When the storm cleared at last, Maffis found that they were just north of the Breezestone River. He wasn't sure when they had crossed it, he did not remember swimming in any water or crossing any bridge. The storm had been chaos and he quickly learned that the girl was terrified of the lightning, creating even more chaos for him.
At every clap of thunder she would sprint away to try and hide, and it was all he could do to keep her with their group. Several times he had wanted to let her run so he could be done with her, but he had given his word that he would help her, so he would chase after her and corral her back to Durgey and Turgle.
One time the girl had vanished and it took nearly a day to find her again. With Maffis, Turgle, and Durgey all on horseback, Zelnya naturally fell behind and it was difficult to keep a constant watch of her. A clap of thunder had apparently frightened her so much that she had dug herself a dirt tomb to hide in without telling the others. By the time they found her Maffis had been so angry he could not even yell at her. He turned from her without saying a word and left Durgey and Turgle to dig her out.
Durgey had also been gnawing at his nerves through the storm. They boy would purposely try to scare Zelnya by screeching into his microphone and imitating thunder. His singing had been worse though, and the songs he had made up would have caused a creeper to detonate itself, if they had ears to hear.
But the storm was over now and he could see blue banners flapping in the wind, a white 'S' on them told him that they were now in Ston. This place has certainly changed, he thought to himself. The banners were attached to a high oak plank and log walkway above the entrance to a town. The last time he had been here it had been a small inn, but now it had grown into what looked like a small farming town. Outside of the entrance were four cobblestone wall enclosures; one growing beets, one growing sugarcane, one with carrots, and the fourth with brown furred rabbits.
"Look at the bunnies!" shouted Durgey. "I want one of their feet!"
"I don't care about their feet, I just want something filling to eat! Rabbit stew would be great, or maybe some beets or anything that isn't rotten flesh," said Turgle. Zelnya's vanishing act had set them behind in rations. When they had started off from Shorebreeze he had estimated they had enough food to make it to the inn, which was now a town, but adding Zelnya to their group had made them drop much quicker. Then wasting a day searching for her had nearly depleted it, and they were forced to hunt zombies for food.
"Do you think they'll let me send a letter to my friend? Then I can tell her that I'm coming, and she could get the money ready for you, Maffis," said Zelnya. Maffis had already told her several times that he did not care about the gold, but bit his tongue this time. He was annoyed enough.
"They probably offer some sort of postal service here, though I'm not sure what good it'd do you," said Maffis. "Whoever delivers it would have to go by foot or horse, just as we are, so it'd arrive at Tiport roughly the same time we would. No sense paying for a service we could just do ourselves."
For years there had been talk of connecting all of the county capitals together with a rail line, but the War of the End had left the world with such a shortage of iron that it was becoming an afterthought. He suspected that some of the counties were still hoarding iron, Lapis being one of them, but were too stingy to share in the project or wanted to keep it for weapons and armor. So for now all deliveries had to be made personally, instead of being sent quickly in a minecart.
"That's only if they keep the same schedule as us though," said Turgle. "The post players in Breezelyn were very efficient, and would ride for days without resting, sometimes crossing the entire county and back before taking a break. If the post workers here are anything like they are back home, then whatever the girl wants to send will get there long before us. Well, if we take breaks like we have been, I mean. And I hope we do, because my fingers are getting tired of walking."
"Yes, we'll find the inn and spend the night there. And I suppose we can spend a day or two in whatever this town is," he said. His fingers were getting tired too. If the Deadforce imitators were planning an attack on Melon, he still had time to get there and warn them. Melon Town was far from the ocean, so any army would need to travel far across land, giving Carsi plenty of time to learn about them and to set up a defense. "And we'll find someone to deliver a letter for you, Zelnya," Maffis said as they crossed beneath the wooden walkway and entered the town.
The buildings in the town were nicely built and designed to look like houses from a popular online fantasy game that Maffis had seen several videos of, but never actually played. The road that ran through the town was a combination of gravel and both regular and mossy cobblestone, giving it a nice texture that was a change from the boring unchanging pure cobblestone or gravel road they had been riding on for the past few days. All of the houses and buildings were connected by grass paths that had been flattened with a shovel.
As they made their way down the street, Maffis could see the residents of the town look out at them through oak and birch fence windows. They did not say anything or come out to greet them, only stared as they moved down the road. I should have taken my armor off, he thought to himself. The multicolored leather he was wearing was the sign of banditry, and with Durgey and Turgle wearing it as well now, they looked like a band of brigands.
At what Maffis believed to be the center of the town, they found that the road connected to a large ring-road that was surrounded and filled with smaller, but highly decorated, buildings, with a large stone tower in its center. Along with the white 'S' banners, the buildings had special banners hanging above their doors; one that resembled a brown rabbit on a green field, a potion vial, an iron sword, and several others that he could not make out. "Ooh! A market! Can we get some stuff, Maffis? I want a swiftness potion and a lucky rabbit's foot and a sword and-"
"We'll see," Maffis said, interrupting Durgey. "I suppose we should do some shop-" he was then interrupted by the sound of several doors opening behind him. He turned around to see players from the houses they had just walked by stepping out of their doors, all holding weapons of some sort. None were wearing armor, but with their numbers he knew they could cause them trouble. He would be safe if he used Ironwill, but he could not defend his party forever. I really should have taken my armor off.
"Maffis…" whined both Durgey and Zelnya as the armed players began their approach.
"It's going to be fine," he said and stood off his horse. "Well, this is a nice welcome for four weary travellers," he said once the mobbing residents were in earshot. "Why must our welcome involve weapons, though?"
"This ain't no welcome! This is a illcome! We don't want you here! Only bandits wear armor like that, and we don't take kindly to no bandits!" said a player with a light skin, red hair, and clothes that looked like green overalls, but without any pockets.
"Bandits and bandit hunters," Maffis corrected and he told his companions to get off of their mounts. Zelnya ran and hid behind Turgle's mule. "I am Maffis, a bandit hunter from South Tip. My friends here are seeking refuge as their home was recently destroyed by a bandit army," he said, lumping in the two younger players with Turgle's story. His case was sadder, and he hoped the people would feel more pity for three refugees than for one and two newspawns.
"Likely story!" the player said, waving a stone axe at Maffis. "What proof do you have?"
"Maffis?" said another player, this one had light skin and red hair as well, but her eyes were great green squares and her clothes were a simple outfit of a green shirt and blue jeans. "I've heard that name before, I think. But not for a bandit, or a bandit hunter."
No. They can't remember. It had been nearly one hundred years. If he had thought it even possible the people here would remember his name, he would have never entered Ston and would have taken the long way around through Carrot. "I was once the Count of Melon, so naturally some would know my name." That was the only thing he could be remembered for, or that he wanted to be remembered for.
"You were a count?" asked Durgey, who probably still had no idea what it meant to be a count on this server.
"I'll tell you about it later, Durgey," Maffis said, and tossed his spare stone sword on the ground to show the mob he meant no harm. Ironwill was safely stored in the top right corner of his inventory.
"I feel like it was something else," said the player with large green eyes, "but that must be it. Yes, a count, of course. Count Maffis of Melon, I have heard that before."
"A count?" said the player in green overalls, and he put his stone axe away and crouched in a bow. "Oh, a count. But you're a bandit hunter now? I guess that'd explain your armor, yeah. Sorry about all this. Never can be too careful, ya know. There've been some rumors and stuff about bandits in the north." North? Are they already in Melon?
"I'm sorry for this misunderstanding," Maffis said, removing his armor. Turgle took Maffis' lead and took his off as well, but Durgey stayed in his. "The last time I passed through this area there was an inn. Nothing but an inn actually. The Drowning Spider."
"The Drowning Spider, yes, it's our inn. Cobbletown was built around it, but the inn still exists. I can take you to it, if you wish. And I'll pay for all your stays too, to make up for this awful mess," said the green eyed girl.
"We would appreciate that," said Maffis and he could hear Turgle whisper to Durgey and the boy finally took off his armor. Maffis picked up his stone sword and returned it to his hotbar. "I think we could all use a calming rest."
The overalls player took their horses by leads and the girl lead them to the other side of the circle where the Drowning Spider sat, unchanged from the last time Maffis had laid eyes on it. Outside of its door a black banner hung, with red markings at the top that resembled the eyes of a spider. They entered the inn and the girl payed the innkeeper, and left them at the bar.
"Well that was an ordeal," said Maffis, so quiet it was almost silent.
"Ordeal? That was scary!" said Zelnya.
Turgle ordered several bowls of rabbit soup for their group, eating two whole bowls himself, despite obviously not starving. Maffis and Durgey each at one bowl full, but Zelnya did not eat anything until Maffis assured her that they would find the post office in the morning.
"So, were you really a count, Maffis?" Durgey asked again.
"Yeah, were you really? I'm honestly pretty surprised you didn't tell us this," said Turgle. We've just met this year, you know. It's not like I'm going to tell you my entire life's story.
"Many years ago, yes. I was Maffis Melon. But I've denounced that name and passed the title onto my dear friend Carsi. She's countess now."
"But why? Isn't a count like a king? But like smaller or something like that?" asked Zelnya.
"If you consider a county a small kingdom, then yes, a count is like a small king," said Maffis. "It was not the life for me. Before I became count I was a soldier in the War of the End, which I do not feel like discussing at the moment. When the war was over, I had nothing left to fight for. King Daggeff came to me and told me of his plan of separating his kingdom into smaller, more easily governable counties, and gave me rule over Melon.
"But I could not stand staying in the same town day after day, year after year. I yearned for battle. Sometimes I would join the guards in defending the town from monsters, though Carsi, who had been my advisor at that time, urged me not to, as that was not an appropriate thing for a count to do. She had been right, of course, so I dropped the title, and gave it to her. After that I was free to fight as I wished, and several years later I found myself at South Tip, signing up with the bandit hunters." That was almost completely true, though he left out some important parts, such as the reason he had went to South Tip.
"But you were like a king!" squealed Durgey. "You could tell people what to do, and they would have to do it!"
"No one had to do anything I told them. They did it because they wanted to, and they trusted my judgement," said Maffis, thinking back to the few times he ever truly used his count powers. "If I had abused my people they would have turned on me. I did what was needed, planned for festivals, for building, that sort of thing. And to someone who was used to fighting and adventuring all the time, it was boring."
"I understand that," said Turgle, drinking some potion. The swirls floating off his body told him that it was a potion of leaping, but he did not know what Turgle would need it for. "Sometimes I would get bored tending my inn back in Shorebreeze, but I was never the adventuring type, so I never left. But I think I'll go on a little adventure now, and by little, I mean just around town," he said and jumped from the bar, out the door of the inn, and Maffis could see him bouncing outside the inn through the windows.
"Ooh! I wanna do that too!" said Durgey, and Zelnya joined him in drinking the rabbit foot infused water. They both left Maffis at the inn, bouncing out the door like rabbits.
Maffis, alone, sighed and went to find his room. He found it on the second floor of the inn, a small two by six cell with a chest at the foot of a bed. He sighed again and laid down in the bed and watched as his screen darkened into nothing but the crosshairs of his cursor. That girl, she remembered. She was so close. He was alone with his thoughts in the darkness of his screen, until he heard voices on the other side of his wall.
They were whispers, so quiet that he had to hold his breath to make out what they were saying. There were two players from what he could hear, both at an age where their voices were low enough that he could tell they were men. "No, I will not be going back. Binchent's gone mad," whispered one voice. Binchent? Binchent was the Count of Eastip, and once a friend of his.
"You have to. This war is going be be massive! What do you think Ston is gonna do when they find out there's a war? They're not gonna sit back and wait for it to end. They're gonna join? What if they don't side with Eastip? What if they find out you're from Eastip?" whispered the second voice.
"I don't know, I'll run. I'll run to Carrot or to the Bandit Lands. I'll even swim to Sudthrend if I have to. But I'm not going back to Eastip and Binchent's crazy war! If he wants to attack Melon, then that's on him!"
Attack Melon? Now not only did Melon face bandits, but one of their allies was betraying them? He did not believe it, so he remained quiet and stood from his bed, pressing himself as close to the wall of this small room as he could.
"This 'crazy' war is not just going to stop when Melon falls, mate. Think about it. This Holkross guy shows up in Tiport one day, and then suddenly the count decides he's tired of only being count o'er Eastip? Binchent will have all of Sedweest pulled into a war, possibly the entire world will get involved. Haven't you ever heard the name Holkross before? Think about it, mate. Holkross!"
The bandits they had met on the road had told him about Holkross. But they had only been bandits, and bandits were not to be trusted. But they had known him, they had known Ironwill. Simple bandits would not have known about them, unless told by someone who knew him; told by an enemy or an old friend.
"Carsi!" he shouted, bolting from the room and running outside the inn to find his companions. No, no, no, no, no! The name rang in his ears as he ran through the town. Hokross. Holkross. Holkross. You're dead! You're dead! You're dead! "You're dead!" he shouted into the sky.
And then he stopped running and stood still. He was standing on the ring road that was the town's market. Maffis shook his head to clear his thoughts, and then laughed to himself. He's dead. Someone was probably just posing as the general, an imitator looking to intimidate people with a powerful name.
Wait. Imitator. The bandits that had attacked Shorebreeze had been wearing grey armor, just as the Deadforce had in their time. He had assumed they were imitators as well. But was it really a coincidence that this bandit force was using their colors, and a leader of the force they were representing suddenly appears to a person of power? It could have been their plan from the start, to start in the south with warring force, and to take part of the north with diplomacy by having someone play the part of Holkross. But there were ways of verifying a player's name, ways that a count like Binchent would know.
Caulrin.
He ran around the ring that was the town's market three times, looking in each of the store windows, before he found Turgle in the shop marked with the rabbit banner. Inside he was talking to the shop owner. "Turgle, we're leaving!" he said, bursting through the shop's door, and before Turgle could reply he left to find the other two.
He found Durgey and Zelnya in the center of the ring at the base of the tower. The girl and the boy were looking up towards the top of the cobblestone structure. "C'mon, you two. We're leaving this town."
"What? Leaving? But you said we were going to stay for a full day! And we didn't get to mail my letter!" cried Zelnya.
"And I didn't get my rabbit's foot!" cried Durgey.
"I've changed my mind, we're leaving now. Durgey, go get on your horse. Zelnya, I'll buy you one," he said, and Durgey did as he was told.
After he had purchased Zelnya a new grey and white spotted horse, Maffis found the stable where their horses had been kept. Durgey was there waiting with Turgle, both on their own mounts. "Are you certain we need to leave, Maffis?" asked Turgle.
"We have to, Turgle." The world depends on it.