Folk tales popular in Kreg’uune often feature a character with a -vit suffix in their name, yet few ever meet such persons. It is granted to those that provide notable service to the kingdom, meaning the tales are likely true, and comes with a degree of authority that may be passed down to descendents. Of course, kings and queens suffer no tolerance for those that abuse this authority without earning it, and those that do are often put to the sword.
Take note. That’s why I don’t use mine.
- Excerpt taken from ‘The Kreg’uune Guide to (Social) Ascension’ by Epogh, scribed 302 v.d.
“First, I want to find an inn and get rooms for us. Second, I want to count and split our spoils. Third, I want to see a map. Fourth, I want to purchase supplies. And finally, I want to leave as soon as possible.”
The man pushing our gondola had just dropped us off, and Jevi had returned from paying him. It didn’t take long, we were only separated for about ten seconds. I announced my itinerary the moment the three of us were back together.
“Do any of you have anything to add to that.” I asked. “Before that, Weldon. Are you going to continue travelling with us.”
Weldon gave a winning grin. “I would love to!” His expression turned deadly serious, as if he were mourning a child he didn’t know but was attending the funeral for. “But first I do have business in this place. Justice was delivered in the wildlands. But if those of authority do not know then the people cannot rejoice.”
He patted a watermelon sized sack he’d attached to his travel pack that had remained unopened the entire time we’d been traveling together.
“Alright, hold there.” Jevi waved her hands in a cross. She gestured between me and her. “We agreed to travel together, and that involves stressed circumstances. You know Weldon, I can understand that. I don’t, and I’m not willing to share the things I might share with you so long as he’s around. Considering what’s after us, I can’t afford that.”
“Why, what’s after you?” Weldon suddenly became very intense. “Is there a killer after you? Or- perhaps several!?”
“Uh… no.” Jevi shook her head. “It’s none of your-”
Weldon cocked his head and I saw the air in front of his eyes briefly turn red. “You just lied!”
Jevi frowned. “What? No! There’s no one trying to kill me. It’s none of your bus-”
“You just did it again!” And indeed, the air had flashed red once more.
She threw her hands up. “Amber, help me please?”
I sighed. Arguing wasn’t something I felt up to right now. “What are you trying to accomplish, Weldon.”
Weldon stood rigidly with a hand over his heart. “I have vowed to uphold justice to the highest degree, and have begun to travel the lands in order to attain experience and power to that end.”
“And does that involve travelling with us. You don’t even know where we’re going.”
Weldon cocked his head. “I was under the impression that not even you knew where you were going.”
Damn it. Why was this simpleton suddenly reading me like I was a paper familiar from the School of Paper?
Weldon suddenly snapped his fingers, making his gauntlets clang in a sound that was very unlike what I expected. “Ah! And there is a purchase that I would like to make while I’m here. It will not be cheap, meaning I will require a larger portion of your winnings.”
Almost as suddenly Jevi was interposed between me and him. “You agreed to the split that we already did.”
I sighed. “How much will you need.”
“Five gold coins at the most. I will return the change to you like an honourable man!”
I tossed him one of the dead bandit’s coin purse. If memory served, it had ten gold worth of silvers in it. “There. That’s settled. As for travelling together…” I sighed again. “Let’s find that inn first. Make a decision after dinner or a rest or something. Set somewhere for us to meet after finishing our business.”
Jevi glanced at me with concern. “No rest first? Weren’t you complaining about your feet?”
Yes, I had been. Right now, I just didn’t care about the ache. It wasn’t anything compared to what I felt with resurrection fatigue anyhow. “I think you’ve been here before. Do you know any inns.”
She obviously noticed my sidestepping of the issue, but gave a slow nod after some seconds. “Yes, but the one I have in mind is outside our price range.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. We had hundreds of gold pieces.
“Yeah, it’s reserved for the nobles that own the mines and is only really affordable if you have certain privileges from the crown. We’d be spending a hundred gold a night on each bed alone.”
“Ah, that is most unfortunate.” Weldon butted in. “I do not even have one hundred gold on my person!”
I’d already turned away and stopped the nearest passerby. A not quite old looking man carrying a crate. “Excuse me, where is the nearest inn.”
Less than one minute later I had directions to an inn called the Frog’s Well, and was wasting no time heading that way. Jevi and Weldon continued arguing over things they’d already argued about the entire way there. It was a half hearted ordeal from the both of them. I wasn’t really feeling anything still, and could tell both of them were keeping an eye on me.
It was like the entire travel from the bandit camp to here, only heightened to a new degree. My only solace was the fact that there were other people around, making their endless attention less distracting
I felt a little satisfied when I stopped the bickering by shoving one of the two room keys I rented towards Weldon. He accepted it, and when I told him we’d be meeting back here after sunset, then told him to go do the things he said he’d do, he left. It was but a ripple across the still lake of my soul, unfortunately. Or that’s what it felt like, at the very least.
That left me with a slightly confused Jevi who was glancing at the single key in my hands as I led the way upstairs.
“Ah. You bought a room with two beds.” She said once we were in our room for the night. Then she smirked. “So is this going to be a real sleepover this time?”
“Perhaps.” I said as I tossed my cloak onto the bed that was both behind the door and farther from the shuttered window. There was no desk in the room, the establishment wasn’t wealthy enough for that, but there were smaller bedside tables by each bed. I pulled out a bloodstained sack of coin out of my bag and left it on Jevi’s table, then pulled out another that was left on the floor. I alternated with the rest until all our coin was out of my bag, then transported the stuff on the floor to my space.
Jevi had disrobed her cloak and gear by then, and sat on her bed with a frown. “This wasn’t won from the bandits.” She was holding up a pouch that was much cleaner than the rest. It was the one containing my earnings from the dire rat job. We’d found those pouches first when we were claiming the coin from the deceased bandits, and Jevi had been carrying her own since then.
I hadn’t realised I was paying that little attention.
“Ah.” I held out my hand for her to give it back. She did so a little reluctantly, and it went back into my bag. After that, I sat down, pulled the bedside table away from the wall, and started counting.
“Can I ask?” Jevi said abruptly. Or not. I’d felt the question building for a while.
“No.” I responded. My death was not something I wanted to dwell on. I’d have to find some chocolate or something to stave off this feeling. Or some pancakes, they would work too. I’d have to find a place that sold them first.
“I was going to ask about the bag.” Jevi said, confusing me a little. I clearly wasn’t well and she was asking about that? “That haversack has far more room than it should. Where did you get it?”
I looked questioningly at her. Then I looked at my bag. Then back to her. It struck me that I had reached into certain pockets with my entire arm in front of her, and my hand certainly hadn’t come out the other side. “It’s my bag.” I said simply.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.” It hadn’t even cost me a full gold piece. Then again, that was in Veliki. Every bag I’d come across there was like my own. If anything, mine was worse than the others. It was only perhaps three or four times larger than it appeared, and a portion of the weight inside reached my shoulders even when it was closed. I suppose I just hadn’t considered that bags like that might not be normal.
“I’d pay a fortune for something like that.” Jevi said.
“It isn’t for sale.” I informed her. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you where to get your own.”
Her eyebrows went up in surprise. “I’d like that very much.”
Well… at least she wasn’t pushing me for it right now. I finished counting my second pile of ten gold. That wasn’t even a tenth of the pile I had to work with, albeit with most of the coins being of lesser value. I still had some bags of coin unopened too.
This would take a while.
\V/
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Putting all the smaller coins into their larger values where possible, we had seven hundred and twelve gold, eight silver, and nine copper. Enough for a commoner to live easily for the rest of their life, or enough for a few days living as a noble. Splitting that was easy. Jevi got three hundred and fifty six gold, with most of that pile being counted in silver, plus four silvers and the same number of coppers. I got the same plus one copper piece, my compensation for being the one to defeat Waar.
Jevi had been the one to kill her, which was why she claimed the prize of winning was so low. I stared at her until she felt uncomfortable, though I forgot why I was doing it partway through. My mind was more focused on where I could go for what was left on my itinerary.
Third was the map, though it turned out I wouldn’t even need to leave the room for that one.
“Map? I’ve got a map.” Jevi said once I stated my intentions at the door.
“Of all of Kreg’uune.” I asked.
“I’ll just show you.” Jevi tossed her money bags onto the bed and produced a thin case from behind her back. She waved her wand over it, then produced an equally thin roll of paper from within when the top popped open. The map was rolled open over the table and flattened with another wave of her wand, but my eyes lingered on the case Jevi tossed to the side. Red and black. It seemed I'd found one of Weylon Ursk's old painting containers.
“This map reaches from the Royal Hold off the coast all the way to the Bloody Hallway in the east, and from the Maur Sichern to the desert sands of Eiar. Those are the farthest locations in Kreg'uune for each of the cardinal directions, but not everything is on here. This map is… maybe a decade out of date? A few towns aren’t there anymore, but I think nothing new has come up. Still good for terrain though.”
I blinked. “What.”
Jevi slapped a hand over the map. “Kreg’uune. Map of it. Look, we here.” Her finger found a small, filled in circle that had Source written and underlined next to it.
I leaned closer and took in the details. From Source, I traced back the way we had traveled, finding Breach, and then a shaded area with the title ‘Veliki’ written over the top in extravagant calligraphy. It was strange that my home town had so much space dedicated to it. Veliki was simply a town, not a small country like this map seemed to think.
But then again, this was the first time I’d seen any maps of the larger world. Any that I’d seen before had been more local and detailed, related to historical battles and such. I wouldn’t be able to pick out where any of the terrain I actually knew was.
And it was… large. Veliki was a small dot compared to how vast Kreg’uune appeared on this map. More than a hundred, or perhaps a thousand Velikis could exist side by side and still not take up the same amount of space. It was a strange feeling to realise.
But reminiscing wasn’t what I was doing right now. Right now I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go to stay away from Avien. I had a few months at the most, so essentially I had until season’s change to find my first steps on the mascevan path. If I moved around I’d have more time, and again if I decided to leave the country. The problem was that moving around like so would likely reduce my chances of finding something suitable to pursue.
I spared a glance at Jevi, and found myself meeting her eyes. She was clearly on her own path and perhaps trying to do something similar to me, I just didn’t know what. Her current path likely had something to do with king, country, and bloody daggers, which I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with. Any new path was as unknown as my own.
“Have you been replaced with a dopple?” Jevi asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“No.” I said, returning my gaze to the map. Though I can see why you would ask such.
Juvel was off limits on account of Avien heading that way. The nearest locations like Saltless Sanctuary and Source were similarly off limits. He’d encounter me through sheer chance like he almost did at Breach. Traveling north into Maris wasn’t possible. Even in Veliki stories of that place were commonplace, and given the population I was sure the stories I grew up hearing were more accurate than anywhere save Maris itself.
The country was walled off from the rest of the world by a blizzard that had raged for near on two centuries. The Wall of Winter. It was even on this map, outlining the country of Maris and travelling north and east in a serpentine fashion, as well as west out to sea. Maris wasn’t just walled away by the phenomenon, it existed within a pocket of ‘normal’ climate within the reaches of the Wall of Winter. I’d heard many a tale of hardy adventurers freezing to death next to campfires travelling to and from that place. With my constitution, travelling that way was a death sentence, at least for now.
To the south of Kreg’uune was Eiar, a vast desert I had learned about by overhearing my dad talking about it with his veteran friends. I strongly suspected old enemies of his would recognise me as my dad’s daughter, and act accordingly. Therefore, I would not be going that way.
West of Kreg’uune was an ocean, something I would’ve liked to see. But Juvel was also there meaning I would not for the foreseeable future. To the east were the Kreon Mountains, the forest of Du Sverenladen, and the Bloody Hallway leading to the Noarchac Empire. But all of those were further east than the distance between Kreg’uune’s northern and southernmost points.
There were three cities I hadn’t crossed off my list of destinations yet. Border Stone, Cavaan, and Sequester. Border Stone was primarily a military city that, at least the last time my dad was there, hadn’t recovered from a devastating giant attack a century before. It was also close to the border with Eiar, so I wouldn’t be going there.
Sequester was an obvious choice, meaning I would not be heading that way. The map I was reading had a note next to the city dot telling me ‘the city is difficult to find, you may find yourself lost this way’. It was historically a place people went to hide, and the land had various artefacts and buildings that wrapped the area in a state of constant illusion. Whether those were built to create those illusions, or if they were necessary to pierce the illusions was a subject debated in Veliki. The point was, Avien would think of Sequester first once he failed to find me in Juvel.
Which left Cavaan. I tapped the ordinary dot next to the name. “There.”
Jevi gave a double take. “Cavaan. You want to go to Cavaan.” I nodded. “You can’t be serious.”
I looked at her. “Have I given you the impression that I am a jokester.”
“Well. No.”
“Shall I explain my reasoning.”
“Please do.”
I tapped Maris. “I’d die going there.” Jevi looked like she wanted to say something, but then I moved on to tap Decree, a city in North Kreg’uune, located just to the east of the Wall of Winter. “You ran from here.” Saltless Sanctuary. “Too close to Juvel.” Down to Border Stone. “Military. War with Eiar.” Up to Sequester. “It’s an obvious first choice, too obvious. And we’d need to get there first. By then our pursuers would have caught up.” I ran a hand over the eastern part of the map. “This is all too far away. Leaving,” I returned my finger to the appropriate dot, “Cavaan.”
Jevi rubbed her eyes. “Okay, can’t fault that logic. Except for the fact that-”
“The best part is the civil war that’s coming.” I finished.
“How is that a good thing!” Jevi demanded, suddenly furious.
“Fog of war.” I said simply, heedless of her ire. “There will be chaos as Kreg’uune kills itself, which is perfect for me getting what I want.”
Jevi scowled. “Oh yeah, and what’s that?”
“Freedom.” I answered. “Lasting freedom.”
“You’re talking about crossing lands wet with blood. Freshly wet with blood. Hells, we might even be caught in the middle when the blood is spilled if we’re unlucky enough.”
I looked Jevi in the eye. “What does it matter to me if people I have neither met nor heard of are killed.”
I felt the shiver go up Jevi’s spine. “That’s… that’s cold, Amber.”
“You may have underestimated the lengths I’m willing to go if it means Avien is removed from my life.”
“You could die doing this!”
I thought about the words of the reflective Snake. About how I felt waking up after my first night back alive. That sense of being given what I wanted, but in such a disappointing way. “I don’t believe All has that in store for me.”
Jevi closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Say you do this. You travel into the heart of a brewing civil war, what then? What do you hope to accomplish there?”
“I search for my path.”
“You don’t even know what you’re going to do there!”
“Yes.”
“And what of my role in this? We’re bound together because it’s safer for us to be so. You are the one that convinced me of that. Am I to just split ways over a disagreement and expect a knife in the back from whoever is searching for you? Aside from that harmless cub, who couldn’t harm me if he tried.”
“Do not underestimate Avien.” I said with a hint of faux emotion. A grimace passed over my face that that was the first thing I properly felt after my vision. “I thought you would appreciate the fog of war as well. Given that you are also hiding from a greater power.”
“That’s different!” Jevi roared. I felt as if my hair was blown back by her voice, only my brown locks didn’t move at all.
“Is it.” I arched an eyebrow meaningfully, perhaps too much. It was only acting, the emotion I normally felt wasn't behind it. “You’ve fled from a greater responsibility, much the same as I have. When I took that first step, I felt uncertainty and regret. Moving from there I felt more certainty, but also more regret. Regret for hurting others when all I was doing was fending for myself. I hadn’t wounded or insulted anyone yet, but I still felt regret. I knew then as I know now that the feeling was artificial.
“It was All pushing me to return to the path already set out before me. To return to the dance it would have me perform with a person who didn’t exist when it was decided that this would be my lot. I don’t actually feel any guilt, I feel anger at being puppeted so. It is the same as how I can’t be strong like you are, yet am able to swing my sword with any measure of skill. You, Jevi, were furious at dedicating your life to the service of a bandit, and killed him. Now, when I suggest we use war to obscure our movements, you become indignant. Why the two different reactions.”
My words had weight different to the kind of Jevi’s protest. Of the kind that did not shout and did not draw attention to itself, yet was still impossible to ignore.
“... By Kinli, what happened to you?” Jevi muttered after a long while.
I took a sudden interest in the view out the window. “I’m going to do my shopping now. Follow me or don’t. Suggest another destination and try convince me to go with you or not. I’m not feeling myself at the moment and may change my mind.”
“No kidding.”
“I will return for dinner.” I didn’t wait for a response and just left, only taking the time to retrieve my coat and sword, though I heard a faint ‘until then’ as the door was closing. After that I wasted no time in asking the innkeep where the market was and headed that way, fully intending to find something sweet that may dislodge the melancholic stillness that had overcome my mind.
An interruption came in a form I wasn’t expecting when the badge in my pocket made itself be known. I surreptitiously attached the warmed badge to my belt in case I needed to verify my ‘identity’ again.
“The right hand runs silver.” The speaker was a woman between youthful and middle age and had a blonde head of hair. Much like the man I spoke to before, she had strange scars on her neck, but otherwise looked normal, if manufactured.
“And the left hand runs red.” I answered.
“That citizen and country may prosper.”
Ah. This one was different. Jevi had been telling me this one, but she’d forgotten the part that I was supposed to say. Fortunately, the magic allowing this farce did not seem to care.
“And sleep soundly in their beds.” Spilled from my mouth. The tension in the woman relaxed a little, but not entirely.
“Envoy Winters has a message for you.” She informed me. I just waited lest I ruin the charade. “You are doing an interesting job of protecting the lady.”
That likely meant the ordeal with the bandits had in fact been scried on. At least by the people following Jevi. In fact, the situation I was in right now told me we had failed to shake her pursuers entirely.
“Is that all?” I snapped, the act finally injecting some variation into my words.
“It is.”
How to respond to that... “Inform Winters that I will not coddle the lady. She has decided to shirk her responsibilities to experience the real world, so she will be having a genuine experience. Those that seek her out will meet their appropriate ends.”
“Shall I convey the message word for word?”
I made a dismissive sound. “The intent is enough.”
We walked for a few moments before the woman spoke again. “I require verification of your station.”
I gave her an even stare as I brushed my cloak back enough for her to see the badge. The moment she saw it, her body language tensed a little. She quickly gave a short bow.
“I will see your intent delivered, Envoy Amber.” And then she was gone.
When I made it to the market I found myself stopping and staring up at the sunlit sky.
What am I doing?
\V/