Chapter 2 – A Banner’s Purpose

(Note, these are final revised chapters, they are still in the editing process but that takes more time, and I kind of promised chapter releases a while ago.  So here is this chapter, in all its glory, when it gets a final edit I'll repost)

Julia was a banner to her people, the height of nobility, an icon.  So why NONE of the idiots she was leading from BURNING Filly to SAFE Windfall understood that was beyond her.  Julia continued shouting and they continued failing. She really needed to do something she was good at.

“Keep burning those bridges,” she yelled to the lazy fools at the rear. “If we don’t move forward, we are all going to die.” They continued doing so, lazily. Even while she was busy burning bridges and yelling at everyone, they kept coming to her with their problems. Eventually it got to the point where she was just frustrated, and that lead to more yelling.

“I don’t care about your anvil.  My storage is full of lifesaving equipment.  Everyone’s storage is full of critical supplies.  You can either carry it yourself or leave it.”

The blacksmith frowned at her and stomped off.  In Falcon, a mere commoner would never have had the temerity to talk to her like that.  Julia tried to picture what the Mayor would have done and realized it would have probably involved chickens.

Those poor birds.

Of course, a bird was the only reason she’d managed to get everyone moving at all.  The leadership of Fillidelphia had mysteriously vanished shortly before the lightning bolt blew a hole in the castle grounds.   Initially Julia had assumed that Toomen had accidentally vaporized them in his ill-fated attack on Grebthar.  However, the more she learned about the timeline the more she doubted that.

Julia expected that most of the nobility in Filly had suffered a significant setback as of late, which began with Queen HarGate vanishing during a meeting of the ruling council.  Sheblin confirmed to her that HarGate was in fact the Sphinx.  The fact that the Sphinx had been posing as the King’s wife for some time was disheartening, specifically because Julia had known HarGate for years.

She hadn’t quite been friends with HarGate, or defender of the gate of Fillidelphia, but she had shared a few letters with her.  Her father had been far more interested in the woman, actively courting her prior to her marriage in some Machiavellian plot to bring the Northern Kingdom back into alignment with Falcon.

Julia had thought the plan doomed to fail, but then HarGate came for a visit and Julia would admit a bit of fascination with her.  HarGate was the embodiment of what a Northern Adventurer should look and act like.  Plus, she was so charming that young Julia practically idolized her for a time.  After HarGate’s engagement with TimSimons became public knowledge, her father grudgingly moved on.

Even after spurring her father, Julia sent HarGate a few letters discussing what she considered, at the time, important matters of state. HarGate’s advice was always incredibly useful to whatever situation Julia found herself embroiled in. Then suddenly the letters stopped with both her and father.  Shortly thereafter HarGate had married HarCharles and that was that.  Julia knew that politics were involved because that was how marriage worked but still.

It stung, Julia was one of the most important people in the world after all.

She decided that the Sphinx must have killed and replaced her.  The thought of that was terrifying simply because HarGate had been a lofty level 51, and the notion that someone could just kill and replace someone at that level was terrifying.

Especially because Julia was rapidly approaching that level.  Very rapidly.

· You have 2200 points of banked Experience.  Please visit a trainer.

Banked XP?  What was that fool of a mayor doing?

Banked XP were typically earned through training, and were simply an inefficient way to add experience points to a higher level adventurer.  Still, Jim had Jimmed up a way for her to earn some of his training experience through a Great General class perk.  It was silly and inefficient; at her level she needed close to fifty thousand points to level.

Theoretically she could use a Trainer in one of the zealot guilds in Falcon to add banked XP directly to her pool but lacking that she would be able to slowly add them naturally as she gained regular experience.  Which was handy because the Northern Province was not exactly safe.

A massive 8-legged bear suddenly exploded out of the trees racing towards the column of commoners she was assigned to protect.  She held aloft her magical rod, letting the golden power of her divine magic flow through it before firing off a disk of energy which neatly bisected the creature.

The top half landed, snarling as it attempted to crawl towards the people she was charged to protect.  Julia groaned.  This wasn’t as bad as the drop bears, but it was close.  It was close, mainly because while she could easily protect herself, she was guarding no fewer than 500 civilians most of which had no combat training at all.

When she’d gotten to Windfall, she’d discovered the Mayor had been training nearly everyone up in the Militia.  The very notion of that had been so absurd that Julia hadn’t been able to wrap her head around it at the time.  You didn’t train more than necessary because if enough commoners could rise up they might even take out an adventure.

You heard about it every so often.

Some noble in charge of a town would get stupid.  They both overtaxed their population and trained them up too well causing a scenario where the lowly commoners would kill an adventurer for their stupidity.  This meant that most adventurer’s attitude towards large militias was to ensure that they were adequate for local protection, but too weak to be a serious threat to the nobility.

That was just good common sense.

Jim had other ideas.  He viewed the whole world as a dangerous place and did his level best to ensure that everyone was capable of protecting themselves at all times.  His militia took everyone, and worse, actively recruited to ensure everyone got the bonus hit points and weapon skills from that training.  At the time that had seemed absurd.

Of course, if the Windfallians had been marching through this forest they would have torn that Spiderbear to bits.

That didn’t account for the Puma checks, which she was now doing constantly.  The Mayor, for his many positive qualities, was paranoid to a degree that was disturbing.  After all, what could trouble the Mayor?  His Windfallians were positively committed to the notion of checking for danger at all times.

Sadly, that would have also been super useful here, so she couldn’t bring it up or she’d never hear the end of it.

Julia had spilled the wine when she’d actually gotten to Windfall.  She didn’t recognize the Mayor when he first approached her, saving her in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.  She didn’t recognize him when he rebuilt his Precursor warship.  She didn’t even recognize him when he walked around in Windfall itself like he owned the place, and everyone respected him.

In retrospect it had been obvious from the first instant, and she shouldn’t have been so drunk as to not realize it.  She’d been drunk on her own power, her own expectations of what the Mayor was in the past so she didn’t realize what he is in the present.  That hurt.

She initially blamed herself for the situation.  Her father had been murdered; she’d known that deep down when she’d been taken away.  He would have moved heaven and earth to rescue her.  Her lover had betrayed her.  Her entire life’s plan had spilled onto the linen.

She snorted; Jim used the expression down the drain which was silly.  That was where liquid was supposed to go.

Now she had been given a task by the Mayor.  Get these people to Windfall.  She could manage that, though she was unsure of the mechanics of how that was going to work when they got there.  Windfall was larger than she expected, and Filly was smaller than everyone thought it was, but Filly was still a thousand year old city.

That cork was never going to fit.

Normally she’d just invite them into Falcon to live, but the average provincial wasn’t going to do that willingly.  Or at all.

She’d have time to swirl it around the cup though, it was going to be a longer march back than it was coming because they couldn’t go cross country.  Hopefully the trip would be relatively straightforward because the Dark Overlord was coming for Windfall as he always did.

Julia’s spine got ever so slightly straighter as she continued walking.  No one in her family had ever stood against the Dark Overlord successfully.  She had tried and failed, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try again.  She was alive and as long as she was alive there was hope.  Julia delved into her royal bearing; she would be a banner to these people.

An unwavering, unflappable banner.

A notification popped up in the corner of her view, and she regally examined it.

· You have 58000 points of banked Experience.  Please visit a trainer.

“Bitch, the feck you doing?”