[Beastborne: Tower of Blight] (Book 6) Chapter 8 (Patreon)

Pouring on the speed, Hal burst through the Gloamgate of Brightsong.

Mira and Komachi were in a newly constructed gatehouse. Hal didn’t remember seeing any plans for that anywhere.

“How long has it been?” Hal asked, barging into the gatehouse and letting in frigid drifts of snow.

“Shut the door!” Mira yelled at him.

Komachi, though never considered the sharpest tool in the drawer, caught on to Hal’s discomfort. Perhaps it was a soul aeder thing.

She whined and hurried up to Hal, climbing him with a frantic series of squonks and squeaks. “Hal!” she cried. “You’ve been gone so long! Komachi is old now! You left Komachi all alone! Hooooo!”

Hal stared at the howling, whining creature. His heart broke. Out of more fear and guilt than anything. Was it even longer than he feared? Was he gone for years?

Komachi continued to howl while clinging to Hal, who did his best to calm down the little brown nugget.

Mira glanced between them, then added on to the pile of Hal’s misery and said, “Noth had a baby with Durvin!”

Hal stopped. “What.”

Mira shrugged and kicked up her feet on the small desk in the gatehouse. “You were gone, man. There had to be an alliance. The dwarves were about to revolt. You had left us all out in the cold. Quite literally. And so Noth did the only thing that made sense. They got married to secure the throne of Brightsong.”

“You don’t look so good,” Komachi said, peering up at him with those tiny brown eyes of hers. For some reason, she was starting to calm down. “You gonna hurl?”

“I feel like it,” Hal said, staggering until his back was against the wall.

“Then Machi gonna hurl too!” she wailed, going back to panic mode.

The door opened to admit Angram. He looked the same, just as Komachi and Mira did, but then again, who knew how elves aged? And pobuls were an entirely different matter.

“I need to find Noth,” Hal said weakly.

Angram furrowed his brow and shut the door. He looked at Mira, then Komachi, then Hal. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you, Hal.”

“Yeah, so happy you’ll break up their marriage,” Mira put in with a snicker.

Komachi looked between them, blinking rapidly. She shook her head and held onto Hal, bringing him some measure of comfort.

Angram narrowed his gaze. “What are you talking about?”

Hal grabbed the Ranger. “How long have I been gone, Angram?”

The elf looked at Hal’s surprisingly strong hold and then at the man himself. “A day? Maybe a little more. Why?”

His eyes slowly widened. Hal gently set him back on the ground and turned on Mira.

The Dragoon burst out laughing, holding her sides and nearly falling over from the horrible prank. Hal helped her by pushing the chair further until she spilled out of it and conked her head on a cabinet near the floor.

“Worth it!” she cried, holding her head and laughing so hard she started to cry. “Oh man, you should have seen your face.”

“At first, Komachi was just playing, then I started mirroring your emotions by accident,” the pobul admitted sheepishly. “I could feel your distress, man!”

Angram shook his head. “You really thought Noth would marry somebody else?”

“Not just that,” Mira managed to get out between bouts of laughter. “But have a baby with Durvin too!”

Angram gave Hal an incredulous look.

“I didn’t know what to think,” Hal admitted. “The last time I was down in the Abyss… time moved weirdly. And… well, no matter. I was wrong.”

“Tell me.”

With a shrug, Hal pulled up a spare seat and explained what happened, including the monsters he had seen on his way out. The same monsters he was absolutely sure had been shadowing him the day prior.

“So, it made a sick sort of sense that way more time than I thought had passed. It happened before, and I figured maybe it happened again.” Hal glared at Mira.

Komachi was curled up in his lap, snoozing off the giggles she had. It wasn’t entirely Komachi’s fault. She could get wrapped up in her empathic connection to people so easily that she forgot what was real.

There were various jugs of brew on the table that caught Hal’s eye.

Mira, having righted her chair, offered to pour him a drink, promising she wouldn’t spike it with anything.

Hal turned her down, getting the drink himself because there was simply no way in all the various hells that he could trust her after she said something so downright suspicious as that. Mira was ordinarily shifty, so that didn’t help matters much.

It was like an uber driver dropping you off at your house and going, “Hey, nice house. I’m not going to rob you.”

There were some things you just didn’t say. And saying them, even if they might come across as a nice thing, instead came off as horribly suspicious and wrong.

Things that should have been the default implication.

“I think you need some sleep,” Angram admitted. “You look dead tired.”

“I ran all the way here,” Hal admitted, taking a drink from his tankard after thoroughly checking it for any traps.

“Damn dude,” Mira said, putting a hand to her chest. “I’m wounded. I wouldn’t mess with food or drink. That’s sacred. Besides, Komachi would gnaw off my ankles.”

Komachi growled a little in her sleep.

You drink [Komachi’s Flamin’ Cider].

+50 Insulation.

+45 Ice Resist.

+5% Experience Points gained.

Your maximum Spirit has slightly increased.

“This gives an Experience boost?” Hal nearly choked after reading the prompt. He eyed the inside of the tankard and saw reddish orange embers glowing within the foam.

“You noticed, eh?” Angram smiled. “Komachi’s been busy. She’s been working her little brown butt off trying to make better and better brews. With Hamrin helping out with some of the more esoteric materials, she’s been able to make excellent strides in brewing.”

“I need to thank him,” Hal reminded himself, draining the rest of the mug. Cider was beginning to be a staple in Brightsong, first from the dwarven casks that they had brought with them, and then later by Komachi continuing and improving upon the original drink.

It certainly banished the chill from Hal’s bones.

“What will you do now?” Angram asked. “You didn’t find what you were looking for, but that Quest makes it seem like it’s still out there. Where will you look next?”

Hal shook his head and laid a hand on Komachi’s slumbering body. She felt like a little furry heater. He was glad that the otter-like pobul was no longer cold despite the freezing temps outside.

There were more and more places to stay or keep warm every day it seemed, and of course Kow’s Inn was a great place for some food, drink, and a large warm room to enjoy them in.

It didn’t hurt that he had no less than four massive fireplaces to keep the great two-story room toasty warm even on the coldest nights.

It was starting to feel like Brightsong was becoming a proper corner of civilization, rather than roughing it out in the wintry wilds.

“I don’t know,” Hal admitted. “There has to be somewhere else. I’m willing to bet Elaise or one of the Ebon Star tribesmen might have a guess. Anywhere that they would likely avoid out of some superstition or fear of corruption would be a good place to go poking around.”

“What about the Shadesblight?”

“He’s got a point,” Mira added in, giving a nod to Angram. “The Shadesblight is much worse in the winter. We see it on patrols every day now, inching closer to Brightsong before it’s forced to flee from the Manatree’s barrier.”

“I don’t think the Shadesblight can touch me,” Hal said, though he was unable to shake an unsettling sense of unease. “My connection to the Manatree should make that all but impossible. But if you’re seeing it so close, perhaps we should pull the patrols back a bit. Being within the Manatree’s blessing should stop the Shadesblight from hurting anybody for at least a few hours outside, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.”

“I’ll make sure it’s done,” Angram said. “Thankfully, most of our patrols are able to stick to the tops of the mountains that the dwarves and kobolds are finishing up, thanks to your work. They’re far enough away from the ground that the Shadesblight can’t seem to climb up. It’s like inky black fog. There’s some sort of limit to how high it can reach.”

“Plus, the vantage point gives them good range,” Mira said, sitting up and taking a long swig from her own tankard. “If we had a thousand more souls, we could keep watch along the whole perimeter of the mountains and know when threats would arise from any direction.”

Angram grunted. “We’re stretched thin as it is.”

“Just planning for the future.” Mira waved away his ire before it could take hold. This sounded like a conversation they had many times in the past. “A few good eyes with some skill in ranged weapons and we would be nigh unassailable.”

“A citadel could do that too,” Hal told them.

He didn’t know why he mentioned it. For some reason, the thought of building a castle, somewhere for his seat of power, had taken root and he could not dislodge the thought.

Where to put it was the question, and with the valley of Brightsong being so massive, there was no easy choice.

Placing it in the center of the valley would mean if the mountains were ever breached, there would be nowhere for the people to run to. That, more than anything, was the purpose of a citadel like Hal wanted to build.

They were places of fortified refuge when the worst things happened. A place where all people could find safety and shelter against armies or monsters, or whatever else Aldim could throw at them.

Besides, who wouldn’t want a castle?

That woke Komachi up with an excited chirp. She stared at him, then kept poking him in the stomach with a paw when he didn’t say more. She couldn’t get through his armor, but he could feel the intent well enough.

It was only then that Hal realized all three pairs of eyes were glued to him with keen interest. “What?”

“You haven’t really talked about building a castle much before,” Mira admitted. “I figured you didn’t want one, or care for one.”

“A citadel sounds sick!” Komachi put in. “Not hurl sick, but cool sick.”

Angram looked much more hopeful. Hal could see the way the Ranger’s mind was already working out how they could properly defend such a place with the manpower they had.

Ranging all over the mountains and around the many miles surrounding Brightsong must be exhausting work.

Having a single seat of power to protect would be infinitely easier, Hal guessed. Though he had no idea where it would go, or even how he could possibly build one.

“Lurklox agrees with Komachi,” the diminutive koblin said from a patch of darkness near the doorway, startling everyone in the gatehouse.

“Son of a bench!” Mira whispered. “How high is her Stealth skill?”

“You didn’t… get a Quest or schematic for one, did you?” Angram asked Hal hungrily.

“Sadly, no,” Hal told him, putting a comforting hand on the elf’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. I just… well, I thought it would be cool.”

“Just thonk real hard, and it might happen,” Komachi suggested.

Hal gently lifted Komachi up, gave her a few friendly pets, then set her on Mira’s lap. “I’ll do my best, Komachi.”

The pobul visibly strained, trying to muster up a Quest for a citadel they were all suddenly so keen on.

Mira laid a hand on Komachi’s furry hindquarters. “You could try that Archmage’s tower y’know.”

“How so?”

“He’s a mage, right? Probably built magical buildings if he has a magical building. Stands to reason he might have some books or spells that would make something like that possible in our lifetimes. You don’t see Rinbast without a great big honking castle. Why shouldn’t you have one too?”

Hal hadn’t thought of that. He pulled out the necklace with the icon of the tower on its fine mythril chain. “I’ll go let Noth know I’m back, then set the tower up again.”

“Yeah, flork that guy!” Komachi said, oozing sass. “I defiled his waters once, and I’mma do it again!”

Hal vaguely recalled Komachi talking about that before. “You’re a good pobul, Komachi.” From what he recalled, Komachi had done something to spoil Rinbast’s ability to scry on him from afar.

It was her first act on Aldim, and Hal still credited it with the reason why Brightsong was still standing. Rinbast wouldn’t risk himself coming near enough to spy on them. Not to the Shiverglades.

That, more than anything, had allowed Brightsong to grow. They had enough problems with the tribes and the monsters and the weather. Adding Rinbast’s machinations into the mix would have been too much.

If the best Rinbast could do was send the Kinslayers after him rather than a whole army, Hal would take it as a win.