James A. Hunter
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Vigil's Balance: Two - Cleanup, Isle 10
🕑 Added 2022-11-10 18:00:09 +0000 UTC“About time,” I grumbled, squeezing the stone as I dismissed the bounty notice.
After defeating a team of corrupt Vigils, uncovering a vast cult nestled inside the heart of the Citadel, and saving the city of Wildespell from a political coup, I’d received some very generous rewards from the powers that be. Among those rewards was a private keep within spitting distance of Wildespell, personally granted to me by the King himself. It even came with an honorary patent of nobility. I had all the perks of being a landholding baron, without any of the shitty obligations that usually came along with a title like that.
Starlake Keep was my new home away from home.
The place was nestled in a secluded section of the Elderwick Forest. Just far enough away from Wildespell so that no one would stumble across it by accident, but close enough that I could ride into the city within a couple of hours if need be.
There was just one little catch…
The Keep had been abandoned for the better part of two decades and all manor of Mortka had taken up residency in the intervening years. Starlake had originally been commissioned and built and another Vigil—a guy named Cartwey Trevorrow, who’d been a Saint-Class Vigil of Truth and an elusive hermit. Had was the operative word. Years and years ago, ol’ Trevorrow had been running down leads on some tenuous fables regarding the Hundred Years’ War and Isabella the Ghostblood when something had happened to him.
No one knew what exactly, only that Trevorrow disappeared. Gone in a blink of an eye with no one any the wiser about his whereabouts.
After twenty years, everyone assumed he was long dead, and the King was only too happy to bequeath me the Keep. No one in the Citadel had protested either, although I suspected most of them had ulterior motives. Unlike other Vigils, I had a direct line to Raguel, the Five-Faced God of Justice, and I got the distinct feeling that my connection made a lot of the more established Vigils uneasy. The fact that I’d also managed to kill four Vigils and a Chaos Aberration that were way the hell outside my weight class probably only reinforced that discomfort.
Which is why giving me this place was a win-win.
I was just far enough away from the Citadel that I wouldn’t be all up in their business, but not so far away that they couldn’t keep tabs on my comings and goings. I really didn’t give a shit, because I got a fortress to call my own and, honestly, I didn’t want anyone poking their nose into my affairs either. In my experience, there was nothing worse than having some overzealous Officer who didn’t know his ass from his elbow trying to tell you how to do your job.
I bent over and slung the body of the Ratking over my shoulder, desperately trying to ignore the stench that wafted off the dead monster. With a grunt, I hauled the dripping, gore-spattered corpse up the winding stairs that connected the subbasement to the rest of the keep.
Jacob-Francis chirped and padded along beside me, his tail lashing back and forth. Renholm was sitting on the cat’s back once more, riding side saddle, his ankles cross primly as he held a pair of tiny reigns in one hand.
I shouldered my way past the heavy wooden door at the top of the staircase and tromped into the main level of the keep, which was busy with the hustle of bustle of renovators and staff all working to get the place into tip top shape. Twenty years without any tenants but monsters had left some serious superficial and structural issues. But nothing a little elbow grease and money wouldn’t fix. I had a whole team of carpenters, stonemasons, landscapers, and craftsman working around the clock.
It was running me a pretty penny, but these days, I wasn’t exactly hurting for cash. Especially with all the extra coin I’d pulled in from dealing with Telent’s crew.
Aside from the keep, I’d also been allowed to loot the corpses of the corrupt Vigils, and each had been Master-Ranked with years of accumulated items and a small fortune to their names. I’d picked up enchanted weapon skins, reinforced Mortka armor, countless fabrication components, and enough gold and silver to give the keep a facelift ten times over. Not to mention a collection of priceless archaic magical tomes and a Sage Class Legacy Scroll, which I currently had tucked away in my Soul Vault.
I rounded the corner and headed into a front foyer. There was a loud squawk as Rebecca, my newly hired housekeeper, caught sight of the grisly monster.
“Gods above, not another one, Master Boyd,” she chided gently, smoothing out her voluminous skirts when she realized the monster was dead and harmless. She frowned and eyeballed the trail of blood I’d left in my wake, which would no doubt leave scorch marks on the floor. Thankfully, it was just rough, unfinished stone. The builders had ripped out the old, rotten floorboards a few days ago but hadn’t installed the new planks yet. Small mercies, because Rebecca would’ve whooped my ass, Vigil or not, for ruining the new flooring.
“If it’s any consolation,” I said with a sheepish grin, “this should be the last one. The Bounty finally cleared, which means we should be in the clear, too.”
She sniffed in disapproval but nodded. “I can’t believe how ugly the things are,” she commented idly, “nor how smelly. I always heard the stories back in the Citadel, but I never actually saw any of the Mortka. Not outside of the heads that were mounted in the trophy room.”
Rebecca had grown up inside Wildespell—arguably one of the safest cities in Alkran—and had spent her entire adult life cloistered within the impenetrable walls of the Citadel, where she’d served as a kitchen porter. She’d done a bit of everything. Food prep and sou chef. Cleaning workstations. Bussing tables and washing dishes. She’d planned to work at the Citadel until she died. Unfortunately, I’d ruined that option for her. She, along with a handful of other servants, had helped smuggled me and a few of my associates past the guards and onto the Citadel grounds.
They’d been doing it for the good of the kingdom, but the Custodians hadn’t seen it that way. It was a load of classist horseshit in my opinion.
I’d been richly rewarded for “following Raguel’s guidance.” They’d been shitcanned for breaking the rules, and never mind that it would’ve been impossible for me to stop Telent or the other corrupt Vigils without their assistance. The Custodians didn’t have two shits to give about a couple of lowly servants, however. All they saw was rule breakers and subversives—their word—and they couldn’t have those kinds of people employed by the Citadel. Which is why I hired ’em all on at the keep.
Rebecca had gotten a promotion straight to Head Housekeeper. Lena had been one of the other Citadel servants to get the axe. She’d worked as a supply clerk before, so now she was my official “Castellan”—a fancy word for Camp Logistics Officer. She managed the work crew and made sure the keep was squared away and stocked with supplies. Furniture. Sheets. Food and silverware. She did it all.
“If I do my job right,” I said readjusting the Ratking’s weight on my shoulder, “hopefully you’ll never have to see another one. Now if you could just get the door for me…”
She frowned again but moved to oblige, pushing open the enormous front double doors. I nodded in thanks and headed out into the wild tangle that surrounded the keep.
“Much appreciated,” I called back over one shoulder.
Out front, there were a trio of gardeners working to bring order to the overgrown yard. Winter didn’t last as long here and after two months of chill and snow, spring was already launching its invasion. That was even more true here than elsewhere in Alkran.
The Keep had been originally constructed on a natural nexus line—one of the places where the Material and the Etheric Realm more closely overlapped. There was a thinness to the air, like cheap single-ply toilet paper, which allowed Essence to bleed through, reinvigorating the plants. Wild vines, creeping bushes, and young saplings had run roughshod over the formerly spacious lawn and once-manicured garden. The cobblestone roadway that carved through the trees had likewise been overtaken by gnarled roots and unruly brambles, while colorful wildflowers dotted the odd patch of sunlight.
A pair of yellow eyes watched me from a gnarled tree branch, barely visibly among the budding leaves. It was just a spidery-limbed grass troll, keeping watch. There were ten of them scattered around the perimeter and twice that number in the Etheric Realm, on the lookout for the riders of the Wyld Hunt. They were technically loyal, but I didn’t trust a one of ’em, which was why I had Cal overseeing the band of fae recruits.
I ignored the troll and waved at the workers, offering them a friendly smile in the process.
They didn’t wave back.
Instead, they recoiled at the unholy sight of the dead monster casually draped over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Couldn’t blame them. Blood and guts were just a necessary and routine part of my life at this point, but to normal people, dead monsters were probably pretty off-putting.
I headed around the outskirts of the keep, and made my way toward the stables and a patch of pastureland, which had already been fully restored and fenced in.
While I walked, I surveyed my new estate for what felt like the hundredth time. The place still needed work, but it had potential. The walls were solid granite, the doors and windows were all reinforced with steel and timber, and the former resident had even erected a ten-foot outer curtain wall with a portcullis that could be lowered when necessary. It wasn’t as impressive as the King’s castle in Wildespell and it didn’t hold a candle to the defenses of the Citadel, but with a little help, I reckoned I could hold this place against a small army if push came to shove.
“It’s not a castle,” Renholm said, as though reading my thoughts, “but it is much nicer than your quarters at the Citadel. It will make a worthy seat for my throne.”
I snorted at the audacious claim. “What happened to ‘this is your house, not mine’?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at the fairy.
“Well, that was then, when there was work to be done. This is now, when there are rewards to be reaped,” he replied with a nonchalant shrug. “Another lesson for you, my young protégé—never do the work when some gullible idiot is willing to do it for you, but always be quick to reap the benefit for their labor. That single, guiding rule has never misled me.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, your majesty,” I said, my long legs eating up the distance, “but this place is not your reward to reap. This is my place, given to me by the King of Wildespell.”
“Yes, but in a technical sense, as my esteemed Duke, what’s yours is mine. Being as I am your liege and all.”
“In a technical sense,” I shot back, “you can suck a big ol’ bag full of assholes. The only thing you’re technically entitled to, per our legally binding pact, is a single Novice Class Affinity Scale or better per week. Period.”
Renholm beamed up at me. “Wielding the power of contract law like a bludgeon? Excellent. You might just survive the Fae Wylds, yet.”
I angled past the stables, and around to the shores of a broad lake, stretching out behind the manor. The placid, crystalline waters had an unparalleled view of the night sky, which was where the keep got its name from, Starlake. A wooden dock jutted out like a gnarled finger and a small boat with a pair of oars was moored to a cleat hitch.
Not far from a shoreline was a circular charred patch of ground, covered in soot and ash. My impromptu burn pit. Unfortunately, Mortka didn’t just vanish after death and disposing of their remains too near to the keep was likely to draw in predators. Having a fox or a bear sniffing around the property wouldn’t be the end of the world, but Mortka meat was infused with Essence. Which meant their corpses would invariably attract other Mortka. The only way to deal with them was to burn ’em until there was nothing left.
I dropped the body onto the soot patch with a thud. A small cloud of dirt and debris drifted up, before settling back down around the grotesque form.
I wiped away a thin sheen of sweat then casually stuck out a hand and let lose a roaring column of fire. Flames licked at the body, curling around the corrupted flesh. An acrid and nauseating stench assaulted my nose. It was somehow even worse than how the creature had smelled when alive.
“Now that that’s done, I need to go find myself a priest,” I said, turning away from the crackling inferno. “You coming with me or what?” I asked, side-eyeing the fairy.
“I’ll be along eventually.” He licked his sharp little fangs, eyes fixed intently on the burning corpse. “I find myself suddenly famished…”
I gagged at the thought. True, Essence-infused Mortka meat was a delicacy in this world, but this thing was a humanoid figure made out of the fused flesh of giant rats. I couldn’t imagine a single soul other than Renholm who would get hungry looking at this thing.
“Have at it,” I said, trying not to vomit in my mouth from the stink. “This is one reward I’m more than happy to share…”
