by Kevin Culp
Zeus was standing in the brush. As I watched, he flung one off of his tail and it flew off into the distance. At first, I was kind of surprised that he hadn’t come to help us. Then I noticed that while the horses had a few bites and looked spooked and unhappy they had all survived the attack. While we were busy fighting these beasts, he had protected the horses, so we didn’t suffer a single loss. It definitely would have been a pain if we had ended up down a horse halfway through our trip.
Korana’s side was a bloody mess, but she was still bleeding, so it at least meant she wasn’t dead. Her leg wasn’t much better, and she had deep scratches all over. I placed my hand on her side and focused my energy to use Healing Hands. The wounds closed and her skin became perfectly smooth again save for the occasional scale. Not a single scar remained.
Her eyes opened. She gasped and looked down at herself. She closed her eyes again. “Magical healing really is incredible.”
“What were those things, Archaeus?” Christina asked.
Korana answered. “They were Swamp Drakes. It’s said they are descended from swamp dragons and wolves, but people can’t really say for certain. They are considered lesser dragons. They don’t really have enough intelligence to reason with them, but they do have enough to act beyond their basic instincts. They are often pretty vile little creatures and like to drag their prey back to their nests and torture them before feeding.”
“That’s horrible,” Christina said.
I looked at her and saw that her face was pretty scratched up and bruised. Phillip still had a large wound on his leg as well. I spent a use of my Healing Hands on each of them, and the wounds healed instantly. I then moved over and healed Zeus and the horses.
I looked at Korana. “Do you know how large their territory typically is?”
“From what I understand they typically roam a pretty large area and don’t normally hunt close to their den. They stay in packs too like wolves.”
“I think we killed a fair number of them, and most of the others were too wary to attack. It sounds like even if we try to move camp there isn’t any way to know for sure we have gotten out of their hunting territory. For now, it’s probably best if we just stay here and stay on high alert during our respective watches.”
Thankfully, the rest of the night went by uneventfully. The next morning, after I finished preparing my spells, I looked over Christina’s character sheet. Only one thing had changed, and that was that her experience now showed 175/200. I couldn’t help but think that was a pretty significant amount of experience. Then again, those Swamp Drakes also seemed to be more than just effective level 1, and you often gained experience faster by fighting stronger creatures.
I snapped myself back to reality and climbed on Zeus. The others were ready to depart already, so we took off riding for the day. It was a little colder than it had been the previous day, so Christina and Phillip had to bundle up again to stay warm. About halfway through the day we started heading west and ended up traveling through the woods. Eventually, we came across a road and followed it until we reached the town of Renero. We had made good timing and hadn’t really expected to make it there until sometime the following morning.
“It’s almost stopping time anyway, so let’s see if they have an inn here to stay at for the night. It will be nice to sleep in a bed again and could be our last chance for a little while.”
“Gods, I hope I can take a bath,” Christina said.
“Me too,” Korana added.
“I’ll just be happy to not sleep in the dirt,” said Phillip.
It was getting late, and it was somewhat cold, so there weren’t many people on the street. I think this was a lumber town. I could see a lot of random trees that had been cut, but it was obvious they did some kind of crosscutting rather than clear-cutting the region which was smart. They had a log wall surrounding the town, and it was pretty small. I’d say there were less than fifty buildings inside the walls with only a small handful outside.
The few people that were on the street definitely did their best to steer clear of the massive wolf walking down the street. Only one place looked like it had much activity, and it was a large three-story building with open windows in the front, and light pouring out. There was another horse posted out front. We tied the horses up outside. I told Zeus to stay there and walked inside.
The place was pretty lively and definitely had the best collection of beards I had seen since arriving in this world. Most of the men were pretty burly and had on thick shirts that seemed to be layered wool and cotton. Many were wearing similar wool caps that covered their ears. They really looked like a big group of lumberjacks, and I had to keep myself from laughing.
Only a few women were present, and they were all serving food. They were dressed similarly to the men. It was strange because they weren’t much further south than Freid, so the weather was likely about the same, but I already could only imagine the people here in cold weather garb year-round. I crossed the room to the bar and waited for a moment before a burly redheaded man with a thick mustache approached me. A lot of people were staring at Korana as they noticed her, and she resumed her shy persona that she had fought off all those months ago.
“How can I help you, strangers?”
“We were wondering if you had some rooms for the night. Three if possible.”
“Well, we just got into the cutting season, so we are pretty booked up. I think there are currently only two rooms open. If you want them, it’ll be five silver each. They come with dinner and breakfast. If you want to cover the rooms and meals for all four of you, I can do it for one gold and two silver.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out two gold and held them up. “Is there also a bath available for use, and a place to keep our mounts?”
“Sure thing.” The man said as he took the coins.
“Oi, Linda, Susan!” He shouted.
Two young women in their early twenties walked over to the bar. They were what I’d call relatively average looking. I think Linda was the blonde, and Susan was the brunette.
“Linda, show these fine ladies and gentlemen to their rooms and then to where they can take a bath. Susan, see that their mounts make it to the stables.”
“Yes, sir.” The girls said in unison.
“Follow me please,” said the blonde.
Just before we went up the stairs, the brunette opened the door then slammed it shut. “Giant wolf!!! It’s huge. I think it’s going to eat the horses.”
A bunch of men stood up and grabbed axes that I somehow just noticed were at their sides. It didn’t help the way I was stereotyping them as lumberjacks.
“WOAH! WOAH! Calm down, everyone. His name is Zeus, and he’s with me. Hey, Zeus!” I shouted.
Suddenly Zeus’ enormous head poked through the window, and the man closest to him dropped his axe and fell into his chair, his previous bravado failing him.
“Hey, buddy. Follow this nice lady where she asks you to go okay.”
Zeus nodded.
Susan moved to the door again. She held on to the handle, took a few deep breaths, and then gulped before opening it. The men slowly returned to their seats but definitely seemed cautious.
Linda seemed a little shaken up as well. “Ummm… Okay, as I was saying, follow me.”
We did as she said and were led to the third floor. Each of the rooms only had one bed in them. I looked at Phillip and the girls.
“I’ve spent many nights sleeping on worse than a floor. Phillip and I will share a room, and he can have the bed. Christina, Korana, do you two mind sharing a room?”
“Not at all,” Christina replied.
“Fine by me,” said Korana.
We took the keys from Linda, put our bags in the rooms, and locked the doors. From there we followed her back downstairs, but we went to a different set of stairs to go to the bottom floor, and it led outside where there was a large separate building set up. There were five doors on the building each with a label on it.
I definitely didn’t expect to happen across a hot spring in a town like this. The way she spoke definitely seemed rehearsed. This was like a modern attraction from my world, though I think places like this were more common in Japanese culture than American. Christina seemed excited.
“Archaeus, can we share a room? I mean I would want to get my underwear, but this sounds nice.”
“Of course we can.”
“I think I will only use a private room. I don’t need people gawking at me.” Korana said.
“I don’t care either way. It’ll just be nice to relax,” said Phillip.
We went back up to our rooms and grabbed some of our things before heading back to the bath. You could hear people talking in the public baths, which didn’t really surprise me in a place like this. Christina and I walked into the room on the far left, and Korana took the room next to it. The floor was a soft wood and the stone lining the spring was smooth and looked like it had been manually reshaped a bit to accommodate seating. There was a metal sheet beneath the center wall with thin enough slits to let the water flow but were there to prevent peeping into the other baths through the water.
There was a torch on the wall just inside. Christina and I stripped down to our underwear. She looked good before, but I was amazed by how much more fit she had gotten in the last few weeks.
She caught me staring at her and began to blush. “What?”
“It just always amazes me how beautiful you are.”
“Stop.” She got even redder and lowered herself into the water quickly more to avoid my staring than anything.
“Oh my gods, this water is amazing, Archaeus. You have to get in.”
I lowered myself into the water. It felt like a Jacuzzi.
“This does feel very nice.”
I heard a gasp of relief from the room next door and chuckled a bit. Clearly, Korana was enjoying this as much as Christina. It was strange to think after the stress from the attack the previous night and knowing what we were traveling towards that a simple bath could make a person feel relaxed, but it did. For the moment, those things weren’t going on, and I could just enjoy the moment.
After washing our bodies, Christina and I just sat in the back corner with me holding her in my arms. I wished that we could share a room tonight, but I definitely didn’t want to make Phillip and Korana uncomfortable.
We relaxed for a short while, but we knew we needed to get to bed early for the travel of the following day. Once we were finished, we got dressed and went inside to eat dinner. It was a pretty plain soup, but it was warm, filling, and better than the rations we had been eating for days.
We got back to the rooms, and I gave Christina a kiss goodnight before she went into the room with Korana. Phillip had no complaints about taking the bed, and oddly I wasn’t lying when I said I was fine with sleeping on the floor. I hated it in my world, but Archaeus really did seem to be used to it. It made sense given how much of our campaign involved travel and camping out. As wealthy as he was, beds were often a luxury to Archaeus.
The following morning, we fell back into our usual routine. I woke up and prepared my spells. The others were all eating breakfast by the time I finished. It was kind of nice. They had some scrambled eggs and bacon, though judging from this and the soup the night before these people didn’t know what seasoning was. There wasn’t even salt on the eggs. I ate fast so we could get back on the road.
Susan was there again and went to get Zeus and the horses. When we went outside, Zeus was trying to rub his nose on Susan’s face begging for pets but judging by her expression, she seemed to think it was a taste test before the meal.
“Leave the poor girl alone, Zeus.” I reached into my pocket and handed her a gold coin, after which she seemed very grateful.
We followed the western road out of town and stopped for lunch just as the road split, one route leading south and the other north. At that point, we would have been just a few hours from the border.
Once we finished eating, Korana took the circlet out of her bag. She put it on her head, and the transformation started immediately. Her wings and tail disappeared, her hair started looking more platinum blonde than blue and silver, and the scattered scales started disappearing. Even her ears became rounded and took on a human shape. I kind of wondered why he didn’t just make it so she would look like an elf rather than human. Korana had some subtle curves that were probably pretty pronounced to an elf, but man she was a skinny human.
She immediately began to hunch over. “Ummm… I’m not so sure about this. When he gave it to me I thought it was just supposed to be an illusion.”
She leaned backwards and then seemed as if she was about to lose her balance.
“So, it’s actually transformation magic?” I asked.
“It seems it is. My back is so light, and I feel unbalanced without my tail.”
It was always taken for granted in the game that changing forms you would immediately know how to use the new form. That didn’t seem to be the case here. I wasn’t sure how heavy they were, but having wings and a tail like that all your life and then suddenly not would probably be a pain. We gave her about thirty minutes trying to adjust, but we didn’t want to lose too much time and figured she would be sitting on a horse. If she had to dismount, and they noticed she had trouble walking we could likely claim it was saddle sores.
We continued south, and as expected, the border came into view after a few hours. There was a large wall, but it was just for show as I could see it only extended a few hundred feet in either direction. Maybe China had done it, but it never seemed practical to build a wall thousands or even just hundreds of miles long. It wasn’t very busy which I assumed was the normal seeing as the guards on this side of the border were sitting at a table, and it looked like they were playing a game.
These guards were clearly from the Varnelion Kingdom given the banner behind them. I assumed that there were guards from the Largon Empire on the other side. I had put on a cloak as we began the travel south. We didn’t aim to hide all of our gear, but I figured high-quality armor was too obvious so covering it up would be a good idea. Mine and Christina’s swords were in scabbards, leaving Phillip’s bow as probably the finest quality weapon that was in the open. The most peculiar thing about us would probably be Zeus, but hopefully, they would just be wary of him and not want to come near us.
I came to a stop as we reached the gate, but the guards didn’t even get up. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
“Keep it moving,” said the man that was sitting so he was facing the road.
“Ummm… Is there anything we need to do here?” I asked.
“Yeah, you need to keep moving and let me get back to my break.”
“Okay…”
Part of me hoped that they were just so lax because there were only four of us, but then I noticed that all of them had their hands on their weapons, though they didn’t seem to be wary of us. As casual as they seemed, these men were ready to charge into battle. The prince may have told them we were coming and perhaps they were acting so nonchalant more as a display for the men on the other side who at this point had stepped into view and were facing our direction. I could have been just imagining things, but it did seem likely. The others just seemed confused.
We proceeded forward through the open gate, and just before we reached the other side, one of the men spoke. “State your business in our glorious empire.”
I had planned a story for this scenario. After discussing it with the prince, we had decided it wasn’t wise of me to lie, but neither could I tell the truth. Between the possibility of them noting the quality of my ar
mor or weapons and how recognizable Zeus is, my name could easily be learned, so it did not need to seem as if I was being deceptive. Furthermore, Archaeus was not one for lying. He had a code of conduct to uphold. He understood, however, that sometimes certain details needed to be omitted for the success of a mission.
“Yes, my name is Archaeus, and these are my comrades. We are currently traveling as mercenaries.”
Technically, it wasn’t false. I wasn’t part of the Royal Army and nor were any of the people traveling with me. The crown had requested this of us as individuals, which made us hired mercenaries. Of course, I left out the fact that I had a current mission, so hopefully, they wouldn’t ask about that or at least would ask in a way I could avoid it.
“Is there any particular business you have with the citizens of our nation?”
According to the prince, while they wouldn’t allow the Varnelion Royal Army to help, the Largon Empire denied any affiliation with Gurknille. There may however be captives of the Largon Empire being held in Gurknille.
“Not unless they are in need of saving.”
He rolled his eyes at my response. “Go on through. Enjoy your time in our glorious empire and do not cause any trouble.”
“Yes, sir. ”
We continued on through the gate. I didn’t imagine that could have gone any better. Once we got out of view, we left the road and began traveling southeast. Based on the maps we could have reached another town had we stayed on the road for an hour or two, but we didn’t want to be seen too much here, and Korana wanted to take off the tiara that was making her look human. There weren’t a lot of towns in the Northern area of the Largon Empire, but there was an abundance of farmlands and even far from the road we were still coming across the occasional house.
When we stopped for the night, we were probably about two days travel still from Gurknille. Originally, I had figured that it would take about ten days straight south to get here. Crossing the border at the road would add on about another day making it eleven days. It seemed that we would make it in nine though just from the few extra hours a day I was insisting on traveling. In just two more days, we would be going to war.