Chapter CXXX – For, behold, I create a new plan and a new hope.

80th of Winter 5859
Libertycave, State of Casamonu

Time had passed quite quickly in Libertycave, as if a chronomancers had done their work and skipped weeks in an instant. Sitting comfortably on her second-floor room, complete with her lovely window, Ayomide realized why time had passed by so quickly: the sky had been completely covered with clouds for the last few weeks. She had forgotten the passage of time was a thing when the day was about as dark as the night. All the days of training, training, and more training had made them blend all together, until… “Oh, the snow stopped.”

“Huh?” Shinasi, who had been sitting right next to her, turned his gaze from his companion to the window “So it has.”

“What day are we on?” asked Ayomide. This was perhaps the first time in her life that she had to care about what day she was on. All days had been workdays for her, back in the maid café and now with the League, except for “Sunday” (every 7 days) when Brown was lenient.

Shinasi, being a former adventurer and current holder of bar tabs that he had escaped from paying thanks to the fall of Casamonu, knew time a bit more well “Uh… Tenthday, I believe. We should be on the eightieth of this season.”

“Eightieth of Winter… Ain’t it ten days until the new year then? You know, the day where all the patrons came to the café and bought a lot of stuff. I guess that’s why they came over at that date.” Thinking about it, this would be Ayomide’s first new year as a free woman.

“Yeah, because people celebrate the coming of spring. It’s when you get to breathe a sigh of relief and get to work sowing. I’d go back to my folk in Yellowclover to celebrate and then help them with work if I could.” He felt himself shiver when remembering the warmer weather down below. Here, in Mount Curry, it was always a bit chilly. “Hopefully we’ll get down the mountain in time for sowing season.”

“It won’t be long with the snow stopping already, thankfully. The mountain ranges start to get boring once you see them every day.” Saying that however, Ayomide had bigger concerns than the scenery outside of her window. “I’m sure the old man is already starting to make preparations to leave Libertycave.”

“It’s like he has a nail stuck in his chair with how restless the captain is. Still, the nail in his bum has saved us. I can’t complain too much.” Shinasi, who acted like he had glue stuck between him and chairs, stretched and yawned for a bit before getting up. “Milady Orange, shall we set forth?” he said while extending a hand forward towards Ayomide.

“…saying ‘milady’ does not suit you with that unkempt face of yours.” With a smile, Ayomide took his hand and got up. “O’ brave knight, let us go on our business to defeat the evil dragon who dwell down in the plains.”

“Yeah, that tone suits you way more than mine does. I wonder if you’re the lost daughter of some noble of Ginye? A princess? Princess Orange?” Shinasi patted some dust off of the blue gambeson of the so-called princess.

“Oh, a peasant who can distinguish my nobility? Oh, how queer you are, darling knight. Perhaps you’ll carry me to our destination too then?” Ayomide looked ready, and was the perfect size, to be princess carried.

Shinasi, however, remembered how heavy Ayomide felt when she leaned on him. She was short, and she was almost as equally stout. “No thanks, milady. I’ll let the ground have the honor of trembling under your boots.”

Ayomide rolled her eyes “Oh, how overwhelmingly smooth and kind you are. Ahem. Let’s go. The old man won’t wait for long.” She let her hand be held by Shinasi and led down stairs like a lady making her debut. Those stairs, she went down each one of them with care. Perhaps that was on odd thing to do, but after having been enslaved for your entire life, one tended to value the entire house that you owned as a free woman, even something as ordinarily insignificant as the stairs.

Outside, time had again treated Libertycave kindly. Snow on the streets had melted quickly, not that much had been left with all the pedestrians crushing the poor thing under their feet, and a few bits of grass had already popped out to cover the sides of the street. The crowd of people, rushing to-and-fro to get their work done in the morning, was hard to pass through as a couple. Libertycave felt like a real city, maybe even one to compete with Casamonu. There were stalls set up on the streets, showing the fruits of the burgeoning Libertycave’s industry: clay pots, slime soap, copper pots, slime jelly, rusty iron pots, dried slime membranes… Maybe it wasn’t the strongest or most versatile industry yet, but it was there at least, trying to keep itself up under quarantine.

Shinasi could see smoke billowing from far away. It was the many chimneys of the copperworks, or the steelworks, or whatever it was that day. He hadn’t seen those chimneys stop billowing ever since the dwarves had settled down. Even at night, when he’d wake up to have a bit of fresh air and a drink, he’d still see the smoke block out the moon. He couldn’t complain much about it considering he had gotten a brand spiffing new steel spear gifted to him thanks to that hard work.

After a few minutes, the couple were standing in front of the namesake cave of Libertycave. Not that it was visible anymore – the cave’s entrance now had stairs and a porch leading up to it, with a simple wooden door covering the entrance. From the sides of the door hung two flags. First was the personal standard the Commander-in-Chief, the 33 stars and 13 stripes that looked a off-color due to the lack of quality dye up in the mountain. The other was the newly-adopted flag of the Republic, a tricolor of blue-white-green that had a seal depicting a black falcon breaking the chains of slavery and feudalism.

Shinasi nodded at the flag of the Republic, while Ayomide gave it a casual wave. For them, the vexillological business was noble business: a banner to represent a lord, a rag to represent the Imperial house, so on and so forth. Never had they seen a flag used to represent a group of otherwise nameless commoners. Shinasi had seen a few copies of the flag, simpler ones with only the tricolor, being flown from the houses he had passed in Libertycave. They approached the door, which had a sign that had “Office of the Commander-in-Chief” inscribed on it.

Opening it, the old man was already at his desk. The cave, the one that had started it all, was now the home of John Brown. He had a bed on one corner, and a desk on the other. A map, taken from the copper mine of the late Sir Satō-Wang, stood firmly nailed to the wall with countless sketches and ramblings noted on it. Brown was to be found… crawling on the ground, writing plans on to the cave’s floor with chalk. “Oh, welcome.” He finished writing a sentence before he got back on his two feet. His clothes had become as white as his hair with chalk. “Good weather today isn’t it, young lady.”

“Yes, I’m not surprised you’ve already noticed it, old man.” Ayomide cast a bit of wind magic to dedust Brown’s clothes. It proved a mistake as the chalk dust flew around everywhere, and for a few minutes only coughing could be heard in the cave. “Cough, sorry.”

“Ahem, cough, ahem! I appreciate the attempt, young lady, but do be more careful.” Now everyone had become as white as Brown. “It’s a closed cave, you’re going to suffocate us under chalk… anyways.” He pointed at all the writing on the ground. “We won’t be loitering in the mountain for much longer. In ten days, we’ll be out.”

“Ten days?” Ayomide looked skeptically at the ground. The writing was hard to read. “Maybe it’d be better for us to wait for them to attack us first.”

Brown shook his head “If they were such fools to do that, they would have attacked us much earlier. If they’re clever enough to know that we can’t stay for up long there, then they’re clever enough to expect our counterattack. A desperate attack on Casamonu, to retake the city and claim supplies for our survival. They have countless troops down there, patrolling the mountain, ready for our return.” Thanks to Tubman, he had a pretty good idea of who was where. “We can defeat them, if Providence is to assist us, if we prepare to sacrifice most of our forces, agree to a long siege, and loot the countryside dry for what food is left.”

“It’s a tough fight then… and a painful one.” Ayomide sighed. She was afraid, in all honesty, but she wasn’t a stranger to hard times. “So, we’re all setting out to Casamonu then?”

“Hm?” Brown had a grin, an unusually devilish one for such a pious man, appear on his old face “I was only talking about what the enemy expects us to do. We’re not going to Casamonu.”