“We’ll keep two people on watch at all times,” Adam said over dinner. “There are seventeen of us, so we can take one hour watches during the night. Nobby and Brittany will take watch along with someone else too. Technically, there will be at least four on watch at all times but, you know, two of them aren’t people.” Adam motioned his head to Hades, his owl familiar, and Zeus, his giant elk steed.

The farmers looked at the familiar and the steed. They hadn’t seen the creatures eat even once. Whereas the mules, which were kept by the other group, required a great amount of feed, Zeus did not. Yet, the giant elk could move all night long if required, and had certainly been a great help in keeping a great pace.

“Adam?” Rick called.

“Yes?”

“Pardon me asking, but why did you make the outpost so large?”

Adam had noted that their outpost was much larger than the other group's, and that had been by his request. “Well, I was under the assumption that the Outbreaks wouldn’t occur daily.”

“Yes?” Rick replied.

“So it would get pretty boring on the days the Outbreaks don’t happen. This way we can have enough space to do what we like in camp, right?”

“Right…” Rick stared at Adam for a long moment. That’s when he realised it. Adam was a Half Elf.

“Since you’ve asked me a question, could I ask you some too?” Adam asked.

“Yes.”

“How come you became an adventurer?”

Rick paused for a moment, taken aback that Adam was interested in his past. “We’re farmers by birth. We became adventurers about five years ago. We wanted to make more money for our families, so we pooled our money to buy helmets, and we made our own shields out of wood and hide. We grabbed what weapons we had, axes mostly, and we adventured out during noonval and nightval.”

“Nightval?” Adam asked.

Rick nodded. “Dangerous work, but it paid well. As the months and years passed, we bought greater weapons, and armour too.” Rick pulled down his collar to reveal the chain shirt beneath. It was thin, but the man wore hide under it.

“Must be a killer during noonval,” Adam said. His nightval bear leather tunic had kept him quite cool, and he could only imagine how they were sweltering in their chain and hide.

“We drink a lot of water,” Rick said, throwing a look to Jurot. “Thank you for that.”

Jurot nodded in return, biting into his cheese and cracker. The cheese had matured over the time they had spent moving, and if he had left it for a few more days, it would have gone bad.

“We started off hunting bears first. There were seven of us, but…” He looked into the fire.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“We make sure their families are taken care of.”

Adam bowed his head slowly. “Farming doesn’t make enough?”

“We’ll be able to drink every few days with our friends and family, but we can’t do more than that. If we want to watch a tournament, we could stretch our coin, if we prepare for it months in advance, or if we pool our money and take turns.”

“We make enough money to pay for the Gods too,” John added.

Rick nodded. “We pay our monthly dues well enough.”

“How much are the monthly dues?” Adam asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“A copper for each person, but we try to pay a silver for one person too,” Rick said. “It’s good to have the Gods’ blessings.”

“True enough,” Adam said, glancing between Dunes and Vonda. “I seem to be overpaying for my visits at the temple, but I suppose I rarely go.”

“How much are your dues?”

“I usually drop a gem for each of the Gods I follow. Lady Elaveil, Lady Arya, and Lord Sozain.”

Stolen story; please report.

Sir Vonda’s eyes piercing his cheek with their heat.

Adam cleared his throat. “I don’t have much connection to the other Gods, but I suppose I should pay my dues to them from now on too.”

“The Gods of Balance, War, and Death?” Rick asked, furrowing his brows. “Don’t you pray to Elvish Gods?”

“I’m only half an Elf,” Adam stated, before smiling. “I pray to those three because I have a connection with them.”

“A connection?”

Adam nodded. “They’ve helped me out before.”

“What did they do?”

“Lord Sozain granted me his powers, and then Lady Arya did,” Adam said. “Lady Elaveil, well… I feel a little guilty, so I try to send her my prayers too.”

“Guilty?” Rick asked, intrigued.

“Aye,” Adam said. “She almost…” Adam stared at the fire, realising that there were many eyes on him. “Let’s just say that I made something difficult for her once.”

“You made something difficult for a God?” Lucy asked, staring at Adam.

Adam squinted his eyes at her. “You know what I did.”

“I do?” Lucy asked, trying to remember. “Oh! Oh…” Lucy recalled how Adam had almost led Lady Elaveil to her death accidentally.

Jurot nodded slowly, as one of the only few people who knew Adam’s story. “They are good Gods to pray to.”

“You’re close to the Iyr,” Rick said. “It shouldn’t have been a surprise you worshipped them. I heard that the Iyrmen pray to Lord Sozain, and sometimes to Lady Arya.”

“Yes,” Jurot said. “Baktu and Wahtu.”

“I hear you Iyrmen learn your letters and numbers too…”

Jurot nodded. “We do.”

“Can you speak the Devilkin tongue too?” Rick asked, trying to not look at Jaygak and Lucy.

“Yes.”

“What about the Savage’s tongue?”

“Yes.”

“Savage tongue?” Adam asked.

“What do you call ‘em?” Rick asked, trying to remember the name. “Those with green skins. Goblins?”

“Orcs,” John, one of the farmers who wielded a boy, said.

“Goblins and Orcs,” Rick said, nodding his head.

“There are no Goblins in the Iyr,” Jurot said. “There are only Iyrmen.”

“I’m talking about the green and grey Iyrmen,” Rick said.

“Orcish Iyrmen, but Iyrmen all the same,” Adam said, trying to bridge the conversation.

“I speak some of the tongue,” Jurot said. “Not as well as my sister, Kitool.”

Rick bowed his head. “I meant no offence, I just meant that all Iyrmen learn letters and numbers and languages.”

“Yes,” Jurot replied.

“Must be hard work being an Iyrman.” Rick let out a sigh. “Learning your letters, your numbers, your languages, your fighting.”

“It is not so hard when you find it fun,” Jurot stated.

“I hear the Iyrmen don’t keep wealth for themselves,” John, one of the farmers who wielded a bow, asked. “They say you give it all to the Iyr.”

“Not all of it, but most,” Jurot confirmed.

“That’s a lot of tax.”

“It is spent well.”

“I suppose you can,” John said, smiling playfully. “You’re defended by our country so I suppose you don’t have to spend much on that sort of thing.”

Adam shook his head, as though the words have been a blow against his head. “What?”

John laughed. “Just a joke. I heard it from one of those from the other group, the Wizard girl. She said that the Iyrmen can grow rich cause we’re defending them all the time.”

Adam scoffed. “You believe that?”

“No,” John said. “I was born and raised in Red Oak. When I was a boy, big enough to carry the potatoes back to my mother, we were attacked by a wolf which had come too close. I didn’t scream before it was cut in half before my feet. There was an Iyrman, with a giant glave, as red as blood, the handle as black as the night I tell you, right there. She was old, wrinkled, and I remember seeing her token. Gold.”

“Was she a Devilkin?” Jaygak asked.

“No, no. She was an Orc.”

“Vezar,” Jurot said.

Jaygak squinted her eyes. The name sounded familiar. “Vezar?”

“She travelled with Black Arm,” Jurot added.

“Oh!” Jaygak nodded her head. “Vezar fought back the Dragon Turtle from the Southern Sea.”

“No,” Jurot said. “She fought back the Sea Azai.”

Jaygak squinted her eyes harder, before looking to Kitool, who nodded her head. “Then who fought back the Dragon Turtle?”

Jurot and Kitool stared at her for a moment.

“I meant from the Southern Sea.”

The pair continued to stare.

“I meant in the last twenty…” Jaygak thought about how to word it. “Almost twenty years ago.”

“Ten years ago?” Jurot asked.

“Was it ten years ago?”

“Redblade?”

“Oh,” Jaygak said. “Yes.”

Adam glanced between the Iyrmen, who were having their own conversation. “Anyway, Vezar.”

John nodded. “She was old, then. In her fifties, I think. Is she…”

“She is alive,” Jurot confirmed.

“I’m glad to hear it,” John said, smiling. “I’d love to meet her again to thank her.”

“I will send your request to meet her,” Jurot said.

“Oh, no, that’s fine,” John said, chuckling nervously. “I don’t want to bother such a great warrior.”

“She saved your life, it is good to make such a request,” Jurot said.

John wasn’t sure how that worked, but he continued to smile nervously. “If it isn’t a bother.”

“You know…” Adam said, quietly. “I mean, you guys can come by one day when we go back. It’s not far from Red Oak, and you could stay a few days.”

“We will consider the offer,” Rick said, glaring at John.

John chuckled again, glancing aside.

“Everyone in Red Oak knows the strength of the Iyrmen,” Rick stated.

“Red Oak and the Iyr work closely together,” Jurot confirmed.

“We’ve no issues with the Iyr, and we’ve no issues with others because the Iyr’s nearby,” Rick said.

“It’s a shame that the other towns and cities have forgotten,” Adam said. “People from Central Aldland are terrible about that sort of thing.”

“They say those from Central Aldland don’t like Iyrmen,” Rick said, looking to Jurot. “Is that really true?”

“Some do not,” Jurot said. “They do not teach them the stories of their past.”

“Which stories?” Rick asked.

“The Blackwater Crisis.”

Rick nodded.

“Have you heard it?” Adam asked.

“Aye,” Rick said. “The only story I know.”

“It’s a story most people have heard in Red Oak,” John said. “We gather around a fire during nightval, and they sometimes speak the story.”

“They say the Iyrmen were outnumbered two to one,” Rick said. “Is that true?”

“No,” Jurot said. “It was four or five to one.”

“Is that right?” Rick asked, doubt in his eyes.

Adam and the Iyrmen smiled.