Limgrave
“So what do we do now?”
“Now the cycle continues anew, until someone dares to attempt to take our throne.”
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The sun shone down on Limgrave as it did on most days. The leaves on the thin birch trees shook and rustled with the soft breeze, catching the beams of light from the ever looming erdtree within them, causing them to glow a golden yellow hue.
Nickolas Mitko lived in Limgrave, in the lands between, a place which many would consider a dangerous and hellish landscape, but also a place that some considered their home.
He awoke with a start as a leaf drifted from one of the birch trees down onto his face. In the lands between any day could be your last and Nickolas wasn’t ready for that just yet, so he needed to remain on his guard at all times.
His hand fell to the short sword on his hip and grasped the hilt before releasing it, realising he was not in any danger. He sat up from his resting spot and looked around, scanning the area. He craned his neck and looked behind him, seeing the ruined church of Elleh, the seemingly eternal campfire from the friendly merchant ever glowing against its mossy brick walls.
Nickolas stood up and ran a hand through his hair.
“Rough night again?” Asked the merchant, running a gloved hand against his mules side.
“Yeah…do you ever sleep, Kale?” Nickolas asked, walking over to the merchant.
“If anyone is ever able to know when you’re sleeping, you aren’t doing it right my friend.” He said with a light chuckle, Nickolas crossing his arms and sitting down upon the top of Kale’s anvil.
“Anyway sleeping habits aside, got any plans today Nickolas?”
“Well, I was probably going to head out and try to hunt some food, then see if I can infiltrate that knight camp a little up north, just to see what’s going on.”
“Again? You do that every day and get chased out every time!”
“Yeah well this time I'll be more stealthy…you know?”
“You say that every day too. When are you gonna learn to just keep to yourself, that's how people survive out here Nickolas.”
Nickolas got to his feet and had a pissed off expression on his face.
“I don’t want to survive Kale, I want to live!”
Kale gave a cold laugh but remained silent, simply staring into the fire, his red hood with a white fluffy trim ever covering his face.
“Laugh all you want man, but I’m heading out.” Nickolas said before readjusting his sword at his side and heading north.
It didn’t take long for Nickolas to cut through the treeline to the camp, avoiding knight patrols along the way. He stood atop the hill and looked down upon it. The place was crawling with them. The knights patrolling had grime covered, dirt smeared armour, clearly never washed or polished with a tunic covering it, coloured in murky shades of yellow and red. Their helmets covered their entire faces usually but the smell of decaying flesh as he passed them proved to Nickolas that they were not like him, they had died long ago and yet were doomed to roam, cursed to fits of aggression and malice.
Nickolas kept his sword at his hip as he snuck past, he’d be faster without it drawn anyway. Last time he was here he had seen a small stairway leading down into some sort of cellar and he wanted to check it out.He began to make his way down the hill, making sure not to let any of the patrols spot him, if they did he’d have to run away once again.
Eventually he made it to the foot of the hill and made a dash towards the ruined building with the doorway on the side. As he rounded the corner to the doorway he was stopped by a hound. The hound was larger than any average dog, with matted greasy dull grey fur and black beady eyes that stared up at him, its sharp but rotting teeth bared as it gnarled at him. Nickolas knew he had to act quickly so he drew his sword and began to slice at the mutt, his blade digging into its flesh like a knife through butter. The canine attempted to lunge at him, before he raised the sword over his head and brought it down on its head, cracking its skull open wide. Once the dog had combusted into a golden cloud of dust, as things that were killed tended to do, he made his way into the doorway, glad he hadn’t drawn any more attention to himself.
Inside were crooked and steep stone stairs, covered in moss and cracks from overuse and old age which Nickolas wearily descended. Once at the bottom he pushed open a large reinforced wooden door with a creak, causing him to freeze for a moment, holding his breath to try and hear if any of the knights were approaching. Once he was confident they were not he looked into the dark damp room, letting his eyes adjust only to see an empty room with a chest sitting in the middle.
“I swear to god if this is another trap chest I’m just going to give up…” He muttered to himself before approaching it, kneeling down to toss open the lid of the chest.
Inside the chest was simply a small stone knife.
“A knife? What the fuck? Why bother using an entire chest just to store a knife…perhaps Kale would know more about this…now all I have to do is escape in one piece.”
