Torres and Eugenios got back to the village early, when everyone was still out working. The men were in the fields; the women were by the river beating the laundry.
Once the uncle and nephew were inside their house, Eugenios ordered Torres to strip off his clothes. Torres hesitated a moment, then complied, leaving himself wearing nothing but his medieval underwear, which was a kind of loose linen loincloth combined with pants. Eugenios seized his bloody tunic and threw it into the fireplace—stoking the embers and blowing on them until they flared to life. Torres had removed the booklet just in time. He left it on his stone couch.
Next, Eugenios ordered Torres to scrub himself with soap and water using the ewer and basin. People usually bathed outside, but Eugenios thought it was too risky here. Once Torres had finished, Eugenios wiped up the mess on the floor with a cloth towel. Then, opening the huge wooden chest at the room’s center, he pulled out an old tunic and handed it to Torres, who threw it over his shoulders and belted it with his plain leather belt, the voice announcing that he had equipped this clothing, and that it reduced the chance that others would find him uncouth.
Eugenios regarded him. “You look good. Better than you should. You know, maybe you should bathe more often.”
“Do I not bathe enough?” Torres said. “I mean, in general—”
“Not with these antics of yours again,” Eugenios said. “It’s not funny anymore, it really isn’t, especially when we could both be wanted men!”
“Sorry, I don’t mean to. It’s just—”
“Enough, enough, I can’t take it anymore! Now listen. We have to get back to work before any more soldiers show up. The cart and Bukephalos are still out there, so come on!”
Eugenios dashed outside. Torres grabbed the manual and followed.
“He said something to me,” Torres gasped. “The soldier, I mean.”
Eugenios stopped and looked at him wide-eyed. “What did he say?”
“Something about a monk named Dionysios.” Torres held up the manual. “He told me to give him this.”
Eugenios snatched the manual, glanced at it, then threw it into the grain fields.
“Hey!” Torres shouted.
“No more talk of this,” Eugenios said over his shoulder, jogging toward the horse and the cart again. “We’ll talk no more about any of this!”
Torres found the booklet and stuffed it into his pocket. Grimacing, he caught up to his uncle, who was already tossing grain into the back of the cart. Eugenios gestured for Torres to join him.
“So if I wanted to meet this Dionysios,” Torres said as he worked. “Where could I, uh—”
“I told you—”
“Uncle.” Torres realized this was the first time he had ever addressed Eugenios this way. “Listen. It was the last thing that soldier wanted. It was his dying wish.”
“You don’t know the first thing about him!” Eugenios cried. Then, glancing around to make sure no one was listening, he said: “What if he was a murderer? An assassin? What if that little codex says to kill whoever delivers it?”
“I don’t think that’s what it says,” Torres said.
“How do you know? You can’t read!”
Torres narrowed his eyebrows. “Since when? Of course I can read.”
He pulled out the booklet and examined it again, but found that it was covered in cursive Chinese handwriting, which was much more difficult to understand than anything he had studied in his high school textbooks.
As an Educated Novice (Level 3/10), the voice said, you can read and write simple Greek texts. You have limited knowledge of other languages. Study more to level up and learn other languages, fields, and concepts.
“On second thought,” Torres said, “I don’t know how to read this.”
“What’s the difference?”
“There are different kinds of writing, uncle,” Torres said. “I know how to read English, I just don’t know how to read—”
“So you know how to read,” Eugenios said. “You just don’t know how to read this writing.”
“Yes, uncle, as I told you—”
“For the hundredth time, I said that’s enough. I don’t want to hear any more about it. You should get rid of that scroll or whatever it is before it gets us all killed. If the legionaries find it—”
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“It’s just a book.” Torres flipped through the martial arts diagrams. “What the hell would they care?”
“You need to think!” Eugenios shouted. “Oh, I am so tired of this dull-witted nonsense! Stop pretending to be such a fool! Now listen to me. That dying soldier gave you this paper of yours. He wanted you to bring it to Dionysios the Hermit. So it’s obviously important. On top of that, somebody shot him with an arrow—meaning, you would agree, that it is at least possible that people are willing to kill and even die for it!”
Torres sighed. “He seemed like an alright guy to me, uncle.”
“You’ve always been like this.” Eugenios shook his head. “All your life, taking any chance to learn about other places. Questioning travelers, priests, monks—asking them all they know about other places. Franks, Armenians, Sarakenoi, Jews, Aethiops, Seres, Varangians. All your life, dreaming about anything except the here and now!”
“Tell me where he is, uncle,” Torres said. “Please let me at least bring it to him.”
Eugenios looked at Torres for a moment. “He keeps to himself. And he travels all the time. You might not even find him. He doesn’t associate with the other monks. Dionysios thinks they’re all too corrupt—too worldly. Ha!”
“Does he have like a hermitage or something?” Torres said.
“At the foot of Mount Ida,” Eugenios said. “It’s half a day’s walking distance from here. You’ll have to leave tomorrow morning. It’s also dangerous. You don’t just have soldiers to worry about. There are also bandits and Lord knows what else. It’ll worry your aunt sick. We can’t tell her.”
“Thank you, uncle!” Torres said.
“Don’t thank me.” Eugenios pointed at him.
“I promise I’ll be careful. Do you have any weapons I can take?”
“You’re not going there to fight anyone. If you see anyone, you either hide or you run. You don’t fight. The only people who die are the ones who fight. Those who run away live!”
“Alright,” Torres said. “But just in case.”
“There must be an old sword you can borrow in the village somewhere. But that’s tomorrow. This is today. Now help me finish up so we can get out of here.”
A horse neighed in the distance. Both uncle and nephew stopped and looked around, but no one was present except farmers. Then Eugenios and Torres got back to picking up grain.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Eugenios said. “I need you here. I need you to help me work. I can’t do the harvest by myself.”
“I’ll just be gone for a day,” Torres said. “Besides, you’re living through me, aren’t you, uncle? Your life’s already over, but mine’s just beginning. I can have all the adventures you never got a chance to experience!”
Eugenios rolled his eyes. “Shut up and get that grain faster. Every last stalk. Leave nothing for the gleaners. Bread doesn’t make itself, you know.”
But because they were so late, Eugenios brought the grain back to the farmhouse and—together with Torres and Eudokia, who had returned from washing laundry—threshed the grain from the stalks in preparation for later winnowing. It was almost dark by the time they had finished. Torres once again felt so exhausted that he could barely stand, let alone wander the village in search of an old rusted sword. After a quick dinner he lay down on his stone couch and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, Eugenios was nudging him. It was dark out, but his uncle said it was morning. Eudokia was cooking, and breakfast was on the table—the same as the morning before. Torres nonetheless devoured it, and even had seconds, all while Eugenios prepared the boy’s lunch as well as a water flask. Torres opened his mouth and started to ask where Mount Ida was, but Eugenios shook his head and told him to be quiet. When Eudokia asked what they were talking about, Eugenios said the boy was curious about stories of all the monsters hiding out there.
“Oh yes, it’s a dangerous place,” Eudokia said. “I get scared just thinking about it. My friend Theodora disappeared out there when she was a little girl. Everyone went looking for a whole week, but we couldn’t find any trace of her.” Eudokia shook her head. “It was so sad.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Torres said.
“It was a long time ago,” Eudokia said.
Only when they were out in the fields did Eugenios talk about Torres’s journey. They had left so early that the sun was still below the horizon.
“It’s that way.” Eugenios pointed to a distant peak rising from a line of mountains on the horizon, all turning purple as the sun rose. “That’s it over there. You’ll have to cross the River Simois. Can you see it?”
Torres nodded.
“If you run out of water, drink only from streams or rivers,” Eugenios said. “You’ll get sick if the water isn’t moving. Try to stay quiet and out of sight. You deliver this scroll of yours to that old monk, and then you come straight back. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Torres said.
“Alexios, I’m serious. This is no time for your usual laziness or foolishness!”
“I understand, uncle!”
“That soldier didn’t tell you to do any more than deliver the scroll. So that’s it. That’s all you have to do.”
“Alright. Got it.”
Eugenios stared at him for a moment, then hugged him. This sudden show of affection surprised Torres—but he soon found himself hugging Eugenios back. The man had, after all, done nothing but help him since they had met.
“Take care of yourself,” Eugenios said.
Torres smiled. “I told you I’d be careful.”
Eugenios stepped back and made the sign of the cross over Torres. “May the Lord protect you.”
Torres thanked him. Tears were shining in Eugenios’s eyes. And truth be told, Torres hesitated. Life was good here, he didn’t need to involve himself in dangerous affairs, and the more he farmed, the more his skill increased, and the more he enjoyed farming. If he burned the manual, that would probably be the end of this quest chain. Yet he was inside a game, and the dying soldier and the manual were probably part of an arc which led to the emperor and a possible escape from Byzantium. Risk, in short, was everywhere. And who could say how safe they were from the Roman military?
Torres bowed to Eugenios, said “thank you, uncle,” turned, and walked toward Mount Ida.
“Oh, wait!” Eugenios shouted. “I forgot to give you this!”
He pulled a knife from his pocket and handed it to Torres hilt-first.
Equipped old knife, the voice said. This weapon does 3 damage. As a fighter, with your high strength and dexterity, there is a +3 bonus on each attack, and a greater chance of striking your target or scoring a critical hit.
“Don’t use it unless you have to,” Eugenios said. “Remember to run. Remember to hide.”
“I will, uncle,” Torres said.