Restart Again: Volume 3

by Adam Ladner Scott

“Hmm. I’ll have to save it for special occasions.” I flopped onto the couch when we entered the living room and stared blankly at the high ceiling, enjoying the respite after my morning of sparring.

  Lia paused halfway up the staircase. “Aren't you going to pack? We’re leaving tomorrow morning, and we’ll be at my parents’ house for most of the afternoon.”

  I gestured lazily over my body. “Done. I travel light.” She waved me off with a shake of her head as she climbed the rest of the staircase and disappeared into the bedroom. Having already donned my gear for Marin’s test, I was ready to leave aside from a few final items; I rose begrudgingly and retrieved the diamond orb from our table of curiosities, then moved to the kitchen to refill a pouch on my belt with trail rations. Satisfied and fully packed, I returned to my supine position on the couch and waited for Lia to finish her own preparations.

  She returned a few minutes later with a small backpack that she set at the base of the stairs before joining me on the couch. “We’re finally doing it,” she said as she wormed her way in between the back cushions and my chest. “An adventure that isn’t just us running from Virram’s guards.”

  My thoughts turned again to Val’s arrival two days prior, but I forced the feelings down before they could ruin the moment. “It’s been a long time coming, but we made it. This is just the first of many.” I kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Sorry it took so long to get here.”

  “Oh, I can’t really complain,” she said with a smile. “The past month has been alright, I guess.” Her smile widened as she let out a repressed laugh. “Maybe the best month of my life. Who’s to say, really?” I felt an intoxicating warmth surround me as Lia’s aura expanded into mine. My remaining anxieties melted away, and I took a deep breath as I closed my eyes to bask in the feeling of calm.

  There was a light tapping on my forehead a few moments later. “Hey. No sleeping. I promised my parents we would help them get the house ready this afternoon.”

  “Mhmm.”

  The tapping grew more incessant as my eyes remained closed. “Get up, Lux.”

  “Mmm,” I groaned, pinning her in place as I nestled further into the couch.

  She giggled as she fought against my imposing form, pulling her arms in tight to her sides and rocking back and forth. I felt my body slipping towards the edge of the cushions as she continued to push me away, and I fell onto the floor after a brief, awkward struggle. I opened my eyes to find Lia staring down at me from the couch.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” I groaned, scratching the back of my head.

  “You were going to fall asleep, like you always do,” Lia teased, sticking her tongue out.

  “What’s so bad about that?”

  “We promised to help my parents get everything ready before our dinner tonight!” she repeated as she reached her hand down to pull me to my feet.

  “You promised to help. I don’t remember saying anything of the sort.”

  Her hand disappeared halfway through the motion of pulling me up, and I nearly fell to the floor for a second time. “If you don’t help, you don’t get any dinner.”

  I considered the ultimatum for a moment. “In that case, we should probably get going,” I said, starting towards the door. Lia let out a playful sigh as she grabbed her bag from the base of the stairs, then jogged up behind me and took my hand as we began our walk through the forest.

  Over the course of our journey, I noticed for the first time that the path we followed had worn down to a thin dirt trail in the grass, clearly demarcating where Marin, Lia and I had traveled back and forth over the past month. The sight made me smile; while the timeless nature of our secluded homestead made it easy to forget, it was nice to see a reminder of the long-term stability we had created.

  Marin greeted us at the door when we arrived and immediately doled out a long list of tasks to be finished by sundown. As she informed us multiple times over the course of the day, Elise’s visit for dinner would be the first time she had seen the house, and everything had to be completed before her arrival. Lia was enlisted to help her mother take care of the stubborn packing boxes still scattered around the house, while I was sent back into the forest to find fresh meat for our dinner. “Something more exciting than rabbits, please,” Marin implored me as I was shooed out the door.

  I found a large range of potential targets in my initial sweep with Detection, but I discounted most of them based on Marin’s criteria for an “exciting” main dish. There was the usual range of pheasants, turkeys, and other wild game birds, as well as squirrels and rabbits, but my eyes were set on a larger prize. I was surprised to see a vulroc out during the day; the red and gray striped fox stood as tall as a wolf, holding statue-still on a fallen tree as it surveyed the surrounding forest. While they were sometimes hunted for their beautiful pelts by less-than-reputable sportsmen, Lia had told me it was generally frowned upon to kill them—and that the meat was next to inedible—so I left it to its business.

  My sights finally settled on a solitary bihorn grazing in an open clearing. Despite its name, the ox-like beast had only a single horn growing from the top of its head. Lia had explained the odd name came from a children's story in which two of the Primevals argued over how many horns the animal should have; the parable ended with a moral lesson about compromise, but I had failed to see how the tale justified the incorrect nomenclature. The oddly named bihorn was mostly a domesticated beast for both food and labor purposes, but the smaller wild variant still existed in much of northern Lybesa’s forests and fields.

  Once I had stalked within visual distance of it, I suffused the beast’s neck with mana and activated my Pain Reduction enhancement, then swiftly followed up by shattering three of its cervical discs. It fell to the ground without a sound and remained still, instantly dead from the severed nerves. I moved in to retrieve my prize and, after taking a moment to prepare myself with enhancements, hoisted it onto my back. While it wasn’t as large as a domesticated bihorn, it felt as though it weighed nearly half a ton as I draped its legs over my shoulders and began the hard walk back to the Corells’.

  My return was met with fanfare from Marin and Marten, who were working on organizing the storage shed when I emerged from the forest with my trophy in tow. I asked the pair for help butchering the animal and was amused by their responses: Marin refused the task outright, stating that the process would make her queasy, and Marten ran inside without explanation. He returned a few seconds later with Hana, who carried a small fold of leather under her arm as she followed behind him excitedly. While she looked over my quarry, Marten gave me a satisfied nod and left the two of us alone. After the brief inspection, Hana opened the folded leather to reveal an impressive array of knives and set to work guiding me through the butchering process.

  As I learned over the next few hours, Hana’s father had been a butcher in the Kaldanic town of Myca, and despite his insistence that butchering was “men’s work,” she had learned everything he knew by helping him in the back room of his shop as she grew up. She quickly surpassed the skills of her two older brothers and was set to inherit the shop when her father grew too old to run it himself, but the persistent advances of a young trader named Marten eventually convinced her to move away to Tolamar and start a family. Between her skills in butchery and my ability to move the half ton carcass around with ease, we had the bihorn hung, drained, skinned, and ready to be portioned in just a few hours.

  I brought a large tenderloin cut inside to Lia once the portioning had begun and helped her get dinner preparations underway. The remainder of my afternoon was spent bouncing from task to task whenever I was needed, be it in more butchering work with Hana, helping Marten with heavy crates, fetching water for Lia’s cooking, or assisting Marin in whatever tedious duties she had remaining on her list. While everyone else happily worked on their own projects, Marin paced through the house nervously, always finding a small corner to sweep or a picture to straighten. Despite my reassurances that the house looke
d lovely, she always waved me off with a huff and found another job to occupy her mind out of my sightline.

  The sound of a wagon rattling up the dirt road alerted us to Elise’s arrival as the sun began to set over the forest. We gathered outside as the carriage entered the clearing, drawn by two large black horses and driven by a familiar blonde-haired young woman in a Three Barrels uniform. Elise stepped out of the carriage wearing a full-length blue overcoat and carrying an enormous bottle of wine. “That’ll be all for tonight, Bella,” she said as she passed her driver. “You can retrieve me at sunrise tomorrow.” Bella nodded, waiting for Elise to cross the yard before she reined the horses in a circle and drove back down the road.

  “Hi, Ellie!” Marin shouted, dashing forward to wrap her in a tight hug.

  “Hello, dear,” Elise answered with a smile, returning the embrace with her free hand. “It’s good to see you!” She looked past Marin to where the rest of us stood in front of the house, then up to the house itself. “So, this is the place!” She kept her arm around Marin’s shoulders as she walked across the lawn. “It’s a beautiful home.”

  “Thank you, Ellie,” Hana answered. “I’m glad we’re finally able to have you over to visit.”

  Elise offered the bottle of wine to Marten. “It’s long overdue! Things at work have been inordinately taxing the past few weeks, to say the least. Tonight’s getaway is exactly what I needed.”

  “Well then, come in!” Marten said, gesturing to the front door. “Dinner should be ready any minute, and you still need the grand tour of the place!”

  “Oh, I can show you around, Ellie!” Marin volunteered, beaming beneath Elise’s arm.

  “Thank you, dear,” Elise responded, “I think I’ll take you up on that.” Before going inside, she looked in my direction. “Lux, Marly, it’s been too long! How’ve you been?” She looked around the clearing for a moment. “I see that your ‘extra supplies’ have disappeared.”

  “We’ve certainly been busy,” I grinned. “Thank you again for your help with that.”

  “No need for thanks. You paid me to do it, after all,” she laughed. “Maybe someday I’ll see what all of those Imperials paid for.”

  “Maybe,” Lia chimed in. “It might be a while, though; we’re leaving tomorrow on a bit of a vacation.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Elise said, giving Marin a small shake, then nodded her head towards the door. “Let’s talk about it over dinner. I’m starving!”

  When we all filed into the house, Marin immediately led Elise away into the living room to begin the tour, excitedly pointing out various aspects of the house that she found particularly impressive. The rest of us moved to the kitchen to set the table and put the finish touches on dinner. We plated up six servings of braised bihorn over roasted vegetables and topped with crispy leeks, as well as extra-full glasses of wine courtesy of Elise’s offering. The pair finished their tour just as the last plate was set out, and we all sat down to eat.

  The first minute of our meal was filled entirely with the sounds of clattering utensils and voracious chewing as we all dug into the fork-tender bihorn, too engrossed in the food to speak. Elise pounded the table with her fist after a particularly large bite and let out a loud, satisfied grunt. “This is delicious! Where did you find bihorn this fresh? Was it Harren’s shop? I swear that man is always hiding his best stock whenever I go in there.”

  “Lux brought it in this morning, fresh from the forest,” Marten answered through a mouthful of food.

  “Oh, he’s a hunter, too?” she asked coyly, raising her eyebrows at Lia for a moment before turning to Hana. “That must mean you were the butcher in question.”

  “Yes,” she answered with a wide smile. “It was nice to have a reason to use my knives again.”

  “You know, I could find you a job in town if you’d like. Primes, you could open your own shop; I know you’ve got the skill, and I’ve got the capital.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’m quite content with where I am now,” Hana answered. “Though I must admit, I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to practice now and then.”

  “That can easily be arranged,” I cut in, “as long as I get a meal out of it.”

  “Of course,” she laughed. After taking another bite of her dinner, Hana returned to her previous conversation. “Speaking of work, Ellie, how’s the business been? You mentioned something when you arrived about a taxing week.”

  Elise groaned and shook her head, then grabbed her wine glass and drained the half-full vessel in one gulp. “Not so good,” she said eventually, wiping a few dark red droplets from the corner of her mouth. “I’ve lost five caravans in the past two weeks. Not just the goods, but the whole damn caravan; wagons, horses, men, everything.” She shook her head and gave a bitter laugh. “I know it’s bandit season, but they usually aren’t so thorough about it.”

  “Bandit season?” Lia asked. “There’s a season for bandits?”

  Elise nodded. “Winter for Kaldan is bandit season for Lybesa. All of the northern farms will be sending the bulk of their crops out to bolster Kaldan’s food storage, which means all the trade roads will be at their busiest. Naturally, that means people looking to acquire those goods by less-than-legal means will be at their busiest as well.” She traced her finger around the rim of her empty wine glass. “Without the Mountain Gate, everything has to go south. The Lybesian Midlands are...what’s the right word...not lawless, exactly, but certainly less enforced than the rest of the country. I would normally avoid the area altogether this time of year, but my options are limited.”

  I averted my eyes down onto my empty dinner plate as my role in her hardships became apparent, but she moved on without pressing the point any further. “It’s only about two days of travel across the Midlands that’s really troublesome. You’re generally safe once you reach Oraille, so I’ve had my contacts send word whenever one of my caravans rolls into town. Since the start of the season two weeks ago, half of my crews have failed to arrive.” Her finger stopped on the edge of her glass, and she let out a heavy sigh. “I just hope my people are alright, somewhere out there.”

  “We could look into it for you,” I offered, glad to find a way to ease my conscience. “Lia and I were planning to go down that direction on our trip to the capital anyway. It wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  Elise raised a finger as if to scold me, then paused as her expression changed from one of consternation to slight amusement. “Were I talking to anybody else, this is where I would remind them that my caravans are always escorted by three armed guards, and that two civilians on holiday would only be putting themselves in danger by hunting down the missing wagons.” She laughed as she grabbed the wine bottle from the center of the table and poured herself another glass. “Given what I know about you two, none of that really applies in this situation. Even an organized company of bandits wouldn’t be an issue for you, would it?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Lia remarked casually as she chewed on the last of her bihorn.

  “In that case, I won’t pass up the opportunity to potentially save my men. If you manage to find them and send them home, there’ll be a hefty reward waiting for you when you return,” she stated, “plus a bonus should you stumble across the missing wagons and goods in the process.”

  “We don’t need a reward, Elise. After everything you’ve—”

  She held up a hand and cut me off. “That’s not how I do business. You’ll be doing both me and my men a service, and you’ll be rightly compensated, end of story. If you’re not interested in coin, I’m sure we can find another agreeable reward.”

  “If you insist,” I shrugged, already updating my mental list of necessary supplies for our remaining renovations.

  “I do.” She took another hearty sip of wine and sat back contentedly. “Now, enough about my business. How have your endeavors been lately, Marten? Is the area everything you hoped it would be?”

  “I can’t complain,” he answered. “The local co
ntracts you gave us have kept the wagon moving nonstop. Given this new information about the Midlands, I think we’ll be content to stay local for quite some time.”

  “We went to Caelum’s forge yesterday!” Marin chirped, excited to find entry into the conversation. “We managed to get everything he wanted sold down to the southern market in one trip!”

  “Oh, did you now?” Elise chuckled. “Out of all the leads I gave you, I’m surprised that one worked out. Caelum has always been a prickly old man, to put it nicely.”

  “As a prickly old man myself, I get along with him just fine,” Marten joked. “He was very appreciative of our more personalized business offer. And our lower fees.”

  “Get back to me when you try to use that business model with a few hundred employees,” Elise countered. “Until then, we can peacefully coexist in our own markets. Unless, of course, you’d just like to come work for me.”

  The business conversation continued well into the evening until the leftovers were cold and the wine bottle was empty. We moved into the living room for our usual nighttime ritual of playing cards, splitting into three even teams. Marin and Elise both boasted of their superior skills when the game began, but the copious wine consumption from their side of the table at dinner proved to be too much of an obstacle for them to overcome; their team was quickly eliminated from the first round of the game, and both women began to doze off together on their low couch.

  Our game concluded half an hour later with a narrow victory for Marten and Hana. While I helped them quietly move the furniture back into place, Lia helped Elise extricate herself from beneath Marin; the girl had fallen asleep, tipped sideways against Elise, and was currently snoring softly with her head in Elise’s lap. When Lia attempted to rouse her, Marin pawed the helping hand away. “No, s’fine. I’ll...sleep here,” she mumbled, nestling her head closer to Elise’s stomach.

  “Poor girl can’t handle her wine,” Elise remarked, watching her through heavily lidded eyes. “You can take her to bed; I’ll sleep here for the night.”