Four Years Later

“You sure we can trust this guy? He seems pretty young.” I could hear the settlers whisper as I checked over my equipment.

My various crystal-tipped bullets all seemed to be in fine condition, and my small pickaxe with a ruby head was still nice and sharp.

I thankfully didn’t need to use it much. For those times that my gun ran dry, however? The ruby axe had saved my life more than once.

If you knew where to aim, a solid swing with a gem-tipped tool like my pick could do a lot of damage to the horrors of the Scorch.

“You didn’t hear? He took out that pack of diamond dogs that were hounding the new settlement down south.”

“That’s a load of quartz, I don’t care what kinda fancy guns you got, ain’t diamond dogs supposed to be indestructible?”

“Dynamite.” I spoke up as I finished cleaning my repeater, the finely crafted barrel cut from pure ruby shining nicely in the sun.

The two men who had been whispering a bit too loudly jolted and looked over at me.

“S-sorry?” one started as the other nudged him.

“Diamond dogs are pretty much immune to any kind of weapon except diamond, but they’re pretty dumb if you have the right bait. I led them into a pit and shattered them with a bundle of dynamite.”

I looked up at the pair as their eyes went wide. Despite their previous talk, they were clearly impressed.

“W-what kinda bait?” one stammered out.

I gave a forced smile and lifted my shirt, where the bite I had received from a razor-sharp set of diamond fangs was still healing.

“Wasn’t my original plan, but once they get a taste, they go into a frenzy.”

“Quartz… how did you get away once it had you like that?”

I grimaced at the painful memory, still fresh in my mind.

I reached into a pouch at my side and pulled out a set of metal rings designed to fit around my fingers, each studded with a pointed diamond. The pair went even wider-eyed at this.

Despite the existence of creatures like diamond dogs, the material was still rare and expensive, especially given that naturally growing clusters of the gem attracted some of the deadliest creatures in the Scorch.

“Imagine what you could get if you sold that…” one of the men couldn’t help but sound jealous.

I laughed at that.

“Money wouldn’t do me any good if I got caught without it. Only thing that can get one of those diamond critters off you in a clutch, and ain’t exactly easy to use.”

The act of punching a crystal creature, even with the duster, had left my hand an absolute mess. I had barely just recovered enough to start using my trusty repeater again.

“Why don’t you just sell it though? Surely you could make enough money to get outta the Scorch. Why wouldn’t you pay off whatever debt sent you here as soon as possible?”

I pulled down the brim my hat, trying to think of the best excuse I could manage.

Most people ended up in the Scorch out of desperation. It was true one could get lucky and make a fortune from the naturally growing gems that literally sprouted from the ground out here, if they survived the wildlife and other threats.

Unfortunately the odds of that were frighteningly low.

I’d met plenty of men like these two before. They simply couldn’t understand the concept of someone staying out here unless they had no other choice, and I didn’t quite fancy explaining my reasons to them.

The truth was there were plenty of folk like me in the Scorch, here for more than just money, but to everyone else we just seemed insane.

“I wish my debts were so easy to pay off, I’ll be lucky if I ever get out of here alive.” I shrugged and the two men nodded, seemingly satisfied by my answer.

They turned back to talking about other affairs, specifically what they would do once they arrived at the mining town we were headed to. I listened for a little while as they got to talking about the best harvesting spots they would hit up to try and find rare geodes and clusters to harvest.

Most of their info seemed pretty spotty at best, so I tuned it out and went back to polishing the slender barrel of my repeater. All the while I kept on listening for the telltale shrill screams of the crystal critters I had been hired to deal with if, or more accurately when, the caravan attracted them.

Not even I knew what caused the many crystal creatures of the Scorch to come together and attack people like us as we tried to get from one place to another across the shimmering crystal sands. They didn’t seem to actually eat anything, so it wasn’t for food.

When the creatures got a hold of people, they just tore them to shreds and moved on, attacking without regard for their own safety.

That was what made them so dangerous really. A normal pack of wolves would retreat in the face of a show of force or if the odds were clearly stacked against them. Creatures like diamond dogs? They would just keep on coming until they were blown apart.

Researchers were sure there must be some kind of method to the madness, but they were still baffled as to what it could be.

Some folk thought that the meteorite that had turned the once lush and bountiful forest into the gem-encrusted hellscape we all not-so-lovingly called “The Scorch” had driven them mad as it had changed them. Others thought there was some greater force at play actively controlling them.

I was never sure what to believe. As long as I could kill the creatures and keep on making a living it didn’t matter much to me.

It had been extremely rough going at first, but during my time in the Scorch I had built up a pretty decent reputation.

There were of course others that tried to make a living as wandering gunslingers like myself. We went around accepting whatever odd jobs were available to make enough coin for a meal and place to spend the night.

It sounded like a pretty sweet deal to a lot of folk, but it was a line of work where a single mistake on a mission could mean the worst.

I had heard that the early days in particular had been the hardest to survive in the Scorch. Entire groups of people went missing and some of the early attempts to make settlements were wiped off the map entirely.

Despite all this, the world had seen the Scorch as a challenge, something to conquer rather than avoid. Some of the nearby countries had tried to answer this challenge by sending their finest mages and soldiers to the Scorch.

These attempts were met with varying degrees of success.

For some reason the crystals out here seemed to interfere with magic, resulting in the effects being wildly unpredictable. There was sadly more than one example of a magic-user falling to their own powers in the Scorch, so most stopped venturing out long ago.

The soldiers had done somewhat better. Upon quickly seeing that their fancy new revolvers and rifles from the latest technological revolution were mostly useless, they switched back to two-handed swords, hammers and halberds.

At first the going was rough with that tactic, but once they started to understand that the varying armour of the crystal creatures was based on the type of gem they were composed of, things picked up rapidly.

Nests would be cleared out with heavy explosives and new weapons and armour would be crafted from the remains. Each victory gave the soldiers more of an edge in the fights to come.

Over the years, smiths from across the continent moved to the border to work with the huge deposits of gem being shipped back from the Scorch. As time passed more and more powerful weapons and armour were constructed from the materials, furthering the expansion and bolstering the might of the nations bordering it in turn.

This made the Scorch a deeply important place for all the surrounding countries to conquer. Skirmishes over land were not uncommon, but the sandy desert-like wasteland was massive. Given that it was practically a country in its own right it would be decades before anyone could lay claim to it fully.

Some people did refer to the Scorch as a desert but I always found it hard to do so. This place was once full of life, trees and plants, but that had all been snuffed out so quickly when it became the Scorch.

To me it would always be a wasteland, a place where you didn’t live, just survived. I knew quite a lot of the unwilling residents here agreed with me on that. Especially those who came from the nation up north, Kenbry, like myself.

Kenbry was a desert nation so full of life and joy that this was utterly devoid of. When I first got here I missed it deeply, and wished I could go back every night. That feeling had lessened over time but never truly left.

Each bordering nation such as Kenbry had their own large outpost in the Scorch, far away from one another, all trying to expand. One day, the Scorch would become a true battlefield between empires, but that was still a long way off. At least, I hoped.

“Huh, looks like there’s a starsand storm or something…” one of the two older men sitting nearby me in the caravan whispered to his friend.

I carefully rose to my feet and joined them, peering over the side of the caravan to see that there was indeed a large cloud of glittering starsand cresting a nearby hill.

“Let’s hope that’s all it is…”

I grimaced and pulled out a small spyglass I kept in a satchel around my waist.

The tool had been expensive, but as was the case with pretty much everything I carried it had saved my hide enough times to make it more than worth it. Focusing the lens on the cloud, I carefully looked for any of the telltale signs of crystal creatures.

They were fairly easy to spot in the day due to how their bodies caught the light, but the sun was starting to set. The incoming storm of shimmering crystalline sand, known to us living out in the Scorch as starsand, would be the perfect cover.

That was why the spyglass was such an important tool.

As soon as I saw an especially large colourful shimmer from the edge of the storm, I swore under my breath, focusing the lens to try and get a clearer look.

“You see something?” one of the men spoke up nervously.

“Got a glint out in the storm, looks like sapphire…”

The lens of my spyglass had turned a light blue shade that I could recognise as that of the familiar gemstone. It was the feature that had made it so damn expensive: a crystalline lens infused with just a drop of identification magic that could help me figure out exactly what kind of creature I was facing from range.

Thankfully it wasn’t enough magic to backfire or explode, but it couldn’t do much more than change colour to match what I was looking at.

When I first saw the spyglass advertised I thought it an overpriced joke, but survival often came down to knowing what you were dealing with out here. If the spyglass had took on the subtle tint that signified diamond for example, I would have called for the settlers to evacuate and start riding for their lives using their horses while I tried to slow down the creatures. Sapphire was tough but I could handle it. As soon as I could make out an actual moving form in the approaching cloud, I quickly stowed away my spyglass and yelled out to the entire caravan.

“We got sapphire spiders people! Stop and form a circle!”

I pulled myself up onto the roof of the caravan and hopped over to the one in front of us, repeating my yell and the process until all four caravans were slowing to a stop and forming up.

The spiders were still about three minutes away, but they would move a lot faster than our horses so it was for the best for us to take care of them while we could.

“Hey you two! I need some spotters, get up here!”

I crossed back to my original caravan and found the two men I had been talking to. Their faces went pale but they obeyed me, both climbing up onto the roof of the caravan with a lot more effort than I had.

I asked two others in the caravan, a man and woman who seemed to be traveling together, to join us. They shared a frightened look but climbed atop the caravan just the same.

“Where are our Rooks?” I called out as the spotters got into position.

It took a few seconds for the armoured members of the protector guild to emerge from their caravan close to the front of the convoy, but I was glad to see we had a good number riding with us. They were exclusively armed with close-range heavy weapons like greatswords, halberds and warpicks.

“We’ll take point.” one of the Rooks, a tall and bulky man with a scarred face, called out to me.

I simply nodded, knowing better than to try and give the Rooks orders.

The small squad made their way to the side of the convoy the storm was approaching from, forming up and readying their weapons.

“You good with dealing with any stragglers?” another called out to me.

I really didn’t like his tone, but now wasn’t the time for an argument.

“I got it.” I called back.

With the Rooks moving toward the storm, their heavy weapons prepared and goggles on, I turned back to the rest of the settlers.

“Alright, when the spiders get closer they’re going to fan out and try to surround us. Spotters, don’t bother shooting, just let me know when they’re coming from another direction!”

The three others atop the caravan spread out while I crouched down, sliding a couple of rubyshot rounds into the magazine in the stock of my repeater.

They were crystalline shards packed with magically enhanced blast powder, not cheap but the best way to deal with tougher crystal creatures like sapphire spiders. The force from a shot was as strong as a blast from a non-magical cannon.

“Everyone else, your shots won’t do much but you can slow them down and give me more time to pick them off. Take cover behind the caravans and shoot anything that starts moving towards us!”

Now fully loaded, I lifted up my rifle and trained my sights on the storm moving toward us.

I didn’t dare take a shot yet, every bullet would have to really count if I were to take on a swarm like this. Now that the spiders were growing closer, I got a good look at them through the starsand storm.

There seemed to be at least forty or fifty of the massive arachnids skittering around in the storm of starsand. Their bodies were covered with the large glowing sapphires that had corrupted them and turned them into monstrosities.

They were hardly recognisable as the creatures they once were. They had fed on the strange crystal magic and mutated into creatures with crystal armour and huge venomous fangs ready to sink into their prey.

A bite was certainly a death sentence without any mages specialising in healing magic around. Finding one of those who could actually access their Soulgate successfully in the Scorch? The odds were less than slim, to say the least.

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I had encountered crystal spiders like these enough to know their tactics and how they liked to hunt and kill their prey.

The large groups that ventured out of their nests would work together in a strangely coordinated manner, communicating by some kind of high pitched chittering sound that caused their crystals to light up bright blue. They liked to encircle their prey like wolves before rushing in on multiple sides.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/628665159484833803/1029825838247575632/Oli_Comm_Sa_Spider_revamp_1.png]

Our best method of defense was to have me picking off the spiders from a distance, protecting the settlers while the Rooks rushed the storm and held back the bulk of the swarm with their armour and heavy weapons.

A lot of the settlers were armed with basic rifles and revolvers but they would be unable to score any killing blows on their own unless they got incredibly lucky. They would need to hit the same spot multiple times or find a gap in the crystal armour somewhere to do any real damage, but they could still provide useful support and slow the spiders down for me.

“Everyone, start shooting and spotting!” I yelled, leveling my rifle as the creatures started to skitter around the caravan.

Just as I had predicted, they were forming a large circle around us, using the starsand storm as cover.

I pulled down the pair of goggles I wore around the crown of my wide-brimmed hat over my eyes, then I hastily lifted the red rag around my neck up over my nose. Both were a necessity to to protect my face from the starsand, as aiming would be nearly impossible with the fine particles stinging my eyes.

The other settlers followed suit, and a few seconds later a panicked cry came from behind me and to my right.

“T-they’re rushing us over here!” one of the pair I had been chatting to yelped and pointed as he squinted through the starsand.

I spun around to where he was pointing, already aiming down the sights of my gun. Sure enough, a sapphire spider roughly the size of a horse had broken off from the pack and was skittering toward the caravans.

A couple of settlers that had positioned themselves behind the closest wooden caravan fired a couple of shots, but only one seemed to hit and it barely slowed the creature down.

If I missed the spider would reach the caravan in seconds. It would tear through it and then the settlers who were desperately reloading their guns.

There would be no way to hold back the incoming swarm as well as deal with the creature already past our makeshift defences. We would be doomed.

Knowing that lives very much hung in the balance I shouldered my repeater, braced myself and fired.

The barrel of the repeater seemed to quite literally explode in a fireball as the rubyshot blasted straight into the center of the sapphire spider’s body, drilling right through it with explosive force before detonating.

The arachnid’s chittering scream was quickly drowned out by the blast that easily shattered it into a pile of lifeless crystal chunks.

The sound and recoil from the blast were always enough to make me wince, no matter how much practice I had. I could tell the settlers were stunned by it too as their panicked cries momentarily fell silent.

I had seen it all before. They were stunned in part shock and part awe as they witnessed the amazing destructive power I wielded to protect them.

All too quickly, the stunned silence was broken by a settler on the other side of the ring of caravans yelling.

“Two more this way!” he cried out as the settlers on that side began aiming and firing their guns to slow the spiders down.

I swore under my breath as I started to run around to their side, hopping across the wooden caravan roofs and reloading the shot I had just fired as I went.

Once I arrived, I worked the lever-action and fired through the closest spider. I managed to catch it just as it started to leap at the caravan. I rapidly repeated the process on the one that was hot on its trail.

Just as before, two cannon-like blasts rang out and both spiders screeched as their crystal bodies were punctured. The rubyshot rounds detonated within them and reduced them to nothing but piles of small gemstone chunks.

This had seemingly scared the other spiders. The sound of chittering was growing louder from the remaining seventeen or so still circling us.

I didn’t waste the break in the action, drawing out three rubyshot rounds from my bandolier and feeding them into my magazine, loading one as I did so.

With my gun back to the full capacity of seven rounds plus the one in the chamber, I took a moment to breathe. In larger attacks like this, staying focused was everything.

I had to mentally track the size of the swarm and the behaviour of the spiders as well as my own ammo and position. All it would take was one little slip and we could all too easily be overrun.

“One here!” the settler to my left called out to me.

“One here too!” the one on my right sounded more panicked.

I took a quick look both ways and swore once again. I knew it was going to be close.

I went right first, hopping over to the rooftop of the caravan, lining up my shot and taking it as fast as I could.

The sapphire spider tried to skitter out of the way at the last second but it was far too slow and my bullet still hit it in the body.

If I had glanced it or only taken out a leg or two it would likely still be able to move enough to cause trouble. Body shots were the surest way of putting them down for good.

Once the rubyshot impacted, it would explode a second with enough force to shatter nearly anything bar diamond.

With that spider taken care of I hopped off the roof into the circle the caravan had formed, going into a roll and quickly jumping back to my feet so I didn’t lose any momentum. I could see the spider rapidly approaching past the caravan on the opposite side of the loose circle.

I arrived at the caravan at the same time that it did. I dodged around the side to the exterior of the circle just as it reared up, preparing to use its pointed legs to smash through the wooden barricade.

As it started to turn its attention on me, I fired from the hip and jumped back, taking cover behind the caravan as the creature exploded in a spray of jagged crystal chunks.

Rubyshot could be insanely dangerous up close. I had heard stories of more than one gunslinger with a crystal firearm that had died due to shrapnel or just using the explosive rounds too close to themselves.

Normally, I would have used my pick in a close-combat situation like that, but it would have taken far too long to put the creature down for good. One-on-one it was a fine tactic to save my ammunition, but when there were over a dozen more creatures ready to attack at any moment it was just suicidal.

Knowing there was no time to waste I quickly climbed the side of the caravan, getting back to my vantage point and reloading my repeater once again.

So far so good. If I can keep this up we might just make it through this trip without losing anyone.

Some losses were practically expected on longer journeys through the Scorch, but as of late I had been doing a good job at making sure everyone made it through. The only bad incident on a job in recent memory was a settler who had lost an arm after a particularly nasty scorpion had ambushed us.

The creature had buried itself in the ground, only leaping out to attack when the caravan had rolled over its home. The traveler survived thanks to me putting it down quickly, but his injuries weren’t pretty.

This time, I hoped I could avoid anyone getting hurt under my watch. With that goal in mind, I steeled myself and started shooting once again.

With each and every thunderous blast from my ruby repeater another sapphire spider was blown to pieces, crystal shards flying everywhere.

The settlers moved back cautiously, ducking into cover to avoid the larger, pointier shards flying out towards them. They kept on firing away whenever a spider broke from the pack and rushed at us, slowing the creatures and helping me draw a bead on them to detonate the arachnids with my superior firepower.

When I had a chance, I glanced toward where the Rooks had run out to meet the spiders. They were holding their own exceptionally well against the swarm, having formed up into a tight group.

I could see them expertly striking out and blocking with their huge gem-edged weapons, each of their strikes taking chunks out of the many-legged horrors.

The Rooks were exceptionally good at covering each other. Whenever I saw one step in to deliver a vicious blow with one of their massive weapons, two more would step in next to them to block the spiked legs and fangs that lashed out at the attacker.

They couldn’t individually kill a crystal creature as swiftly as I could of course, but in an extended battle their tactics and raw skill far outweighed my own usefulness. If I ran out of rubyshot, I was essentially useless, whereas they could keep on fighting powered by sheer adrenaline.

From the short glimpse I caught of their battle, I saw that they had already smashed four of the spiders to pieces and were chipping away at the others. The spiders couldn’t even land a hit on them, and even if they could they would have trouble getting through their gem-reinforced armour.

Since the Rooks were clearly handling themselves just fine, I turned my attention to the next spider making a move toward the caravan and immediately detonated it into shimmering dust.

“This way!”

Occasionally, one of the settlers would cry out a warning and I would hop between caravans to take a lethal shot at one of the large arachnids. Some were trying to sneak around my firing line, using their brethren as cover.

Thankfully most of them seemed too dumb to try this tactic. One or two sneakier spiders I could handle, but if I had to split my attention some would start to break through and then lives would be lost.

I had seen it happen far too many times before. Once the spiders got close, they were a deadly storm of fangs and sharpened limbs. All you could really do at that point was pray for someone else to blast the thing off you before it started to dissect you alive.

At least the strange, parasitic crystals that created these dangerous creatures didn’t endow them with any more intelligence than they already had. Otherwise, I probably would have been killed at least twenty times over on risky jobs like this one.

Being able to take advantage of their predictable behaviour was key to survival in the Scorch, and I had dealt with more than enough creatures to always have a pretty solid idea of what they were going to try next.

I could practically sense which direction they would attempt to rush in from next now that I was in the groove of things. I found myself moving between the caravans even before the settlers were calling out to me, my carefully aimed shots always ringing true.

Before I knew it, the last of the spiders had been blasted apart from the inside. The creature let out a loud chittering sound as its many legs twitched violently, then it fell still no longer a danger to myself or any of the settlers.

Not wanting to celebrate too early, I reloaded my repeater once again and hopped between all four caravans. The starsand storm had mostly cleared now, so I was able to remove my goggles as I checked for any more threats. I was happy to find that there were none.

No more spiders roaming about, and no other creatures drawn in by the sound of my repeater. We were safe, and I called out as such to the settlers who began to cheer.

With the threat taken care of, the leader of the caravan started calling out orders and some reluctant settlers grabbed picks and made their way to the corpses of the spiders, starting to hack away at the chunks of crystal.

In the Scorch, you couldn’t afford to let that kind of stuff go to waste. As per my contract, in addition to my base fee I would be entitled to a share of any crystal shards the caravan collected on the journey.

This was a standard deal for me, as using my ruby repeater wasn’t exactly cheap. I couldn’t afford to take a loss every time I had to deal with creatures while doing my job or I would starve within a week.

No matter how many you killed, the Scorch always seemed to have more horrors in store for those trying to survive.

Before hopping down from the ring of caravans I spared a look for the Rooks. They had a few light injuries but nothing too worrying. Despite never signing up myself, I had to respect the bravery of charging in to face a horde like that with less than a dozen people.

If I was lucky I could maybe handle three or four small crystal creatures like beetles or wasps in close-combat. My skill set and equipment loadout was specialised for protecting caravans on my own by blasting the threat to dust long before it got close.

“Y-you saved us! Thank you, I’m so glad there are brave folks like you out here to help deal with those monsters.” one of the men I had asked to help me spot the creatures called out as I headed back over to the caravan I had been riding in.

I made sure to give the chestnut horse pulling said caravan a soft pat on the head as I passed it by.

Me, brave?

I had to stop myself from chuckling when I heard that. If they knew the reason I was really out here, the last thing they would call me was brave.

“Nothing to it, just keep me in mind if you need any more help once we get to town.” I nodded, checking my remaining ammunition.

Twenty rubyshot rounds left, less than I would like, but enough to get me out of one or two scrapes if I was careful.

I would have to visit the nearest gemsmith as soon as possible to get some more crafted. It wouldn’t be cheap, but the pay from escorting the caravan should be enough to restock my supplies and keep me fed for a while so long as I was careful and none of my gear needed repairing.

Every settlement had varying prices, with the ones deeper into the Scorch charging a lot more than the ones on the outskirts for goods and services due to the areas being more dangerous.

It usually worked out, however, as the further you ventured into the Scorch the more rare crystals there were to find. Unfortunately, those crystals were usually attached to some unspeakable horrors, so the ill-prepared would find nothing but their own gruesome deaths in the wasteland.

“So, ya gun, it got a name?”

I looked up in surprise, finding that a young red-haired woman had broken away from the main group in our caravan to come and sit next to me.

I shifted awkwardly, turning the slender ruby barrel over in my hands, using a worn cloth to clean off a smudge of blasting powder. It wasn’t as if a few marks here and there would affect the performance of the finely tuned weapon, but I always kept it clean regardless.

“Not yet, I suppose I never really got around to naming it…” I sighed to myself, stroking the crystal barrel and reinforced leather grip protectively.

Without the gun, I almost certainly wouldn’t be able to survive the horrors of the Scorch. The least I could do was treat it with some respect.

I never really had to worry about dents or scratches, as the clear red crystal was an extremely strong and durable material. It had to be to handle the kind of ammunition I fired out of it.

If I had tried to load one of my rubyshot rounds into a regular firearm the best-case scenario would be the gun exploding spectacularly and whoever was firing it losing a couple of fingers or their hand. There were still a couple of folk with missing fingers and crystal firearms roaming the Scorch as a testament to those early prototype weapons.

“Why not? I thought all you wanderer-types were really protective of ya special guns?”

The red-haired woman seemed genuinely curious rather than teasing, so I looked up from my gun and took her in properly. Her skin was far too perfect and pale for someone living in the Scorch, but she seemed to be around my age .

I had turned twenty two last summer, not that I had really celebrated. I had been camping solo on a trip between two settlements, a dangerous task that had meant I couldn’t even risk lighting a fire without possibly drawing the wrath of the Scorch down onto me.

“We are, they don’t come cheap and if they ever break we’re pretty much useless.”

“Then why haven’t ya named yours?”

“Not sure. Coming up with a name for it myself makes it feel like a pet or something.”

“What’s wrong with that? I’d love a pet out here if it weren’t so dangerous.”

“Don’t really think of it as a pet. It’s more like a partner. We keep each other safe. Without it, I’m useless and without me it's the same, so…”

“So it feels a bit weird naming ya partner right?”

“Right. If the person who made it had told me it already had a name, I would have just accepted it. But now I’ve had it so long it feels kinda wrong to just come up with something on the spot.”

“I see…”

She seemed to go deep into thought for a few seconds.

“Then how ‘bout I come up with a name for it?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, the two of ya saved my life today, so maybe it would be fitting if I came up with a name for it?”

“I suppose I’ll have to think about it. I should probably know what your name is first though right?”

“Oh, of course, so silly of me. All the talk of names and I forget to introduce myself. I’m Kate, nice to meet ya.”

“Good to meet you, Kate. I’m going by Cyrus these days. Can call me Cy if you’d like.”

“These days? Cyrus ain’t ya real name?”

“Not the name I was born with if that’s what you mean, but it’s who I am now. Been going by it ever since I came to the Scorch.”

“Well fair enough. Thanks for talkin’ to me Cy. Mind if I sit with you ‘til we get to Clearvein?”

“If you’d like, just not the most talkative fella really.”

“Ah I don’t mind, I can do the talking for both of us!”

I couldn’t help but smile softly. Kate was certainly energetic after an incident that would be sending most newcomers to the Scorch back home at the earliest opportunity.

“So y’all are with with the protector guild right? They call ya Rooks?”

“I’m not officially with the guild or anything, but this job came from them.”

I nodded, brushing some starsand from my duster and removing my goggles to give them a good clean too.

Of the several guilds that worked to explore and conquer the Scorch, I currently didn’t belong to any of them. Being an official Rook of the protector guild established by Kenbry would have been helpful in finding work, but the Rooks went about things in a very official manner.

Signing up would mean I could be easily tracked down by anyone with any kind of influence or power back in Kenbry. It would somewhat defeat the point of my living here in the Scorch.

“You part of a guild or just traveling?” I ventured a question of my own, not wanting to seem rude.

“I’m part of the researcher guild!”

Kate seemed excited to talk about it and eagerly rummaged around in her knapsack before presenting me with her metal guild pin. It was a small silver sigil in the shape of an open book with the name “Kate Barclay” inscribed on the pages.

It would give her access to any researcher facilities in any settlement to have them, as well as prove her identity for things like staying at inns and collecting supplies the guild had sent ahead for her. My repeater served the same function for me, unique enough that it identified me wherever I went.

“You out here for a project then?”

“Something like that yeah. Been reports of some unusual creature behaviour around Clearvein, so I’ve got my first job with the guild investigatin’ it.”

Kate’s enthusiasm seemed to falter a bit when she mentioned the job, so I probed a bit further.

“Sounds interesting. Excited for it?”

“Oh yeah. Just a bit worried about observing the creatures on my own to be honest. I’ve read plenty about them but those spiders were the first I’ve actually seen.”

“It can be a lot. You never get entirely used to the attacks.” I nodded as I spoke. “They’re always pretty terrifying, but that’s why you researchers are so important. Finding new ways to deal with those things and make life here safer for everyone, right?"

“That’s the hope. As horrible as they are I can’t help but be fascinated too. I may have to buy ya a drink when we get into town if ya wouldn’t mind telling me about some of your experiences with them?”

“Works for me.”

I was enjoying talking to Kate a lot more than I thought I would. There was something about her almost naive enthusiasm that felt so fresh.

Most people used to life in the Scorch had a much more cynical attitude towards everything, myself included to some degree. Living in a place where one could meet a gruesome end on any given day at any given time tended to have that effect on people.

We were all very aware of our mortality out here.

While I wasn’t really looking to make friends, I knew the researcher would likely have a budget for hiring protection. If not, I could at least do some networking and share some stories.

Talking to her was easy. If it came down to it I could always find another job in town by asking the stationed Rooks or miners if they needed help with anything.

It was early evening when we did finally pull up to the town of Clearvein. While it was new, it already had most of the basic structures like a large saloon, houses and even a general store.

The head of the caravan came to find me once she had given the rest of the settlers their orders. Most were unpacking supplies and finding the people they would be sharing houses with.

The majority were workers, who would be making a living scavenging and mining the crystals nearby the village in a group with Rooks protecting them in case of attack.

“Good job out there. I’ll be honest with you gunslinger, I wasn’t too sure when the guild recommended you but I’d gladly hire you again.”

The leader of the caravan, a tan elderly woman with plenty of scars on her face, handed me a small bag full of coins, and a larger bag filled with my share of the crystal chunks.

I tipped my hat as I took both.

“Happy to help where I can. If you ever want to request me for a job, Rooks can put you in contact with me through my friend Barnabus.”

The older woman gave me a warm smile and nodded, then she went back to work.

I had to let people know where to find me whenever I got the chance. Most went to the protector guild to hire Rooks when they needed protection, but the Rooks were always spread pretty thin and only had a couple of crystal gunslingers in their employ.

It was an informal arrangement that had taken a lot of convincing to get them to agree with, but the Rooks allowed people to contact me via them if they specifically requested my friend Barnabus.

They also tossed the occasional piece of work my way in exchange for a small cut, and had tried to get me to sign up officially plenty of times but to no success. The arrangement worked fine as it was, no reason to fix what wasn’t broken.

My pay received, I found myself wandering over to the saloon. It was a small two storied wooden structure with a sign reading “The Ruby Rest”. For how recently it had been set up it was surprisingly nice looking.

The lower floor was the usual affair, a large room with plenty of tables and a bar where the workers could get a drink and a hot meal after a hard day of work, while the upper seemed to have several rooms available for travelers like myself.

I saw that Kate was leaning up against the wall beside saloon entrance, so I gave her a nod and we walked in together, the doors swinging shut behind us.

“So, what’s ya poison Cy?”