The first town we came across on our escape was the small town of Ubor, which didn’t have more than 4000 residents in total. This suited our purposes just fine, as we mainly wanted to purchase some food, the horse-meat had run out a few days back, and as much as Castos wanted to help he couldn’t single handedly provide us with enough food at such time of year. We already had enough money, but carrying around two extra longswords was not exactly a comfortable thing so we sold them off for about twenty percent of its actual value to an Uborian blacksmith, at least by selling it while still in Netsam we could be sure that we’d be far away from here if the sale of these two weapons was discovered.
The other thing which Cameron and Fisk had reminded me must be done was to inform the guild of Backhand Blow’s fate, I personally would have been fine to never step inside a mercenary guild’s office ever again, but if we didn’t get updated wooden placards showing no band affiliation, it would make working in the future more difficult. Before we made our trip to the guild though, I thought it might be prudent to change my alias once more. I had no problem with my friends continuing to call me Lev, but I wanted to decrease the chance that my name would pop up on guild records.
Cameron didn’t even see it as a problem, as there was no way to verify that one’s name was actually their real identity, so the evening that we arrived in Ubor, we stayed inside one of the inns and had a detailed discussion on a suitable name. For the sake of simplicity, I thought it would be a good idea for the name to start from the same letter as my actual name, and then the rest just gave me suggestions of names that might be common in their homelands.
Dorian was the one who gave me the name that actually stuck in my mind, as it was used as a name for the largest island in the Philippines: Luzon. It was apparently a name that some acquaintance of Dorian’s used back in Yas, so it wasn’t as unique as my own name, me being the only person who went by it according to my friends. This wasn’t weird of course, my friends now knew that I wasn’t from Euphelia and was actually from another world entirely, although to what extent they understood my peculiar circumstances I didn’t know.
All eight of us went to the mercenary guild together, and informed the clerk there that the band we were part of was destroyed in a battle, with us getting away in the process. The clerk interpreted our words negatively, thinking of us as cowards and deserters, but I thought that an honorable death or worse a capture by an enemy, was not the correct course of action. I did not update my name here though, since the clerk already knew that my name was still Lev, and if I changed the name of the placard here, there might be a paper trail to follow to find my new identity.
Instead, after purchasing sufficient food supplies, and even a sack that could be secured on one’s shoulders, we departed Ubor for the largest city in Netsam that was called Kselon. While we wouldn’t be staying there for long, it was on the path to the Kingdom of Setim, which was our preliminary goal and where I thought we could spend the winter there at the very least. The snow began to fall while we were on our journey to Kselon, meaning that the seasons had probably changed from Autumn to Winter. Since it had been a week already since we last saw any sign of us being pursued, it was probably not a bad idea to allow us the luxury of a fire to keep us warm throughout the night. None of us had a kindling stone though, so Opie and Fisk got into an argument when we began setting up a place to sleep for the night, since Fisk was the one who took care of our provisions.
I ended the argument by simply lighting the firewood with sorcery which was already placed in the middle of our circle of sleeping cloth, since we still had no tents to keep out any snow from above. The cover of a very old tree would have to suffice for now, and the heat of the fire warmed our freezing bodies, and melted the icy tempers of Opie and Fisk. Conversation was jovial that evening, and in the middle of it the thought occurred to me that I must be 17 already, my birthday being sometime in Autumn.
I didn’t tell the others about it yet, I had some decent funds left in my money pouch, and decided to turn the future celebration of our survival into a combined one, for both my belated birthday and the former occasion. With the snowy weather though, the pace of our movement decreased at least twofold, I didn’t notice it properly during my night watch shift, but when we moved out on foot the following morning the snow was stacked up almost to our knees.
Our boots were the only reason it didn’t make it inside of our clothes, but we had to stop multiple times during the day and warm up around a fire if we didn’t want to develop frostbite. Our long and grueling march to Kselon lasted three days, a distance we made on our trip here even weighed down with wagons in one and a half. When we got there, we restocked our supplies, and I put up funds for us to buy a large tent for camping, and extra cloth to put on top of it so that the snow wouldn’t soak it up when melted.
This purchase required the purchase of two more sacks, which were quite inefficient to me who knew of the existence of backpacks, a situation I would have to remedy sometime in the future. It was here that a young man by the name of Luzon received his first guild placard, and for safety’s sake the first day after we left the city, I used Lev’s as firewood. It would have been dangerous to hang on to it, as a man only needed one anyway, but the Jenusians and their lackeys would be on the lookout for mention of such a name, and I had no intention of going by it in public.
I had no problem with my friends using it for now, as I was not sure if we would be sticking together after we arrived in Zelan, but if we were to continue sticking together it might be necessary for them to stop using it as well. We would alternate who carried our three sacks on their backs, which contained food and camping supplies, giving five of us the ability to march unencumbered at any point in time. I joined this rotation too, seeing it as my duty as part of our traveling group. The further we moved away from the site of Backhand Blow’s last battle, the less one could feel the hierarchy that existed in our squad. At this point myself, Cameron, and Fisk acted as the brains with the other five following our collective decisions, but I felt that Dorian and Castos would take my side in any argument I might find myself.
The three of us spoke a lot, and both Cameron and Fisk poked my brain a lot with questions about my world, and my thoughts on the current state of affairs in this world. They were just as surprised to hear about the absence of sorcery on Earth as they were about technological marvels such as planes, computers, and phones. Euphelia was very boring for almost everyone who lived in it, and to inquisitive minds such as Cameron and Fisk I must have been like an encyclopedia of knowledge.
As far as I was aware, there was no one else among those summoned from Earth who had as great of a memory as I did. I didn’t think most of them would be able to give answers as detailed as I could to Cameron and Fisk’s questions, but sometimes I wondered how much more knowledge I would have possessed if I was summoned when I was older; say thirty or so. Their questions were very engaging, and I enjoyed having the unrestricted freedom to actually talk about what Earth was like, with those who would believe the things I said.
At the beginning they were asking me things that were quite easy to answer, since there was a specific answer to the questions that they would ask. But as we got closer and closer to Setim, their questions turned more philosophical, and sometimes I’d have to think for a few minutes before giving them a coherent answer. The most odd thing happened when we were already well within the borders of Setim, and I recognized the terrain from when we were moving through here in the opposite direction. Cameron and Fisk asked me a question that could only be described as economic in nature, and I gave them a reply which seemed to satisfy them.
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They then calmly stated that I should walk ahead while the two of them dropped behind our group, still close by but far enough away that I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. They stayed at that distance all the way until Zelan came into view, and I checked behind us a few times to make sure that they were still there, worrying that something I said might cause them to just slip away. My worries were unfounded however, as they rejoined our group in good order, although they weren’t letting on about what exactly they had discussed the last few hours.
There were no snows near Zelan yet, so the weather was quite good relative to what we suffered through in Netsam. This meant that we would probably not stay here that long, and perhaps this would be the place where we would finally split off and seek our fortunes not as a group of eight. I invited all of them to celebrate our successful escape in an inn that was neither luxurious, nor shoddy, and at the opportunity for free booze and food all seven agreed almost immediately.
The celebration was going great, my coin pouch the only thing that would have cried if it had eyes and sentience. The others were already aware of the occasion, my birthday being as good of a reason as any to celebrate. In a lull of our usual drinking, after enough toasts have been made to honor and remember Eli and Luvar who perished on the battlefield, Cameron and Fisk grabbed the attention of the rest of us, and made an invitation.
They wanted me, who had the largest reserve of funds, to book out an entire communal room at a nearby inn, since they wanted to discuss something with all of us in relative privacy. We wouldn’t have done such a thing usually, the communal rooms having anywhere from ten to twenty beds, but I relented feeling that what the two of them wanted to talk about was important.
We did just that, cutting our celebration short, as the others were more interested to hear what the two wanted to tell us, than gorge themselves at my expense. When all eight of us made ourselves comfortable, taking off all of our armor and sitting just in our clothes, Fisk stood up where we could all see him, and began his pitch.
“In the aftermath of our band’s last battle, Lev proposed that we stick together until we felt our continued cooperation would no longer help our safety. At the time I agreed, no longer having the enthusiasm for mercenary work that I had in the past. We are now in Zelan, the capital of the Kingdom of Setim, far enough away from the battlefield that the previously mentioned conditions have been met…” Fisk began, and I didn’t have the best feeling inside from the get go.
“...Cameron and I have been thinking, and feel as if our continued cooperation should continue for at least the next few months, if not a lot longer than that…” At these words my own ears and those of the other five listeners perked up, wondering what it was that Fisk and Cameron were proposing. “...The offer of cooperation that we all accepted, to continue with Lev as our squad leader, and working for all intents and purposes as a mercenary squad were made without the knowledge of Lev’s true background, and that is the most important thing in this entire situation. That night in the cave, Lev opened himself to us whole, and even gave us his thoughts of what he wants to do in the future. Myself and Cameron, and even Dorian who had quite the interesting path to becoming a mercenary did the same…” Fisk paused, and shifted his gaze to Dorian who seemed a little miffed at being used as comedic relief.
“...If we break up here, then what awaits us in the future will be almost exactly what we have lived through up to this point. All of us here are commoner mercenaries, with no home to call our own. Lev himself states that he was of a similar stature in his homeland, although according to what he has told us, commoners had a much better life, better than even the greatest of nobles. What myself and Cameron want to do, is to change this boring and frankly substandard future for us, for all of us” Fisk ended his speech, sitting down and letting Cameron continue the conversation, but he did not stand up to continue where Fisk left off.
“Lev has knowledge from his world which is invaluable in Euphelia, and that combined with the right purpose can let us all do something more meaningful than simply continue on with mercenary work, and if he and the seven of us who know about Lev’s background stick together we can accomplish things the likes of which you cannot even imagine. The overall purpose of us continuing as we have thus far would be to accomplish our personal goals, which I’ll describe as our collective goal. Lev wants to live freely, which is something that I think all of us can empathize with at least to some extent” Cameron began his part of the pitch, drawing murmurs of agreement and looking everyone in the eye after his first pause.
“To do that we would need two things, money and military power. The first of which will be the most tricky to accomplish as for that only perhaps Fisk and Lev can help us out there, as they are the only two who can read and write, and have at least some knowledge of how to make money through means other than raiding. The military power issue is somewhat easier, all of us have varying levels of combat experience, and Lev would not have been able to be a good squad-leader if he was an imbecile. The fact that he doesn’t just think about military matters is great too; no offense to our former squad-leader” Cameron finished this part of his proposal with a joke, all of us apart from Castos remembering Gorkas with a smile and his single-minded nature.
“The particulars of such a plan will need to be discussed by all of us, but we want to hear all of your thoughts on this matter, starting with you Lev” Cameron stated, and looked at me.
I was still thinking about what exactly the two other brains of our little group wanted to do specifically, but the overall idea wasn’t something I was against. There was no one out of the native Euphelians who I trusted as much as the men in this room, and all of them, even Kurt, were people that I had fought with on the battlefield. If we had to go our separate ways, I would no doubt have to lock away a substantial part of my personality like I did up to that fateful night in the cave.
I was fine with it for the longest time, but after being able to discuss things in the open with my friends the last two weeks, I knew that returning to how things were would feel terrible. If we could stick together for longer then why not give it a shot? If we could actually get to a point where I didn’t have to fear any threat from the Jenusians then all the better!
“In principle I agree with you, but we would have to discuss things more in detail. All of you in this room are my friends, and I trust you implicitly. If we can agree on something tonight, then I won’t be running off anywhere by myself” I responded honestly, even turning my pessimistic thoughts into a joke.
Castos and Dorian were all for this idea unsurprisingly, but what was surprising was that Kurt agreed immediately after, even before Opie and Edmund did. We weren’t planning to get a wink of sleep that night, just like the first night we laid all of our thoughts and feelings bare in a cold cave. The environment was much more accommodating this time around, which relaxed everyone’s mood substantially, and the motivations behind everyone’s acceptance became quite clear to me after a while.
There was nothing awaiting any one of them at their homes that they would want to return to, so they thought this idea was preferable to simply joining up with another mercenary band, where anyone’s prospects weren’t exactly great. At first we agreed on certain basic plans, which were not refined but seemed logical at the time. The first thing that we needed to do to start making money was to actually obtain a good amount of it, and from there we would be able to use this money to turn it into more money.
The concept was familiar to me, as that would be the basic economic thoughts of anyone with even the slightest business acumen. Money that moved, and was not just being herded away for safekeeping was money that was serving its purpose, but some of the more boneheaded members of our group had to be convinced by Fisk and I of the validity of such a notion. When sufficient funds were at our disposal, we would need to invest this money into a force capable of protecting our future means of making money, since banditry and even just straight up thievery of funds by nobles was not an unreasonable hypothetical.
Cameron, Kurt, and I had a very detailed discussion on military affairs, as we were the ones who had the most to say about the faults in the way that Backhand Blow operated. I based most of my understanding on how things ought to be done in a medieval armed force on my knowledge of history, but some of the things we discussed veered much closer to modern times on Earth. The biggest debate that night was on how much one needed to invest in equipment for members of a band, and the idea of a regular payment supplemented by bonuses as opposed to irregular payments when commissions and contracts were taken up instead.
I argued against Kurt and Cameron that any and all funds that were available should go towards armor and weapons for the people in a unit, and they were of the opinion that larger numbers of ‘good-enough’ weapons was the way to go, which was the standard military thought at the time for mercenaries. My argument was based on the fact that it was much more difficult to replace trained fighters that died due to insufficient protection and bad equipment, than it was to obtain proper equipment for those who fought at your command.
Finding people who one could trust back to was difficult, and if they kept dying due to us being stingy with our funds then we would find ourselves in a much bigger ‘pickle’ down the line. They were not entirely convinced by my argument, but since the success of Cameron’s and Fisk’s proposal lied in my cooperation they decided to defer to me in this matter.
Near the tail end of this discussion, Fisk brought up the point that we were discussing things before we even decided how it was that we would be making our fortune to start things off in the first place. For some reason, at his prompting I recalled the bandits who attacked me in that village in Tarli, and proposed a course of action which the others didn’t expect.
While banditry was certainly an immoral action at its very core, in certain circumstances ‘two wrongs did make a right’.