Chapter 16 - John
StrangeCrest
Mediocre
AN:
Did some editing of Chapter 15 to clean it up some. I was not conveying the experience I meant to towards the readers, so I've tried to fix that. I also did a small amount of general reading grammar/spelling/reading compression changes in some places.
All the major beats/events of Chapter 15 are still mostly the same, except the ending section of the battle scene which I overhauled. I made some minor/moderate changes to make things feel less BS at the end and closed a couple small plotholes.
For most readers, I would suggest re-reading from the point shortly before John explodes the explosive barrels in the ground and then looking at the spoilers below to learn the other small changes. There are a couple small changes besides that section, but I don't think they are worth reading so much of this huge chapter for so little changes.
For those who aren't interested in re-reading Chapter 15 at all or want to see the edit notes so you don't miss anything, the changes are logged in the following spoiler in the chronological order your would have read them:
Anyways, enjoy the chapter!
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After the misbegotten left, for the next couple days they kept a constant watch for any more attacks, but none came.
The misbegotten had completely retreated from their attacks, and the remains of the garrison had the opportunity to regain all the ground they had lost over the weeks. But they did not. The garrison kept the position at the final chokepoint with some lookouts at the collapsed areas to make sure the misbegotten weren't digging through them.
This restraint allowed them to focus on fully recovering from the battle. They began removing the bodies of the fallen and cleaning up the gore that had rained everywhere from the explosion.
It took quite a while, as they didn't have much free manpower left, almost everyone left having something important to do like feeding others, repairing weapons and armor, keeping an eye on enemy movements and making sure they did not try and dig up any collapsed areas to create new passageways, and guarding against any more potential attacks.
They had been keeping a lookout for where the Grafted Blade Sword had landed, but it hadn't yet been found. Edgar had put a bounty on it for whoever found it.
Despite lasting less than half an hour, almost half their remaining soldiers had died, though none of their elite knights had perished. The levies had suffered heavily, the winged misbegotten having inflicted incredible casualties on them, like the soldiers had on the misbegotten weeks ago at the beginning of the siege. They had lost over one hundred levies in the battle with many more being injured, about a fourth of the total numbers, though they took out half of their much more limited fliers in exchange.
Altogether, there were about five hundred survivors total left in Castle Morne.
All the injuries had eaten up the last of their tear supplies. Every soldier was on their final flask.
So it was a relief that as the days passed, no misbegotten attacks came. And as every day passed they recovered more so that any attacks that came would be better repelled. It was looking like they would be able to make it through to hold out the last few days until reinforcements came.
Now that there was only a single corridor to guard, they only needed the regulars to guard it.
They had even been able to send a couple of fives to tentatively scout, and the misbegotten weren't doing anything but guarding the various Castle Morne entrances to make sure they knew when Edgar's forces marched out of the castle. And even when those misbegotten spotted the scouts, they seemed to be prepared to run, rather than fight.
As for the irregulars, Edgar had decided to use them as extra manpower, so they were taking care of the clean-up of the courtyard, and after that would be working to begin the long process of rebuilding.
So that was what John was doing. Assisting the irregulars' hundrier in directing the men's labor and helping the men remove all the debris.
By the third day, all the gore had been either thrown over the cliffside into the ocean or put into one of the craters which they had begun slowly filling back up with dirt and stones.
Anything of value, they organized into crates in a dedicated area of the courtyard. Some just had plain bits of steel in them. Other crates had hilts, others chainmail, and so on.
John went to place an empty golden flask in its assigned crate, and a moment later, another irregular, just an Armsman from a different twenty, dropped another flask in right after him.
"It's a terrible shame that some of these flasks were no doubt thrown into the ocean. Each one is an irreplaceable loss," the Armsman commented.
John looked at him.
"Irreplaceable? Can't the Order just make more of them? Aren't they made by Marika or something?"
The Armsman turned and looked at John, visibly confused by what John had said.
"What are you...? Ah, your eyes. I see, a foreigner. That explains it.
"You think the Golden Order created these flasks? No. They are ancient relics, long predating the Golden Order. They had been around long before the Erdtree and the Goddess Marika had even come to be."
That surprised John to hear.
But wait, if they predated it, how and why did they hold liquid that came from the Erdtree? There was also another thing John remembered...
He pulled out his own flask, looked at the neck, and compared it all the dozens of flasks in the crate. They all matched. He wasn't imagining things.
John wondered, if these flasks predated the Erdtree, then what was the tree depicted on the neck of the flask?
Looking back at the man, John asked him just that.
"How should I know?" the Armsman said, "I'm just a carpenter, not a priest or scholar."
The man glared down at the crate.
"Or at least I was until those cursed bastards burned the city to the ground, and everything I had with it. The business had been in my family for centuries. They even killed all my men afterwards in these battles, those sons of snakes! When this is over I'm going to have to start everything from scratch."
With that, the man, now angry from the reminder of his loss, stomped off to continue to clean up the area.
Well, that did nothing to solve the mystery of exactly what the crimson tear flask was depicting if not the Erdtree. And if the Erdtree, and therefore the tears which came from it, didn't exist, what had they been used to hold before? Had Marika somehow converted them to what they were now from something else? And what exactly were they made from if they weren't made of gold and glass like they superficially appeared to be?
These and other questions he had would have to be left unanswered for now.
As John left the crate to continue cleaning up, he heard his hundrier call.
"Sergeant White! Come here."
John looked to see his hundrier at one of the entranceways to the rest of the castle. Next to him was a young woman holding a child's hand.
John walked over to his hundrier and glanced at the young woman standing next to him and the child holding her hand.
The young woman was in high-quality, conservative dress that covered her body except for the face and the elbows down on her arms. The dress was a dark grey with gold embroidery of dragons and beasts all over it. With her clothes she was clearly one of the noble daughters of knights that John had seen occasionally in the halls.
She had blonde hair and stormy grey eyes, like almost all the people in Morne, matched the exact same shade of grey as her dress. Her figure looked good. She did not have any outrageous proportions, but neither did she lack womanly attributes. Her face was pretty as well and she looked pretty young, around twenty years old.
The child was a black boy of maybe ten years old who looked just like any of the other couple dozen townsfolk children in the castle and wore a ragged tunic and pants.
The woman was staring at John's chest, probably looking at his exceptionally dirty armor, absolutely caked with dirt, dust, and grime, but thankfully not gore, from the clean-up efforts.
"Sir, you called?" John asked, curious as to why the hundrier wanted him.
"It's your lucky day. You get out of doing any real work and are instead going to accompany this pretty lady here," the hundrier said with a smile, not really clarifying anything for John.
The hundrier must have read his confusion from his face, because he continued.
"This is Lady Irina Morne, Lord Edgar's daughter. With her father's permission, she has asked for me to release you for the rest of the afternoon for a chat."
John's eyes widened! She was Irina!?
Why did Irina wish to talk to him!? He'd not seen her or had anything to do with her at all.
Giving the young woman a second glance, he saw now that she wasn't actually looking at his dirty armor, she was just staring in his general direction blankly, not focused on one thing in particular.
"I understand, sir."
The hundrier nodded and walked off towards the men to continue directing them, leaving John alone with Irina and the boy.
John looked at Irina and waited for her to explain, but she stayed quiet, her body slightly hunched from fear or awkwardness. John looked at his shirt and the young woman who was hesitating to speak.
"I am very dirty at the moment. How about I go get cleaned up and meet you somewhere to talk?" John asked, throwing the young woman a lifeline.
Irina hurriedly nodded.
"Yes, thank you! That sounds good Sergeant White. I will meet you in the western lounge then?"
"The lounge with the red chairs?" John clarified.
John stood there silent for a moment after his question, then John realized what he had just done.
"I'm so sor-"
Irina raised her hand, interrupting him immediately with the speed of long practice.
"My eyesight is very weak, but I am not entirely blind. No need to apologize Sergeant White. It is a common mistake many make, mistaking my impotent sight for blindness. I still need a minder so I do not trip and hurt myself, but I am not entirely incapable.
"And to answer your question. I do believe the chairs in the western lounge are red. I will see you there in a few minutes?"
"Yes, Miss Morne. Just long enough to scrub off the dirt and change clothes."
Irina nodded and started quickly walking away into the entrance, and John was unable to tell if it was because she was scared or offended or something else. The little boy holding her hand hastily followed her.
"Ah, Miss Irina!" the little boy pulled on her hand and called out warning her as she almost misstepped on a large stone almost hidden by the courtyard's grass.
Irina stopped and took a step to the side.
"Thank you," she said to the boy and continued dragging him away as she continued her power walk.
John didn't waste any time leaving himself and hurried to clean himself up, but he still wasn't sure what this talk was all about. Unless Irina was taking on some of Edgar's duties, which would be uncommon as she was a woman and feudal societies had certain strict roles in what men and women did. But he doubted that was it.
He moved quickly and a short time later he arrived at their arranged meeting place, freshly scrubbed and without his dirty armor. John found Irina sitting in a red chair with the little boy nearby.
"I am here, Miss Morne," John announced as he sat down in a red chair across from her.
Irina turned towards him before she looked over at the boy standing beside her.
"Why don't you go and play in another room while me and Sergeant White have our talk?" Irina asked the boy as John sat.
Recognizing that he was being dismissed for the moment, the boy nodded and left the room.
They sat there silently for a few moments, Irina just as shy as earlier. Seeing that she wasn't going to be starting the conversation soon, John took the plunge himself.
"So why did you want to talk to me?" John began.
Irina took a deep breath and looked at him with a smile. He could tell from her eyes that she wasn't actually focused on him, rather she was looking in the general direction of his face, and doing a good approximation of actually looking at him like a non-impaired person would have.
"I want to thank you for saving my life Sergeant White," Irina said and lowered her head.
That is when John understood what this was all about. He relaxed now that he realized this wasn't going to be bad for him somehow, and a smile slipped over his face.
"I accept your thanks Miss Morne, but lift your head. I am sure there plenty of honorable men under Edgar who would have done the same."
Irina looked skeptical.
"But those were not the men who saved my life Sergeant White, it was you. It does not matter who could possibly have done a deed. Rather, it matters who has followed through and done so," Irina insisted.
John actually had to agree with her there. His deflection was just an ingrained 'polite' reaction to compliments rather than a serious statement.
"And you say the men under my father are honorable, but I have my doubts. Nearly half of the knights in this castle are in the dungeon from owing their loyalty to a dead, lying traitor."
John raised an eyebrow.
"While that is true, I think that is more of an exception. No doubt the best men were targeted in the misbegotten's attacks. That skews the numbers here. Besides, the High Marshal has far more knights under his command than were stationed here. I can't imagine most of them are as Crann was."
Irina gave a sniff of disagreement.
"I would not be so sure of the integrity of knights, especially those of high rank. Often the best way to improve one's own prestige is doing dishonorable deeds while pretending to be honorable."
"Well, I can't really disagree with you there. To my understanding, that is normally the case in any society. It doesn't surprise me that the Golden Order is similar."
Irina paused and gave John an unfocused look as thought on something for a few seconds, before she made a decision.
"Did you know that Crann had been one of my suitors for a few years now? He had been using the recognition of his 'informant's' information to vie for my hand and enter talks with my father about being allowed to formally court me for my hand.
"Even before he joined hands with the servants, he thought far to highly of himself and passed off most of his work to his subordinates, and was just unpleasant. His only redeeming feature was his incredible martial prowess. It was he was of middling rank despite being among Lord Godrick's most powerful men, nearly a match for Sentinel Dextrann.
"Crann was but one of the many men under my father who vie for my hand and care for no one but themselves. To fulfill their ambitions or their passions," Irina said bitterly.
John could somewhat with sympathize her about that.
He easily believed a lot of dudes would want a woman like Irina as their wife just to bed her with how she looked, not caring at all about the young woman herself. Not to mention her status as the only daughter and relative of Edgar, a High Marshal and powerful lord.
John could see what may have been Crann's endgame with his betrayal. Marry the daughter of what was effectively the princess of the region and then the king who cannot die of old age dies in a rebellion, so he becomes the king.
Only that didn't perfectly make sense because the overall control of the region's military was decided by military appointment of Godrick rather than bloodline succession, and Crann was only middling of rank as a Knight Major, but maybe he was only after the land, the wealth, rather than command over the army.
Another flaw of this plan, if it had indeed been Crann's aim, was that the rebellion was going to kill everyone who wasn't a misbegotten, John doubted Irina or Crann would be spared either despite the man being a turncoat.
It sort-of fit, but things weren't lining up quite right for John to be completely convinced of that. There must have been more to all this than John knew.
No plans survived contact with the enemy, and GRRM's characters had confusing plots and counterplots where everything chaotically clashed and no one but the evil masterminds behind the scenes pulling the strings ended up in a better position. Most everyone who was actually doing things and being productive in GRRM's story were just the puppets of masterminds behind the scenes who were controlling things and sitting on their asses.
Not very different from real life, really.
John suspected Crann, and maybe even the misbegotten, were one of these pawns.
John's thoughts of trying to unravel what exactly was the plot around Crann were interrupted when Irina continued, the bitterness vanishing from her demeanor as she got off the topic.
"But enough about others. I wanted to have a chat with you to not only thank you for saving my life, but I also wish to know more about the man who saved me. The mysterious foreigner."
At that, the first thought that hit John was that Irina may have been interested in him, but taking a closer look at her body language, he didn't see any of the telltale hints a woman gave that showed she was interested in a man that way. It seemed to be platonic curiosity.
Which was good, frankly. It would be awkward and potentially dangerous to reject his current boss's daughter's advances. A woman scorned and all that.
He wasn't interested in any 'casual fun' at all, nor was he looking for anything serious at the moment, as that came with other long-term concerns. If he wanted a kid at all, it wouldn't be until after the Chosen Tarnished became Elden Lord and hopefully at least somewhat fixed the world.
And especially not something with a woman who was heavily tied with Godrick's forces.
Not even mentioning that he had good chance of dying as he tried to help the Chosen Tarnished, just like the dozens of times and ways he could have died in just this one siege.
For example, if the leonine misbegotten had landed just five feet in a different direction when it had killed Andren, John could have been one of the men it had casually cut down.
He refused for a kid of his to be raised in an apocalypse world without a father.
No, John wasn't in the market for any romance until after the multiple apocalypses slowly destroying this world were at least being addressed.
Maybe things would change and cause his mind to change about this, but that was what John thought about the topic at the moment.
All this to say that John was glad Irina didn't seem to have the hots for him despite the fact she was pretty and seemed nice.
John banished those thoughts as he stayed focused on the conversation.
"So what do you want to know about me?" John asked.
"I heard a little from my father about you. He has told me you are a foreigner. What land do you hail from?" She asked with a sparkle in her eye.
"A land called the United States of America."
Irina's face scrunched in thought before lowering her head in apology.
"I am sorry Sergeant White. My father has had many tutors teach me many things, including lessons on other lesser kingdoms outside the Lands Between, but these United States has never come up."
John waved his hand.
"Don't worry about it Miss Morne. I would be surprised if anyone in the Lands Between had heard of my homeland. The United States is extremely far from Lands Between and has no connection or relation to this land at all."
Irina nodded, accepting his words, and pressed further.
"A land so far away... what is your homeland like?" Irina asked.
That was a hard question for John. He wanted to keep the strangeness of his origin as under wraps as possible, but he could feel from her genuine curiosity that Irina wouldn't just accept it if he just waved this question off with vagaries like he had when anyone else had asked him.
"Well, like most places, it had good things about it and bad things. Like the Golden Order in the Lands Between, it controls a large amount of land with many different regions with various climates, from snowy mountains to lakes, forests, and swamps. The only thing we had that you don't is plains and deserts."
"I have heard of plains before, but a desert? What is that?"
"It is an expansive region of mostly sand. Imagine a beach the size of the Weeping Peninsula, and there is almost no plants or grassland that isn't near rivers. There are some small lakes dotted around as well called oases."
Irina lightly frowned.
"How strange that sounds, a place with no grass. It sounds unpleasant."
John laughed.
"I agree. Though maybe my interpretation is too negative because it is one of my least favorite climates. The only one I hate more is a jungle."
"I have never heard of a jungle either. If it is more horrible than a desert, then it must be a truly dreadful place."
John chuckled but decided not to get into what a jungle was at the moment.
"To continue, in the lands near my homeland, we were the strongest nation. Or at least, we believed we were. Our rivals would probably have disagreed, and I'm not sure they are wrong either.
"I won't go into much detail as that is all behind me now, but I didn't like the rulers of my homeland much for many reasons. I disagreed with many of the things they believed and how they led the country. But there isn't really much a man like me could have done about any of that."
"Your name, White, were you from a noble family?"
John shook his head.
"No. I am actually an orphan. My family died before I could remember anything, and I was raised by various families. They would each take me in for a time before they tired of me then another family would take me in for a year or two before they tired of me, and so on."
Irina became apologetic.
"That is terrible Sergeant White. I have heard of similar stories before and know such an upbringing is difficult to bear. I am sorry for bringing it up."
John chuckled.
"I am not sensitive or uncomfortable about it. Don't worry about apologizing; I'm not hurt by it. I don't hate those people or anything even after they got rid of me.
"Actually, I feel thankful to them. Many of them were far from perfect, but I never wanted for food or water. I never went hungry or cold."
Irina shook her head.
"I must insist on apologizing, even if you do not feel you need it. Asking about your name and family, I just wished to know if you were a political exile from your homeland. Many times have exiles from other lands came here and attempted to establish themselves somehow in these lands.
"I must ask forgiveness for my suspicions and thoughtlessly bringing up such a personal matter."
John laughed.
"I'm not offended by your suspicions. I won't get mad at people for being reasonably suspicious. And no, I'm not here for anything like that. Taking over the country or being a spy or whatever.
"I had just heard tales of the adventures of a particular tarnished of no renown and was suddenly forced from my homeland by circumstances out of my control. I traveled straight from there without any stops, and now I am here. Going on my own adventure through these lands. Or I was until the misbegotten rebellion happened at least."
Hearing his words, Irina's ears perked up.
"Oh? You are an adventurer?" She asked with obvious interest.
Seeing her reaction, John smiled.
Then a lightbulb went off in his head. Irina was a blind girl that had probably been kept in Morne all her life. She wanted to talk to him to hear about other places to live vicariously through him.
Much more confident and relaxed now that he figured out her intentions, John continued.
"I guess you can say I'm an adventurer of a sort. Mostly a wanderer. I was mostly traveling with my merchant friend and seeing the sights of the Lands Between before this. There are many fantastical things in the Lands Between, and I want to see all of them I can.
"From your people's ability to call upon the power of the sky, to the sorcerers of Liurnia of the Lakes, to the Erdtree itself, my own homeland had nothing like these magical things here. It is incredible to see them in person after hearing about them in that tarnished's tale. The tale was nothing but a pale imitation in comparison. Even the Weeping Peninsula is fascinating."
Irina giggled at his yokel-ish wonder.
"Thank you for appreciating my homeland's beauty. Few travelers say they like our peninsula. Too wet and dreary they say. Do they not realize that the blessings of the sky are not as abundant anywhere else? Does our export of fulgurblooms not prove this? Yet all they care about is the inconvenience of a little mud and having to wear a cloak to keep from getting wet from the rain."
Irina let out a little huff at that and shook her head before she switched to a different topic.
"My father has told me that he has offered a spot in his retinue to you. From what we have spoken about so far, I feel that you will reject it?"
John nodded.
"Yes, I will be rejecting it. I know it is a very generous offer, but I am not interested in being tied down to anything in particular right now. I plan on just taking whatever wages he gives me after this is all over and going on my way."
"I see."
Irina sat back and thought for a few moments before she shook her head, dropping whatever she had been thinking of saying, and switched back to their previous topic.
"Do you wish to spend your life traveling the Lands Between, or do you have plans after you have seen the lands?"
"I do. The nomadic life of my merchant friend isn't what I want to do forever. I will definitely be settling down and starting something after I finish my travels."
"Truly? What will you do?"
"I don't know what that will look like exactly. I don't have any specific plans yet, and I have to finish my traveling first before I can even make any, but I do plan on getting something started after I am done. Maybe learning some magic or something, and I could always fall back on being a hunter. I've become a very good shot.
"But like I said, there is no point in making any plans yet. I don't even know all the options I have yet. I can start making plans after I get done seeing everything the Lands Between has to offer. Might take a year or two, or it might take a couple decades."
A look of slight envy came over her features.
"I have to admit that the idea of traveling the Lands Between tempts me as well. But such a dream was never possible for one in my circumstances," Irina sighed as she obviously referenced her eyesight limiting her.
"Where have you traveled to?" She asked.
John tilted his head in thought, shifting how he was sitting in his chair.
"Just a portion of Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula so far. I've just been following my friend as he goes on his trading route between some major settlements. I've seen the Stormgate and Sotrmveil Castle as well as the some impressive bridges. Truly impressive feats of architecture.
"I suspect that the next region I will be visiting will be Liurnia, but that isn't completely certain yet. I will probably have to separate with my friend to head there as it seems like he is pretty invested in his route here in Limgrave, but I still have some stuff in Limgrave to do first before I head north."
Irina tilted her head curiously.
"Your friend that you are speaking of, my father told me that your friend is a nomadic merchant? I understand that most do not trust his people. How did you become friends with him?"
John raised an eyebrow at that question.
It seemed that Irina, or her father, had asked around a little bit about him before this talk. Most people didn't know he was friends with Kalé, and Kalé was avoided by many outside of work as part of how they shunned him.
It wasn't a huge secret, but you'd have to take a serious interest in Kalé or him to know that. It seemed that Edgar really had been scouting him out for potential recruitment.
But unlike details about his homeland, his story about how he came to know Kalé wasn't something he felt the need to keep secret.
"When I first arrived in Limgrave, I was in big trouble. The Lands Between are very different from my homeland. I didn't know how to survive by myself, or even how to speak the language here. Kalé took a significant amount of time and taught me everything I needed to know to survive and get along here in the Lands Between, and we became good friends as we got to know each other during that time.
"As for his people being untrustworthy, while I understand why people in the Lands Between are wary of his people, I am not worried, and I don't what others here think. Kalé is a loyal friend and a decent man. If people think I will just abandon our friendship because of some mean words and glares over their paranoia, then they will be sorely disappointed."
Irina smiled.
"That is heartening to hear. I think similarly of the servants. Many despised and treated the servants poorly. They think them terrible because of their outer appearance, but I have never encountered a servant that was as unpleasant as many profess they are. It does not surprise me that the servants revolted with how poorly they are treated, though the consequences of their actions sadden me, for them and for us. So many dead for such little reason.
"Sometimes I am thankful for my lacking sight. Amusingly, it allows me to see things that others do not. I have never treated the servants poorly nor has my father, so it was a shock to learn from that they wished to harm me. I wonder what had I done to them that would wish them to hurt me so? I heard from my father that the information about the servant's plans came from you?" Irina asked downcast.
"I suspect it has nothing to actually do with what you have done," John said after a few moments to think about it. "I think that it is because of who your father is. While neither of you may have done much to them directly to make them hate you as far as I am aware, your father is the one in charge of everything in the Weeping Peninsula. That includes the slaves and their treatment.
"His rule is what keeps them in bondage, prevents them from living their own lives, and what keeps them in mines and on farms breaking their bodies working for the prosperity of others with little to nothing given in return.
"It doesn't really matter that he doesn't indulge in sadism or that he is duty bound to do it, from their point of view, he has greatly hurt them. And while I know you called the servants to try and be nice to them, the reality that they are slaves doesn't change."
Irina squirmed a little in her seat.
"Think of it this way Irina, does it matter if the man who orders your torture hates you or not, or whether he cuts you up himself or has another man do it? Does it matter to you whether or not your lord had personally hurt you if society has decided your place in it is to be punished because of how you were born and he is their enforcer?
"Or at least, that is what I suspect their viewpoint is. Or something similar to it. So of course they would want to get revenge and hurt him by hurting you."
Irina wilted slightly.
"I... I had never thought of these matters like that. The servants have always just been the servants."
John held up his hands.
"I could be wrong about it. Many something else is going on. But that would be my guess for why they wanted to rebel."
Irina shook her head.
"Let us move on from this grim subject. Can you tell me more of your journey or your homeland?"
And so the conversation continued as John began telling her about his travels in the Lands Between so far, leaving out certain things of course.
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The days went by and soon they were only two days before the reinforcements arrived.
As the time passed, things paradoxically became both more relaxed and more tense. As the deadline for the reinforcements came closer, their position was more secure, but it also meant that if the misbegotten were going to make a major move, they would have to do it soon.
So their growing relief was mixed with a rising tension.
And as it happened, the misbegotten would make a move, but not the one they had been fearing.
John was still working on fixing up the courtyard when one day a pair of soldiers came out of the sole entrance to the parts below with a large unarmed misbegotten between them.
Everyone working stopped, surprised at the men escorting one of the misbegotten elites, and watched as they made their way across the courtyard. As they got to the halfway point, their hundrier made his way to the strange group.
"You two, why is this misbegotten here?" the hundrier demanded.
"Sir, this one has been sent to negotiate their surrender. Our twentier sent us to escort him to Lord Edgar."
"Just two men?" the hundrier commented looking at the huge misbegotten. "Hmm... John! Take a five and help these men escort this misbegotten to Lord Edgar."
"Yes sir!" said John as he stopped what he was doing and turned. "Butcher, Cobbler, and the rest of the polearm five, you are with me," John ordered.
His old five with their new member dropped what they were doing and they all quickly picked up their weapons and joined the escort on their way to Edgar's study.
A few minutes later they arrived and John knocked on the door. Edgar opened it, one arm in a sling, still injured from the climactic battle having refused healing afterwards as he "didn't need it as much as other men".
He looked at the group and their dubious charge.
"My lord," John began, "this misbegotten says he is here to negotiate the surrender of the misbegotten rebels."
Edgar's eyebrow rose and he looked at the misbegotten.
"Oh really?"
The misbegotten's face was unhappy but not upset or hostile.
"Yes, Lord Morne. I have been given the authority to discuss the terms of our surrender."
Edgar didn't respond for a few moments.
"Very well, you can come in. Sergeant White, join us. The rest of you, wait here. If you hear a scuffle break out or me shouting for you, come inside."
Edgar let John and the misbegotten inside and closed the door, leaving the three of them in the room alone.
Edgar was in his armor besides the helmet and the arm that was in a sling, John was in his full armor and had his partisan, and the misbegotten was completely unarmed and unarmored.
This particular misbegotten wasn't one of the elites John had seen over the course of the rebellion. He was large but had no tail, which was common among the larger misbegotten. His lower part of his body was mostly covered in scales and his upper-half was covered in fur that was ever so slightly red. His flesh had a slight red tint to it as well similar to the leonine misbegotten.
This was the second reddest misbegotten John had seen so hard, the first being the leonine misbegotten. Suggesting he was one of those anomalous mysterious trained misbegotten.
Edgar stood on one side of the table with John carefully guarding him in case the misbegotten tried to pull something, while the misbegotten stood alone on the other, his larger form making his presence almost as imposing as their own despite being outnumbered, alone, and trapped behind enemy lines.
"What is your name and with authority do you speak?" Edgar demanded.
The misbegotten growled at Edgar's command.
"Do not mistake my presence here as capitulation, fringefolk. Do not presume to command me. We know that you are aware that not all of us are from the slave stock of Morne. It would have been impossible to miss with the battles that have been fought. You know you have never been and will never be my master. You are not dealing with one of your subjects. Do not think yourself above me."
Edgar's eyes narrowed.
"I am High Marshal. I could have you executed," Edgar threatened. "Alone, you have no way of stopping me."
The misbegotten let out a scornful laugh.
"Ha! You could, but you won't. If I do not return by sunset, it will signal the others to attack. We still outnumber you. Even if we lose, we will make you bleed for it. I would not be so sure you would win that fight in the first place. Unless you want more of your own to die?"
Edgar and the misbegotten stood off for a few moments, but Edgar relented and chuckled darkly.
"Very well. You have me. I cannot kill you, however we both know that your assertion of victory is a bluff. The time for that has passed when we crippled your leader. Now give me your name and who you speak for."
The misbegotten just narrowed his eyes at Edgar but stayed silent, the two engaging in another stand-off as the tension began to build.
It was fascinating and nerve-racking for John to see the posturing happening in front of him as each fought to establish themselves as having more leverage in even these small things. It was an interesting mental game where both sides understood the rules that the more leverage one side had the more they could ask for. John guessed that fighting over who had more leverage would be a big part of these negotiations.
After nearly a minute of neither one speaking, Edgar was the one who broke the silence.
"Will you give me your name and tell me who you speak for?"
The misbegotten audibly breathed out out of his nose.
"I am Morsh, and I speak for our leader Gharriel," Morsh answered.
"Morsh. What terms does Gharriel offer?"
"We know that since the first days that the Golden Lineage became the wardens of these lands, the punishment for rebellion has been death. Our leader is willing to offer her own life in exchange for the sparing of the lives of those of our kin who remain as you put them back into bondage."
"Preposterous. I cannot possibly allow them to just return unpunished. No doubt other menials will hear of what happened here and get ideas of their own. In months I'd have a dozen or more small rebellions pop up over the mines and estates of the Peninsula. I should have you thrown out just hearing such absurdities. Come back when you are ready to have a serious negotiation. John." Edgar gestured.
John took a single step before Morsh spoke up.
"That would not be wise. We have heard that your forces from the Ramparts of Regret will be arriving within days. We have to negotiate today or we will be forced to attack. You may think that we have nothing left, but our leader knows of a secret ritual that requires the death of many that will allow us to combat your reinforcements. We are not without recourse. Our leader has only decided not to pursue that path because it would mean the death of most of our brethren from Morne."
Edgar looked skeptical, but he motioned for John to step back.
"That may be true, but the fact remains, I cannot just absolve the rebels of punishment. I cannot send them to the mines or other punishment labors either. No doubt I'd have dozens more rebellions on my hand from their actions once they are no longer in my sight."
Morsh made a conciliatory gesture with his clawed hand.
"Gharriel does not particularly care what you have them do once they are once again in bondage. Only that none are crippled, maimed, or killed. Have them rebuild this castle and then establish new farms to segregate them. It does not matter as long as they are guaranteed not to be harmed."
Edgar got quiet as he thought this over and gave his response.
"There is the question of control," Edgar pointed out. "If I did such a thing, I would have to dedicate men to overseeing it. Maybe even enough that the idea would be a loss. And I cannot let spread the idea that punishment for rebellion will be waived if you are successful enough in an attempt.
"Your leader is concerned with the lives of the menials that had been under my authority? I want the lives of the other leaders of this rebellion as well. The lives of the menials that are larger than one of my regular men, like yourself, and those misbegotten who have clearly been trained and smuggled into Morne."
Morsh let out a menacing smile.
"Let us put the discussion of my brothers' and sisters' lives on hold for a moment. I have something else to negotiate with besides just blood price. There is the matter of the Grafted Blade Sword. We have possession of it. How many 'menial' lives is that worth to you?"
At that, Edgar very carefully didn't react to that bombshell. Despite that, the implications of their enemy having the weapon weren't lost on John.
Them having the legendary armament again was very bad. The leonine misbegotten wasn't a serious threat anymore, but even an elite like Morsh would become a serious threat if armed with that sword. Not nearly as terrible for them as the leonine misbegotten, Gharriel, had been with it, but it would be very bad for them.
If what Morsh was saying was true, that sword was a lot of leverage.
"We will trade you the sword in exchange for sparing them. One of the legendary armaments in exchange for the lives of under 50 misbegotten? A good deal. And the precedent set would be that any further rebellions would have to have such a precious thing to keep their heads."
Edgar grit his teeth.
"Ten. I'll exchange it for ten of you."
Morsh chuckled mockingly in his harsh, bestial voice and grabbed the edge of the wooden table. The wood creaked slightly under his grip as John stayed hyper-alert.
"It's my turn to laugh at an absurd offer Lord Morne. A legendary armament in exchange for the lives of ten men? We might as well just toss the thing into the ocean and just accept your terms now."
Edgar glared with narrowed eyes and leaned towards Morsh over the table.
"You speak of turns? You have been threatening me that you and your allies do not care if you all die while extracting a blood price from us if terms are too unfavorable for your side.
"It seems it is my turn to tell you that there are outcomes where the potential of my and my men's deaths are preferable if the terms on our side are too unfavorable or it puts the stability of the Weeping Peninsula at stake. And without me, the death of every one of you menials is assured.
"Lord Godrick would never accept an outcome where the Grafted Blade Sword is lost. You are bargaining for your lives. You may rather die than be put into bondage, or rather die if it has a better chance of more of your fellow menials living, but I am certain that others below do not feel the same. And remember, you menials are the ones in the weaker position with our imminent reinforcements."
Edgar leaned back.
"I want the sword in exchange for sparing a fifth of the menial's lives."
Morsh scoffed.
"Four-fifths."
And so John watched as both sides put their cards on the table and the two began arguing about the specifics of what was going to be done.
They argued back and forth, each side bringing up points and then countering points the other side's points, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.
They went into the details. When, where, and how this would all happen. Who and how many would or wouldn't be spared. They got very specific with things that John wouldn't have expected, as each side had their own interests.
Edgar was interested in eliminating as many of the misbegotten in general as possible but also had to prioritize the foreign misbegotten that had fermented and led the rebellion as well as eliminating as many of the "innocent" misbegotten who had special advantages like large size and flight that presented the most potential for hurting soldiers if they rebelled again.
Meanwhile Morsh seemed less concerned with him and the rest of their leadership surviving and was more concerned with saving the slaves they had led.
Time passed, and after a few hours, they finally settled on a deal.
Tomorrow Edgar would send down a single twenty of men to the ruins of Castletown. They would then take custody of half of the misbegotten, led by Gharriel who would stay, and escort them up into the castle. All of these would be former slaves who were not large and could not fly.
Once that was done, then Gharriel would signal that they had upheld their half of the deal and present herself to the twenty for immediate execution. She would give some information about some questions about specific things Edgar wanted to know with some limits, and then she would be put to death.
Next, the same twenty would go to the cliffside and meet with the other half of the misbegotten. All of the foreign misbegotten would stay at the cliff and wait to be executed, except for a few of the regular ones, and roughly half of the "innocent" large and flying misbegotten. There were specific numbers arrived at by haggling between Edgar Morsh in trading three of X type for two of Y and such.
Those not slated for execution, which were the remaining regular "innocent" misbegotten, a small amount of the foreign regular misbegotten, and roughly half of the "Innocent" large and flying misbegotten would be spared and be taken into custody.
Once all the spared misbegotten were taken into custody, those who had been slated for execution, led by Morsh who would have the Grafted Blade Sword on him during all this, would allow themselves to be put to the sword without a fight.
After they arrived at this grim, final compromise, neither Edgar nor Morsh looked happy, but neither was particularly outraged. Edgar wrote all of these terms and details down on a piece of contract parchment.
The contract parchment wasn't something magical. It just had a subtle irregular golden watermark-like pattern on it, similar to what John remembered seeing on government identity documents and paper money back on Earth that made it hard to forge.
The details of the negotiated agreement were written down twice, once on each end of the parchment. Then Edgar took a pair of scissors with uniquely-shaped blades and cut down the middle of the parchment in a zigzag pattern.
The watermark pattern and jagged edges of the scissors made it so that forging something would be extremely difficult as the rulers of the land kept strict control over the watermarked parchment and each one was nigh-unique.
Edgar handed Morsh his half-copy of the contract.
Morsh took and looked at Edgar.
"And you swear you will honor this?" Morsh asked, holding up his half of the contract. "This piece of paper means nothing if the man who signs it doesn't uphold his word. As far as we are aware, you and your family are known for upholding your oaths to the point of death. I want an oath from you."
"I have lived for over a millennia upholding my honor and duty. I will not stop now," Edgar said.
Morsh looked right into Edgar's eyes.
"Swear it."
Edgar put his fist over his heart.
"I swear on my honor and position as a High Marshal of the Golden Lineage and as the Lord of Morne that I will uphold this contract," Edgar swore.
Morsh narrowed his eyes, looking at Edgar for any sign of deception, but it appeared he didn't find any as he relaxed after a few moments.
"I am satisfied. We are done here?" Morsh asked.
"It appears so. John, have the men escort Morsh back, but you stay. I have something to speak to you of."
John nodded and showed Morsh out of the room, and gave the men their orders. The men began escorting the large misbegotten down the corridor.
John went back into the study and looked at Edgar curiously.
"You wished to talk to me, my lord?"
Edgar looked at John. The grim and adversarial air of the earlier negotiation was gone, and now he had an air of slightly melancholy about him.
"Yes. I have a few things to speak to you of. I am considering sending you and your twenty to uphold the deal tomorrow, including the execution of the menial leader Gharriel and the other rebel menial leaders.
"My daughter has told me that you do not plan to take me up on my offer to become one of my retinue. That you wish to travel the Lands Between. That is good because I am afraid I will not be able to keep my word on making you part of my retinue."
Edgar sighed at that.
"Many things have happened since I gave that offer, and I no longer believe that Lord Godrick will leave me in command of much of anything after this disaster.
"I believe I have already spoken to you before of what I believe about my coming punishment. To reward you for your deeds to Morne and myself by having you swear to me now, when I will not have a retinue for much longer, would be foolishness. An empty reward.
"I am unsure of if you have slain powerful foes before, but you may have noticed that the amount of runes that come from a defeated foe varies.
John nodded.
"Yes, my lord, I have noticed that. Even before I was fighting the misbegotten, I noticed the differences in the game I hunted. Some would give a little more or less. I have wondered what exactly was going on there."
"Sergeant, some ignorant men mistakenly believe this from runes held by their opponent, but that is untrue. One's held runes simply are given back to the world on death.
"What exactly the world does with them is a debated topic among scholars, but I do know that very rarely the world uses those runes to empower something nearby. But that occurrence is extraordinarily rare, uncontrollable, unreliable, and takes a great deal of time to occur.
"But I have gone on a tangent. The truth about the runes dropped by a foe is that the amount is decided by the strength of your opponent's lifeforce. Being near the Erdtree endows beings with more powerful lifeforce, so the same game that you hunt here in the Weeping Peninsula will yield far more runes if you hunt them in the Altus Plateau instead.
"Likewise, things in other powerful locations will give more runes as well. And do not mistake this lifeforce for strength. It is not so simple and straightforward.
"A Knight of Stormveil under Lord Godrick of the Golden Lineage is just as powerful and dangerous an opponent on the battlefield as a Knight of Leyndell under the Veiled Monarch, King Morgott, Last of all Kings.
"Despite their equal prowess, if you fell a Knight of Leyndell you would receive three to five times as many runes as a Knight of Stormveil, because the Knight of Leyndell, due to his long time under the branches of the Erdtree being showered with its grace and his probable birth in the Atlas Plateau, has a much greater lifeforce."
John's mind raced as he thought about the implications of that.
"Wouldn't that mean that Lord Godrick's men would gain more runes in battle than they lost if they fought King Morgott's men?"
Edgar grinned at John.
"I see you have caught that detail Sergeant. Clever. Yes, if the forces of Lord Godrick and King Morgott clashed and losses were roughly equal, then the forces of Lord Godrick would gain far more runes than King Morgott's men.
"This is one of the cornerstones of why none of the demigods attack Lord Godrick despite it being well known that he is the weakest shardbearer who controls any amount of land, despite him having the most regions under his control.
"It is because he controls the regions with the least lifeforce. And so in any clash except the most crushing of defeats, his forces will come out ahead far richer in runes than their opponents.
"The only way to prevent that would be to utterly destroy Lord Godrick and his forces in one fell swoop or a campaign of fast, unrelenting engagements. But to do such a thing with forces as powerful as Lord Godrick's, forces near peer to the forces of all rival demigods who control regions and armies, would extract a heavy price from them and leave them vulnerable to themselves being destroyed by another rival demigod or even an ambitious tarnished shardbearer.
"And runes are very important in war, as is obvious. Runes are not directly turned into strength for any except Finger Maidens and their tarnished. But runes are used in the process of imbuing weapons with smithing stones to make them more powerful, in the creation of magical items that allow people to cast spells, for logistics officers to buy supplies and materials and other general commerce, and other such things that empower an army."
That all was very good to know. And made perfect sense to John. Basically, the reason no one had won the Shattering War yet was crabs-in-a-bucket syndrome and that fact that each major player had one way or another of screwing their competition over if they over-leveraged or advanced themselves even a little.
John still had another questions though.
"But Lord Edgar, if lifeforce isn't strength, what does more lifeforce do exactly, besides make something drop more runes on death?"
"A man or woman will be generally more resistant to diseases, poisons, and other maladies, but that effect is minor. The more important effect is that over time it makes one's bloodline more powerful. Their children are more likely to be born more powerful, larger and stronger, and with higher lifeforces themselves.
"And their children will keep this strength even if their higher lifeforce was to fade somehow such as if they lived for centuries in a less lifeforce-abundant region like Limgrave.
"It is a sign we have the blessing of Placidusax that the strength of the noble bloodlines of us fringefolk persist despite us being consigned to the two most backwater of regions which have the least lifeforce," Edgar finished.
John could see his superior was starting to look impatient to move on to what he had actually wanted to discuss.
"Thank you, my lord. I just have one more question," John said, deciding not to try and push his luck more than that. "When you mentioned shardbearers, you made it sound like there are shardbearers that aren't demigods?"
Edgar rubbed his beard with his gauntleted hand.
"Oh yes. Everyone knows of the demigod shardbearers, but before the Elden Ring was rendered down to the most fundamental of Great Runes required for life to exist at all, it'd had dozens of Great Runes in it. In that terrible act, those Great Runes were scattered across the lands by the Goddess Marika.
"Many runes have since been lost and even a few destroyed. But the rest are held by shardbearers, and the demigods are only a few of the shardbearers.
"Most shardbearers are in fact tarnished who are not mighty enough to claim any significant amount of land from the demigods, and so they hide themselves away like cowards. They and other tarnished fight each other in obscurity in their attempts to try and gather at least two Great Runes to eventually make an attempt at restoring the barest of stability to the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord.
"Those fools are pursuing a flawed method of becoming Lord. What will happen if they restore the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord, yet are unable to match a demigod and their forces on the battlefield? All their ambitions will come to naught as they are slayed and usurped.
"As Lord Godfrey once said before he was banished to endure the Long March, 'If one wants to be Elden Lord, his strength must befit a Lord's crown."
"I suspect most of the tarnished shardbearers who have gathered Great Runes instead are waiting in the shadows like rats for the day the demigods fall so they may have their chance at becoming Lord without having to face the demigods fearsome strength on the battlefield.
"I have heard of a few tarnished who have come close, such a Vyke the Dragonspear and Knight Berhnal. But for reasons none know they discarded their Great Runes and turned away at the precipice of fulfilling their ambitions.
"Most tarnished fail and die long before they have a chance at discovering where any of those reclusive shardbearers hide, let alone overcome them in battle. And those tarnished shardbearers all stay as far away as they can from any of the demigods and their men as they all fear nothing more than a demigod finally getting ahold of a second Great Rune."
"Hunting tarnished in the hopes of discovering a shardbearer is one reason amongst many of why the Veiled Monarch sends his Night's Cavalry to prowl even enemy regions. Their magical armor and cloth barding veil themselves during the day, making hunting them down impossible."
Edgar shifted and made a gesture.
"But that is enough for now. I want to discuss with you your reward, not teach you history."
John nodded in agreement and acknowledgment. There was more he wanted to ask Edgar, but he wasn't going to get on the man's bad side over it.
Edgar kept talking, switching back to what they had been discussing before that long tangent.
"With a foe like the menial leader who has a powerful body and, from her red hair, most likely a strong connection with the Crucible, and therefore a strong lifeforce, the runes rewarded for slaying him will be significant. And the runes from slaying dozens of those large misbegotten will not be insignificant as well.
"I wish to reward you with the opportunity to be the one who executes them, and as tradition, let you keep the runes. They will no doubt be a great source of wealth on your journey. But there is the risk that the negotiation was all a trap and you may be ambushed.
"This will not be your true reward from me for your deeds, but I thought to give you the first offer at this opportunity as you are the one who provided the idea that saw us through near-impossible odds. Do you wish for your twenty to be the ones down there tomorrow despite the risk?"
John leaned back and thought about it.
The risk was serious. If this was all a trick to just pick twenty more of them off before the rebellion was snuffed out for good or if something went wrong in general, then he and his twenty would be helpless against the hundreds of misbegotten. They would be immediately overwhelmed and killed.
But the runes would be incredible as well. He could feel the mass that had built in his stomach over the rebellion since he had done his second hallowing.
John couldn't count an exact number as the internal sense he could feel them in wasn't exact in that way, but he had somewhere near ten thousand. A little less than half of what he'd had when he'd done his second hallowing.
That meant he had about a fourth of what he thought he would need to hallow again. And hallowing was one of his main methods of getting stronger at that moment, until he managed to get a magic teacher, as that was probably gonna be his best bet for being able to start fighting in the big leagues.
So he could really use the runes, as he wasn't sure when or if he would even be able to do any magic. After all, he was from a world without magic.
Really, at this point, John had already achieved the main thing he had set out to do. His first main goal for the past for years. The Frenzied Flame ending was much less likely without Hyetta to guide the Chosen Tarnished along that route, as a real person wasn't gonna scour every inch of a massive continent looking for nothing like a video game player would a game world.
Instead, the Chosen Tarnished would probably not meet anyone that would tempt him towards being the Lord of Frenzied Flame, until he met Shabriri in the Mountaintops of the Giants, if the CT ever met that guy at all with how John was planning on changing things.
So that meant that the Frenzied Flame ending was much less likely now.
And unless the Chosen Tarnished was an absolutely crazy serial killer, he wouldn't pick the Dung Eater ending. And if the CT turned out to be that way, then they'd all been screwed from the start.
Those were the two worst paths the Chosen Tarnished could choose, and both seemed very unlikely now by John's estimation even if they were still technically possible.
With him having probably averted the worst path the CT could take, the responsibility John felt towards the rest of the world to take as little risk with his life as possible because of his meta-knowledge was greatly lessened.
Making his own mending rune and helping the Tarnished was much more of a personal ambition for his own satisfaction of living in the kind of world he'd prefer rather than a responsibility he felt to the world, like trying to help prevent the Frenzied Flame ending was.
If John died now, there was little unfinished business left for him to do that the CT couldn't do himself. He was free to start taking risks, which he had been avoiding up till now. And he wouldn't be stupid about it of course.
So whether or not he should accept the offer.
Even after amassing a ton of runes from killing dozens upon dozens of misbegotten, he still had only reached about a quarter of what he would need to hallow himself again. The leonine misbegotten and other elite misbegotten would no doubt be significant progress towards his next hallowing.
If John was ever going to be able to even begin to approach the level where he could help the Chosen Tarnished fight beings like Godrick, let alone someone like Radahn, Morgott, Radagon, or the Elden Beast, he would have to become incredibly stronger. Right now, he could barely fight a couple handfuls of misbegotten without his life being in serious danger. Even a single fringefolk knight outclassed him.
If he was actually going to get stronger, he was gonna have to take the plunge and start taking risks, instead of playing it as safely as possible like he had been doing for the five years he'd been in the Lands Between, and John did not believe the misbegotten were going to backstab them. He didn't see how they could use this as part of a plot to turn the tables once again.
"I accept," John answered.
Edgar smiled.
"Excellent. Then tomorrow your twenty will be the ones who are to carry out our side of their negotiated surrender. After the menials are captured, we can speak of your actual reward from me for your deeds then. While I have some ideas, you know what you need best. After the reinforcements arrive and the menials have been killed, you can take your chosen rewards and leave."
John nodded his head agreeing, until he realized what Edgar had just said at the end there and looked at him.
"Kill them? My lord, did you not just swear that you would uphold the contract? Everyone knows that you are one who never breaks his word. Doing that would ruin your reputation."
Edgar laughed, half genuine and half manic.
"Sergeant, I am not long for this world and the future of my bloodline is grim. Why would my honor matter after the next few months?
"Tell me, of honor, duty, and loyalty, the three most important qualities a man possesses, which would you say is the most important, and which is the least?"
John thought about it and answered truthfully.
"Loyalty, then duty, then honor," John said.
Edgar clapped his gauntleted hand on John's armored shoulder and nodded.
"Precisely. Many, most even in my estimation, would say honor, then loyalty, then duty. But I am of the same mind of you, which is what I have suspected as I have gotten to know you some over the past few weeks, and why I even extended that offer of potentially taking you into my retinue when you entered my study after you risked yourself to save your injured comrade after the rest of your unit was destroyed.
"Honor is to uphold one's reputation and let others know you are a man that is trustworthy and worth involving oneself with.
"I have found that those that have a preoccupation with honor often only act honorably when others are around to know of it, and have no true honor themselves. They see the lack in themselves and so do their best that none will see it. Not all of them are like this, but I have seen it too many times for it to be mere chance.
"I will sacrifice my honor which I have taken great pains to uphold for many centuries for my duty.
"If I were to let those misbegotten live, I have no doubt that they will become a serious danger in the long term. To leave it so would be an abdication of my duty in favor of my honor.
"Since my life is burning as a candle, it is better for me to sacrifice my honor, rather than whoever is to come after me being forced to do so. This is part of my duty as the High Marshal of the Weeping Peninsula to whomever my successor shall be, of whom I have my suspicions. And I am on good terms with many of the probable candidates."
John didn't quite agree with Edgar about this. To John, this seemed like another person being overly obsessed with the purity of an idea of principle.
He thought that loyalty and dedication to duty were definitely close to the top of the most important things a person could have. He thought honor was important as well, but it lagged far behind the other two in importance, and John didn't consider it the third most important.
But what John considered most important of all, more important than any of those, was pragmatism. Being realistic and practical.
Edgar seemed to be fixating on loyalty and duty here due to his regarding those things as more important than anything else, rather than considering any of the wider implications his actions would have if word got out, as this event would damage the integrity of any such deals anyone of any faction ever negotiated in the future, as they would have one more example of time they were not upheld.
Not to mention, John just didn't agree with the need to kill all the misbegotten in the first place.
Edgar saw John's resistance to his assessment, and the gauntlet hand on John's shoulder tightened, but not enough to hurt. Edgar gave him a smile filled with teeth, half for John and half for the misbegotten he was indirectly defending, as his eyes began gazing emptily into the air, his mind focused onto the future he was imagining.
"You will go down there tomorrow and faithfully carry out our side of what we negotiated, saying no word of my future intentions about this to anyone. We will uphold the contract until the reinforcements arrive. Then I will have the misbegotten executed to the last, burn this contract and any evidence of it, and have my men who may have seen it be sworn to silence, ensuring word of this never spreads.
"After that, I will provide what little more use I can to my lord before he has me relieved of my position, and most likely my head.
"The honor of the Golden Lineage and the next High Marshal will be clean and these particular menials will not be a future problem as their traitorous hides will have gotten their rightful punishment. They and the traitors who did their bidding may have destroyed me, but they will feel the vengeance of Morne."
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Did some editing of Chapter 15 to clean it up some. I was not conveying the experience I meant to towards the readers, so I've tried to fix that. I also did a small amount of general reading grammar/spelling/reading compression changes in some places.
All the major beats/events of Chapter 15 are still mostly the same, except the ending section of the battle scene which I overhauled. I made some minor/moderate changes to make things feel less BS at the end and closed a couple small plotholes.
For most readers, I would suggest re-reading from the point shortly before John explodes the explosive barrels in the ground and then looking at the spoilers below to learn the other small changes. There are a couple small changes besides that section, but I don't think they are worth reading so much of this huge chapter for so little changes.
For those who aren't interested in re-reading Chapter 15 at all or want to see the edit notes so you don't miss anything, the changes are logged in the following spoiler in the chronological order your would have read them:
- Added a couple paragraphs to Chapter 9 to show the Quartermaster's assistant trying to break the crimson flask and failing and then explaining to John that they are tougher than "lesser dragon flesh" and they are made of something other than just "base gold and simple glass"
- Added a small comment from a knight in the planning scene that says that the toughest of misbegotten, like the Leonine Misbegotten, have flesh as strong and tough as a "mortal dragon's". Small lore flavor in that comment.
- Made it more explicit that the Leonine Misbegotten used the Grafted Blade Sword's Art of War to barely survive the explosion. Had originally left this to be implied (as otherwise how would she survive the explosion?), but it seemed some didn't pick up on that, and instead it was ruining the climactic battle of this entire arc for them.
- Removed the Leonine Misbegotten drinking from a healing flask entirely. It was unnecessary, gave the wrong impression/implications, and the information it was supposed to convey about flasks being crazy hard to break was moved Chapter 9 as noted in bullet #1 .
- Majorly fleshed out the final sequence of the battle scene so the MC and his allies actually attack and hurt the Leonine Misbegotten as she flees, instead of just passively/impotently letting her go and doing nothing. She still gets away though, but she is in very bad shape and pays for her escape in blood. I suggest reading the new edit of this part as it should change the tone of the entire end of the chapter, though it is still a bitter victory.
Anyways, enjoy the chapter!
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After the misbegotten left, for the next couple days they kept a constant watch for any more attacks, but none came.
The misbegotten had completely retreated from their attacks, and the remains of the garrison had the opportunity to regain all the ground they had lost over the weeks. But they did not. The garrison kept the position at the final chokepoint with some lookouts at the collapsed areas to make sure the misbegotten weren't digging through them.
This restraint allowed them to focus on fully recovering from the battle. They began removing the bodies of the fallen and cleaning up the gore that had rained everywhere from the explosion.
It took quite a while, as they didn't have much free manpower left, almost everyone left having something important to do like feeding others, repairing weapons and armor, keeping an eye on enemy movements and making sure they did not try and dig up any collapsed areas to create new passageways, and guarding against any more potential attacks.
They had been keeping a lookout for where the Grafted Blade Sword had landed, but it hadn't yet been found. Edgar had put a bounty on it for whoever found it.
Despite lasting less than half an hour, almost half their remaining soldiers had died, though none of their elite knights had perished. The levies had suffered heavily, the winged misbegotten having inflicted incredible casualties on them, like the soldiers had on the misbegotten weeks ago at the beginning of the siege. They had lost over one hundred levies in the battle with many more being injured, about a fourth of the total numbers, though they took out half of their much more limited fliers in exchange.
Altogether, there were about five hundred survivors total left in Castle Morne.
All the injuries had eaten up the last of their tear supplies. Every soldier was on their final flask.
So it was a relief that as the days passed, no misbegotten attacks came. And as every day passed they recovered more so that any attacks that came would be better repelled. It was looking like they would be able to make it through to hold out the last few days until reinforcements came.
Now that there was only a single corridor to guard, they only needed the regulars to guard it.
They had even been able to send a couple of fives to tentatively scout, and the misbegotten weren't doing anything but guarding the various Castle Morne entrances to make sure they knew when Edgar's forces marched out of the castle. And even when those misbegotten spotted the scouts, they seemed to be prepared to run, rather than fight.
As for the irregulars, Edgar had decided to use them as extra manpower, so they were taking care of the clean-up of the courtyard, and after that would be working to begin the long process of rebuilding.
So that was what John was doing. Assisting the irregulars' hundrier in directing the men's labor and helping the men remove all the debris.
By the third day, all the gore had been either thrown over the cliffside into the ocean or put into one of the craters which they had begun slowly filling back up with dirt and stones.
Anything of value, they organized into crates in a dedicated area of the courtyard. Some just had plain bits of steel in them. Other crates had hilts, others chainmail, and so on.
John went to place an empty golden flask in its assigned crate, and a moment later, another irregular, just an Armsman from a different twenty, dropped another flask in right after him.
"It's a terrible shame that some of these flasks were no doubt thrown into the ocean. Each one is an irreplaceable loss," the Armsman commented.
John looked at him.
"Irreplaceable? Can't the Order just make more of them? Aren't they made by Marika or something?"
The Armsman turned and looked at John, visibly confused by what John had said.
"What are you...? Ah, your eyes. I see, a foreigner. That explains it.
"You think the Golden Order created these flasks? No. They are ancient relics, long predating the Golden Order. They had been around long before the Erdtree and the Goddess Marika had even come to be."
That surprised John to hear.
But wait, if they predated it, how and why did they hold liquid that came from the Erdtree? There was also another thing John remembered...
He pulled out his own flask, looked at the neck, and compared it all the dozens of flasks in the crate. They all matched. He wasn't imagining things.
John wondered, if these flasks predated the Erdtree, then what was the tree depicted on the neck of the flask?
Looking back at the man, John asked him just that.
"How should I know?" the Armsman said, "I'm just a carpenter, not a priest or scholar."
The man glared down at the crate.
"Or at least I was until those cursed bastards burned the city to the ground, and everything I had with it. The business had been in my family for centuries. They even killed all my men afterwards in these battles, those sons of snakes! When this is over I'm going to have to start everything from scratch."
With that, the man, now angry from the reminder of his loss, stomped off to continue to clean up the area.
Well, that did nothing to solve the mystery of exactly what the crimson tear flask was depicting if not the Erdtree. And if the Erdtree, and therefore the tears which came from it, didn't exist, what had they been used to hold before? Had Marika somehow converted them to what they were now from something else? And what exactly were they made from if they weren't made of gold and glass like they superficially appeared to be?
These and other questions he had would have to be left unanswered for now.
As John left the crate to continue cleaning up, he heard his hundrier call.
"Sergeant White! Come here."
John looked to see his hundrier at one of the entranceways to the rest of the castle. Next to him was a young woman holding a child's hand.
John walked over to his hundrier and glanced at the young woman standing next to him and the child holding her hand.
The young woman was in high-quality, conservative dress that covered her body except for the face and the elbows down on her arms. The dress was a dark grey with gold embroidery of dragons and beasts all over it. With her clothes she was clearly one of the noble daughters of knights that John had seen occasionally in the halls.
She had blonde hair and stormy grey eyes, like almost all the people in Morne, matched the exact same shade of grey as her dress. Her figure looked good. She did not have any outrageous proportions, but neither did she lack womanly attributes. Her face was pretty as well and she looked pretty young, around twenty years old.
The child was a black boy of maybe ten years old who looked just like any of the other couple dozen townsfolk children in the castle and wore a ragged tunic and pants.
The woman was staring at John's chest, probably looking at his exceptionally dirty armor, absolutely caked with dirt, dust, and grime, but thankfully not gore, from the clean-up efforts.
"Sir, you called?" John asked, curious as to why the hundrier wanted him.
"It's your lucky day. You get out of doing any real work and are instead going to accompany this pretty lady here," the hundrier said with a smile, not really clarifying anything for John.
The hundrier must have read his confusion from his face, because he continued.
"This is Lady Irina Morne, Lord Edgar's daughter. With her father's permission, she has asked for me to release you for the rest of the afternoon for a chat."
John's eyes widened! She was Irina!?
Why did Irina wish to talk to him!? He'd not seen her or had anything to do with her at all.
Giving the young woman a second glance, he saw now that she wasn't actually looking at his dirty armor, she was just staring in his general direction blankly, not focused on one thing in particular.
"I understand, sir."
The hundrier nodded and walked off towards the men to continue directing them, leaving John alone with Irina and the boy.
John looked at Irina and waited for her to explain, but she stayed quiet, her body slightly hunched from fear or awkwardness. John looked at his shirt and the young woman who was hesitating to speak.
"I am very dirty at the moment. How about I go get cleaned up and meet you somewhere to talk?" John asked, throwing the young woman a lifeline.
Irina hurriedly nodded.
"Yes, thank you! That sounds good Sergeant White. I will meet you in the western lounge then?"
"The lounge with the red chairs?" John clarified.
John stood there silent for a moment after his question, then John realized what he had just done.
"I'm so sor-"
Irina raised her hand, interrupting him immediately with the speed of long practice.
"My eyesight is very weak, but I am not entirely blind. No need to apologize Sergeant White. It is a common mistake many make, mistaking my impotent sight for blindness. I still need a minder so I do not trip and hurt myself, but I am not entirely incapable.
"And to answer your question. I do believe the chairs in the western lounge are red. I will see you there in a few minutes?"
"Yes, Miss Morne. Just long enough to scrub off the dirt and change clothes."
Irina nodded and started quickly walking away into the entrance, and John was unable to tell if it was because she was scared or offended or something else. The little boy holding her hand hastily followed her.
"Ah, Miss Irina!" the little boy pulled on her hand and called out warning her as she almost misstepped on a large stone almost hidden by the courtyard's grass.
Irina stopped and took a step to the side.
"Thank you," she said to the boy and continued dragging him away as she continued her power walk.
John didn't waste any time leaving himself and hurried to clean himself up, but he still wasn't sure what this talk was all about. Unless Irina was taking on some of Edgar's duties, which would be uncommon as she was a woman and feudal societies had certain strict roles in what men and women did. But he doubted that was it.
He moved quickly and a short time later he arrived at their arranged meeting place, freshly scrubbed and without his dirty armor. John found Irina sitting in a red chair with the little boy nearby.
"I am here, Miss Morne," John announced as he sat down in a red chair across from her.
Irina turned towards him before she looked over at the boy standing beside her.
"Why don't you go and play in another room while me and Sergeant White have our talk?" Irina asked the boy as John sat.
Recognizing that he was being dismissed for the moment, the boy nodded and left the room.
They sat there silently for a few moments, Irina just as shy as earlier. Seeing that she wasn't going to be starting the conversation soon, John took the plunge himself.
"So why did you want to talk to me?" John began.
Irina took a deep breath and looked at him with a smile. He could tell from her eyes that she wasn't actually focused on him, rather she was looking in the general direction of his face, and doing a good approximation of actually looking at him like a non-impaired person would have.
"I want to thank you for saving my life Sergeant White," Irina said and lowered her head.
That is when John understood what this was all about. He relaxed now that he realized this wasn't going to be bad for him somehow, and a smile slipped over his face.
"I accept your thanks Miss Morne, but lift your head. I am sure there plenty of honorable men under Edgar who would have done the same."
Irina looked skeptical.
"But those were not the men who saved my life Sergeant White, it was you. It does not matter who could possibly have done a deed. Rather, it matters who has followed through and done so," Irina insisted.
John actually had to agree with her there. His deflection was just an ingrained 'polite' reaction to compliments rather than a serious statement.
"And you say the men under my father are honorable, but I have my doubts. Nearly half of the knights in this castle are in the dungeon from owing their loyalty to a dead, lying traitor."
John raised an eyebrow.
"While that is true, I think that is more of an exception. No doubt the best men were targeted in the misbegotten's attacks. That skews the numbers here. Besides, the High Marshal has far more knights under his command than were stationed here. I can't imagine most of them are as Crann was."
Irina gave a sniff of disagreement.
"I would not be so sure of the integrity of knights, especially those of high rank. Often the best way to improve one's own prestige is doing dishonorable deeds while pretending to be honorable."
"Well, I can't really disagree with you there. To my understanding, that is normally the case in any society. It doesn't surprise me that the Golden Order is similar."
Irina paused and gave John an unfocused look as thought on something for a few seconds, before she made a decision.
"Did you know that Crann had been one of my suitors for a few years now? He had been using the recognition of his 'informant's' information to vie for my hand and enter talks with my father about being allowed to formally court me for my hand.
"Even before he joined hands with the servants, he thought far to highly of himself and passed off most of his work to his subordinates, and was just unpleasant. His only redeeming feature was his incredible martial prowess. It was he was of middling rank despite being among Lord Godrick's most powerful men, nearly a match for Sentinel Dextrann.
"Crann was but one of the many men under my father who vie for my hand and care for no one but themselves. To fulfill their ambitions or their passions," Irina said bitterly.
John could somewhat with sympathize her about that.
He easily believed a lot of dudes would want a woman like Irina as their wife just to bed her with how she looked, not caring at all about the young woman herself. Not to mention her status as the only daughter and relative of Edgar, a High Marshal and powerful lord.
John could see what may have been Crann's endgame with his betrayal. Marry the daughter of what was effectively the princess of the region and then the king who cannot die of old age dies in a rebellion, so he becomes the king.
Only that didn't perfectly make sense because the overall control of the region's military was decided by military appointment of Godrick rather than bloodline succession, and Crann was only middling of rank as a Knight Major, but maybe he was only after the land, the wealth, rather than command over the army.
Another flaw of this plan, if it had indeed been Crann's aim, was that the rebellion was going to kill everyone who wasn't a misbegotten, John doubted Irina or Crann would be spared either despite the man being a turncoat.
It sort-of fit, but things weren't lining up quite right for John to be completely convinced of that. There must have been more to all this than John knew.
No plans survived contact with the enemy, and GRRM's characters had confusing plots and counterplots where everything chaotically clashed and no one but the evil masterminds behind the scenes pulling the strings ended up in a better position. Most everyone who was actually doing things and being productive in GRRM's story were just the puppets of masterminds behind the scenes who were controlling things and sitting on their asses.
Not very different from real life, really.
John suspected Crann, and maybe even the misbegotten, were one of these pawns.
John's thoughts of trying to unravel what exactly was the plot around Crann were interrupted when Irina continued, the bitterness vanishing from her demeanor as she got off the topic.
"But enough about others. I wanted to have a chat with you to not only thank you for saving my life, but I also wish to know more about the man who saved me. The mysterious foreigner."
At that, the first thought that hit John was that Irina may have been interested in him, but taking a closer look at her body language, he didn't see any of the telltale hints a woman gave that showed she was interested in a man that way. It seemed to be platonic curiosity.
Which was good, frankly. It would be awkward and potentially dangerous to reject his current boss's daughter's advances. A woman scorned and all that.
He wasn't interested in any 'casual fun' at all, nor was he looking for anything serious at the moment, as that came with other long-term concerns. If he wanted a kid at all, it wouldn't be until after the Chosen Tarnished became Elden Lord and hopefully at least somewhat fixed the world.
And especially not something with a woman who was heavily tied with Godrick's forces.
Not even mentioning that he had good chance of dying as he tried to help the Chosen Tarnished, just like the dozens of times and ways he could have died in just this one siege.
For example, if the leonine misbegotten had landed just five feet in a different direction when it had killed Andren, John could have been one of the men it had casually cut down.
He refused for a kid of his to be raised in an apocalypse world without a father.
No, John wasn't in the market for any romance until after the multiple apocalypses slowly destroying this world were at least being addressed.
Maybe things would change and cause his mind to change about this, but that was what John thought about the topic at the moment.
All this to say that John was glad Irina didn't seem to have the hots for him despite the fact she was pretty and seemed nice.
John banished those thoughts as he stayed focused on the conversation.
"So what do you want to know about me?" John asked.
"I heard a little from my father about you. He has told me you are a foreigner. What land do you hail from?" She asked with a sparkle in her eye.
"A land called the United States of America."
Irina's face scrunched in thought before lowering her head in apology.
"I am sorry Sergeant White. My father has had many tutors teach me many things, including lessons on other lesser kingdoms outside the Lands Between, but these United States has never come up."
John waved his hand.
"Don't worry about it Miss Morne. I would be surprised if anyone in the Lands Between had heard of my homeland. The United States is extremely far from Lands Between and has no connection or relation to this land at all."
Irina nodded, accepting his words, and pressed further.
"A land so far away... what is your homeland like?" Irina asked.
That was a hard question for John. He wanted to keep the strangeness of his origin as under wraps as possible, but he could feel from her genuine curiosity that Irina wouldn't just accept it if he just waved this question off with vagaries like he had when anyone else had asked him.
"Well, like most places, it had good things about it and bad things. Like the Golden Order in the Lands Between, it controls a large amount of land with many different regions with various climates, from snowy mountains to lakes, forests, and swamps. The only thing we had that you don't is plains and deserts."
"I have heard of plains before, but a desert? What is that?"
"It is an expansive region of mostly sand. Imagine a beach the size of the Weeping Peninsula, and there is almost no plants or grassland that isn't near rivers. There are some small lakes dotted around as well called oases."
Irina lightly frowned.
"How strange that sounds, a place with no grass. It sounds unpleasant."
John laughed.
"I agree. Though maybe my interpretation is too negative because it is one of my least favorite climates. The only one I hate more is a jungle."
"I have never heard of a jungle either. If it is more horrible than a desert, then it must be a truly dreadful place."
John chuckled but decided not to get into what a jungle was at the moment.
"To continue, in the lands near my homeland, we were the strongest nation. Or at least, we believed we were. Our rivals would probably have disagreed, and I'm not sure they are wrong either.
"I won't go into much detail as that is all behind me now, but I didn't like the rulers of my homeland much for many reasons. I disagreed with many of the things they believed and how they led the country. But there isn't really much a man like me could have done about any of that."
"Your name, White, were you from a noble family?"
John shook his head.
"No. I am actually an orphan. My family died before I could remember anything, and I was raised by various families. They would each take me in for a time before they tired of me then another family would take me in for a year or two before they tired of me, and so on."
Irina became apologetic.
"That is terrible Sergeant White. I have heard of similar stories before and know such an upbringing is difficult to bear. I am sorry for bringing it up."
John chuckled.
"I am not sensitive or uncomfortable about it. Don't worry about apologizing; I'm not hurt by it. I don't hate those people or anything even after they got rid of me.
"Actually, I feel thankful to them. Many of them were far from perfect, but I never wanted for food or water. I never went hungry or cold."
Irina shook her head.
"I must insist on apologizing, even if you do not feel you need it. Asking about your name and family, I just wished to know if you were a political exile from your homeland. Many times have exiles from other lands came here and attempted to establish themselves somehow in these lands.
"I must ask forgiveness for my suspicions and thoughtlessly bringing up such a personal matter."
John laughed.
"I'm not offended by your suspicions. I won't get mad at people for being reasonably suspicious. And no, I'm not here for anything like that. Taking over the country or being a spy or whatever.
"I had just heard tales of the adventures of a particular tarnished of no renown and was suddenly forced from my homeland by circumstances out of my control. I traveled straight from there without any stops, and now I am here. Going on my own adventure through these lands. Or I was until the misbegotten rebellion happened at least."
Hearing his words, Irina's ears perked up.
"Oh? You are an adventurer?" She asked with obvious interest.
Seeing her reaction, John smiled.
Then a lightbulb went off in his head. Irina was a blind girl that had probably been kept in Morne all her life. She wanted to talk to him to hear about other places to live vicariously through him.
Much more confident and relaxed now that he figured out her intentions, John continued.
"I guess you can say I'm an adventurer of a sort. Mostly a wanderer. I was mostly traveling with my merchant friend and seeing the sights of the Lands Between before this. There are many fantastical things in the Lands Between, and I want to see all of them I can.
"From your people's ability to call upon the power of the sky, to the sorcerers of Liurnia of the Lakes, to the Erdtree itself, my own homeland had nothing like these magical things here. It is incredible to see them in person after hearing about them in that tarnished's tale. The tale was nothing but a pale imitation in comparison. Even the Weeping Peninsula is fascinating."
Irina giggled at his yokel-ish wonder.
"Thank you for appreciating my homeland's beauty. Few travelers say they like our peninsula. Too wet and dreary they say. Do they not realize that the blessings of the sky are not as abundant anywhere else? Does our export of fulgurblooms not prove this? Yet all they care about is the inconvenience of a little mud and having to wear a cloak to keep from getting wet from the rain."
Irina let out a little huff at that and shook her head before she switched to a different topic.
"My father has told me that he has offered a spot in his retinue to you. From what we have spoken about so far, I feel that you will reject it?"
John nodded.
"Yes, I will be rejecting it. I know it is a very generous offer, but I am not interested in being tied down to anything in particular right now. I plan on just taking whatever wages he gives me after this is all over and going on my way."
"I see."
Irina sat back and thought for a few moments before she shook her head, dropping whatever she had been thinking of saying, and switched back to their previous topic.
"Do you wish to spend your life traveling the Lands Between, or do you have plans after you have seen the lands?"
"I do. The nomadic life of my merchant friend isn't what I want to do forever. I will definitely be settling down and starting something after I finish my travels."
"Truly? What will you do?"
"I don't know what that will look like exactly. I don't have any specific plans yet, and I have to finish my traveling first before I can even make any, but I do plan on getting something started after I am done. Maybe learning some magic or something, and I could always fall back on being a hunter. I've become a very good shot.
"But like I said, there is no point in making any plans yet. I don't even know all the options I have yet. I can start making plans after I get done seeing everything the Lands Between has to offer. Might take a year or two, or it might take a couple decades."
A look of slight envy came over her features.
"I have to admit that the idea of traveling the Lands Between tempts me as well. But such a dream was never possible for one in my circumstances," Irina sighed as she obviously referenced her eyesight limiting her.
"Where have you traveled to?" She asked.
John tilted his head in thought, shifting how he was sitting in his chair.
"Just a portion of Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula so far. I've just been following my friend as he goes on his trading route between some major settlements. I've seen the Stormgate and Sotrmveil Castle as well as the some impressive bridges. Truly impressive feats of architecture.
"I suspect that the next region I will be visiting will be Liurnia, but that isn't completely certain yet. I will probably have to separate with my friend to head there as it seems like he is pretty invested in his route here in Limgrave, but I still have some stuff in Limgrave to do first before I head north."
Irina tilted her head curiously.
"Your friend that you are speaking of, my father told me that your friend is a nomadic merchant? I understand that most do not trust his people. How did you become friends with him?"
John raised an eyebrow at that question.
It seemed that Irina, or her father, had asked around a little bit about him before this talk. Most people didn't know he was friends with Kalé, and Kalé was avoided by many outside of work as part of how they shunned him.
It wasn't a huge secret, but you'd have to take a serious interest in Kalé or him to know that. It seemed that Edgar really had been scouting him out for potential recruitment.
But unlike details about his homeland, his story about how he came to know Kalé wasn't something he felt the need to keep secret.
"When I first arrived in Limgrave, I was in big trouble. The Lands Between are very different from my homeland. I didn't know how to survive by myself, or even how to speak the language here. Kalé took a significant amount of time and taught me everything I needed to know to survive and get along here in the Lands Between, and we became good friends as we got to know each other during that time.
"As for his people being untrustworthy, while I understand why people in the Lands Between are wary of his people, I am not worried, and I don't what others here think. Kalé is a loyal friend and a decent man. If people think I will just abandon our friendship because of some mean words and glares over their paranoia, then they will be sorely disappointed."
Irina smiled.
"That is heartening to hear. I think similarly of the servants. Many despised and treated the servants poorly. They think them terrible because of their outer appearance, but I have never encountered a servant that was as unpleasant as many profess they are. It does not surprise me that the servants revolted with how poorly they are treated, though the consequences of their actions sadden me, for them and for us. So many dead for such little reason.
"Sometimes I am thankful for my lacking sight. Amusingly, it allows me to see things that others do not. I have never treated the servants poorly nor has my father, so it was a shock to learn from that they wished to harm me. I wonder what had I done to them that would wish them to hurt me so? I heard from my father that the information about the servant's plans came from you?" Irina asked downcast.
"I suspect it has nothing to actually do with what you have done," John said after a few moments to think about it. "I think that it is because of who your father is. While neither of you may have done much to them directly to make them hate you as far as I am aware, your father is the one in charge of everything in the Weeping Peninsula. That includes the slaves and their treatment.
"His rule is what keeps them in bondage, prevents them from living their own lives, and what keeps them in mines and on farms breaking their bodies working for the prosperity of others with little to nothing given in return.
"It doesn't really matter that he doesn't indulge in sadism or that he is duty bound to do it, from their point of view, he has greatly hurt them. And while I know you called the servants to try and be nice to them, the reality that they are slaves doesn't change."
Irina squirmed a little in her seat.
"Think of it this way Irina, does it matter if the man who orders your torture hates you or not, or whether he cuts you up himself or has another man do it? Does it matter to you whether or not your lord had personally hurt you if society has decided your place in it is to be punished because of how you were born and he is their enforcer?
"Or at least, that is what I suspect their viewpoint is. Or something similar to it. So of course they would want to get revenge and hurt him by hurting you."
Irina wilted slightly.
"I... I had never thought of these matters like that. The servants have always just been the servants."
John held up his hands.
"I could be wrong about it. Many something else is going on. But that would be my guess for why they wanted to rebel."
Irina shook her head.
"Let us move on from this grim subject. Can you tell me more of your journey or your homeland?"
And so the conversation continued as John began telling her about his travels in the Lands Between so far, leaving out certain things of course.
_____________________________________________
The days went by and soon they were only two days before the reinforcements arrived.
As the time passed, things paradoxically became both more relaxed and more tense. As the deadline for the reinforcements came closer, their position was more secure, but it also meant that if the misbegotten were going to make a major move, they would have to do it soon.
So their growing relief was mixed with a rising tension.
And as it happened, the misbegotten would make a move, but not the one they had been fearing.
John was still working on fixing up the courtyard when one day a pair of soldiers came out of the sole entrance to the parts below with a large unarmed misbegotten between them.
Everyone working stopped, surprised at the men escorting one of the misbegotten elites, and watched as they made their way across the courtyard. As they got to the halfway point, their hundrier made his way to the strange group.
"You two, why is this misbegotten here?" the hundrier demanded.
"Sir, this one has been sent to negotiate their surrender. Our twentier sent us to escort him to Lord Edgar."
"Just two men?" the hundrier commented looking at the huge misbegotten. "Hmm... John! Take a five and help these men escort this misbegotten to Lord Edgar."
"Yes sir!" said John as he stopped what he was doing and turned. "Butcher, Cobbler, and the rest of the polearm five, you are with me," John ordered.
His old five with their new member dropped what they were doing and they all quickly picked up their weapons and joined the escort on their way to Edgar's study.
A few minutes later they arrived and John knocked on the door. Edgar opened it, one arm in a sling, still injured from the climactic battle having refused healing afterwards as he "didn't need it as much as other men".
He looked at the group and their dubious charge.
"My lord," John began, "this misbegotten says he is here to negotiate the surrender of the misbegotten rebels."
Edgar's eyebrow rose and he looked at the misbegotten.
"Oh really?"
The misbegotten's face was unhappy but not upset or hostile.
"Yes, Lord Morne. I have been given the authority to discuss the terms of our surrender."
Edgar didn't respond for a few moments.
"Very well, you can come in. Sergeant White, join us. The rest of you, wait here. If you hear a scuffle break out or me shouting for you, come inside."
Edgar let John and the misbegotten inside and closed the door, leaving the three of them in the room alone.
Edgar was in his armor besides the helmet and the arm that was in a sling, John was in his full armor and had his partisan, and the misbegotten was completely unarmed and unarmored.
This particular misbegotten wasn't one of the elites John had seen over the course of the rebellion. He was large but had no tail, which was common among the larger misbegotten. His lower part of his body was mostly covered in scales and his upper-half was covered in fur that was ever so slightly red. His flesh had a slight red tint to it as well similar to the leonine misbegotten.
This was the second reddest misbegotten John had seen so hard, the first being the leonine misbegotten. Suggesting he was one of those anomalous mysterious trained misbegotten.
Edgar stood on one side of the table with John carefully guarding him in case the misbegotten tried to pull something, while the misbegotten stood alone on the other, his larger form making his presence almost as imposing as their own despite being outnumbered, alone, and trapped behind enemy lines.
"What is your name and with authority do you speak?" Edgar demanded.
The misbegotten growled at Edgar's command.
"Do not mistake my presence here as capitulation, fringefolk. Do not presume to command me. We know that you are aware that not all of us are from the slave stock of Morne. It would have been impossible to miss with the battles that have been fought. You know you have never been and will never be my master. You are not dealing with one of your subjects. Do not think yourself above me."
Edgar's eyes narrowed.
"I am High Marshal. I could have you executed," Edgar threatened. "Alone, you have no way of stopping me."
The misbegotten let out a scornful laugh.
"Ha! You could, but you won't. If I do not return by sunset, it will signal the others to attack. We still outnumber you. Even if we lose, we will make you bleed for it. I would not be so sure you would win that fight in the first place. Unless you want more of your own to die?"
Edgar and the misbegotten stood off for a few moments, but Edgar relented and chuckled darkly.
"Very well. You have me. I cannot kill you, however we both know that your assertion of victory is a bluff. The time for that has passed when we crippled your leader. Now give me your name and who you speak for."
The misbegotten just narrowed his eyes at Edgar but stayed silent, the two engaging in another stand-off as the tension began to build.
It was fascinating and nerve-racking for John to see the posturing happening in front of him as each fought to establish themselves as having more leverage in even these small things. It was an interesting mental game where both sides understood the rules that the more leverage one side had the more they could ask for. John guessed that fighting over who had more leverage would be a big part of these negotiations.
After nearly a minute of neither one speaking, Edgar was the one who broke the silence.
"Will you give me your name and tell me who you speak for?"
The misbegotten audibly breathed out out of his nose.
"I am Morsh, and I speak for our leader Gharriel," Morsh answered.
"Morsh. What terms does Gharriel offer?"
"We know that since the first days that the Golden Lineage became the wardens of these lands, the punishment for rebellion has been death. Our leader is willing to offer her own life in exchange for the sparing of the lives of those of our kin who remain as you put them back into bondage."
"Preposterous. I cannot possibly allow them to just return unpunished. No doubt other menials will hear of what happened here and get ideas of their own. In months I'd have a dozen or more small rebellions pop up over the mines and estates of the Peninsula. I should have you thrown out just hearing such absurdities. Come back when you are ready to have a serious negotiation. John." Edgar gestured.
John took a single step before Morsh spoke up.
"That would not be wise. We have heard that your forces from the Ramparts of Regret will be arriving within days. We have to negotiate today or we will be forced to attack. You may think that we have nothing left, but our leader knows of a secret ritual that requires the death of many that will allow us to combat your reinforcements. We are not without recourse. Our leader has only decided not to pursue that path because it would mean the death of most of our brethren from Morne."
Edgar looked skeptical, but he motioned for John to step back.
"That may be true, but the fact remains, I cannot just absolve the rebels of punishment. I cannot send them to the mines or other punishment labors either. No doubt I'd have dozens more rebellions on my hand from their actions once they are no longer in my sight."
Morsh made a conciliatory gesture with his clawed hand.
"Gharriel does not particularly care what you have them do once they are once again in bondage. Only that none are crippled, maimed, or killed. Have them rebuild this castle and then establish new farms to segregate them. It does not matter as long as they are guaranteed not to be harmed."
Edgar got quiet as he thought this over and gave his response.
"There is the question of control," Edgar pointed out. "If I did such a thing, I would have to dedicate men to overseeing it. Maybe even enough that the idea would be a loss. And I cannot let spread the idea that punishment for rebellion will be waived if you are successful enough in an attempt.
"Your leader is concerned with the lives of the menials that had been under my authority? I want the lives of the other leaders of this rebellion as well. The lives of the menials that are larger than one of my regular men, like yourself, and those misbegotten who have clearly been trained and smuggled into Morne."
Morsh let out a menacing smile.
"Let us put the discussion of my brothers' and sisters' lives on hold for a moment. I have something else to negotiate with besides just blood price. There is the matter of the Grafted Blade Sword. We have possession of it. How many 'menial' lives is that worth to you?"
At that, Edgar very carefully didn't react to that bombshell. Despite that, the implications of their enemy having the weapon weren't lost on John.
Them having the legendary armament again was very bad. The leonine misbegotten wasn't a serious threat anymore, but even an elite like Morsh would become a serious threat if armed with that sword. Not nearly as terrible for them as the leonine misbegotten, Gharriel, had been with it, but it would be very bad for them.
If what Morsh was saying was true, that sword was a lot of leverage.
"We will trade you the sword in exchange for sparing them. One of the legendary armaments in exchange for the lives of under 50 misbegotten? A good deal. And the precedent set would be that any further rebellions would have to have such a precious thing to keep their heads."
Edgar grit his teeth.
"Ten. I'll exchange it for ten of you."
Morsh chuckled mockingly in his harsh, bestial voice and grabbed the edge of the wooden table. The wood creaked slightly under his grip as John stayed hyper-alert.
"It's my turn to laugh at an absurd offer Lord Morne. A legendary armament in exchange for the lives of ten men? We might as well just toss the thing into the ocean and just accept your terms now."
Edgar glared with narrowed eyes and leaned towards Morsh over the table.
"You speak of turns? You have been threatening me that you and your allies do not care if you all die while extracting a blood price from us if terms are too unfavorable for your side.
"It seems it is my turn to tell you that there are outcomes where the potential of my and my men's deaths are preferable if the terms on our side are too unfavorable or it puts the stability of the Weeping Peninsula at stake. And without me, the death of every one of you menials is assured.
"Lord Godrick would never accept an outcome where the Grafted Blade Sword is lost. You are bargaining for your lives. You may rather die than be put into bondage, or rather die if it has a better chance of more of your fellow menials living, but I am certain that others below do not feel the same. And remember, you menials are the ones in the weaker position with our imminent reinforcements."
Edgar leaned back.
"I want the sword in exchange for sparing a fifth of the menial's lives."
Morsh scoffed.
"Four-fifths."
And so John watched as both sides put their cards on the table and the two began arguing about the specifics of what was going to be done.
They argued back and forth, each side bringing up points and then countering points the other side's points, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.
They went into the details. When, where, and how this would all happen. Who and how many would or wouldn't be spared. They got very specific with things that John wouldn't have expected, as each side had their own interests.
Edgar was interested in eliminating as many of the misbegotten in general as possible but also had to prioritize the foreign misbegotten that had fermented and led the rebellion as well as eliminating as many of the "innocent" misbegotten who had special advantages like large size and flight that presented the most potential for hurting soldiers if they rebelled again.
Meanwhile Morsh seemed less concerned with him and the rest of their leadership surviving and was more concerned with saving the slaves they had led.
Time passed, and after a few hours, they finally settled on a deal.
Tomorrow Edgar would send down a single twenty of men to the ruins of Castletown. They would then take custody of half of the misbegotten, led by Gharriel who would stay, and escort them up into the castle. All of these would be former slaves who were not large and could not fly.
Once that was done, then Gharriel would signal that they had upheld their half of the deal and present herself to the twenty for immediate execution. She would give some information about some questions about specific things Edgar wanted to know with some limits, and then she would be put to death.
Next, the same twenty would go to the cliffside and meet with the other half of the misbegotten. All of the foreign misbegotten would stay at the cliff and wait to be executed, except for a few of the regular ones, and roughly half of the "innocent" large and flying misbegotten. There were specific numbers arrived at by haggling between Edgar Morsh in trading three of X type for two of Y and such.
Those not slated for execution, which were the remaining regular "innocent" misbegotten, a small amount of the foreign regular misbegotten, and roughly half of the "Innocent" large and flying misbegotten would be spared and be taken into custody.
Once all the spared misbegotten were taken into custody, those who had been slated for execution, led by Morsh who would have the Grafted Blade Sword on him during all this, would allow themselves to be put to the sword without a fight.
After they arrived at this grim, final compromise, neither Edgar nor Morsh looked happy, but neither was particularly outraged. Edgar wrote all of these terms and details down on a piece of contract parchment.
The contract parchment wasn't something magical. It just had a subtle irregular golden watermark-like pattern on it, similar to what John remembered seeing on government identity documents and paper money back on Earth that made it hard to forge.
The details of the negotiated agreement were written down twice, once on each end of the parchment. Then Edgar took a pair of scissors with uniquely-shaped blades and cut down the middle of the parchment in a zigzag pattern.
The watermark pattern and jagged edges of the scissors made it so that forging something would be extremely difficult as the rulers of the land kept strict control over the watermarked parchment and each one was nigh-unique.
Edgar handed Morsh his half-copy of the contract.
Morsh took and looked at Edgar.
"And you swear you will honor this?" Morsh asked, holding up his half of the contract. "This piece of paper means nothing if the man who signs it doesn't uphold his word. As far as we are aware, you and your family are known for upholding your oaths to the point of death. I want an oath from you."
"I have lived for over a millennia upholding my honor and duty. I will not stop now," Edgar said.
Morsh looked right into Edgar's eyes.
"Swear it."
Edgar put his fist over his heart.
"I swear on my honor and position as a High Marshal of the Golden Lineage and as the Lord of Morne that I will uphold this contract," Edgar swore.
Morsh narrowed his eyes, looking at Edgar for any sign of deception, but it appeared he didn't find any as he relaxed after a few moments.
"I am satisfied. We are done here?" Morsh asked.
"It appears so. John, have the men escort Morsh back, but you stay. I have something to speak to you of."
John nodded and showed Morsh out of the room, and gave the men their orders. The men began escorting the large misbegotten down the corridor.
John went back into the study and looked at Edgar curiously.
"You wished to talk to me, my lord?"
Edgar looked at John. The grim and adversarial air of the earlier negotiation was gone, and now he had an air of slightly melancholy about him.
"Yes. I have a few things to speak to you of. I am considering sending you and your twenty to uphold the deal tomorrow, including the execution of the menial leader Gharriel and the other rebel menial leaders.
"My daughter has told me that you do not plan to take me up on my offer to become one of my retinue. That you wish to travel the Lands Between. That is good because I am afraid I will not be able to keep my word on making you part of my retinue."
Edgar sighed at that.
"Many things have happened since I gave that offer, and I no longer believe that Lord Godrick will leave me in command of much of anything after this disaster.
"I believe I have already spoken to you before of what I believe about my coming punishment. To reward you for your deeds to Morne and myself by having you swear to me now, when I will not have a retinue for much longer, would be foolishness. An empty reward.
"I am unsure of if you have slain powerful foes before, but you may have noticed that the amount of runes that come from a defeated foe varies.
John nodded.
"Yes, my lord, I have noticed that. Even before I was fighting the misbegotten, I noticed the differences in the game I hunted. Some would give a little more or less. I have wondered what exactly was going on there."
"Sergeant, some ignorant men mistakenly believe this from runes held by their opponent, but that is untrue. One's held runes simply are given back to the world on death.
"What exactly the world does with them is a debated topic among scholars, but I do know that very rarely the world uses those runes to empower something nearby. But that occurrence is extraordinarily rare, uncontrollable, unreliable, and takes a great deal of time to occur.
"But I have gone on a tangent. The truth about the runes dropped by a foe is that the amount is decided by the strength of your opponent's lifeforce. Being near the Erdtree endows beings with more powerful lifeforce, so the same game that you hunt here in the Weeping Peninsula will yield far more runes if you hunt them in the Altus Plateau instead.
"Likewise, things in other powerful locations will give more runes as well. And do not mistake this lifeforce for strength. It is not so simple and straightforward.
"A Knight of Stormveil under Lord Godrick of the Golden Lineage is just as powerful and dangerous an opponent on the battlefield as a Knight of Leyndell under the Veiled Monarch, King Morgott, Last of all Kings.
"Despite their equal prowess, if you fell a Knight of Leyndell you would receive three to five times as many runes as a Knight of Stormveil, because the Knight of Leyndell, due to his long time under the branches of the Erdtree being showered with its grace and his probable birth in the Atlas Plateau, has a much greater lifeforce."
John's mind raced as he thought about the implications of that.
"Wouldn't that mean that Lord Godrick's men would gain more runes in battle than they lost if they fought King Morgott's men?"
Edgar grinned at John.
"I see you have caught that detail Sergeant. Clever. Yes, if the forces of Lord Godrick and King Morgott clashed and losses were roughly equal, then the forces of Lord Godrick would gain far more runes than King Morgott's men.
"This is one of the cornerstones of why none of the demigods attack Lord Godrick despite it being well known that he is the weakest shardbearer who controls any amount of land, despite him having the most regions under his control.
"It is because he controls the regions with the least lifeforce. And so in any clash except the most crushing of defeats, his forces will come out ahead far richer in runes than their opponents.
"The only way to prevent that would be to utterly destroy Lord Godrick and his forces in one fell swoop or a campaign of fast, unrelenting engagements. But to do such a thing with forces as powerful as Lord Godrick's, forces near peer to the forces of all rival demigods who control regions and armies, would extract a heavy price from them and leave them vulnerable to themselves being destroyed by another rival demigod or even an ambitious tarnished shardbearer.
"And runes are very important in war, as is obvious. Runes are not directly turned into strength for any except Finger Maidens and their tarnished. But runes are used in the process of imbuing weapons with smithing stones to make them more powerful, in the creation of magical items that allow people to cast spells, for logistics officers to buy supplies and materials and other general commerce, and other such things that empower an army."
That all was very good to know. And made perfect sense to John. Basically, the reason no one had won the Shattering War yet was crabs-in-a-bucket syndrome and that fact that each major player had one way or another of screwing their competition over if they over-leveraged or advanced themselves even a little.
John still had another questions though.
"But Lord Edgar, if lifeforce isn't strength, what does more lifeforce do exactly, besides make something drop more runes on death?"
"A man or woman will be generally more resistant to diseases, poisons, and other maladies, but that effect is minor. The more important effect is that over time it makes one's bloodline more powerful. Their children are more likely to be born more powerful, larger and stronger, and with higher lifeforces themselves.
"And their children will keep this strength even if their higher lifeforce was to fade somehow such as if they lived for centuries in a less lifeforce-abundant region like Limgrave.
"It is a sign we have the blessing of Placidusax that the strength of the noble bloodlines of us fringefolk persist despite us being consigned to the two most backwater of regions which have the least lifeforce," Edgar finished.
John could see his superior was starting to look impatient to move on to what he had actually wanted to discuss.
"Thank you, my lord. I just have one more question," John said, deciding not to try and push his luck more than that. "When you mentioned shardbearers, you made it sound like there are shardbearers that aren't demigods?"
Edgar rubbed his beard with his gauntleted hand.
"Oh yes. Everyone knows of the demigod shardbearers, but before the Elden Ring was rendered down to the most fundamental of Great Runes required for life to exist at all, it'd had dozens of Great Runes in it. In that terrible act, those Great Runes were scattered across the lands by the Goddess Marika.
"Many runes have since been lost and even a few destroyed. But the rest are held by shardbearers, and the demigods are only a few of the shardbearers.
"Most shardbearers are in fact tarnished who are not mighty enough to claim any significant amount of land from the demigods, and so they hide themselves away like cowards. They and other tarnished fight each other in obscurity in their attempts to try and gather at least two Great Runes to eventually make an attempt at restoring the barest of stability to the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord.
"Those fools are pursuing a flawed method of becoming Lord. What will happen if they restore the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord, yet are unable to match a demigod and their forces on the battlefield? All their ambitions will come to naught as they are slayed and usurped.
"As Lord Godfrey once said before he was banished to endure the Long March, 'If one wants to be Elden Lord, his strength must befit a Lord's crown."
"I suspect most of the tarnished shardbearers who have gathered Great Runes instead are waiting in the shadows like rats for the day the demigods fall so they may have their chance at becoming Lord without having to face the demigods fearsome strength on the battlefield.
"I have heard of a few tarnished who have come close, such a Vyke the Dragonspear and Knight Berhnal. But for reasons none know they discarded their Great Runes and turned away at the precipice of fulfilling their ambitions.
"Most tarnished fail and die long before they have a chance at discovering where any of those reclusive shardbearers hide, let alone overcome them in battle. And those tarnished shardbearers all stay as far away as they can from any of the demigods and their men as they all fear nothing more than a demigod finally getting ahold of a second Great Rune."
"Hunting tarnished in the hopes of discovering a shardbearer is one reason amongst many of why the Veiled Monarch sends his Night's Cavalry to prowl even enemy regions. Their magical armor and cloth barding veil themselves during the day, making hunting them down impossible."
Edgar shifted and made a gesture.
"But that is enough for now. I want to discuss with you your reward, not teach you history."
John nodded in agreement and acknowledgment. There was more he wanted to ask Edgar, but he wasn't going to get on the man's bad side over it.
Edgar kept talking, switching back to what they had been discussing before that long tangent.
"With a foe like the menial leader who has a powerful body and, from her red hair, most likely a strong connection with the Crucible, and therefore a strong lifeforce, the runes rewarded for slaying him will be significant. And the runes from slaying dozens of those large misbegotten will not be insignificant as well.
"I wish to reward you with the opportunity to be the one who executes them, and as tradition, let you keep the runes. They will no doubt be a great source of wealth on your journey. But there is the risk that the negotiation was all a trap and you may be ambushed.
"This will not be your true reward from me for your deeds, but I thought to give you the first offer at this opportunity as you are the one who provided the idea that saw us through near-impossible odds. Do you wish for your twenty to be the ones down there tomorrow despite the risk?"
John leaned back and thought about it.
The risk was serious. If this was all a trick to just pick twenty more of them off before the rebellion was snuffed out for good or if something went wrong in general, then he and his twenty would be helpless against the hundreds of misbegotten. They would be immediately overwhelmed and killed.
But the runes would be incredible as well. He could feel the mass that had built in his stomach over the rebellion since he had done his second hallowing.
John couldn't count an exact number as the internal sense he could feel them in wasn't exact in that way, but he had somewhere near ten thousand. A little less than half of what he'd had when he'd done his second hallowing.
That meant he had about a fourth of what he thought he would need to hallow again. And hallowing was one of his main methods of getting stronger at that moment, until he managed to get a magic teacher, as that was probably gonna be his best bet for being able to start fighting in the big leagues.
So he could really use the runes, as he wasn't sure when or if he would even be able to do any magic. After all, he was from a world without magic.
Really, at this point, John had already achieved the main thing he had set out to do. His first main goal for the past for years. The Frenzied Flame ending was much less likely without Hyetta to guide the Chosen Tarnished along that route, as a real person wasn't gonna scour every inch of a massive continent looking for nothing like a video game player would a game world.
Instead, the Chosen Tarnished would probably not meet anyone that would tempt him towards being the Lord of Frenzied Flame, until he met Shabriri in the Mountaintops of the Giants, if the CT ever met that guy at all with how John was planning on changing things.
So that meant that the Frenzied Flame ending was much less likely now.
And unless the Chosen Tarnished was an absolutely crazy serial killer, he wouldn't pick the Dung Eater ending. And if the CT turned out to be that way, then they'd all been screwed from the start.
Those were the two worst paths the Chosen Tarnished could choose, and both seemed very unlikely now by John's estimation even if they were still technically possible.
With him having probably averted the worst path the CT could take, the responsibility John felt towards the rest of the world to take as little risk with his life as possible because of his meta-knowledge was greatly lessened.
Making his own mending rune and helping the Tarnished was much more of a personal ambition for his own satisfaction of living in the kind of world he'd prefer rather than a responsibility he felt to the world, like trying to help prevent the Frenzied Flame ending was.
If John died now, there was little unfinished business left for him to do that the CT couldn't do himself. He was free to start taking risks, which he had been avoiding up till now. And he wouldn't be stupid about it of course.
So whether or not he should accept the offer.
Even after amassing a ton of runes from killing dozens upon dozens of misbegotten, he still had only reached about a quarter of what he would need to hallow himself again. The leonine misbegotten and other elite misbegotten would no doubt be significant progress towards his next hallowing.
If John was ever going to be able to even begin to approach the level where he could help the Chosen Tarnished fight beings like Godrick, let alone someone like Radahn, Morgott, Radagon, or the Elden Beast, he would have to become incredibly stronger. Right now, he could barely fight a couple handfuls of misbegotten without his life being in serious danger. Even a single fringefolk knight outclassed him.
If he was actually going to get stronger, he was gonna have to take the plunge and start taking risks, instead of playing it as safely as possible like he had been doing for the five years he'd been in the Lands Between, and John did not believe the misbegotten were going to backstab them. He didn't see how they could use this as part of a plot to turn the tables once again.
"I accept," John answered.
Edgar smiled.
"Excellent. Then tomorrow your twenty will be the ones who are to carry out our side of their negotiated surrender. After the menials are captured, we can speak of your actual reward from me for your deeds then. While I have some ideas, you know what you need best. After the reinforcements arrive and the menials have been killed, you can take your chosen rewards and leave."
John nodded his head agreeing, until he realized what Edgar had just said at the end there and looked at him.
"Kill them? My lord, did you not just swear that you would uphold the contract? Everyone knows that you are one who never breaks his word. Doing that would ruin your reputation."
Edgar laughed, half genuine and half manic.
"Sergeant, I am not long for this world and the future of my bloodline is grim. Why would my honor matter after the next few months?
"Tell me, of honor, duty, and loyalty, the three most important qualities a man possesses, which would you say is the most important, and which is the least?"
John thought about it and answered truthfully.
"Loyalty, then duty, then honor," John said.
Edgar clapped his gauntleted hand on John's armored shoulder and nodded.
"Precisely. Many, most even in my estimation, would say honor, then loyalty, then duty. But I am of the same mind of you, which is what I have suspected as I have gotten to know you some over the past few weeks, and why I even extended that offer of potentially taking you into my retinue when you entered my study after you risked yourself to save your injured comrade after the rest of your unit was destroyed.
"Honor is to uphold one's reputation and let others know you are a man that is trustworthy and worth involving oneself with.
"I have found that those that have a preoccupation with honor often only act honorably when others are around to know of it, and have no true honor themselves. They see the lack in themselves and so do their best that none will see it. Not all of them are like this, but I have seen it too many times for it to be mere chance.
"I will sacrifice my honor which I have taken great pains to uphold for many centuries for my duty.
"If I were to let those misbegotten live, I have no doubt that they will become a serious danger in the long term. To leave it so would be an abdication of my duty in favor of my honor.
"Since my life is burning as a candle, it is better for me to sacrifice my honor, rather than whoever is to come after me being forced to do so. This is part of my duty as the High Marshal of the Weeping Peninsula to whomever my successor shall be, of whom I have my suspicions. And I am on good terms with many of the probable candidates."
John didn't quite agree with Edgar about this. To John, this seemed like another person being overly obsessed with the purity of an idea of principle.
He thought that loyalty and dedication to duty were definitely close to the top of the most important things a person could have. He thought honor was important as well, but it lagged far behind the other two in importance, and John didn't consider it the third most important.
But what John considered most important of all, more important than any of those, was pragmatism. Being realistic and practical.
Edgar seemed to be fixating on loyalty and duty here due to his regarding those things as more important than anything else, rather than considering any of the wider implications his actions would have if word got out, as this event would damage the integrity of any such deals anyone of any faction ever negotiated in the future, as they would have one more example of time they were not upheld.
Not to mention, John just didn't agree with the need to kill all the misbegotten in the first place.
Edgar saw John's resistance to his assessment, and the gauntlet hand on John's shoulder tightened, but not enough to hurt. Edgar gave him a smile filled with teeth, half for John and half for the misbegotten he was indirectly defending, as his eyes began gazing emptily into the air, his mind focused onto the future he was imagining.
"You will go down there tomorrow and faithfully carry out our side of what we negotiated, saying no word of my future intentions about this to anyone. We will uphold the contract until the reinforcements arrive. Then I will have the misbegotten executed to the last, burn this contract and any evidence of it, and have my men who may have seen it be sworn to silence, ensuring word of this never spreads.
"After that, I will provide what little more use I can to my lord before he has me relieved of my position, and most likely my head.
"The honor of the Golden Lineage and the next High Marshal will be clean and these particular menials will not be a future problem as their traitorous hides will have gotten their rightful punishment. They and the traitors who did their bidding may have destroyed me, but they will feel the vengeance of Morne."
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