"The first step towards loyalty is trust."
There was a little stream next to the path that Ema and Pepperidge were traveling. Ema ran one hand under the flowing water
"That's one of the steps in treating a cut!" Pepperidge bubbled. "Well, that would be, if I didn't heal you."
"There are people that might need it," Ema responded. "I'm not the only person."
"There aren't many people out here," Pepperidge countered. "But it might be useful! So, wound care: first, clean the wound, then bandage it! It's no good if you don't have a clean wound."
Ema nodded, taking a drink from the stream before continuing along the path.
"Pepperidge, are there any settlements nearby?"
"I don't know! There's no map that I can access."
"Is there anywhere we could find a map? Something like an uplink station?"
"Scanning."
For a moment, the only sounds were the whirr of the shell and the birds in the trees. Ema took solace in the fact that she could hear the birds. It meant she was safe. No birds meant targets in the brush.
"There's a station about five kilometers from here, west by northwest. Should take maybe an hour to reach it. We'd best start walking!"
Ema nodded, staying silent to not disrupt the peace of the forest.
The journey was uneventful. The path was overgrown, but clear enough, and Ema made good time to the uplink station. A small antenna spiked into the air from a solid black box, and a hardy screen and keyboard sat in front of the box.
"Alright, here we go!" Pepperidge said. "Booting it up… huh. It's already online. And running an uplink."
"Is that a problem?" Ema asked, suddenly anxious.
"Quite the opposite! Beginning first stage verification… Ghost user… bypassing firewall… or not. That is a problem. I need a password to get into the terminal. All it says is, 'the founder of our order,' followed by a… wolf motif? I think that's it. Yep! That's a wolf motif."
"So… no map?" Ema groaned.
"Nope! No map. Unless you know 'the founder of our order.'"
Ema cursed. "Блять. I don't know."
"Well, I suppose we continue along this path!"
"I guess." Ema took a deep breath, then released it, before she noticed something was off.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Exactly. Something isn't right." Ema took hold of her pistol, and began carefully placing her feet as she moved along the path. The birds didn't return for the rest of the journey.
After an hour, she smelled woodsmoke on the breeze and followed the scent.
It led to a small village of maybe fifty people. The buildings looked relatively substantial, well-maintained and solidly made. Wooden roofs, heavily sloped, kept snow off in the winter (or so Pepperidge said). Solid stone foundations kept the logs that made the frame of the house upright.
As Ema approached, curious faces peeked out of the buildings. One or two people stood in the doorframes as two people strode out to meet her.
"Welcome to Cabine," the oldest one said. "Who are you?"
The speaker looked older than one hundred years of age; a third of a long Human lifespan, but depressing once they revealed they were no older than fifty-three. The climate was an unforgiving mistress.
"I'm… Ema."
"Ema who?"
"Ema Talahashi. You probably don't know me."
"You'd be right," someone else grunted. They held the look of a warrior. A pistol was riding their hip, and they wore solid plasteel armor and a substantial helmet. Both showed battle damage. In an aside to the mayor, they asked, "Why should we trust her?"
Pepperidge materialized just next to Ema's shoulder. "You don't, and you shouldn't. But we can defend your town! We just need, you know, shelter. And some bullets. But I can make the bullets, if you need."
"So you're a Risen," the warrior said.
"Apparently," Ema responded. "If… it makes you feel better, I didn't chose this life."
"None of us did. I didn't chose to become a refugee, or the watchman for Cabine." The warrior motioned to the elder. "Magn never chose to become the mayor. We're all just making the best of a horrible situation. So piss off with your guilt trip."
Ema responded, "I just need somewhere to collect myself. This seemed like a good bet."
"Your place ain't here," the warrior challenged. Magn put a hand on his shoulder.
"You would do well to remember who leads Cabine, Thas," she said. "Miss Talahashi. We have many sick and wounded. Do you have the skills to treat them?"
"I…" Ema began. Pepperidge interrupted.
"She does! I promise."
"Then do so, and you will become a citizen of Cabine. Come. I will show you to his room."
The son of the mayor's family had fallen in a contest against some of his friends and broken his leg. Additionally, he had fallen ill due to a cut he had obtained that no one had noticed.
Ema was shown to his room and looked him over. He was unconscious, with low blood pressure and little respiratory activity, as well as a fever, and upon further inspection Pepperidge found that he had what she described as tachycardia- a fancy term for fast heart rate.
"Pepperidge, I'm no doctor."
"Ema, you remember how you healed yourself in that rift?" Pepperidge asked, as the door closed. "It doesn't just work for you."
She took a deep breath and placed two hands to the broken leg, humming a little. If asked, she couldn't explain how she did it.
Ema exited the room maybe five minutes later to see Thas staring her down, arms crossed.
"Look. Magn may trust you. But I don't. So if you so much as buggered a single cell in her kid, I will kill you."
Pepperidge's shell buzzed angrily. "That won't do much, you... overzealous crusader!" she spat.
"It'll hurt, dead thing walking," Thas retorted. He said thing as if he was saying a slur.
That was when the son exited the room, bouncing with energy and forcing everyone present to crack a smile.
The day passed in a flurry of medical checkups. Ema went from house to house, learning on the job.
"Clean out the wound first," Ema said, washing a child's arm underneath a tap. The kid, who was called Minda, nodded. They had a small but angry gash on their palm. Their mother, Wavie, stood just behind them.
"Why?" Minda asked.
"That way, you won't become sick," Ema explained. She removed a roll of gauze from a medical kit, wrapping it around the cut. "Change this tomorrow, and wash the cut again. Keep doing this until it scars over. It will look pink and nasty, but that's good."
"Will it always be a scar?"
"It's possible."
"I want it to always be a scar. They look cool."
Ema had to smile at the childish wonder of Minda as she packed up the medkit and went to exit the room, shaking the hand of Wavie as she left.
"Thank you for this," the mother said. Ema nodded.
"She was reborn for this! To help people!" Pepperidge said. Her voice held a smile.
As Ema found a family, characters came and went in Cabine. A Wu Ming, someone called Orin. But there were two that stuck with Ema. They both came at the same time, but only one she became friends with.
The first, she met in the bar of the town. The visitor wore relatively ornate armor, with emblems featuring trees and a wolf sigil. Their stormcoat was mostly grey-silver armor.
Ema sat down across from them. They removed their helmet, revealing short black hair and two unwavering green eyes that stared down the Miracle Worker of Cabine for about twenty seconds as the two ladies sized each other up, taking note of demeanors and determining possible threats.
Then, the newcomer started laughing. Ema raised an eyebrow, suddenly far more suspicious. "What are you on about?"
"I'm sorry," the newcomer gasped out. "You just look so serious!"
They cleared their throat and introduced themselves as Lady Skorri. "I hear you're the healer of this little town."
"Maybe I am," Ema responded, intentionally vague.
"I already saw your medkit, so you can drop the act. I'm not here to harm the town."
"I'm reserving judgement. Why are you here?"
"Lord Radegast- he's our founder- he sent me to find the warlord of this town and bring you into the fold. Only, there is no warlord of this town, and you're the only Guardian here." She paused. "And so close to Citan, as well."
Ema's question about Citan was forgotten when the bartender arrived with two glasses of water, seemingly knowing what the two desired before they had a chance to ask. Ema nodded her thanks. Skorri passed a small token of glimmer to Ceros.
"I'm asking you to join us. See how powerful your Light can become," Skorri explained.
"And I would," Ema responded. "But there are people here that rely on me for protection. I can't just abandon them."
"And you won't. The only real difference that the Iron Lords would make for you is one, you get call yourself Lady Ema, and two, if you send out a call for help, someone- actually, many someones- will answer it."
"How many of you are there?"
Lady Skorri smiled. Maybe the smile was a little bit grim, but it was more honest than most. "You'd be surprised."
Ema raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "If your… posturing about the Iron Lords is true, then I accept."
"I'll run the news to Radegast tomorrow, then." Skorri took a long sip of her drink, swishing the light blue liquid a bit before she does so. "Do you have anywhere I can stay in the meantime?"
"You can stay with me. Cabine has no inn." The 'where I can keep an eye on you' seemed lost on Skorri. Or perhaps she just didn't care.
"Oh, that's gonna be bad for you. I'll keep you up all night just because I'm thinking out loud. Happens all the time."
Ema laughed a little bit. "Right. You're the one that will keep me awake."
"Oh, no, I promise you," Skorri chuckled in response. "See, I've been having this idea for a song for ages, but the lyrics are giving me trouble. It's giving me a right headache."
The discussion continued as the two headed back to Ema's house. One or two citizens raised eyebrows at the two, clearly mistaking them for a couple.
"I'm no trainer. I can give you some pointers, but I'm not a trainer," Skorri was saying as they reached the front door. "Best I can say is, Solar is loud, Void is quiet, and Arc is the required middle ground. Solar is… Overwhelming presence. Void is the lack of presence. And Arc is… Arc is like the person who rarely speaks. They don't speak often, but when they do, people listen well. Or, even better, Arc is the person that speaks evenly. They could shout or whisper, but they choose not to."
"Nothing speaks to me like Arc, but I can't tell how to harness it," Ema responded.
"Adversity is the greatest mentor. But now that we're here, do you have any food? I'm absolutely starved," Skorri asked as Ema opened the doorway, revealing a comfortably tiny interior that blurred the line between cramped and efficient. Empty shelves sat on the walls. A single bookcase was nearly devoid of any books, with only three books on it and one single engram, glowing blue. To the left, there was a open door that led to the bedroom. To the right was a small dining table, and an understocked kitchen. A cooking fire lay in the middle of the room, with a large metal circle surrounding it. Just past the iron donut was a mound of pillows that Skorri assumed functioned as couches. (She did the same back at Felwinter Peak, so such arrangements weren't unwelcome).
"I can make some venison," Ema offered, summoning a puff of Solar Light to start the cook fire. Skorri nodded.
"That would be great," she said, dropping onto one of the piles of cushions and pulling out a sheaf of papers and a pencil as Ema pulled a slab of meat out of one cupboard. It was noticeably cold to the touch.
For a few minutes, the only sounds in the house were the crackling of the fire and the scribbling of the pencil on paper.
"How did all of the Iron Lords manage to get such irritating names?" Skorri eventually groaned. Ema raised an eyebrow.
"Go on."
"Felwinter. Gheleon. Saladin. Silimar, even. None of them make my job easy. It's irritating. Perun, Timur, Dryden- they make it easy. But not Felwinter, or dragon-killing Saladin, or even bloody Radegast." Skorri sat back and let out a long sigh. "I just do not get it."
Ema stayed silent.
"You know what, I'm going to work on Efrideet's tale."
"Efrideet's tale?"
"On how she was inducted into the Iron Lords. Saladin was patrolling his area, and Efrideet came to talk to him. By chance, the Devils decided to attack at that moment. They crush two attacks, before the Fallen bring in a tank waaaaay too far away for them to get to in time. They're out of ammo, so Saladin suggests that they start running. And Efrideet asks if she can throw him.
"Naturally, Titan pride and all that, he says no. But there's no time, so Efrideet asks if he has a better- or quicker- idea, and he doesn't. So she picks him up and throws him off the cliff. Clean off the cliff, straight down into the Walker, which doesn't take over one million volts very well and gets a hole blasted clean through it before it blows up, killing Saladin.
"Few minutes later, Efrideet rezzes Saladin, and he asks if she's going to join. She asks, 'Do I get to throw you again?'"
Skorri shifted slightly, as if to mimic Saladin speaking to Efrideet. "'No.'"
"'Then no.'"
"And Saladin, he grits his teeth and goes, 'Well, we might run out of ammo again eventually.' And then she follows him to Dwindler's Ridge, where she's inducted."
Ema nodded. "What about just 'A Tale From the Dark Age' as the title?"
"Who said anything about a dark age?"
"Someone in the village. We've fallen so far, it's applicable." Ema turned reflective. "What discoveries have gone unfound? What data uncollected, all thanks to the collapse of our little empire?"
"Hey." Skorri put an arm on her new friend's shoulder. "Quit looking behind you."
"Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."
"Those who dwell too long on the past have no place in the future. Eyes up." Skorri's expression softened, becoming almost teasing. "And don't burn the food."
Ema looked back to the cookfire, and cursed. Skorri laughed.
A mere hour after both friends had gone to bed, they both woke to the sound of gunfire. One of them knew what that meant.
Ema's door was kicked down and she only just managed to shoot the attacker before she died. Rolling off her bed, she clutched her Minuet-12 tighter and looked into the living room. Two bodies were lying next to the cook fire, but neither of them were Skorri.
A brief glance around revealed Skorri grappling with a much larger man near the entrance. Ema raised her gun, glowing sights forming an even line, and sent two rounds into the attacker's backside. They cried out in pain and crumpled to the floor.
Skorri nodded her thanks and grabbed her rifle from her back, returning the sidearm to the back of her waist. "More are outside. You want to just turtle in here, or…"
"I want to protect this town," Ema began, but Skorri cut her off.
"Of course you do. But you won't be able to if you go charging out the front door. You'll be dead and captured in seconds. We need a plan."
"Kill them all. That's the plan!" Ema responded, kicking open the door. Rounds instantly tore her apart, and she collapsed in a bloody heap. Skorri sprayed a few shots, clamped one hand around Ema's shoulder, and dragged her back in. Pepperidge resurrected her quickly.
"We probably shouldn't try that again," the Ghost said.
"Fine," Ema growled. "How are we going to do this?"
"Tonik, can you identify any weaknesses in this building's structure?"
Tonik, Skorri's Ghost, bobbed and nodded. "I've marked them for you."
Skorri put her rifle to the wood and pulled the trigger five times, blasting a small rent in the structure.
"Well? C'mon! We're gonna need cover."
I've been waiting to leave you people on a cliffhanger for a while now... :)