in addition to the one from earlier into the woods, mostly uhe forest had been too dense for the huo see what had happened inside, but they had seen the results. One of those sves never returned. Another was killed after returning to the clearing, wounded. Only the inal sve had survived, and they had do by leading a mature Ursag variant back to the clearing to be killed by the noble.

  The hunter was flicted. On one hand, their mission was not only personal but of grave importao the future of the Kingdom. Oher, the hunter hated svers like this ohey wao kill him and rid the world of one less putrid stain upon it. Only the knowledge that they were too far away from the o get to him in time before he retreated behind his wards kept the hunter from making the attempt, those weeks ago. Well, that and the knight they had seen. They were unfamiliar with the fully armor-cd dwarf, but the hunter gave good odds the knight was strohan they were after the dispy they’d seen from them earlier.

  Still, there were other oddities about this settlement that gave the hunter pause. Iime that the hunter had spent the town, the cart with the burly dwarf and the sve had been the only travelers to go into or out of the town. Which was extremely odd. Small towns like this, especially ones with massive pntations were ofterading lifeblood of a region. It was like the town was both entirely self-suffit and unweling, which spoke of either extreme wealth or extreme preparation. Perhaps both. Grain and products from the fields were teo and then collected by the sves, after which they were taken into town and disappeared. Initially, the hunter hadn’t even thought to look for ste until an idle thought caused the huo make an observation.

  There were no granaries in town.

  Long surveilnce had discovered that there were no visible ste facilities of any kind for the products the pntation produced. After notig this, the hunter had tracked a sve pulling a cart den down with grain from the fields with their far-eye. The guards had taken the cart o had passed through the gates and into the town proper. From that point, the much stronger and not Status bound guards easily hauled the cart to a far er of the settlement. Ohere, they dragged the cart into a small building that almost looked like nothing more than a servant's shed. After some time, the cart had been rolled out of the shed, this time empty. The shed was far too small to store even the amount of grain that had been on the cart, much less the other loads that the hunter had seen disappear into it. The answer was obvious.

  This pntation wasn’t for profit. It was to build an underground stockpile.

  The hunter couldn’t imagine how much they had stored at this point, or how massive the underground ste must be. The pntation was growing and st a massive variety of goods, that could only be possible through the use of alchemical fertilizers. Expensive ones, at that. Otherwise, the nd would have long growed from the stress of so many different goods.

  The mystery of this pntation was arming enough that the hunter had long siermihat they o stick around and find out what was going on. They’d decided that they were going to have to interrogate the raveler they saw either going in oing out of the settlement. Preferably out. They’d beeant to do so earlier because they had so few of the resourecessary for a destine capture and interrogation. But the hunter had ultimately decided the use was justified in this case. Luckily for them, the hunter seemed to have finally hit the jackpot, after nearly a month of observation

  This m, they’d noticed that a small cart was being prepared in town by a team of guards, led by a very richly dressed dwarf. A different one from the bastard that had thrown those poor sves to the monsters. He’d visibly been giving instrus to a smartly dressed guards-dwarf, before personally handing the guard a fancy leather messenger bag.

  The hunter felt their mouth curl up in a smile at the thought of that bag.

  Speedily, the hunter packed up their small campsite on a distant hill overlooking the town a off.

  They had a path to prepare.

  ……………………………………...

  Corporal Sven yawned as he sat in the seat of his messenger’s cart.

  Despite the early hour, he enjoyed his work. It had been nearly three years since he’d enlisted in the Ven military, one since he’d mao score a trao the Savoy private guard. Bribing that Savoy scout had been the best decision he’d ever made. Life in the proper military hadn’t suited him very well, with how tight of a ship those Orsini ran. Early on he’d mao weasel his way into the messenger corps because of how well he knew his way around a horse and cart. But they’d run him too hard, and he hadn’t liked that. Everyone khat the Savoy scouts would reend you for a little bit of gold, and thank the System for that. He much preferred how x things were with the Savoy.

  It hadn’t been long before he’d fallen into the messenger gig with the Savoy as well. Hell, because he knew how to keep his mouth shut, he’d even fallen into this cushy gig. Sven might have been stationed out in the ass end of nowhere, but the pay was double the usual rate and Addersfield didn’t have mu the way of messages that needed delivering. Typically, he only o deliver a progress report from Steward Orinbar to Vittolia. Ohere, he was to personally hand the report to Pringuis, and nobody else. Sven liked that. He enjoyed how it made him feel important, to be hand-delivering important information to the Prince. He enjoyed lingering in Vittolia even more, though. There were many madonna’s of the street er who knew ol’ Sven by sight in Vittollia.

  He’d been on the road for a few hours now, enjoying the early m. His was a small cart, with only a few things packed into it that were being delivered to the big city. Addersfield had long since fallen out of sight behind him, and he was looking forward to the unofficial ‘off-time’ he’d be spending in the big city.

  All in all, Sven of Mache retty happy with life.

  Sven was snapped out of his day-dreaming by the horse pulling his cart slowing down to stop with a whickering noise. Fog ba the road, he uzzled to find that a tree had seemingly fallen onto the road, blog it off pletely. “Ain’t been no storms tely.” He muttered to himself. Seds ter, a realization hit him and Sven’s face fell. This wasn’t his first time around the bend, after all. “Aw, shite.”

  “Indeed.” A pletely ued voice said from behind him. Moments ter, a great force struck Sven on the back of the head. The world went dark.

  Sometime ter, Sven slowly began to awaken. His old military training though told him not to let on with that fact. Without opening his eyes, he slowly began to test his limbs, only to find that they were all bound in some way. He was sitting on the ground, but his hands were tied behind him. His ankles seemed to be tied together as well.

  “You stop pretending to be asleep, now.” A feminine voice called out from in front of him, with an almost tinkling quality to it. “I know you’re awake. No use pretending. The quicker this is over with, the quicker we all go about our business.”

  Resigo being caught, Sven opened his eyes. A quice around firmed his suspis. He’d been captured, all right. And from the oldest tri the book at that, the ol’ tree in the middle of the road. He resolved then and there o let the guys find out about that. He’d never live it down.

  Sven found that he was shed to a tree off to the side of the road not far from his cart. That wasn’t what held his attention, though. His attacker did, because of how odd they were. He could tell they were one of the tall ones, even with them being crouched a few arms lengths away from him. Definitely weren’t a dwarf. They were covered head to toe in a form-fitting, one-piece leather suit of some kind. It was very obviously heavily ented, as well. The whole thing was visibly camoufging around the dy in front of him, making her blend in with the enviro. Over that suit, the dy was wearing a long cloak, simirly ented to the suit. Not a single inch of skin was visible, c even the head pletely. The only openings he could see were two small holes, revealing silvery-blue eyes that were glowing slightly in the shade of the tree branches above. They were idly toying with a long, bed dagger from where they were crouched in front of him.

  Sven’s spirits fell even further. “Aw, shite.” He muttered. “Ye ain’t a bandit, are ye. Yer a spook.”

  The leather-cd figure let out a small snort at his words. “Something like that.”

  Sve his head fall bad hit the tree trunk with a thunk. “All right, what do ye want?”

  “Just like that? No protests? No ranting and raving about how you’ll never betray your masters?” The spook asked dryly.

  “Ain’t no job worth dying over,” Sven said matter-of-factly, shrugging his bound shoulders as much as he was able to. “It’s a good gig, but I ain’t gonna risk the knife over a bunch of lordlings. Ask yer questions.”

  “So cooperative.” The dy said letting out a small, silvery ugh. They rose from where they were croug and began to approach Sven. “Iurn, I won’t even have to use the eruth potion on you. Merely a few drops to loosen your tongue.”

  “Wait a sec,” Sven said ohe leather-cd figure was standing over him. He got the impression they were raising an eyebrow at him. “ ye get me hair out from uhese ropes first? It’s pin’ mighty fierce.”

  ……………………………………...

  The hunter couldn’t help the thrill of etion they felt after they’d fihe messenger’s interrogation. They’d learned a great deal that only reinforced their desire to stick around and iigate this toarently named ‘Addersfield’.

  How very Savoy of them, to after a snake.

  The hunter had been very ied to learn that the Heir of House Savoy was in residen the town. But they’d felt their core veritably stutter iheir chest when they’d learned why. Apparently, Heir Magnus had been given the responsibility of looking after an important political prisoner, along with his out-of-favor cousin Azarus. The hunter had learhat the burly dwarf they’d seen those weeks ago had actually been Azarus, arently had some kind of feud with Magnus.

  The guard hadn’t known who the prisoner was, nobody in town but the Heir, the Steward, and the cousin knew precisely who it was. Only that it e that the Savoy prings were guarding an important prisoner.

  It had to be him.

  The hunter didn’t know of any other important figures that had gone mysteriously missing in the past year that would fit. Certainly not anyone else that the bastard Anguis would send his only son ao look after.

  Ohe hunter had fiheir interrogation, they’d fed the guard a mild memory loss potion a him back up in his cart once he passed back out. Afterward, they’d easily moved the fallen tree out of the road, not without some small amusement that such a stereotypical setup had actually worked. With a sp on the horse’s rump, the cart had rumbled off on its way. The guard would wake up in an hour or sy enough that he would believe he’d merely fallen asleep on the road, unaware of his interrogation.

  Ohey’d ed the ambush area suffitly to erase any tracks, the hunter began sprinting back to their watch post in anticipation. All they needed now was firmation that their target actually resided iown, even though they had a strong suspi. Their ander wouldn’t accept the existence of a maybe in order to move any more forces through dwarveory, even for a rescue of this importance. Even though the hunter kheir watch over the town would likely tinue for some time while they waited for a perfeent to strike, they couldn’t help a rising sense of anticipation.

  Help was ing, Father.

  I promise.