“Excuse me? Irichi what?” I looked around in surprise. “I don’t know what you mean. There are no slaves here. By the way, this is Qu Ji.” I pointed to the hunter, “And this is Orthok.”

Qu Ji bowed slightly again in his usual manner and Orthok smiled kindly back. “This man is from Irichi, which is the continent to the northwest of Verda. And he is clearly a slave warrior. Their way of dress and the three spears behind their backs are unmistakable.”

“If you say so... And who or what is a slave warrior?”

“Easy,” Orthok remarked. “You must have been out for a long time, why don’t we make some breakfast and have a quiet chat? I’m sure you’ve got all kinds of stories to tell. Except for a marmot, I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer.”

“Oh,” I said lightly, “that won’t be a problem. I have some supplies with me.” With those words, I retrieved the cookware and food from the storage ring.

Orthok watched in surprise as I retrieved one item after another from the void. “Well, well, well, your trip must have been worth it! I’ve heard of invisible storage like this, but I’ve never seen one myself.”

My self-satisfied grin disappeared right away, though, when he added, “Just make sure no one finds out about it. If you’re lucky, you’ll just get the thing stolen, but it’s much more likely you’ll get killed over it.”

He added some wood and grabbed the cooking pot, “There’s a little spring under that tree, be right back.” When he returned with the water, Qu Ji took the pot from him and set about cooking. Orthok didn’t seem to mind. He disappeared behind the trees for a moment and returned with the skinned marmot carcass, which he handed to Qu Ji.

He then gestured for me to follow him. We crossed the small grove and came out on the other side. “I know approximately where we are by now,” Orthok said. “See that mountain there?” He pointed ahead-right, where I could indeed make out a solitary mountain on the horizon. After my nod, the hunter continued, “That’s the Pimple, a good landmark in the eastern Devastation. The mountain, by the way, was created by a spell during the war, which also resulted in the Devastation.”

After a short pause, he continued, “If we leave the Pimple on the right, after six or maybe eight days we will come to Orso, a small town on the southern edge of the devastation. The place thrives on adventurers and treasure hunters who buy equipment and supplies there for their tours into the Devastation, pawn off their loot if they manage to return, and squander the money again before it starts all over again. I don’t know if you’re familiar with such settlements, but trust me, it’s not for the faint-hearted.”

I could think of the latter myself, but said nothing about it and waited for the continuation. The hunter cleared his throat: “Speaking of prey... Since you are new in this world, you probably don’t have any particular plans yet, do you? After all, you have no business in Orso without money, they don’t think much of charity there. The three of us would make a decent adventuring party, you with your magic skills, me as an archer, and the Irichian as a melee fighter. I suppose he’s pretty good with his spears. Before we head into town, we should gather some loot. We could hope to pick off a few monsters along the way, of course... or we could leave the Pimple to the left and head west until we reach Tashaok, an old abandoned town from before the war. Since you can see magic, we’d have a good chance of finding artifacts there that could easily be turned into money. What do you think?”

“Well, since you’re asking about my plans... I need magic training, but not an apprenticeship like Nigel’s, where you learn a weak spell in a year. Are there magic schools in your world?”

“Hmm, I think you mean the Magic Academy in our capital city. As far as I know, they always accept new students in the fall, so you’d have more than two months to get there. But the studies cost a lot of money. Unless you happen to have 20 gold coins in your new stash, you’d have one more reason to go hunting for artifacts.”

Well, different world, same problems. “Would it be manageable in terms of time if we went to Tashaok first? And how big is that amount by your standards?”

“Well, that’s also a money question. There’s a portal in Orso that can take you directly to the capital, but that costs a trifle. Not much compared to tuition. And as for your other question, a good craftsman makes 3-4 gold a year, a baron might have an annual income of 50 gold if he’s set up well.”

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Wow, from that perspective, 20 gold was actually a decent amount of money. “And you mean these artifacts can bring in that much money?”

“Yes, definitely there are some that are worth 10 gold and more. Especially if you don’t sell them in Orso, but directly in the capital. The prices are much better there. Plus, we’d probably run into monsters along the way, certain body parts of those are valuable too.”

“Since you bring that up...” I took Qu Ji’s loot out of the storage ring and showed it to Orthok. “Do you mean something like this?”

He raised his eyebrows in amazement. “You are really full of surprises today. I’ve never seen such a big magic core. That alone will be worth over 20 gold. And those scales... There aren’t many well-paying buyers for them, but an armorer would give maybe 10-20 silver for them, per piece. The claws would be something for a potions brewer, hard to say what you’d get for them, it’s not junk anyway. For the internal organs, these people also pay very well, but it’s hard to keep those fresh for any length of time.”

The amounts Orthok mentioned sounded very promising, though I would rather use the magic cores to strengthen my magic rather than sell them. But I would have to have them first, the monster core from the lizard belonged to Qu Ji and at those prices I couldn’t afford to buy the loot from him. I stowed the parts back in the ring for the time being.

Orthok sniffed audibly, “It already smells very good, shall we go back to the fire? Honestly, I’ve been longing for a proper meal for days. Take your time to think about it and let me know your decision later.”

We went back to Qu Ji, who seemed to have finished cooking and was just pouring the delicious smelling stew into the bowls. We sat down on the floor and ate ravenously. I regretted not having taken a third chair on the tower. So I had only two pieces and two of us could hardly sit on them and let the third sit on the floor. In any case, it did not detract from the good taste.

As our spoons began to scrape the bottoms of the bowls, Orthok interrupted the concentrated silence: “Jason, why don’t you tell me everything that has happened since we parted? I’m already very curious about your story!”

I finished the rest and put the bowl on the floor next to me, then recounted the events of the last few days, starting with the encounter with Annabel and ending with our desperate escape through the portal. The hunter listened attentively, asking a question now and then. When I finished, he just shook his head, “You’re really lucky, Jason! Many experienced adventurers I know would have perished on this journey. You, on the other hand, not only return without a scratch, but you bring back rich booty and a loyal companion.”

“Now please enlighten me about the slave warriors!”, I demanded.

“Well, I don’t know much about it either, it’s more rumors and legends, like most of what concerns Irichi. The mages there have a high position in society and do pretty much whatever they want. They also openly practice Forbidden Magic, which is based on the suffering of other living beings. The rivalry between them is very pronounced, direct fights between mages are rare, but there are intrigues and assassinations. To protect themselves, the stronger mages keep a guard of slave warriors. These are bought from their poor parents as young children and raised to be absolutely loyal. While they grow up and are trained in martial arts, they are subjected to cruel magical rituals in which magic tattoos are applied to the bodies of the adolescents. These can later be charged with mana and make the slave warriors stronger and faster.”

“Even if these are just rumors, they seem to have a lot of truth to them, at least from what I’ve seen so far,” I said thoughtfully. “But if this guard is so loyal, why did Qu Ji join me?”

“A good question,” Orthok agreed. “I think the loyalty is not purely idealistic, but is also reinforced by the tattoos and rituals. But if the mage they emanate from abandons his subjects, the effect wears off or even reverses. This is just a guess, I am not an expert in these things. But if that was the case, then Qu Ji was suddenly missing an essential part of his life, and in an effort to fill that void, he joined the first mage he met - you.”

“So I’m just a rebound mage? Thank you very much, though!”, I said half-jokingly. Then we were silent for a while. I glanced at Qu Ji, who sat quietly listening to our conversation, even though he didn’t understand anything. The man must have been through a lot in his life. I felt sympathy for him.

Then I thought again about Orthok’s words, “Listen, you just said that the mages there have a high position in society. Isn’t that the case with you?”

“Yes, it is. But it’s not like there’s no control over them. Have you ever seen the coat of arms on the coins? The sword is not on the book for nothing. Back then, after the mages had set up so much havoc with their war and only the weaker of them were left, the nobility had imposed some laws on them that limited their power. For example, certain magical practices are forbidden in our country on the death penalty, and it’s also not allowed to use magic against non-mages unless they ask for it themselves or the mage is forced to defend himself.”

“Oh, good to know,” I replied. I really had a lot to learn about this world. That’s when it would be good to spend a lot of time with Orthok, whom I could unabashedly question. “You know what?”, I said cheerfully. “I’ve been thinking about it. Let’s go to Tashaok!”