__________________________________________________


    John was led through the medieval city by Kalé, who informed John of the place''s name. The entire area, the castle fortress at the top and the city combined below was called Morne, with the city that sprawled across the flat land below called by the appropriate if bland name of Castletown.


    After years of being almost completely alone in Limgrave, it was so strange to see regular people just going about their lives in such numbers. Doubly so, because the Lands Between depicted in the game was practically empty and dead. But here in the real world there were entire towns and even cities. There was an active if struggling society.


    Just the area around Castle Morne was entirely unrecognizable from the game. There was an entire small city of what had to be at least ten thousand people. Meanwhile in the game there had been one hundred or less npcs and enemies combined here and no city at all with Castle Morne being a lone fortress.


    The atmosphere of the game in general was that the world was like the corpse of a great man, and those that remained were a bunch of depraved beggars who were stabbing each over who got to loot it.


    But here in the real world, even the multiple slow-moving apocalypses this world was going through weren''t enough to break the veil of normalcy these people had as they went about their business.


    Life sprung eternal, and people were like cockroaches John supposed. Once a place was infested with them, they would never go away until all the food was gone, and as long as things weren''t on fire at that very moment they would continue on with life as usual.


    But despite the air of normalcy, John just couldn''t quite make himself join the crowd in acceptance of how things were even if he aped it well enough.


    As they walked the streets no one stopped him to talk to him or Kalé, but they did give both of them looks. Kalé got his usual looks of scorn or superiority, but John got looks as well.


    Some seemed to not put thought into John beyond a glance, while others saw him and their expressions became more guarded and less open. Some were outright suspicious of him, and others would turn their nose up or cross their arms and keep an eye on him.


    His and Kalé''s eyes definitely showed them to not be one of them. John also noted something that had changed as they had moved from Limgrave to the Weeping Peninsula. In Limgrave the overwhelming majority of people John had come across had golden eyes, but here the majority of people had stormy grey eyes with only as few having golden eyes.


    Despite this change in eye color of the people, it was clear John and Kalé''s brown and yellow eyes still made them be considered outsiders by the people of this land.


    As they made their way through Castletown John spotted a misbegotten making his way through the street. And it was obvious the misbegotten was a man even though he was covered in dirt that turned to mud from his sweat making him look much filthier than he actually was. The nakedness of the misbegotten man left everything on display, not a thread of clothing on him.


    People did their best to always make sure they never got close enough to touch the misbegotten man, and the man also made sure to keep his own distance from them as well.


    Another big difference between real life and the game''s depiction was the misbegotten themselves. How they looked. John had seen dozens on farms as they had traveled and seen quite a few more in this city.


    The misbegotten were varied and looked different. Each one was an individual with their own unique looks unlike the same copy and pasted model in the game.


    Misbegotten Concept Art</a>


    Misbegotten 1</a>


    Misbegotten 2</a>


    Misbegotten 3</a>


    The misbegotten John had just been eying appeared short, but his body was actually the same size as a man but was just severely hunched in on itself, making him a head or two shorter than he should have been.


    He was brown haired with bald patches. Those ''bald'' patches had scales instead of skin. His mouth was lipless like a lizard and stretched from below one ear all the way across his entire face to the other eye, making his mouth grotesquely huge. The top row of teeth were human and straight while the bottom were a crooked mass of fangs growing into and over each other.


    The left side of his chest was covered in brown feathers and the right side was partially covered in brown fur and partially bare skin. The back was the same as the front but with one anemic feathered wing jutting from the feathers near his shoulder blade and another one directly below at stomach level while the right side of his back had no wings.


    Perhaps the most stomach churning part of his appearance was the tail. Sticking out of the base of his back was a long and thick tail like a crocodile''s except it was covered in skin instead of scales. Despite that, horns still grew out of the spine of the tail.


    His legs'' skin looked like it had cracks running through it and was covered in something similar to scabs. This wound-like skin looked to be the result of the flesh landing half-way between skin and scale.


    Finishing off his appearance was a pair of light-orange-furred feet with toes that were longer than his fingers and covered in claws.


    Despite all that, John could see the man had golden eyes that told John that the man had the grace that others that were of the Erdtree had. Now that he thought about it, that was one consistent thing John was now noticing had stayed true with all misbegotten he had seen. Every single one had golden eyes. Not a single one had the stormy gray eyes like the majority of people here had. John laid that realization aside to think about later.


    Those particular features were just what the misbegotten man that had just passed by John had. The particulars changed with every misbegotten.


    Some were covered in fur or scales and some had none of either. Some had so many claws, fangs, or horns that the features were prying the flesh they came from apart and some misbegotten had none of those.


    Some were as hunched as could be and some rare individuals stood with only a slight hunched. Some had no wings or feathers, and some were completely covered in feathers from head to toe and had up to four wings. The wings themselves if a misbegotten had any may have been anemic and limp or may have been large and functional.


    Some misbegotten had proportions that were wrong like arms or legs that were too long or a much bigger head than they should have had. The most unfortunate of misbegotten had asymmetrically proportioned limbs, where their arms or legs were different lengths from one another.


    Every misbegotten could have features from one extreme to another with most falling somewhere in between.


    Despite all this variation, there were ''rules'' to the bodies of misbegotten that John had begun to notice besides their universally golden eyes. Things such as all the chimeric features being that of certain kinds of animals like lizards or birds or fur from some unknown animal, presumably from a lion based on the name of the Leonine Misbegotten boss.


    But no misbegotten he''d seen so far had the features of say, an elephant, a dog, or a fish.


    Just looking at the misshapen and malformed misbegotten as they walked through the streets near him spawned a feeling of extreme revulsion in John''s gut. It was similar to looking at a pile of gore, but somehow worse.


    There was a disturbing feeling looking at a misbegotten gave John, like whatever the misbegotten were trying to look human but couldn''t fit into human skin. Like the cockroach from Men in Black, but horrific instead of comedic. The uncanniness of it added just a small note of fear to the revulsion when one looked at them and made their appearance far more emotionally potent to witness.


    And John knew fear and revulsion both led to hate.


    As bad and grimly ironic as it was to say, John preferred seeing misbegotten men over misbegotten women, despite misbegotten being forced to be naked. Misbegotten women just looked uglier than the men due to all their lady parts and their general features just not missing as well. Their more neotenous features had an effect similar to what happened with pugs where their faces are cute-ugly, but the misbegotten women didn''t have the cute part.


    John could understand how a bunch of ignorant and irrational medieval people, whose religion told them that those who looked strange were somehow bad, looked upon a misbegotten and allowed their opinion to be decided by their gut feelings of. Everything they ''knew'' and believed said so and even their base nature agreed.


    John understood, but that didn''t mean he agreed or forgave them for it. The misbegotten were treated as bad or worse than the worst treated slaves in his own world. Denied even the dignity of a wash or rags to wear as clothes.


    Worst of all, all the men he had seen were gelded as well. Every single one of them.


    But what could John do about it? Fight? He was just a regular guy, and he didn''t even reach the level of marital ability of one of the thousands of competent soldiers that were under Godrick''s command. There was no realistic or practical way John could make a difference about this societal hatred of misbegotten and their mistreatment.


    So instead John just locked the feelings away in the dark of his mind. They weren''t useful right now. Instead he would focus on why he had wanted to come to Castle Morne in the first place: the misbegotten rebellion and Irina.


    John made sure to keep an eye out


    John didn''t know when the destined tarnished would arrive and be chosen by the spirit steed Torrent. It could be years or even decades from now, and rebellion wouldn''t start until around the time the Chosen Tarnished arrived considering that when he got to Castle Morne it was in the middle of the battle between the Godrick''s men and the misbegotten.


    As much as John sympathized with the misbegotten rebelling, they weren''t the good either.


    He distinctly remembered in the game that the misbegotten in Castle Morne were celebrating over a mountain of burning corpses, and Irina''s words of how they were killing everyone with no exceptions. He doubted that that staggering pile of corpses taller than three men standing on each others'' shoulders was only made of soldiers and knights of the castle.


    Most importantly the misbegotten would hunt down Irina, an innocent harmless blind woman all by herself in the wilderness, just to kill her in their bloodlust. Their actions potentially dooming the world to the Frenzied Flame from unknowingly allowing Hyetta to come into existence after she possessed Irina''s dead body as there was a chance that Hyetta would lead the Chosen Tarnished down that path.


    That had to be prevented at all costs. It would be the first time John was getting himself into something especially dangerous, but it had to be done. John was willing to risk his life and die to prevent that, though he would try and do his best to prevent himself from having to actually do anything like that to save Irina''s life.


    He had a few different ideas on how to do that, but he would wait to take action for now. He didn''t know enough about Morne to find the best way to do this yet. John would have to get more familiar with how things worked before he acted.


    Kalé had mentioned that he would have a lot of business he could do here as it had been a long time since he had actually come all the way to Castle Morne to trade. That meant John had a lot of time to do whatever he wanted before Kalé wished to leave.


    John didn''t want to inconvenience his friend by having to stay longer than necessary, knowing it was dangerous for a nomadic merchant to overstay his already cold welcome and potentially trigger a pogrom. John would have to stay on task, and if this took too long and things got sketchy then he''d just tell Kalé he''d meet him back at the Church of Elleh.


    First thing first, John would have to learn how people in the Lands Between and more specifically Castle Morne did things before he could figure out what he should do. John wasn''t under the delusion that these people operated in the same morality or worldview of the ''modern'' world and they definitely had different routines and the like.


    That child in the woods really drove that home.


    John didn''t have a high opinion of his home country''s morality or worldview, but the Lands Between might as well be Jupiter for how different it was in those.


    Gods were provably real and could actually talk to crowds of people in the flesh and do miracles on demand for example.


    John would have to somewhat figure out what to do about Irina and the eventual rebellion by getting the lay of the land. He would have to figure out how best to integrate and interact with this society to be able to have an effective course of action.


    As they walked around the city towards their destination, John was watching as the townspeople went about their business. The people wore clean if simple clothes and ranged from especially industrious to the occasional stumbling drunk.


    John saw no beggars at. It was strange. They were ubiquitous in cities back on Earth, and John had seen some in a few of the towns they had passed through on their way here.


    Then John noticed a commotion on the streets in front of them.


    A group of people on horses were making their way down the street.


    Most of the mounted men were wearing armor, but the one at the head of the group instead wore a luxurious green robe lined with dark fur, under which he wore a tunic with golden root-like embellishments on it.


    Their high status was obvious and as they approached people would move out of the way, some stopping to bow before continuing on with what they were doing after the group passed.


    John and Kalé moved aside with others as they passed by and after they were gone the people went back to normal.


    But as John had kept going through the city he had a fresh look at how the people went about their tasks. John noticed something he had been seeing but hadn''t realized. People who were dressed more nicely rarely interacted with those who wore simpler clothes, except when the nicer dressed ones were in a position to order the simpler-clothed around.


    With this realization, John was reminded of something, and now things he had noticed became much more clear. It was something he had known intellectually, but it hadn''t quite clicked, until he was really immersed in it.


    The Lands Between, or at least the Golden Order, operated on a feudal caste system vaguely similar to Medieval Europe. Everyone had a certain social status and for the most part kept to their own social equals, mostly interacting with those lower than them for business reasons. There were exceptions but this was the general rule.


    This occupied John''s thoughts for the rest of the way, until they arrived at the other end of Castletown.


    When he saw what was there, John''s eyes widened and he looked over at Kalé.


    "What''s it called?" John asked.


    "Clifftown," Kalé answered.


    Cliffside City 1</a>


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Cliffside City 2</a>


    Cliffside City 3</a>


    Cliffside City 4</a>


    It was absolutely incredible!


    The cliffside below Castle Morne and Castletown weren''t an empty sheer cliff-face. Instead there was an entire additional section of the city built into the cliffside!


    Despite the cliffside being extremely sheer, the builds built from, into, and on the cliffside were piled on top of one another haphazardly. Unlike Castletown where most of the buildings were wooden, the buildings on the cliffside were almost entirely made of stone blocks or were directly cut from the cliffside.


    In the middle of the mess of buildings built on top of one another in the sections of cliff face that had been cut away there were rocky outcroppings and large stone towers that jutted out above the rest.


    And as cramped full of buildings as the cliffside was, it wasn''t entirely covered in them. There were parts of the cliff that were untouched. The parts that were being occupied, their locations were almost organized and divided into sections like the sections in a cubby shelf with different columns and rows connected by walkways, bridges, staircases, and wooden lifts and some of the cubby sections being empty cliffside and other sections having buildings.


    The incredible height of the cliff and the sheer number of shelves intertwining with each other made it a vertical labyrinth of buildings. It was a mesmerizing and chaotic sight.


    From above, John could see some of a limited amount of what was going on down there in some of the cliffside sections of the city. Looking down, while nearly half the buildings were built in depressions in the cliffside that were hidden from view, the other half were visible from above.


    At the very southern edge of the cliffs at the bottom of the cliff directly below Castle Morne was a moderately sized area of rocky beach. It was the only bit of land at the feet of the cliffs within view as the rest of the cliffside had no earth below it, just a drop straight into the ocean.


    The floor and basement sections of where Castle Morne ended and where the top of Clifftown began weren''t clearly delineated with paths and entrances and lifts between the two intertwining.


    John was standing at the eastern cliff. If the western cliffside on the opposite side of Castle Morne was like what he saw in front of him, then Castletown on the flat ground in front of the castle was only half of the urban area by Castle Morne with the other half of the urban area being Clifftown.


    And just looking at the part of Clifftown John could see from where he stood, from the look of the buildings and the people he could see, Morne was a microcosm of the caste system of the Lands Between and the Golden Order.


    At the top looming over everything, like Castle Morne and its inhabitants towering above Castletown and Clifftown, were Marika the Eternal and those associated with her. People like the Elden Lords, Demigods, the Golden Lineage, and everyone sworn to them or who possessed close ties to them. Like a super-rich gated community separated and disconnected from the reality of those below them. They decided all the rules and how things were gonna be, and they reaped most of the rewards.


    Below Castle Morne, Castletown was where the wealthier commonfolk and minor nobility. Castletown was the nice well-to-do part of town where anything unpleasant was removed and placed elsewhere. Everything was clean, and the buildings, if they did not outright show great wealth, were of a standard of quality that only those that were well off could afford and maintain.


    And relegated to the struggle in Clifftown were everyone else. The regular commonfolk and those who were considered undesirable by those above for whatever reason.


    But even in Clifftown some were considered less than others.


    Taking up the top third of Clifftown were the regular commonfolk. The people were industrious but were not beset by poverty but would have to carefully watch their spending. Some of the buildings could be better maintained but nothing was outright bad or falling apart.


    As you went further down the cliff, the middle section of Clifftown was mostly inhabited by the poorer commonfolk. These were the people who tried but were unable to really quite make it and were struggling just to get by. The buildings in this section were starting to show some signs of a lack of upkeep. They didn''t like their life but at least they were as bad off as those below them.


    Below them, relegated to the bottom section of Clifftown were the people who were truly poor, had stigmas attached to them, or otherwise had somehow or another lost in this system. This area was the slums.


    Here, John spotted what must have been an alleyway filled with beggars. Every building had at least one window boarded up, and John was sure you had to be careful if you walked through this area after dark or you might be accosted by a mugger.


    And at the very bottom, almost unable to warrant a spot on the cliffside at all with many of them being relegated to the abandoned and decaying buildings and rocky and cold beach below, John saw the squalid mass of enslaved misbegotten.


    He could see many of them going around all the other areas, but the concentration of them at the bottom showed that to be their real home, if a prison could be considered a home.


    John couldn''t spot any but he imagined that Omen would be situated somewhere between the misbegotten''s prison and the slum section of Clifftown. The equivalent of homeless camps on the edges of a town.


    Of course, people moved up and down the levels of Clifftown and interacted with each other, but from this distance it was easy to see that far more stuck with and interacted the most with their own level.


    As John looked at the labyrinth of buildings, streets, stairs, and bridges that wound around each other like an M.C. Escher painting, he noticed that all the heaviest or most unpleasant labor, such as cleaning shit from the street or operating the wooden lifts weighed down by people and goods that let everyone navigate Clifftown, was done by misbegotten.


    The misbegotten who had the fortune, or maybe misfortune, to be born with the right features that made them bigger and stronger than a regular person were the ones operating the lifts, but he could see other misbegotten rolling barrels of goods across through the street, or doing other tasks as well.


    He also spotted some of the winged misbegotten who had a pair of properly grown wings were able to quickly hop between certain levels by flying or gliding a short distance.


    How they were able to fly with wingspans barely wider than an armspan despite being roughly the size and weight of a grown man John didn''t know. It must have been related to magic somehow.


    Looking at the beach and remembering the leonine misbegotten boss location, John thought that the misbegotten themselves would probably be as good a place to start looking for information about the rebellion as any.


    Kalé led John along the cliff to an inn that was slightly run down. It was still located in Castletown, but it was very close to the cliffside and was closer to Castle Morne than it was to where they entered the other side of the city. Clearly the inn''s location wasn''t doing it any favors at getting good business.


    They both booked individual rooms at the inn. Their rooms were cheap but small.


    Kalé stabled his donkey in the shed the owner called a stable, and John helped him take his personal items in his inn room. Then it came time for them to separate and do their own business.


    "Since we''re splitting up, let''s agree to always meet back at the inn by dark and we''ll leave a note or send notice or something if plans change," John suggested to Kalé. "If we somehow get separated and can''t track each other down, we can meet up again at the Church of Elleh."


    Kalé nodded.


    "Agreed."


    With that settled they split up. Kalé took a bag of goods with him and left the inn, and John was left by himself.


    Deciding to go ahead and start looking around, John went back to the cliffside.


    John examined the network of lifts and staircases of Clifftown, until he found a simple way down to the lower sections of Clifftown. It only required one lift ride from a small lift clearly only meant to be used to transport people and then a couple of staircases that were close together. It would be very hard for John to get lost which was his main worry.


    As he made his way across the cliffside to the lift he would need to use, he passed a few other lifts that others were using. From how they ordered the misbegotten, John learned that the different ''layers'' of Clifftown were called levels and were labeled numerically in order starting at the bottom of Castle Morne as level one and descending from there.


    When he made it to the lift he needed to use, John examined the misbegotten running the lift. The misbegotten was a woman who had mostly extra lizard parts and she stood a few inches taller than him despite her hunch. As John approached she looked at him neutrally.


    "I''d like to go down to level fifty please."


    The misbegotten woman silently nodded at him and with a heave started operating the lift all by herself. Once he had reached his desired level the lift stopped.


    John stepped off the lift and gave a tug on a rope. A moment later the platform began being lifted back up and what was left was a pair of wooden posts that showed where the lift would be the rope he could pull to request the lift be lowered to him.


    John made his way down a few levels to the blurry area where the slums ended and the misbegotten''s district began. As he went down the surroundings became more and more dilapidated and run down, and the people more haggard. More beggars appeared, and misbegotten became more common. Even the air changed, becoming more choked and rank.


    As he began exploring the streets, John could feel stares begin to linger on his back despite the fact that few met his eyes as he walked past them.


    John walked around just taking in what was happening around him. Just like they had with the townsfolk, misbegotten made sure to stay at least an arm''s distance away from him. Beggars asked him for money, and what John thought were probably some flavor of street tough evaluated if he would be worth the risk deciding not because of his shoddy but functional armor.


    But John wasn''t worried about what these people thought of him. He was more interested in how they interacted with each other. To learn how things here operated, and maybe get a hint about the rebellion.


    As John explored the lower parts of Clifftown, he would make progress on the first objective, but not the second. As far as he could see, everything was business as usual. It turns out slaves planning some sort of rebellion didn''t conveniently scream it out into the heavens.


    Not that John expected that. It would have made everything more convenient though. The real hope for John with this entire misbegotten rebellion scenario was actually getting the lord''s soldiers involved and having them nip the problem in the bud.


    But before John could craft a convincing story to convince them to act, he had to understand how the cogs of this machine they called a society worked so that he knew what to say to have them do what he wanted instead of just ignoring him or messing things up.


    A few hours into his exploration of Clifftown, John spotted a winged misbegotten struggling to stack a crate in an alley between two shops.


    The misbegotten was slight, about a quarter thinner and smaller than was typical of a misbegotten man based on what John has seen, but his wings were large with a wingspan half again as big as John''s armspan.


    Winged Misbegotten</a>


    The misbegotten would leverage the crate halfway up but couldn''t quite lift it before he was forced to set back on the ground and try again.


    After watching a couple rounds of this and looking around and seeing no one else nearby, John approached the misbegotten from behind. As the misbegotten lifted once again John bent down and grabbed a corner of the crate and helped lift.


    The misbegotten looked over to John in shock but didn''t stop lifting. With the combined strength of the two of them the crate was lifted into place.


    After letting out the breath of exertion, John smiled and held out his hand to the misbegotten who from the front John could now see was a teen boy.


    "John White," He introduced himself.


    "Sihlas." The misbegotten boy said as he looked at John''s hand in confusion before warily putting his own hand into John''s who shook it.


    The boy''s voice was a combination of tortured frog and nails of chalkboard like the other misbegotten John had heard speak but a little higher pitched because of his age. Even the voices of the misbegotten were unpleasant.


    Sihlas looked very similar to a real life version of the flying misbegotten in the game, except his white hair had ginger roots and most of his arms from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers were scaled, but the scales were a fleshly color and didn''t look like they were complete conversion of skin to scale.


    John remarked to himself that the semi-scales on Sihlas''s hand felt similar to fingernails as he let the handshake go. The boy hurriedly jerked his hand back and started stepping away from John.


    Seeing the boy gearing up to run, John spoke.


    "Hey, as you can probably see," John waved in front of his brown eyes, "I''m not from the Lands Between. Where I''m from we don''t have any misbegotten. I don''t think misbegotten are bad. I''m actually interested in them. I was wondering if you could tell me about your people?"


    "I still have duties." Sihlas protested warily, looking for all the world like a scared stray, as if he was about to bolt at the slightest movement.


    John decided to try the oldest trick in the book to convince someone to do something against their better judgement.


    "Look, we can meet up after your duties are done, and I''ll pay you for it, alright? I''m not sure what misbegotten need or are allowed to have. I can give you runes, or if you''d rather instead, I can buy something from a shop or something."


    John saw Sihlas waver at his offer. The boy rocked back and forth as he debated what he knew he should do with taking the shiny John had presented to him. Ultimately impulsive greed won out, as it usually did.


    "Can I see some drawings of other places? I''ve never been further than Castletown, and I''ve always wondered what it was like."


    "Yes," John agreed easily. He was confident he could get some drawings. "Where do you want to meet?"


    John and Sihlas made arrangements to meet at a nearby clandestine crook near some buildings and away from any potential prying eyes. They would meet after Sihlas''s duties were finished, but they would still be leaving John with enough time to meet up with Kalé at the inn afterwards.


    With that decided John continued on his way. As John left he felt Sihlas''s eyes pinned to his back watching.


    Knowing that books and the like were probably somewhat expensive, John made his way up to the upper section of Clifftown and started asking people on the streets for directions to a shop selling drawings, paint, parchment, writing supplies, or other related things.


    It didn''t take him long to find some shops that sold what he was looking for.


    John''s first idea had been to get a map, but the shop owner he had asked informed him that detailed top-down maps like he was used to back on Earth were apparently illegal to possess if you weren''t a military officer of the lord. But landscape drawings and the like were perfectly fine, which worked out because they better fit what Sihlas had wanted anyway.


    After some shopping around John had a few selections he thought a teen city boy who was hungry to see the world would like.


    The drawings were all colored and were of the Caelid Swamp pre-and-post rot, a scene of the Second Defense of Leyendell, a drawing of the Raya Lucaria Academy floating above Liurnia of the Lakes, and for obvious reasons if you had ever been a teen boy, a large drawing of a pair of diagrams comparing ancient dragon to their descendents.


    They cost a pretty penny though. Each one of the colored drawings cost the equivalent of a half-a-month to a full month''s worth of dinners. Compared to what Duran had paid John to stay quiet, it was small but still enough that it was noticeable when the runes left him to pay the shopkeepers. He also bought a small hand-sized wooden box like one may have kept a pendant in to keep the drawings safe from the frequent rains of the Weeping Peninsula.


    John also got some writing supplies. He had used up all the ones Kalé had gotten for him, and it was always useful to have some on hand if they were needed.


    His chores done, John spent a few runes trying out some of the local cuisine as well. It was plain with little seasoning besides things like butter and salt, but despite this it was good. Strange and foreign to him, but good. What John wouldn''t trade to one again be able to eat pizza or deep fried french fries and a cheeseburger again though.


    Unfortunately for him he''d never be able to clog his arteries and fill his brain with more microplastics again.


    When the time came around, John approached the knee high bit of crumbling stone wall where he and Sihlas had agreed to meet. He sat on the stone with the box placed on his lap and waited.


    John patiently sat alone, and a few minutes later Sihlas cautiously approached him and sat next to him.


    Sihlas made to speak when John handed the box over.


    "Here you go. Go ahead and look."


    Sihlas looked at John puzzled for a few long moments before tentatively wpiding the dirt off his hands and opening the box, eyes on John as if he was going to rip the box from his hands.


    Sihlas was unable to keep his eyes on John as soon as he extremely gently unfolded one of the drawings, as if it was the most valuable thing he had ever touched.


    The one he had picked first was of the Second Defense of Leyndell.


    It depicted the duel between Morgott and Radahn as they were surrounded by soldiers. In the drawing Radahn was much smaller than John knew he was now. Radahn was only about twice as large as a regular man, about equal to Morgott''s size.


    Morgott vs Radahn</a>


    Sihlas''s eyes devoured the drawing as if it was of a beautiful lady rather than a fantastical scene of battle.


    Knowing that Sihlas had no way of knowing what John should and shouldn''t know like Kalé, John recounted what he knew of the tale.


    "This depicts something from the Second Defense of Leyndell. After the Shattering, Shardbearers of Great Runes would go on to fight each other to try and defeat the others to claim the others'' Great Runes. With them they become the Elden Lord and establish their own order.


    "Foremost among these Shardbearers were the Demigods, the children of Marika. The Demigods selfishly turned on each other and fought to see who would become Elden Lord. But before they turned on one another, there was a time when they had all worked together to maintain the Golden Order before this alliance fell apart after the First Defense of Leyndell.


    "Yet one among them refused to turn coat and stayed loyal to the Golden Order after the Demigod leaders of the Lands Between went their separate ways. Perhaps the most loyal and devoted man in the Lands Between. He would go on to lead the Second Defense of Leyndell against another Demigod: Starscourge Radahn.


    "This was King Morgott. King Morgott would successfully defend Leyndell against the forces of General Radahn, even personally fighting against Radahn himself.


    "Radahn, leader of the Redmanes, was a great and honorable warrior who would later grow to massive size and become arguably the most powerful warrior in the world. But as you can see by the drawing, at the time of this battle he was only twice the size of a regular man, about the same size as King Morgott.


    "Radahn would go on to master gravity magic to such an extent that the very stars in the night sky would stop moving, earning him the name Starscourge."


    Sihlas, as if by fate, then opened the scene depicting the Caelid Swamp before and after the scarlet rot. John could see it that Caelid was much like one would expect of a foresty swamp before the scarlet rot hit it. Afterwards it turned into an alien hellscape.


    Caelid Swamp Before Rot</a>


    Caelid Swamp After Rot</a>


    Sihlas seemed just as interested in these drawings as the previous one.


    "How did this happen?"


    John was surprised the boy hadn''t heard of this, but then realized a young orphan slave like Sihlas wouldn''t have been able to be given the basics of history from his parents. All the boy would learn would be through whatever he had happened to overhear or whatever other misbegotten had told him. Who knew what he did and didn''t know.


    "This happened much later after the Second Defense of Leyndell. Malenia, Blade of Miquella," John resisted a grin, "is the most loyal follower of her brother Miquella and is another Shardbearer like Radahn and Morgott. Despite being cursed to be afflicted by the scarlet rot by an outer god since birth and losing an arm, both legs, and being blind, she is one of the greatest warriors in the Lands Between. Such an incredible warrior that she has never known defeat, outside of maybe her battle with Radahn.


    "She and her Cleanrot Knights once invaded Caelid to do battle with General Radahn and his Redmanes. Their armies clashed, and Malenia met her match in Radahn. Pushed farther than she ever had been before, Malenia, desperate to win their bout, embraced the cursed power of the scarlet rot she had been fighting for her whole life until then. Above her and Radahn, from her back, a massive scarlet aeonia flower bloomed, releasing a blast of the scarlet rot that would infect the entire region with the curse of scarlet rot and would irrevocably poison Radahn.


    "Yet despite that, Radahn did not die immediately and she and her Knights were forced to hastily retreat back to the north. Meanwhile Radahn would go on to lose both his mind to the scarlet rot becoming a feral monster that feasts on the flesh of any warrior that befell his path. It also rotted his feet off. So tough and powerful was Radahn that even the power that Malenia feared most, her own rot, was unable to completely best him. Even more, not once in their battle nor even after losing his mind has Radahn released his gravity magic that keeps the stars frozen.


    "I''ve heard a lot of arguing of who won or if it was a tie, but personally I''m of the opinion that Radahn won even if it was a pyrrhic victory."


    Having gotten absorbed by the stories John had been telling, Sihlas had unwittingly dropped his guard and decided to ask John a question.


    "Why didn''t she fight against Lord Godrick? I heard that he has a Great Rune, and I thought that the only way to Caelid was through Limgrave. Didn''t you say the Shardbearers were trying to take each other''s Great Runes?"


    John nodded.


    "You are right. She did pass through Limgrave but didn''t take Lord Godrick''s Great Rune. The reason why she didn''t take his rune and wanted to fight Radahn specifically is actually a mystery.


    "As far as I know no one outside of them knows for sure why Malenia fought Radahn specifically. It could have been to take his rune, but even when Lord Godrick threw himself at her feet she didn''t take his Great Rune, so it is probably something else."


    Satisfied with John''s answer, Sihlas opened another drawing. It was of Raya Lucaria from a distance.


    Academy of Raya Lucaria Concept Art</a>


    Academy of Raya Lucaria</a>


    Sihlas asked John some questions about the school and what it was like, but besides some surface level stuff and describing the appearance of some glintstone spells that John knew the appearance of, John wasn''t able to provide much. He knew almost nothing about how magic actually worked.


    Sihlas looked over the drawings he had seen so far again before he opened the last one: the pair of diagrams of the two types of dragons.


    This drawing was made on larger parchment similar to the size one would use for a map and was covered front and back. Sihlas enjoyed this one as well, looking at how the diagram clearly showed the differences between the two types of dragons with side by side comparisons of many different features. All of them clearly and concisely labeled.


    Sihlas spent nearly a minute looking them up, down, back and forth. Then he pointed at one of the diagram parts comparing the dragons and asked "What does this say?"


    John blanked for a moment trying to figure out what exactly Sihlas was asking. He looked at where his figure was pointing for a few moments before he realized that Sihlas couldn''t read the words.


    John had been so used to living in a country with near universal literacy that he had forgotten some people never learn to read. He hadn''t realized till now because Kalé had known how and had even taught him how to speak and write in the language that the Lands Between used.


    "This is a diagram showing the two types of dragons: dragons and ancient dragons. The ones that look like they are made of stone and have four wings are ancient dragons.


    "The word in particular that you are pointing at is ''gravid''."


    At the mystified look Sihlas gave him, John elaborated.


    "Gravid means pregnant. It is showing what dragons and ancient dragons look like when they are pregnant to show the differences between them. See how dragons have this slight bulge near the base of their tail here that interrupts the smooth curve of their body and the ancient dragons don''t? And see how the diagrams above show what they look like when they are not gravid? These are showing you comparisons to show you the differences."


    Sihlas nodded his head in understanding, and John went ahead and started telling Sihlas what each word on the diagrams'' labels was and what they meant. Sihlas knew most words when John said them; he just couldn''t read them. But some of the fancier words the diagrams used, like gravid, Sihlas had never heard before.


    The diagrams had crammed as much information onto both sides of large parchment as possible and it took some time for John to tell Sihlas every word. Each time Sihlas would mumble and repeat the word a few times. Sometimes Sihlas would ask John to repeat an earlier word he had forgotten.


    After the first few words, John realized what Sihlas was doing. He suspected that like it had been in the United States, it may have been illegal for John to be teaching a slave to read, but he didn''t care.


    By the time Sihlas was satisfied, the sun was low enough that John could tell he wouldn''t get his half of the deal between him and Sihlas today unless he didn''t meet Kalé at the inn like they had agreed.


    "Its getting late," John said. "I have to go meet back up with my friend. How about we meet here tomorrow at the same time and you can answer my questions then?"


    John knew that Sihlas might not come back and hold his side of the deal if the boy accepted, and that he was leaving himself to be taken advantage of here, but he didn''t care. If John never saw the kid again this would still have been worth it. He enjoyed teaching people interesting stuff nearly as much as he liked learning it.


    "Okay John. Let''s meet here tomorrow."


    Sihlas went to hand the box of drawings back to John, but John gently shoved them back to Sihlas.


    Sihlas''s eyes flew open, the innocence of his childlike surprise at odds with the ugly face of a misbegotten.


    "I can have them?"


    John smiled and nodded. Sihlas thrust the box towards John again.


    "I-I just wanted to see them! I didn''t mean for you to buy them to give to me!" Sihlas objected.


    John shook his head.


    "Doesn''t matter. I''m giving them to you, and the box. It''s water-proof. Make sure you hide them somewhere safe where no one will find them."


    "Thank you! Oh, thank you sir!" Sihlas bobbed up and down in his spot and sounded so overjoyed he might cry.


    "You''re welcome. I''ll see you here tomorrow." John stood up from the crumbling wall that they had been using as a bench.


    The misbegotten boy looked around to make sure no one else was looking and hid the small hand-sized box in the crook of his wing, the feathers covering it and hiding it from sight. Sihlas looked at John one more time and then scampered off, his chimeric body oddly agile despite looking like it would be awkward.


    John watched him go, the warmth of doing a good deed filling him. He just hoped the boy was smart enough to hide the drawings from others instead of sharing them.


    If Sihlas didn''t keep the teenage urge to share something and brag about it in check, the jealousy and greed of others could cause someone to steal the drawings from him. Or even worse, someone who wasn''t a misbegotten saw the kid with them and punished him. To the weak and vulnerable, good fortune and wealth could be a curse instead of a blessing.


    What was that Chinese saying? Treasuring a jade is a crime? Something like that.


    As John began walking back to the inn, he felt so good he had to hold in the urge to whistle a tune. He would see tomorrow if Sihlas would show himself again or go back on his word. Either way, John was satisfied.