AN:
Enjoy the chapter!
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Early in the morning John and Kalé exited the encampment ruins and approached the Stormgate itself.
It was a towering stone gatehouse, like what would be found in a castle's wall, but situated in the crack of the sheer over-two-hundred foot tall cliffs. This turned the sheer cliffs of Stormhill's plateau into a defensive wall.
The two towers at either end of the gatehouse were fantastically tall, extending above the cliffs themselves. At various points in the towers' rise archway bridges with balconies hung between them allowing layers of men the ability to shoot down on attackers.
The gate on the gatehouse was wide and tall enough for at least two giant carriages pulled by trolls to pass through at once. This made the gatehouse almost seem like it was made by giants, and considering that Godrick and the Golden Order had an army of trolls at his beck and call it may have well been. The gatehouse had no entrance to the towers or upper levels located on the bottom part of the structure that John could see. It would seem if an enemy wanted to access the towers they would have to enter from atop the cliffs above.
The sheer scale of the giant fortification looked more impressive than almost any similar structure John had seen before, matching the most massive and impressive keeps he had seen in Europe.
It must have been much easier to build stuff at this scale when you had literal giants to use as labor. And to think this was just a significant gatehouse. John could scarcely imagine what Leyndell would look like.
Just seeing it was enough to make John look forward to seeing Stormveil even if he dreaded the idea of entering the place.
After a small cursory inspection by the men at the gatehouse entrance, they passed through the gatehouse, and on the other side was the pass: a long incline up to an elevated shelf of land above that made the cliffs. Just as the cliffs were higher in real life than the game, so too was the pass longer.
There were many temporary fortifications such as large wooden barriers and the wooden spiked anti-cavalry barricades called a chevaux-de-frise, or a horse from Frise, present, but they were all sat unused at the edges of the pass, ready to be moved into place when needed. The groups of men guarding the pass, most of whom looked either tired from the night or dreary from just waking up, stood in groups either shooting the shit with each other or working at some task. John spotted some men who would habitually glance at Kalé, sneer, and then go back to what they were doing, but he and his friend made their way up the pass without any trouble.
At the top wasn't the familiar scenery that John knew by heart from the game.
Rather than the stone road leading immediately into a gentle turn up to the shack that the Chosen Tarnished finds Roderika in, instead the road continued straight on into the distance uphill and disappeared into winding hills that John didn't recognize.
Splitting off from the stone road a few dirt paths branching off into different directions. To the left in the distance at the very edge of his vision, John could just make out what may have been some of those stone caterpillars that were found around evergaols, but the evergaol holding the Crucible Knight was not within sight.
Kalé didn't stop and kept walking up the stone road that would take them to Stormveil Castle, and John followed.
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As the sun rose high into the sky, they decided it was about time to rest for a short time and make lunch. They made a quick camp in a dry dirt patch right off the stone path.
John helped Kalé find kindling and start the campfire, and then sat back as Kalé, the better cook between the two of them, started making preparations to make a stew.
As Kalé started taking out the cooking pot and readying his packs to be able to easily get what he would need to make their meal, John decided it was time to talk to Kalé about what had happened at Gatefront Ruins yesterday.
John wanted to make sure no one was around to overhear their coming conversation. He looked around, and John didn't see anyone within sight, only the green rolling hills dotted with small copses of trees and pockmarked with ruined bits of Farum Azula that had fallen across the earth.
John mentally centered himself and made sure to keep outright hostility out of his tone as he started speaking.
"Hey Kalé. I wanted to know what the hell you were thinking, having me let in on this secret stuff you have going on with those guys yesterday? I don't care that you are some sort of spy for Godrick, but I don't want to be involved with this sort of crap. It's not something I need to know.
"I want to stay as far away from Godrick as I can, and now I'm involved in whatever you have going on!" John said as he let out some of the irritation from the previous day show.
Kalé didn't stop making cooking preparations as he responded, but he did glance up to look John in the eyes as he began speaking. He didn't stop lighting the campfire and stayed calm, unperturbed by John's displeasure.
"Do you think I did that on a whim John? No, it was very deliberate. There are certain things that cannot nor should not be hidden when you are traveling with someone. This is one matter that I both cannot and should not hide from a friend who will be traveling with me for the foreseeable future."
Kalé stopped his cooking preparations. He reached down into his shirt and pulled out a piece of folded parchment adorned with a wax seal. It was the letter that Duran had given Kalé to deliver.
"Come sit next to me and see."
Giving Kalé the chance to explain himself, John moved and sat next to Kalé.
Kalé presented the folded cream color parchment to John. He flipped it over and back a few times, showing off both sides of the parchment, opaque and unmarked. Kalé leaned forward, John following him, and carefully held the letter as near to the fire as he could without setting it aflame, blocking part of the fire's light using the letter. The parchment was thick enough that no glow from the fire made it through the parchment except at the very edges.
John was wondering what Kalé was doing but could see the man wasn't done yet.
Kalé then turned around and ruffled around in his packs. He took out an old-style telescope that was about the size of his arm from fist to elbow.
Kalé flipped the telescope upside down and held it with his knees with the large end pointing towards the ground and the small end pointing up. He used one hand to hold the letter on top of the small end of the telescope. He wrapped his other hand around the large end of the telescope, and after a few seconds John saw a bright yellow glow start to peek through his fingers.
A bright yellow light emerged from the small end of the telescope, bright enough that its glow pierced through the parchment, and it was only then John understood what Kalé was doing!
John could just make out inky black characters of writing on the parchment! The characters on the folded writing material overlapped each other in fragmented sections, but were still legible.
Kalé then used a twig to write the fragments of writing in the dirt, and after a minute of puzzling out the correct order, the contents of the letter were revealed.
"Lord Godrick, Son of the Golden Lineage,
I have news about the important matter of Kenneth Haight that you instructed me to investigate. I have learned that it is worse than Your Lordship feared. The man is not just a particularly dissatisfied subject. He is a traitor who is conspiring to oppose you and to usurp your vassals from you.
I obtained information from a man in the Haight household that the man regularly disparages Your Lordship's lineage to the lesser lords who he is the liege lord of and sees you as an illegitimate ruler. He talks to family about seeking to establish a coup as well.
I have also obtained a copy of a letter Lord Haight sent to Castle Morne that proposed the prospect of marriage with Edgar's only child, Irina. I suspect this is the beginning of a ploy for him to gain influence over the Weeping Peninsula similar to that he has over eastern Limgrave, and to further his goal of unseating you as the true ruler of Limgrave. I do not know more of his plans for how he may be planning to achieve this.
I will be sending copies of messages my informants sent me on the Stormgate's next supply shipment.
You know of my connections with the savages. My recommendation would be to utilize those and nip both growing problems in the bud.
I fear I must write of another troubling matter as well. Over the past few years I have noticed Sir Oric has occasionally been behaving strangely ever since the death of his wife. Recently I became suspicious of this strangeness and decided to have someone look into the man. It was as I thought. A particular blood-red brooch was found hidden in one of the man's personal chests.
That a number of your men from Leyndell feel deep loyalty to sir Oric for his impressive martial talent makes this a sensitive matter as well.
I seek guidance from what you wish for me to do Lord Godrick. I await your orders.
Your loyal subject,
Duran, Quartermaster of the Stormgate"
Once Kalé saw John finish reading the message in the dirt, he swept his stick back and forth and destroyed all evidence of the message before turning back towards John.
"You accused me of being a spy for Godrick? I have no loyalty to the man. I am just a messenger who carries letters back and forth for Duran, and never has a seal on a message given to me been broken. He employs me for that reliability of unbroken seals and occasionally I can call on a favor from him. He pays very, very well when messages are urgent.
"You may hold no ill-will towards us Nomadic Merchants, but the people of the Lands Between are not like you. There is a reason why most of us you will meet are by themselves. The people of the Lands Between do not like us, especially when we gather in any notable numbers. I have seen pogroms because of it.
"It behooves one like me to know which way the wind is blowing. To know when a problem is brewing in an area so I know to stay far away until it is over. Acting as a discrete messenger with no one the wiser of my knowledge of those messages, it allows me to know things I never could as a simple estranged wandering merchant."
John no longer felt annoyed at Kalé, but now he was confused.
"Why are you showing me all this Kalé? You shouldn't be telling anyone this! What if they told someone!?"
Kalé smiled at John.
"You do not understand John. You are my friend. I am not using this word lightly as most do. I believe that over my long life I have learned how to see a man's true character, and we have known each other for years now. I know that you will not betray me."
Hearing Kalé say that, John felt deeply honored that Kalé thought that of him. At the same time it felt a weight of responsibility was placed on John's shoulders. But rather than bowing him under its weight, paradoxically, that weight made John's back stronger, made him stand straighter and taller.
He would not disappoint Kalé. Not a word of this would ever leave his lips.
John had his own secrets, but he didn't feel obligated to tell Kalé them even after this confession from his friend. John knew Kalé still had plenty of secrets of his own that he hadn't mentioned to John, like that flame Kalé had manifested in his hand that John knew the true horrid nature of. That was far more dangerous to John than the secret messenger stuff Kalé was telling him of now.
Kalé had only shown John this secret of his because Kalé couldn't realistically hide this from John, and it could put them both in danger if John unknowing blabbed something that might blow Kalé's cover with this.
None of the secrets that John knew of would be all that relevant to Kalé's safety. In fact a random nomadic merchant knowing them would only endanger Kalé, so John felt no need to share them.
"I still don't want to be involved in any of this business you have going on between you and Godrick's men, Kalé. I can see why you told me about the letter and stuff, but I don't want to get involved anymore than I absolutely have to. I don't think it is worth the runes either."
Kalé tilted his head towards John in acceptance.
With that issue resolved, Kalé and John cooked and enjoyed their lunch despite the lesser quality of trail meals. After that they cleaned up and continued on their way across Stormhill.
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The next couple of days passed without incident as they made their journey along the stone road towards Stormveil.
Eventually they approached a particular turn in the road. It was just an ordinary turn swerving in and around the rolling hills on their way up the hills, like many others they had spent the last few days walking through.
But in John's mind the turn stood out starkly to him. To him, it was one of the most distinctive spots despite its mundanity. One that he had seen dozens of times in the game.
It was slightly different than how he remembered it in the game's depiction. That was not all that surprising as that was a game and this was a real, fully fledged world.
And his hunch was proven right as they approached something notable just off the side of the road.
Right off the stone path of before the bend in the road, sitting in a small patch of grass and clovers that had turned a rich sparkling metallic gold, was a seemingly regular young brown wooden tree. Or it would have been a regular tree, if it hadn't been for the faintest impression of glowing gold that started appearing on the tree as John got closer and closer to it.
It was a golden sapling, a child of the Erdtree.
In his head, John always thought of these baby Erdtrees as being small, but the sapling in front of him was already a little taller than he was.
Seeing John stop, Kalé stopped as well as watched as John looked at the tree.
"Incredible, is it not? The glowing gold? Almost blinding. A tree connected to life and death itself."
Confusion came over John's face as he turned to Kalé.
"Blinding? I can barely see any gold at all. It's mostly brown."
Kalé looked puzzled at John's words for a moment.
"You cannot see it? The gold? Why... Ah. I see."
Kalé turned in commiseration and placed a hand on John's shoulder.
"You have my pity John, but I must tell you. You see, some people can more clearly see the gold of the Erdtree than others, and there are some unfortunate people who are born unable to see gold of the Erdtree at all. You seem to only be able to see the barest traces of gold."
John tilted his head, still confused.
"Don't all the people of the Golden Order have the Grace of Gold? Or is it only the tarnished that can see the Guidance of Grace? And only some of them? Why would it be expected that I be able to see the gold of the Erdtree at all?"
Kalé shook his head at himself with a rueful grin.
"Sometimes I forget your circumstances with how insightful you can be at times. I can see how a foreigner could confuse these things. Gold, the Grace of Gold, and the Guidance of Grace are all three different and distinct things. Let me tell you the understanding of the people of the Lands Between about these things.
"Gold, the shining gold we were speaking of, not the mundane metal or the simple color gold, comes from Erdtree. It embodies life and comes from the Erdtree. Nearly everyone can see gold, more or less, regardless of whether or not they have the Grace of Gold, or the Guidance of Grace. I am not a priest of the Golden Order so I will leave it there, but that is essentially what gold is.
"On the other hand the Grace of Gold, or to put it another way the Grace of the Erdtree, is a blessing that Goddess Marika gave to her chosen people, those of the Golden Order. Like a bloodline, it is passed down to one's children. However this grace is veiled from sight. Despite its presence, no one can see the grace itself, not even those who have grace. However there are signs one can use to know if someone has grace.
"There is a saying: "the eyes are a window to one's spirit". Despite the practice having fallen away long ago, it is known that when a drake knight undergoes dragon communion their eyes change to that of a dragon's, revealing their now-draconic inner nature even if you cannot yet see the draconic influence with your eyes. In time, their body will shift to match their inner spirit, and they become dragons cursed to crawl on the ground forever.
"In a similar way, one can see the glow of gold in the eyes of those who have the Grace of the Erdtree. Their spirit possesses grace and so their eyes reflect the truth of their inner spirit. So those of the Golden Order and the Golden Lineage have golden eyes."
Hearing this surprised John. He had assumed the golden eyes of Godrick's soldiers were just a natural eye color in this fantasy land. He hadn't realized the significance of their color. This eye color thing made it really obvious that he and Kale were foreigners just by looking at their eyes. It was actually a really good method of knowing who was part of the Golden Order in terms of heritage.
Kalé continued as John integrated what he had just heard with everything else he knew about the Lands Between.
"The Tarnished are so named because they once had the Grace of Gold, but they have been stripped of it, causing their golden eyes to fade, to tarnish. Their eyes having lost their golden shine, the tarnished are left with the eyes of outsiders to the Golden Order. Eyes like that of people like you or me.
"Not only that, they have been marked with something akin to a curse, almost like a dark reflection of grace has been placed within them. This curse of their spirit causes them to be rejected by the Erdtree upon death. Anyone who meets a tarnished can just feel that the person standing before them is a tarnished. It cannot be hidden. A darkness, a shadow, a shade has been placed on their very being and others can feel it.
"They have not just lost the unique grace that those of the Golden Order possess and had their eye color change. Due to their curse all trace of gold has been taken from them, even that which all life possesses that ties it to the Erdtree.
"Their inner spirit will not be embraced by the Erdtree when they die, leaving their spirits unable to pass on after death and unable to rejoin the cycle of life. Unable to interact with the Erdtree, they have been removed from the proper cycle of life and death.
"And like a twisted version of the Grace of the Erdtree given to those of the Golden Order, this tarnished curse that was placed upon them will also be passed to their children making them tarnished as well."
Kalé paused here to see if John was following what he was saying. Seeing that John was still following him Kalé continued.
"The Guidance of Grace is something that is bestowed by the Greater Will only on those who are tarnished.
"The Greater Will wishes to establish a new Elden Lord who will make the Elden Ring whole once again, and it has beckoned all tarnished to come to the Lands Between to do so. The living descendants of the tarnished as well as the dead tarnished that have fallen over the passage of time. The Greater Will has blessed every tarnished to come to life once again for a second chance.
"This guidance lifts the veil blocking grace from one's sight and allows grace to guide the tarnished down the path to becoming Elden Lord using grace. And this Guidance of Grace isn't just the unveiling of grace but something that imbues the tarnished and is the cause of their undead existence, not allowing their bodies and spirits to stay dead.
"As long as a tarnished truly strives down the path of becoming Elden Lord, they will keep the Guidance of Grace, and it will once again revive them if they perish. However once this guidance is lost by abandoning the quest to become Elden Lord, the Guidance of Grace never returns, and the next time a tarnished is dealt a mortal wound they will not revive again," Kalé finished.
John took in all that information.
It sparked some vague memories of item descriptions he'd read years ago, but he couldn't remember any of the details. How all those things connected had always been murky and unimportant to him back when he had played Elden Ring. Who cares why the player revived? John had been more focused on the lore surrounding events around specific events rather than background details like this.
Something that Kalé said did make his ears perk up. If the Greater Will only granted the Guidance of Grace to tarnished and only those who had the Guidance of Grace could see grace, how come John empowering himself with runes allowed him to see the barest hint of grace?
At least he knew now that something abnormal was going on with him being able to see magical shit before he got himself into trouble.
John spent a minute looking at the neat magical tree as he digested all that. Then curiosity struck and he bent down and started rummaging around in the grass. After a few moments he pulled his gloved hand back. In it was something that he recognized.
It was seed a pod. It was a brown color and John could see the faint impression of a golden glow imposed over the seed pod. The twisty and scraggly look of the pod was like one of those annoying seed pods covered in tiny hooks that got stuck to people's clothes out in the brush in the fall. It specifically reminded him of the seed pod of a sycamore tree or a sweetgum tree, but neither quite fit it.
He'd never thought about what species of tree the Erdtree was exactly. The idea that it was just a magically enhanced type of regular tree instead of its own unique species had never crossed his mind.
The Erdtree was far enough away that he still couldn't see even an impression of gold like he could the seed and tree in front of him, so he was left with the stony facade hiding beneath the gold John knew everyone else saw. Not that the stony grey stump of the Erdtree that John could see reaching into the sky over the horizon matched what either a sycamore or sweetgum tree looked like.
John wasn't a tree scientist though, to be able to name what, if any, tree species the Erdtree was. It seemed to be a mix of a bunch of different trees he had seen that he didn't know the names of.
"You should set that down," Kalé told him, "I am not a devotee of the Erdtree, but to anyone who is, seeing you disturbing an Erdtree sapling or its seeds would greatly offend them. Especially if they found you carrying it."
John shook his head.
"I wasn't planning on taking it; I just wanted to see what it looked like."
He wasn't the Chosen Tarnished after all. John wasn't planning on taking anything that wasn't easily replaceable. This would let them improve their flasks.
John placed the seed back where he grabbed it from and stood up. As they resumed walking the stone road, John remembered something about the bend in the road they were about to get to.
"Do we have to worry about any animals on this road Kalé? Wolves or bears or anything?"
Kalé shook his head.
"Like in the lower areas of Limgrave, there are packs of wolves that roam Stormhill, but they are cowardly animals. Unless you are traveling alone, wolves will stay away from you. Even just me and Rabbit here rarely get bothered by them, and with you here as well I doubt any will want to make trouble.
"Bears are much more dangerous, but unless you are being foolish or are terribly unlucky, you will not have a problem with them. Just keep your distance if you see one. The bigger problem with bears than seeing them as you travel is making sure they don't smell your food and come upon your camp in the middle of the night. As long as you keep your food properly packed and don't camp near where you ate, they should keep away from them."
True to Kalé's words, they rounded the bend and there was no ambush by a pack of wolves that John knew happened in the game.
Right as they came out of the bend there was a Site of Grace that John could only barely see as he got close and a dilapidated building.
"Speaking of making camp, let's use that ruined homestead there. I've been using this one when I come past here since it was first abandoned more than a decade ago."
As they entered the small decaying building, there was no one else around beside them.
John sighed in relief that Roderika, the spirit tuning girl, wasn't here. Not only because what would happen to her and her men would be terrible, but there was no way he'd be able to deliver her message, so he'd feel terrible turning her down if she asked.
After they were finished and cleaned up, they got back onto the road.
Looking off to the sides, John could see in the far horizon the hills giving way to empty air. As the hills went upwards towards Liurnia the land was slowly narrowing, being choked on both sides by the encroaching ocean.
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Days later, John dearly wished he still had modern transportation as he approached the crest of the final hill that led to the peak of Stormhill.
"The march has taken the vigor out of you has it not?" Kalé ribbed. "That is why I have trusty Rabbit here." Kale patted his donkey.
John ignored Kalé and focused on what was in front of him. Just in the distance was the massive crumbling stone bridgework that led to the Divine Tower. This massive bridge spanned across nearly the entirety of Limgrave to get from Stormveil to the Divine tower. Like the Stormgate, the bridge's scale was literally gigantic even if it was half destroyed. So large that sections of forest were growing under it in between the supporting pillar sections holding the bridge up.
Following the bridge to the west it disappeared into massive stone castle walls. These rampart walls made up the outer ring of the fortification that took up almost the entirety of the hilltop from cliff-face to opposing cliff-face, only a thin strip of rocky outcroppings and forest perhaps two football fields across separated the outer walls of Stormveil and the ocean cliff.
The stone path they were following forked. The right fork kept them heading straight in a north direction under the massive bridgework ahead of them, and the left fork headed west further uphill towards Stormveil.
Turning left, after another hour of walking the hillside gave way to the sight of a massive stone castle gatehouse.
It was only half the height of the Stormgate which meant it was still large enough for trolls to easily enter, but it was the same large two-wagon width as the Stormgate had been. Looking into the gatehouse entrance, John could see the tunnel that would lead to where Margit fought the Chosen Tarnished was at least the length of a football field.
Leading up to the fortification was a similar situation to the pass of the Stormgate. Groups of men were going about their tasks as a number of wooden fortifications like barriers and chevaux-de-frise stood off to the side ready if they were to be needed.
The upper part of the ramparts and gatehouse where the men would stand on the walls in a battle, called the battlements, had a protective section of stone on the outer edge of the wall raised to protect the men on the battlements from enemy projectiles. It was a wall to prevent enemies from below being able to shoot up at them.
This stone block wall had deliberate square sections of the wall cut away, called crenels or crenelations, for the men on the battlements to be able to easily poke out and fire back before ducking back into safety of the raised wall. All the major fortifications of Limgrave John had seen so far seemed to have these crenelations giving them the classic square-jagged castle look.
Lining the top of the gatehouse situated in the crenelations were small ballistae, over two dozen of them stretching across the entire length. Below near the entrance of the gatehouse sat a handful of even larger ballistae mounted on wheeled wooden contraptions to make mobile artillery. John remembered the larger ones fired exploding bolts.
As John and Kalé approached with Kalé dismounted and in the lead, a small group of Godrick's soldiers guarding the open gate in their vivid red and green surcoats approached.
"Hail. Who're you and what business be you two having at Stormveil Castle?" ordered the soldier.
Kalé took a small step forward.
"I am Kalé, and I have something from the Stormgate Quartermaster that I am to give to Knight Captain Filk."
"You hav' somethin' for Sir Filk? We can take it to em'."
Kalé shook his head apologetically.
"I'm sorry, but I was given very specific orders by the Quartermaster. I have to give it to Knight Captain Filk directly."
The soldier and those behind him looked annoyed at that answer.
"Fine. I'll send a runner."
The soldier pointed at another man in his group who nodded and went running off. They all stood around quietly for a minute before Kalé reached into his pack and pulled out a bottle that sloshed with a dark liquid.
"While we are waiting, tell me. Would any of you be interested in some drink? I stocked up down at the Stormgate."
That brought a smile back to the lead soldier's face as he and his men started haggling with Kalé.
A few of them even got their eager hands on some booze before the man the soldier had sent to get Filk returned in tow with a man in full Godrick Knight armor, quartered surcoat and all. Everyone stopped haggling immediately and stoically waited for the knight to reach them. Kalé pulled out the letter as they waited for the man to make his way out from the gatehouse tunnel entrance to them.
As he did, Kalé immediately presented the letter.
"Knight Captain Filk. This is an urgent letter from the Stormgate."
The man immediately took it and broke the seal and began reading. As the knight read, none of them could read his face hidden behind his helmet, but his originally relaxed body language tensed up as he read.
When he was done, he folded the letter up and turned to Kalé.
"I must bring this to Lord Godrick quickly. You two, wait here while arrangements are being made about this. You may be needed shortly.
"You are a Nomadic Merchant?" By the man's tone it was an observation rather than a question, "While you wait you may sell your goods to the men here outside the tunnel gatehouse."
The knight turned about face and urgently marched back towards the way he came from.
Everyone looked at each other at the knight's response, then the men resumed haggling with Kalé as if they hadn't stopped.
Ten minutes later, Kalé had a satisfied smile and each of the soldiers had some variety of booze that they had slightly overpaid for, even if Kalé was probably still undercutting most other sellers.
Kalé and John set up a spot a little off the gatehouse entrance and waited. Soon enough, the men who had first bought from Kalé had spread the word of where they had gotten their drink, and men started approaching in one, twos, and small groups. They came to Kalé when they had free time in their duties or were no longer under the watchful eyes of their superiors and could skip out on them without being noticed.
As Kalé conducted business, now that John was paying attention to it having never stuck around to witness it, he realized that Kalé was definitely putting all his years as a merchant to good use. He wasn't getting paid in just runes.
"I know this wine is worth twelve runes, it is close to the perfect age. But I can cut that down to ten runes like you are asking if you know have heard anything colorful or intriguing.
"There was a man at the Stormgate that I traded with when I was there that said he had caught Knight Fergus washing his surcoat. He told me that a woman that Fergus was pursuing as a mistress had vomited on him after he had plied her with too much wine!"
Kalé laughed at that and the man he was speaking to joined him, before the man shared a similarly embarrassing but ultimately unimportant rumor about another low-ranking Knight who had been getting frisky with a serving girl in a storage room when another Knight walked in on them.
Only this knight who walked in on them was actually an aspiring paramour of the serving girl, and she had scheduled a rendezvous with the knight earlier in that day to meet in that storage room. As the two knights realized what was going on they got into a small scuffle.
John was astonished by much rumormongering happened. It was like high school with how much all these people knew about each other's business. As John watched him do his thing, Kalé was like a fish to water.
Not only was Kalé a good haggler, but he even ferreted out little nuggets of information from the men for a 'discount' when the men 'couldn't meet the price'. And most of the men were all too happy to take the 'discount' Kalé was offering. It was blatantly obvious to John what Kalé was doing here: intel gathering, but the soldiers seemed to just think Kalé was a gossipmonger and were all too happy to indulge him if it meant cheaper booze.
Maybe it was just what little knowledge John did know about how intelligence organizations operated, and these lowly soldiers having probably come from farming villages and the like where they wouldn't know even what little John did, but they didn't seem to realize what was actually happening here.
Despite that, most of them weren't dumb despite this lack of realization, and they didn't share anything of serious consequence about their superiors or the goings on of Stormveil.
The biggest thing that had been shared with Kalé about the higher ups of Stormveil was that Godrick was organizing a farewell feast soon for one of his two remaining grandsons who still remained at Stormveil. The grandson was being sent off on a mission like many of Godrick's other descendants apparently had been over the centuries. Not an especially important thing to know.
After a while of watching Kalé work his magic and not actually being able to contribute anything, John started feeling bothered just lazing around watching Kalé. On the trail he could hunt small game or do other tasks, but sitting here he was basically useless.
With nothing else useful to do, John picked up his spear and started doing some simple drills a short distance away from where Kalé was haggling away his wares.
The vast majority of the men who came to haggle drink from Kalé just ignored John, but a couple of them did point out some mistakes in his form. Things like how John held his elbows or the specifics of his stance and footwork. John corrected himself as he got these tips.
In under three hours the men of Stormveil, ravenous for any drink they could get their hands on, had haggled Kalé out of all his booze. A few also traded some items rather than runes or wanted a few small other things that weren't booze like some homemade low quality spice Kalé had made or a part of the pork they still had leftover from the pigs that had ambushed them.
They spent the next hour after that turning away disappointed men who had arrived too late to get their hands on any booze. Word spread just as quickly about the lack of drink as it had of drink being for sale and quickly less men arrived to ply Kalé for his ware.
As the last of the disappointed stragglers dried up, a man arrived. Kalé started once again explaining that he had run out of drink to sell when the soldier raised his hand to halt Kalé and informed him that he was not looking to trade.
"You are Merchant Kalé who delivered a letter to Knight Captain Filk? Sir Filk sends word that you will not be required and are free to leave. Confirmation that the letter was received in good order will be sent back with the next supply dispatch."
"What about my payment? The Stormgate Quartermaster mentioned that people here would most likely pay me on his behalf. It would help me greatly if that could be arranged.
It takes weeks for the supply dispatch to reach here and then return to the Stormgate, and I will not be paid for delivering the message at the Stormgate until confirmation arrives."
The soldier sneered.
"I refuse. Wait for it at the Stormgate. It is not like penny pinching dishonest merchants are known for doing anything of value anyways. Sitting on their arse and earning money for nothing. Doubly so for you Nomadic Merchants. You can sit down at the Stormgate and wait without earning money for nothing for a change."
Kalé put his hands together.
"Please! Would you ask if Sir Filk or someone else would be willing to cover my payment on my patron's behalf?"
The man just shook his head with his face scrunched up in repugnance.
"You will just have to wait for it."
The man snorted and spit at Kalé's feet and walked away.
Kalé's face seemed unaffected, but John could see his hand trembling ever so slightly. He knew Kalé enough to see from his body language that the merchant was angry.
John stayed silent and let his friend cool as they packed everything up onto Rabbit. Then they got back on the road towards the Stormgate.
It would be a while before they got their payment for this. Well, Kalé would be getting the payment. This was his rodeo, and John didn't want a part in it.
At least the way back was mostly downhill.
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