ScaleGuard 3: I Accidentally Started a Communist Revolution in Another World Read online

  ScaleGuard 3

  I Accidentally Started a Communist Revolution in Another World

  By

  Seann Barbour

  Contents

  The Maps

  I The Heist

  II Mebdurb

  III The Lord’s Men

  IV The People’s Army

  V The Defense of Mebdurb

  VI The Battle of Welbrig Manor

  VII War Plans

  VIII Crossing the Basilar

  IX Harvenia

  X Royal Blood

  XI The Business of Government

  XII March to the Mines

  XIII The Battle of Ylara

  XIV The Measure of Men

  XV How the Sausage Gets Made

  XVI Breaking the Fellowship

  XVII The Bloodstained Throne

  XVIII A New Hyralia

  Epilogue

  Stat Cards

  The Maps

  I

  The Heist

  The thing about your generic fantasy worlds, which I don’t think many of us really think about much, is that their architecture makes no goddamn sense.

  Now, I will fully admit that I don’t actually know that much about architecture. I couldn’t tell you the difference between, I don’t know, Corinthian and Gothic and PostNeoWhatever, but I know a little. For example, I’m pretty sure that Gothic architecture involved something called a buttress. I have no idea what a buttress is, granted. The only reason I even remember that much is because it has the word “butt” in it and 4th Grade Gideon found that shit absolutely hilarious.

  But it’s not really something you notice when watching a movie or playing a game. Who gives a fuck if the architectural styles are anachronistic, really? It’s a fantasy world! Anything goes!

  But when you find yourself living in an actual fantasy world, I don’t know, details like that stick out. For example, most of what I’d seen of Crucible so far had had a vaguely Medieval European vibe to it. You know, the standard fantasy stuff. So it was kind of jarring to find myself staring up at a building that could very easily have passed for a plantation house in South Carolina.

  It was big and impressive and honestly kind of bland in that uniform, sanitized way that I guess Southern Gentry just went wild for. White building with two visible levels from the outside, lines of columns connecting porch to balconies to roof. Twin staircases curved up to one of the balconies in the middle, where stood an impressive set of double doors. Below that, between those staircases, was another set of double doors. Because apparently this manor needed two grand entrances.

  “Hey Gids,” Kono whispered, “you ready or what?”

  I shook my stray thoughts about architecture out of my head and looked at the foxgirl. Kono had dark skin and long and messy red hair. Two fox ears poked out from that mass of crimson curls on her head, and a big bushy red tail was visible from her back. Physique-wise, she was toned and thin, except for her breasts, which were, ahem, noticeable from under that strip of black cloth that passed for a shirt.

  “Yeah,” I whispered back. “I’m ready.”

  We were crouched behind some bushes, not far from the entrance to the manor. For all it looked like a plantation house, the surrounding area was anything but. The mansion was smack dab in the middle of a thick forest that stretched out at least a mile in all directions.

  Not gonna lie: it felt a little bit off to me. But I wasn’t going to complain. The woodlands would make our job easier.

  With a nod, Kono vanished into the shadows, and I looked over to the guards stationed at the foot of those staircases. There were four of them; two per staircase, and they all looked as bored as could be.

  Damn, that iron armor really did not go with the plantation aesthetic.

  I focused on the space directly in front of all the guards, and there were two *pops* as a pair of very confused and very big aquatic reptiles suddenly appeared on the dirt pathway leading to the mansion.

  Oh yeah. I was so good at being a distraction.

  *

  Kragthor was a little trading town located on the northwestern edge of the Gorla Steppe, along Crothka Canyon. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that Kragthor was located inside of Crothka Canyon.

  Bridges crisscrossed from one wall of the canyon to the other. On the sides of the canyon were carved an intricate network of stairs and platforms and dwellings. You want to talk about architectural mishmashes, then Kragthor was a great example of that. Stone dwellings and wooden huts and buildings that were essentially more permanent versions of the orcs’ yurts all met in a fusion of cultures and styles.

  This was the only permanent settlement the nomadic orcs had to their name. It had begun as a simple trading post; a bridge and a couple buildings for merchants to exchange their goods with orcish traders. But over time, it had grown into so much more.

  We were staying at the Lowriver Inn, which was located at the bottom of the canyon and built on a bridge directly over the water that flowed through the base of Crothka. Our orc friends had left a few days back to return to their people among the Firetusk Clan, but we intended to stay in Kragthor a bit longer and keep irresponsibly spending the money the Elf King had paid us for our last job.

  Me and my fellow ScaleGuard members had helped broker peace between the Gorla Orcs and the Vrelish Elves. It was a whole thing. And all we’d really had to do was fight some ghouls and then kill Lyra’s dad.

  That last bit had led to some awkwardness between me and our Paladin. But she seemed to be taking it well.

  “It’s watered down,” Lyra said, putting the wooden mug on the table.

  I looked up from my own mug and raised an eyebrow at the blonde elf. “Well, yeah,” I replied. “But I think it’s rude to say that out loud.”

  Kono took a drink and shrugged. “I’ve had worse beer,” she said. “It’s watered down, yeah, but at least I can still taste it. You’d be surprised at some of the garbage they try to pass off in Basilar.”

  We weren’t in the Lowriver right now, but were instead up above it. There was a sort of outdoor bar called Westwall with a wooden platform extending from the wall of the canyon. We’d decided to enjoy our lunch there.

  The only one of us who wasn’t currently preoccupied with the water content of the beer here was Vaingloria, our Necromancer. She brushed some of her short black hair from her forehead and adjusted her glasses, gaze fixed solidly on the bead necklace she’d bought from some vendor a few minutes ago.

  “There’s no enchantment on this,” she said.

  Kono shrugged. “Why would there be?”

  “The man at the stall said it would bring good luck.”

  “So it’s supposed to be a good luck charm,” I said, also shrugging. “People sell junk like that to travelers all the time.”

  “There should at least be some kind of luck-boosting enchantment on it!” Vaingloria insisted.

  Kono took another drink of beer. “Look, Vee, I’m sorry but I don’t see how you keep falling for this. I mean, how many trinkets have you bought since we got here?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Right, and how many have had enchantments?”

  Vaingloria’s pale face flushed red. “...two.”

  “Seems like you should just assume most of these vendors are full of shit then.”

  “But what if the next one is the third?”

  “Can’t you just check for enchantments before you buy one?” Lyra asked.

  “I tried that,” Vee said. “The merchants won’t let me. Well, one
did. But none of the others.”

  After taking another swig, I asked her: “The one that did… was that one of the two actual enchanted items?”

  Vee nodded. “Oh yes.”

  “Well, looks like you got a system then,” I pointed out. “If they don’t let you check for enchantments before buying, then it’s probably a scam.”

  Vaingloria frowned and considered this.

  “How the fuck did I end up in a party with some of the dumbest smart people on the planet?” Kono asked, leaning back in her chair.

  I grinned. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Yeah, luck,” she said flatly. “That must be it.”

  “So what are we doing after this?” Lyra asked. “The money from Avorlo isn’t going to last forever. We need to start looking for a new job.”

  A woman came over to our table with a tray of food. Someone in this world had invented barbecue at some point, so I was happy to get a plate of ribs in front of me. I gave her a gold coin in thanks before she walked away.

  “With the amount of merchants constantly coming and going from here, there’s probably a good chance we can find a job as a caravan escort,” Vaingloria pointed out.

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, tearing into that delicious meat. Well, “delicious” is relative. It wasn’t that good, but compared to months of no barbecue whatsoever it was like heaven. “That was our first job together, wasn’t it Lyra?”

  She swallowed a bit of her chicken salad and laughed. “It was,” she said. “We escorted that caravan to Heliosor. Of course, they turned out to be Thieves’ Guild…”

  I grinned, my gaze locking on Kono. “And then a certain someone from a rival Thieves’ Guild decided to come after us for that.”

  The foxgirl rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah… We met a few months ago, guys. It’s not like it’s some distant memory to get nostalgic over.”

  “Really? Feels like it is,” said none of us.

  How a man in a black hood had managed to sit down at our table without any of us noticing, I had no idea, but we all immediately tensed. The man didn’t seem bothered by this. He just pulled back the hood, revealing a bald head tanned from hours in the sunlight, and smiled a crooked smile.

  “How have you been, Kono?” he asked.

  “Padrin,” Kono said. She relaxed, but not by much. “I’ve been well. You?”

  The bald man, who I assume was named Padrin, reached across the table and took Kono’s mug. “I’ve been shit,” he said, then took a swig of beer. He frowned. “It’s watered down.”

  “I know.”

  “Hey, uh, sorry,” I interrupted. “Who the fuck are you?”

  He grinned at me. Some of his teeth were gold. “Name’s Padrin,” he said, “agent of the Basilar Thieves’ Guild. And I’ve been looking all over the place for a certain foxfolk who ran off a few months ago without any word of warning.”

  “I left a note,” Kono told him. There was something off about her voice, I noticed. She was trying to do the light and breezy “I’m not even bothered” thing, but it was a bit spoiled by the thick layer of tension that churned just under the surface.

  “Oh, she left a note, well that’s alright then,” Padrin said, leaning back in his chair. “One of our most promising young thieves runs off on a suicide mission to steal back some goods from the Heliosor Guild, but it’s okay everyone, cuz she left a note, see? And does she think to send us a letter afterwards, to let us know how things worked out? No! We have to hear from the goddamn Heliosor bastards that she got caught, managed to avoid execution by joining up with an adventuring party, then buggered off to fuck knows where!”

  Vaingloria put the beads away. “You seem agitated.”

  Padrin blinked at her. “Yes?” he said. “Of course I’m fucking agitated.”

  Vee just stared back at him.

  “Look, Padrin, I’ve been busy,” Kono said. “There was this whole thing with an ancient vermus king and a rogue necromancer, and then there was this other thing with an old crown and some ghouls and a conspiracy to commit regicide… The Guild just kind of slipped my mind.”

  “Bullshit,” Padrin said. “You were just happy to be free of us. Don’t lie, Kono.”

  I glanced at Lyra and wiggled my eyebrows in an expression that I hoped conveyed something like “should we maybe do something about this guy, or do you think Kono would rather us not butt into her business?” Lyra frowned, then made an expression which I think conveyed something like “they’re having a sale at the weapons store and I think that’s irresponsible of them.”

  We really needed to work on our nonverbal communication skills.

  “Well, you found me, Padrin. Congrats.” Kono sighed. “Is this the part where you drag me off to be tried and executed by the Guild?”

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “I take issue with that plan.”

  Padrin raised his hands. “No, no, nothing of the sort,” he said. “In fact, I have a different idea of what you can do to set things right.”

  Kono’s eyes narrowed. “I’m listening.”

  “The Guild’s been expanding its activities into Hyralia lately,” Padrin began.

  “Why the fuck would they want to do that?” Kono asked. “Hyralia’s a shithole. Entire kingdom’s just a whole lot of nothing.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Padrin said. “The iron mines do well, and some of the Hyralian lords are very excited about the idea of exporting fine lumber from their kingdom’s bountiful forests.”

  For some reason, that made Kono’s frown deepen.

  “But you know how nobles are, always looking to one-up the other houses,” Padrin continued. “We’ve entered into some… trial contracts with a few houses. They are most interested in the possibilities of the importing and exporting services we can provide.”

  “So what do you want with me, then?” Kono asked.

  “Not you, specifically,” Padrin corrected. “I’d like to hire your whole party for a job…”

  *

  Three weeks after Padrin invited himself to our lunch, we were in Hyralia planning to steal some gemstone necklace from some feudal lord. I think his name was Simion or something. He’d inherited his lands and necklace in place of his elder brother, who had married into some other family’s holdings but was still pissed about not getting his full inheritance, so he wanted the Basilar Thieves’ Guild to steal a family heirloom for him as a show of power to his brother and as a way to cement a working relationship with the enterprising criminal organization.

  And wouldn’t you know it: the Thieves’ Guild had decided to subcontract the job out to the ScaleGuard.

  But what all this wheeling and dealing boiled down to, at the end of the day, was me summoning some crocodiles to distract some guards while Kono ran from the treeline and scaled up Lord Simion’s manor.

  Yeah, I can summon crocodiles. It’s my thing. I got blessed with the ability by the Egyptian god Sobek when he plucked my dead-ass soul from Earth and sent me to the weirdly RPG-like fantasy world of Crucible. These two crocodiles weren’t even my main buddy; as a Beastmaster I was bonded to an animal companion, but Riverjaw had had a hell of a time fighting a pack of wargs and goblins while we snuck through the forest, so I was giving him a break.

  “What the fuck are these things!?” one of the guards shouted, frantically jabbing his spear in the general direction of the two crocs, neither of which seemed particularly pleased at having a spear pointed at them.

  “And where did they come from!?” cried the other.

  One of them got brave and tried to really stab at the crocodiles, and that’s when some ghosts flew up the crocodile’s back and shrieked at the guards.

  For their parts, the guards responded with shrieks of their own and backed up.

  I grinned. Vaingloria was in the thicket on the other side of the manor pathway doing her spooky necromancy thing, and it looked like she was doing it with style.

  Lights began coming on from the front windows as people within t
he manor started moving to the front to see what all the hubbub was about. That was good. The more people were at the front of the manor, the less people Kono would have to sneak past around the back.

  The front doors were opening as Lyra sprinted up the path to the manor, sword held high. “HOLY SMITE!” she shouted, bringing a shining sword down on one of the crocodiles. I dismissed the summoned creature right before she made contact, so that it looked like it vanished in a flash of light.

  “What the devil is going on out here!?” demanded a voice. I glanced up at the top double doors, where a man dressed in fine silky robes was standing and looking down at the scene.

  “I, uh…” started one of the guards.

  “These deathdrakes were the pets of a villainous necromancer I was hunting!” Lyra interrupted him. She was shouting, which was for the best. Both because it ensured that the man whom I assumed to be Lord Simion could hear her, and also because it helped disguise the fact that while Lyra had many talents, acting was not one of them. “They escaped when I fought their master, but now I have finally tracked them down!”

  By now, I could see the faces of numerous servants in the windows, watching in rapt fascination as a Paladin came to rescue their homestead from these “deathdrakes.” Probably a good thing that most people in this medieval fantasy world had no idea what a crocodile was.

  The remaining croc spun on Lyra, mouth open, and hissed at her. Lyra stood firm against it, then leaped back away from its jaws as it snapped at her. She glanced back in my direction, and though I knew she couldn’t see me, I offered a sheepish grin anyway.

  Hey, it wasn’t my fault. It’s not like I was responsible for every individual action the crocodiles took. I’m a Beastmaster, not some… Control-Animals-with-Psychic-Powers… mancer.

  Regardless, Lyra recovered quickly and charged in with another Holy Smite, and as far as all the watchers were concerned this too vanquished the “deathdrake” to whatever fell dimension from which it came.

  “There!” Lyra declared, triumphantly-ish. “I have finally bested the beasts! Your realm is safe once more!”