by Ryan Rimmel
“Hey, give me some credit! I’m at Talented,” I replied in a hot whisper. Julia looked at me appraisingly for a moment. Nodding to herself, she spun me around rather aggressively.
“They figured us out,” said Julia, pushing me toward Cole. “We are escaping my father, and O’Really here is his clerk. He has the Administration skill.”
“Well, I can see you are an Acolyte, but O’Really here doesn’t have any skills listed at all,” stated Cole.
“That’s because of the cursed amulets my mother forced us to wear,” continued Julia, nearly sobbing. She turned, addressing the forest and exposing her neck to show the finely wrought collar. “You see! She forced O’Really to wear a matching collar to keep all of his skills from showing, so no one else would hire him! Mine…” Julia’s lip quivered with her voice, “Well, mine prevents me from knowing a man intimately.”
“How so?” asked Cole. Either Julia was better at this than I was giving her credit or Cole had failed his Detect Bullshit check.
“It causes their manhoods to be rendered permanently flaccid,” she sniffed. “We were searching for a curse breaker.”
“To remove the collars?” asked Cole imploringly.
“That’s one of the reasons,” said Julia, looking at me sadly.
Cole swallowed hard. “Well, I can assure both of you that such treachery will have no place in our caravan. We are attempting to travel out west, past the Vineyards.”
“Thank you so much!” cried Julia happily. “Just to warn you, though, my witch of an aunt might send some adventurers after us.”
“Fear not, our caravan is well-protected,” stated Cole. “If a handful of adventurers try to attack, we’ll be ready and rarin’ to go!”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” replied Julia. “Please, come, O’Really.”
“I seem to have a great problem with that all of a sudden,” I stated flatly.
“Oh, hush, this is what you wanted, after all,” smiled Julia.
Chapter 17 – The Caravan
Badgers were not built for overland travel. That was an immutable fact, like water flowing downhill, and Charles needing to die. In the past two days of travel, Badgelor, Lord of the Badgers, had made it all of twelve leagues. Doing so had taken every trick he’d known.
Badgelor could sense Jim, who was even now being chased by powerful adventurers who were trying to kill him. Without Badgelor there, Jim was doomed. That distressed the badger greatly. Jim was the only tolerable human he had met in the past 400 years.
“Ya Dumbass,” thought Badgelor, as he continued waddling overland.
“I knew this was a mistake,” replied
“Look, ya wee little Shart,” growled Badgelor, “I need to know if I’m still heading down the right road.”
“You can see Jim’s direction,” stated the demon.
“Direction and road are two different things. I’m not wandering overland any longer. It takes too long,” grumbled the badger.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” hissed Shart.
“When Jim figures out how to summon you back,” stated Badgelor, “And you know he will, I will remember this, arsehole. Mark my words.”
Shart was quiet for a few moments. “They are heading toward the Silverado.”
Badgelor frowned. Jim was too far away, and Badgelor would be in no fit shape to fight when he got there. Not if he kept up this pace. The badger thought for a long while before smiling. With Jim so far away, Badgelor didn’t have to share maps with him, which was good. When Badgelor had an idea this great, he didn’t want anyone bothering him.
Thankfully, Shart couldn’t track him and generally didn’t talk to him. Assuming this stupid, crossed wires nonsense worked as advertised, the Lord of the Badgers had some work to do.
***
“So, what you meant to say was that you are attempting to form a caravan and would like some help,” I said, glaring over at Cole.
“Sure’nuff,” he replied, as we walked into the clearing. The twenty men Cole had brought with him were gathered in one spot. Including the women and children, their camp came to a spanking total of thirty-four people and one chicken. In the middle of all the activity was a single, oversized wagon, which was currently stuck in the king of all potholes.
The Caravanner’s Wagon was supposed to be the center point of the entire caravan. It functioned as the Town Hall. This particular wagon was a grandly over scaled one, hauled by six massive oxen. It was the Ordinal equivalent of a semi-tractor trailer operated by an Expert Wagoner.
RonJared, the Expert Wagoner of this roaming town, was good with his hands. I guessed being an Expert Wagoner required some Carpentry, along with its core skills. Also, given his name, RonJared was not native to Falcon. Every Falcon name I’d heard so far sounded ‘American’ for lack of a better word, except for Su-Kar which struck me as a man’s name for some reason.
RonJared was currently in the mud with several other men, trying to put a wheel on the wagon. However, they seemed to lack the supplies necessary to do it. At least, they lacked the supplies to do it in a muddy hole.
I was about to suggest to Julia that we bail, but she had already wandered over to several injured people. They were in obvious need of some tending.
“How would an Administrator have prevented this?” I asked.
“Well, I would expect the Administrator to pick up the Caravanner subskill. It grants a bunch of bonuses to caravans that prevent things like wheels spontaneously shattering,” said Cole, shooing me toward the problem.
“That might be a problem, I don’t have that skill,” I said.
“Not to worry,” replied Shart, “The Caravanner subskill is part of Administrator skill, you gain ranks based on your Administration skill, so it won’t take long for you to level up this thoroughly useless skill at all.”
“That sounds great,” I said.
“It isn’t, Dum Dum,” stated Shart. “But wasting everyone’s time is what you do best!”
● You have been offered the job of Caravanner. Would you like to accept
I didn’t like this, but Cole was at least keeping the area patrolled. I selected “Yes.”
“Shart, you don’t see those other adventurers, right?” I asked.
“Nope,” said Shart. “They started a few fires when they left the last town, but nothing the local yokels couldn’t handle. Then, you severed the Tracking spell and moved off the road.”
“I expected you to complain about what I was doing,” I chuckled.
“Like that would change your mind,” grumbled the demon. “Besides, if they are going this same way, you are going to be harder for them to locate now. That is assuming you get started soon, of course.”
Wandering over to the wagon, I watched RonJared and several other men attempting to get the new wheel on the axel. They didn’t appear to be having much luck.
“What happened?” I asked, as they gave up on their latest attempt.
“Cheap wheel shattered at the worst possible time,” announced the broad-shouldered man. He eyed me carefully. “We don’t have the right tools to get this thing fixed. We would, if we had someone to organize this mess.”
“What do you need?” I asked.
“Some sort of jack. If you could whip up one, I’d really appreciate it,” RonJared smiled.
“Sure, let me have that chicken.”
***
Phillip glared at the tracks and swore again. That was always the problem with tracking people who possessed the Tracking skill. Even if they didn’t have any other skills to hide their tracks, they knew how the Tracking skill worked. They always picked the worst possible places to break away. Case in point, the princess and her bodyguard had doubled back
to a crossroads.
From there, they might have followed the crossroad to a small hamlet a few miles northeast. They might have taken their shoes off and gone back down the road. They also could have taken the smaller path into the forest. They could have even fucked off into oblivion, for all he could tell right now.
Tracking animals was more straightforward. They didn’t take their shoes off or grab rocks to change their weight. The best track, off into nowhere, was also the one most likely to peter out.
“How’s that Tracking spell going?” grumbled Phillip. Su-Kar gave him a death stare.
“She put up a ward, so it didn’t take,” replied Su-Kar.
That didn’t sound good to Phillip. “So, you can’t get the spell to work?”
“Not until tomorrow. I’m going to have to cast the spell at noon. I’m also going to need some gems,” stated Su-Kar. Phillip didn’t understand the magical stuff too well, but he knew the spell’s accuracy depended on the kinds of gems used.
“Wait, what do you mean you need gems? What happened to all the other ones you bought?” asked Phillip, confused.
Su-Kar tapped her pouch with her naked hand. Normally, it made a pleasant little rattling sound when struck. Now, it was plainly empty. “He stole everything.”
“We should have charged after them,” said Phillip, pulling out his bow and using his Aim skill to look further into the distance.
“It’s not your fault. You broke your leg, and I required some significant healing before we could leave,” stated Su-Kar. She was being uncharacteristically comforting.
Phillip still wasn’t quite sure when it happened, but it had happened. They both hated the princess and her bodyguard more than they hated each other. It was something Phillip hadn’t thought possible, because he loathed Su-Kar so much.
“We know where she is going,” said Su-Kar.
“The Vineyards,” replied Phillip. He knew that the former king had expressed some concerns that he believed could only be answered in the Great Cathedral. That was the main reason he was the former king.
“That means she is going to have to take the Silverado,” stated Su-Kar.
Phillip considered that, as well. The Silverado was the main road running through Falcon. It crossed the entire length of Old Falcon and ended at the great Falcon Gate. It also ran straight through the Vineyards, making it the best route, by far. If the princess chose to avoid it, she would add so much time to her journey that intercepting her would be a breeze.
Her best bet would be to blend in and follow the main road.
“Well, if she’s doing that, then the rest of the party is in position to find her,” grinned Phillip. Su-Kar showed her remaining teeth for a moment, before turning away.
“I need to get to a cosmetic healer,” she said sadly.
“We’ll make time.”
***
“I didn’t expect him to do it,” stated RonJared, holding his hat. “That poor chicken.”
“Heave,” I yelled. The jack flexed, and the wagon dropped softly down onto its new wheel. It had taken less than an hour, and the wagon was ready to go.
RonJared stared at the jack for a long moment. His voice came out quietly, “Stow that thing. We might need it again.”
“It worked great,” I said.
“What did that chicken do to deserve that?” asked Julia, mouthing a quick prayer.
“He knows what he did,” I growled.
In the hour it had taken us to get the caravan properly configured for travel, I’d learned a lot about Mar’s job. In all honesty, I’d probably learned more about how Ordinal worked in the three days I’d been back than in my entire time in Windfall Valley.
The first thing was that the natural deference everyone gave me in Windfall, simply because I’d founded the town and was an adventurer, did not apply here. I was pretending to be O’Really, a regular Administrator. People did not respect ordinary Administrators very much.
Instead of hanging on my every word and telling me how great I was, everyone complained to me about everything. I knew who had bad knees, which parts of the wagon were bad for sleeping in, and which of the two cooks was the worse chef. No one offered me any epic adventures or amazing quests. All I got was paperwork.
After finishing the day’s work, RonJared drove us to a small clearing. The animals needed to rest before a long day of travel tomorrow. Multiple other parties had also stopped in what I assumed passed for Ordinal’s version of a rest area. I wasn’t all together sold on the idea of sleeping around so many strangers, but Cole posted a few guards. Julia began discreetly placing wards, assuring me we would be safe. Finally, we all bunked down for the evening. I was dumped into an accursed hammock, but I was too tired to complain properly. I promptly passed out for the night.
Rolling out of the hammock in the morning, I face-planted onto the wall, slid down, scratched myself, and wandered out to get breakfast. I heard the masses screaming at Cole, as I headed straight for the wake-up juice. As long as they are screaming at him, they aren’t screaming at me.
“We need more food,” yelled one of the guards.
“We are running low on tools,” yelled one of the assistants.
“Our supply of bandages is nearly gone,” stated Julia.
RonJared was trying to calm everyone down. I sipped at my WakeUpJuice and tried to blend in. The instant he saw me, he yelled out, “Not O’Really, my problems!”
“That was going to get old quick,” I muttered, before nodding at the Wagoneer and starting my quest in creative paperwork.
Chapter 18 – On the Road, For the First Time
● Caravan: Rank 1
● Vehicles: Grand Caravanner's Wagon (1/1)
● Population: 36 (+2)
After the initial rush of requests, which I lacked the resources to do much about, I was left alone. I decided to explore the inside of the massive, moving wagon. It was approximately the same size as a modern semi-trailer truck. There was a surprising amount of space, especially considering that it was mostly full of cargo.
The wagon had six compartments on the sides that folded out. These compartments contained small shops and the inventory they needed to operate. There was cargo storage covering the entire top of the wagon, giving the vehicle even more carrying capacity. The sixteen people, including Julia and me, that crewed the wagon all had tasks to perform.
Most tended the shops, but RonJared ran the wagon. He had the look of quiet competence I associated with a former military man. Additionally, his Hit Points matched up with someone who had been in a militia. He mostly kept to himself, only occasionally speaking to Cole or myself about issues.
Our wagon also had six children that did not show up in the crew manifest. They seemed to belong to various members of the crew or the escort. The older ones tended to be gofers, for the most part. They all stayed on the roof and out of trouble. Julia, who had mistakenly told them a story, spent her spare time trying to educate them.
The Wagon itself was full of hidden spots and pathways. A tunnel went through the center of the wagon to the back, dotted along the way with small doors that led into the shops. If you were lucky, you were the only one in the narrow hallway and could walk front to back in a few moments. If someone else was going the other direction, it took a bit longer. It also became a bit intimate.
“So, how did you get stuck in that pothole anyway?” I asked RonJared, as I returned to the driver’s compartment that contained my small desk. He glanced back at me, then scanned the field for a moment and spotted Cole.
Nodding in Cole’s direction, he said, “There was a bit of a fight on the road. I decided we’d take a sideroad to avoid it. The fighting grew a bit more serious, but we got around it. Simple enough, but, by then, we were well off the Silverado and onto the side roads. Wagon’s only really designed to go on the Silverado, and I pushed my luck too far.”
“So, no off-road travel?” I asked.
RonJared smirked. “Only if we are getting
chased by bandits. The wheels and axles don’t hold up well to that sort of thing.”
The sites around the Silverado were interesting. Travel tended to end at a pretty large town, but there were hamlets on either side of the road, and, occasionally, they would have a large, red flag flying. When RonJared spotted one of those, he’d pull the wagon over. We’d take a break, while the stalls opened up on either side of the Wagon.
With how fast crafting worked on Ordinal, we could fix anything the town needed fixing within the hour. That left RonJared some time to do quick repairs on the wagon or tend to the oxen. Julia and I usually stayed on the wagon. Our one failed attempt at stretching our legs had nearly ended in disaster. Julia had run into someone possessing a talent that let her remember anyone she’d ever glimpsed before. Of course, she’d recognized the princess.
The young lady couldn’t see through Shadowmeld, so Julia and I had snuck inside a small closet to hide. The closet was just about the right size for two people interested in hanky panky. Unfortunately, neither of us were, which made the time kind of awkward. Plus, it was hot in there. Also, Julia had slipped onto my lap about twenty minutes in, forcing me to think distant thoughts about starships and beer cans. After an hour, we were cramped, squished together, and sweaty.
Cole found us before the wagon was about to depart. “Tarnation, aren’t you afraid your willy is going to fall off?” he asked, glaring at me. Then, nodding politely to Julia, “Ma’am, I apologize for my blue language.”
“I’m sorry, Cole. A man just needs some quality alone time with his girl from time to time,” I replied.
“Well, we gul dun thought we’d lost you in the town,” replied Cole, “But I told everyone that O’Really wasn’t no quitter.”
That was the opposite of what I was trying to project, unfortunately. “I could have left.”
Cole just rolled his eyes at me. Within moments, the wagon had started moving again. Julia took her sweet time, disengaging herself from me and standing in the little hallway. She took a moment to smooth her dress and adjust her hair. “There were other places we could have hidden.”