X. Night Watch

The night passed without incident.

Ector spent a lot of time asking Iro questions about what he could remember, oftentimes stopping him in mid-sentence to ask about some detail or for an explanation. Iro did his best to answer everything, and despite his inability to answer many of them, he was able to offer a fair amount of vivid detail about what little he did remember. It was during this time that Gunter leaned into the conversation, appearing interested for the first time since it'd begun and hour or two before.

Finally, for the first time, Iro remembered something before the battles.

Ector had been asking him about something unrelated to the past that referenced farms, and without even realizing it Iro found himself saying he'd used to live on a farm himself, as a child. As he said it, small flashes of mental imagery bubbled to the surface for the first time- walking down a long dirt and gravel chip road towards home, climbing the large tree in the yard, the sound of his elder sister's voice calling him in for dinner. He tried to remember her face, or her name, but the memory fragments eluded him. Iro shared all of this with the other two as it came into his mind. Ector seemed deeply interested by the digression. Gunter seemed bored, however, and contributed little to the conversation outside of the occasional dry observation, and a never-ending stream of pipesmoke. After a short while, he removed a leather-bound book from a rucksack beside him, and checked out of the conversation entirely.

Iro also took the opportunity to learn more about his new companions.

Ector, being the far more open of the two, did most of the sharing. He grew up near the Saltwind Coast at the southern point of the continent. His family had moved into the center of the Republic when he was a teenager, largely on account of his father taking up a position in the civil service in the capital city of Braedenburg. His mother did the majority of the caretaking and housekeeping for the family, and, as Ector put it, "me and my brothers never gave her a moment's rest".

Ector's brothers had apparently entered the Aergonian military as officers right out of school, and by the time Ector was old enough to enlist were already leading small commands of their own. Lacking the ambition of his two older siblings, Ector joined up out of a sense of familial obligation, and the expectation to never actually see a combat line. Utrecht, the power they were at war with now, attacked the Republic of Aergonus within 3 months of his training completion, and he was marched into the front lines, where he met the rest of his squad, and, now, met Iro as well.

Gunter comparatively shared very little, despite Iro's questions and Ector's goading. From what Iro could gather, Gunter had been driven out of his homeland when Utrecht had invaded and subjugated it, choosing to flee to neighboring Aergonus rather than join the number of his people who'd chosen to form a resistance after the defeat of their armies. Once inside the Republic, he'd petitioned for and obtained a clearance to join the Aergonian army, where he'd ended in the 409 with Ector and the rest. When Iro asked which nation Gunter was from, Gunter seemed hesitant to reply, before Ector chimed in.

"Gunter's from the Ungarian Conglomerate. His father was on the Board of Directors," He said.

Gunter shot Ector a look that made the young man wither, and Ector shared nothing further. After that point, Gunter seemed unwilling to answer in more than mono-syllables.

However, the fact that the Ungarian Conglomerate still existed in this world, or, well, had existed, at least, was enough to send a thrill through Iro's spine.

After three hours or so, the last of which was spent in relative silence, first watch ended, and Ector were relieved by Joren and Lyra. Both seemed to be less than pleased about having their sleep cut short, and at first seemed to make no effort whatsoever to acknowledge Iro's existence.

Joren, while civil, was notably guarded. He seemed willing enough to share basic information, but made a clear, concerted effort to avoid providing any information that could in some way be useful to someone trying to glean military intel. He'd enlisted when the war started, and through a combination of luck and skill managed to score a promotion early in the war. He'd been leading the 409 ever since. He was also married, and had a young daughter that'd been born shortly before the war started. The Republic exempted those who'd been recently married or had young children from their conscriptions, but Joren had volunteered, despite the protestations of his wife. When Iro asked why, Joren seemed to evade the topic, and Iro got the sense that pushing further wouldn't get him anywhere.

Ophelia, however, didn't acknowledge Iro's presence or say a word to either of them. She instead sat cross-legged at the edge of the firelight, inside a circle of painted stones she'd placed on the ground, and in front of a small wooden altar that held a small leather bound volume, and a small censer that emitted a constant stream of opaque smoke that seemed to swirl in circles around her. Iro could hear her rhythmically chanting various motifs and phrases in some form of gutteral language that he didn't recognize, and at various points she drew signs and sigils in the air with her fingers, disturbing the swirling smoke stream. Iro wasn't sure if it was just a trick of the light, but on more than one occasion he swore he saw misshapen faces appear and speak in the smoke strands after she disturbed them with her glyphs, but he heard nothing, and as soon as his eyes seemed to focus on the shapes, they were gone. Either way, the entire context gave Iro the creeps, and he was perfectly willing to let that be all he learned about the tattooed gnome on a night like this.

At the end of second watch, Joren rose and bid Iro goodnight, but said nothing to Ophelia, who seemed to be utterly engrossed in the midst of a chanting ritual. A few minutes later, Basta and Lyra emerged from their tents, and joined Iro around the fire, both pointedly giving the chanting gnome a wide berth and sitting closer to him.

Lyra, while not rude, did not seem to have much desire to do more than focus on honing her blade, and willingly let Basta carry much of the conversation. The dark elf, for his part, seemed all too happy to ruin this plan.

Basta, much like Ector, seemed all too willing to offer up information, but unlike the young human seemed much less interested in what Iro had to say or in sharing about himself, instead choosing to serve as a never-ending well of obtuse information and wry observation.

Iro, for his part, learned quite a bit from these several hours, including learning that Utrecht had at one point been several smaller nations, before one of them managed, through political wiles and outright violence to join the others under a common banner.

"What were the names of the smaller nations?", Iro asked.

"I know there were four of them, but I don't know if I remember them all...", Basta said. "One of them was the Prapos Accord, one is some greenskin name I can't bother remembering, and another was the Assarian Protectorate. The fourth one was...."

He sat back for a moment with a furrowed brow, and crossed his arms. He looked over at Lyra.

"Do you remember the fourth one? I think it started with an 'O'. The something empire."

Lyra didn't look up from her honing, and just shook her head.

"History's not really my thing."

"Ah well, not really important," Basta said with a shrug. He stood up and walked into his tent, and walked back a moment later with a container of some kind in hand. He sat back down, and Iro saw that it was some sort of bottle. He pulled the stopper out and took a drink, and then held the bottle out towards Lyra, who'd finished honing the blade, and was now wiping its length off with some kind of rag.

"Want some?", he asked, shaking it around slightly so that the liquid inside sloshed around.

Lyra looked over at the bottle.

"Gunter's gonna kill you if he sees you stealing his fire-wine.", she said.

Basta smiled. "Oh, I'm sure he will", he said, taking another drink.