Jack had made a decision, he would go to Rockhaven. From what he knew a very powerful artefact was locked away inside of that city, some kind of axe. He didn't think he would be able to get that axe himself but he was fairly certain that Fire would show up in Rockhaven eventually, that axe was just too perfect of an artefact.

Jack left early in the morning after ensuring that he had enough supplies to make it a long way. Judging by the map, the road from Redwater to Rockhaven was not a very direct path and he also saw why. The direct route went through a snow biome and a strange, fairly circular valley surrounded by jagged mountains that all roads seemed to avoid by a large margin. He would later decide if he wanted to take the long road or the "fun path" since the first bit of the road ran along the direct route.

As Jack left Redwater, he ran into Nathaniel again and was surprised and a bit suspicious that he too was on his way to Rockhaven. They promptly decided to travel together, they both agreed that going alone was risky, especially in the lawless wilderness.

After walking for a bit Nathaniel asked: "Why do you want to go to Rockhaven?"

Jack answered: "I have been tasked with delivering a message to a Mencur-Besh called Fire. No idea who my client actually is, the pay is good though."

Nathaniel said: "Hmm… a message for a Mencur-Besh, I see. No idea why anyone would contract someone like us for it though, probably because we get around and nobody suspects a thing."

Jack nodded: "Most likely. Finding this Fire won't be easy though, from what I have heard some of them have identical names… and they all look pretty much the same."

"True. Nobody really knows a whole lot about them. You can only see one running a shop here and there, sometimes I meet one of them on my travels. They are interesting to talk to, if you get the opportunity that is. But I wouldn't want to face any of them in battle. Have you seen how they fight? I heard some of them are mercenaries as well, never met one of those though."

Jack replied: "I honestly didn't know about them until I got this contract, I mostly did jobs in the Deepsand desert and the surrounding areas. Then that slave mine showed up."

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow: "Didn't know there was one there. Who's running it?"

"Don't know. But they seem awfully good at keeping everybody in check. They are mining the rock of that old volcano in the middle of the desert and sell the resources."

"I assume that is why you left."

"Yes, the risk of being enslaved does outweigh the fact that everyone suddenly has diamonds to pay me with."

It had been Q's idea to not only capture new players but to also take in some of the surrounding population to make the whole slave mine thing more believable and less suspicious. It seemed like nobody on the server had noticed that they were actually hackers, Fire being the only one knowing what was going on. He and the people he escaped with presumably. And that one guy who showed up to save Fire in the arena. And a lot of the people in the arena who had listened to what Fire had said. And the people who had noticed the broadcast message, though he knew that most players didn't have their chat enabled. Jack realized that more people knew about them than he would have liked.

Jack changed topic: "So, have you ever been to Rockhaven before?"

Nathaniel replied: "Yes, once. It was before the current king's election, I was hired to act as a guard during the festivities after the election. Normally they don't bring in outsiders or interact much, except through trade of course. It seems though that there was some unrest during that period and the city guard was concerned that something would happen. When you look at Rockhaven from the inside it is really hard to believe that 'unrest' is even part of the vocabulary there. The streets are wide and paved with… no idea what exactly it is but it looks really good. There are all kinds of people walking around in clothes of… again, no idea what it's called. After I was relieved of my duty I was free to stay for another two days before having to leave. I spent hours walking through the streets and visited every shop I thought was interesting. I'll tell you, the things you can buy there! Weapons made from diamonds. Not the cheap ones where you just slap two gems onto a stick and it becomes a sword. Those ones were proper weapons, the shop owner demonstrated it to me by slicing straight through a chunk of rock. They were expensive as all hell though."

Jack nodded: "Seems like it really is as unbelievable as I've been told. How did you get there the last time?"

"I came from Redwater too, this here is my home turf. I took a shortcut through the snow and then followed the road again. Turns out that I saved a fair bit of time that way, a caravan driver that departed at the same time as me arrived weeks later. That and it is better than being ambushed, like you said, bandits are everywhere when you travel on your own."

Jack stopped and unfolded his map, then pointed at the strange round valley.

He asked: "What's this?"

Nathaniel remarked: "Nice map." He continued: "That's the Witch's Cauldron. Some mage screwed up and now there is magic going wild inside of that valley. I heard that the mountains formed because of that too. In short, don't go there."

Jack said: "Interesting. So we will follow the road until we hit the snow, then go through?"

"Yes. But really, where did you get that map?"

"It was part of what my latest client gave me. I was told to consider it as a bit of an upfront payment." It was surprising for Jack how close to the truth his lie was.

"I can understand that, you rarely come across a map like that. Anyways, the reason why I'm travelling to Rockhaven is not because I want to go to the town itself but to a nearby other town, Rockhaven Port. It started off as a trading post for Rockhaven because Rockhaven didn't have sea access. Due to its flourishing economy it eventually became independent. Naturally pirates are a problem on the sea trade routes so I can imagine that capable fighters are always welcome on trade ships. And if I don't find work on a ship, there is still plenty of demand for mercenaries, just like everywhere else. Maybe I'll even go to one of the pirate towns overseas and see what kind of trouble I can get into there."

Jack looked at his map again and indeed, just a few kilometers away from Rockhaven was a city labelled "Rockhaven Port", it wasn't quite as big or fortified as Rockhaven but it was easy to see why it flourished, it was located in a large bay that would be safe from even the wildest storms.

Jack put away his map and they started walking again. They were walking along the cobbled road silently but not after long it turned into a wide path of dirt, hardened by the feet of countless travelers. The path followed the stream of Redwater through the dense woods. Branches covered the path entirely, shielding them from the sun.

Jack thought about his plans for when he would arrive in Rockhaven, hopefully he wouldn't miss Fire entirely. He could set up camp at one of the roads near the city and just wait, maybe under the guise of a hunter, that way he could also ask people who were leaving Rockhaven on what was going on inside.

The world on the server was really a whole lot more complex than he had originally thought but he wasn't surprised, it had plenty of time to develop. Jack shuddered involuntarily, another world, simulated by a computer program… a couple of weeks earlier he would just have laughed off the idea but now that he had experienced it firsthand he was both impressed and intimidated by the thought that technology could do something like this.

Q had recruited him and the others over the internet, unsurprisingly. Most of the others were no big deal. Q and Jack himself were the only big fish involved in the operation. Them and Jack's friend Alice, who had been the one who had sold Q the information about the server in the first place, after looking at her past exploits Q had decided to recruit her along with Jack. Although Jack often disagreed with Alice's way of going about things, he couldn't deny that she was a valuable member. She was also his way out of his quest for finding Fire, he had arranged a meeting with her in the general area around Rockhaven so she could pick him up should anything go wrong. Assuming that nothing went wrong on the way there.

Jack shrugged the thought off and continued walking down the dirt path.