For the most part, to those who knew how to travel across its twisted, turned upformed streets, Magnemea was, contrary to its popular reputation as a haven of darkness and vile, a rather safe and secure place to live in. Sure, it might have been the tenebrous province that mothers threatened their misbehaving children with if they did not obey their will, but that didn’t mean it was a dangerous or unstable place to live in, if one was not a slave.



More so than any other land Damocles had visited before, the disperity between the owned and the owners was heavily marked in that barony, translating into a land of disparate lives between those that suffered under the toil and whip of slavery and those that profited and gained from said institution. He had long made peace with the disturbing nature of the demesne, but that did not stop the dark haired militant from occasionally mourning the fate of those poor unfortunate souls that he knew far too well suffered beneath the metal mines down below.



Sadly, while it was more or less true that the streets of the province were relatively safe, its borders were another problem entirely. With the constant threat of sea thieves and buccaneers, Magnemean had often met its challenge of protection by contrast of the pirates that ailed the waters around her shores. Typically, it wasn’t an all-too-difficult situation, with most of the incidents that came upon the stony shores of the slave-powered barony being relatively minor and secondary in their threat level. Yet, that did not take away from the potential of suffering some serious repercussions from such a field of lax battle.



As Acting Captain of the Damned, Damocles had been superficially tasked with overseeing the provinces’s defenses and boundaries, protecting the citizens of the land from any aggressors who would threaten its order and stability. At last, that was the official description of his orders. In practice, he had been instructed to do everything in his power to prevent any further slaves from being forcefully dragged and stolen, to stop the pirates from dragging that most precious asset from the confines of his bloody Baron’s purview and to prevent any further leaks from happening. It was a thankless task, one that seldom allowed for much profits or rewards to be cultivated from, but it was necessary and needed. And for the most part, his men were too foolish and disorganized to know what the hell was going on any ways.



He had done his duty well and hard, and had personally gone through great strides to safeguard the province. His orders had been clear, his instruction meant to be followed right down to the foot of the letter. There had been no reason for his commands to have been poorly executed or foolishly carried out.



And yet they were.



It had been a combination of cowardice, madness and stupidity, the likes of which he had often seen hidden within the ranks of the Damned, but which he could not do anything about as only a breveted officer. He had borne witness to it all, to the weakness and inferiority of men who had no right to call themselves soldiers and pick up either sword or shield at the call to their superior officer. How they had shrugged and tucked tail and turned away from their responsibility in an effort to hide their shamefulness. In an effort to make sure that things were done well, the acting leader of the Damned had done his best to secure his position and fend off as much pirates as he could, but in the end it was for naught.



Had his soldiers not shown their true colors and fled the fight, it would not have happened. If those idiots had been better prepared to handle the circumstances that they had been expected to already be aware of, he wouldn’t have suffered his strike. Yet the Gods had not shown their favor that day. And with the fall of a brandished, angry sword, he was afflicted, pierced through layered plates of armor that buried pressingly against the surface of his breastplate and crashed against his once-thought well-protected chest. Sure, he had done well to riposte the action by lobbing the head of the sea-borne scum that had wounded him. Alas, the damage had been dealt, and with a hard slam of his knee, the leader of the Damned fell to the ground. His vision wavered between perception and reality, but he had been injured far more than he had anticipated. Blood trickled down his chest, and a searing, crawling pain crept up to his side that overwhelmed his senses.



As he faded into nothingness and collapsed into fogged iridescence, Damocles wearily tried to command still, but he was in no condition to do so, and he knew it. There was little he could do to secure the fight himself, but that did not stop him from whispering orders to a man, one that had come to his side who relied his expressed will to the remaining officers of the unit. Meanwhile he had been carried away, roused by his grasping hands against hunched shoulders that ferried him away to safety and hopeful recovery. He could barely make sense of his surroundings as he was aided, with his sweaty features mostly concealed beneath the metal helm that denoted his rank.



Fortunately, though he could hardly shuffle his feet up at the direction that he had been guided, Damocles had not to spare much time awash in his own blood, for there had been a small garrison of men that had been prepared to escort the wounded and injured off to places of treatment and recovery. The heat of the hot Colchian sun fuzzied his sweat-laced brow, but as he laid on the surface of the stretcher, the groaning, scarcely conscious man felt a small, but somewhat significant sense of relief. Many men had shown cowardice and foolishness today, but even if they had cost him greatly with the hole on his chest, it seemed that he had not been lain out for death just yet. Hurriedly, two large men rushed away to the central camp of the unit, concentrating their efforts to the medical tent where one of those visiting doctors would handle the fallen commander’s wounds. Once arrived, he was struck away from his armor, revealing the extent of his injuries, which had been more than anticipated, before he was placed on a bed in efforts that caused him to snarl in twisted agony.



“Heal me! Don’t kill me, you fucking idiots!”



Angrily roared the bleeding militant to his bumbling subordinates as he manifested some scathing remains of his consciousness through tormented groans. The silvered eyed militant felt the cold air brush against his exposed chest, but he dared not look on his injuries. It was better if he did not do so anyways. This was not his field of expertise. Rather, it was one that belonged to the medics, to a pair that scurried in and of which one seemed feminine and small in appearance. Normally, he would have raised some concern with the presence of a woman in the tent, but now was not the time for protests. He could only hope for the best, pray that she had enough experience in her fingers and that her knowledge was enough to whip him back to shape. He could no longer form words, even if he wanted to, so he kept quiet. And in his silence he trusted that woman, unsure whether or not her presence would be the last discernable face he would see in this blasted world.