Fugitive Status Part 3: Good Samaritans

By morning, I had a rough plan sketched out. That plan was to head east into Ilia and disappear into the wilderness for a month. We could wait and level up until Karalti was big enough to fly, and then the three of us would cross into the nation of Revala. Ilia’s neighbor was ruled by a queen who apparently hated Warden Scandiva's guts, and the country had successfully repelled the Order of St Grigori a few times over the course of centuries. The main issue was the distance. Archemi was BIG – as big as a real planet. We were about five hundred miles from the Revalan border, and we had to avoid main roads and big towns.

Tired and tense, we rode past ruined villages and abandoned battlefields. The damage from Ilia’s civil war was stark. Entire swathes of countryside had been abandoned. Five miles from the springs, we picked our way through old trench lines studded with rusted out ballista, tattered tents, and broken wooden fortifications. Ghoul-like creatures scattered away from us like hyenas, so fast we only caught glimpses of decayed limbs and yellow eyes before they vanished down dark, narrow tunnels.

Stretching away from the battlefield were narrow, rutted wagon tracks, barely trafficked roads that wove through the remains of camps and homesteads. A shattered mansion, its fence torn and trampled, stood among a nearly untouched orchard. The trees were heavy with late summer fruit, plums and peaches and apples. I collected what I could and stuffed my face with the best peaches I'd ever eaten as we continued on through fields of ripe green barley studded with torn flags. Storm clouds gathered to the north, forming a rumbling black band across the horizon; the wind was warm, but heavy with the promise of rain.

It was just starting to get dark, and I was just starting to think about heading off the small wagon road we were on when I heard voices crying out around a bend in the road. Cutthroat picked it up at the same time I did, coming to a short stop with a grunt.

"What is!?" Karalti shoved her head out from underneath my clothing, sniffing intently.

"Shh. Get back under there." Uneasy, I pulled the Spear off my back and rested it down by my thigh. "There's other humans up ahead, okay? It's super, SUPER important that you hide the way we talked about."

"Oki." Karalti bobbed her head. "Karalti best at hiding!"

Cutthroat huffed through her nostrils, crests flaring as I urged her forward. The hookwing grunted as she moved off again, lowering her head warily as we drew closer and closer to the voices.

They were further away than I thought. It was nearly a quarter mile of tense approach before we spotted them: a woman and two girls clustered around a semi-conscious man trapped underneath the collapsed corpse of a dead triceratops.

"Come on! Come on, you damned thing!" The woman was sobbing, her voice raw with desperation as she and the two children - also crying - tried vainly to pull the ten-ton dinosaur away from the man it was crushing to death. Their wagon had been toppled, too, the wheels and roof smashed in. “Phillippe!”

As I focused on the group, a holographic golden diamond shape manifested over the woman's head: a side-quest marker.

"Okay, you go over to the ditch." I pointed Karalti at the long grass to either side of the road. "Wait for us there, okay? No peeping."

"Oki!" Karalti cocked her head curiously at the scene ahead, neck darting before she clambered out of my cloak. She launched herself into a reasonably stealthy glide, teetering in the air before plopping into the grass with a WHUSH.

The sound of Cutthroat's claws slicing up the muddy road drew the attention of the girls, first. They stopped pulling at their father's arms and whirled to face us, gasping and scattering. The mother turned a split second later, her face tear-streaked and muddy, eyes wide with fear.

"Okay…let’s see what we’ve got here." Truth be told, I wasn't completely sure what command to use with Cutthroat. I'd managed to slowly and patiently train her to a few command words. 'Icecream' meant 'murder everything in sight'; beep-beep-beep truck reversing sounds told her to walk backwards. I hadn't specifically thought to train her to pull things, but…

Cutthroat had been jogging all morning, and she eyed the triceratops corpse with malice and forethought as I slid to the ground. I turned back to the group of women. "If we’re going to save this man’s life, we need rope, or some kind of cordage. Do you have any?"

"I…no. The bandits took everything." The adult woman gestured futile at the dead trike. "Please, Phillippe-"

"Will die if we don't focus." The triceratops still its harness and ties on, connecting it to the wagon behind. "Help me get those traces attached to my hookwing: she can haul it back enough for you to get Phillippe out from underneath."

"Bless you, stranger! Bless you!" The woman waved her daughters into action, and they rushed to start fumbling with the long leather straps.

[You have a new Side-Quest available: The Spoils of War]

I accepted it without hesitation, and while I moved forward to start jerry-rigging a harness for Cutthroat, I had Navigail read the quest to me:

Sidequest: The Spoils of War

Ilia's recent civil war devastated the country and left large swathes of the population in desperate straits. Things are better around the capitol and other major cities, but the swampy, poor lands of Eastern Ilia are still stricken with poverty - and bandits. Investigate the toppled caravan to learn more.

Difficulty: Normal

EXP: 200 EXP (+55 if Phillippe survives)

Rewards: +25 Renown (Ilian peasantry), +125 renown (village of Ser Lareau).

My heart lifted. Two hundred fifty EXP! That was most of Karalti's first level, and a good chunk of what I needed to reach Level 8. There was a good chance the bandits would count for the rest. I accepted without hesitation. "Don't worry, Mrs-?"

"Caroline. Just Caroline, of Ser Lareau." The woman dashed around the body of the triceratops with the traces - a double pair of four long leather straps - clutched in her shaking hands. She was in her late thirties, just old enough to have some crows' feet forming around her eyes, dressed in a headscarf and plain farmer's clothing. "Phillippe, he is m-my husband-"

"Introductions later. Give me a hand here." I used my spear to open a wound on the trike's neck, distracting the irritable hookwing with food so that Caroline could get in close without getting mauled. Cutthroat’s saddle had rings on the side for hanging quivers or pouches, and the pair of us were able to thread the traces of the trike's harness through those rings. I tied my side off, then checked over Caroline's knots. When I was satisfied, I went around Cutthroat's left and remounted.

"Okay, I'm going to back her up. As soon as you feel that trike shift, you and the girls pull your man out," I called down to Caroline. “Just be careful not to rip his legs off.”

"Yes, of course!" Caroline went back around to join her daughters. Panic was replaced by determination as the three of them seized the arms of Phillipe, who groaned and stirred weakly.

I caught up Cutthroat's reins and gave them a tug. She reared her head out of the gore with a low snarl, muzzle dripping blood - then squawked as she tried to back up and discovered that she was tied to the back of the other dinosaur.

"Yeah, girl, you got the right idea. Beep-beep-beep!" I nudged my ankles into her flanks.

Cutthroat huffed with irritation, puffing her feathers until she looked like a giant fluffy feather duster. She tested my rein, trying to dart her head forward to keep eating. When the rings pulled on her lips again, she tossed head and backpedaled. The traces snapped taut, creaking as she flexed her weight and strength against the load.

"That's it! Beep-beep-beeep!" I made the truck-backing up sound, urging her with my feet.

"Oh thank the gods, its moving!" Caroline cried out from the other side. "There, grab him... oh Phillippe...!"

Cutthroat let out a throaty barking sound, trying to turn her head to snap at me as I kept commanding her to pull. Her feet slipped on the mud, claws flexing to anchor as the trike's harness creaked and the leather stretched. She couldn't completely roll it, but it was enough. A chorus of joyous cries went up as the three women pulled, and Phillippe slid out from underneath the dinosaur's bulk and into the open.

"Hell yeah, girl. Good- HEY!" I had been about to pat Cutthroat's neck when her head swiveled around, teeth flashing. I bopped her on the snout before she could grab my knee. "NO! Bad!"

The blow wasn't hard, but Cutthroat wasn’t having it. She began to thrash in the traces, snarling and lashing from side to side. Then, she realized something - that the leather straps tying her to the triceratops corpse were taut. Ignoring the reins completely, she unfolded her claws and began to saw at the leather with them.

"For fucks' sake, Cutthroat: you are a such a drama queen." I had visions of my hookwing stumbling back and tripping over something, at which point I would be Phillippe - trapped under the struggling body of my melodramatic bitch of a dinosaur. To try and head that off, I reached down and loosened the knot on one side.

[You have gained 55 EXP!]

I heard a man's voice murmur reassuringly from the other side of the trike, and the girls crying with relief. That, at least, made me smile - and think of the little dragon still hiding in the ditch.

"Karalti okay!" She picked up my thoughts without me intending to. "Best at hiding!"

"Absolutely the best at hiding... ahh, fucking hell, this damn hookwing!" I cursed aloud at Cutthroat as she cut through the trace I'd just loosened, then immediately began to chew and tug at the other one. "If you'd just WAIT for one fucking minute-!"

Karalti giggled telepathically as Cutthroat and I began to do an agitated waltz, in which she tried to get free and buck me off, while I clung on to the saddle like a determined tick. After a few minutes of wrestling, she chewed through the other trace - and began to spin around like a dog chasing its tail, huffing and chomping at me.

"No! Bad dinosaur! No biscuit!" My Riding skill had gone up exponentially since I'd first started with Cutthroat, and there was no way in hell she was shaking me off. I let her bronco around a bit, wearing her out before jerking the reins to the left to spin her and point her face back at the carcass. "Look! Dead things! Your favorite!"

"SCREEEE!" Cutthroat let out a piercing cry that sent the family on the other side scattering back with shrieks of terror... but then her eyes caught on the exposed meat of the trike's neck, and her determination to murder me wavered. Cutthroat hesitated for a second, then snarled softly and padded over to it, plunging her narrow muzzle into the hole to grab and tug at the delicious treasures within.

"There." I sighed with relief, and once I was sure that Cutthroat had switched from the 'murder' to 'pig out' setting, I dismounted and headed around.

Caroline had her husband in her lap. Phillippe had the hard, leathery look of a working man, stoic despite his pain. Like his wife, his clothing was simple, undyed, and sturdy. He peered up at me, grimacing as he shifted what looked like a seriously broken leg.

"Whoever you are, stranger, thank you." Caroline looked up at me, her eyes wide and damp with fresh tears.

"Gotta do what you gotta do." Introducing myself felt like a bad idea after what had happened at the Eyrie. "I can reset your husband's leg and get some bonebreak on it. What happened?"

"Deserters from the war, turned to banditry," the woman said bitterly. "We were bringing new plough blades and seed wheat from Givoux to our village, and... well. You see what happened."

"Yeah." I was sympathetic, but suspicious. Well... paranoid, really. Ilia hadn't exactly been the land of sunshine and daisies for me. "How did you get away? Deserters usually take women and girls."

Caroline shuddered. "We live with this hell day in, day out. We know the signs of banditry when we see them. When my husband saw men on the road ahead, he had us sneak out of the wagon and hide ourselves in the grass." She pointed at the ditch where Karalti hid. "And thank the Lord and Lady he did. This is the alderman's wagon... he told us the three-horn would scare any bandits who tried to waylay us. But they had guns and pikes. I couldn't see what happened from the grass, but I heard them firing."

"Damn threehorns tried to charge them and pulled the wagon over." Phillippe growled and spat to the side, grimacing. "Thank you, stranger. Most men are not so kind as to stop and help."

"No worries." I held a hand up, motioning for silence, and listened for a few moments. My hearing was so sharp now that I could hear things a normal person couldn't. As I tuned in, though, there was no sounds beyond normal natural sounds of scurrying rodents and the wind passing over leaves. When I was satisfied there were no bandits creeping up on us, I went into my Inventory and pulled up a couple things: leather scrap and a Bonebreak Poultice, a healing item specifically for repairing broken bones. I folded the strap over and offered it to Phillippe. He didn't ask what it was for - just stuck his head out and took it in his mouth, ready to bite down on it. "Caroline, you need to take the girls away for a minute. They don't need to see their dad in this kind of pain."

"It's okay." The older one - she was maybe fourteen or fifteen - glanced at me.

"No, he's right. Come, Lina." The mother rose, and took the hand of the smaller girl. "You too, Amber. You should relieve yourselves and have some water anyway."

Phillippe flashed me a grateful look at the girls followed. I gave him a flippant salute from the temple, waited until the women were out of earshot, then cut away his pants leg to reveal a grossly bruised, crooked shin. “Damn… this needs to be reset. Are you-?”

“Do it.” The man nodded and looked away, the muscles of his jaws working. “Don’t worry about counting. Not the first time I’ve broken something.”

Healing in Archemi was a kind of mini-game. Fractures used the Field Surgery skill covered shit like removing bullets, stitching wounds, or setting broken bones. As I focused on the break, virtual guidelines appeared on and around Phillippe's leg: yellow arrows that flowed and pulsed to indicate where I needed to grab and twist to successfully put the edges of the bone back together. It was kind of surreal, because I'd done this for realsies several times. I'd broken my wrist once and my nose about fifteen million times doing stunts, and I'd had to put someone's knee back into place while deployed. There was normally a lot of going-by-feel and messy grinding sounds when you were really doing this, but with Phillippe, it was a case of putting my hands where the arrows indicated, then twisting and pushing at the right speed. There was a small crunch, and then voila - one straightened leg.

The man growled and chewed the strap, his face flushing red, hand banging the ground beside him as he struggled not to scream. When it was over, Phillippe sagged back against the trike's belly, spat the leather out of his mouth, and tipped his face up toward the sky.

"All done. You handled that like a champ." I applied the poultice to the soft part of his shin, then took a bandage and wrapped it on. Healing items had instant or near-instant effects for player characters like me, but Phillippe here was going to have to recover the old-fashioned way. Mostly. The medicine would help, and probably let him hobble around within a couple of hours. "Do you mind if I take a look at the wagon? I might be able to work out where those bandits ran off to."

"No, go ahead." The man swallowed, and glanced at me. "You've a mind to find them? Hunt them?"

I didn't really want to admit that I wanted to kill a bunch of dudes for their experience points, so I shrugged and smiled. "If someone doesn't take care of these assholes, they're just going to keep robbing and killing people, right?"

"The plough blades... they wanted them for their iron. They’ll be reforging them into weapons," Phillippe said. "Be careful, stranger. There's a warm meal and a bed waiting for you in San Lureau for your aid today, on my honor."

I felt a moment of relief at the thought of a warm bed and a hot meal - but then remembered Karalti. There were limits to how much I could expect her to hide and be silent. And what if the dragons found her in the village? I'd heard what they'd done to Lyrensgrove. "Thanks. I'll think about it."

I cut around the wagons and waved to Caroline and her kids, signaling they could come back, and began to poke around the wagon. It wasn't long until I found something: I wasn't much of a tracker, but the bandits hadn't exactly been stealthy. There were footprints all around the back of the wagon where the equipment had been stored, and heavy gouge marks where they'd pulled the blades out and dragged them away. The marks went on for about twenty-five feet before coming to a stop inside of a mess of dinosaur prints. They resembled three-toed hookwing prints, but were stubbier and deeper. Those prints - along with several pairs of boots - then waded off into the overgrown tumble of abandoned fields to the north.

[Quest updated! Spoils of War: Now that you have the bandit's trail, follow the tracks to their location.]

"Okay, Tidbit: head north a little and meet me just over that broken stone fence. The one on the hill." I strode back over to Cutthroat, who was busily trying to remove the trike's spine through the back of its neck, and swung up into the saddle.

"Oki!" Karalti chirped back.

The hookwing's head reared with indignation, but before she could think too much, I kicked her in the ribs and spun her to the north. "Come on, girl – some bandits are having a dinner party, and we need to bring the icecream.”