Surviving as a Broken Hero

Chapter 20 – Fire and Flames (3)

The girl’s face was filled with hope as she exclaimed in excitement and tugged on the chief, who grimaced slightly in response to her tugging.

“Ah… uh…”

The bookish man stumbled over his own tongue, fumbling with his words.

{{Quest: Save the village!]]

I had figured as much from the mysterious woman’s words from before, but there was still the question of what exactly I had to save them from.

“You’ll have to excuse me… but what exactly is it that you need my help with?”

The villagers continued to chatter, their conversations mixing in with each other into a cacophony of indiscernible noise as the girl continued to beam at me and the bookish man flipped through his tome, looking for something.

The chief raised his hand, and the commotion died down to silence again.

“Leave us… Whether he’s the savior or not, overwhelming him here will not help.”

The chief looked at the girl, a stern glower in his eyes.

“That applies to you as well, Mia.”

“But grand—!”

“Shush, go back to your post.”

The chief silenced her with his words and they exchanged glares for a few moments before the girl let out a “hmph” and gave in, striding away and going back to wherever her “post” was.

After the villagers dispersed, the chief, the bookish man, and I were left, standing just inside the doors in the village’s towering walls that had swung shut behind us.

“I apologize for their fervor… my granddaughter, in particular. We’ve been waiting for your arrival since before my own father was a child.”

One of the chief’s hands idly played with a bead necklace draped from his neck, his other hand supporting himself on his walking stick. It was a slender, smooth piece of wood that almost looked like it could have been used as a staff.

The chief gestured towards the bookish man, who was looking between me and a page he had found in the tome.

“This is Rodrig, the village’s Lorekeeper.”

The bookish man, Rodrig, bowed to me, having to reach one hand up to keep his round glasses from falling from his face. He wore flowing blue and purple robes that were embroidered with a golden trim around the sleeves and ends. The man’s hair was wild and unkempt, a dull red that seemed to absorb the surrounding light.

“At your service.”

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The chief turned from us and motioned for us to follow him, his steps shuffling along the ground as he used the walking stick for support.

“First, ask your questions. Rodrig and I will do our best to explain.”

We followed the chief at a slow pace towards a well-worn staircase leading up the side of the wall. I noticed while looking around the village that the ash could still be seen falling beyond the walls, but that the ash seemed to swirl around the outside of the walls and fall around them in a sort of dome that left the village free from the swirling gray.

The village itself was lush with grass and even had a few trees around the huts and swirling pathways.

As we climbed up the stone staircase to the wall’s apex, I could see out over the village.

Out over the initial gathering of huts, the winding paths continued over more collections of huts spaced around the inside of the walls at regular intervals. Farmland and fruit trees were interspaced in the larger fields between huts, and a large wooden structure stood at the village’s center.

Then we reached the apex of the staircase and followed the chief onto the walkway that stood atop the village’s walls.

Guards walked around the top of the wall, dressed in clothes that weren’t much different from the commoner’s clothes, with piecemeal armor made of what looked to be treated wood.

They held simple spears as weapons, with a few javelins for each guard as well.

The chief shuffled over to one of the parapets around the top of the wall and stopped, leaning against it and looking out into the ash and the small meteors that still swarmed and constantly fell outside of the seemingly invisible barrier around the village’s walls.

We stood there in silence for a few moments, Rodrig awkwardly glancing between me and the village chief as I thought about the situation at hand.

I decided to ask the most important question first, directly related to the quest that the system(s?) had given me.

“What is it that I’m supposed to save you from?”

“Rodrig…”

Rodrig started. It looked like he had still been reading something in his book. He flipped through it again, coming to a page and looking up at me.

“The storm has been going on since before we can remember, but it’s told that swarms of monsters lurk beyond the curtain, waiting for the day our protections fall.”

He turned his book so that I could see the page.

There was a picture that took up the entirety of one of the pages, enchanted in some way so that it showed a scene of monster silhouettes lurking around a circle of falling fire. Any who ventured too close were obliterated.

The chief spoke again.

“At first, we were thankful for the storm for the protection it provided us, taking comfort in our refuge.”

Rodrig turned the page of the book, showing a scene of the inside of the storm where the village was located. Monster silhouettes appeared slowly in the image, building up as the image progressed.

“But the monsters grew wiser over time.”

“We’ve had a few attacks on our walls, and our scouts see them skulking around from time to time near the border of the storm.”

Rodrig turned another page of the book.

“All of this was foretold in the Lorekeeper’s tome, bestowed upon us by a benevolent spirit long before I was born.”

It sounded like the monsters had found a way for the smaller species to somehow bypass the storm of meteors that surrounded the village.

“You can see how this is a problem… The storm protects us but also locks us in. The book says that we are the last bastion of civilization in this world and that the storm was summoned by our ancestors to protect us. If the monsters have found a way to bypass the storm…”

That would be the end of them. They would be trapped like fish in a barrel inside of the very thing meant to protect them.

“We have stories of great warriors from long ago, warriors that could wield the elements as naturally as they could breathe, great figures encased in armor of stone, those who could glide across ocean seas, beings blessed by the Gold and given dominion over nature…”

The pages in the book showed silhouettes wielding various elements, one of them in particular caught my eye…

It stood normally at first before widening its stance and becoming encased in gray, stone-like armor that sprouted from itself seemingly naturally.

…It reminded me of my own abilities.

I was also curious about the blessing that they said the people from the past had received, the mention of being “blessed by the Gold”.

“Those warriors vanished long ago, and the only sign of the Gold we are left with is the relic that protects this village.”

Rodrig turned the last page in the tome.

Orange light danced over the pages from the flickering illumination brought by the meteor storms around the village. The chief took a deep breath and exhaled, shutting his eyes as he continued to speak to me.

“The Book foretells the return of one of these warriors who will spell either our salvation or our destruction.”

There were a few things that piqued my interest. It was clear that the quest had been set up by the initial figure I had met after being transported there, but the mention of the Gold was particularly interesting, as it appeared to be either a link or a direct reference to the Second System I had awakened.

Rodrig closed the book and tucked it back under his arm, and we stood in silence for a few moments as I contemplated.

“Do you know where the monsters are coming from?”

The quest wanted me to save the village, and the most obvious threat was the constant and building danger that the monsters were learning a way to bypass the storm.

“The best we can figure is that they’ve figured out a way to avoid the meteors or a certain pathway that might be safe.”

“You mentioned there was an artifact that was causing the storm?”

The chief nodded.

“Yes… it has guarded our village for generations.”

“Could it be that the artifact is running out of power?”

“It’s the Lorekeeper’s job to ensure the artifact remains in pristine condition. By all appearances, it has remained unchanged.”

Rodrig spoke up again, gripping the Book tightly under his arm, idly rubbing its edges with his other hand.

“Previous Lorekeepers had ways to directly interact with the artifact… All I can really do is observe it. Would you like to take a look?”

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Rodrig led me through the village to the large structure at its center. The chief stayed behind on the wall, saying he had more business to attend to in the village and that he would catch up with us later.

The building that the relic was kept in was two or three stories tall, made mostly of stone instead of the wood that most of the other buildings I had seen were made from.

More guards stood in front of the building’s sturdy wooden doors, and the area around the building itself consisted of a bare, grass field.

When we reached the doors, the guards stood aside for us as Rodrig pushed on them, the reinforced doors hardly moved as he put all of his weight against them and the guards gave him sideways glances.

“Shit… I always have the hardest time with this thing… A little help?”

He looked over at me while pushing against the doors.

I wondered why the guards weren’t helping him but stepped forward and pushed on the doors.

It only took a little effort and they creaked open, my Strength coming into play and assisting.

‘How much Strength does he have?’

It couldn’t have been much.

Come to think of it…

‘Do they even have a System?’

When we entered the building, Rodrig had me help shut the doors again.

“Sorry… They’re forbidden from looking into the relic building for safety reasons. It makes it almost impossible for them to help in opening the door.”

That made sense.

The floor was bare, with support pillars standing around the room, which was solidly encased in stone. At the center of the room, in a pillar of faded golden light, stood the relic.