Haven

The pebbles cluttered under Stanis's feet as he walked out of the village hall. The second he stepped out, he could sense the brief glances and brazen stares people looked at him with. The news had spread fast and now the whole village knew their king was back.

A smirk filled Stanis's face as he headed towards the forges again. Inside the village hall, he had finished off the meeting by dedicating roles to people. To the strongest fighters, he had told them to follow the trail and ascend to tier-four.

To the others, he had told them to start up the war-effort and then boost it. Despite the village being used to battle, the magnitude of the coming war was something they could never be ready for. All they could do was survive, and Stanis was determined to make that the case.

Now, as for them listening to his warnings and heeding his orders, well, that was a whole another story. He knew he couldn't force them: too much fear and they would simply run away from the village. And so their fate was really up to them.

Moving his thoughts from them to himself, Stanis fingered the holes in his sleeve. Despite not being able to control everyone in the village, he could still increase his chance of success in the coming war. He would, without a doubt, be pitted against the strongest, and fighting enemies of that skill without sufficient armour or weaponry was, well, suicidal.

He was quickly let through the defences by flustered guards and soon enough, he was back in front of Rikkey's smithy. He walked into the building and was met by the same scene as before, minus Caleb and Kevin who had wound themselves somewhere else. The greatsword Rikkey and the other blacksmiths were making was close to completion.

Instantly, Stanis could sense that Caleb's sword was going to be one better than anything he had seen so far, let alone held. In fact, was it not for the fact that a greatsword wasn't suited to him, he would have willingly taken the sword and faced Caleb's irritation without batting an eye.

"Rikkey," Stanis called out.

Rikkey didn't respond to his call.

"Rikkey!" he shouted.

This time, she spun away from her work and looked at Stanis with a mix of anger and surprise. This quickly transformed into just anger, before finally evolving into a mix of surprise and joy.

"Stanis!" she exclaimed, before running to him. She gave him a wide bear hug.

By this time, the other blacksmiths had also broken out of their spells. They looked at Stanis with a sense of awe and respect. The truth was that all of them were now more skilled at blacksmithing than Stanis had ever been, but at the same time, they had only reached this level of mastery due to him.

"You been here long?" Rikkey asked.

"Not too long, just went and dealt with the uppities in the hall,"

"Oh, you dealt with them?" she asked.

Stanis laughed at her two-questions-in-one, before answering. "Yeah, don't know if they'll listen to me but that's up to them to decide. Anyways, I've heard things about you. About all of yous," he said while waving his arms at all 5 of the blacksmiths.

"Yeah, we all just exploded off after you left, I guess," Rikkey said.

Stanis nodded and pointed at Caleb's sword-in-the-making. "Clearly, that thing looks absolutely amazing. In fact, that's what I'm here for,"

Rikkey gave him a confused look. "The sword?"

Stanis laughed, before shaking his head. "No, no, no. I don't use no bastard-sword. Look at my threads, no defence whatsoever. The advancement to tier-four turned out to be more dangerous than I had expected. Had all of my stuff taken and broken,"

The blacksmiths quickly caught onto his request, or better put, demand. "Not a single problem. We'll make sure you get our best work to date," Rikkey answered.

"What do you want though?" Valentina asked.

"Mm. Full body armour, a long sword and a dagger are good enough," he answered. "Actually, add in a good shield to that lot,"

Rikkey nodded, before making her say. "Well, we only got this sword to finish off and if we rush, we can get it done in a few hours. We got quite a few orders after that but I can't see anyone complaining if it's you who's skipping the line. Should have the whole lot done in about 3 days,"

"That's fine," Stanis answered. He thought about staying with the blacksmiths and spending a bit of time with them but eventually decided against it.

"Alright, I got to go now. Also, I'm sure you'll hear about this soon but a war bigger than anything you've experienced so far will be coming in about a week. Be prepared for that,"

Before they could ask any questions about the large truth-bomb he had just shelled on them, he had already slipped out of the door. Smiling, Rikkey shook her head and brushed her dirty, short hair with her even dirtier hands. "Aight, let's get back to work and finish this off!"

****

Outside of the forges, Stanis looked around while deciding on his next action. He could go and make sure the leaders had listened to him, instead of starting to plan their betrayal the second he had left. On the other hand, he could go find the Jaguars and spend some quality time with them. Or he could confront some past ghosts in the form of Sil and Jayesh and find out what had happened.

But after a little bit of thought on all of the topics, Stanis deciding against all of them. The Jaguars were already making their way back, after all, Stanis couldn't see them going against his word without a good reason. As for the other two, both would be a waste of his precious time. And, most likely, he would only have more troubles after dealing with either, meaning his time was much better spent on practically anything else.

All of a sudden, the perfect idea slipped into his head. Smiling, Stanis cracked his neck and shook his limbs, before making his way towards the marketplace. It was just as loud and rowdy as the last time he had been and still, no one there knew who he was. Thus, instead of making a big commotion by revealing his identity, he decided on sneakily taking all the things he wanted just like last time.

30 minutes later, Stanis exited the marketplace with a backpack cast over his back. The actual stealing had taken very little time, instead, it had been finding the right items that had been a pain in the arse.

Within minutes of leaving the market, Stanis was already outside the village. He walked eastwards from there, towards Haven…

He knew that Silvermoon village was also somewhere around the area. Sofia, Pete, Bear and Skint were too good as warriors to give up. He had told them to come to him when the time came but thinking more on the topic, why couldn't he just go to them before the war began. This way, he also had a good chance of taking over the villages. Of course, no one would consider him a true leader but just moving the villages closer, or even better, into Yora, would mean a larger defence to fight back with.

At the same time, Stanis knew of the problems that would arise from bringing the villages together. But, he was sure that they would all be problems that he could solve with a bit of showmanship, after all, when did a good bit of murder ever hurt anyone? With enough power, he could keep the squabbles down to a minimum before the war. As for afterwards, well, he was sure he would have much greater things on his mind by then than the problems that plagued him now.

He picked up his speed and soon he was running. The backpack shook from side to side and his clothes struggled under all the mud he was splattering on himself. The air was clean and fresh, completely unlike the air he had been used to for so many months now: bloody, stale and cold. The sun was out and shining, and the grass shone like soft emeralds from underneath his feet.

A few hours later, Stanis was running faster than before. The faster he went, the more alive he felt. It was almost like a simulation of battle with a weak flow of adrenaline in his bloodstream and the endorphins flooding his mind.

It was at this time that Stanis saw the first sign of Haven across the horizon. It looked to be a collection of crudely built huts. However, Stanis shook his head at that thought and told himself otherwise. There was just no way that this was the outside of the village Yora had struggled against for so long.

A short minute later, Stanis felt gobsmacked as he realised Haven was a village just as nefarious as he had heard. Instead of the wall most villages had for their main defence, Haven had hundreds of crudely built huts and homes, each with people living inside. In the distance, however, nearer the centre of the village, Stanis could see grand houses built out of stone.

It was at this moment that he thought back to everything he had heard of the village. The people were evil and morally bankrupt. The people were bloodthirsty and at the peak of scum. The village had waged war on many villages at once, just in order to reduce the population. All of a sudden, Stanis began to get the feeling that just maybe, god forbid, that Pete had been one of the better people to come out of the village…