The Ghost's Crusade

Chapter V: Drystan

Something other than demons is wrong with this city. Arathron had a better sense for things of a more infernal nature, but even he could pick up on the misery that pervaded the world where his partner existed. As though everyone has already accepted they are going to die.

Drystan sighed and ducked around the cart, not wanting to look at the depressing scenery anymore. Nothing ever was clean-cut and simple. He really wished there was just a dark tower out in the north containing a beautiful damsel in distress ready to marry him upon rescue. He would mount his trusty steed, ride to her salvation over waving fields of grain, slay the dragon plaguing the countryside, and live happily ever after with her and the clutch of rambunctious children they would have. And they would all be completely out of touch with the grim reality of the world and that much better for it.

Instead, here he was in the grim reality. He spent his days slogging through the marshy countryside to come to a city plagued by the appearance of random corpses and governed by a pompous idiot who was ready to turn his people over to an occupying army he would happily invite right in the front gate. The only damsels he knew would never find themselves in need of rescue: one was his commanding officer, a woman who literally took no prisoners once she decided she was going to involve herself in a battle, and the other was far more likely to be the one preemptively starting the war rather than give the other side the time to pick a target. And of course the single tower in sight was closed off because it was a memorial to a crazy noble who had thrown himself off its peak to land amid a midsummer night's festival and spear himself on the rotisserie.

The Ovan had regaled him with that particular story when he had asked after the reason as to why the tower was under heavy guard even though it was completely empty and not even useful as a defensive fallback. Drystan had already forgotten everything else that framed details of the noble's swan dive onto the suckling pig.

Baedorn was not the hive of villainy that gave rise to epic heroes. It was a hive of insanity from which one was lucky to escape with their mind intact and their morals unshaken.

Or so it seemed right then. He hoped the people Akkali had managed to speak with while she roamed the taverns were a lot more down-to-earth than the Ovan. That usually proved to be the case, so he reminded himself not to dismiss the city as a lost cause just yet. The depressed mood was starting to grate on him, however. Morose hopelessness always got on his nerves. If people got beyond their own front doors and city-states and actually looked at the world around them instead of contenting themselves with existing in it, they'd find a lot more to be cheery about.

He spotted the sign he was looking for, a green violin with a flute where the bow should be, halfway down the street. He headed towards it, then ducked down a side street to enter from the servant's door as he usually did. The attention he was liable to receive walking in the front was something he could do without at the moment.

A lanky green-eyed man was leaning up against the door frame with his hands tucked into the crooks of his elbows and a scowl fixed to his face. Drystan was forced to squint and make sure he was actually seeing something other than a ghost from a past memory.

“You're so predictable.” Tiernan stood up straight and seemed to grow only more menacing—and quite a bit taller. Clad head-to-toe in the formal but functional regalia of an Inquisitor Captain he was definitely more well-equipped for a fight, to say the least. A full hauberk of ring mail bested a jack of plate in almost every situation not involving gunpowder. “Set foot inside a city and you head straight to the nearest tavern.”

Drystan grinned. “What can I say? Guess I never could let go of gluttony. It's my favorite of all the sins.”

The taller man glowered at him like a stone-faced giant, wholly unamused by his attempt at lightening the situation. “You faithless son of a bitch.”