The city-state of Treason was isolated by nature. It was a city built in the style of Hellensitic nation states. High marble and sandstone building and the streets were lined with colorful statues of their god, Zeus. In fact, their entire society seemed to rest squarely oon the shoulders of the Cult of Zeus. Its king and high priest was Gyrich. He was a thin man, he had short hair for a man. Shaved close to his scalp and styled into a crew cut you could balance things on. His eyes were unknown to all, he hid them behind a purple blindfold, but it didn't seem to cause him issues in his day-to-day life. He walked and acted as though it wasn't present.
Under his rule was a court wizard by the name of Horst. A man who was almost bald, save for long, thin white hair. He was constantly smoking, which had given him a gruff voice. He acted as the king's eyes and ears in matters of magic and the supernatural.
“Lord King,” he said, his voice was a terrible growl “I’ve received a notice of a terrible ritual happening in the North.”
“So?” replied the king. “What do I care if the mongrel English is playing with magic? If they were a threat, your creations and my knights would dispatch them.”
Although his creations were as great as they were terrible, Horst continued to tell his king of what he knew concerning Kailin’s ritual.
“My eyes in their court tell me that it is not the work of the government’s workers. It’s someone outside of the farming village of Pontefract,” said the wizard. “They say that whatever it was, it was demonic in nature."
The king made a dismissive sound, "And? Zeus doesn't have business with the monsters of the Christian Churches. Besides, why on earth would someone carry out an important ritual in Pontefract? What do they even have there worth destroying? Serfs? Serfs are a dime a dozen."
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"True my lord, but I imagine it will grow into a bigger threat. The way I hear it is, Pontefract has grown lousy with the living dead as of late and this new demonic presence could spell a bigger issue for everyone on the continent."
"The living dead? Surely one of Arthur's boys or someone could go in and clear that up."
"Well the corpses aren't exactly an issue for Pontefract, they've turned them into guardposts for their crops, I've heard."
"Right," said Gyrich. "So what do you propose we do about it, Horst?"
"We could send a knight into France in search of The Doom Note."
"Oh for fuck’s'sake, not that again,” said the king, reclining back on his throne like an irritated child.
"Yes," he said. "I'm afraid I'm on about that again, my lord."
"I can't just send knights into France in search of some magical artifact that might not even exist, Horst."
Horst smiled, exposing a mouthful of horrible teeth, "Yes. But I'm no longer suggesting a group of knights. A single knight is all we will require to go through France. We could send Betta to get it."
The king was quiet for a moment, "Betta?"
"Yes, my lord. She is perfect for the task," he said.
Betta was an orc in the Herculean Order of Knights. Even the weakest of their number was stronger than any one member of the general population. Betta herself was no exception to this. Even among most orcs, she found herself towering above them. Betta entered the great hall, as though she'd heard her name being spoken. In her closed fist, she held multiple severed heads by their hair. The heads still bore their long, thin fangs in permanent snarls. Her steps were heavy and seemed to shake even Gyrich's war jester, Simon to his core. But Betta was smiling the warm smile of a day drunk, despite being as sober as a judge. As an aside, she was proud of her great strength against Simon the War Jester, because while she had her strength come to her naturally, Simon’s great strength and musculature was gifted to him by a racist wizard who liked the cut of his jib.
"Ah, Betta my dear. Come to see the grand wizard, have you?" said Gyrich.
"Naturally," she said."I always do as you ask, my liege. I made short work of a den of vampires in one of the towns outside of treason."
She dropped the heads at the feet of Horst.
"I see," said Horst, looking down at the heads. "You've done well, Betta. The king and I were just discussing a new task for you."
"Oh?" she said, her voice betraying her interest.
"Yes," said Horst. "We would like you to go to France in search of The Doom Note."
Betta grinned, "I would be happy to....What exactly is a doom note?"
Horst stepped before her, "The Doom Note is a musical note. I've read in my many books that if properly played, it could be used to level cities. Worlds even. Break gods and kings alike. I believe it to be in a cave in the south of France. The cave is said to be guarded by a thing called The L’ours Sangsue, which I’m told means, ‘Leech Bear’. "
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In her mind, Betta imagined a monster with the body of a grizzly bear, but in place of a maw, there was the head of a leech with a sucker full of teeth. In her mind, she imagined such a beast would be easily dispatched. A foul, unnatural thing deserved nothing more than to be touched by the thunderbolt of Zeus himself.
"So," said Betta. "I kill this leech bear, and take this doom note back to you?"
"In a sense." Said Gyrich. "If this note does exist, along with whatever L'ours Sangsue is. I want you to copy the note into a scrap of paper and destroy the original before returning to us. I think it should aid us in fighting a presence coming to us from Britain."
"I understand, my lord," she said. "When do I leave?"
"Tomorrow," said Gyrich. "Make your preparations and be ready to leave at first light."
"Yes, my lord." she said, before turning to leave.
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Betta was blind drunk before noon, standing in a field and swinging her sword around wildly. Calmly ignored by both her god and the cows of the field. She did not hurt them. She dared not get close to them with her weapon. She thought of cows as beautiful and perfect creatures. Not unlike angels in some sense. Horses however she would gladly slash at.
“You there!” cried a man in a field. “What do you think you’re doing?”
His name was Tynion, and he was the owner of many of Treason's farms. Betta looked at the man and hiccupped, “I’m going to France!"
“You most certainly are not! You’ll scare the cows!” shouted the farmer, Tynion.
Betta realized that she was scaring the cows. The beasts were keeping their distance and mooing anxiously. She stopped her waving about of the sword and placed it point down into the ground. Leaning on it to steady herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said before toppling over into the dirt. Asleep like a newborn child.
Tynion approached the sleeping knight and prodded her with his boot. There was no response. He sighed and went to find his wife, “Ah fuck. Fuck…FUCK.”
He looked around as though the solution to his issue of a mountainous knight would emerge out of thin air.
“Hilde!” he shouted. “Hilde, come quick! There’s a knight passed out in our field!”
His wife was a practical goblin woman, she did not believe in the old stories of dragons and magic. But she had seen enough in her lifetime to know that there were things in the world that were beyond her understanding. In truth, Hilde was a rather unlearned person, seeing as how Treason was home to no less than eighty or so practitioners of magic.
“So what do you want me to do about it?” she said. “You expect me to drag her out of the field? She’s the size of ten of me.”
“I don’t know. What do you think we should do?” Tynion tapped his fingers anxiously against one another as he looked at his wife. Who he thought was the wisest woman in the known world. He was wrong of course, but in comparison to him, he was correct.
Hilde thought for a moment. “Throw a blanket over her."222Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp3Nr4GDdvP
And so they did. Tynion went off to a barn and tossed an old quilt over the sleeping knight
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