Raven's Grime

The arrangement was a transaction, not an alliance. That was the cold, simple logic that kept me moving in their wake. Their names, Rovy and Bane, were now relevant data points, labels for the temporary guides my survival subroutine had deemed necessary.

They walked ahead, their conversation a low, meaningless hum against the backdrop of the forest. Rovy, despite the recent violence, had a resilience that was illogical. She moved with a light step, her voice carrying a note of determined cheerfulness. Bane was her shadow, a silent mountain of a man who seemed to draw a quiet strength from her presence. I observed their dynamic, a simple symbiotic relationship built on shared experience and mutual reliance. Primitive, yet undeniably effective.

"So," Rovy's voice cut through my analysis, directed back at me. "You never did give us a name. We can't just keep calling you 'our creepy new friend'."

A name. A label. A convenient sound to attach to this vessel. The old one was a ghost, a story that had already ended. I needed a new one for this new, unwanted chapter.

"Einar," I said. The name felt foreign, a borrowed coat. It would suffice.

"Einar, huh?" Rovy tested the sound. "Doesn't sound like he's from around here, does he, Bane?"

Bane merely grunted, a sound that could have meant anything.

"Your clothes are strange," she continued, her curiosity a persistent, buzzing thing. "No leather, no armor. And you fight with... stones? Where are you from, Einar? Some hidden monastery where they teach you to be weirdly efficient and unsettlingly quiet?"

Her questions were a probe, an attempt to categorize me, to fit me into a neat box within her understanding of the world. I had no such box.

"A place," I began, my voice a flat monotone, "where the sky is often grey, and the trees are made of stone and glass. Where information travels on currents of invisible light."

Rovy blinked. "Sounds... complicated."

"It was," I replied, a flicker of genuine distaste coloring the word. "Complicated, and utterly pointless."

Before she could press further, the forest began to thin. The oppressive green gave way to open land, and soon, the crude wooden walls of a settlement came into view. Raven.

The air changed as we approached the gate. The clean, wild scent of the forest was replaced by the thick, complex stench of civilization: woodsmoke, livestock, unwashed bodies, and stale ale. It was the smell of humanity, a species I had tried so desperately to leave behind.

The guards at the gate were a study in bored authority. Their armor was worn, their gazes dull, but they straightened slightly at the sight of Bane's greatsword. They gave Rovy a familiar nod, but their eyes lingered on me, on my strange, dark clothes.

"More goblins, Rovy?" one of them asked, his gaze flicking to the bloodstains on her leathers.

"The usual," she chirped. "This is Einar. He's new."

"We can see that," the other guard muttered, his eyes raking over me with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. "Just keep him out of trouble."

I said nothing. Trouble was a subjective concept.

Stepping into Raven was like stepping into a different world. The streets were a chaotic river of unpaved dirt and uneven cobblestones, slick with mud and refuse. People bustled past, their faces etched with the lines of hard labor and simple lives. Their clothes were practical, made of roughspun wool and worn leather, designed for function, not form. I analyzed the city's layout—or lack thereof. Buildings of timber and stone were crammed together, leaning against each other like tired old men. It was a system that had grown organically, a chaotic but functional ecosystem of survival and commerce.

"First things first," Rovy announced, her voice a beacon of purpose in the din. "We sell this junk, then we get you some food. You look like a ghost."

She led us to a squat, stone building with a crudely carved sign of a crossed sword and axe. The Adventurer's Guild. The air inside was even thicker than the street, a potent cocktail of sweat, cheap ale, and something metallic that I identified as old blood.

I watched as Rovy presented a sack of goblin ears to a bored-looking clerk behind a counter. A transaction. A simple, brutal economy. Life was a commodity, its value measured in copper coins. The clerk counted the ears, pushed a small pile of currency across the counter, and the cycle was complete.

My attention, however, was drawn to the mission board. It was a large, wooden slab covered in pinned notices. The script was foreign to me, but the crude drawings were a universal language: a goblin's head, a snarling wolf, a bandit's crossed knives. Beside each was a number. A price. A straightforward, transparent system of risk and reward. No hidden clauses, no complex algorithms. The simplicity of it was almost refreshing.

A low growl from my stomach interrupted my analysis. This body, with its inconvenient, biological demands.

Rovy heard it. A tired smile touched her lips. "Right. Food." She handed me a piece of dark, heavy bread she'd bought from a street vendor. "Eat. You're no good to anyone as a corpse."

I took the bread. The texture was coarse, the taste bland. It was sustenance, nothing more. I consumed it with the same detached efficiency with which I had consumed the data from the mission board.

As I ate, I felt their eyes on me. Rovy's were filled with a cheerful, persistent curiosity. Bane's were wary, watchful. They were trying to understand me, to solve the puzzle of the strange, silent boy who fought like a demon and spoke like a ghost.

They would fail. There was nothing left to solve. I was a book whose final page had already been written. All that was left was this strange, unwanted epilogue, playing out in a dirty town at the edge of a world I had no desire to be a part of. After securing another goblin eradication contract—a testament to the predictable, cyclical nature of their existence—Rovy’s earlier smile returned.

"Alright, 'consultant'," she said, her voice regaining its cheerful note. "We're heading out first thing tomorrow morning. Meet us at the East Gate. Don't be late." She paused, her eyes twinkling as she patted her stomach. "But first," she added, "a proper meal and a soft bed. My treat. You look like you could use both."