Lord of the Manor, Ruler of all - Knight unlock

The shadows lay thick and heavy across the Grimshaw estate. The sun was high in the sky, beaming its warmth and gentle rays down through the sparse cloud cover, but the dark horizon still loomed like a dark smudge across the canvus of morning. Sometime later in the day, this spelled out a storm for the residents of Timberframe. But the true storm was already upon them. 

 

Residents of all kinds scurried between its picturesque streets and porches, the hubub different from the usual Thursday market that should have been happening that afternoon. No, the streets were barren of carts and stalls, to wares held under tarps, their corners flapping cheerily in the morning breeze as the scents of the food and freshly polished leather they covered floated along with it. No snatched conversations with the local florist about what plants best suited the current season, or how the farmer's cattle were doing this week as those less loving of hard labor purchased his dairy and meats. No friendly rivalry arguments between the patisserie and the baker, over which flour belonged to them from the local miller. 

 

There wasn't even the soft chirps of birds, or the tap of claws on wood from pets or wild animals that enjoyed the hustle and bustle, because it meant unknowingly dropped scraps - instead only the hurried footfalls of town goers grabbing anything they could spare before the Shepherd and its minons came to round them all up towards the manor on the hill. 

 

No animals at all seemed to linger. Like it too knew what day it was. 

 

Tithing day. The day the entire populace is to offer money, or something of equal value to the coffers of the Duke - a self imposed holiday from the equally self imposed patron of their daily lives. He allowed them enough to freely trade and live manageable lives - but not nearly enough to be able to leave with any ease, should they, for SOME reason, wanted to. No, leaving wasn't technically prohibited. Just... nigh impossible. Just like speaking bad of Magnus while in the town limits was, also, impossible. With the Iron Shepherd wandering around, its glitching lights and camera like gaze focusing on one townsfolk tot he next, recording every little scrap of dialog... with the green little horror sliding from shadow to shadow, stealing goods where he saw fit, a little pampered dragon abusing his power... all extensions of the T'terre himself; And people who upset Magnus were often not seen again once they were marched up that hill to the Manor.  

 

Duke Magnus Orthello Grimshaw II owned their town, banners of hsi family crest fluttering in royal purples and golden filigree against the most noticeable walls and the most important buildings. Anybody who lived here were forbidden from tearing them down or putting things infront of them.

 

To the Traveller, it unnerved him. Walking through ghost streets that practically buzzed like an unsprang spring, like any moment something might descend from the sky and obliterate him where he stood. Something might jump from a shadowy corner and eat him alive. That the pavement below his feet might come to live, stone slabs and cobblestone road grinding together like a large, mighty set of blunt teeth and catch his fragile body between its jaws and never let go. 

 

'Fragile body'. Since when had he ever thought of his body being fragile before? He wasn't particularly strong, or particularly weak. The perfect shape to slide unnoticed into different places he probably shouldn't be - after all, he WAS an alliance member. If he couldn't sneak into Milita operations without being seen, he'd be a shoddy excuse of a liberator and informant, after all. His little branch of the Alliance had been focused on gaining information on the township for a while now. Knowing how trapped their people truly were, under all the paper work and happy photos that were released to the public. From his pocket, the spy pulled a particularly suspicious looking brochure he'd found in the nearest city board, and paused his walking to directly compare the photo on it to the sad scene before him.

 

The paper showed a cheerfully rustic town square. Market stalls with brightly striped awning lined each spare wall space, crowds gathered, a happy looking puppy ran past the glorious fountain in the centre of the square - also the central focus of the front of the glossily printed brochure, mind you - mouth open and tongue lolling in joy. "Timberframe welcomes you!" proclaimed the looping calligraphy typeface at the top of the cover. Magnus, his regal feathers combed to perfection, smiled a warm, friendly smile up from the inner cover of the brochure. 'Town Mayor and local Lord'. Everything about it was designed to attract new, good folk and families to the town. Then they weren't ever allowed to leave again, through contractual loopholes, contracts and forced breadline living. Who could afford to leave, when they could barely afford a wagon, let alone a horse to pull it. There were rumours about them being hunted after leaving, too.. but they had no evidence of that, so for his own sanity, he chose to not believe those parts of it.  

 

The direct comparison of this blatant lies in print and paper was stark. The Traveller shifted his focus from the page to his left, to the dreary, empty square beyond. He wasn't sure why the market was so empty today. His sources were never usually wrong on the different goings on in the places they had been before - it made his stomach a little queasy at the thought that they might have missed something. It wasn't just him here, after all. He had two other colleagues here in the town. They'd all scattered and spread out to make sure they wouldn't miss anybody. Usually how this went, they as a group would pick maybe one or two people.. or, families, if they could manage it. Smuggle them out while the market was at its busiest, and the singular dragon that patrolled the streets would find it harder to spot one or two missing out the crowds. After all, surely SOME of them would escape occasionally? No way they'd notice such a small trickle of townsfolk missing...

 

His ear twitched and his head turned to the side. What was that? Shuffling in the doorway of a nearby store? The scuff of boots in the mouth of a forgotten alleyway? He looked from side to side, only to leap slightly back as suddenly a body was thrown from the doorway of a nearby townhouse. The figure landed hard on the cobblestone road, a crunch echoing down the empty street, followed simultaneously by the ripping of a large sack and the clinking of countless coins as they hit the ground. They spilled out every which way, their metallic surface winking in the sunlight. Two burly looking townsfolk followed the figure, who was just about scrambling to their feet, abandoning the coins where they lay in favor of clutching their broken arm and staring in fear at the approaching, very angry men. The Traveller stepped in, despite his better judgement. 

 

"Hey," he called, stepping between the larger men and the injured one, "Thats enough. Surely a few coins aren't worth it"

 

The two burly men stared the Traveller down, their eyes gleaming with something deep buried, under their frenzied anger. Maybe fear...? Why would they be afraid? 

 

"You're not from 'round here, are you?" one of them murmured from between his gritted teeth. "We need our tithe - and that little rat just tried to steal it for himself."

 

"Tithe?" the Traveller echoed, frowning. "Who pays tithes these days?"

 

The man who had spoken to him scoffed, before crouching to start collecting the coins. His fellow stooped to join him, the 'thief' forgotten in favour of the cash it seemed. How scary was this Magnus...?

 

The Traveller turned to the injured townie and was about to speak to him, before the sorry creature flinched and started to run again. 

 

"Wait!" The Traveller called, abandoning the mess in favour of chasing the guy down. A beastia, it turns out - he could just about see paws instead of hands, and the shape of ears under the deep hood of their cloak. He managed to finally catch up to him in a different alleyway some distance away, reaching out and grabbing the back of their cloak. The yank caused the other man to stumble backwards, almost falling again. A hiss of pain. The Traveller grunted, and tried to get in front of them. 

 

"Wait- Listen to me! Listen. I'm from the Naki Alliance- calm down!" he hissed. "We're here to help you out of here, but we can't do that unless you CALM DOWN!"

 

"Alliance?!" the man shrieked, that news only seeming to startle him even worse. His pupils shrank to tiny slits, his ears flicked back flat to his skull. The Traveller tried to shush him, not used to the visceral emotion in someone he was trying to save. "You're part of the Alliance?! Oh gods, get away from me!" 

 

Shoving him away, the run away made a mad, mad sprint out of the other end of the alleyway. This time however, The Traveller didn't follow. Which turned out to be a very, very lucky move. Because the running and yelling had attracted a predator. 

 

As if in slow motion, the panicking townie darted out the other end of the alley. The Traveller had time to watch his hood fall, exposing the scattered spots of a leopard's pelt, shining golden and brown as they caught the light - before he was cut down mid stride. An enormous, hulking figure moved in a blur of blue lightning, arcing its path directly into the fleeing figure. Wicked metal and glowing coils, glittering streaks of red on black as coal iron. A robotic shriek. Then the fleeing figure was... two figures? It took a moment for his brain to comprehend what he was seeing, among the release of steam the creatures pistons expelled into the surrounding area. 

 

The leopard was severed in two at the waist. Arms twitching, as latent brain signals tried to still flee. The Traveller turned their head away from the gore, shock flooding his system. Had that truly just happened? What in gods name was this town? What in gods name was that thing, allowed to roam the streets- 

 

The mechanical dragon turned its large head his direction, tilting its head just so. Focusing and unfocusing camera like eyes with a soft buzzing sliding kind of sound. The Travellor froze, watching as it flexed its coils in his direction. Flashing a dangerous morse code. It felt like a threat. Felt like it was taking his picture or recording him somehow. Its presence was suffocating. Terrifying. When he didn't move, its jaws slowly parted, emitting a high pitched, alarm like noise to call attention to his presence - or to just make him run the other way. It worked. Hands clutched painfully over his ears, he turned tail and ran, slamming his shoulder into the wall as he went. The dragon gave him something of a headstart, before it too followed, leaving the body of the 'deserter' behind, sprayed blood on its cooling iron scales spraying up the stone as it ran. Running was always a bad idea, when you were spotted by Shepherd. Information that the Travellor's 'inside sources' saw fit to omit. 

 

He didn't get very far, as it turned out. Around the next few corners, he burst from the maze like alleyways surrounding the centre of town. He saw people, lumbering along with their valuables clutched to their chests; Including the men from earlier, coins now placed in one of their shirts as a makeshift sack. He moved to try and join them, letting go of his ears as his breath came in harsh pants. He froze where he stood though, as he saw what was driving that crowd forward like cattle. Another monster. Another dragon. Coming face to face with the poor amalgamation of a unicorn that was guiding the group of stragglers back towards the manor house road, he watched from the dangerous end of her long, wickedly sharp horn as she false charged and tossed her head. Making them stay at a certain pace, if you wanted to avoid getting skewered. She looked like a walking corpse. Too thin to be alive, her upper portion skinned- no. Transparent skin, his panicked brain managed to correct. A tiny, pointless detail. A thing to control, in this chaos. 

 

The new dragon turned her skeletal head towards him, stomping her emaciated hoof against the ground like an excited horse. He missed one close call with that horn before he tried to desperately squeeze himself into the crowd. The iron giant behind him skidded from the nearest alleyway, and he was sure, he was so, so sure it was going to snatch him and carry him off. But it stopped, and stared instead.

 

In utter bewilderment, he saw it slowly walk towards the corpse unicorn, and join the herding behaviour. It was then he noticed the figure held with a greedy, possessive humanoid set of arms to the unicorn's chest. Fingers pressing into soft flesh as they struggled and kicked for all they were worth. 

 

He recognised that person. That face. He recognised that face! One of his cohorts- No no no no, they'd been found out- They had to have been found out! No- No, calm down, he reminded himself. How? How could they know? They'd been so careful. They'd been so, so, so careful. This was coincidence. They were new faces, so, maybe they had to report to Magnus? The Travellor forced himself to calm his heartrate down, his training for times like this running through his mind. Trying to ignore the yells of pain from their friend behind him, as he fell in line and tried to keep to the crowd's flow. They could get out of this. They could... surely...

 

It felt like the first two dragons had lost interest in him - for now. Both large dragons stood at the edge of the procession, herding them forwards, but he couldn't help but feel like their eyes were boring into his back in particular. His mind raced - what the fuck was he supposed to do?? Stay calm. Stay absolutely calm. 

 

 

The procession continued all the way up to the grandiose manor estate. Just inside the gate was a wide table, with a set of vaguely familiar looking T'terre - Magnus' family? - and what looked like several servants accepting tithes and processing families. Once offerings were given, they were free to leave. No uniformed staff member or dragon that stood as silent sentinels stopped them. 

 

However, once the small group he was part of passed through those gates... they began to close. Startling the others around The Traveller. The Iron Shepherd who had chased him initially stood guard, as if daring anybody to try and get past them for the moment. The unicorn began a silent trek up to the front of the line with his struggling cohort. That left him, and one other... no. No, no it couldn't...

 

As he got closer to the front of the line, he saw the remaining Alliance member held in the painfully tight embrace of an ugly, tentacled creature with mottled black wing casings. He felt sweat run down his neck, as it was finally time for him to meet Magnus face to face. The Lord sat front and centre at the table, his eyes already trained on the Traveller. It... it was almost like he knew he was...

 

He felt a cold breath against his neck as a little green two headed dragon materialized on his shoulder. He'd not even realized it was there. The second thing he noticed, besides the Lord's wide beaked smirk, was... one of their 'informants' were sitting at that table. Suddenly... everything became very, very clear. So clear, that... he knew he was never going to see his family again. 

 

Magnus, lord mayor of this this tiny kingdom, both the saviour and the landlord of this tiny, enslaved corner of the world, tilted his head up and hummed. 

 

"Mmmm... well, well, well... what do we have here. I daresay you're threatening the peace here in my quaint little town. I don't normally deal with Alliance members, since you usually keep out the Milita's way, but... you'll do. I have your plaques already picked out on my wall, after all~"