Chapter II – The curse of the Red Dagger
After the initial shock caused by Elliot’s daring move, the crowd started to go away. The residents of Hillfall were starting to get used to this kind of tragedy.
Elliot still held the red dagger in his hand, trying to figure out what it meant. Dante was not helping him much, as he still was speechless. Lua and Lynn clearly had no idea about what that thing meant either.
It was only about half an hour latter that Darrien arrived at the scene, and things finally started to get clearer.
With the arrival of the priest Dante calmed down, and started to think rationally again. Together, he and the priest explained to the others what the dagger meant.
Since the arrival of the new lord of the city, Ogrimar Darkcloak, a new set of rules had been established by the local authority. First, he had replaced the city guards, employing his own warriors: red-haired barbarians from a nomad tribe from the north. Second, the taxes had been brutally raised, and now 50% of the crops harvested by the citizens were given to the lord as payment for a dozen different taxes. And last, there was the red dagger.
As the local landlord, Orgimar had the right to pick any women in town to serve as his company for a night. People hated it, but it was his right nonetheless, and many other cities in the Ergothian empire had this very same rule, and the people knew they could not do anything against it. “He’s a noble, he was born a better person then us, we have to accept the will of the gods”, they always thought.
A red dagger in front of a house meant that Lord Orgimar had chosen the woman that lived in the house to be his partner for a night.
However, that was not the worst part. As if the suffering of delivering your wife to sleep with another man wasn’t enough already, a darker fate awaited the “victims” of the red dagger, for none of the women chosen by the dagger had ever returned.
Since Orgimar’s arrival, five women had already gone into the castle to spend a night with the lord, and none of them were ever seen again.
That was “the curse of the red dagger”, and that’s why the town was shocked to realize that a new women would disappear forever in the castle.
And soon it became clear to the foreigners (Lua, Elliot and Lynn) why Dante was so shocked when he saw the dagger. Apparently, he knew the women who would be next victim. As a matter of fact, he knew her very well.
The girl’s name was Gisele, and she was married to a good friend of Dante, called Gordon. He and Dante had been friends since childhood, and both still remember the days spent playing “knights” or “rescue the princess”. Gordon was a little older, and did not have live in the orphanage, for he had his own family. In his childhood, Gordon had learned how to read and write, eventually becoming the city’s scribe…such a happy ending was not for the orphans such as Dante, and it depressed him.
Therefore, when Dante saw that Gisele was “cursed” and that he would never see her again, that his good friend would become a 25 years old widow, that their children would have no mother for the rest of her life, all because of a Lord’s petty right, he was shocked…and very angry.
As he regained control of himself, he slammed at the door of the house, desperate to talk to Gordon and his family, to offer them a little comfort (if any was possible), to see if there was anything he could do for them.
For a long time, no sound came from inside. Dante’s hands were already hurt after hitting the door so many times. The door itself was starting to complain, cracking loudly.
Finally, a shout came form inside “Go away”, it said “go laugh at someone’s else tragedy”. By the looks of it, whoever said that had been crying for a long time.
It took Dante the whole morning to convince Gordon to open up the door. As Dante, Darrien and the others entered the house, they immediately became more saddened than ever. A beautiful blond woman cried in a corner, with a 2 year old child in her lap, a poor creature who probably did not understand what was going on.
Gordon and the visiting party talked throughout the whole day, but all Gordon wanted was that Dante and the others to leave him alone (seconded by the priest, who agreed with this). Enraged, Dante wanted to do something against the incoming tragedy. Ellitot did not like any kind of injustice, and was sympathetic to the cause. Lynn was more than happy to help, thinking of the whole thing as “another adventure to give me fame” she thought. Lua did not care, he wasn’t understanding much of the talk anyway, and if helping them would mean going in the direction of Lancton, he would gladly help.
Against Gordon’s better judgment (his intuition told him this would not end well), after hours of continuous talk, the villager decided to let Dante and his new friends help him in some way. In the end, he would not behave like a sheep, allowing his beloved wife to be stolen without a fight.
Now, it was just a matter of how to escape the curse of the red dagger.
According to the previous experiences with the red daggers, the city guards would come in 2 days to pick Gisele, and she was supposed to return in 2 more days, something everyone knew would never happen.
Many plans were discussed. Bribing the guards, wrecking havoc in the whole town, insufflating a riot among the villagers, and many others, but none seemed good enough.
Only after a long time planning, the group came up with a reasonable strategy (although they all agreed it was not a good one, it was just the less likely to fail).
This was the plan: Gordon and his daughter would abandon town, claiming they could not withstand what was about to happen, and had decided to leave the city once and for all. They would take the priest’s wagon, along with all their belongings. Lua, Elliot and Lynn would accompany them, in an attempt to evade security.
Gordon and his daughter would than head towards the city of Gulfport, while the other secretly went back to town, by climbing the city walls (they were not that big) or swimming trough a river canal.
Meanwhile, Dante would act as an escort to Gisele, supposedly awaiting beside her until the guards came to pick her up.
Latter, they would secretly reunite at Gordon’s house, and when the time came, the plan was to fight the guards and run outside the city. Unfortunately, they knew that once the guards realized Gisele was trying to escape the dagger, the city’s gates (located south) would be closed and the path blocked, leaving only one option: the forbidden forest – a dangerous and haunted place north of town nobody dared to enter. In his whole life, Dante had only been at its borders once, and that was enough to convince him never to come back again. Sadly, that was the only way, so they decided not to think about it until the time came.
It was late night when the party left Gordon’s house. Darrien had already left a long time ago to take care of the orphanage. To their surprise, a red-haired guard was already lurking nearby, patrolling the house, in case anyone tried something “funny”.
With all the details solved, they went back to sleep at the orphanage, knowing they would have tough days ahead of them.
Their plans were executed with perfection on the next day. Elliot, Lua and Lynn escorted Gordon and his children out of town. The guards at the gate were intrigued by this sudden decision from Gordon, but they did not have any real reason to stop them (even though they wanted to). On the other side, Dante stayed home with Gisele the whole day. She was extremely quiet, and cried a lot. They did not exchange many words during their wait.
Elliot and the others walked a half-day journey escorting Gordon, and them turned their backs and headed back to town. They got back just in time to see the sunset and the 2 moons (white and red) appear on the sky, alongside the other constellations of Gods.
They secretly climbed the city walls and joined Dante and Gisele at Gordon’s house. Luckily, the guard posted in the front didn’t notice their entrance trough the back, and so they all went to sleep (or at least they tried to), waiting for the next day, when the guards would come to pick Gisele up.
In the next day, it was almost night when the red-headed guards knocked at the door. It had been a very stressful day, and although nobody wanted to face what was to come, they almost felt relieved when the guards came….at least this damm waiting was finally over!
What came next was a complete mess. There was not much tactics implied, nor much thought about what do after the initial surprise attack was over.
When the door opened everyone busted through the entrance, knocking down most of the guards around. Unfortunately, a few of them were still awake, and so they blew their bells and whistles, calling for aid from other guards nearby.
As the party finished off the remaining guards (most of them surrendered) and stared their escape, more of the red-headed brutes came to help their fellows. The party moved along trying to dispatch the guards with as few hits as possible, but there were too many of them, and soon they would be overwhelmed.
They had to do the exact same thing they did not want to do. They had to go to a place none of them wanted to, the one thing they were delaying, hoping something could prevent it…but that “something” never came.
“What the hell, any place is better than here right now” they thought. Realizing there was no other way, they headed straight north to the forbidden forest, clearing the guards along the path.
Even though the guards made a good opposition to the party plans, luckily no one got seriously hurt (not to the point of falling to the ground at least) and the five of them arrived in one piece at the forest borders.
Running trough the city had attracted a lot more attention from other guards, and now a real mob of law-enforcers were right at their heels. It would not take long until Gisele got fatigued ant started to stay behind, but something stopped the guards from running forwards.
As the party entered the woods the chase was abruptly over. No guard dared to enter the forest, and so the party entered the woods undisturbed (or at least they thought).
Feeling strangely safe in the most dangerous place possible, they moved for an hour or two into the forest, but their mussels could not take it anymore, and begged for a well deserved rest…
They did not know what awaited them, they did not know what creatures lurked nearby….
Next: Chapter III: Escape into the Forbidden Forest!