Grimm & Usai || SWP || Temporary Survival
A very short time after: Exodus & SWP Update On a main road in northwest Athoria @pratikar
The roads in and out of the Hallowed Oak were barricaded as if the disease from Mahalath’s vessel in Leeds would spread that far to the outer cities, and so the guards stopped anyone and everyone that passed through without question or even an inkling of respect. Unless Athorians dared to tread further into the dense Oak, attempt to find away around the main roads that lead them to the major cities then they were thoroughly examined. Young adults were stripped from their mother’s arms, husbands and wives left behind...And if they dared to hide others inside the cart or wagons, among the hay or food or animals, then the Knights slayed without mercy for defiance against the crown.
It was, for lack of better words, disturbing...even to a creature of Purgatory. To know that the rumors had been true left a salty taste inside of the ancient creatures mouth.
Grimm found it difficult to decide what to do, where to go. After Mahalath had quite literally been erased from this earth right before his eyes, the phantom simply fled east to escape the sickness. He left everything behind in that damned city of sin...his home, his faith in Baazlebub, his purpose.
“It’s about temporary survival now, you understand that, right? This will pass, we will move on. We must only wait,”
For a day Grimm had sat hidden in a tree with a friendly companion nearest one of the checkpoints that Natalia’s Knights had set up...the road most traveled from Leeds heading north, where one could veer off northwest to Night Haven, the village of the dead, or east to Brailston, their blooming capital. He watched them prowl the roads and nearby forestry searching for smugglers and outcasts, ones that had made it out of Leeds alive. They drank and sang around a fire eating roasted pig legs and spoke of obscenities regarding the next woman that came through and what they’d do to her. Grimm never cared much for the royal guard or those that demeaned for no good reason. But he watched and observed so he could get what he wanted. He waited for an opportunity to take a little revenge.
Besides, he was hungry...and quite chilly in middle of an Athorian winter. They needed warmth and food, shelter. And it was important to always survive.
He turned to Usai with a boyish smile that contradicted the atmosphere of Athoria and the conversation that they had been ease dropping on.
“How about a lesson?”