Chapter 3 Travel

At the end of the day, the sergeant had set Sam up in the only inn in the village. He had also given her a bag with some basic supplies. This included two sets of clothes, a hairbrush and a couple of travel rations.

Travel between villages was pretty much impossible for low leveled people, unless you joined a caravan. There were monsters everywhere outside of the safe zones like the villages. Luckily for Sam there happened to be a caravan traveling towards Veritas the next day. Thanks to the sergeant of the guard she had even gotten a spot with them.

She would be one of the people traveling on one of the carts, as she was probably the weakest of all the participants.

She woke up the next morning filled with new energy. Thanks to the sergeant she now knew a way to survive in this strange new world.

It took her only a few minutes to gather her things. The innkeeper even gave her a free breakfast, again courtesy of the sergeant.

She still had about an hour, which they apparently called a candle here, till she had to meet the caravan at the gate. This gave her plenty of time to look around a bit in the village.

Unfortunately the village wasn’t that interesting to look at after the first few minutes. It was just a village that was a about the same size as the several ones she had seen back on Earth. The only difference was that the alleys were a lot smaller, because there were no cars that need a lot of space. The carts were sometimes the same size as a car, but those mostly stuck to the main roads.

The most interesting thing was the wall. As she had seen from the outside, it was made from wood. Unlike the outside, the inside was way less finished. On the outside the sides were made clean an straight, so that the monsters would have no places to hold on to. On the inside that was not that important. Thus the walls still had the look of upright logs.

Even though this was interesting, it couldn’t hold her attention for long. Thus she made her way towards the caravan.

When she arrived at the caravan the man in charge greeted her.

“Welcome, are you joining the caravan as well?” When she nods he continues: “Okay, what’s your name? And are you joining as a passenger or maybe a guard?”

“My name’s Sam, and yes I’m a passenger.”

“Okay, you can take the fourth wagon. Just take a seat while we wait for the others. As for the journey, just stay in the wagon while the guards take care of any attacks.”

A few hours later they were on the road. Sam started with looking outside for a while, but it started to bore her pretty quickly. With the forest to the east and the plains to the west, there wasn’t much change in the landscape.

The guards had positioned themselves between the caravan and the forest, as that was the most likely point from where they could be attacked.

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Sam mostly meditated while sitting on the wagon. Since there was no room to train her other skills.

On the third day the landscape finally changed. Over the course of two hours the forest became less dense, to eventually end at the edge on a beach. The same could be said for the plains, were it not for the corner the road took to the northwest. Now the plains were still at the left, while on the right the forest had made way for the beach of a huge lake. At least according to the people Sam was traveling with in the wagon it was a lake. Sam herself had her doubts, as there was no end to the water in sight. Also since when did lakes make such pristine beaches? It was almost as if she was on a tropical island.

Strangely they didn’t stop at the lake. For deep into the night they kept traveling, until the road finally wound away from the lake. Then they made camp at a place that had been used for this many times before.

There were no buildings or anything, but it did have a big indentation for a campfire with seats around it.

When she had the chance, Sam asked why they hadn’t stopped at the beach.

“That would be really dumb to do.” Answered one of the woman that traveled on the second wagon.

“I don’t get it. It looked like a perfect beach to relax and maybe have a bonfire.”

“Looks can be deceiving. The lake is the home of the Naargu. They are a type of monster that can be compared with goblins in the forest. They are about the same size, and adapted to live in the water, as well as survive on land. Anyone that tries to camp close to the lake will be attacked by the Naargu tribes. Oh and another fun fact, their average level is between 40 and 50.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, so no camping near the lake. Any other scary monsters I need to be aware of during this trip?”

“Well, we’ll have to be on guard for the naargu for at least several more days. After that we will leave the vicinity of the lake. It will be mostly plains after that. There will be quite a variety monsters, but nothing quite as numerous as the goblins or the naargu. At least not in these parts.

The next day the road once again came close to the beach. With what she knew now, Sam made sure to keep one eye on the water, instead of just enjoying the view or meditate. But nothing happened.

The third day was a different story. They had been close to the beach for only an hour when they were attacked. Four catlike animals attacked from the plains. These were something like a panther or a puma, but they were at least double the size.

Most of the guards were on the other side of the caravan, and Sam was afraid that the cats would manage to kill a lot of passengers before the guards would be able to intervene.

Luckily nothing like that happened. The captain of the guard suddenly appeared in between the charging cats and the caravan, and with a single slice of his sword he bisected two of the cats. The other cats didn’t survive long either.

That wasn’t the end of things. While Sam was distracted another kind of attack had started. The cats had managed to disturb enough of the attention of the guards that they now had to pay the price. The naargu had apparently taken the attack from the plains as an invitation to use their own surprise.

Without warning a dozen of the creatures jumped out from under the sand of the beach. At the same time dozens more emerged from the water.

The guards, while surprised were still quick to resume their previous assigned places. The first dozen naargu had no chance against the higher leveled guards. Even while they attacked only two wagons at the same time, this only gave them odds of three to one. They stood no chance.

When the other naargu arrived it became a different story. The guards had to defend all the wagons at the same time, and while higher leveled, the odds made it so that some naargu managed to slip by.

One such naargu managed to evade the guards defending Sam’s wagon. She didn’t waste time screaming, like some of the passengers, but she immediately engaged the naargu in battle.

These creatures attacked in a similar manner as the goblins Sam had previously fought. Unfortunately, these creatures were way stronger than the low leveled goblins. Sam only managed to block the first stab of the spear the naargu used. After that it became a blur of stabbing motions. Two such stabs were blocked by the armor she had gotten in Lucky Meadow. The third, not so much. With a yell Sam let go of her knife, due to the spear that pierced her shoulder. She backed away, but to no avail. The naargu followed her as she moved back towards the wagon.

Then suddenly a blur moved across her vision. Immediately the naargu fell on his knees, only to fall flat after a moment.

Not believing that she was still alive, Sam looked back, only to see an old woman throw a second knife to another naargu. Apparently not every passenger was as defenseless as she had assumed.

Moments later the guards managed to push back the remaining naargu.

Luckily not much else happened the rest of the journey.