CHAPTER 1.39 - VILLAGE LIFE: V
Hugo wakes to a clear, chilly day. He finds that he is the latest sleeper of the crew, reasons this is unsurprising. Both entertainment and crime thrive most in the hours of darkness, after all. He catches himself contemplating what he thinks of as his ‘old life’, not without a tinge of mourning.
Rian seems naturally attuned to waking at dawn. Life in the wilds, he thinks. Wonders, then, whether the wild man’s talent for instant sleep can be learned, trained into a person. He decides that he lacks both the motivation and the need to do so. The trait is equal parts impressive and frustrating; he had hoped to broach the white stone in the overhang last night. Was still formulating how to introduce the topic when Rian’s arrhythmic snoring began in earnest.
Thae, he knows, is sometimes awake before Rian, but a less disruptive roommate. The cleric will meditate, or pray, in silence until a more reasonable time of the morning. He retains something akin to awe that his friend seems immune to flagging or demoralisation through days extended to an insane length. He forces himself to shut down another round of ‘examining Hugo’s biases’, choosing instead to be grateful that Thae never exhibits the sense of superiority many people, particularly of the cloth, leverage over anyone who does less than them. Thae, rather, exists to glorify others, flaws and all. He guesses The Goddess would be proud, muses that he has adopted the acolyte’s habit of leaning away from Her name.
In this, as in most things, Anuk eludes him. He feels his initial expectation was coloured, literally, by her appearance. Someone so pale, he reasoned, burns mostly midnight oil. Had she turned out to live a nocturnal existence he would have been unsurprised. Instead, as far as he can gauge, the woman keeps the most random schedule he has ever seen. With his own body clock set later than the others he has observed enough of Anuk’s disturbed sleep that the previous night shouldn’t have surprised him. Rian snores fit to wake the dead, but that is a calming rhythm compared to the pale girl’s twitches, violent changes of posture and general disturbance. She frequently speaks in her sleep, ranging from slurred nonsense mumblings to clear shouts or screams on a couple of occasions. The woman looks like a ghost, sleeps like she is haunted. It leads the mind down certain paths.
-x-
He visits the village store, immediately souring on the proprieter. Orton’s shop is the third most prestigious building in Highbarrow, smaller than the village’s central Hall and less solidly constructed than Bertak’s forge. Like the Smith’s, Orton’s building combines the man’s business and residence. Unlike the forge, it lacks for warmth, either physical or emotional. The eponymous proprietor seems unthrilled to have a customer. Hugo’s heart curdles as he browses the shop’s slim pickings, the man in his peripheral vision looking him up and down, bristling with suspicion.
He is too attuned to the spaces in which he moves, to the world in which he lives, to be fully surprised. He decided long ago not to attempt to guess which implicit bias to blame for these snap judgements. It seems anyone built larger than a halfling might assume that they are built for sneakery. Alternatively, others choose to mistrust the colour of his skin. He’s heard this justified with theological obscura. Ares is occasionally described with burnt or scorched skin. Some other deity or deities also, grouped together by being ‘quick to anger.’ Somehow, this distils down to dark skin indicating violent instability. As though the source of a war god’s grim reputation was ever about his pigmentation.
It’s a fool’s errand to even attempt to guess an idiot’s justification of their bigotry. Particularly where the internal logic is so flimsy. More naivete at play, he guesses, to equate stealth and violence, the broad brush of ‘violent/criminal’. In Hugo’s experience, a sneak thief and a mugger are at opposite poles of a spectrum, much more different than they are similar. Housecats and lions are obviously related, but it’s senseless to consider them identical.
His sneak’s awareness can’t help but butt in. The man is literally following him around the narrow shelves and racks, but at a twitchy distance as though Hugo might explode. Well, shit. He came in here ready to support the community, revelling in the fact that he has some gold in his pockets. But this egregious little man – okay, he’s maybe 5’8” but small of heart – doesn’t feel like others in the Highbarrow community. Fuck him, then. “Let him shadow me all he wants” Hugo thinks “I’ll rob the fucker blind.”
-x-
He returns to his original intention for the day, now that his vindictive impulse has been sated. At least, as much as it could be. It’s a small village, and the store was hardly a treasure trove, but his victory was more psychological than material. He’s heard that you can’t trick an honest man – absolute bullshit but commonly believed. The subclause he’s learned is that you can absolutely trick a greedy, suspicious shit of a person masquerading as a moral actor. Particularly, he grins evilly at the thought, when they think you might be easily moved to violence.
The majority of the items, nicknacks really, were taken while Hugo was deliberately acting suspicious. It would surely focus the surly merchant’s attention when he shifted his body into the way as he picked up a trinket, doubly so when Hugo pantomimed checking his environs immediately afterwards. Sadly for his mark, the man would be looking at Hugo’s right hand while his left brazenly took a thing. The mime show of guilt wrong-footed Orton each time, even if the halfling’s haul was a simple deck of cards, a pouch of herbs and some fishing hooks and twine.
The trick of which he was proudest was easily his cruellest. And netted him an item of real use, a plain but well-constructed tin box containing a flint and steel, compartments for kindling or cloth. He took this smoothly, right from under the merchant’s nose, covered the lift unnecessarily by suddenly asking the proprietor for the time of day in too loud a voice. The man jumped visibly, Hugo watching his brain seize and skip track from watchdog to timekeeper. Orton will surely notice the item’s absence, but Hugo suspects later rather than sooner, as all of his previous dumbshows had been designed to needle the man. After all, every item Hugo picked up under the merchant’s hawkish focus, he made certain to return to the wrong shelf or display.
He knows that he played into the bigot’s assumptions of him but feels justified. The merchant’s response to his query was that he would sell Hugo a timekeeper. The proprietor’s breach of the social contract, his greed, granted Hugo any absolution he might require.
And if the man chose to complain about him? Best of luck to him, finding such small and easily concealed items. Particularly under the eye of a holy warrior convinced of Hugo’s value. Or in the company of a huge wild man with imposing weaponry.
This pair, central to his current priorities, were easily located. His private contemplation swept from his mind as he turned into the forge to find Bertak, Rian and Thae huddled around the workbench opposite the furnace. A selection of metallic objects lay on the surface, not inherently of interest to Hugo, but rapidly attaining that status when the conspirators startled at his appearance. Bertak, guiltiest of all, tried to sweep the items into the pocket of his leather apron. The panic of the motion propelled the smallest piece onto the floor, satisfyingly rolling towards Hugo’s feet.
He dismisses the parallel to his reception at Orton’s as he leans to pick up the…coil of delicate spring. “Hello, folks!” he says brightly, holding up the component. He adds an extra dose of innocent query into his tone. “What’cha doing?” Rian and Bertak exchange a questioning look, but Thae is the weak link. His holy friend stiffens as though cornered in an impossible position. He can feel the silent plea radiating from the half-elf. Bertak slumps a little, sighs and runs a callused hand over his face. Rian, apparently able to read social cues this obvious, turns to him seriously. “You have to keep this quiet, Hugo.”
-x-
The conspiracy is equal parts disappointing and touching. Bertak, it seems, has some skill as a smith, but showers Rian, in an incredibly restrained manner, with reflected praise. Apparently, watching the big man transform a rusted, busted blade into a balanced, honed rapier was all the smith needed to see. The older man colours beet-red as he ushers them into his home, digs around for three pieces of metal shaped very organically. As the burly man arranges these sheepishly, Hugo spots that the pieces correspond to a narrow thigh, calf and foot. A right leg, to human scale. To Atheran’s scale, specifically. No wonder they swore him to secrecy. He pictures the rigid steel post the woman uses in place of a limb, blinks to himself.
Bertak’s intentions were hampered by the limits of his skill, buoyed when a gnome passed through the village, then transferred to the surprising woodsman savant. The past couple of days have been spent devising connectors and…springs, apparently. The tight-lipped paranoia of the conspirators, and Thae’s simmering discomfort, immediately makes sense to Hugo. Bertak still makes it plain to the three of them, that Atheran’s pride will be difficult enough to navigate if she thinks only he was involved in the proposed upgrade.
Hugo assures them of his complicity, advises the group to hide the evidence as he sets off to locate Anuk. She is, predictably, in their room, predictably close to but not immersed in her book. He had, after all, made certain to clear his throat audibly on his approach. He thinks their interpersonal moment of respite might be over, as the pale woman seems to be fizzing with fury. Thankfully, he finds that she has been simmering to herself since she also visited the merchant’s that morning.
As Anuk rants about Orton, a few things become clear. Firstly, Anuk set out to steal from the shop. Plainly and simply stated, no need for him to read her intent. Secondly, as he begins to feel a little understanding for the man, regret for his own treatment of the shopkeeper, she was furious she couldn’t lift anything thanks to the layout of the store and Orton’s scrutiny. Her third source of anger rebalances things again, as the man’s attempt to challenge her was creepier and more invasive of her space than was at all justified by his suspicions. No matter how correct.
Anuk apparently scared the life out of the man, whom Hugo decides barely avoided being blasted apart, when she responded to him grabbing her wrist. She describes a shelf of glass nicknacks, decorative things Hugo had assessed as unworthy of his attention. She manifested an effect similar to her ‘signal’ the other night, rattled the doodads clean off their shelf. As Hugo tries to contain his laughter she looks appalled, as though he’s mocking her response to Orton’s overstep. Anuk’s fury at him mellows, then transforms into the pair laughing together as he produces his trophies and displays them to her.
-x-
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting from his allies but allies they demonstrate themselves to be. Anuk is the first on board as he makes his case for checking out the white wall. “I can’t stop thinking about it” she states, offering zero explanation of what motivated her to uncover the seam. Thae, he can tell, has had similar thoughts to his own, a concerned look accompanying the half-elf’s rapid nodding.
Rian doesn’t even give word to his agreement, instead he and Bertak fall into discussing prybars and borrowing a few of the sturdier farmers. How best to shift a block of stone that could weigh in the tons. Having easily agreed that they will investigate, focus shifts to the how of it. Again, he is pleasantly surprised by his friends’ cohesion. Bertak, as ever, thinks first of Atheran. Hugo grins, states that if they can prevent her from murdering them, they can make a case for their investigation protecting the village. Thae, fully in accord, insists that the block be replaced behind them, that they should devise a signal for whomever is on watch. The cleric sours the chat with the added condition that without a signal from them, the barrow is to be resealed and forgotten.
Thae’s words accompany Hugo through the evening, live behind his eyelids that night as he wills himself to sleep.
