The… monstrosity standing in front of me was painful to look at. It was shorter than me by at least a head, standing four foot tall or so. It’s back was hunched over as if there was an invisible, enormous weight pressing down on its frail shoulders. With such a small stature, its oversized head stood out even more and looked terribly malformed like a child wanted to shape his molding clay into a human head but the child was actually blind from birth.

The Savior had snow white skin akin to white jade, an almost ethereal complexion. His thin left arm was longer than his right arm by several inches which was mismatched with his enlarged right eye that looked like it was just about to pop out from its socket. There wasn’t a single strand of hair on the Savior’s deformed head which I think was for the best because sparse hair scattered amongst the dents and crevices covering his head would only make his appearance stranger. Instead, thick black hair grew all over the Savior’s body from the neck down with such density that it almost looked like animal fur.

How old did Hawthorne say the Savior was again? Somewhere in his 40’s or 50’s? I honestly can’t even begin to judge if that’s accurate because I’ve never seen another human being like him before. If I didn’t know anything about him, I’d probably mistake him for some sort of monster. Perhaps I’d think he was some sort of mutated goblin or something. He definitely smells like one.

Did I mention the smell? Dear gods, the smell. His body odor wafted right into my nostrils even though we were at least six feet apart and it nearly made me vomit. The closest description that I can come up with is a mix of rotten eggs, pig shit, and human corpses left to bake under the blazing sun for days after a major battle.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Gavin immediately whipping his head toward me and glaring at me with sharp eyes, “Is there a problem with the new brother, Savior? Please give me your orders and I’ll end his life right here.”

Meeting his cold eyes, my body tenses up and I’m ready to make a mad dash for my sword. I should be able to handle Gavin but the Savior will be the tricky one. Before anything happens though, the Savior turns around and hobbles back to his throne while giggling to himself. The throne’s seat is still a few feet off the ground and as I’m wondering whether he’s going to jump back up, solid dirt steps sprout from the ground leading up to the throne which he uses to step up. Once at the top of the dirt stairs, he spun around and took his seat, the dirt steps crumbling back down the moment his bottom made contact with his throne.

How in the fuck am I going to kill him? Looking around, all the floor here is made of dirt and they only laid out a long strip of carpet in front of the throne. This is literally his natural environment, a place where he can make full use of his earth magic. I have no idea what the range of his magic encompasses and for all I know, maybe the whole godsdamned world is his territory.

After sitting down, the Savior didn’t say anything else and only stared at me with a smile on his face. Gavin still seems suspicious of me but proceeds with the initiation and has me swear my loyalty and faith to the Savior. The entire time, the Savior didn’t make a sound or move at all really. I don’t think he even blinked once.

When we were finished with the initiation, we walked out of the longhouse which Gavin called The Shrine. These guys really love naming things and giving them big, grandiose sounding names. But I guess if you want to seem impressive, that’s a good place to start. Gavin is noticeably more reserved around me compared to before. It appears the Savior’s behavior and his words gave him second thoughts regarding me. I only took it as the unintelligible ramblings of an inbred madman but Gavin seems to think differently.

After a bit of walking, we arrived at a wooden shack where I’ll be staying and Gavin told me where I could get food and water before leaving. But he only took a few steps before entering another shack right beside mine. It looks like he’ll be keeping his eye on me which isn’t good. I wanted to check on the spot Uda described to me tonight when the sun set but I don’t want to draw Gavin's attention this early.

Entering the shack, it’s… only a tiny bit better than sleeping on the ground outside. At least there’s a roof over my head now I suppose. Putting my things down in a corner, I lay down on the thatch bedding which takes up nearly a third of the shack’s total space and let my exhausted body rest as I sort through all the new information I’ve acquired. If I want to get out of here, everything needs to be perfect. 340 people including one major variable. What to do, what to do.

…

After night fell, I left my shack and went to the citadel’s canteen which Gavin told me about. Completely coincidentally, Gavin left his shack at the same time and accompanied me to the canteen. The canteen wasn’t too far away and was pretty close to The Pit’s midway point right next to where one of the wooden platform’s bridges connected to the ground. As we were heading inside, I noticed someone walking out at the same time holding an extremely familiar looking sack filled with hardtack. After leaving the canteen, he headed straight toward the wooden bridge and started crossing it to The Vessel I would assume.

Seeing me stop and look at the man who just left, Gavin asks, “What are you looking at?”

Smiling at him, I answered innocently, “I just saw that guy had a big bag of food and was wondering if I was supposed to get food from him.”

Gavin stares blankly at me for a moment as if he’s searching for something from my expression before saying, “Don’t worry about him. Let’s head inside. That’s where all the food is.”

The canteen is basically just a shoddily made pantry and kitchen mixed together. Even the temporary camps we made with the trade caravan on our way to Ocean’s Rest were better than this. After getting my portion of wheat gruel from the ugly cook, I take a seat at one of the tables and start eating. Gavin sits right across from me and starts eating in silence as well. The Savior really fucked up my plans with his incoherent babbling. I expected some scrutiny when I got up here but nothing like this.

Oh well, I’ll just extend my plans out until Gavin isn’t watching me with hawk eyes I guess. After finishing our food, we head back to our shacks for the night. Opening up my leather pack, I sort through all the things inside. I still have 49 tubes of Schon ready for consumption as well as half of a brick I was working on before we had to escape Ocean’s Rest. This is my third and final brick since the fourth one is forever lost along with all of Candle’s wagons back in Ocean’s Rest. This is still a good amount of Schon and it should last me for a few months but I’m not planning on staying here that long anyways.

The familiar bitter taste of the drug awakens all sorts of feelings in me as I remember the good times before everything went to shit. It’s been over two months and everyone in Candle should have left these woods by now. I wonder where they are right now and what they’re doing. I hope everyone escaped safely. Hopefully we'll meet again soon enough.

…

Gavin came to pick me up bright and early the next morning. He’s no longer in the mood to show me around the citadel anymore and brought me to the front gate where the rest of his team was already waiting. This is the exact same team from two months ago that I thought was really well balanced with two swordsmen, two axemen, and two archers. Today, he’s leading his team out to scout the citadel’s outskirts and to clear out any unwelcome guests they come across. It looks like I’ll be joining them from now on, turning their team of six into seven.

After we left the front gate, we headed into the stable right beside it and took out six horses. Why six horses instead of seven? Gavin wanted me to ride with one of the archers named Eldon because he said I needed some time to acclimate myself with scouting before I could ride solo. It’s pretty obvious the Savior’s abnormal behavior yesterday has turned me from a brother in the fold he could trust into someone to be wary of in his eyes.

Eldon wasn’t too pleased with having to share his horse with someone else and he thought Gavin put me under his care because I was too incompetent. It seems Gavin hasn’t told anyone else what happened with the Savior yesterday and he’s keeping it to himself. Hearing Eldon curse about filthy fake brothers under his breath, I realized Gavin prepared a trap for me in Eldon. I’ll need to be on my best behavior around him lest he gives Gavin a reason to get rid of me using his status as one of the Savior’s descendants.

I knew once I got up to the surface, things would get exponentially more difficult but I wasn’t expecting to have to play inbred cult politics. Regardless, after handing out small sacks of bread to everyone with Eldon and I having to share one, much to his annoyance, we set off towards the west with our backs facing the rising morning sun with Gavin at the lead. Like I expected, The Fold has mapped out patrol routes and we’re using one of those routes for this scouting mission. As we’re following the dirt road, we frequently stop at seemingly random times to enter the treelines on either side of us in search of Vipers. After clearing out the treelines, we’d head back onto the dirt road and keep riding.

At noon, right when Gavin wanted to stop for lunch, we spotted a group of horsemen on top of a far away hill who immediately turned around and left after discovering us. Instead of ordering us to chase after them, Gavin had us turn around and leave in a hurry. That was the right call because soon after, we found an even larger group following us from afar. With a specific destination in mind, Gavin had us ride at full speed through one of the treelines. After a few minutes, we ended up on another dirt path and found a Fold hunting party of eight nearby. Charging at them, Gavin screamed, “Snakes on our six! Get ready to intercept!”

Bewildered, the hunting party scrambled to quickly move their horses off to the side and dismount. Following their lead, I slid off the back of Eldon’s horse and ran over to them, taking position as a vanguard. It doesn’t look like they have any intention to form a shieldwall which might be bad but I don’t have the time to worry about it because the group of horsemen that was following us burst forth from the treeline toward our position. Arrows whistle through the air as Eldon and the other archers fire them at the group of stampeding horsemen. Only one arrow lands true and pierces into a horse’s neck, the animal’s body collapsing forward due to its momentum and taking its rider with it, crushing his body under its weight.

That wasn’t nearly enough to stop their charge considering there’s at least 20 horsemen still riding at us at full speed. Fuck, what in the actual fuck are we doing? Why are we out in the open, dismounted like this? Looking around, I see everyone around me trembling in fear, simply awaiting their deaths. Overcome with rage, I scream at the top of my lungs, “Get the fuck back to the treeline! We’re sitting ducks out here!”