Prose entry - A Visit to Caleria
When asking Viki for a teleport to a distant city, one always took one’s chances on exactly where they would appear - in the city, outside the city, on a street, in a house, in a very random place. Geddoe already knew this, going into it, but he didn’t mean to hold his breath in apprehension. Fortunately, he blinked into existence just outside the tall gate of Caleria, on the margin of the trade road that wound up into the city. He had been away for more than six months, but the place never changed no matter how long circumstances kept him in the field. He was alone this time, and determined to accomplish his errand quickly, so he wasted no time getting his bearings and trudging up to the gate. He completely ignored the vendors lining the street hawking their wares and wove in and out of meandering citizens, most of them draped in the sand-colored robes traditional to Caleria, but a few in the garb of Le Buque and even Tinto and Zexen. The locals who knew him on sight shrank out of his way, figuring that the brusque mercenary with such a serious, intent stare on his face had business to attend to that they were better off not getting involved with. Geddoe bypassed the inn completely and strode purposefully toward the Defense Force headquarters past the inner wall of the city.
A scant handful of other SFDF members from other units were lounging around the inside courtyard, feigning interest in training, but a quick snap of his head left and right assured Geddoe that the ones he would least likely want to run into were nowhere to be seen. He had decided not to put this off any longer, no matter how much he desperately wanted to avoid smacking headlong into Duke and the 14th, and just up and went the minute he could get the Blinking Mirror from Viki and hold her attention long enough to ask to be sent to Caleria. At least it was a request he had made more than once before, so she knew exactly where to drop him. Better off that he arrived outside the city than in here, he figured, because he was already getting dirty looks from the lazy mercenaries around the courtyard. Popping out of thin air in front of them would have only made matters worse.
The dim interior halls of polished stone were dark and cool compared to the hot, dry, sunny world outside. Geddoe continued on at his brisk pace, heading straight for the personnel office where he needed to leave his papers. Ordinarily, Ace would have taken care of this, but with Ace off on his own wanderings and the rest of the unit gone or falling apart, the captain had to do it all himself. Fittingly, he mused to himself as he glared his way past some low-level scribes running to and fro and blustered into the office. He was all ready to drop off the envelope in a silent declaration of his intentions when the lieutenant who oversaw the mercenary units in the Defense Force - Geddoe’s immediate superior - came out of the back room. “Captain Geddoe,” he remarked, more surprised than displeased by the tone of his voice. “It’s about time you resurfaced. I’d been wondering where we lost you.”
“Not lost,” Geddoe said gruffly. “Out of commission. I can explain everything.”
The lieutenant looked down at the packet of papers Geddoe had taken from his pouch upon entering the office. “I see. Well, come in, then. I’ll take your report in person.”
Geddoe followed the shorter Harmonian man into the back room, though he remained standing as the lieutenant clad in a crisp blue field uniform shuffled behind the desk and took his seat. Only then did Geddoe toss the folded envelope on the desk for his superior to peruse. “The status report is only part of it,” he announced curtly. “There’s also a request for permission to recruit new members, and I’m putting in for an official leave of absence for six months.”
The officer raised an eyebrow at him as he unfolded the papers to find exactly that. “You’ve been away for months already, and you want more leave time?” he wondered suspiciously.
Geddoe’s good eye narrowed. “You received Ace’s reports on our whereabouts, it’s not as though the Defense Force didn’t know where we were wintering, if we were needed.”
“True, but I stopped receiving those right around January,” the lieutenant pressed. “If you have a full explanation, I’d like to hear it.”
The captain lowered his head and closed his eye, calming himself before responding. “That was about the time that I was seriously injured in a battle with a strong enemy. Ace’s last report to you was probably before that happened, while he was traveling away from my location. He didn’t know. I was wounded and knocked unconscious for a while, and required several months to recover.”
The lieutenant’s eyes widened in shock. “Wounded? How…?”
“A powerful swordsman with connections to the old Highland army was terrorizing a small community,” Geddoe reported, keeping his voice dry and unconcerned and all details sketchy. “I gathered some of my unit along with the locals in order to take him down, and we did, but I suffered for it. He cut me across here, with a rune-bladed sword.” He gestured with his thumb across the center of his chest, where his leather armor and dark clothing hid his scars. “I’ve only just recovered enough to travel in the past couple of weeks.” Okay, so that was an out-and-out lie, but Geddoe really didn’t care.
“I see.” The lieutenant turned to the papers in his hands, then. “So, permission to recruit…yes, I’ll handle that in a minute. But why the request for leave?”
Geddoe tried not to flinch with the emotion-tinged thoughts that welled up in his mind. He covered it with his stoic patience. “I need time to get my head back into the game. My body may be healed, but that isn’t enough. And, it will allow me time to recruit at my own pace, to get a top-quality team together.”
“Fair enough.” The officer took up a quill pen and sat forward at the desk. “Allow me to look over the paperwork and verify that it’s in order, before I give you my answer.”
The scrutiny of the applications did not take very long, but Geddoe hated having to stand there, watching, waiting, while his work was poured over and the lieutenant asked him a few more questions about why recruiting was necessary. That most of the unit had chosen to retire for personal reasons wasn’t hard to understand, but Geddoe left his concerns about Joker vague. He wasn’t going to replace the man without warning him first, and he held some tiny, fleeting hope that maybe Queen was right and he could be salvaged, at least as a member of the 12th if nothing else. The captain would have submitted the papers to have Sigurd join immediately, but he needed permission to fill vacancies first, and it wouldn’t help his plea to be given more time to recruit if recruiting was already underway. At last, the lieutenant broke the suspense and decided to approve both requests, though he strictly limited the leave of absence to six months from that very day, and added a stern lecture about captains of units not getting themselves injured so badly before dismissing Geddoe. The lecture rolled right off Geddoe’s back - he could easily ignore people when they spoke of things they didn’t understand in the least.
One or two mercenaries were slouching about the outer office when he came out, but he just stared them down until they fled out of his path, knowing better than to get mouthy with a captain of Geddoe’s considerable reputation. As he strode off down the corridor toward the outside, Geddoe began to feel extremely glad that he had asked for the Blinking Mirror, not so much for avoiding the long hike back across the countryside to Budehuc, but for the relief of not having to spend a night in Caleria. He was, at best, indifferent to the city, but he hadn’t been there half an hour and was already reminded of more than one reason why he sometimes hated it. It was hot and dirty, it smelled, and there were always plenty of mercenaries around wanting to call his bluff or test his patience. Without the rest of the unit to back him up and make this look like an official visit seeking a mission, he could have looked forward to a lot of annoyances if he’d had to stay. He considered getting something to thank Viki before he left.
The warehouse at the end of the training yard was being guarded, as always, by a keen Calerian man with the muscles to bounce out any intruders. He brightened up in welcome to see the dark-clad mercenary captain striding towards him. “Ah, Captain Geddoe!” he crowed. “It’s good to see you again! To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Geddoe stopped before him; of all the people in Caleria, he liked the warehouse steward better than most. “I need to make a withdrawal,” he explained simply. “Just one item, really. Though…” He paused to consider his plan. “I suppose I could have a look at what I’m keeping, see if I can get rid of any of it.”
“Certainly, Captain,” the steward agreed, turning and unlocking the heavy, iron-barred door with an equally heavy iron key on a ring. “Follow me, we can have a look into your storage. Hands off everyone else’s, though.”
“Yes, I know.” Geddoe followed him into a dark hall, as dark as the offices of the Defense Force, lined with rows upon rows of shelves bearing all kinds of random items, from tiny vials of medicine to huge treasures bought, plundered, or stolen from heaven knows where. The warehouse steward memorized exactly which lot belonged to which of his customers, and led Geddoe straight to his section of one shelf. There was really only one thing the captain had come for, and he spotted it right away, sitting in a corner of the clutter, but he took a moment to judge what else was on the shelf, whether he wanted to keep it and for how long.
It was a little pathetic just how much - or how little, really - Geddoe had in the way of possessions to call his own. Most of the ones he actually needed or wanted were back at Budehuc, where his whole hundred-plus years of life fit into one bag. The warehouse was keeping his excess, his cast-offs, and a little something more. There were some armor pieces from a monster hoard he was hanging on to in order to sell for the potch, extra vials of medicine, and some random trinkets. A fire amulet, even, which he remembered that he was going to give to Hugo to aid his rune-casting, the next time he saw the kid. Now that Hugo was at Budehuc as well, the gift could be passed, so he palmed it and tucked it in his pocket. He didn’t really need the medicine right now, but he considered that maybe Sigurd could take it to the infirmary, where it would be appreciated, so he collected the lot as well. Finally, he reached for the one thing he had actually come for: a rather uninteresting clay urn. He hefted it off the shelf, trying not to let on just how much it weighed, and peered down into its mouth. The seal he had placed to protect the contents was intact. Satisfied, Geddoe turned to the waiting steward and nodded. “That’s it, for now.”
Nodding back, the steward led him back to the door, not because he could get lost but because he needed to keep an eye on everyone in case they decided to filch something from someone else’s storage on the way through. Even if he knew Geddoe wasn’t that kind of man. Once outside, Geddoe bid the steward a placid farewell and strode away, cradling the clay urn in the crook of one arm. The urn itself wasn’t valuable in the least, he kept it for what he had hidden inside it, wrapped snugly in scraps of cloth to keep it from jingling and giving itself away. It was Geddoe’s true treasure, the full amount of potch he had been collecting for years. He only carried what he would need for travel expenses on him, and always brought back whatever extra he gleaned from cutting down monsters in the field. It didn’t need to stay here any longer, safe in the Caleria warehouse, not if he was going to make Budehuc his home base…his home. It would be just as safe there.
On his way through the marketplace, Geddoe remembered his earlier thought and stopped by some of the vendors, casually perusing for something that would likely appeal to Viki. He didn’t know her tastes, necessarily, but he figured she was a woman, and there were some things all women liked. It didn’t have to be anything extravagant, as it was merely a thank-you gift, nothing more. That gave him pause; if there was anyone he ought to have been buying a gift for, it was Sigurd. Ah, it looked like he wouldn’t be leaving Caleria quite so quickly after all. Geddoe hastily chose a sparkly brooch that looked like a cluster of stars for Viki and moved away to a different vendor before he could be talked into matching earrings. There were all kinds of things for sale here, foodstuffs and shiny things, weapons and gear, things from distant east, west, and south, for Caleria was a crossroads for trade and played host to merchants from far and wide. Geddoe wasn’t certain what he should even look for, to give to Sigurd, but he felt he would know it when he saw it. He didn’t know if Sigurd would appreciate something from Caleria itself, exotic and unusual, but then he crossed the path of a trade wagon from Tinto and stopped. They had a selection of gentlemen’s weapons and fine implements laid out on a cloth, catching the sunlight. Sigurd didn’t need any more knives, but Geddoe peered at them nonetheless, wondering to himself why they had attracted his attention. He couldn’t fathom it, until he came to one on the end, a silver dagger with pearls inlaid in the handle. Pearls came from the ocean. His head came up, and he peered curiously at the merchant standing alongside his wagon. “By chance, do you have anything from south of Tinto?” he asked urgently. “Say…across the ocean, maybe?”
The merchant looked extremely interested in his query. “As a matter of fact, I do, sir,” he replied. “I trade a lot with the sailors that come into harbor in Tinto, I’ve acquired some very unusual items from Kanakan, Toran, and even the far-off islands.”
Geddoe started. “The Island Nations? Like what?”
“Well…” The merchant fumbled around, opened up a trunk in the back of the wagon, and pulled out a small box. “There is this one thing, I haven’t figured out what it’s good for yet. The box is very elegant, though, maybe you can dump it out and use it for storage of something else. I acquired it gambling with a sailor, he tried to teach me his game but I couldn’t get the hang of it.”
He presented a varnished wooden box with a ceramic top, which bore a rather striking ink painting of a tall ship sailing on the waves, its sails and banners snapping in the breeze. It looked just like the ship docked in the lake behind Budehuc, Bernadette’s ship, only…archaic, somehow. Geddoe took the box into his gloved palm and studied the image for a moment, feeling drawn to it. Perhaps this was just what the ships Sigurd sailed used to look like, on the open ocean. His thumb nudged the ceramic plate, sliding it just a bit, so he opened it the rest of the way to find a jumbled set of ceramic tiles inside. “What is this?”
“They’re supposed to be pieces to a game they play in the islands,” the Tinto merchant sighed. “Like I say, I didn’t understand the rules, but I won the game-set fair and square, so…” He shrugged. “I haven’t had the heart to dump out the tiles and sell the box as an ornament. They’re obviously hand-crafted, but I don’t know what else to do with them.”
“I’ll take it,” Geddoe said instantly. This merchant may not have known what they were good for, but Sigurd probably would - and if not him, someone from the Islands should. He could have sworn he remembered someone saying something about a game they used to play, but at the moment, exactly who had said it when escaped him. He’d figure that part out later. Geddoe slipped a handful of potch from his pocket and hefted it, ready to make a deal. “I’ll pay a fair price for the box, if you’ll give me the tiles for free.”
The merchant’s eyes popped. “I-I suppose that’s only fair…I don’t know what you’re going to do with them but if you want them so much…”
They haggled briefly over what constituted a “fair” price for the ornamental box with the sailing vessel on the top, and Geddoe stepped away satisfied. The Tinto trader was also rather satisfied, as he finally had a useless trinket off his hands for a very good price, though he couldn’t guess at what his customer would want the tiles for. Geddoe set the box inside the urn, resting atop the unbroken seal, and prepared to leave Caleria at once. That was all his errands accomplished, and then some, and he couldn’t wait to get back home to present Sigurd with his unique acquisition. Home. That’s right…Budehuc is…home. Home where Sigurd is waiting.
Geddoe cast one look over his shoulder at Caleria as he passed beneath the gate. If all went well, he wouldn’t have to set foot here for quite some time. Paperwork could be sent by messenger bird from now on. He walked up the path toward the mountain pass until he was out of sight, and then drew the Blinking Mirror from its hiding place in his pocket. Within moments he would be back in front of Viki’s mirror in the main hall, far, far away from Caleria, Harmonia, and the Defense Force. Back where he felt he belonged.