Somewhere Someplace

Volunteers and soldiers, hard at work, the inner-wall clean-up still just barely underway…despite it having been almost an entire week. The entrance areas near the inner-walls were still being cleared of corpses. However, the Company heads were becoming…impatient…over the slow and arduous pace, and thus…hands were forced.

Wagon conveys had been sent deeper into the ruins of the inner-city, skipping all the way straight to the coastal districts in order to be cleaned and cleared out well in advance. Ships were arriving with extra supplies, tools, and hands to…assist in this process. The foreigner, having been remarked as 'six pairs of men hands bundled into one lady' by her superiors, was thrown into this detachment of volunteers and soldiers.

Rubble. Ash. Ruins.

The core and heart of Coastfield, the most densely packed parts of this…once grand city, were…an utterly despoiled…scorched urban corpse. Being closest to the origin point of that…fire-tide, the demon-flames had burned through here so violently hot…that some of the stone and concrete of both building and pavement had melted, making the retrieval and cleaning…especially more troublesome due to the presence of glass.

Likewise, unlike near the inner-walls…where…a large mass of people attempting to flee…were burned all at once, the remains deeper in the heart of city…were scattered about—crushed in debris and collapsed buildings, scattered in pieces, covered in piles of rubble and ash—, and thus required far more labor to retrieve.

The air around…was noticeably more coastal, echoing from afar…were the sounds of ocean and tide. She wandered with were three other volunteers; trailing behind was a wagon driven by a…rather indifferent mule, its face smothered in an equine protective covering of sorts.

Their tasks were simple: patrol and explore, clear rubble when able, and collect any and all bodies found on the way. So thoroughly ravaged the ruins around were, none of the Company's provided maps…were helpful. It was very hard to tell…which district she was even in; it certainly did not help that she had never ventured this deep into Coastfield, unlike the other three who…seemed to know their way around.

"I feel like I've breathed enough of this shit that my lungs've become immune, ain't coughing at all lately" so spoke a volunteer.

"Yeah, me too" a second volunteer replied.

"Yikes… Just look at this place. You know many…years some of these buildings had on them? So much history…gone…" remarked a third volunteer, lamenting; "nobody will…have any connection…to what Coastfield used to be…"

Indeed, as the week had progressed, the volunteers were becoming desensitized—no longer as silent. Conversations and bantering were more common.

"Ach… This is going to take forever… Why don't we have mages yet? We could use earth mages—heard their spells can attract dirt and shit like those Far West magnets" so spoke volunteer one.

"Oh, you know those freelancers, they don't do anything for free" so replied volunteer two; "I heard the Company sent out contract requests all over the place, but…I bet those Company-fellas don't want to spend extra coin…for something that can be done by eight pairs of hands for free."

The foreigner…simply listening…suddenly paused, noticing…what appeared to be…what used to be a sort of diverging alley way; one that converged into a large plaza area. "Hold" she suddenly said, everyone…suddenly halting as their heads turned and stared.

"Miss silent, what is it?" so inquired volunteer one.

The foreigner pointed, "we should go that direction" she said; "I noticed from the tracks and trails that…others have been down this way before us…but…none have went down that way. It could have been missed… So, we should inspect for the bodies."

The volunteers took one look.

"Oh…Gods' sacred, no wonder I've been getting a sickening feeling… It could be a pile of rubble and I'd still know where that leads" volunteer three spoke, rather…disdainly.

"Oh, we're in that quarter, aye?" remarked volunteer two, indifferently.

The foreigner tilted her head, confused; "huh?" she mumbled out.

"Listen lady, I bet you're not from here like the rest of us, but I'll just be blunt and say: we ain't gonna find anything but trash down that way" so spoke volunteer one.

The foreigner stared blankly. "…it is clearly an area that has been missed, so…it is necessary that we…at least…inspect?" she stated.

That same replying volunteer sighed scoffingly; "Fine fine, then you go inspect… All I'm saying is we're here to collect real people who had actual lives going on."

« Peh… » the foreigner muttered scornfully as she made off and away, by no means amused by the denizens' apparent lack of…operational proficiency.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

After all, when tasked to clear and search, it was important to clear and to search…everything in proper and thorough detail.

-|-

A plaza… The ruins of a rather large and spacious one at that.

The pavement was distorted but…still evident. It used to be surrounded by many buildings…which were all collapsed rubble; but the plaza itself was…empty of any buildings, thus…only covered in ash and debris from those around.

Cages… So many cages, organized and segmented… They were made from...a hard and stiff metallic material, designed to resist just about everything…arcane especially…thus survived the fire-tide.

She looked around and inspected, processing what she was even looking at, trying to…figure out what this place was even for. Was this…one of those…'zoo' places she had heard about? Or maybe…a place where 'pets' were purchased?

Then she noticed… Ah, it was none of those…places. Although most of occupants of the cages…had been…cremated essentially, a few utterly charred remains persisted… People. She could immediately tell…they were people.

So…was this…one of those 'jails' or 'prisons' she had heard about? Why else would these denizens be shoved into such cramped and horrid cages…if not out of their own abstracted and vindicative sense of 'justice'?

No other bodies could be found on the outside, just the ones in the cages. Either…anyone on the outside had been cremated and or…they had all fled, leaving the…caged people…behind to burn and die. Prisoners they may have been, but… Why would they leave them here to burn in such a way?

She sighed; whatever the case may be, it looked like she was right: there were bodies here needing to be retrieved.

"Bodies! I have found the bodies!" she began to loudly announce; "I am counting… ehm…" she began to count; « Unos, duo, thrés, quadro, çhinque, síx, septen… » "Seven! Seven of the bodies!" Quickly, she made way to the closet cage, evaluating it.

Hmm… What a strange thing, designed not only to be ultra-resilient but also…extremely difficult to open without the many keys. Hmm… Maybe the fire-tide had weakened it enough…to be brittle? A massive stretch, but…worth a try.

The foreigner pulled and tugged at the cage's gate, struggling as it…refused to budge. Unable to force it open, she sighed as she paused, staring at it.

"What are you doing?" so asked volunteer two as they finally arrived.

"Oh…of course, see I told you two! This is what she's shouting about!" shouted volunteer one.

"You're the one who told her to inspect, don't be surprised" volunteer two replied plainly.

"…oh yikes, this isn't pretty… Poor saps" volunteer three remarked…lamentingly.

"Oh don't feel too bad, they got what's coming to them; they'd don't pity us, and they don't want our pity either; soon as you let them out of those cages, they'd slit your throat as thanks" volunteer one stated.

The foreigner tilted her head…confused; "Heh?" she mumbled out. Her hands began to wave and point at the corpse in the cage. "Body. Right here. Help me retrieve." she said sternly.

Volunteer one turned and stared, now their head tilting confused. "Miss silent, don't you know what this place is? It's the slave district and not just for trading any slaves, it's for Demis" they replied, rather annoyed; "so, stop wasting our time with your Far West naivety—we're here for people, not slaves and especially not Demis. Don't worry about them, they'll be cleaned up along with all the rubble."

The foreigner's tilted head persisted… "What?" she blurted to herself, turning her head down… Right… 'Slavery'. It was that 'peculiar institution' which the Folkwealth of Elkland was 'crusading' against. Ah… Right, she pieced it together, connecting the local word…to ones she already knew. « Âh, eșclavitas…sícne? » she mumbled out.

Ah… Out of all the abstractions denizens have ever conjured into existence, this one…seemed to be the most…bizarre and incomprehensible of them all. Though, the denizens treated animals and other living things as tradable trinkets to be exchanged for their imaginary coins—of course they would extend such to their own.

The foreigner sighed; she was in no mood to contest any of this. It was not her domain, and she'd only provoke them. "Fine, I give sorry… I did not know…I do not have anything like this from where I come" she said.

Volunteer one sighed; "whatever, now you know at least; let's get going, we've got work to do" they remarked before turning around…and barging away, tapping on the mule to follow.

Volunteer two…stared before following along the wagon, as indifferent as the mule dragging it.

Volunteer three, however, lingered…staring at the foreign girl whom they inferred was troubled by all this.

The foreigner stood herself up; she began to make way but…halted and turned around, taking one last look at the cage and…the charred remains in it. Suddenly, she froze into a stiff stick…having finally noticed…a detail that had evaded her eyes.

« Q…quid? Quid nefas? » she blurted out, her head tilting; « quid nefas vidents eșom? » she mumbled out again, before quickly making way right back to that same cage, kneeling down, evaluating in detail.

Charred, extremely so; discernably female; likely burgeoning adult; face and head…barely existent. Yet…the detail she noticed was…very strange, extremely so; so strange that she herself…was genuinely bewildered and taken back. It was long, it extended out of the cage…and protruded from their back, just above their buttocks.

« Çhauda? Nûmne una çhauda? » she mumbled out interrogatively, thoughts bleeding out from her mouth. She…in a breach of conduct…could not help but gently grab it into her hands…stroking it, evaluating it.

Brittle. It was so brittle…hard and boney, on the verge of falling apart.

« Çhauda. Síc…est çhauda… Haec est quaeda çhauda… » A tail. There was no mistaking it; this denizen had a true tail—one that did not conform with the human body-plan. « Itaque…chimaera? Haec est…humana chimaerica? Itaque…ģe quomo? » Her question now was…how?

"You…alright?" the volunteer, concerned and still staring, suddenly inquired; "Listen… Don't let what he said earlier back there…affect you too much… It's a sick reality of our world—can't do much about it and with them… This blood-feud goes back thousands of years. They hate us, we hate them… Just how it always was, even if it…really does…suck" they lamented.

The foreigner quickly snapped out of it; "rightly" she began to say, "I give sorry…I became distracted… I just have never seen…ahem—let us simply…move" she replied, abruptly standing back up; she…slowly backed away, taking one last look…before making way to leave.

Truly, the more she observed this place, the more confusing it became; the more questions she was left with than answered.