Finally, a question with a simple answer.
"I'm--" Serish started.
It might not be wise to mention Ephes, love, Xaraea interrupted before Serish had even finished the sound. He's not particularly well-liked amongst wizards.
Can't imagine why, Serish thought back, wryly. Setting his status as the undercover servant of a demon sovereign aside, even by the standards of the many assholes Serish had met since she'd sailed off from Serendipity her master had been a rather lofty level of bastard.
She changed gears in the space of the beat, deciding on an equally true but less potentially dangerous version of the story. "Was part of an expedition into the Moraki desert. Master Cebeus -- not sure if you ever met him, he lived in Cerenis -- found an old temple and I was sent along to bodyguard his apprentice. If you heard about what happened to his estate, though...you can imagine things didn't go do well. Necromancers assaulted the temple, I had to fight my way clear. Been heading north ever since."
Serish let the topic hang and consulted the map again. She had to admit, it was very nice; not even Ephes and his ego considered something like this worth the time and effort, having contented himself to just handing Serish plain ink-and-parchment maps whenever he'd sent her off somewhere. Blooming thing was actually to scale, more or less. Which made it all the more impressive that a goblin, a freaking goblin, had pulled it off. Which, of course, assumed the thing had actually made the map and hadn't lifted it off someone with more talent than awareness. But Serish wasn't about to mention that suspicion out loud. That talking owl (and Serish hardly believed that, either) perched on the Goblin's head was eyeing Serish warily and had been for the entire conversation. It seemed to be the brains of the pair and its talons looked particularly sharp.
After a few moments of referencing landmarks and searching through memories fogged by nightly inebriation, she pointed to an area a little ways up-mountain from the village. "What about here? Some of the town goatherds mentioned some of their goats started going missing around here. Old ruins tend to attract monsters or bandits or other predators, which could account for it. Try looking for a cairn or standing stone or a freshly-broken trail out that way. An entrance or something probably got unburied by movement in the mountain."
The goblin regarded Serish and the map for a bit, still fidgeting. "Maybe," it said finally. "I check tomorrow. You come?"
Serish's immediate response was a derisive "Hell no", since she wanted to be out of town by tomorrow; after the barfight that night, there was nothing to be gained by staying. And just on general principle, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with dragons, alive or dead, in any case. But she stopped herself. If this goblin really was a wizard, that meant it had money, or at least knew people who did. Serish had been on the road for over eight months at this point with no allies or associates to call on outside of Xaraea, and helpful as she was, Xaraea couldn't do much outside of Serish's mind that wouldn't start a pogrom aimed squarely at them. And Serish was getting real tired of this "broke drifter" lifestyle. Ephes hadn't ever given her much -- the armor and weapons laid out on the small wooden table were individually worth hundreds of times more than what few other possessions Ephes had allowed her to keep -- but she had received decent food, secure shelter, and an adequate bed. If this goblin could get her on her way back to the gilded circles of the wizarding world, it would probably be worth getting dragged around for a few months. After all, it couldn't possibly be any more pointless than the sellsword work she'd been doing up to now.
"What the hell, sure," Serish said at last. "If nothing else, I kill whatever's been eating the goats and maybe I can get the town elder to pay me for it. I want to be out of here by dawn, though. Just knock, I'll be ready."
The goblin, enthused, eventually left, that damn owl swiveling its head around to keep its eyes locked on Serish until the pair had rounded the corner into the hall. Serish gave it a three count, just to be sure, then walked over and shut the door. She turned to make her way back to the bed, reaching down to shuck out of the silk tunic before lying down. Xaraea made her reappearance as the door's lock clicked, pressed close against Serish's back, and wrapped her arms around her to grab the hem of the tunic.
"Allow me..." she husked, and Serish let her arms go loose, leaning back into the demon's embrace.
-------------
Sure enough, Serish awoke before sun-up the next morning with a knot the size of a small orange in her left shoulder where a lump in the mattress had dug into it all night. Stupid peasants and their stupid straw beds. She grumbled darkly and punched the lump a few times in impotent discontent as she kicked off the furs and dragged her tired body out of bed. Xaraea, who preferred sleeping late and staying up later, made her usual wordless protests.
"I know," Serish sighed apologetically, glancing out the window. The barest details of buildings beyond their silhouettes were just starting to become visible in the faint pre-dawn light. "But sunrise is in about an hour and we need to be gone by then."
This did little to placate her companion, who kept her face buried her pillow. "Just once I'd like it if we didn't have to scurry out of town like rats. At the very least not before a morning bath."
A warm bath. Stars above, could Serish need one of those. Just the thought brought back all the deep, quiet aches one gets from months of travel without rest that she had been suppressing for so long. Xaraea could do some amazing things with dreams, but they did little to soothe the physical needs of her body.
"Soon, I promise," Serish answered at last. "Hopefully after this thing with the goblin. With luck we'll find something worth selling and we can get set up somewhere once we get out of Adela."
And with that glimmer of hope in her mind, she set to work getting ready for the day. One of the things Ephes had impressed upon her from the earliest days of her training was the importance of preparation -- physical, logistical, and mental -- and how the three were often interconnected. The combatant with the most time to prepare -- to train, to plan, to gather supplies, to manipulate the battlefield -- was the victor, and so the ritual practice of a pre-mission checklist was something Serish had been made to take to quickly. She waved the candles in the room to life, casting the timber room in warm, dim light and sending flickering shadows crawling across the walls. She'd left her hair in its long braid before going to bed the night before and with a few practiced motions wrapped it into a tight bun against the back of her head as she walked over to the table before fastening it in place with a handful of pins.
First came the matter of getting dressed. Serish began the process of steadying her mind as she went about the room, collecting her clothes from where she had stored them or tossed them aside. With every breath in, she gathered all the thoughts, the worries, the anxieties, the burning, churning emotions in her heart and belly, and with every breath out she pushed them away, until there was nothing left but the task at hand and the clothes laid out individually on the wooden table. Serish ran her eyes and fingers over each article slowly, scrutinizing them in the candlelight for holes, tears, threadbare sections, anything that could catch on a rock or branch and get torn wider. She had done this yesterday afternoon after renting the room and patched up what she could, but that wasn't the point. The point was the awareness of the moment and of any gaps in her defenses. As each article passed inspection, Serish put it on. First the undergarments, then the precise winding of a roll of linen around each of her feet and calves, then a pair of sturdy woolen trousers reinforced with leather. The heavy hobnailed boots came next, first one then the other, each buckling up the side of her leg to just below the knee, with the hem of the trousers tucked inside. After that she stood up and pulled on the silk tunic again, torn and patched so thoroughly that little of the original weave remained.
As she turned to pick up the long-sleeved leather brigandine, she caught sight of Xaraea in the corner of her vision. The woman was no longer trying to sleep away the morning and had instead taken to lounging on her side with her chin propped up on one hand, watching Serish dress through hooded eyes without shame. Xaraea was still gloriously, distractingly naked and good at it, especially with how the orange candlelight cast an alluring glow on her sun-bronzed skin and brought out the gold and auburn highlights in her brown hair. Serish turned to face the wall before she lost her concentration entirely and started pulling on the brigandine.
"Show's not free, come on," she said, her voice rough as she fought to get a wash of conflicting desire for and irritation at the woman on the bed back under control.
"Why charge when you can engage in selfless charity?" Xaraea answered sweetly, making no movement to get up.
"We both know that's not me. Or you, for that matter. Now help buckle me up."
The bed creaked and, with a melodramatic sigh, Xaraea's bare feet padded over the wooden floor to stop behind Serish. Serish felt the woman's fingers swiftly and expertly adjust and tie up the fitting laces on the brigandine's back as Serish took care of the main laces on the front.
With her basic wear in place, her armor would be affixed on top, starting with the hauberk. The fine metal rings whispered as they ran over her fingers rather than chattering like ordinary steel would, because it was no ordinary alloy. "Shadowsteel," Ephes had called it upon presenting the hauberk and the rest of the armor to her, and she could hear his smarmy voice even now. "Lighter, more resilient, and less cacophonous than its pedestrian cousin. It shall serve you well in the days ahead." And that it had. Serish still had no idea where it came from or how Ephes had gotten his hands on enough to have an entire set of armor forged from it. She only knew it was unbelievably expensive and was possessed of no magical properties apparent to her senses. A few links were missing, shattered by powerful blows from towering guardian constructs, several more had been deformed by the intense heat of fireballs or Serish's own...explosive tendencies or nicked by orcish axes, but on the whole the hauberk remained in nearly pristine condition. Never in its almost five years of use had it ever needed to be sent to a smith for repair. After Serish pulled it over her head and settled the long sleeves on her arms, a pixane of identical construction followed it to encircle her neck and shoulders. A thick leather belt went around her waist to keep the hauberk in place, wide in the front to protect her belly and wide in back to correct her posture when lifting great weights, and cinched tight to keep pressure on any abdominal wounds she might receive.
Atop the mail would sit a partial suit of plate, reduced to the essentials to minimize weight and bulk. It was dented and battered after months of sporadic fighting with no opportunity for maintenance, but like the mail it was still in serviceable condition. Serish looped the leather straps of the tassets around the belt, buckling the front straps together while Xaraea did up the rear straps. The leather was broken in around the correct notches, so the contoured metal plates were quickly settled in a comfortable position on the outside of Serish's thighs. The greaves encased her shins and calves and partial sabatons protected the instep of her feet. Long leather gauntlets with decorative knotwork stitched onto the backs covered her hands and part of the mail on her forearms. Serish gave her fingers a testing wiggle to ensure the gauntlets had been fitted properly and there were no burrs in the leather that would disrupt her grip. Then Serish took up the cuirass and its attached plackart and flipped the straps over her shoulders so Xaraea could secure the armor. Like the tassets, repeated use had made finding the right fit trivial. With the cuirass in place, it could serve its second function as a harness for the rest of the armor. Xaraea took the backplate from the table and fitted it to the harness, doing up the half-dozen buckles that kept it flush against the cuirass. Last came the assorted pieces of arm plate: half vambraces strapped around her forearms, half rerebraces strapped to her upper arms and the cuirass harness, and articulated couters fastened around her elbows.
After a moment's consideration, Serish also took the cotton apron and, with difficulty, tucked it underneath the belt so the ends hung loose between her legs, the red embroidery on the white fabric identifying her as a student of the School of Sunrir.
"Dashing, as ever," Xaraea remarked. Serish didn't have to look at her to feel the demon's eyes looking her up and down. "A bit battered, though. We really need to do something about that."
"Hopefully after this," Serish repeated and set to work on her weapons.
The bow was in the best shape of the arsenal. She had restrung two nights before to account for the cold, thin mountain air and in the days since it had collected nothing but a little but of dust. All the same, she tested the string tension and inspected every whorl and bend of the twisting engravings that covered the body of the bow, scraping out any dirt or imperfections she came across with fine tools so they did not disrupt the flow of magic through the engravings. Then she repeated the process on the metal quarterstaff, the twin eight-inch daggers, and the long arming sword, all of which also received attention from the small whetstone to work out any burrs in the metal. It wasn't a laborious process, but it was a consuming one, and it wasn't long before her focus was interrupted by a knock.
