Zensuon: Crystal Age

If You Were Never Alive, Can You Truly be Dead?

Where our two agents on their way to Pileraf stumble on a familiar orc, doing unfamiliar (and strange) things.

Travelling by foot from the western edge of God's Necklace, the name of the area after the Inner Sea Strait, towards Pileraf would take about a month's time. Most of the place would be filled with fields and shepherds, alongside other forms of agriculture.

Conroy heard it was a fertile land for growing cows the EverIce-Alliance was famous for the farmlands filled to the brim with those special Zensuon cows, for either milk or meat, but going across the road for two weeks now he barely saw any indication of them.

Maybe closer to the strait it made sense to see less, he didn't know a lot about agriculture, but being close to the sea might make cow-handling hard somehow? But it shouldn't be so much of a problem now that they've made their way deeper into the Pileraf farmlands, right?

They went past a lot of small villages that their only purpose was to create a product for trade by Break City and Pileraf to their neighbours, from what he read, anyway. This all didn't seem like such a bad idea. Holding an exclusive product, in this case Zensuonian cows, and creating the mercantile alliance to make transportation out into the rest of the world an easy thing.

Did the cow production go down due to Soulless? He did see a lot of graveyards littered, more than there were towns- in places of towns. It seemed more prevalent in Zensuon than anywhere else.

"The lamb is ready." Conroy took the meat out of the fire.

A bored Liam jumped off of a tree and went to sit down by Conroy and the bonfire to eat.

"It's starting to be a hassle getting food." Liam quickly spoke out before biting into the meat in the awkward way he did. By twisting himself around away from Conroy. Lifting his mask and taking bites.

"Trying to pay for it would've been harder." Conroy pointed out, as he was smiling watching Liam.

"Nah," Liam said, still looking away as he ate. "That'll be a waste of time."

He wasn't wrong. With Break City blowing up and news reaching the mainland of Zensuon, the guard across the roads increased. This meant suspicious figures were getting questioned, which was bad. It also meant that food was being rationed, possibly to be sent over to the wounded Break City and its towns. Stealing farm animals was a lot easier and less of a hassle. Plus, it was a common occurrence that orcs come out to attack the populace here, so they'll likely not be tracked. Really, it's the farmer's fault for making their places so close to the orcish-elven border.

There was a crack of leaves and branches. Conroy's eyes widened. Don't tell me guards actually did go ahead and track them?

Without saying much, he took out a torch and gave Liam another from the bonfire.

It was night, and it seemed to be coming from the south, which means it might be an orc unless they've been tracked and flanked by guards. No, human guards would have lights. This is someone walking in darkness. A stray orc? He could hear only one set of footsteps. Two of them on one orc would be easy. Conroy grinned.

"It's an orc, a free baetylus, let's kill it," Conroy stated, motioning Liam to move.

"Alright." Liam nodded, as they both strode towards the sound.

Liam was the first to walk in. He surveyed the situation but didn't keep his guard up. He was used to winging it, which was true to his melee-focused fighting style as well. In his mind, he could adapt to everything, so being too tense or overly prepared was counterproductive.