A millers life

Looking towards the direction he heard the whistle coming from, Jay found Agent Kearnen sitting on a branch high up in the closest fruit tree.

She was watching the mill through the scope of her rifle and seemingly unwilling to stop that and look over to him.

Dismissing his horse he went over towards her and was about to climb up as the small woman jumped down, rolled forward with her weapon held close and landed right next to Jay. Still wondering at which time this beauty had left the inn to be there that early and already waiting for him, he greeted her with a smile.

Going into cover as she pulled him down, Kearnen narrated what she had watched today and found out in the last days.

The men working at the mills were either bandits in disguise or millers that work with them. All mills in the region had either gotten taken over or closed due to different reasons:

Some had been burned down, some got wrecked and destroyed beyond repair, sometimes even the millers or their families simply went missing and a few even closed up out of volition as no customers came anymore.

Now the only ones available rip their customers off and the spoils go directly to Millshire. The warehouses there must be so full that they could easily support Arathor and the whole army for more than a year, but they still didn't deliver their share completely.

Looking Jay dead into the eyes, Kearnen asked Jay to help her free the mills.

As a little reward she will tell him something she found out recently, that might enable him to find the group of bandits that set the farms on fire. Stating he would help her either ways as she would have given him the information either ways as well, Jay accepted an asked for a plan.

Before that he got a little interruption though.

***

Quest:

'Free the mills'

Object:

help Agent Kearnen to free the mills taken over by bandits.

***

The plan she told him was easy as he simply had to rush over and somehow sabotage the mill so the miller responsible for it would come out. Then they could swiftly kill off the bandits without fear they might kill the man before he could tell of what he knew.

Kearnen would keep watch and give Jay cover fire if necessary, until they had the miller in custody. Then they could question him together and see what came next.

As Jay was about to leave their hiding spot, Kearnen held back at his arm and explained what she had found out.

"It's not much, but as I was spying on the mills I heard a small group of bandits talk about a camp in the mountains. Their talk was about how a mill burned down close to there and that it had been the brutes from the base camp in their idiotic campaign.

But that's all I could hear until they got out of reach. At that time I couldn't blow my cover for rumors…" K.

"Do you know of any burned down mills and their location?" J.

"There are two as far as I know. One is a bit to the north next to the eastern main road and the other was near the mountain range a bit to the east. I can show it to you on the map later, okay?"

"Thanks for that information. Good you kept your head low, or else we wouldn't know about the mills and other things… I'll be off." J.

With that he jumped out of cover and gave the Agent another small surprise when he vanished out of her sight.

He had activated hide on his way over to the mill and as he looked back he found her searching for him.

In no time he covered the distance and the two workers at the mill didn't even notice him as he climbed it above them. If his knowledge of history wasn't wrong, old windmills got fixed when they weren't in use.

This would probably call out the miller without destroying the mill for real.

On the small platform under the wheels axis he found the two roped hooks with which he could fixate the wheel.

The windmills blades were made of wood and hide, so using his strength, Jay grabbed the construction blade by blade and slowed it down until he finally could stop it and affix the ropes.

Then he climbed back down the wooden part of the mill and jumped down the lower portion made of concrete. The two bandits that had been working there had gone inside, so he hadn't even hidden.

Kearnen was walking over already as she had seen his success.

She hadn't covered even half of the distance as a short and stubby man threw the door open and came walking out while cursing. He directly looked up to the wind wheel and didn't notice Jay who had again hidden.

That changed the next second as he got hit like by a truck when Jay's fist connected to the old mans cheek.

Without even screaming he got knocked out cold when the other side of his face made contact with the ground.

Grabbing the man's arm and pulling him towards the mills entrance as Kearnen arrived, the three entered the building. She barely managed to close the door behind them, when Jay had to let go of the miller because the two workers there dropped their disguise.

While one of the two bandits rushed over and tried to attack them, the other one climbed up a ladder and tried to flee.

It was obvious which one made the better choice, as Jay took out his hammer and gave the agent behind him a demonstration of his crushing blow.

The poor bandit flew head first, or better said leftover first, into the next wall and his bones broke audible. A single critical hit had killed the level 13 bandit.

To have at least a small chance to flee, the other bandit had pulled up the ladder behind him and already reached the mills gears, while he was trying to exit to the platform.

Kearnen gave Jay a sign she'd take over the captive and had him follow the fleeing bandit.

The missing ladder was nothing but a joke to Jay as his parcours skill told him multiple ways up there.

Taking the shortest one, Jay ran up the wall two step, jumped back and grabbed a wooden beam. Then he swung around and after half a somersault, jumped to the next platform where the bandit just exited.

Jay only heard Kearnen shouting for him to get the mill back running when he went through the door. Behind it he found the man who fled about to climb down over the railing. Arriving there with two fast steps he grabbed the mans wrist and hurled him back up on the platform.

A snapping noise informed Jay he had dislocated the bandits shoulder with that, So he just needed to grab his other arm and shatter its upper bone with his knee to have him unable to retaliate or flee.

Taking the rope holding the wind wheel from the wall and binding it around the bandits ankle, Jay tossed the level 12 man over the railing so he hung head down from the windmill.

Like he had anticipated, his question as to where their base camp was could not be answered, as well as who ordered them.

Having lost his interest in the man, Jay swung him so he could grab the dislocated arm, pulled him up and threw the other rope around the bandits neck.

With a little support he had the windmill turn again and went back inside the mill.

The drumming sound of the bandits arms hitting the windmills hides sounded funny as he climbed down inside and Kearnen had a questioning look.

Stating that he didn't learn anything new, the Agent want back to her work.

The miller was already missing some of his fingers when Kearnen asked him to repeat for Jay what he had just told her:

I seemed the man had been disowned a while back when it came to light he had been tricking the farmers and hoarding quite some wealth. The miller lost his mill and the few lands he had, only for his family to leave him when he got imprisoned.

He had been surprised when the same duchess that jailed him had presented him an offer.

That's where the talkativeness of the man stopped and all Kearnen found out until then.

All the while the miller had talked, the sound of the mill grinding stone got louder in the background. Grabbing his already mangled left hand and guiding it towards the grindstone, Kearnen asked how the story went on.

The miller lost half another finger until he went on.

He got to work for Millshire and was to supervise the mills that had been kept running.

Since then he changed locations every now and then and taught the basics to some of the men he got stationed there.

What else they learned from him was that all the other millers either got to work at the mill in Millshire or had been set to watch over other mills still working and getting supervised by him. All together it was just over half a dozen left in the region as all other millers and their families had either fled or died.

But they only learned that after the rest of the old millers hand was gone and the grinding stone changed its color.

His nonchalant way of narrating things like it couldn't be helped enraged the normally cool Agent so much that she asked Jay if he wanted to leave the mill for what was to come.

He shook his head and looked at the miller who had started screaming.

The following scene was something Jay really hadn't expected as the small woman heaved the heavy miller over the grinding stone and pressed his head down onto it. With about a third of his head gone, the screaming stopped, but Kearnen still ground it down to half.

Letting the dead man fall down and clapping her bloody hands, she passed Jay without uttering a single word and went outside. As he went after her and exited she was staring at the windmill with a small smile.

"I thought about excusing to you for my actions inside, but I see it's not necessary. Nice work, though a bit noisy…" K.

"At least I don't need to wash my hands that much…" J.

"Good justification, but that's the reason I wear black…" K.

Chuckling a bit to each others comments, Jay checked his log and saw the bandit died only some seconds before they left the mill. Kearnen explained her next course of actions for the day and asked Jay for his plans.

She would go out and free the other mills, but directly stated she'd do it alone not to have him be seen and endanger his set meeting with the duchess.

To that he got surprised twofold as he had guessed they'd do that together. The other surprise was a notification that appeared in his field of view.

***

Quest:

'Free the mills' cleared!

3100XP

***

Glad the mills quest still got completed, Jay decided to spend the free day searching the bandits who had been responsible for the fires laid on the farms.

Because of them, countless families had fled or even lost their homes and the economy was threatening to break down.

Telling Kearnen his plan for the day she showed him the locations of the burned mills on her map. It was a more detailed version depicting the southern half of the county. The area north of the mill close to the main road was named Dead Acre.

As he asked about it, Jay learned it was a region where no crops or vegetables grew well, so it was there where the farms breeding and growing cattle began.

The second mill could be reached following a smaller path to the south from there.

Jay and Kearnen agreed to meet the next day in the inn as none of them knew how long their respective tasks would take. His deadline though was lunchtime as the duchess would receive him at the early evening.

The moment she wished him good luck on finding the arsonists, another notification appeared in front of Jay's eyes.

***

Quest:

'Revenge'

Object:

find leads to the bandits base camp.

***

Summoning his horse and saddling up, Kearnen looked a bit envious at him so Jay asked if she wanted him to give her a ride. With a sly smile she answered that might be an option once they cleaned the mess they were in, winking him with her still bloody hands and a big grin goodbye.

Back on the road leading from Millshire to the main road, Jay sped up his mount and arrived on the big crossroad to sentinel and the southern area a while later. There he rode straight ahead and went towards the Dead Acre.

A while later he saw a charred black building resembling a small tower.

It was built next to the crossroad with a path leading south and the second burned down mill that had been mentioned. The path was not paved but still in a good condition for carriages to travel along smoothly.

On his way there Jay had passed a few other mills, all in farther distance to the road.

Had he taken the other way he had seen on Kearnen's map, he would probably have come along them and some more mills. From what the map depicted there had to be numbers of mills, explaining why the city and adjoining territory had a mill in its name.

Jay had already wondered if only the single gigantic mill in Millshire had been responsible for that, as it looked old but not old enough to have been built decades or centuries ago.

The fields on the opposite side to where the path led was a barren plain. It was neither green nor pure soil, but something in between, looking like the ground dearly needed water so it could grow back to be a perfect meadow nourishing cattle.

Turning to the right and following the path, Jay made his way towards the mountains feet in the south.

The vegetation changed soon and he rode through sparse trees more than through open fields, but it was still far from a forest. Because of that it didn't take that long for him to spot the other burned down mill near the mountain range.

Still a short distance away from it though, Jay encountered a group of people blocking his way.