Chương 40: Explorers Part 1

"Remember to send a letter at least once a week from Wayhold," Sari said, adjusting his hair for the tenth time. They stood in front of the city gate, waiting for the merchant Rufik, whose route stretched all the way to Jakar, from where Arien would travel by river to Torben, and only then by ship to Wayhold. He had to admit he was both excited and afraid. He was about to cross hundreds of miles through Erador, with only the vaguest idea of where anything actually was.

Dressed in a leather jacket, sturdy boots reaching above his ankles, and a green cotton cloak, he felt like a hobbit setting out on an adventure.

"You've got gifts from me, Sari, and Lady Vylda in your pack," Alia added, her slightly red eyes revealing she had been crying not long ago.

"What gifts?" he asked, surprised.

"For your journey and your new life in the capital. And remember, don't forget to pray. And eat well."

"We agreed we wouldn't give each other farewell gifts!" he protested loudly.

"Arien, we'll manage just fine. You, however, will need every coin you can get. The pouch at the bottom is from Lady Vylda. She sends her regards and says she can't wait to hear news of you." From the gate, the first wagon rolled out, driven by a broad-shouldered man with a thick beard and equally bushy eyebrows that formed one continuous line across his face.

"I'll miss you," Arien said, trying to steady his trembling voice. Apparently, being an adult in one life and almost grown in another did very little against sisters saying goodbye at a city gate.

"Hey-ho, hey!" the man shouted, pulling the reins and stopping the donkeys.

"Hop on, boy, time is money. Leave your bundle on the cart and sit up front with me!" Arien sighed and looked at his sisters one last time. Another hug would not make leaving easier. He hugged them anyway. Then, before either of them could say something that would make him look even more pathetic, he turned, climbed onto the back of the wagon, and pushed his heavy pack between neatly stacked sacks.

"Rufik," the man said once the gate disappeared over the hill and Arien finally stopped waving.

"Arien," he replied politely. Rufik glanced at him from under his one enormous eyebrow.

"First time on the road?"

"That obvious?"

"I've seen enough farewells to recognize one." Arien nodded.

"Is there anything I should know?"

"Hundreds of things," the merchant laughed.

"But don't worry. In the two weeks it takes to reach Jakar, we'll teach you everything you need." He clicked his tongue at the donkeys, then looked at Arien again.

"So tell me, Arien. Why is a boy like you going all the way to Torben?"

"My uncle lives there," Arien said.

"He found me an apprenticeship." Rufik's expression softened a little.

"And your parents?" Arien looked down at his hands.

"Dead," he said quietly.

"Two years now."

"Crotonians, from the raid?" Rufik asked, shaking his head.

"A terrible thing. I heard the King rescued some prisoners afterward, and the bandits paid for it." That was what people said. No one from the surrounding villages had ever come back, and Arien had never heard the name of anyone across the border who had supposedly paid for what happened. Rufik clearly believed the story, or at least wanted to, and Arien saw no reason to argue with a man he had known for less than an hour.

"Yes," he said, lowering his eyes for a moment.

"The King showed them they could not attack us without consequence." Then, before Rufik could ask anything else, he looked at the reins.

"Can I try?" By noon, Arien had learned that traveling by wagon was much less romantic once every bump in the road started arguing with his spine. The road wound through coniferous forests, brown fields, and villages that looked different only until he saw the next one. Rufik talked often, usually returning to the same lesson: stay on the road you know and don't get clever. In his stories, people who ignored that advice usually ended up meeting bandits, Monsters, or some other problem they should have seen coming.

During the first break, Arien met the rest of the caravan. The second wagon belonged to Rufik's son, Elias, a thirteen-year-old with his father's enormous eyebrows and the beginnings of a beard that made Arien feel personally offended. The third and fourth wagons were driven by hired cartmen whose names he forgot almost immediately.

The last wagon belonged to two Explorers in their middle years: Jax and Usna, who spent most of the break arguing with the comfortable rhythm of people who had been doing it for decades. By evening, Arien was cold, sore, and far less impressed with adventure than he had been that morning. The caravan finally stopped for the night beside a patch of trees just off the road. As the others began unloading supplies and preparing camp, Elias kept shooting Arien hostile looks. Arien could hardly blame him.

So far, his greatest contribution to the caravan had been staying out of the way. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Then the others failed to light the damp wood, and Arien finally found a use for himself. He crouched beside the kindling with a flint and struck it several times. When no one seemed to be watching, he fed a little Fire mana into the next spark. The kindling caught. Jax looked over almost immediately.

He had spent several minutes trying to get the same damp wood burning, and now Arien had managed it with an ordinary flint. The Explorer took it from him, examined it from every angle, compared it to his own, then frowned at the fire as if suspecting it of cheating. Elias, at least, had stopped glaring at him. Perhaps using magic to start a campfire was frivolous, but freezing all night seemed worse. Once his fingers had warmed, Arien went to his pack for an extra cloak.

That reminded him of what his sisters had said about gifts. Carefully, he unfolded his clothes until he found two small bundles wrapped in burlap. The first contained a tiny figurine of Astran. How fitting, he thought, staring at the solemn man holding a bow in one hand and a sphere in the other. Astran, god of courage and patron of Explorers. And fools, as some said. If he was to pray, this was indeed the right god. The second bundle contained a set of black cotton trousers and a blue shirt with white embroidery.

The fabric alone must have cost Sari a fortune, easily dozens of silver coins. He quickly stuffed it back, afraid he might somehow dirty it. Finally, he loosened the pouch from the bottom of the bag. Gold glimmered inside. Arien immediately stuffed everything back into his pack and glanced around to make sure no one had noticed. And he hadn't given them anything in return!

After more than half an hour, their makeshift camp was ready, and everyone sat in a semicircle, snacking on dry rations while waiting for the water in the kettle hanging above the fire to boil for tea. Arien watched the pair of Explorers with curiosity. Jax, with red hair already streaked with the first strands of grey, was sharpening his hatchet, while his wife lay beside him, leaning against him with half-closed eyes. He had to admit they didn't quite match his expectations of Explorers.

In his imagination, Explorers were young, armored, heavily armed, and somehow always survived whatever they fought. Jax and Usna looked more like a couple running a roadside inn than the heroes of his imagination.

"Yeah, boy? You want to say something?" the woman asked, opening her eyes wider.

"Uh… sorry. I shouldn't have been staring. It's just…" he stammered, slightly flustered. Everyone was now looking at him.

"Just what?"

"It's the first time I've ever seen Explorers."

"Oh. I see." There was a faintly amused tone in her voice.

"And? Do we meet your expectations?"

"Uhh…" Think, Arien!

"In my father's stories, they wore armor, and there were more of them," he blurted out.

"They wielded flaming swords and cut down hordes of Monsters with a single glance," Jax laughed.

"I used to imagine my job like that too, when I was your age."

"So what do you actually do, then?" Arien asked. The question came out more disappointed than he had intended.

"Mostly?" Jax said.

"We walk. We carry things. We guard people who think paying us means they no longer have to use common sense. We sleep badly, eat worse, and spend half our lives checking whether a quiet road is quiet because it is safe, or because something already scared everything else away." Usna snorted without opening her eyes.

"And sometimes," Jax added, "if you survive long enough and the Guild starts trusting you, they send you somewhere interesting."

"That sounds…" Arien hesitated.

"Less heroic?" Jax supplied.

"A little."

"Good. Heroic gets people killed."

"Oh." He looked at Jax's hatchet, then at the ordinary wagon behind him. Part of him wanted to accept the answer. A larger, stupider part rebelled.

"But there are Explorers like in the stories," he said.

"My father told me his grandfather saw a full team during the Spill. Ten of them. He said even the soldiers went quiet when they passed." Jax looked into the fire before answering.

"Yeeeah," he drawled.

"There are Explorers like that. Mostly nobles, or people rich enough to live like them. The sort who wear gear worth more than this entire caravan and have Healers waiting whenever something bites back."

"And they enter Portals?" Arien asked.

"They do."

"Have you ever been inside one?" Rufik and the two drivers groaned in resignation.

"Oh, leave the boy alone," Usna said lazily.

"Let him hear it. Go on, Jax. Tell your story."

"I've already heard it twenty times," Rufik muttered.

"And you'll hear it twenty-first," Jax replied.

"Alright, where do I start?" He scratched at his beard.

"I grew up in Wayhold. You see enough mages throwing lightning over the rooftops and Explorers walking around in enchanted armor, you start thinking that sort of life is waiting for anyone brave enough to grab it."

"Was it?" Elias asked.

"No," Jax said.

"But I was young, so naturally I assumed the world was wrong." Arien smiled. He was beginning to like the man.

"Me and two friends trained every chance we got. We wanted into the Guild, but they wouldn't even let us through the door until level twenty."

"That seems high," Arien said.

"It seemed criminal," Jax replied.

"So we took whatever work could level our skills. Guarding warehouses. Escorting drunks home. Chasing thieves who were usually faster than us. Once, I spent three months protecting a merchant's cabbages." Rufik looked over from the other side of the fire.

"Those cabbages paid better than you deserved."

"The point," Jax continued, louder, "is that we eventually reached level twenty and joined. Thought they'd hand us a map to some forgotten ruin and point us toward glory."

"They gave you cabbages again?" Arien guessed. Usna let out a short laugh.

"Almost. Bronze rank. Caravan duty, night watches, missing livestock, warehouse guards. Same work as before, except now we wore Guild badges while doing it."

"No Portals?" Arien asked. Jax's smile faded.

"No Portals. No legendary Monsters. Mostly sore feet and people complaining that we charged too much."

"So when did that change?" Arien asked.

"Slowly." Jax turned the hatchet in his hands.

"We started getting better work. Goblins near farms, smaller Monsters wandering too close to the roads, things like that. Dangerous enough if you were careless, but nothing the bards would bother singing about." He scraped the whetstone along the edge.

"Eventually I had the levels and reputation to join a stronger team. Ten people, proper equipment, a couple of experienced mages. That was when the Guild started trusting us with more serious contracts."

"And Portals?" Jax snorted.

"Not a chance. Portals were for the elite teams. We got ruins, Monster nests, long escorts through bad country, and places caravans had stopped coming back from." He looked into the fire.

"But eventually, we got our adventure."