Tag: fortress al-mir

Chapter

The Party, Interloper

by Tower Curator — While trying to look mildly embarrassed over how the inquisitor admonished him, Arkk looked over the room. His eyes skipped over the gaudily dressed nobles, wealthy merchants, and mercenaries, focusing instead between them, on the servants that otherwise went unnoticed. There were two kinds of servants at the party. The entertainment, mostly made up of non-humans showing off their bodies, dressed similarly to what Dakka had ended up wearing. The attendants, on the other hand, moved about in fine clothes…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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Chapter

The Party, Intercepted

by Tower Curator — Arkk stood alone in a side hallway of the Duke’s manor. He wasn’t sure that he was supposed to be off on his own. In all the commotion of moving the guests around, no one had stopped him and right now, he just didn’t care. Something about seeing Alya standing there behind the Duke ticked him off. He hadn’t meant to lash out. From Ilya’s account of their first visit to Cliff and the various people who had given him information on the Duke’s advisor, he knew that she wasn’t being held…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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Chapter

The Party, Interrupted

by Tower Curator — For all the negativity he had heard with regard to these monthly parties and his own biases against the Duke, Arkk couldn’t say that the party was bad. Strange and alien, yes. Social rituals were being conducted all around him, ones he didn’t quite understand nor could he participate in. Arkk, led through the ballroom first by Hawkwood and then by Aron Wolf, bounced from group to group. He barely had time to talk to any of them before being whisked off to be introduced to the next little clique.…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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Chapter

The Duke’s Manor

by Tower Curator — “I feel like an impostor.” “We are impostors,” Ilya said, fiddling with the sleeves of her dress. She grasped hold of long, dangling strips of cloth. “What are these for? Can’t I cut them off?” Arkk looked over her. Madame Webb’s Fine Threads had come through. Last night, the day before the party, Arkk had received the delivery at the Cliff’s Edge. Clothes for himself, Ilya, Dakka, and Zullie. Ilya’s dress was a long white gown that hugged her waist and left the tops of her…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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Chapter

Recruits and Tea

by Tower Curator — Arkk looked around the commandeered room of the Cliff’s Edge, eyes meeting with those of the assembled recruits. There were just under forty in total—not including a few he had hired outright earlier in the day before realizing just how many people had shown up. About half were beastmen and a quarter were demihumans with the remainder being humans. Not many. Especially not compared to how many people he had seen throughout the day. It was more than he expected upon arriving at Cliff, however, that…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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Chapter

Interviews

by Tower Curator — Wealthy merchants, knights and lords, and other important people, tended toward the far grander stayovers not far from the Duke’s manor. The Cliff’s Edge, situated near the garrison and nowhere near any cliff’s edge, was still the kind of place where people like Alma wouldn’t normally be allowed inside. It was a fine building, one of the taller ones around, made of hearty wood washed yearly with a glaze to fend off the corrosive ocean air. The washing had been done just a few months prior, leaving…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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Chapter

Scouting Mission

by Tower Curator — “So that’s it?” Arkk asked, looking out over the wide gardens and open plazas that made up the promontory that jutted out into the ocean. The grounds looked idyllic, the kind of place where fairy-tale princesses would frolic during the day. At night, the white stone walls would provide plentiful security for a peaceful rest. Clinging to the roof of a building with Ilya at his side wasn’t how he pictured his day going when Ilya said she could get their eyes on the Duke’s manor. He wouldn’t,…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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Chapter

Fallen Plans

by Tower Curator — “Still no sign of the inquisitors?” Vezta shot Arkk a glare. An actual, genuine glare. That was, perhaps, the first time he had ever seen her in any way upset with him. He simply raised an eyebrow. “No, Master. Rest assured that I will inform you the moment I detect any suspicious activity. You do not need to ask me every five steps.” “Just making sure,” Arkk said. Twenty-four hours inside Cliff and still no trap sprung. He was fairly confident that the letter from Hawkwood had…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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Chapter

Return to the City of Cliff

by Tower Curator — Returning to the City of Cliff did not fill Arkk with the same sense of wonder and awe that had struck him during his first approach to the city. Cliff hadn’t changed. It was still the largest settlement he had ever seen, far larger than any regular burg, with grandiose buildings and a harbor full of ships that looked too big to float. The temple atop the island mountain in the middle of the bay gleamed in the sun of the early evening, just barely out of reach of the shadow of the mountain that gave…
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Chapter

Plans and Preparations

by Tower Curator — “It is a trap,” Rekk’ar said, lowering the invitation to the Hawkwood’s dinner down to the meeting table. “Obviously.” “I concur,” Olatt’an said. “The fact that your missives were delivered by a Swiftwing harpy should have been evidence enough of that,” Zullie said, adjusting her rectangular glasses. “They’re reserved for use by the Duke only, for correspondence with important people. The King or the Ecclesiarch. Not random mercenary leaders.” “Forgive me, Master. I…
1. Fortress Al-Mir
  
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