Marcus and his companions made their way into the building and found themselves confronted by an elderly human wearing a green silk shirt mottled in different shapes, and brown pants, practical travel wear of the most expensive sort. He wasn't especially fit, though he had a rough, tan skin that suggested a lot of time outdoors. He had a thick beard of white that came down to the middle of his round chest, and sharp black eyes sat in his head and looked somewhat sourly at the band.
"Them?" He asked the elderly goblin woman, he looked them up and down while he asked the question, and she nodded slowly.
"Yeah, what of it?" She asked and closed her lips tightly.
He didn't answer her, he raked his eyes up and down the set of adventurers, then grunted disinterestedly. He crossed his arms in front of himself, "I'm going west."
The team traded looks, while Marcus scratched the left horn of his head, "Is that a problem?"
"He must be new." The portly merchant said dryly.
"Yes, I am." Marcus folded his arms in front of his chest in turn and glared. "So is everyone when they get somewhere they haven't been before, what's your point?" He stared at the merchant unblinking through the eyes that made his grandmother weep for him.
Fighter spoke up, his low voice grim and his face, troubled. "His point, Marcus, is that going West is dangerous. Most who go north are met at the border, but once you go beyond Traveler's Rest? Well most who reach that, go north from there instead."
"What's so dangerous about it?" Marcus asked without shifting his glare from the gruff and overweight merchant.
"We'll let you know when people come back from there to tell us." Ranger said abruptly while she clenched a fist.
"That bad?" Marcus asked with a raised brow, his glare fading and his head cocking curiously, he looked away from the merchant to the companions behind him.
"That bad." The merchants, and The Adventurers replied in unison.
"So… people don't come back from there at all?" Marcus asked with greater incredulity, "Seems unlikely."
"Well they find a piece here and a piece there… sometimes a scrap of armor, but the ones who venture to the far west, they don't as a rule, make it back. Not if they go five days beyond Traveler's Rest." Thief explained and bit her lip.
"So… if this is so dangerous, why are you going, old man?" Marcus asked with a caustic glare.
"I'm not going five days beyond, only four, there's high quality ore there, ore that'll turn a steep profit if I'm the first one there, or so my source tells me. And I'm not named 'Old Man', boy. You can call me Sabo." He developed a vicious gleam in his eyes while he continued to take them in. "So what do you call yourselves, anyway?"
"Adventurers." Fighter said with a proud look on his face, squaring off his shoulders, he touched his hand to his own chest, "I'm, 'Fighter'." He then pointed to the rest, each in turn. 'That's Thief, Ranger, Bard, and you've already… sort of, met Marcus."
"All I heard was, 'Meat shield, meat shield with tits, meat shield with small tits, musical meat shield, and purple meat shield, and that's all I need to hear." Sado crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared at them calmly, "You survive this, I'll bother to learn your names for the next job. But dead meat don't need names."
The team traded looks with clenched jaws and hard, angry eyes. But after a moment, Fighter's shoulders drooped, "This is one of those, 'put up with it' situations, isn't it?"
"S'right, kid." Sado's chubby face bounced with a grim laugh, "Nobody looking to hire anyone of your rank except me, and if you turn me down, well that won't look good on your reputation. So here's the deal, I'll make it worth your lives. You do this for me, 'and' act as additional pack animals, and I'll even let you take some of the ore off that you carry along, say… one fist sized chunk out of every ten you carry with you. But… you have to forfeit your pay for the trip, provide your own food, equipment, repairs, and there will be no bonus."
"But the ore is ours, right?" Thief's eyes went bright as stars and she fairly trembled with delight.
"One piece each, but if you sell it, you can 'only' sell it to me and you'll get half it's normal value. Do we have a bargain?" Sado looked them over one by one.
Fighter stuck his hand out and curled his fingers toward himself, the team drew close, "I say we take it. Any objections?" He glanced over to the newest of their number.
"Is ore that expensive here?" Marcus asked, furrowing his dark eyebrows.
"For anything higher than mithril, absolutely. We could upgrade our equipment considerably if we got even a few handfuls." Fighter folded his fingers into a single fist. It might even help us boost our standing with the guild. Maybe even open up higher paying jobs for us."
Marcus shrugged, "Well, I came here for adventure, there's usually some danger involved in that, alright, I don't know this area all that well, so I can't really argue." He looked over his shoulder at Sabo who was idly chattering with the elderly goblin woman.
"I don't think he has much care for your lives though." Marcus remarked when he faced his companions again.
The team of orphans shrugged their shoulders as if they were one organism. "We're all orphans for one reason or another, Marcus. If you're expecting that to bother us, well…" A derisive snort was all he added.
"Oh." Marcus looked down, "Sorry, I seem to have said something insensitive."
Ranger poked him in the cheek, "Relax, bed sniffer, we're tougher than that." She gave him a toothy grin, held her arm up even with her chest and made a muscle from her slender, tight bicep and a hard fist with her hand.
"Bed sniffer? Oh I want to hear this story…" Thief said with a mischievous grin on her face while Marcus could only faintly blush.
"It's not how it sounds… don't say it like that." He covered his face with his hands and shook his head.
"Later, later you three…" Fighter said and stepped past his team to approach Sabo. He stuck his hand out. "You have a bargain."
Sabo held out his hand, and Fighter squeezed it just a little more tightly than he needed to when he leaned in, and he whispered, 'But if you refer to my friends by their tits again, you might come back unable to enjoy them anymore… you get me… sir?'
Sabo grunted, winced, and when the handshake was released just a little later than it should have been, he rubbed the squeezed hand gently.
"We're going now, anything you need, go and get, come to the nearest inn when you're ready." Sabo groused to the team before turning away.
"We've got everything we own, with us right now." Fighter replied, drawing a briefly wide eyed expression from the sour faced merchant.
"Travel light, travel far." Thief chimed in with a bright smile and a thumbs up.
"Fine, then come now." Sabo replied and headed for the door with the rest following after him.
Marcus found himself savoring the trip from the moment it began. Sabo had three wagons, and he'd hired a few extra hands along the way. A few Ongeku in the simple rough tunics that marked them as prison labor, and some of the empire's own in the form of a dwarf or two, and two additional combat teams of three members each.
In the back of the wagons sat closed up sacks and a few barrels, along with a few crates that Sabo barked at people not to sit on.
While the workers rode and the wagons moved along steadily, pulled by a pair of donkeys each, Marcus and the other adventurer escorts simply took their ease walking beside the wagons themselves.
The sun beat down only lightly on the entirety of the first day, and for most of that he was able to strike up conversations with the workers beside him, or the adventurers of one team or another.
The Ongeku laborers were a sullen group, they had thick, ill kempt beards, rough hands and hard bodies. Some wore bronze rings on their arms which Marcus found curious. "What are those? Are they decorative?" He asked, pointing to the set of six on one of the larger Ongeku men.
For a moment, the hazel eyed mountain of a man looked like he wanted to fight, but as he looked at Marcus's faint purple skin, the demonic horns, the innocent blue eyes that seemed utterly oblivious, along with his casual stance… he relaxed.
"Did I say something foolish?" Marcus asked, "Forgive me, I'm new here and don't know how everything works." He inclined his head apologetically, and when he bowed his head, some of the sullenness of the prison laborers seemed to fade with the genuinely open and 'very' naive half-breed.
The big Ongeku answered him in a deep bass voice, holding up his wrist where the rings were, "Each one, represents an offense in custody. Usually fighting." He puffed out his chest, "In my case, all fighting."
"Oh." Marcus pursed his lips briefly, then cocked his head. "Why?"
"Whattaya mean 'why'?" The Ongeku looked at Marcus's wide eyed face like it had a head growing out of the cheek all of a sudden.
"Like, someone trying to steal from you or something? I mean, don't you only fight when you've got reason?" Marcus asked and scratched his horn thoughtfully.
"Booze is a good reason, bullshit orders, that's a reason, some Newcomer asshole telling me what to do, that's a reason, always got a reason. Jus the one whose ass I beat, they don't agree." He turned up his nose cockily from where he sat and looked down at Marcus, waiting for some kind of a challenge.
Marcus however, rubbed his chin in thought as he moved along, "Oh… I see, I see." he snapped his finger suddenly, "You're a bully, right?" He exclaimed the question as if he'd made a new discovery, then stared up while mouths dropped open from one laborer to another, and the 'Adventurers' of his party snickered behind him, unable to suppress their laughter any longer.
"What'd I say?" Marcus looked from one person to the next for answers, and found that none were forthcoming.
Nalineth savored the burning feeling of the dark brown liquid going down her throat. She looked down at the little wooden cup that held it and smacked her lips audibly, "This is good, what is this?"
"It's called 'bourbon' it's something made back home." The Newcomer guard replied with a silly grin on his ever more silly looking, rosey face.
Nalineth licked her lips to take a stray drop, "Careful there, it's been known to have some nasty side effects." He said with a faintly ridiculous, silly look on his face.
Her eyes flew wide briefly, "Like what?"
He shook his head with exaggerated gravity. "Well, hangovers in men, but for women, oh it's much, much worse."
"Worse?" Nalineth swallowed, 'Oh gods of my fathers, is it toxic like the bite of the asp? Is it embarrassing? Am I going to end up painting the grass brown from the back end?'
"Yah, lot worse, for men it's hangovers an he can't pitch a tent, for women," he got a stupid sly grin on his face that turned up slightly more at one side of his face. He drew closer to her, swaying a little, and whispered to her, "there's pregnancy."
"This stuff'll get me pregnant?!" She dropped the cup in alarm and stepped back from it like it was a snake prepared to bite her.
The little wooden cup landed where her feet had been and rolled over the patch of grass. Harou raised his massive head and looked over in her direction, detecting her distress, but lowered his head back down to his paws when she didn't react further.
Jord grinned while he crouched to pick up the the cup, and fell over, then rolled onto his side. He waved at her from the ground as his own cup fell from fingers that would no longer obey him properly. Nalineth wavered briefly between angry offense, and breaking into laughter. But as Jord lay there with his arms and legs sprawled out grinning up at her with his face flush in the firelight, she found she couldn't stand it anymore.
Nalineth went down, hard, landing with one leg under the other, barely catching herself when her arms went out to stop her. She giggled next to the fallen soldier, her dark hair swaying with her body, she raised her hand to point it unsteadily at the youthful man. 'My 'pointing aim… not the best right now. That bourbon stuff… really good.' She forgot whatever she was going to say, and fell the rest of the way onto her side, rolled onto her back, and began to snore shortly thereafter, while not far away, the sound of raucous dancing and music continued for hours more.
She woke in the morning with a groan, rubbing her head, "Gods of my fathers… he wasn't kidding about the hangover." She turned her face to the side and spat, then looked down in the direction of the faint smell of ammonia. "OK that wasn't a side effect he mentioned. Great."
Harou's large ice blue eyes looked at her from beyond his snout. She reached up and touched his jaw just beyond the nose, "Hey, don't judge me, I just wanted to have some fun. Speaking of which…"
She looked around and Jord was still laying where he'd fallen, most of the people in Travelers Hill were in a similar state, except of course for the ones on shift. Nalineth looked at the crisp and rigid way they moved, they had uniform stances, armed and moved exactly the same in a steady pace. Though they did glance back enviously at those still passed out from the night's revels, they were clearly fixated on their duty over all else.
'So… that's the discipline of the Newcomers. Maybe staying here for a bit might not be a bad idea.' She thought passively and kissed the cheek of her mount.
The next few days were a frenzy for her, and she managed to procure a tent and a few feet of space near a small building in the back, it was in there that she sat at a borrowed table on a borrowed chair, and wrote by candle light. The little flame flickered, it's tiny crackle like a child of the bonfire that glowed so brightly that her candle was almost needless even through the brown cloth that made up her little personal space.
The smell of bourbon and the sound of Newcomer songs and newcomer instruments filled the air. Jord was singing a drinking song… offkey. She smirked a little, took a deep breath, and continued to write.
'Father, it is my hope that this letter finds you well, I write to you with a heart both weighted down by my longing for home, and elated at the freedom of my current experience. If you had no obligations of your own, to have you with me now would have been a joy. As you cannot be, I can only keep you with me in thought, and locked away in my heart.
I have spent these last few days in a place called 'Traveler's Hill' a Newcomer outpost, populated entirely by the death worshippers, it is a very curious place and they, a very curious people. Their soldiers walk the walls like one body and without drinking. In the morning their warriors drill with strange combat arts the likes of which I have never seen, nor dreamt of. Efficient motion, nothing wasted. Like the blows of a smith hammering a sword, everything has a purpose.
Their merchants are… a greedy lot, in this, they are like our own, I have three times escorted some to surrounding areas, little places where villagers trade and merchants resupply, where I found that unlike our own, they speak very little. Their words, like their coin, are spent thriftily.
Their races are many, and yet they are one people, like us in that, though their Empire is young, it is bound by a singular faith. Their king is their god, and their worship is… vigorous. They tell stories, most of which seem to settle around founders of the faith which seem almost mythical to my ears, a dread pope whose eyes wilted the courage of kings, a minotaur that could charge through twenty beastmen without slowing down… it seems quite mad to me. Yet insist these were real people whose living descendants still reside in the east beyond the sea.
They are at least, a friendly, open faced people and I have never been allowed to linger over an empty cup. Exceptions exist, ones who look at me with some mistrust, but by and large, I find the stories of sacrificing Ongeku children stolen in the night, to be ludicrous. I cannot square what I have seen, with what I have heard. Soon I hope to venture farther east, and there to see what adventures await in a land that is at once very old, and very, very new.
With love,
Nalineth Pendar
She sealed up the letter and scrawled the name of her father, his estate, and province on it, and left her tent.
She was just about to approach a merchant who she knew had plans to head in that direction, when the gate opened slowly, and a trio of wagons entered. A somewhat fat, clearly grumpy merchant at the front was loudly grousing about just wanting to get some sleep and how the guard was just in the way.
But against the glow of the cast out firelight from the nearby torches, Nalineth saw something she'd never seen before.
Nearby the merchant, a black haired young man in unique equipment worth more than her father's home, was looking around with eyes as brightly blue as that of her wolf. He seemed to be talking, and utterly oblivious that the person he was pestering with questions, was growing annoyed.
As men went, the young one was odd, demon-elf horns, lightly purple skin, powerful looking muscles, and a narrow look to his eyes that brought a shiver to her and might have done more had they not looked so utterly innocent.
She felt a twinkle form in her hazel eyes, 'I wonder if that Newcomer can hold his liquor.'