Two Days Later
The Peiste is a deadly predator, a scourge of the southern deserts, with a maw that drips poison and eyes that can entomb its prey in a cocoon of conjured stone. In form it resembles a hooded serpent thrice the length of a man, with great spines along its back and four stubby legs protruding from a core thick with chitinous plate. It's eyes protrude slightly from the top of a flattened skull, allowing the creature to watch for prey while the bulk of its serpentine form remains hidden and insulted beneath the desert sand, but you are no stray aldgoat to be taken by surprise quite so easily. You can feel the shape of the land beneath your feet, sense the absence of the peiste's body in the sand like a hollow in your own flesh, and when it springs from the ground in a mighty fountain of boiling sand you are there with your shield held ready.
The Peiste pays for that first failed lunge with a broken jaw, an injury that likely dooms it to a slow death by starvation, but rather than scurry back off into its hole the beast merely lets out a rasping cry and rears back on its hind legs. The fearsome golden eyes flash with power, and with less than an eyeblink to spare you get your shield up and in the way, wincing as you feel the sand crystallise around your feet and the protruding length of your spear triple in weight. It wouldn't have petrified you, only encased you in a layer of stone formed of exhaled aether, but that would have been quite enough. As it is, your spear and shield both dip towards the ground, forced down by the sudden weight, and the Peiste hisses with triumph and lunges forward to finish the job.
"Not today," you pray, and with a grunt of effort reach deep beneath the sand until you reach the point where pressure alone forms it into stone. There is aether down there, vast currents of it, and when you crack the land asunder that power erupts like life's blood from a mortal wound. The breach is temporary, scarcely more than a single heartbeat in length before crystal forms like scab across a wound, but that is still enough for your purposes. The Peiste dies screaming amid a burning column of steam and molten sand, and you live to fight another day.
'Lord of the Battlefield' - Perk Revealed!
Nald'Thal's Fury - Cracking open the earth, you unleash the volcanic flames of the Lord of the Underworld. Gouts of steam, blasts of flame and showers of molten rock are at your command.
(Ul'dahn law makes you responsible for all repair bills incurred by overzealous use of this technique.)
Groaning and rolling your shoulders, you force yourself back to your feet and smack your spear against your shield until the layer of deposited stone flakes away. From start to finish the whole fight lasted maybe a minute or two, but that was enough that you're already regretting it. The heat is dry and omnipresent, wringing you of all moisture like an old towel in the hands of some murderous god, and the stench of boiled Peiste will be lingering sickly sweet in your nose for days.
Unfortunately, a quick inspection confirms that the emergency move ruined the peiste's hide beyond recovery - you could have made a decent bit of coin from it, peisteskin being valuable enough to buy but not enough for dedicated expeditions to hunt the creatures for. Giving it up for a lost cause, you focus your mind and force the ground to part once more, drawing the monster into an improvised grave. You doubt it has enough of a spirit to appreciate the gesture, but you'd rather not leave carrion by the road where scavengers could be drawn by the smell and make trouble for other travellers. That done, you turn and make your way back down to the carriage.
Hamund nods genially to you from his position in the pilot's seat, the reins for a pair of fidgeting chocobos held firmly in his withered hands. His wife Amila sits next to him, an old woman with skin so worn and weathered it looks like boot leather, and when you clamber back aboard she smiles approvingly at you from beneath her azure shawl. They introduced the two brats in the back as their grandchildren, and you were polite enough not to remark on the complete absence of any familial resemblance. Family means both more and less than it used to, these days.
"That was awesome!" The boy, a skinny little thing called Brant, says with eyes that shine with admiration as you settle yourself onto the wooden bench and Hamund clicks the Bo's into motion. "Weren't you scared? Did it hurt you? Oh, do you need water?"
"Best to save it," you say gently, shaking your head and managing a brief smile. Buying the carriage and the supplies to fill it cost you most of Soaring Peak's coin - Ul'dahn merchants not being inclined to rent to an Ala Mhigan, and overcharging you besides - but going without wasn't an option. The earliest maps of southern Thanalan labelled the whole place 'Broken Water', a bitter commentary on the metallic poisons that tainted all but a tiny handful of what otherwise appeared to be abundant water sources, and without your own supplies and something to carry them the journey would have been nothing less than suicide.
"Why did it attack us?" Blyssbryda asks you, and there's always something vaguely disconcerting when a roegadyn child looks at you like that, since she's almost as big as you are. "Mother said that wild beasts have learned to stay away from the roads…"
"It was hungry," you respond, carefully not reacting to the mention of a mother even as old Amila gives you a concerned look over one shoulder. You don't know where the young girl's birth mother is, but you rather suspect you can guess, and the child won't thank you for asking. "Hunger can drive a beast to do things it otherwise would never dare."
The children both nod at that, understanding in their eyes, and you have to turn away to hide the grimace that threatens to break you. Hunger can drive men as well as any beast, and you know in your gut that the children understand that better than any of their age ever should. They also know not to pry when their elders suddenly go quiet and introspective, turning instead to interrogate their adoptive grandmother on the sights and sounds all around you. You've still got another day or so to travel before you reach Little Ala Mhigo, and these people are counting on you to get them all there alive.
"Oh, I think you should ask J'zhuvu that," Amila's voice cuts in, disrupting your reverie with a kindly tone, "He's travelled all over Eorzea, after all!"
You look up to find the two children now staring at you with eager eyes, practically trembling in their seats from pent-up curiosity, and spare a moment to glare at the old woman in the front seat. Amila simply smiles warmly at you, her dark eyes twinkling with mischief. Honestly, you hardly need to be mothered at your age, snapped out of your brooding by compassionate concern, nor used as a prop for corralling younglings…
"Mr Tia, Mr Tia!" Brant is the first to speak, practically leaping out of his seat with enthusiasm as he jabs a finger at the horizon, "What are those?"
You grumble, and make a show of squinting along the length of his outstretched finger, though there's only really one thing out there worth seeing. Far to the west, the otherwise flat plains and rolling dunes of the desert give way to a broken series of ridgelines, blood-red rock obscured by air that shimmers in the haze like some monstrous scar.
"That's the Red Labyrinth," you say, pausing to cough and clear your throat. It feels like you've swallowed sand, the inside of your mouth hot and burning, but you push down the impulse to drain the nearest waterskin. "I've heard that somewhere in there is a gate to Nald'thal's realm, but nobody's ever found it. Or maybe they have, and the Trader didn't allow them to come back through…"
Brant's eyes go wide as he stares at the distant horizon, leaning precariously out the side of the carriage as though a few ilms more will give him a better look. Blyssbryda by contrast seems more sceptical, crossing her arms and looking at you with an intense expression on her young face. You think she's younger than her adopted brother, but with size comes assumed seniority and thus responsibility.
"I've heard there are monsters in there," she says in a challenging tone, staring you down as best she can, "Maybe people who go looking for the gods get eaten, and
that's why they never come back."
"Maybe the monsters were put there by Nald'thal. Maybe they worship Him," you counter, fighting a grin as Blyssbryda visibly struggles with the concept. You gesture to the desert all around you. "The Amalj'aa say this whole land is sacred to their god Ifrit - maybe Minotaurs and Basilisks worship their own gods as well?"
Blyssbryda looks intrigued at the very thought, while Brant barely seems to have heard you. He's still leaning out the side of the cart, staring at everything he can see… until a sudden gust of wind kicks up a cloud of searing hot sand and he has to duck back inside with an outraged splutter.
"Urgh, this sucks," he grumbles, crossing his arms and folding himself up into the corner of the carriage, "Why do people even live down here?"
"Because nobody else wants to, my little firesnake," Amila says with a kindly chuckle, looking back at the three of you. "There are no rich men or thieving merchants this far south, only hard workers and those who know how to help each other. It will be good for us all, I think."
You're not stupid enough to mention that the only people Ul'dah sends down this way are exiles. The worst of criminals are dumped in the desert and left to perish of thirst, while the troops stationed down here are condemned to constant vigilance and bloody skirmishing with the saurian Amalj'aa on a daily basis.
"It's not all bad," you say with a chuckle, cutting the young boy off before he can start pouting, "The U Tribe live even further south, right on the edge of the Sagolii desert, but they're based around an oasis. Clean water, lush greenery, sweet fruits - you can find things like that even in the harshest of lands, if you know where to look."
That of course just sets off another flurry of questions, be it of practical concerns like how to spot potential well sites from Blyssbryda or stories of forgotten treasures and buried gems from Brant, each of which you answer in turn. Amila chimes in occasionally to deflect the topic whenever it grows too heavy for young and innocent minds, while Hamund just keeps his focus on the road, sometimes breaking out into a cheery whistle. The simple fact of being removed from Lost Hope seems to have revitalised all of them, the uncertain possibilities of the future almost certainly better than the past, and you swear an oath in your heart to protect them and their smiles from any threat that may yet arise. The southlands are dangerous and inhospitable, but these people have followed you here because they believed in what you said, and you will not let them down.
In the end though, it is not beasts or beastmen that threaten your passage, but those you might have once called kin. The carriage crests a slow rise, and reveals in that moment a crude barricade constructed halfway down the slope, rough boulders and chunks of deadwood piled high to disrupt and obstruct any progress. Half a dozen ragged forms lounge around their handiwork with arrogant ease, men and women in rough leather jackets bearing notched and broken weapons, but they make no move to approach you and there is a prickling feeling at the back of your neck.
"Bandits, out here?" Hamund mutters, squinting down the path at the lounging brigands with an incredulous look on his face. "What are they even hoping to steal? Half the convoys that come down this way must be Brass Blades or Immortal Flames…"
"Those aren't any mere brigands," you say grimly, scanning the slopes along either flank in search of - yes, there, the briefly shifting silhouette of another man lying in ambush. He won't be alone either, but you doubt you'll spot any of the others before they emerge to fully encircle you. There's only one group that has such skills and the mindset and circumstances to use them, and already you regret not waiting to hitch up with a military patrol. "They're the Corpse Brigade."
Amila mutters a sulphurous curse under her breath, swiftly excused as a cough so as not to scare the children, while Hamund grows pale and tense. They have every right to be scared - the Corpse Brigade were King Theodoric's personal guard, once upon a time, and the litany of atrocities they committed at the Mad King's order stains their souls and those of every Ala Mhigan yet alive. You'd heard they retreated as a unit from the country when the Conquest happened, and there were always rumours indicating that they were still around and operating as a cohesive force, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant to run across them. Sighing, you drop down out of the carriage and pick up your spear and shield.
"Stay here," you say to the civilians under your care, trying to sound reassuring, "I'm going to see what they want."
The men and women manning the barricade are trying to look like a bunch of scraggly bandits, but you honestly don't think they're doing a very good job of it. They pay too much attention to you as you walk down the slope to meet them, fan out around you with too much practised ease, keep their silence with too much discipline. You can see a series of small packages laid neatly by the side of the road that you would bet hold their real weapons and armour, carefully kept ready in case of need, while beneath the sand on either side of the road conceals the hard, regularly placed shapes of what you would bet are stakes and other nasty surprises for any attempted flankers.
"Greetings, friend," the man in the lead says, a massive Hellsguard with swirling black tattoos that cover his torso and biceps, doing his best to smile cheerfully at you. "Sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm afraid that on behalf of the Sultanate of Ul'dah, we're going to have to collect a road tax from you before you pass. For upkeep and maintenance and so forth."
"Really now. From king's guard to roadside toll collectors, I see," you drawl, making sure you look bored and unimpressed as you look from one old soldier to the next. "The Corpse Brigade has seen better days, I take it."
The air changes in an instant, all pretence discarded in favour of razor-sharp tension, and your skin prickles from the feeling of a dozen hostile glares. Nobody leaps to tear your throat out, though, so you think they really are just here to extort payment.
"You're a canny one, I see," the Hellsguard says calmly, an ugly look in his eyes. "Well, that makes this easy then. Pay up, or turn around. What'll it be?"
Turning around means charting another course through the Red Labyrinth to get to Little Ala Mhigo, at the cost of several days and significantly increased danger. You're not fond of the idea, but you're still only sure of about eight of the twelve ambushers, sensing their weight upon the sands like knives against your skin. Keep talking.
"I'm curious, was it the Slitter who put you up to this?" You muse, keeping your body loose and relaxed, ready to move in an instant, "I assume she's still in command, unless someone finally gave her what she deserves."
"That's Captain Milleuda to you, friend," the big man says, his voice just slightly too smooth to be called a snarl. Definitely a sergeant of some kind, there's no way the others would be silent like this if he was just a popular member of the rank and file. "You've got enough grey hairs to have heard what happens to those who insult her."
"I gave her that scar on her cheek, boy, I'll call her whatever I damn well like," you grunt, eying the renegade soldier before you. He stills at the boast, sharing a sideways glance with the rest of his unit, and… yes, there, the others out in the sands have moved enough now that you think you have them all counted. Twelve in total, as you first suspected, a reinforced squad out running a little fundraising operation. You crossed blades and spears with the Corpse Brigade back during the rebellion, before Theodoric's madness became too much for even them to bear, and you still remember how they work.
They'd probably be less uncertain if they knew about the long, ragged scar running from just below your collarbone to the top of your pelvis. Captain Milleuda earned her sobriquet by slitting men open lengthways and leaving them to die amid a pile of their own guts; you're one of very few who got to experience her handiwork firsthand and live to tell of it.
"My my, a real Myrmidon, how about that," the Brigade soldier says quietly, staring you down, "Well, I'd invite you back to camp to trade war stories, but I don't think you'd be welcome, and I'm not much inclined to wave you through out of respect for those grey hairs. So what'll it be, old man?"
Choose One:
[ ] Pay the Toll. The Corpse Brigade are scum of the very worst kind, but they're disciplined. They'll take enough to leave you penniless on the threshold of Little Ala Mhigo, but you'll get through unharmed, and so will your wards.
[ ] Dare the Labyrinth. The Corpse Brigade won't stop you leaving, because as far as they're concerned it's their road or nothing. Going through the Red Labyrinth will be difficult and dangerous, but you think it should be possible.
[ ] Force a Path. With your skills you can break through the barricade and the soldiers, and with the Army's Soul you can shield your charges from arrowfire long enough to get out of range. It will hurt, but you can do it. All it takes is spilling a kinsman's blood.
