Two months, give or take.
It has been two months since the Deathlings appeared and turned the city upside down. And it was even longer since Dietrich Drache had seen any traces of his family. His last visit to the family estate was cut short, and he had planned to visit them to celebrate the holidays.
Only that was not to be the case.
The aging Alt-Regalian leaned upon the rampart of the Buerg Eleng, clad in bits of pieces of Ravenstad armor that barely fit him if it wasn't for the cloth padding he had been utilizing. He had done the same routine for the past two months: Patrol the outer walls. Man the gates. Look for the next supply wagon. Attend a planning meeting. Repeat.
Repeat. For two months. Dietrich had come to the point where he kept asking himself the same thing. Which was worse: being inside Greygate awaiting his turn at the execution block, or standing guard behind this castle, cut off from all family throughout the winter seasons. The homesickness was started to tear at him, and it was becoming much harder to keep civil amongst his companions behind the walls. With the recent happenings of the castle, things were growing bleaker by the hour. Yet the nobleman still aimed to be hopeful in these cold times. It wouldn't be long before he would see action yet again.
In the city things weren't any better. Walthur Drake leaned behind the counter, reading one of the few books he hadn't read yet. He was always so busy writing up a few shipping charts or redrawing parts of the maps he had made over the years. Yet for a good month and a half he had hardly any customers come to the door, so reading became the choice of the day.
Despite his calm look, Walthur was worried. He thought he could ride out the occupation with the barrels of drink he had stored in the attic. Yet even after calculating the loss caused from the Merchant shop crawl, he didn't expect his drinking habit to drain his supply so fast. All that was left was half a barrel of Leviathan Rum. To top it off, the food was running out as well. He had been heading to the Willow more times during the day than before, keeping an extra helping of bread for later. But man can only tolerate bread alone for so long, leaving Walthur to tighten his belt a few days to get himself a small steak or a pie.
Of course he had enough cash to buy a whole banquet. But people might get wise when they discover that there was still some in the city that still had it pretty well. So the navigator played his facade to blend in, all while taking the bare minimum he needed to survive. "Eventually the town will be ablaze and the riots will start, and I plan on keeping locked up behind these walls when that happens" he mentioned to Saskia Drache a few weeks ago.
The riots hadn't started, yet. But Walthur suspected that all it would take is one action to knock over the rum bottle. So he leaned back, book in hand, and waiting for the impending struggle on the streets.
How the days have rolled by for these men, and how many more will come.
