Mount Heart

**The Oaltavan girl responded “Yah boss; every flower on every Shirudo cactus harvested”.  She didn’t stutter and was pleased with herself for it.  She’d been in the family 4 years now and Thorn’s tiefling horns and fiery eyes still intimidated her.**

**Thorn responded with a short nod of approval and helped load the last bricks of processed pollen into the cart.  Two beautiful draft horses neighed as though they knew they were finally ready to move.**

**Today was the day they’ve been waiting for.  They were finally on their way to the Vain Bazar and Thorn and the family couldn’t have been happier to leave their hideout in the Shirudo behind.**

**He looked upon each of the nine in turn from the back of one of the carts.  They weren’t family in the sense of blood.  These men and women were bound to Thorn by debt and loyalty, and Thorn compensated them well.  Selling their cargo however would make them all rich.**

**Desperate souls, who were not altogether unresourceful that found their way to Thorn.**

**Fiz had developed a limp in his twenties, the honorable Oaltavan thing to do would have been to die fighting in one of the Jacklewere raids.  He resented every Oaltavan who called him a coward for it.  He was much smarter than the average Oaltavan metal-swinger, and under Thorn he had learned things in the alchemical arts that would stir even a paladin of Pran.  One day he would show them.**

**Fiz jealousy peered over to Han and Sierra in the adjacent cart, for years he had dreamed of the possibility of sharing the ride to the Bazar with her.  He didn’t understand why Thorn never seemed to assign them together and he mumbled a blasphemy at his lot in life.  But Fiz had an ace up his sleeve, he’d bargained for a longevity potion from a hermit in the Muckwood and was close to recreating the recipe.  When he had his earnings from the delivery he would buy the remaining ingredients.  It would be his gift when he asked her to..**

**Fiz furrowed his brow, everything seemed so difficult with her, even simple greetings could have his mind reeling for hours.  Fiz became irritated with his thoughts and opened the hermit’s alchemy book; a loan exchanged for a personal job at the Bazar.  Research and study were reliable ways to keep his mind off the stress of these final moments before all their dreams came true.**

**Cora and Brin were siblings who had all left in their adolescence to reduce the burden on their large families.  The mines in the eastern Kingdom of Ramoha had run dry some years ago and putting food on the table was ever more competitive.**

**Sierra was the daughter of a farmer who fled an arranged marriage, to a real old brute by the sounds of it.  She didn’t talk about it much but the lads overheard Fiz asking her about it.**

**The others working for Thorn were a mixed bag, mostly runaways or thieves from Ramoha.  The laws of men were harsh enough to drive many who ended up on the wrong side of the law out to the wilderness.  Those who survived the gnoll camps and the eerie ruins of the Tieflings made it to smuggler’s crawl, and some of those lucky bastards made it to Thorn.**

**They started their crop just over 5 years ago and the last five years had been the hardest of their lives.  Since getting into the drug business things had become messier - rival dealers made efforts to take out his men while working the Oaltavan markets, and he couldn’t let that go unanswered.**

**It was the price of resourcefulness; ‘the less that went to waste the faster he could be done with it’ he told himself.  He was tired to the core and yet just as eager for their journey.  Soon he would be free of his former life, and now that they were on the road he really felt like he couldn’t have lasted another day in that life.**

**A cloud moved and the hot sun glared in his ember coloured eyes.  Despite his hatred for he’s had to endure his mind still wandered to days past in their now abandoned hideout.  He tried to think of something else but his worst memories flashed in his mind's eye.  They weren’t memories of killing, there was at least mercy in that.  It was the destitute look in the eyes of the junkies that cleaned their piss pots, and the deprived screams of addiction he could still hear from those who were carried to cells when they could no longer pay their debts.**

**Some couldn’t survive the detox, clawing and smashing at the iron doors until they bled out.  It was a sad truth that once they were really hooked and could no longer work they were worth more dead.  A cult of necromancers would pay their debts for bones.  Things like that didn’t bother him like they used to.  He had come to understand that bad death as he called it was just part of the drug world.**

**03:30, November 25, 2020 (UTC)03:30, November 25, 2020 (UTC)~~**

**They had been travelling two days when Brin shouted back to Thorn over a hawk-like screech in the distance “Boss over there!”.  And there it was - flying high over Mount Heart, plain to see above the mountainous horizon.  The Roc.**

**The Roc was a red eagle-like creature with a 20 foot wingspan and a beak that could easily swallow a human.  Thorn could feel his heart beating faster even though they were still a couple miles from the mountain.**

**“I think it’s flying in this direction Boss”.**

**They stood watching for a moment, then Thorn’s eyes widened.  It was indeed slowly growing closer, he wondered how fast it was.  It was only a few moments later he realized it would soon be upon them.  “Prepare the defenses!” Thorn commanded.**

**They rushed the carts over to a rock outcropping and set fortifications in a semi circle facing the creature, and notched their bows, wide eyed and waiting.**

**The crashing sound of the Roc’s talons into their fortifications is another thing Thorn would continue to hear in his memory for weeks to come.  Bodies and pieces of metal were rocketed in all directions from the impact.  In shock Thorn fought to pick himself up off the ground and look around.  Disoriented and squinting in the glaring sun he could see it swooping around to attack again.  “Run” Thorn yelled.**

**The next attack wasn’t as vicious as the first but all the more horrifying as they watched it take Sierra in its talons.  Her screams eventually trailed off in the distance as the creature carried her back towards the mountain from which it came.**

**It took some hours for them to gather themselves from grief and remember how dangerous smugglers crawl was without your position being broadcasted by a creature that could be seen from a mile away.  They loaded four dead bodies onto their cart.  That their share of profit just doubled are words none of them would ever speak.**

**03:30, November 25, 2020 (UTC)03:30, November 25, 2020 (UTC)**

**The entrance to the Vain Bazar was impossible to miss; a giant cave entrance at the base of the Mount Heart.  It was the very mountain said to root the Roc that had just killed half of them.  Thorn had never felt so determined, he lead his group straight in when he was grabbed by the jacket by a 10 foot tall man, if you could call such a monstrous creature a man.  Thorn’s eyes were wide at the sight of the towering figure.**

**“State your business” said the gruff goliath henchman.**

**“Trade” Thorn replied with a sneer**

**The goliath looked Thorn and his companions on the covered carts.**

**“Do you have anything magic on you?”**

**Thorn grimaced, looking around he could see there were a few different groups of humans mingling outside the cave entrance to the Bazar, some were watching them.**

**“No” he replied**

**The goliath reached into his trousers and pulled out a red gemstone which he proceeded to put up to his eye and gaze over them and their cargo.**

**And with a dismissing look he let them pass.**

**Inside the cave the Vein Bazar was an open market filled with small groups of some of the most dangerous folk he’d ever seen.  Most were negotiating fervently in voices just loud enough to be heard over blacksmith hammers reworking metals.   Another few tarp covered carts rattled in and an argument broke out among one of the groups of traders.**

**He wondered who they all worked for but dared not ask.  Some of them adorned symbols of the god of evil and while he’d been around this sort of thing in gangs back home, this wasn’t home.**

**To be continued…?**