Chapter 8

008 - Outpost Avna​
"—a soldier's heart is only as strong as his home. Many of my men have taken local wives and started families. They see a future here; to them, Avna has become a home worth bleeding for. The land is tough but fertile, the local population is compliant, and the strategic value of a permanent, thriving settlement in this region cannot be overstated. I thus formally request permission to commence expansion of the outpost's primary fortifications—"
-Captain Iorec Byr, in a missive sent to Southern Regional Command, Balir, 751 Y.S.​
The rest of the trip was tense but surprisingly uneventful.Benessel had remained ensconced in his carriage resting throughout most of the day, only emerging in the early evening to cast a new Ve'un. The process clearly took a lot out of him, perhaps in lieu of unavailable materials. Benessel's Ve'un was as much religious ritual as protective magic, a series of chants and fluid movements that he recreated flawlessly with each Ve'un.The ridiculous heights of Ai's new Semblance skewed her own experience of magic, so having external confirmation that the reality of this world's magic mirrored the mechanics of A Dirge for the Sun was welcome.Unlike many fantasy RPGs, there was no mana point system or some other mystical source of energy with which to cast magic. Instead, it operated on a system of tangible costs: How much would the intended result of your spell alter baseline reality?The Law of Costs demanded payment for every magical effect. The cost of each spell varied. Usually, that payment was upfront—stamina, materials, time. But no matter what kind of spell you were weaving, the cost to be paid was always symbolically meaningful.For a Karravar like Benessel to be so exhausted—the man supposedly being one of the Varran Republic's foremost experts in magic—indicated the demanding nature of the modern Ve'un.Finally, after five grueling days of travel, the caravan arrived at Outpost Avna. From a distance, the outpost looked like a thousand other starter-zone forts Ai had seen over the course of her career.Closer up however, it became apparent that Avna was more of a town or settlement than a simple fortress. It had clearly been expanded several times over, each new section of wyrmbone and canvas tents walled in with sun-dried clay brick tacked onto the end of the winding serpent that was Outpost Avna.All in all, Avna was a military town that looked large enough to comfortably house over three thousand people.The usual hustle and bustle she would have expected from a military outpost was absent, however, replaced by a tense silence. A single watchtower, looking flimsy against the vast, open sky, stood over a main gate built into the defensive wall, which itself was clearly intended to bar entry to some of the larger wyrms that prowled the Varran Desert.A man in higher quality armor than the others strode forward from the outpost gates to meet them.He was a stout man, but broad and powerfully built. He wore an impressive mustache, his hands heavily calloused and his features rocky but otherwise unremarkable. He carried himself with the stiff formality of someone unaccustomed to command, as if he was trying his best to fill shoes that he wasn't quite comfortable in.His armor was Varran chainmail and wyrmleather padding, worn over ill-fitting but clearly magically reinforced robes. He also wore a curved sword in a scabbard at his hip, made in a familiarly Varran style that Ai remembered from her interactions with tribesmen in the game.Ai's thoughts were interrupted as Benessel dismounted from his carriage, his expression grim. He glanced at the rank insignia sewn onto the man's chest as he stalked towards the man."Report, Lieutenant.""Y… You must be Karravar Benessel, sir, we've been expecting you," He said, his voice low and gravely. He gave a crisp military salute, a fist raised to his heart. "I'm Lieutenant Baior. Thank Nor you arrived when you did, we're in a damned mess."It's the Captain, sir. Bandits hit us yesterday, just after our midday meal. They punched through the southern gate and went straight for the command tent. Snatched Captain Iorec from right under our noses." Baior's voice began to shake with anger and shame as he spoke. It was clear he viewed the kidnapping as a personal failure.Baior spoke with the gruff timbre common to laborers the world over. To Ai, he looked to be the kind of man who joined the military not for glory, but for the simple camaraderie and steady pay, a man who defined himself by his loyalty to his fellow soldiers and his superior officer. With his commander gone, he seemed to be left adrift."We drove them off, and managed to capture one of their rearguard. We've been trying to get'im to talk, but…."More bandits. Was there a connection with the bandits who'd attacked Benessel's caravan?"Tell me about the attack." Benessel asked, the furrow on his brow deepening."They came out of the southern hills. We tracked them down to the canyons but lost'em once the sun began to set; had to pull back before the Veh came out." Baior supplied, gesturing towards the south. He wearily ran a hand through sweat-matted hair."We know they're holed up in the hills somewhere. But the terrain is a mess of ravines and more than a few caves dark enough for Veh. We could search for weeks and find nothing. We've been trying to get the prisoner to talk, but… none of us can use the ka well enough for anything in-depth. Please, Karravar. We need your help." Baior pleaded."You shall have it," Benessel gave a curt nod, "Sarila. Get the caravan situated and organize a search party. We'll use the Domga. Keep the party small; only enough men so that we can each have a mount. Go."Sari nodded solemnly, clearly exhausted but determinedly dashing off."Ayle. I would appreciate your assistance in case there is anything unexpected." Benessel said, and Ai nodded in silent acknowledgment. If nothing else, she was curious what in-game interrogation mechanics, if any, had survived the centuries."Take me to the prisoner." Benessel commanded the Avnan soldiers.The bandit was being interrogated in a small tent near the center of the main encampment. As Ai approached, she could hear men shouting and a dull, meaty thudding that screamed of violence.The air inside was thick and hot, smelling of sweat, blood, and other unmentionable odors.The prisoner was naked and tied to a post, his head hanging low. He was a wiry man, his body a map of old scars and fresh bruises. His face was a swollen, purpled mess. One eye was completely closed and his lip split and caked with dried blood. Two outpost soldiers stood over him, their knuckles raw and bloody from their efforts. It was clear that the interrogation so far had been a crude and brutal affair.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.Ai found herself at a momentary loss - what role could she play here?She could put a stop to the violence. If she were still in Dirge, she might have, if the game's seamless quest generation feature suggested a suitable reward. But she needed to get to Ikkasir to return to Karravaran, and the shortest pathway to that was to help Benessel get there.The man in front of her was a bandit who had participated in a kidnapping. There was no guarantee that the missing Captain Iorec wasn't being treated in a similar way as the captured bandit, either.These weren't her people. She was but a visitor—what right did she have to intervene? Could she truly countenance torture? Especially now that the game had become reality?But she'd already intervened in their world. By taking on the World Quest and seeing it through to its end, Ai had been the one to irrevocably set their world onto its present course. And she'd done it to accomplish her personal vendetta, a deeply selfish mission for personal closure.Human beings are gonna be human beings, wherever they are. [Stormold]'s words suddenly rang in her mind.Benessel dismissed the soldiers with a curt wave of his hand. He walked up to the prisoner, his broad frame looming over the man. His voice was a low murmur that was somehow more menacing than the soldiers' shouts had been."You've endured much," Benessel said, his tone deceptively gentle. "But this ends now. You are a citizen of the Republic. You have betrayed your oaths, your people, and your gods. You will feel the weight of that betrayal. And you will tell me everything you know."Ai watched with a detached fascination as Benessel's magic took shape. It was a subtle weave. He wasn't attacking the man's mind directly, not in the crude, forceful way a lesser mage might. Instead, he was borrowing from a vast, conceptual wellspring of power: the collective Semblance of the Varran Republic itself.[Varrah-Spirit]-[Honor-Shame]-[Manifestation]-[Heart-Weight].She could feel the weave as it settled over the prisoner, a heavy, suffocating blanket of pure, unadulterated judgment. It tasted of incense and ancient law, of patriotic fervor and the nameless dedication of generations past. It was the crushing weight of a million minds, of an entire cultural consensus whose singular gaze had focused upon a single hapless victim.The magic sought to drown the prisoner in a sea of societal shame, to turn the screws on his soul with the distilled moral outrage of an entire nation. It was, Ai thought, an elegant but utterly horrifying form of torture."I…" He whispered."I…" He continued after a long moment, voice croaking. "I… have nothing to say to you, oppressors."The man wouldn't break.His body trembled and sweat beaded on his brow, but his jaw remained stubbornly clenched, his eyes smoldering in dogged determination.Ai had seen enough."You do know he's been branded, right?" she said, her voice cutting through the tense silence.Every head in the tent snapped towards her."We stripped him. Searched him head to toe. He ain't got any marks on him." Baior frowned.Ai walked forward, her eyes fixed on the back of the prisoner's neck. To her, it was an ugly smudge on the canvas of reality. It was a brand woven into the very fabric of this man's being that radiated a bitter, scorched sort of flavor, the aftertaste of a soul that had been deliberately and permanently burned."There. On the back of his neck," She pointed at the brand. "I know you can sense it too.""There is nothing there." Benessel's eyes narrowed in suspicion."Look again, Karravar," Ai repeated, "It's subtle, but it's there."To his credit, Benessel didn't argue. He frowned, but raised a hand anyway and murmured a short incantation. Ai formed her personal sigil and focused her own awareness on the back of the prisoner's neck, a simple [Beacon] to draw Benessel's attention.[Grasp-See]-[Illuminate-Secret].Benessel's spell washed over the prisoner in a glimmer of silver light, and for a fleeting second, a complex, jagged symbol flared into view on the man's skin for a few moments before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.It looked like a stylized flame, barely contained within a broken circle. It felt wrong, instilling into all who saw it a sense that it had consumed a portion of the man's being until it had burned to char. The flame itself was comprised of complex geometric shapes that seemed to twist and writhe as if they were alive, until they seemed to notice that they had been seen and quickly wriggled back into invisibility.The room was silent for a beat."A brand of loyalty," Benessel breathed, his voice tight. "Designed to bolster the will. No wonder he wouldn't break."Ai expanded her senses, her awareness spreading throughout Outpost Avna.She searched for that distinctive burnt sensation that the brand gave off. It didn't take long for her to locate another."You have a traitor," Ai said. She pointed outside, towards a group of soldiers loitering nearby, "That blond one. He's got a brand on his left shoulder blade."Benessel's eyes widened, his expression thunderous as he turned towards the entrance. Baior fumbled for his sword. The other soldiers in the tent began to run.But it was too late.The blond soldier had evidently been eavesdropping—he shoved the soldiers he had been talking with to the ground and bolted."After him!" Baior roared.[Gihn-River]-[Canyon-Stone]-[Walk-Step].A weave settled into being and the traitor abruptly began to move with preternatural speed, a fluid, weaving gait that ate up the ground. Soldiers all around the outpost began to react, but the traitor was too nimble, too quick. He ducked and weaved between them as they attempted to accost him, flowing past them like water.It took only moments before the traitor reached the brick wall that demarcated the main encampment from the town of Avna, and kicked off some cargo that had been laid up against it to leap over it.Baior whirled around to face Ai."He's gone!" He barked, almost accusatory, as if it was Ai's fault that the man had run off.Ai wasn't in any hurry; the soldier's brand was all she needed to hunt him down.