Colette's Covenant

Seeing the Answer

Seeing the Answer

South Gate was a worthless little town, as towns went. There was a small mining operation, but the amount of usable metal pulled from below wasn't enough to equip more than a single town, if that. It was so unfortunately placed that it had to be broken into pieces and spread across different, steep hills on the mountains of the area.

It its heyday, South Gate had been much more important, and had a size suited to that distinction from other trite villages. However, once construction on the Pass had been completed, this town became useless.

With its new pointless status, its flourishing community had diminished into what it was now, which was just a small little way-stop for ships continuing onto the Aqua Isles, because only ships heading there were saved time by still going through South Gate instead of the Pass.

Firmin disliked this place. The provincial town held nothing of interest. If he didn't need it to reach the Aqua Isles, he would rather burn it to the ground than try holding onto it. If not for its proximity to the Isles, it wouldn't be worth the soldiers required to hold onto it.

And the people were damned stubborn. They worked because he forced to them, but they only did the bare minimum to avoid being struck or harmed. They cut corners a great deal and feigned stupidity when things invariably went wrong.

Or maybe they were genuinely that stupid, which was even worse. If there was one thing that drove Firmin mad, it was stupidity. He wouldn't abide it; he especially wouldn't allow it to flourish as it had apparently done in this town.

However, until he was done with it, he couldn't slaughter every citizen. He was pretty sure that a number of them were in hiding anyway. Let them hunker down like rats in their holes in the ground, he didn't care. For now, he only needed them to live because they would prove useful later when he was finished setting this place up as a base of operations to allow him to continue further into this Lordless country and begin his assault on the Aqua Isles.

Firmin woke that morning ready for another boring day. He had really been expecting some sort of resistance by now. Besides the initial fight upon landing and the daily acts of purposeful/genuine stupidity, Firmin had needed to do very little to keep this town.

It had been so quiet, in fact, that he was almost finished readying it for permanent occupation. He had his permanent troop assignment incoming, he had finished plans to actually provide this town with real defenses so that he could keep it, and his first steps for continuing forward into the Aqua Isles was complete.

He dressed alone as he refused to have an attendant. For the simple reason that he refused to have someone upon whom he was dependent for anything, even dressing. He wasn't fond of having someone know all of his secrets either. Attendants were far too intimate and personal and he didn't enjoy the thought of that.

Firmin rather preferred to make sure that he was the only one who knew everything. Everyone under him had some small piece of his plans. They knew enough to finish their jobs, but none of them were ever granted the full understanding of what he was doing. Now, for example, two of his superior officers knew they were heading into the Aqua Isles because one was in charge of helping assist with navigation and the other readying supplies for their journey. No one else needed to know, therefore no one else did know.

Another thing that Firmin disliked about South Gate was the openness of everything. When he stepped outside of the mayor's manor, he could immediately see the entirety of the larger of the hills, and the faces of the others without trouble. That also meant, however, that they could see him. The streets were open, the alley's few and far in between, and the lack of walls around the town meant that they were open to the animals and the elements.