[Sidequest] Super-Secret Infiltration Plan

Duran couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes. He was fairly sure his hair was frozen, too, which shouldn’t be allowed. “Um,” he said. “I really do think you need to save-”

The man in front of him waved a hand dismissively and said another very long string of words in the Northern Dialect. Duran tried to stay standing. Before he could say anything else, a blanket had been thrown over him. He looked towards the mattress- it seemed so soft. Such a nice time to sleep.

As he tried to sit on the mattress, the man grabbed him by the elbow and started to drag him towards the back door of the hut. Duran pulled back as much as he could. “I already told you, stop worrying about me! You need to go get Madame Elysia,” he said. “And that beetle lady! And Katla!”

When the man had seen him on the beach, he’d started yelling and forced Duran, Apis, and the goat into his little hut. He hadn’t seemed worried when Duran had pointed out to the ocean and told him there were others, too.

It didn’t matter, though. Duran was going to go out and save them himself. As soon as he could feel his fingers again, anyway.

With another sharp tug on Duran’s elbow, he forced Duran closer to the door. This wasn’t fair at all! Heroes didn’t get dragged around while wearing blankets. They braved the dark sea to find their mentors! Duran tried to tell the man this. It didn’t slow him down at all.

Still. The sea was very cold. And Madame Elysia would be fine, wouldn’t she?

“Southern? Do you speak southern?”

It seemed not. The man just kept pulling him forward. With a yank, he pulled the outer door open. For a moment Duran was stunned by the cold wind brushing over his face. It felt like all of the air had been pulled out of his lungs. As he blinked, he was fairly sure his eyelashes had frozen together.

He didn’t have long to consider. The man dragged him further, along what Duran could tell was a path. He was holding an oil lantern, but it didn’t do much to light the way. The path wound through a dense forest, and most of it was uphill. Duran struggled to walk, slipping over the uneven rocks, mud, and snow. The man didn’t slow. Whenever Duran nearly fell, he yelled words in Northern, then dragged him up by the back of his tunic. It was all Duran could do to hold onto his blanket.

They hadn’t mentioned this part in the epics of hero’s journeys. Yes, a lot of them ended up shipwrecked. But in those stories, it was always somewhere warm, with some lady waiting with nice food and a convenient replacement ship. Duran didn’t think he liked this version, where he was cold and shivering and still forced to climb what felt like an endless hill.

The forest didn’t help, making it all seem like the same place. Duran couldn’t even see the ocean anymore. Just the endless trunks. Duran hesitated. Was that a pair of glowing green eyes in between the trunks?

Duran made eye contact for a moment, before he had to turn back to the trail and scramble up a thick nest of roots to make it to the next level. When he looked back, the eyes were gone.

All of this walking, and so quickly, at least was warming him up a bit. The wind was less harsh inside the trees, but it was still brutally cold. He watched his breath mist up as they began to walk downhill, moving across switchbacks at such a fast pace that he slipped twice, both times slipping and sliding into the back of the man’s knees. The man didn’t seem worried by this in the slightest. Duran had developed what felt like a strong cramp in his calves.

Finally, they turned a final corner and the man stopped walking. He raised a hand and pointed. Just beyond the edge of the forest, built above what looked like a small protected harbor. It was a set of wooden buildings guarded by a large wooden wall made of what looked like entire tree trunks. There was even someone patrolling the edge of the wall, holding up what looked like a lantern.

He looked over at the man that had rescued him. “Is that the academy?”

The excitement wiped away all of the cold at once. This was his chance! He had beaten everyone else to the super-secret infiltration plan. All he had to do was get inside, do a little bit of investigating, and then free both gods. It was a story worthy of the ages!

The man pointed again. He didn’t seem interested in moving.

That was fine. Duran could manage.

As the gate got closer, the path got wider and more muddy, with evidence of people and horses moving through evident by their footprints. Duran had to slog through the end of it, the thick mud pulling his boots down and nearly taking them off his feet.

The gate was massive and well kept. It barely looked weathered, although it was simple in design. Just a few wooden planks. There wasn’t even a knob. Did they have to open it from the inside?

Duran knocked twice.

There was a long silence. Then, with a creak, one of the doors pulled open just enough to reveal a man wearing a thick helmet and what looked like every scarf in existence. The result was a face that Duran could barely see at all.

He asked a question in the northern dialect. Duran hesitated. Now was his chance to fulfill the plan. Was he brave enough?

“I-“ he started, but the gate was already open, the guard ushering him through. Duran glanced back just in time to see that the man was gone already, his lamplight gone with him. The doors closed silently, with the guard using the end of a staff he was holding to pull down a giant iron bar.

Duran stared at the guard, but he was unmoving. It seemed it was up to Duran to brave the Crags himself.

He took a deep breath, then straightened his blanket. It was a short path to the first of the buildings, a long, squat rectangle with no windows. It wasn’t what Duran had imagined, but that was fine.

He was going to save the gods. All by himself.