The Natives

A small crowd is gathered around a hut made of clay bricks, and a young man is at the front of the crowd, pounding on the door anxiously. "Chief! CHIEF! What did the soothsayer tell you?"

A curtain covering the doorway is moved aside, and a middle aged man steps out. He's tall, burly, and he wears simple thatched clothing made from straw.

With a grim look, the chief looks down and sighs, "Now that you're all here, that saves me some trouble of gathering you all." He straightens his back and raises his voice, "My friends! They have said that there is a great evil in the mountains. The soothsayer fears that a calamity is about to befall not only our village, but all the other villages."

Everyone had heard the explosions and the monstrous roaring echoing across the land. Nobody was planning on going near the mountain anyway. However, hearing that the trouble isn't over, the fearful atmosphere around the villagers devolves into a panic.

The chief holds out one hand to grab his people's attention. "Listen, friends. I'm sure the other villagers and their elders are telling them the same thing. We need to leave the village now."

The crowd scatters as the villagers rush to their homes and start packing up their essential things. The chief looks over them all with a sad look. "Hopefully, we can come back home…"

In the midst of the commotion, the chief notices one old man standing in place, refusing to move.

Feeling concerned, the chief walks up to him and puts his hand on the elder's shoulder. "Tab. Why aren't you packing up? We have to get out of here."

Tab looks up at the mountain and mutters absentmindedly, "It was the mountain's curse that took my daughter from me. I'm not letting it take my home as well…" He looks down and turns toward his house before slowly walking away. "You can all leave without me. I'll accompany my daughter."

"TAB!" the chief shouts, "Your daughter is still alive! She might wake up someday-"

"It's been 30 years!" Tab spits on the ground towards the mountain. "The curse put my Asha to sleep, and she's never waking up. Just go!"

The chief is about to argue further, when his wife walks up behind him and puts her hand on his shoulder. "Honey. Let him go. This is his choice."

The village chief curls his fist and stomps away without another word.

Once the chief is gone, old man Tab looks towards the mountains with a furious look in his eyes. He grips the sword at his waist and thinks about what kind of monster lives there.

…Whatever it is, its curse took his daughter away from him and robbed her youth away. If he's going to die today, he'd mind as well spit in the monster's face before he falls.

Just to be sure, Tab makes sure the other villagers are out of sight before he makes his way up the mountain trail. He was an experienced tracker and forager when he was younger. So long as his body can keep up, he should be able to make it up the mountain trail just fine.

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"We almost there yet?" the guard in front complains as they walk briskly down the mountain path.

"Ugh, I haven't walked this much in decades!" another guard complains while shuffling awkwardly across the ground in an attempt to not put weight on his blisters."

"Haha!" the first guard laughs, "That's what happens when we sit down on stools all day guarding a hallway where nothing ever happens!"

"It's more than that," the second guard shivers, "The air feels dead here. It makes me feel pretty weak."

The first guard shrugs, "the Warden did warn us that the land outside the Pit seems to be devoid of mana. The Vanteri Family probably picked this spot because any escaping mages would feel weaker in the surrounding lands. I mean, can't you feel your mana slowly leaking out? It's uncomfortable."

There's an awkward silence before the first guard turns around and squats – offering his back to his comrade. "Here. I'll carry you for a bit."

"I'm not a little girl!" the second guard protests. "Let's just go!"

"What's wrong with being a little girl?" comes a voice from above them. They look up and see the female mage that followed them at the Warden's behest.

The woman had introduced herself as Dee, but everyone else knows her simply as one of the mages that lived on Floor B33 with the Demon.

With the Demon and the new Warden not trusting each other, they both agreed to send their own people down the mountain together, in case one group or the other tried causing trouble for the other using the locals.

The two guards eye Dee with uncomfortable looks. It doesn't feel good to be traveling together with an ex-prisoner.

"Anyway," the first guard says abruptly, "If we can travel faster by carrying you on your sorry feet, then we'll do it. The warden told us to go down the mountain and check to see if there's any locals we can ask directions from. Everyone knows that only the Vanteri and Imperial Family knows where the Pit actually is on the world map. With Warden Prella having fled…"

"Anyway, let's just hurry up before the Demon goes crazy again."

"Demon? What demon?" comes a voice that doesn't belong to either the guards, or Dee.

"Eh…?" the first guard squeaks out while rubbing his ears. "Did you hear that? That sounded like an old man. Where did the voice come from?"

After the Demon of the pit secretly terrorized the prison with his Death Aura for centuries, the employees had developed a culture of being afraid of ghosts. So, the guard is understandably nervous.

Since both guards are mages, they look around and cast quick spells to enhance their senses. "Aha!" the first guard mutters. "There's someone hiding in the bushes."

Seeing he was found out, an old, powerless-looking man steps out from the bushes and does a quick bow. "I'm sorry for eavesdropping. I was making my way up the mountain when I heard voices echoing through the canyon. I hid."

The second guard scratches his head. "No worries. You never know who you're going to meet." He looks the old man over to check for weapons or mana. The man isn't a mage, and he only has a small, rusted sword at his hip.

Seeing there's nothing to fear from the old man, the first guard steps forward and does a polite bow. "Are you from around here?"

The old man scowls and asks, "What did you mean about a demon?"

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In Tab's mind, this "demon" must be the monster behind the mountain's curse. He's never seen people so strangely dressed before, and it makes him nervous.

However, seeing the emblem of 2 swords crossed over a tower etched on the soldiers' breastplates, Tab relaxes. This is the symbol passed down by his ancestors, after all.

The symbol is painted on all the villager's houses so they can remember their heritage. If these strange men clad in metal wear that symbol too, then they might not be bad guys – at least, they're not complete foreigners. Plus, they seemed afraid of the demon too, so maybe they were coming down the mountain after checking the place out?

"How brave of them… and how foolish!" Tab chokes out in his mind tearfully, "They're too young to throw their lives away by going up the cursed mountain!"

Hearing Tab's question about the demon, the 2 ironclad strangers look at each other before the first says while pointing up the mountain trail, "Me and my comrades help guard a prison up the trail. It's up there, nestled between the 2 tallest mountains. The 'Demon of the Pit' we call him. He's our top prisoner, and he just escaped."

"Oi!" the stranger elbows the first in the ribs, "You sure we should be telling them that? People aren't supposed to know where the Pit is."

"Relax!" the first chuckles, "Between the Demon and that Dragon fighting, the Pit doesn't exist anymore. What's left to hide!?"

"…" Tab stares for a moment before asking, "What's a prison?"

All the villages, towns, and clans are too small to warrant building prisons, so it's understandable that his people don't know what they even are – especially when they're so far removed from the rest of the world.

The two guards both think the this native man might have heard them wrong due to a difference in accent, so one of them replies. "A prison… you know… where we lock up criminals and other people too dangerous to let loose in society."

Hearing all this, Tab's mind reels back from shock. So there have been people living in the mountain all this time! What's more, these people must be local guardians who help keep the curse at bay!

Feeling that these 2 boys must be young heroes quietly keeping peace in the land, Tab gets a little emotional and swears he's going to help them out. Besides, this "Warden" must be a very great person to be able to keep the curse contained!

The first stranger turns back to Tab and offers his hand for a handshake. "We were sent down by our boss to find directions to the Imperial Capitol. I'm afraid none of us know where we are."

Not waiting for Tab to answer, the stranger reaches into his pocket and presents a token of the Vanteri Family – something the active warden found by digging through the rubble of Prella's tower. "See this? This is proof of who we work for. If you can help us out, we promise on the Vanteri Family's honor that you'll be fairly compensated."

"E-empire?" Tab stutters out, "I've never heard of the empire before?"

The guard sputters, "What? You're speaking the imperial language, and you've never heard of the empire? Does that make any sense?"

Thinking the old man must have lost his mind due to old age, the two guards look at each other before the quieter one says, "Can you show us down to your village? We'd like to speak to whoever's in charge."

Tab glumly replies, "With the noises coming from the mountain, my village evacuated. You won't find them. Though, my chief does keep a map of the land in his house. I don't know if he took it with him, but he might have left it behind in a hurry."

Dee nods her head and says while kneeling down, "Get on my back old man. We'll take you to your village."

Tab looks up the mountain trail and mumbles, "What about the Demon? Is it still up there?" If it is, then he still has a reason to go up there… On the other hand, these "guardians" need his help for whatever reason, so if he wants revenge, then he'd mind as well do something that's actually useful.

Still… shouldn't the 2 young men be the ones carrying him if they want to go faster? This girl is shorter and frailer looking than them.

Seeing his hesitation, the woman smiles and puffs out her chest proudly, "Don't worry! I'm a stronger mage than them, so it'll be no problem!"

"…Mage?"

One of the guards mutters to his friend, "The old man probably doesn't understand our language completely. Don't ask about it. We're in a hurry, and we've delayed long enough."

Growing impatient with the old man taking too long to get on her back, Dee uses telekinesis to lift the old man up and into her arms.

Tab screams out in fear as his feet lift up in the air. What witchcraft is this!!!??? The most supernatural thing he'd ever heard of was the soothsayers his chief believes in, though Tab always had his doubts about that mysterious craft.

The old man is about to convince himself that this woman is a demon too; she didn't seem to mesh well with the other two, more responsible-looking men, after all!

However, he feels more confused when he watches another guard wave his hand, and a ball of water form out of the air. "Here. Let's drink up before we get going. We've taken a long enough break."

"H-how did you do that?!" the old man finally yelps.

The 2 guards sigh and keep walking without answering. 'This man clearly doesn't understand what we're talking about,' they think, 'so it's best to just get moving and talk to someone who can make a little more sense.'

'Are they gods or something?' Tab wonders, 'because us mortals can't conjure water out of thin air or lift people up without touching them.'

After thinking about it, it all makes sense to the old codger. If you're going to guard a mountain and keep a curse at bay, then you have to be some sort of supernatural being. Maybe they're servants of Aalri – the local god his people worship? Maybe they're spirits who took a physical form in order to hunt down the demon who escaped their prison?

In the end, having never met or heard of a mage before, Tab only has his local superstitions to make sense of things.