A mosquito buzzed around the horse's head, Jan frantically waved it off with a weathered scroll as the four continued down the winding trail. It had been six hours since they left, and already they had entered the murky boreal forest surrounding Kag’s sprawling interior. Apart from a few scattered farmhouses and sparse convoys, the large dirt road remained largely unpopulated. Spruce trees stuck like twigs out of the distant horizon as a blanket of green clung to the rolling hills. A nearby stream trickled along the path’s mud-struck sides and Jan could make out tracks from where wagons and larger vehicles had pressed into the mud.

  It was hot, stupidly hot as Jan brushed sweat off his brow and stared into the canopy above. The road was fairly clear with obvious signs of maintenance from chopped fallen trees and the occasional gravel patch. He lifted his waterskin and allowed what few droplets remained to quench his thirst. The leather pouch was empty, causing him to curse. It had been three hours since they last passed an imperial guard post and Aloat had rushed them so fast he barely had time to fill the entire thing. He cast a glance at their leader ahead. She was ridiculously alert, almost falling off her horse as she leaned forward with her eyes pressed towards the trees infront like a gargoyle perched on a church's ledge. The guardsman Kiff was almost half asleep. He wasn’t too talkative apart from the occasional sideways grunt, but gave a courteous nod when Jan glanced backwards. His horse stopped for a moment to chew on leaves and he pushed it forward with a swift move. The soldier was guarding their flank while Jan and Laura rode side by side, talking, oblivious to the surrounding world.

  A cool Laura stared off into the distance as she watched the leafy foliage rustle. A few tree stumps could be seen scattered throughout, and the group had even passed woodcutters who gave them short responses before continuing on their toil. Stumps littered the ground like pine cones in the cleared field. Controlled fires and sharpened axes slowly chipped away at the dense foliage. The trees grew wider in these parts with their grainy bark and coloured leaves painting a beautiful myrrh. This part of the forest wasn’t renowned for danger; in total, Dawnshire was a large town. Some twenty thousand individuals were connecting a side route to the capital. More popular roads existed, but this was a good way to avoid traffic, pilfering scammers and the growing expense of imperial tolls. That wasn’t, of course, saying that it was devoid of highwaymen and other scum. The pots on his horse's back rattled like an avalanche as they stomped over rough terrain. Jan seized, he could tell by the way Aloat held her sword that she wished they found a few bandits to show off her skills. She was tense but almost seemed to enjoy every second they spent basking under the canopy's watchful eye. Jan could swear even the grass wilted in her presence, offended by the sheer boredom and placid nature of her character.

  “Are you going to eat that or what?” Laura asked.

  The scribe pointed to a pouch of jerky that was bundled to Jan’s horse's side. The poor creature was called Maple and was still struggling under the weight of Jan’s pack-mule-like baggage. Pots clanged as Laura reached sideways and grabbed a handful while riding.

  “I don’t know how you have an appetite right now, it’s so hot.”

  “What? A little sweat never bothered anyone?” Laura responded coolly.

  She took a swing out of her full waterskin and twisted in her not-sweat-stained cloak.

  “Hey, useless! Watch out for that branch!” Aloat shouted ahead.

  Laura and Jan ignored her.

  “How’s the writing coming along?” She asked with a laugh.

  Jan could tell she was teasing him, but Kiff perked up, seemingly interested. The red-haired guard rode a little forward for Jan to almost fluster the pages mid-air in the hopes he wouldn't see the abridged version. The scribe stared at his page infront to see ink dribbling on the page.

  “Uh, we’ve almost started,” Jan responded in a few words that Aloat couldn’t hear. He shoved one of the actual pages into Kiff’s hands who read it in an impressed manner. Or at least an inquisitive glance that showed some form of adherence to the scribe's portrayal.

  He then turned to look at what he had actually been writing.

  Day 1: Autobiography of Aloat Barka: In the service of Kag

  It was the morning of our quest to find the Allusive dawnshire bandit, our party of four was nearly winding down the Moaloal highway, I as our fearless, and narcissistic, insufferable, indigible Dignigifed leader, made the brilliant decision to leave yesterday to arrive today for a place we could have been tomorrow. I don’t believe in sleep, rest, water, and walk like a plucked chicken. Three blueberry bushes wilted against the will to live upon hearing the squeam of my voice. Other people’s existence and logical choice offend me and I derive all my pleasure in life from staring at my oversized mirror and holding my sword on the hilt while gritting my Te…..

  “Keep going, Only three more hours and we’re at the campsite!” Aloat cried up ahead.

  The three ignored her and kept their faces towards the road. It wound like a serpent through the leaves, and the trail became muddier ahead.

  "Useless! Useless! Get your tinderbox ready! I want no excuses!" Aloat screamed while seemingly enjoying the bug-ridden nature. A horse-fly whipped around Jan's head, and he used a short zap of lightning to shimmer it into crisp. Its charred face almost reminded him of Barka. At least there was an eerie similarity in vocal composure.

  “Will the Jannics really pay to read this kind of stuff? If we are in a reconnaissance mission, perhaps it is better to please your fake commander?” Sill asked.

  The tiny rock had been helping him write all morning to little avail. Thankfully, he did have four pages detailing Aloat’s insufferable and inconceivable anecdotes about how she had once stopped a muffin bandit while on fire through a game of pwol or took our six wei deserters in hand-to-hand combat using one leg. She had even read the first page and gave a dagger-like glance of approval under raspy breath. Regardless, the rock did seem to have an ostentatious knowledge of synonyms and extensive vocabulary, which only fed Jan's wonder about its previous origins. Some phrases didn’t even make sense and left with a strange hue of obscenity in the air. Jan hadn’t noticed it, but the pronunciation of a few words was different. The way Sill said “tomorrow” or “today” had a hint of an accent he had never heard before. It felt more old-timey. Like the way ancients would speak in Wei tales of yore or prose-battered mythology. The rock had adjusted itself after the confrontation and seemed to adapt to Jan's speech patterns almost instantaneously afterwards.

  “Uh, probably not, I’m just how do I say this bored, I'll give Aloat a version that's less colourful.”

  “Ah, boredom Commander? Did you know most of your predecessors are kept cryogenically frozen after training and only activated when they need to be used? I bet they aren’t bored!!”

  “That’s great, Sill” Laura responded.

  "Yeah! As the Marines say, never keep a Commander out of a fridge too long or they'll go crazy! Haha, quite the humorism our troops on the front have. You know they say the same thing about TACTI units, too, and I've been on for 16 years straight. Look at me, I'm perfectly sane! Circuits all in working order."

  Never mind, damn rock was speaking nonsense again. Cryogenically frozen? Still, he should take a note of that; maybe it meant Crous went and stood on top of a mountain to meditate or something? Visions of the blood-lust bandit perched like some bent sandal against blanketed snow only drew more attention to the forest's heat. The thick humidity felt like a thin blanket against his pale skin. Once on an expedition to the capital, Irwain had icemages cool their carriage to stave off the tropical heat. At the time, it seemed like a waste of resources or a trivial comfort for the barest necessity. Now those luxuries were confined to distant memory. Jan tore up the page and threw it into the ground below. The writing crumpled into the wet mud. It was a waste of paper, but if Aloat found out, she would bark like a chicken until he never heard the end of it. He straightened Maple's reins for a moment.

  “Is it helping you write? You’ve gotten like alot done!” Laura asked.

  She picked up a stack of paper as she rode, looking through the ink-stained lines. Say what you will, but the two were actually quite good at riding horses.

  “Yeah, it, but it keeps on making up words, like…here see this….” He pointed to a specific excerpt with disdain.

  “Making up words?”

  Sill beeped for a moment before the rock began to whisper.

  “Actually, I’m not making up anything! You forget the descendancy of these primitives, Commander Jan is ignorant of the fact that this language is a regressed version of English standar…….”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  "English standard? what do you mean we're speaking....." Jan responded.

  “Who are you two talking too?” Kiff responded in the background.

  The two swore before turning their heads and muttering pitiful excuses. He looked at them like they were crazy before continuing to speak. Jan accidentally tossed Sill up into the air in fright for the stone to fall back into his hand. Sill muttered out loud in discomfort with the two coughing repeatedly to cover his voice.

  “Nothing…”

  “God, look, Aloat may be a jerk, but if you leave up on her, she wouldn’t be so bad.”

  “Really?” Laura responded.

  The Sheriff was out of earshot, and the three leaned forward.

  “Look, she just hates you because she’s had to work for her position Jan. It’s not like it’s your fault you got selected by Irwain but Consul it was…”

  “Her birthright?”

  Kiff looked a little embarrassed for a moment before he turned to look at the road.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say…..”

  Suddenly, a sharp voice echoed across the road.

  Sheer boredom caused all four of them to turn on an instant. Aloat almost smiled at the excitement and dashed her horse forward with the creature jumping over an entire fence in a single soaring motion. Jan tried to do the same thing, only for Maple to neigh furiously before letting out another grunt of disapproval. The pack-mule was barely able to leap over a few discarded twigs.

  They were nearing a plain field, and a single peasant came into view. It was a young boy who looked utterly distraught and was standing in a field of squashed pumpkins. A few seeds and scattered vegetables were strewn through neatly ploughed rows. Still, the once picturesque cabbage-like view had been utterly demolished. An avalanche of mud and holes now rippled through the field like some torrential wave had swept the entire garden. A small cottage was near the back with more fields stretching along the horizon. The fence was smashed in half, splintered wood like jagged knives sticking out of the discarded posts, and it almost looked as though some giant animal had ransacked the entire field. Cucumber plants were whipped up like tumbleweed as tomato vines clung for dear life in a monstrous crater. Maple the horse stopped to munch on a discarded apple. Jan leaned forward. Laura and Kiff instantly stood like springs waiting on orders to sweep in and aid the woe-be-gotten farmer.

  “Keep going, don’t have time,” Aloat muttered with her horse on the road.

  She uttered it with cool recompense. Her voice didn't let out a single trace of emotion. The peasant was clearly distraught, and the farm was damaged enough that harvests wouldn’t be a death sentence, but it surely wasn’t great. People were already hungry, and more often, remote areas of the country were disappearing in unnatural disasters.

  A choice had to be made.

  Jan slowed his horse to a stop and dismounted. Aloat gave him a loathing glance before placing a hand on her sword and watching for the trees. She expected an ambush out of everything. Laura followed, and soon they all dismounted, with Jan reaching the peasant first.

  “Four months!! Four months of growing and this is what I get!” They let out a weak groan.

  The man was entirely sorrowful, almost ignoring the clearly imperial robes the group infront wore. He swore and raved with screeching, even a few obscenities that caused Jan to cover Sill's rock out of instinct to shield the poor creature's ears. In the capital, scholars had been sent to the gallows for lighter rhetoric.

  “Curse Peutun, curse him to the final days. Let me guess, tax collectors for the new imperial bridge?” the boy cried out.

  They gave each other sideways glances. Aloat almost looked like she was about to say yes and motioned to their coin purse. Kiff, however, shot her a dirty glance.

  “Peutun, what does the god of harvest have to do with this?” Kiff asked. Concern laced his words.

  Jan recognized the name on instant. It was an old idol worship god, a dying religion that still had a devout followers in the foothills of the nation. Ever skeptical, Damnu had projected it to die out completely in fifty years with more popular followings taking root. Irwain, however, assumed the best policy of loyalty to the emperor before loyalty to any falsehood.

  Jan saw a small wooden figure sitting on a tree stump; it was likely a carving of Peutun. The little wooden man looked at them with bland birch eyes as the peasant shot daggers into its poor, stumpy back.

  Aloat marched forward, careful not to ruin her perfect shoes on the splattered vegetables.

  “Don’t worry, citizen, we’ll report this to the imperial tax registry for a claim in the next……wait, what’s that, Kiff over here?”

  She leaned forward and started inspecting some of the animal tracks that had ruined the crops. Aloat motioned for her companion, and the two were soon engrossed in the dirt. They dipped their fingers in and used the blades of their swords for size comparison. Jan walked over a cucumber and scattered lettuce. Pity flaked across the scribe's face. Still, the heat of the moment was getting to his head. Irwain had wanted him to use more power. He had been banished to this mosquito-ridden flea festival, and the least he could do was help a few souls. He glanced at Aloat. Her proud face and beady eyes had all but ignored the peasant's pleas with an upturned nose of pious impunity. Fury began to build in Jan's veins, with his heart starting to seize. It was time for him to use some practical magic. To hell with the archmage; he would make a name for himself.

  “Maybe I could help for a price?”

  “A price?” The peasant looked distraught. He reached into his coin purse and grabbed it in fright.

  Jan laughed while reaching down and grabbing a handful of splattered apples. They soaked his palm in sticky juice, and the farmer looked at him like he was a madman. The apples squelched under the scribe's shoes.

  “How about twelve of these, and we’ll get your garden back in shape?”

  Only Laura was next to him, with the other two still inspecting the tracks. Idiots, what could be so interesting about dirt?

  “I don’t know what you're trying to do here, noble, but I need help, curse Peutun, I really thought, I sacrificed so much, I don’t understand.”

  Jan cast a glance at a nearby pyre. Ash and smoke revealed that more crops had been burned. Interplant potatoes in the hopes the almighty allows you to grow more potatoes? It wasn’t exactly the smartest thing in the world, but Jan could tell from the tears in the young boy’s eyes that he really was a true believer. Laura, however, gave him a little bit of a questioning glance.

  “What happened?”

  “Yesterday, something came out of the woods, it munched and slurped and stomped everything! It was huge, as wide as a dragon with talons like tree trunks and a great big club the size of a mighty spruce, and my neighbours hid in our homes! It was awful!” the man squeaked.

  The two scribes cast glances at each other. It didn't take seven years of scholarly discourse to tell the man was exaggerating.

  Maybe a siltabear? A dragon hadn’t been sighted in over ten thousand years, and this was a few squashed cucumbers, not broken homes. Could be a giant? But it was hard to imagine Uthog the devourer crossing sixty leagues from the Loan mountains just to stomp pumpkins and sample radish.

  Jan knelt in the dirt and placed his hand on the furrows. The crops had been well-mended, at least until whatever creature decided to arrive. It likely wouldn’t come back after this or else the man would already be dead.

  “What are you two doing? Jan just give him a sack of our rations and be done with it,” Aloat muttered.

  They were still inspecting the tracks, this time comparing the muddied form to a bundle of prints from an imperial service manual. The leaf-like pages were constantly being flipped through, with Aloat placing even more concern on the book's standardized illustrations.

  “It would take an Archmage to regrow this entire field! You are not an archmage!” She added starkly.

  Laura was silent. The two ignored him, with Aloat having her back turned while she continued to flip through parchment. He would prove her wrong. If anything, Aloat would rue this day.

  He cast an eye to the little wooden figure that watched them like a hawk. For someone this devout, sometimes faith needed to be mended. Followers needed to be earned.

  “Do you remember Peutun’s oath?”

  Jan had to memorize it once. Recite it three hundred times after accidentally lighting one of Kag’s grain houses on fire. It was a minor grain house, barely enough food to feed a hundred people, we’ll not mention to Irwain. Damnu had made him use duplication magic for a whole week to replace it, all while saying these words in stark repetition.

  “Remember! Of course, I remember” The peasant remarked sadly. He frowned, still believing Jan was likely to rob him.

  In a second, Jan felt his hand connect with the source, drawing power from the planet as he watched the world sway. He instantly felt his energy drain. He would need to save up his strength for the journey, but he could still ride. The world seemed to respond to him. Small flickers of grass twitching in the open field. It acknowledged him, the planet and squelching dirt responding to him slowly. The holes began to reseal themselves, patches smoothing over in the distance. He slowed down; if he acted too fast, the peasant wouldn’t attribute it to Peutan.

  “Peutan, God of Harvest, bringer of the holy seed, smile upon those who do service to you and bring your lush produce to the open world. We seek your wisdom for this rectification and ask that you bless us with the presence of your divine hand as you have guided those before and uh…..”

  Okay, maybe he forgot a couple of lines but he knew enough filler to keep the peasant happy.

  “May our crops grow golden and bold,” Sill added.

  What how did the rock know?

  “May our crops grow golden and bold”

  He let go.

  In an instant, the world bloomed.

  A pleasant aroma swept through the air as the trees seemed to whisper in excitement. The entire forest paused. Silent, waiting, almost acknowledging his presence. They almost called out to him. Waiting, watching in a mixture of awe. He could feel it, almost taste the pulse of the planet within his palm. The dirt was responding to him. It knew his demands. Jan felt tired, ridiculously tired, but it was worth it. Flowers, pedals, beans, and vibes sprouting like a twisting fountain of green from the stump which contained Peutan’s statue. The tiny wooden figure became the pulsating heart of everlasting green. The grass leaned towards him, reacting to his every touch almost if they were trying to catch a lick of his power, experience a glimpse of his majesty. The rotten pumpkin’s cleaned, seemingly having its exposed seeds morph back into chalky flesh. Sixteen apple trees sprang from the ground, the seeds once planted swirling towards the clouds as their stems straightened and branches unfurled to bask in the noon-day sun. Olive trees reformed their broken stumps and bore fresh fruit. In the distance, some fifty meters away, the stomped corn and wheat stood straight, backs stretched as the vegetation stood proud among the sea of gold. Even the tiny stream, which had once marked irrigation, seemed to replenish with water splashing down its rocky sides to fill the ordered rows.

  It was beautiful, an almost heavenly garden filled to the brim with produce and at its heart, the single statue of Peutan stood like a discarded twig. Waiting to be picked up by a single peasant who stared in awe at an exhausted Jan.

  Ten acres of farmland glistened.

  The peasant hugged him.

  The man’s eyes were wide. He was shocked. He smiled for a moment before laughing as his eyes spilled with years of joy. He looked around, calling out for his distant neighbours who ran over. Jan picked up an apple off the tree, and wildflowers spread like morning frost along the thin trail.

  “Thank you, thank you!!! Who are you?! Who are you to command gods?” the peasant asked.

  “I will tell the world about your feat, you are an archmage?! Who has blessed me so?” he continued.

  Aloat turned, the tracks they were looking at dissipated to be replaced by fresh strawberries. Even some fruits that were so foreign the peasant looked at them in wonder.

  She and Kiff were also shocked with Laura taking a bite out of a mango in her hand.

  “How did you do that?” Aloat asked in shock.

  There was no malice, no cruelty, just pure confusion. Kiff and Laura waited for an answer.

  Jan turned, struggling to stand as he spoke.

  “I pwold pou Paloat pou pismberalbe pidipt, I pam Ponsul Por Pe Parchmage!” He muttered.

  Then he fainted.