The following morning, Saul restricted himself to exercising in his room before getting cleaned up and dressed. While he and Toby had breakfast, everything was prepared for their departure. The carriage was waiting for them along with Natalie when they left the magistrate. Saul led her in and quickly showed her the layout.
“We only have two private sleeping areas,” he said apologetically. “We can discuss sleeping arrangements and personal space once we get going.”
The sitting area was also a problem, only really being comfortable for two people to sit side-by-side. Saul, Toby, Natalie, and Ziba sat, Bart bracing himself in the hallway while Dinah got the carriage going. There was a bit of reshuffling, as Natalie insisted on sitting next to Saul and as far from Bart as possible.
“Can we talk about personal space now?” she grimaced at Toby, Ziba, and Bart. “Apparently, I’ll get more used to being near all of you over time, but I’m very uncomfortable right now. Saul and I share an icon, so he’s not as bad.”
“There is seating on the roof,” Saul told her, “how well would a wall block the feeling? The private booths are walled off.”
“Before we get too far with this,” Toby cut in, “I’m sorry, but I’m not giving up my sleeping area. Not with how long this trip is going to be.”
“Lady Natalie, if I may?” Ziba asked.
“Just Natalie is fine,” she replied. “What?”
“I apologize, I am not abundantly familiar with elven etiquette, nor your rank. Natalie, then, how dangerous would you assess the wilderness as being on nights when we must rest in the carriage? If the risk is minimal, Dinah and I could sleep on the roof of the carriage and leave the sitting area for Natalie. Dinah tells me that Geronimo Tanny is likely to notice an approaching threat.”
“Who?” Natalie asked.
“The horse,” Saul clarified, “it’s earth-attuned. I’m sorry that we can’t offer one of the private booths, Toby and I are already settled into them. Would having this sitting area to yourself at night be acceptable?”
“I would be fine with that back room at night, Bart can take the sitting area. I need somewhere I can have some privacy during the day sometimes though. I can’t set up in the back room while the carriage is moving. Could I use the rooms when you two aren’t sleeping or in them yourselves?”
Saul gave Toby a look, and his cousin let out an aggrieved sigh.
“Fine. When I’m not using it during the day, you can go into my room,” he capitulated. “I would prefer that you ask my permission.”
“Begging your pardons,” Ziba said, “Miss Natalie, I believe the conversation may have accidentally moved past the initial question of the safety of remaining atop the carriage at night.”
“I can check each night if we are likely to be attacked by anything,” Natalie replied. “If we are, I can adjust my own arrangement.”
The discussion ended, leaving an awkward silence. Saul reached into his satchel for a book, and had a horrible realization.
“I forgot to get the dwarven text back from the gnome!” he exclaimed, then turned, “Natalie, did he give it to you?”
“No.”
“Sh—Scholar’s scrolls!” he reached past her toward the hatch on the front door, but Natalie stopped him.
“I do not want to turn around and start over,” she said. “I can get him to bring it, but you owe me a favor, alright?”
“What kind of favor?”
“I don’t know, nothing serious, I was half kidding. Never mind.” Natalie closed her eyes and started muttering under her breath, “Warlick, bring that damn book here right now. Yes, it is your responsibility. We already left, what do you think ‘early’ means? I don’t care. Yes, you can, your spell’s range is longer than my sending. We’re not even out of the city yet. Ok, here’s where we are, thanks.”
Saul felt a slight breeze coming from Toby, who was looking at Natalie.
“Please keep your domain off of me,” Toby asked her. “It feels very…invasive.”
“Sorry, I’m just letting Warlick know where we are. Wait, is that a portable hole?”
There was a flash of light and a gnome appeared between the seats and immediately fell over. Righting himself, he pulled a book out of his jacket and held it out to Saul.
“Here. Thank you for letting me borrow it. If you want to discuss the abilities you awaken when you pass back through the city, I would be willing to go over them with you. Good luck.”
As soon as Saul took the text, the Wizard vanished again. Saul looked down at the book. He had intended to just read for a while and let the air clear, but if anything, things were even more tense. He could just read in his room, but drawing attention to the private rooms again didn’t feel like a good idea. Maybe he should have thought bringing Natalie along through more.
“I’m going to sit on the roof for a bit, see what elven territory looks like,” he said, making his escape, followed by Bart.
They weren’t quite out of the city yet, so Saul just watched the buildings go by for a while. When the buildings became sparse, he gave the second cantrip Nadine had given him another try.
“Chill”
With a slight wave, a patch of darkness appeared in front of him, before swiftly being left behind by the carriage’s motion. To the visualization she had provided, it was like leaving the opening in the curtain of light he had made behind. He tried a few more times, trying to hold the curtain instead of just moving it aside, so that the effect would move with him.
It took the better part of an hour, and mental gymnastics related to imaginary curtain rods running along the road, but Saul eventually got a patch of darkness that wasn’t left behind by the carriage per se. Instead, the patch created a streak as they moved, forming continuously in front of him and taking all of his focus. When he stopped, he looked behind them and saw a streak of black over a hundred feet long fifteen feet off the road. Focusing on so many attempts had become tiring so he stopped, but there wasn’t much to do or see up here. Saul didn’t want to go back inside, so he sat as low as possible and tried to read.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
When it approached evening, they stopped in the middle of the coastal grassland for the first of many nights in the carriage. Elven towns were much further apart, and they would only pass through a handful in the month it would take to reach their destination. There were a few closer to Chelou, but not in the northwestern path they were taking.
They stopped relatively early so that Ziba could prepare the soup and Dinah could take care of the horse. Toby and Saul used the last of the daylight for training and exercise, while Bart kept watch from the top of the carriage. Natalie just sat in the open back door of the carriage and watched them.
“So, you do have a portable hole, right?” Natalie asked as they ate. “They wouldn’t tell me about it, but I’m nearly certain that’s what I saw.”
“Yes, we do,” Saul confirmed, “They’re very valuable, at least in Oriawell, so it’s meant to be stored subtly.”
“I get that, I was just curious if that was actually what I saw. I would have found out eventually anyway whenever you had to actually use it. You know not to go in with that satchel on, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll hand it off if I need to get something out myself.”
“What’s up with that?” Toby asked.
“They would break,” Saul explained simply. “The pieces of my body would end up scattered through a dozen other storage satchels and other adjacent displaced storage items.”
“What do you actually have in the hole?” Natalie said. “It seems like you’ve got a fair amount of stuff packed on and in the carriage.”
“Food, clothes, books. We have enough food to get through the trip even if we aren’t welcome in any of the towns or villages along the way.”
After they ate Natalie divined their chances of being attacked by something.
“You two will be fine up there,” she told Ziba and Dinah. “This close to Chelou, the chances of a monster going unnoticed or a nearby bandit group are virtually nil anyway.”
“Bandit group?” Toby asked, “do you mean ‘bandits’ or bandits?”
Natalie gave him a confused look.
“Like, an actual band of armed thieves?” he clarified.
“Yes? It can be a bit more complicated than that, but usually. Do you not get that sort among humans? That seems unlikely.”
“There are cases of commoners attacking people on the roads from time to time, but they’re quickly taken care of as a Noble Duty.”
“Oh, I see,” Natalie said. “It’s some kind of euphemism for human nobles attacking each other.”
“More or less,” Toby shrugged with a slight smile. “It’s usually more ‘politically convenient’ to say bandits.”
Saul returned to the carriage to get ready for bed. He ran into a problem at the final step, when he found himself unable to turn off the new glass light in his room. Tired, he just wrapped it in a sock. This happened to remind him that he hadn’t given the iconic wool socks he’d bought to Toby. Setting them on a shelf, he went to sleep.
The morning brought an unexpected twist when Natalie was nowhere to be found. She had claimed the utilitarian back room of the carriage to sleep in, but there was no evidence that she’d put down a cot or anything. While Saul and Ziba were talking about it in the hallway, they were startled slightly by a disembodied voice.
“A few minutes,” Natalie’s groggy voice said from somewhere in the back room.
The two men poked their heads into the smallish area, but saw nothing.
“It could be an illusion,” Saul said quietly. “Even if you don’t see her at night, you should still respect the back room as her space then.”
Ziba bowed and climbed back out of the carriage through the front door. Bart was sleeping on one of the seats next to it, but was still dead to the world. He also appeared to be developing dandruff. Reminded that he hadn’t and couldn’t bathe, Saul returned to his room. After folding back the bed, he took out the Artisanal cloak he’d bought and tried out its ability to clean anything it covered. The effect didn’t leave him smelling fresh, but it did remove all smell that he could detect and the slightly grimy feeling that came from sleeping without a proper bath.
When everyone was up and Natalie had reappeared, they set out. Breakfast and lunch would consist of preserved foods to save time. Saul gave Toby the pair of socks and explained how they worked. Toby adjusted the fit of the socks until they were more like knee-high stockings. This left the material thin, but allowed him to keep most of his legs slightly cool. The carriage got warmer than the surrounding air when the doors were closed for more than an hour. Saul tried to explain what he’d learned about the sheep the wool came from, but Natalie knew more about them.
“Iconic sheep doesn’t mean attuned sheep,” she corrected. “Not just that, anyway. It’s a term for an animal that’s attuned to its own icon, at least here. They’re sheep-attuned sheep.”
“Interesting, that isn’t a practice in Oriawell,” Saul said, “I have studied non-sapient thaumaturgy to a degree. Is there a particular benefit to the practice? I would imagine the abilities that result aren’t especially novel or useful.”
“Are you familiar with the uses of attuned animal parts in crafting?”
“Broadly. I have a book on artifice with me, but I’m not extensively read on the subject.”
“Iconic animals are easier to craft with.” Natalie gestured at Toby’s socks, “those weren’t actually made with an Artisan’s capstone. If a full Artisan does work with the material, the results are much more impressive than they could otherwise manage. That is still true to a lesser degree with other attuned animals, it’s a matter of whether the animal is raised for use in life or just its parts. Sheep are an ideal middle ground thanks to their wool.”
“I take it that these iconic sheep are an established breed, like our horse?”
“Probably. I’m not familiar with how humans classify animals, but iconic sheep can be found all over elven territory with fairly similar properties.”
“If there’s variance in the abilities, they aren’t a proper breed,” Saul clarified. “Proper breeds of attuned animals have been cultivated to always display the same set of abilities from generation to generation. Geronimo Tanny isn’t technically from an established breed, he’s only the second generation, but he does have the same combination of abilities that his dam, Tanny, did.”
“I think that most of the attuned animals kept here were domesticated with an attunement already. Some of them don’t even exist as unattuned creatures, like dragons.”
“There are natural dragons here?” Toby asked.
“Mostly wild, but yes,” Natalie said. “They’re not a great example, they resist domestication. There are villages near their habitats that catch young ones and train them for monster hunting though.”
“Will we be near any of them? We only have the odd draconic daemon, and I’ve never seen one of them either.”
“No, we would have to go more west-northwest I think.”
Saul ducked into his room to get a book about artifice. Settling back into the cushions, he immersed himself in the surprisingly technical text.
That night, Saul was unable to turn off the light again. Annoyed that he’d forgotten to ask Natalie about it, he stuck his head out of his room. Natalie was standing in the corner of the back room with her hands behind her back looking in his direction.
“Do you know how to put these things out?” he asked, pointing at another of the glass lights.
“If you’re the one who’s powering it, it should be easy,” she replied. “Just stop. They require so little focus that you don’t notice after the first minute or two.”
“Ziba is the one who’s been turning them on.”
“Oh. They’ll go out when he falls asleep then.”
Saul internally debated getting Ziba, but didn’t know how long it would take to get this figured out. He put one of his old socks over the light and went to bed.