The double-bladed axe vanished into Cal's silver void ring, the D-tier weapon now residing somewhere in the impossible space between… oh who am I kidding, I have no idea where the darn thing is. He flexed his fingers and turned toward the largest of the canvas structures at the camp's center.
Gasto's tent stood slightly apart from the others, the canvas heavier and the stakes thicker. Cal pushed through the flap. The interior smelled of stale sweat and cheap pipe tobacco, and a bedroll lay rumpled on a frame of lashed branches. A small folding camp table held the remnants of a meal.
Cal worked through the space methodically. Two large packs slumped against the far canvas wall yielded multiple changes of clothes and a bunch of other useless junk. Behind the bags, pushed against the back and partially concealed by a spare bedroll, sat a small iron-strapped lockbox. The wood was dark stained oak, with bands of grey iron and a three-tumbler lock instead of the keyholes he had seen thus far.
Kneeling beside the box, he rested his fingertips on the lock's metal face. He pushed his perception through the iron, visualizing the mechanism within: three small wheels aligned on an axle, each etched on the outside with non-magical glyphs. Inside, however, he could see what mattered. There was a hidden notch cut into the inner ring of each wheel; a simple locking bar waited for those three notches to align.
He began to turn the first wheel with a light touch. He couldn't feel or hear a change, but in his mind's eye, he watched the first internal notch rotate perfectly into place beneath the bar. He moved to the second, then the third, his senses tracking the hidden workings. When the final wheel rotated into alignment, the locking bar dropped into the groove with a soft snick.
Cal lifted the lid to find a large leather pouch. By the look and feel he could tell its contents before he opened the drawstring: coin, and a lot of it. He poured a portion into his palm to find mostly gold mixed with a healthy quantity of silver. A few hundred, all told.
Beneath the pouch, in velvet-lined depressions in the box's interior, sat smaller silk bags. Cal opened them. Dozens of E-tier spirit stones and around another hundred F-tier, of all three types.
The last item in the box was a tightly rolled cylinder of some treated wood, sealed with a smear of resin. Cal pried the seal loose and unrolled it across the camp table, tossing the leftover food to the ground.
His breath caught. It was a freaking map.
The cartography seemed fairly professional for Veraxus, and close in quality to some of the work Cal had seen in Captain Hatch's office. The Virethane spread across the canvas in shades of green ink, with some rivers Cal had never seen in blue and the eastern road done up in red, connecting Deadfall and Mirathra in the top right quarter of the rectangular sheet. That much was understandable.
What stopped him was the smattering of smaller marks across the map. Serpents wrapped around tiny vials, each one inked in the dark brown that Cal had seen tattooed at the base of Gasto's neck. Almost a dozen cells that this map acknowledged, including the one that represented Gasto's camp that he was currently standing in.
And then, far to the southwest of both Mirathra and Deadfall, deep in a section of the map labeled only as The Reaches, sat a much larger version of the symbol. The Reaches mark sat at least twice the distance further south and west than how far apart the map depicted the length of the eastern road, in territory the map's annotations described as "uncharted" and "not patrolled by the Legion."
He ran his eyes across the marks as his stomach dropped, knowing it was official. The universe was trolling him. Heck, he could almost hear it laughing. ‘Oh, you don’t want to get involved, do you? Wellll, here’s a handy dandy way to go find more bad guys, just in case you change your mind.’
More than a dozen cells, minimum, that this map acknowledged. He used Gasto's crew as a realistic baseline to gauge the reality of the situation. If the other camps were at all staffed like this one had been it wasn't something he could practically involve himself with. Right?
Sitting back on his heels, his mind cataloged while another part of him reviewed the last hour through an honest lens. Gasto's camp may very well have been the runt of the litter. Cal had only managed to destroy it because of the failed ambush and help of others, not to mention picking some off one-by-one in their tents, blinding them with a [Flashbang], and using the surprise attack to his advantage. And it had still nearly killed him.
A fully alert and garrisoned camp like Gasto's would have been a death sentence, and the camps closer to Mirathra were almost certainly stronger. He rolled the map back up, slid it into its sheath, and slipped it into a ring with a thread of Mana, along with the coin and spirit stone pouches.
This is a Legion problem, not a Cal problem, he decided. I'll hand it to the commander in Mirathra when I deliver my letter from Hatch. Yup, yup. Let's let the people whose job it is to fight bad guys fight the bad guys.
The rest of the camp took less than half an hour to search. He found a few handfuls of copper and silver, along with an F-tier spirit stone tucked into a sock. There were myriad other junk items and half-rotted supplies, but of import was a dozen spare standard-issue Legion shortswords, which he piled into his ring as well. The poverty of the place was its own kind of evidence. These men had been hungry. The two other D-tiers Cal had killed, Raj with his bark-skin and Piker with his "I'm dead before I can do anything," must have carried their personal wealth on them because nothing remotely valuable remained in any of the other tents.
Cal retrieved his arrows next, then proceeded to the stream that ran about thirty yards behind the camp, tumbling over moss-slick stones. He knelt at its edge and finally pulled the preservation cloth free from his face. The water was bracing against his skin as he scrubbed the blood from himself, not to mention his armor and blades.
By the time he stood, a deep chill had set into his soaked clothes. He focused his Intent and circulated a slow current of Mana through his body to warm up. The simple trick he'd managed to learn from the nobles took the edge off the evening air but did little to fight the bone-deep cold of his wet armor and linen. He found himself wishing Selara had been able to teach him her heating Spell. A run would have to do. He opened a [Portal] back to the site of the caravan ambush and an empty road.
When he had left hours ago this place had been a chaos of overturned wagons, bodies, blood, and nervous animals. Now it was a clean stretch of stone road with some darker spots on the shoulder. Cal turned slowly, taking it in.
Two columns of smoke rose from just off each side of the road near where the center of the caravan had been.
Ah, they must have burned all the bodies.
The caravan crew certainly hadn't lingered, and must have quickly dragged the bodies off the road to dispose of them before pressing on. Even the D-tier he'd shot in the trees was gone. He was reminded once again that death, in this world, was simply a logistical event.
Cal adjusted Nen'tae across his back and started east at an easy lope.
His E-tier body responded without complaint. The fatigue from the day was catching up with him, but the limits of his new Endurance still hadn't been fully tested. The road slid past beneath his boots. After starting months ago in Thal's malnourished body and now sitting at the peak of E-tier, running like this felt as easy as a brisk walk had felt to Caleb Foster. He covered the distance back to the caravan in a little under an hour.
The caravan's wagons and campfires came into view as Cinder slipped below the trees, a line of orange points strung along a stretch of road where the verge widened into a clearing. Along the perimeter, sentries paced the wagons that were circled in a defensive ring. He could hear the murmur of dozens of voices still up at this hour, along with the occasional rumble of a garron and the clatter of someone tending a cookpot.
Cal slowed to a walk as he came into the firelight, raising one hand to the nearest sentry. The man's spear lifted, then dropped with recognition. A quick word passed down the line, and by the time Cal reached the inner ring of wagons, a small commotion had already begun.
"Cal!"
Corinne came around the side of Mahina's wagon at a near-run, her chestnut braid swinging loose down her back, eyes wide and bright in the firelight. She skidded to a halt two steps away, and for a heartbeat he thought she was going to throw herself at him. Instead, she settled for grabbing his right forearm with both hands as if to verify he was real.
"Where have you been? You said you were just going to scout back to their camp and return!"
Cal shrugged. "What can I say, it was further than I expected. Sorry to worry you, Cor."
"You could have said something. Like doubled back to report in and continued tracking them tomorrow or left it for the Legion altogether or—"
"I figured making you worry and finding the bandit's hideout was killing two birds with one stone."
She narrowed her eyes at him, the relief warring with exasperation, and finally settled on releasing his arm with a small punch against his shoulder. "You're an absolute menace, Cal Valorn. Go sit down and eat something before I make you give me magic lessons."
Inside the circle of wagons, Christoph stood near a small folding table he had clearly set up as his temporary office, a slim ledger open beneath his hand and a silver-tipped quill held loose between two fingers. He had been speaking to another merchant, but now he simply watched Cal, assessing in the way Cal was learning to recognize as the great-uncle's default expression.
Cal briefly returned the look. He kept his face open and slightly tired, the picture of a young adventurer returning from a dutiful patrol. Christoph allowed himself the faintest, driest of smiles, then he made a small mark in his ledger.
Why do I get the feeling that guy isn't buying the act? Not the whole story, at any rate.
Across the larger central fire, Cal felt rather than saw Steinar Hayes look up from where he was checking a sentry's gear.
"Did you find 'em, lad?"
"Yup."
"And did ya send any more off?"
Cal cocked his head for a moment as he thought on how to respond to that. "Only the ones I found in the woods," he finally said, grinning.
Steinar returned his grin with a dark one of his own. "Good lad."
"I knew it." Corinne muttered under her breath, as she towed him toward the lady stirring the pot by the cookfire. Seeing him coming, the cook grabbed an empty wooden bowl from beside the pot and quickly ladled in stew, filling it to the brim. She looked up at him as she held out the bowl, a grateful smile on her face.
"Thank you, young hero. F-From all of us."
Cal reached out hesitantly for the bowl and said his thanks, a bit uncomfortable with the praise. Corinne saw it in him and immediately made it worse, speaking loud enough for the entire caravan to hear.
"That's right, Hero Valorn. Beth here was going to stay up all night and keep that stew waiting for your return. There are a lot of people who'd like to show you their thanks for what you did today."
He looked from the cook's open expression to Corinne's knowing smirk, and then glanced around the rest of the camp. She was right. Most of the caravan was still out of their bedrolls and huddled around one fire or another. Without exception, each and every one of them was currently looking at him. It made his skin crawl. Better a PowerPoint presentation in front of people that could fire him on a whim, than the adoration of strangers.
He'd barely lowered himself onto a folded blanket when a deep sound called from behind his right shoulder. He turned, and the broad horse-like face of Mahina's lead garron hovered startlingly close, the great beast having somehow approached on Stealth Hooves.
Mahina stood just behind it, her attention fixed somewhere over Cal's left shoulder, her thick braids hanging forward over her shoulders. She held one calloused hand out toward him, palm up. A piece of dried, leathery fruit sat in the center.
Understanding the cue, Cal took the fruit, the dwarf's blunt fingers retreating the moment he had it. The garron lowered its big shaggy head and pressed its soft muzzle gently against Cal, the beast whinnying. He held the dried fruit out flat on his own palm. The garron's velvet lips brushed his skin, and the fruit vanished. The big animal chewed contentedly, eyes half-lidded, then nudged Cal once more, harder this time, almost playfully.
"He likes you," Mahina rumbled. She glanced at Cal very briefly then looked away, turning without waiting for a response and walking back into the deepening night, the garron following with the soft thud of its plate-sized hooves.
Cal watched them go, unexpectedly warmed. He might not know most of the caravan, but he'd traveled with Mahina for a week and a half and could count on one hand the amount of words the dwarf had spoken to him in that time.
"Master Valorn."
Christoph had crossed to him, the ledger tucked under his arm. He lowered himself onto a low folding stool across from Cal, then opened the ledger across his knee.
"No longer just Cal?"
"I think after saving all of our lives today you've more than earned a bit of an honorific, don't you agree?"
Cal could only shake his head at that. "If you insist…"
"I'm afraid I do, and if you keep doing such grand things you'll have to get used to much worse than the respect of one elf. Now then. Eris has asked me to handle the accounting of today's engagement on her behalf. I trust you are amenable to discussing the matter now, rather than later, yes?"
"Sure, that's fine."
"Excellent. The relevant valuations have been finalized. The matter concerns the spoils of the two D-tier combatants you eliminated during the engagement proper: the bark-skinned warrior, designation Raj, and the second, designation Piker, who was dispatched with arrowfire in the southern treeline."
Turning the page, Christoph continued. "Per the standing guard agreement, the caravan reserves first claim on spirit stones, weapons, and armor for collective resale, with a forty-sixty split favoring the combatant." He looked up, his grey eyes twinkling. "I made sure that Eris waived the caravan's claim on anything in regard to you."
Cal smiled in return. "Ahh, how generous of her."
"Quite!" Christoph turned the page again and produced a small canvas bundle from a side pocket, setting it on the blanket between them. "The bandit known as Piker's notable effects. He possessed two daggers of superior craftsmanship."
Unwrapping the canvas, Cal found the weapons nestled inside and he withdrew one from its sheath. The blade was perhaps ten inches long and made of a smoke-dark steel with a faint blue luster along the dual edges. The hilt was wrapped in beige leather worn smooth with use. The balance was quite nice, seeming to allow for throwing as readily as stabbing.
I was just kicking myself for letting Jakob sell Cillian's daggers, Cal thought wryly. And now these fall into my lap? Is this the universe apologizing for almost getting me killed, or further baiting me to use that map and hunt more bandits?
"They are quite well-made," Christoph observed, watching his face. "I took the liberty of having Steinar appraise them. He believes the steel is dwarven, likely from Kar'angor. The previous owner kept them in admirable condition."
"Yeah… they certainly seem like nice blades. Thanks Christoph." Cal rewrapped them carefully and made them disappear into his pack.
"Eris also extends a standing offer regarding the remainder of the bandit equipment recovered from the field: the armor, weapons, and assorted personal effects of negligible individual value. The caravan is prepared to absorb the entire lot at a flat valuation of forty-two gold in exchange for sparing yourself the considerable inconvenience of hauling bloodied equipment to a vendor in Mirathra. In my estimation it is more than a fair price for what was recovered from your kills."
Cal didn't have to think about it. "Yup, sold. That is definitely a deal I want. Thanks for taking care of all this."
"A pragmatic choice, Master Valorn, and you are quite welcome. It is gratifying, occasionally, to work with someone who understands that one's time is also a ledger entry."
Christoph rose with easy grace and gave Cal a small inclination of his head, drifting back toward his portable office. Cal watched him go, finally letting himself relax.
It had been a long day.
Speaking of long days... sheesh, what a doozy! You know how I was afraid for my job because my company has been going through massive layoffs? Welllllllll, good news! I'm not fired!
On the contrary, I applied for/interviewed/received a new job that will hopefully be a bit more layoff-proof than my previous one. Cuz it was posted during all this restructuring crap. No guarantees, but hey, I'll take it. That also means I'll have to figure out something new and can't coast off having done the same job for the past 6+ years... so that might suck. I guess time will tell.
Anywho! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for reading. Y'all rock! See you Friday.
Jon