Jolons’s map proved very useful to Aleem. The man had torn off a page from the back of the book he’d been scribbling in, and then proceeded to sketch out a crude map of the base.
He depicted the Wotbourne border outpost as four nested heptagons, each one representing a zone. Jolons had marked the core zone as ‘central Z’ and the outermost zone as ‘fourth Z’. The Outpost was further divided into quadrants by intersecting vertical and horizontal lines.
Their stockade was situated at the fourth zone, south-west quadrant, while the apotheca lay somewhere in the north-west quadrant of the second zone. Jolons had told Aleem that it would take just about an hour to make the trek; he’d been kind enough to dot the map with a few prominent landmarks, and even went as far as including the library and chaplet that Haimol had mentioned the night before.
Aleem headed out of the stockade with a brown cloth bag Jolons had lent him. It was slung over his shoulder, both the medical tome and his lunch safely placed within.
The weather was far, far less kilnish than it’d been on his first day. The blue sun hung high in a mostly cloudless, cyan sky. There was a fair bit of foot traffic despite how late in the morning it was. Judging by the sun’s arc, it was almost noon. Fully clad soldiers moved about, most of them in that seemingly fragile, silver cataphract he’d come to associate with the Olomti. Others wore scuffed leather armour with no helmets on.
The buildings here were cubic and painted in tame shades of grey. If he hadn’t just spent sometime in the stockade, Aleem might have thought this entire place rife with bungalows. Haimol had mentioned that there were only three stockades in the Outpost, and it could very well be that the other buildings here didn’t have underground layers. But the stockade itself looked just as unassuming as the structures surrounding it. It gave Aleem the feeling that sunken featured buildings were the norm here.
The roads were quite wide and paved with brown-cobblestone. The pavements were raised and equally covered with some stone-like finish. The occasional horse drawn carriage pulled past. And just like he’d noticed the night before on the roof, there was a gentle incline to the terrain. Down here it didn’t seem so pronounced though. Those pillars of light he’d noticed stood unlighted, but now he noticed signboards hanging off some of them. Convenient.
Aleem didn’t consult his map as much—not that there was much to look at after he’d memorised the general lay and landmarks. Everything for as far as he could see was, well, it was grey. It was a rather drab choice, but he didn’t suppose a military outpost would concern itself with having colours that ‘popped’.
There weren’t many banners or boards up, just the occasional sign stating the name of a street. It didn’t help him much. The roads meandered and forked and broke off and… it was a right headache to manoeuvre.
The map showed that there was a gate situated at each cardinal point. In order to exit a zone he would have to head in the direction of any of the gates as they each had a less winding route to the central zone. Throughways, Jolons had called them. Since the west gate was the closest to the stockade, Aleem made his way in that direction.
He walked briskly, humming a tune, his vocal range in this body was broader than it’d been back on Earth, which was a pleasant surprise. Music had been one of Aleem’s most cherished pastimes.
Feeling uncomfortably idle and fearing the prospect of delving into memories of his past life, Aleem took the time to engage his new Skill, [Trance]. It felt like he was sort of splitting his mind between two activities. Paying attention to the busy street while practicing the basic visualisation technique Des had shown him the night before. It felt less like multitasking and more like switching rapidly between two tasks. His mana moved languidly through his ducts. Annoying but calming. He called up the Skill in his schema.
[Trance] Level 1
In ‘Tales of Woe’, Skill levels were split into three broad tiers. Adequacy, Mastery and Eminence. Each tier constituted thirty levels. There was a hard cap on Skills, making Level 90 the ‘official’ ceiling. He would have to find out if that was the case here. So much to do.
He’d expected this trip to be mundane and pretty straightforward—curvy roads not withstanding.
Foolish.
A curly-haired young man in brown leather armour pointed at Aleem. He’d nearly missed the gesture as the fellow was across the street. Walking beside him were two younger-looking soldiers in a similar getup.
Aleem turned away and quickened his pace. He’d always been good with faces, so it only took a moment, but he thought he recognised one of the younger soldiers. He’d seen that face some days ago. Outside the brevet’s tent.
Aleem looked back again. The boy in question had a ridiculously wispy moustache. Yeah. There was very little doubt about it. That fellow right there was one of the boys Gwa.yao.rai had gotten into a fight with. Of the three culprits from back then, this particular boy had sported the least injuries, if any. And that probably included Aleem since he hadn’t yet seen what his own face looked like.
More concerning, however, was the fact that the young soldiers seemed to be trailing him. He tried telling himself that they were just headed to the west gate as well, but he wasn’t that delusional. Paranoia was a kind of delusion, he reminded himself. Still, Aleem kept glancing over his shoulder.
Their eyes were on him as they followed, steps a bit too casual for people who were in pursuit, which gave him pause. Jolons had told Aleem that there were manned checkpoints on the throughways. Aleem was getting quite close to the gate, and if he knew this, these boys would too. Why then were they being so casual?
An ambush wouldn’t make sense if there were sentries on the west throughway.
That just seemed like the sort of incredibly cliche thing he’d expect to see in a movie about an underdog teenager being waylaid by their neighbourhood bullies. Wait, was that what they were trying to do here?
Aleem hoped the fuck not.
Yet it made too much sense. Block off his chances of retreating, while heading him off further down the path. It was the kind of ‘brilliance’ a dunderhead might come up with. He glanced over his shoulder again, noticing that they’d fallen behind even more. He frowned. What exactly was their play here?
Well, whatever it was, he wouldn’t just wait around for it to happen.
Aleem turned on his heels and crossed over to their side of the street. The boys faltered in their steps as he approached.
He scoffed, before putting on a wide smile and waving at them. “Hello!” he called out, eyes on the one boy he recognised. “I was headed to Panshaan’s. [Turn-key] sent me on an errand.”
All three boys stopped in their steps and gawked at him like he had lost his mind, but he just continued talking.
“And you!” Aleem said, pointing at Wispy-moustache. “I remember you.”
The boy with the curly hair, who was clearly the oldest of the lot, seemed to have recovered from Aleem’s possibly uncharacteristic behaviour. “Chem says you lost your memory.” He said it like a challenge. As though Chem, whoever the bloody hell that was, couldn’t possibly have gotten something so significant wrong.
“I did,” Aleem allowed, nodding his head with as much boyish innocence as he could conjure. Not that he expected it would make any difference to these three. He pointed at the boy with the wispy moustache. “But I saw him at the brevet’s tent. Him and two other boys.”
“Yeah?” Curly asked, brushing his hair back. He seemed to be some sort of leader because the other two were satisfied to let him speak, while they just stared at Aleem. “What’s that have to do with anything?”
Aleem shrugged. “Just making conversation.” He looked at Wispy. “What’s your name?”
The boy blinked, evidently surprised by the question, but he still didn’t say anything.
Curly’s lip twitched into a sneer. “Why don’t you mind your business and leave us alone, huh?”
“Oh?” Aleem cocked his head sideways. “Aren’t we all headed in the same direction? I could have sworn you were following me.”
“I… that’s not...” the boy sputtered, his eyes darting between Aleem’s face and shoulder for a moment.
It took all of Aleem’s self-control to not immediately look over that very shoulder. “I don’t remember you,” Aleem continued, “but surely, we must have been friends. Come on. Let’s walk as we talk.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The other young soldier, a boy with a large nose, reared up. “Fuck off, you filthy guttersnipe! We don’t want to walk with you.”
Tanton had used the very same word on him. Coincidence? He couldn’t say.
“Yeah,” Curly agreed. “We want nothing to do with you!”
“Alright, alright,” Aleem said. He stepped to the side and flourished to the pavement ahead, “Carry on then.”
Once more they sputtered. Aleem would be laughing already if he didn’t suspect that these boys had some form of violence prepared for him.
“Let’s go,” Wispy finally said, pulling on the arms of both boys. There was an indiscernible look on his face.
As they walked past, Aleem turned quickly to look up ahead but found nothing worrying. The pavements were still being plied by a decent number of pedestrians. None of the young-faced soldiers here stood out as a possible delinquent. Not that such a thing was an immediately discernible trait.
He’d feared that the other half of their pincer formation had started moving in, but that did not seem to be the case. Maybe he’d given them too much credit?
Aleem sighed and waited for the trio to turn into a street corner. He, however, turned back the way he’d come. It would elongate his trek considerably, but he just couldn’t be sure that they hadn’t planned something further down the path for him. Better to be cautious and avoid the west gate throughway entirely.
South gate it was.
Aleem continued to use [Trance] while walking. He made sure to keep a careful eye on his surroundings. Wispy and the others did not follow, even though he’d been expecting them to. He juggled trekking, vigilance and basic mana visualisation. Doing anything else was too much for him presently.
He got a notification for his efforts, several minutes later.
ALERT
The Skill [Trance] has levelled up!
[Trance] Level 2
Almost immediately, there was a drop in the strain that came with exerting the Skill. He noticed it for all of five seconds, after which whatever improvement came with the level up seemed to vanish.
The new normal, he supposed.
Testing the Skill, it seemed he could focus a little more on any one of the things he was juggling. But it did still feel like juggling.
“Oh well,” he muttered to himself, “no way from here but up.”
The cobbled roads got busier as he approached the south gate. More carriages, and quite a few proper-looking ones too, unlike the be-sorrowed thing he and Tanton had rode in. The horses were unlike the doped-up monster he’d seen outside the brevet’s tent. Pretty ordinary save for the colours of the horses. Blue, green, orange. Their coats must have been dyed. Though it was quite odd that anyone would do something like that. Green was, well, it wouldn’t have been his first choice.
The south gate was unmistakeable from a good distance away. A huge arc bordered by high walls and a watchtower. Everything was painted grey. Soldiers in full plate armour stood by the gate, halting both streams of carriages for inspection. The throughway was not nearly as busy as Aleem expected it to be, he’d imagined it was some kind of expressway with horses speeding by. In actuality it was fairly tame. Wagons and carriages moved along behind trotting horses. The cobbled path was perhaps twice the size of the other roads Aleem had seen. And it didn’t wind nearly as much.
He kept to the pavement, which was thankfully elevated, and continued using [Trance]. He’d been better able to notice that he walked much more slowly when using the Skill. A tradeoff. It was a useful piece of information to have. The weather had risen slowly, and it wasn’t until after he’d made it into the third district that Aleem began to feel a bit dehydrated. As he drank from his water-skin, he considered stepping off the throughway and taking a break.
“Gwa.yao.rai!”
Aleem hadn’t yet gotten used to that name. He looked around and saw someone waving him over from aboard one of those cart-like things. The cart had come to a stop along the throughway just up ahead. The man had plump cheeks and orange stubble around his face. It was the man that had visited his tent with Bojra on Aleem’s first day here.
“Hello, Thebas,” Aleem said. He shoved the Waterskin into his cloth-bag and walked over to the cart.
Thebas was still in that strange glistening armour of the Olomti. Aleem had yet to ask about the variance. Some looked to be made of metal and others seemed to be made of some form of reflective fabric. He’d never seen anything like it in ‘Tales of Woe’.
Aleem winced when the man reached down to slap him cheerfully on the shoulder in greeting.
“What are you doing, walking out here?” Thebas asked, a smile on his face.
Aleem held up the map Jolons had drawn him, “Trying to get to Sambi’s actually.”
“Oh?” Thebas perked up. “I was just headed there!”
“No, you weren’t,” called someone from the front of the cart in a droll voice.
Aleem noticed now that the cart’s driver was watching them. The boy had a wide brimmed hat on this time, but Aleem still recognised him. He recognised the cart as well. Not so much the stacked bales of hay within. They were much larger than last time, and lashed firmly to the cart with thick ropes.
“I was going to go there eventually,” Thebas replied in a defensive tone.
The boy rolled his eyes.
Aleem nodded at him. “Hello.”
“Hello yourself,” he said, returning Aleem’s nod. “Get in if you want a lift to second zone. I’m a busy type.”
Moments later, he was seated beside Thebas on the back of the cart, watching the scenery swish past. Having spent so much time under the sun, it was easier for Aleem to appreciated the nigh stifling breeze.
“You look much better,” Thebas called over the sounds of travel.
“I feel better too. Sambi came over yesterday, but I was still uh unwell so I thought to pay her a visit.
Thebas’s eyes gained a malicious glint. “Wise. Very wise.” He licked his lips, nodding. “The very hands of the gods have orchestrated our meeting. This way we can insist on you getting your tamcha now.”
Oh yeah. He’d forgotten about that.
“I came by your holding tent in the evening but you’d already left by then,” Thebas said.
“Got taken to see the brevet. She just asked me to behave. Then I—” The Geas tightened around Aleem and he could almost feel it on his skin. The nape of his neck, to be specific. That made sense. Geasa often functioned better when they were infused into marks on the body. Thus tattoos. He would get around to inspecting his body. Eventually. “—I met Haimol and Des,” he finished. Couldn't speak ill of Tanton. “I met Jolons too—he even drew me this map.”
“Oh that’s good. I knew Bojra was worrying for nothing, she kept insisting that you’d gotten yourself in a lot of trouble, but I was confident you’d get off easy.”
“Everything worked out fine,” Aleem agreed, keeping his voice steady. If Bojra was worried, then she must have known something Thebas didn’t. Something about Tanton. He’d have to bring that up with her sometime. “Haimol and Des helped me out a lot. Showed me how to stir my mana and access my schema.”
“Shades,” Thebas swore softly. “You forgot even those? I mean—sorry. What am I saying? Of course you did. Hah. Sounds terrible.” They sat there in awkward silence for a moment before his eyes lit up, something apparently having occurred to him. “Did you pester Old Haim with questions?”
Aleem cocked an eyebrow. “Haimol? I asked him some questions, yes. Why?”
“Oh, he has a bit of a reputation, you see,” Thebas said, his eyes sparkling once more with that malicious glint. “Old Haim’s as grouchy as they come. The younger [Jailers] over at Kwesh stockade — that’s what it’s called — they say he hates having to talk too much. And uh you’ve probably picked up on this already but you tend to ask the most exhausting questions.” Thebas chuckled then froze. “Not that I have a problem with that. It’s one of your best features, in fact. Truly. Anyway, Old Haim does not respond well to badgering.”
Huh.
Aleem was a little surprised at this. That had not been his experience with the old [Turn-key] at all. The man had seemed more than a little indulgent, downright talkative even. Then again there’d been that very thick cloud of opiates in the den.
“Bojra says the geezer used to send you and his grandkids over to the base-library whenever you fellas got too rowdy. Made a proper scholar out of Kohv, he did.” He shook his head, laughing. “I know this lad — used to be at Kwesh before he got moved over to Terz — Old Haim made ‘em read through two entire volumes of Code & Conduct, simply because the lad asked too many questions on his first day.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,”Aleem said.
“I’m sure you think so, lad,” Thebas laughed. “After all those trips to second zone, who wouldn’t?”
A carriage sped past them, it had two local soldiers in brown leather armour within. One of them waved and Thebas waved back.
“You’re part of the Olomti, right?” Aleem asked, trying to not to stare at the man’s glistening armour. It wasn’t quite reflective but he feared that peering at its surface might reveal more about his new body than he could handle.
Thebas merely rapped his knuckles on his chest plate in response, and if it made any sound Aleem couldn’t hear it over the soughing of the cart.
“Is it a mercenary organisation or something?”
The man shook his head, “An Order.” His cheerful mien grew thoughtful. “Think of us as Knights. Loyal retainers of the empire who give our lives in various forms of service.”
Yeah, that sounded like they were a bunch of mercenary handymen hiding behind a shinier word than ‘Guild’. But whatever. “So are you a combatant?”
“Sapper, for the most part,” Thebas answered proudly. “I’m something of an engineer, actually.” He leaned towards Aleem, as if to reveal a great secret. “I even helped improve this armour I’m wearing, if you can believe it.”
Aleem eyed him uncertainly. That sounded like a very big claim to make. Aleem didn’t know if ‘sapper’ here on Orig meant what it did back on Earth, but he was pretty sure those had very little to do with armour.
“Lies,” called the driver, not even looking back. Aleem was surprised that the boy had been able to follow their conversation.
“Said I helped.” Thebas crossed his arms, but his smile had only dimmed slightly. “Olomti comprise of soldiers with various ‘giftings’. Everyone has their part to play, see? Just about any mook can swing a sword, but what really matters is how useful you remain when there’s no longer a need for bloodshed. Olomti are soldiers, but if soldiers are not needed, they find other ways to be of service.
Now that Thebas had put it so many words, the Olomti sounded like something he’d enjoy looking into. Mercenaries who weren’t just a bunch of murder hobos.
“I’ve been off digging at Fouts for much of a week now,” Thebas said.
It showed. The man’s armour, while clearly wiped down, looked to have seen a bit of a tussle. Aleem thought he could see faint smudges on Thebas face. And speaking of which, the man looked bone-tired. His eyes, though glistening above his smile, were swollen. “When last did you get any sleep?” Aleem asked.
Thebas’s smile faltered then he shrugged. “I’ve just been a bit busy, is all. This much is to be expected. Sappers’ve been spread out a bit too thin of late.” Thebas shook his head. “So much to do.”
Aleem hadn’t been here three days yet he could already relate, strangely enough. Still, he filed that piece of information away. It would seem that the Ontnmor army was making hidden passages. That was telling. It didn’t exactly sound like the sort of thing you’d do on a ’routine campaign’.
A standing board held up a sign that announced their entry into the second zone. The Unolrian language had a wordy writing system, so for something as simple as ‘second zone’, you’d have ‘the zone which winds around the first’. It was cumbersome. He would have to look into working out a shorthand sometime.
They slowed at a checkpoint. The sentries exchanged banter with Thebas, gave the stacked bales of hay a once over and waved them along.
The cart-driver dropped them off at a bend and continued down the throughway.
“Come on,” Thebas said. His nose flared as he spoke, eyes bulging as he suppressed a yawn. “The apotheca’s not far. I can already taste my—our tamcha.”