by Ryan Rimmel
“You rushed me,” I replied, trying to get to my feet.
“You might want to stay there for a bit. Otherwise, it will blow our cover story,” Julia chuckled.
“Don’t you mean ‘I’ll blow our cover story’?” I asked.
“No,” she replied and walked away.
Several minutes later, I grumped back to the driver's cabin and plopped down at my desk. RonJared just chuckled. “Brave man, I don’t blame you. It's not like you could suffer much more damage.”
I sighed, looking out the window. There were so many interesting landmarks off the Silverado. I just needed a bit more adventurer experience. If only I wasn’t stuck doing...whatever it was I was doing with Julia, I would have finally earned it. Sighing again, I spotted an oddly shaped tower. It was unlike any other structure I had seen on Ordinal. I gestured toward it, eager to change the subject. “What’s that?”
“Precursor tower,” stated RonJared. “You see them occasionally, as you travel the world. They aren’t dungeons, but most of them were still picked over during the last age. If you want some Precursor artifacts, you are going to have to hit one of the major markets. Expect to pay a small fortune for them.”
I examined the tower for a long moment. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was a skyscraper. It had that look; it was a large square tower that currently stood about fifteen stories, although you could tell it had been taller in the past. I went to ask Shart about it, but he wasn't responding. I let it go, filing it away as something to bring up later.
Let sleeping demons lie.
As I continued examining the tower, I received a prompt:
● You have spotted Vision of Heaven, Precursor Ruins!
● Adventurer Level Up!
● Cleric Level Up!
I blinked. My Adventurer class earned small amounts of experience for ‘discovering’ things or visiting points of interest. Finding the Silverado had been worth some, but this Precursor tower had been worth enough to finally push me over the top.
Something bothered me, though. That was a skyscraper, and the Silverado was an actual highway. The road was made up of concrete, or some local equivalent, and was wide enough for eight wagons to travel abreast. It was also crowded, with dozens and dozens of wagons traversing it in both directions. Minimal regard was paid to what a proper Earth driver would consider traffic laws. However, if you painted stripes on it, most would have regarded it as a regular road without any further thought.
There was a traffic jam up ahead. From what I could see, a wagon had lost a wheel and jackknifed. Their drivers were fixing it, right in the middle of the road. That had caused all the traffic, including a herd of cattle, to bunch up while attempting to go around. With no traffic laws, everything was piling up everywhere. RonJared sighed and brought the wagon to a stop.
“Could our wheels be upgraded?” I asked, looking to the side of the road. Blissful dirt lined both sides of the concrete. It would have allowed us to continue, had the wagon been better suited for dirt.
“Of course, but why?” replied RonJared, glancing over at me with a grin. After a long minute, several of the other, smaller, wagons did go off-road. There was soon enough of a gap on the road that he could maneuver around. As we got back on course, he nodded in satisfaction.
“You can earn a living just traveling down this road?” I asked.
“Only in Falcon. Let me explain. The Silverado is a massive highway that runs most of the length of Falcon. We are on the last stretch that ends in the Vineyards. There are a bunch of small towns on the road, and all of them need service.”
“So, you usually stop several times a day?” I asked.
“Yes,” smiled RonJared, “but we are always moving. You can never stop for too long. The locals get annoyed.”
“Is that why the little towns don’t keep blacksmiths or the like with them?” I asked, thinking back to our previous stops.
“No, it’s because the nobility doesn’t want those small towns to be self-sufficient. The wagons were originally built so the local lord could send over crafters, as they saw fit. After a while, the lords grew bored with the minutia. Now, wagons are permitted to buy permits that allow travel on the road.”
“We left a town with a smith before we joined,” I mentioned.
“You left a free town,” chuckled RonJared. “Free towns are a whole different barrel of wine. Those towns pay the local lords a fee to remain independent. The town you left is far enough east that none of the local lords want to garrison it. They would rather have the gold paid for the town’s freedom. If it were past the rapids, then at least two of the families would be very interested.”
I hadn’t considered that. Thinking back to the town, I realized that there weren’t any larger boats docked. The river was full of rapids up by the waterfall, and I realized that the lake was probably the limit of where they could go.
“So, is Cole in charge?” I asked. Windfall had what amounted to an organizational chart, carefully laying out who did what. The caravan had a list of people who were traveling with it. Cole, RonJared, and I were all listed as equals, as were half the shopkeepers. You only showed up lower if you directly reported to someone else. I wondered if my Administrator skill wasn’t at a high enough level to pick through it.
“He’s my partner,” replied RonJared, eying me. “My junior partner. Caravans work by ownership. I own more of it than he does, so I get to call the shots. However, since he owns some of it, I have to at least listen to what he says. Bluntly, I brought him on board. We usually don’t disagree much. When we do, he’s usually right.”
“Where are you hoping to end up?” I asked. RonJared smiled.
“I don’t know. Cole is busy talking about going all the way to the gates of Grebthar’s Lands, and that’s good for him. I’ll probably just turn around and head back east. It takes a full year to travel this road, and I’ve been doing it for a while now,” replied RonJared.
“You travel seven leagues a day. The road is that long?” I considered.
He shrugged. “The Wagon needs to be repaired from time to time, but you have to drive about 200 days a year.”
I whistled. The United States was around 2800 miles, so call it 900 leagues. That meant that Falcon was about 700 leagues from end to end, assuming the Silverado ran end to end. Falcon was much thinner than the US, though. It was a long strip of land around thirty leagues tall, north to south, right off the inner sea. Further east, the country filled out a bit more, but only just a bit.
“Well, I’m going to check on the caravan’s status,” I said, walking over to my desk and plopping down on the small, built-in chair.
“I’ll be here,” stated RonJared. He never seemed to stir while the caravan was moving.
● You have received a quest: You need 5 replacement wheels.
● You have received a quest: The tarp is failing and will require repair.
● You have received a quest…
I started shooting off quests to the various members of the caravan that could perform them. Each handoff was worth a small amount of Administration skill for me. The tasks didn’t take long. Once the clerical work had been seen to, I could finally look at my Adventurer class.
● Level up, Adventurer
● You have gained one perk
● You may now select a Path. Please review your unlocks
● Your Hit Point total is increased by 10. Your Stamina is increased by 10.
● Level up, Cleric 6
● +10 Hit Points, +10 Mana
● You have gained one talent
I ignored the perk for now and scrolled down to the Path unlocks. The Path was where the real power of the class was.
The options were Arcane Trickster, Shadow Knife, and Explorer. Each had its pros and cons, but I consulted my help menu first.
“Shart, are any of these Paths going to help me? Like, will that Arcane Trickster let me use magic?” I asked, hoping he was going to pay attention now.
Shart considered for a moment. “Yes, but not in the way you hope. Arcane Tricksters can use magic, but they don’t use magical cores. It won’t help your Mage class. The flip side is that they operate with low Mana. You’d certainly be able to have some fun with it, considering your larger than usual Mana pool.”
I already had plenty of magic tricks, so I discounted that one. Next was Shadow Knife, which was an Assassin that focused heavily on Shadow Melding. That had some promise, but I was already pretty sneaky. Plus, the Path steps all involved killing people for money. Even O’Really wasn’t into that, was he?
That left Explorer. I could already hear Indy’s theme in the background. It focused on exploring areas, including dungeons, and was good at finding and avoiding traps.
“Plus, you’ve already completed the conditions for that Path,” said Shart.
“That, too,” I said. Each Path had conditions that you had to complete to move steps down it. Arcane Trickster required you to use some sort of magic to steal something. I could probably manage that quite easily. Shadow Knife needed you to flat out kill a target for money, without them ever even realizing you were there.
Explorer required you to explore a Dungeon. It also needed me to avoid a challenging trap and find a rare item. I had already accomplished one requirement for Arcane Trickster, zero from Shadow Knife, and all three from Explorer. The choice seemed obvious.
“Maybe I’m not thinking about this hard enough,” I began considering an in-depth introspection of my class and all of its foibles.
“NOOOOOO,” screamed Badgelor. “I can hear you, ya git! I don’t want to hear this. Shart is already in the corner weeping.”
“I’m not that bad,” I grumbled.
“You are. You spend hours trying to make up your mind, and you know what? You already made up your mind when you first thought about it,” sobbed Shart. “But you wax on about it for hours.”
“When he told me, I honestly didn’t believe him,” said Badgelor. “I thought ‘No way is Jim that indecisive’, but, alas, the little zit was right.”
“He hummed a theme song,” sobbed Shart.
Grumbling, I chose Explorer.
● You have achieved the first step on your Path to becoming an Explorer!
● Your Path is burnt into your soul. No other Rogue Paths are available.
● Your Path ability is now activated. Your Great Explorer tree has been expanded. All Talent Points are refunded.
I had been expecting something grander, honestly. At least with Beast Lord, I’d gotten Badger Rage. Dragging up my Great Explorer talent, I whistled. There were many more options, and some of them were just flat buffs.
“This section just has Hit Points,” I said, looking at a talent chain that started at +20 Hit Points. There was another that was a straight Dexterity increase. Old favorites, like Explorer’s Nose were there, but they all seemed to start at the second-tier versions for first tier prices.
“That’s pretty normal for Path talent trees,” said Shart. “You get Talent Points normally, but then you also get a few Path Specialization unlocks as you move up the Path. You have one presently.”
Checking, I saw that I had nine Talent Points total. I’d earned it all from leveling up and grinding my tree, I thought. I also now had one Path Specialization unlock. I examined the talents with that in mind and found only three specializations I could unlock.
● Dungeon Delver: You are skilled at exploring in Dungeons. All talents, skills, and abilities operate as one rank higher in a Dungeon
● Trap Master: You are uniquely skilled at traps. All skills relating to traps are improved by one rank.
● Expeditionary Force: Your skill is so great that your companions all gain benefits from your leadership! While they are in a party with you, all your allies gain synergy bonuses to their skills.
That was strange. They all sounded nice, but none of the perks sounded amazing. Then, I checked what was behind them.
“They all start new branches on the Great Explorer tree,” I said, looking at Trap Master. It was pretty lackluster, but, behind it, several talents would allow me to customize my traps very well. The specialization unlock’s main purpose, it seemed, was to allow you access to a vast number of specialized talents. Once I started assigning points, I was going to have to use some degree of caution.
First, I selected all the previous talents I’d had with Great Explorer. Then, I chose the first Hit Point talent, stupendously named Hit Point I. I still had three Talent Points, along with one new power I could unlock.
Each of the unlocks offered good bonuses. Expeditionary Force was the most practical. I spent a lot of time walking around. One of the talents behind Expeditionary Force was Hiking Leader. It meant that everyone in my party could keep up with me. The second unlock involved traps. Traps were always useful, especially given my propensity to walk into danger. The third, Dungeon Delver, would provide power when I needed it the most.
Dungeons were dangerous. Making them less risky would be the most beneficial in the long run. I selected Dungeon Delver. Immediately, the powers behind it unlocked, showing a whole other branch of talents.
I decided to leave two of the points unallocated for the moment. However, one of the talents, Danger Sense, caught my eye, and I selected it. Most of the Dungeon Delver talents were dungeon-focused, but not all of them. Some, like Danger Sense, just made you more likely to spot ambushes.
Next, I flipped back over to my perk choices. I realized that I needed to delve as deeply into the trees as I possibly could. Doing so would give me the maximum benefit of the perks. Looking at my perk trees, I saw one called Evasive Movement. It required both Evasion and Mobility as prerequisites.
Evasive Movement expanded the kinds of spells I could avoid with Evasion. It also made my Mobility more effective and less costly. The only issue was that I had to be wearing light armor while using it. Glancing through my Warrior Tree, I realized I was only two perks away from something that let me treat Medium Armor as Light Armor.
I can make this work.
Selecting Evasive Movement, I felt my Mobility and Evasion perks meld together into something more significant. I grinned. This was going to be an exciting trip!
Chapter 19 – Interesting day on the road
“This is incredibly boring,” stated Julia, as we watched the world slowly inch past us. It was our second full day on the road. It had only been a week since I’d fought Charles. Three days couped up in the Hall of Souls, though that seemed to be some trick of time. After I got out, I respawned in that lodge, which led me to sleep in the cave. Then, there was that delightful trek through Drop Bear country that led to a waterfall, followed by another night in the woods. That had been followed by a boring walk down the river to the nameless town, where our one night in a decent bed was cut short. We ran until we found the caravan and my new friend, the hammock.
I picked a splinter from my cheek and turned to speak to the princess. Julia had come up to the driver’s cabin to see what I was up to, and RonJared had politely suggested we sit on the roof. Ordinal didn’t have a sexist “no ladies in the driver’s cabin” rule, but RonJared had a “don’t bother me while I’m driving” rule. He was pretty strict about it, when he remembered it. I honestly thought it was due to the small cabin heating up when it got overcrowded. The view was better on the roof, anyway.
The roof of the wagon was lumpy. The Caravanner’s Wagon might have been about as long as a semi-trailer, but it was a good deal taller. Its height grew even more, once all the cargo was strapped down and tarped over. All the goods and their coverings made the top uneven but served to create lots of nooks and crannies. There were perfect spots to sit and look around. Some even offered a tiny bit of privacy.
“Did you tend to everyone?” I asked, as Julia arched her spine, stretching. She caught me looking and straightened up with a smirk.
“Yes, healing them up was easy enough. I’m a Zealot, after all,” she replied. �
�I had to go slowly, so no one would figure out what I was doing.”
“Wait, an Acolyte can cast spells?” I asked.
Julia looked at me for a long moment. “I can’t tell if you are being serious or not.”
“I’m from the sticks,” I replied. That had gotten me out of more trouble in Windfall than I’d care to remember.
“Well, then, I guess I’d better tell you. That way you won’t go around asking embarrassing questions.” She smiled and leaned up against some of the tied-down goods. “Acolytes are Professional people who work at temples. They have a bit of Divine magic, but usually no more than 2 or 3 spells. They also have almost no Mana.”
“So, if you have an Acolyte, you don’t need a Healer?” I asked.
“Oh no,” she replied, “A traditional Healer knows a lot about potions and poultices, as well as how to treat injuries without magic. Mainly, though, they are much cheaper. An adventurer might be able to afford an Acolyte to heal every little injury. Everyone else saves their coin and uses a Healer.”
There was that divide again. That wasn’t how I wanted Windfall to work. I wanted to take care of everyone. Then, I thought of Jarra. Jarra always led me back to Charles. It had been a week since Jarra died. I needed to kill Charles. I needed to focus on what was important. Jim would have taken care of the people first. Jim was a chump who just naively assumed that if you were hero enough, everything would work out. That’s how Jarra died. I needed to bury Jim.
“Are they going to get suspicious?” I asked, gesturing to the back of the wagon. We weren’t the only ones with the idea of sitting on the roof. At the moment, about two-thirds of the caravan’s population was riding with us.