two sides of the story : the country of peak

In the kingdom of horizon there are a total of eight countries, seven of which are ran by dukes and the primary. the kingdom of Dawn ran by the king. one of those countries next to the kingdom of dawn near the bay area is known as the country of peak ran by the mighty Duke of peak himself as well. known all dukes or official dukes are representatives of one elemental. the Duke of peek represents the elemental Tara. currently our young duchess. how long with her traveling companion are in a wagon traveling on a cliffside road near the bay area towards peak?

duchess: so your name is Thomas windigo.

Thomas : yes, I apologize if you ever heard of the family name. we actually hail from the empire of tempest.

while holding a generalized conversation with Thomas duchess was cleaning her hatchet with a handkerchief. the blade was golden and bound to the dual-bladed hatchet was a dog tag that red Bertha. she seemed rather proud of the weapon she had been cleaning, but what you did notice or care to notice was that he was rather nervous about her constantly cleaning a weapon and even more so considering a child was holding something dangerous in her hands.

Thomas: so what exactly is your plan for when we get there?

don't just responds while not taking her eyes off of her weapon she seemed rather obsessed with it. not even the random shaking of the wagon affected her.

duchess : it's fairly simple plan. really we walk up to the casino, locate the casino owner. I kill all of his associates that support him then threatened to take his life if he doesn't relinquish your debt.

Thomas's face looked a bit pale and concerned for multiple reasons. really not only is he unsure of a little girl could actually do something. she seems so confident that she could but also fact is if she does fulfill her promise, that could spot a whole bunch of problems for both of them problems that he wishes to avoid.

Thomas: I'm sure you're very capable of doing that, but the thing is why don't we save that for plan b plan a could be something a bit more ethical that way there's no repercussions.

as he made the explanation he was nervously loosening his collar. he was trying his best not to ruin the clothes. that duchess was nice enough to buy for him. she couldn't afford to have her client looking sloppily during the negotiations.

she starts to consider his words and stops cleaning her ax for a bit when the coachman stops mid travel.

duchess: why did we stop? did the horses get tired?

the coachman shouts back from the front.

Coachman: sorry ma'am, I would love to continue but it appears there's some bandits blocking the way.

duchess: bandits you say?

as those words escape her lips, a very obvious smile grows on her face. see the thing that Thomas wasn't aware of was duchess had just gotten her first contract with a demon and that particular demon is possessing her hatchet since then she has been dying to try it out. with that being the case, she kicks open the door to the wagon cabin and hops out.

Coachman: ma'am, I don't think it's safe for you to be out. you should probably go back in or better yet to retreat backwards and I can stall over time.

Don't just lets out. enable laugh while she walks towards the bandits, one of which was very round in stature. yet his arms and limbs were rather well maintained. the men to his left was extremely skinny but had the strongest of legs and the man to his left. almost look like his spine was rather broken from the way he hung downwards, but his arms were refined and trained.

duchess: dear coachmen, please let me handle this and don't worry about the mess. I'm worrying my red cardigan just like mother always says.

as she walks towards the bandits blocking their way, the three of them get a nice look at the little girl marching towards him. they went out of group laugh and harmony who leaving that. if this is the best they could do, they just got the easiest pay of the lifetime. bandit one: I feel kind of sorry about you having to be our victim. so if you put down that weapon of yours will let you live and just sell you off later.

duchess ignores there are marks and keeps marching towards them. her confidence causes the bandits to laugh more and more thinking that they have won this match before long she was within meters of the bandits she holds out her blade to her right pointing towards the ocean. she then swings the blade of the hatchet forward as she does the blade of the hatchet expands covering two whole meters and lops off the legs of the bandits. they fall to the ground losing their bottom lens, the one with the strongest legs starts freaking out and screaming while the other two are still shocked from their loss.

duchess: really this is the best you could do and here I was hoping to test my limits.

she walks up to the crying man with lost his limbs. she kills the third bandit. the rounder bandits tries to send himself up with his arms to fight back duchess hoists her hatchet over her head and tries to swing down at his head. but the bandit catches the blade thinking that he was safe. he became ever more shocked when the weight and length of the blade expands past his palms entering his skull killing bandit number one another one with a broken spine seeing his comrades fall tries to get away with his strong arms. not really caring. she doesn't try to pursue him, but rather extends the hilt of her ax at a speed so fast. it punctures his heart having won the fight so easily her excitement drops to disappointment. seeing that this would be Bertha's debut fight, she then takes out her handkerchief and wipes off the blood on her face . then she cleans off Bertha's blade and hilt as well while walking back to the cabin .

Coachman: what just happened?

duchess returns to the cabin door of the wagon but before entering she stops.

duchess: dear coachman, I believe that those assorted corpses on the road have value to our mission. would you mind begging them up and putting them in the car go for us? thank you.

she then climbs into the wagon and closes the door. the couchman scared of the events that he had just witnessed besides to do what she says not knowing if he was next. waiting for the coachman to finish up the two set in the cabin. quiet for a minute. then Thomas decides to question her on the events he saw.

Thomas : what was that just now?

duchess looks at him for a minute. wondering what he could possibly mean then remembering he doesn't know much about her. she decides to clue him in not wanting to leave him in the dark.

duchess: oh yes, I guess you don't really know much about me and my mother as well as our business. The two of us are aristocrats. I don't know if you've heard of her but my mother's name is Darlene Sapphire moon. she is the anti-royalist representing Lady lunar who opposes the king. many people don't know of lunar but her followers are all demons and as many are aware, followers can only influence their natural world through contracts this hatchet here is possessed by a task demon named Bertha. task demons have the ability to perform a specified or generalized task. Bertha is a demon of shapes. not only can she change the shape of the objects she possesses but in the previous years she was known for changing the shapes of young women who offered their blood to her. I also recall there being a young aristocratic woman who gave her half her body's blood in exchange for being beautiful enough to marry her current husband, who apparently is right now known for cheating. anyways, I have a contract with said demon so I can use her powers on the ax then in its shape to my will. now that I think about it, I don't recall giving you my full name . I am duchess, Ruby moon, younger, aristocrat and heir to the moon fortune.

after hearing that boatload of information, he tries to think one of his recalled anyone defeating the description she had given. well it's true where it is. there was a aristocrat looking to bring the king down a peg. he doesn't recall the name drop so he assumed it was only a myth. soon enough the wagon starts to move again. The driver must have finished cleaning up the mess, giving them just enough time and giving the horses just enough rest to make it into the first town of the country of peak cliffside City while not as prominent as the other towns it serves as an entry point for travelers and therefore is held with obligations to look appealing less affecting the fact that this is a farming location. entering the town from the cliffside road. you could spot a variety of farms here and there, but there was also a number of novelty shops are places where tourists could come to buy a thing or two. they even had what could easily be an interpreted as attempted landmarks needing to rest up and turning the bounties for the corpses. they decide to stay in town for a bit. the city was localized for travelers. it wasn't as developed as some of the other towns in the country of peak specified more for travelers. there was still a nice, decent sized end that they could stay at for the night. while turning in the bounty at the local sheriff's office. yes, that's right. sheriff the country of peak while having nights. the nights only serve the Duke's family. the local authorities for towns and city related issues are handled by sheriffs in officers. in short, the country of peak is not a military state. the sheriff's office, while having plenty of prison cells, seemed rather underfunded from behind the checking counter. you could see one or two prison cells, all of which were either rested or in need of heavy repairs. duchess even came to wonder if the padlocks even worked but the wanted poster at least looked up to date. she recognized the three she killed on the wall and immediately pointed them out. she then unloaded the corpses in separate sacks that she had carried all the way there.

sheriff: little lady, may I ask who killed these individuals? was it your escorts or perhaps a pastor by and they let you have to kill ?

you got just looked to him without her surprise in the world.

duchess: no, it was all me. if you don't believe me, you can bring out one of your prisoners and I'll be happy to chop him up for you. she packs at the hatchet secured to her thigh underneath her dress.

the sheriff knowing when not to push further excepted what she said is fact and passed along the reward for the two victims. in total it was three silver coins plus four gold coins. it would appear that they were parked of a series of bandits that had been reading crops from the locals. looking at the size of the reward. duchess then calculated how much more she might to execute her plan. Susan requested that the sheriff pass over the additional warrants or at least copies of them so that she could go hunting as she called it. after getting what she wanted. she takes a look around town, the area that the city folk had built specifically for visitors was in spirit the idea for proper advertisement but nothing to write home about. her first stop was at a boutique to sell a local jewelry. a lot of stones freshly mined from the mountain they lived in, which looks nice when the prices were okay, but the shops themselves were mostly just wooden boards. painted over a spider's web in the corner and a hole that meant that there might have been mice in the store. not exactly that great. the next place she visited was for a local snacks stuff that you could keep in a box for days and it should last you at least 4 weeks. they were all hand made on the spot which meant it was ordered to go and the shop did have a lot of the material but the decorations for the shop themselves again weren't that appealing wooden boards nailed together for the walls. no paint whatsoever. not even a painting or decoration. they didn't even have a front desk separating the workshop from the entry area Tell me where she looked around the more she started to realize how underfunded this area might actually be, but of course she couldn't criticize us on the Duke chances are all that she seen isn't due to underfunding on the Duke's part but rather a poor handling of funds by the people in charge of the area. and since this is a farming city, a lot of the money needs to go into the bread and butter that keeps the city going, not just the local traffic. speaking of which glimpses of the farm she got from the occasional spotting considering there were farms here and there but never lookalized all over, it would appear that they were doing specifically. root base of vegetables. you're only about two farms that had trees or vine. The only thoughts that can cross her mind concerning that or maybe mountain life isn't all it's cracked up to be when it comes to survival. having nothing else to do. she decides to pack it in and head towards the hotel.