Chương 130: 129 - Welcome to Balrum

Morning was still young when the caravan set off. Calling it a caravan was generous. In reality, Oren directed a dozen mules packed to the limit of what their backs could fit. He had two employees, Silver-ranked fighters who were supposed to help him handle any trouble that came their way. One was at the back, the other at the front. Alexandra, Willow, and Kam walked in the middle of the procession, with two men and three women who'd paid for the trip. Oren walked with them.

"Always stay in line," he explained, his gaze lingering on the walls of Oldwater behind them.

"The mud wastes are treacherous. There are monsters dwelling in its depths, yes, but the terrain is perhaps our worst enemy. One wrong step and the mud will swallow you."

"How are the Hounds these days?" a woman asked.

"It's been a while since I've crossed."

"Quiet," Oren said.

"But you never know."

"The Hounds?" Willow asked.

"Monsters?" The caravan leader shook his head.

"Nah. Bandits. Rumors have their leader reaching Platinum. Would be a good thing. Force him to move out of the basin." As they settled into the journey, Oren moved up the line to direct the caravan. The woman who'd asked about the Hounds turned to Alexandra.

"Blue hair is certainly a choice," she said.

"Makes you stand out despite your skill." Alexandra frowned. Zeynep had noticed her skill.

"Yeah, not my choice."

"I'm Zeynep." The woman extended her hand. Sun had darkened her forearms past her sleeves, and a scar ran pale through one eyebrow, thin as a hair. Alexandra shook it, then Willow, Kam, and the four other travelers.

"Are you from here?" Alexandra asked.

"Born and bred in Balrum." Zeynep nodded.

"I'm looking forward to our arrival. It's been months since I've visited."

"Really?"

"I was hunting elementals in the stone fields," Zeynep said.

"Good money in there. I'm guessing you're not from around here?"

"No, we come from the east," Willow said.

"The east?" a man who'd introduced himself as Alev asked.

"What brings you to the basin?" Zeynep put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't. People come to low-level zones for many reasons." She smiled at Alexandra.

"If someone asks you in the future, just say you're here to hunt elementals. Elemental sources sell very well outside the basin." Alexandra nodded.

"We met a stone elemental yesterday. Do you have any advice on how to kill them?" Zeynep whistled.

"And you made it out? Not bad." She paused.

"Well, the only way to kill them is to reach their source underground. Most of us hunters have classes specialized in excavating the earth." The journey through the mud wastes was supposed to last four days. The walk was long and monotonous. The perfectly flat terrain was covered in mud, sometimes hard, sometimes wet. There was nothing to see, nothing to do. Sometimes, a bird flew high up in the sky. Most of the time, there was nothing but the wind blowing in their ears to keep them company.

At least the sun battering them wasn't too hot. Cold air blew across the wastes. Alexandra found that her quests were achievable on the move. One of them was about traveling a set distance. Another required her to exercise with her solar mana threads. The third demanded an enchantment. The last quest was more embarrassing, asking her to jump on one leg for a good hour. Still, it could have been worse.

Daily quests summary: Four Quests Completed -> +40 exp, +2 CON, +2 INT Daily Quest Streak: 100 -> 104 Balrum was drawing closer, though everyone told them they wouldn't arrive before late afternoon. Alexandra was bored, and her mind was already dreaming of the next day. She was only a quest away from her next level.

"We're lucky we haven't been attacked," Alev noted.

"Not even a mud elemental. Those things are a pain to deal with."

"Don't jinx us," Zeynep said.

"Anyway, with Oren and me here, we'd be fine." The mountains came first into view, jagged and white-capped, cutting into the sky. Then the pines, scattered at first, then thickening into slopes of green. Alexandra felt the ground firm up under her boots. The air sharpened, carrying resin and cold stone instead of wet earth.

"Almost there," Zeynep said. She'd pulled a wool wrap over her shoulders an hour back.

"You'll want a cloak before winter proper." Alexandra nodded. She'd get one, if only for optics. Her solar core would keep her warm. The road appeared beyond a rock, and Balrum opened below them in a bowl of pale cliffs. Towers of soft stone rose from the ground, pocked with square windows and carved stairways that spiraled up their faces. Half the city sat inside the cliffs themselves, doorframes cut straight into rock, chimneys poking out from what looked like solid hillside with smoke threading up into the wind.

The other half spilled out below in ordinary timber and stone houses. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"They dig the houses?" Kam asked.

"Easier than building up here," Oren said, falling back to walk beside them.

"Stone holds heat better than wood, too." Willow tipped her head back to look at the mountain proper, where snow sat thick above the treeline, unbroken.

"It's freezing."

"You'll get used to it," Zeynep said. Mules brayed as the caravan wound down the road. Pines gave way to terraced orchards, then to a low wall ringing the city, its gate open and unguarded save for a single man leaning on a spear, half-asleep. He straightened when Oren raised a hand and waved them through without a word. Inside, vendors had strung awnings between the cave mouths and the freestanding shops. Lantern light already glowed in windows carved deep into the rock.

Children chased each other around a fountain carved from the same pale stone as the cliffs. A woman sold skewers from a cart, and the smell made Alexandra's stomach tighten. No cracks running through the walls. No misplaced looks. Oldwater had worn its danger openly. Balrum looked safe.

"This is home," Zeynep said.

"Inn's this way." Oren stepped toward them.

"I'm going to ask for the other half of my payment first." Willow nodded and handed him the coins. He smiled.

"Fantastic. Make sure to ask if I'm around if the desire to go back to Oldwater strikes you."

"I doubt it will," Alexandra said. He chuckled.

"You never know." Oren was already directing the mules toward a stable yard. Alev and the others peeled off toward a market row lit by hanging lanterns. Zeynep waited, one hand resting on the strap of her pack, watching Alexandra take in the city.

"Well?" she asked.

"Better than that Oldwater shithole, right?"

"You bet," Alexandra said.

"This is amazing." The more she stared at the cliffs, the trees, the tall mountain peaks, the curious cave-houses, the more Balrum awed her. Something about the town was inviting, more than any place she'd visited before.

"Actually," Zeynep said.

"Don't bother with the inn. I'll host you."

"Are you sure?" Alexandra asked, looking at her friends for their opinions. Zeynep tapped her shoulder.

"Come on. You're not sleeping at an inn when I have room for you."

"We don't want to impose," Willow said.

"You're not." Zeynep was already walking, cutting away from the market row toward a stair cut into the cliff face.

"I have a house. Big house. Empty house, most days. You'll save your coin, and I'll have company for once." The stairs climbed past shopfronts and washing lines strung between window ledges. Higher up, the cave mouths thinned out, spaced further apart, each one wider than the last. Zeynep stopped at a black iron door, the paint around it worn smooth at the edge where a hand would push. She shouldered it open. The room beyond swallowed the daylight.

Zeynep turned on a magical light, warm and orange, lit from brass fixtures shaped like open hands. The floor was layered three rugs deep in places, red and indigo, patterns knotted into diamonds and vines. A loom stood in one corner. Shelves cut directly into the stone held pottery, small brass bowls, a collection of wooden masks, and a row of framed portraits.

"Family," Zeynep said, following Alexandra's eyes to the portraits.

"They're not here." The ceiling arched low and rounded, smoothed by hand rather than a tool. Alcoves opened off the main room like burrows, each one curtained, each one holding a bed built into the rock itself.

"Three empty rooms," Zeynep said.

"Mine's down the hall." Kam ran a hand along the nearest rug, fingers catching in the pile.

"You made all this?"

"Some. The rest was my mother's, and hers before that." Zeynep dropped her pack by the door and rolled her shoulders, working out the stiffness of the road.

"Sit. I'll get dinner started." Zeynep moved through the kitchen alcove like she'd done it a thousand times, which she had. It was her house. A round earth oven was built into the corner, its opening blackened with years of smoke, and she crouched to feed it kindling from a woven basket until flame caught.

"Sit, sit," she said again, waving a hand at the cushions scattered near a low table.

"You've been walking for four days. Let your legs remember what rest is." Willow sank gratefully on the rugs. Kam took longer, hesitating, but eventually caved when Alexandra pressed him down. When she sat down, she realized the rugs were much more cushioned than she expected. They were very comfortable. Zeynep pulled a covered clay bowl from a shelf, revealing fresh dough.

"Nothing like the belly of the earth and a little bit of magic to keep things fresh." She worked it briefly on a stone slab, folding in a scoop of beans already soft from soaking, dark and glistening with oil and spices.

"You bake beans into the bread?" Alexandra asked.

"Faster than cooking two things." Zeynep shaped the dough into flat rounds, pressing her thumb into the center of each so the beans sat nestled like eyes. She slid the rounds onto a long paddle and fed them into the oven's mouth, one after another, her movements quick and practiced. The smell came a few minutes later. It was warm and earthy.

"This place is incredible," Willow said, looking up at the low stone ceiling.

"You really grew up here?"

"Whole life. Well." Zeynep settled back on her heels, watching the oven mouth.

"Whole life until I started hunting. Then it was more like half a life here, half a life out in the fields."

"How are you so rich?" Kam asked, blunt as ever.

"You don't look that old." Zeynep laughed, short and surprised.

"Older than I look, maybe. But family thing." She reached over and turned one of the loaves with a small iron hook, checking its underside.

"My parents were Gold too. My grandparents too."

"That's amazing," Alexandra said.

"Are they still hunting?" Something shifted in Zeynep's face. She kept her eyes on the oven.

"You don't have to answer that," Alexandra added quickly.

"If it's—""No, it's fine." Zeynep pulled the first loaf free and set it on a stone tile to cool, steam curling up off the torn crust.

"It's not a sad story, really. They leveled up. Both of them almost in the same month. Platinum." She said the word carefully, like it still surprised her.

"And once you're Platinum, you're not allowed to stay in the Basin."

"They just left?" Kam asked.

"They write." Zeynep pulled another loaf out, turned it over in her hands to test the heat, then broke it in half and offered a piece to Alexandra without looking up.

"It's not… I'm not sad about it. It's what you do. You outgrow a place. I'll follow them someday." She finally looked up, and whatever had closed in her face a moment ago had eased back open.

"House got quiet, is all. Nice to have it loud again."