After pondering Burgomaster Conona’s vague information for a moment, Brin tipped her head in question. “You would say, then, that travel conditions in this vicinity are…?”
Right back on track. Brin’s orders were to get the information and get home to Commander Farsafe with it. She wasn’t missing a beat.
Burgomaster Conona snorted. A wry smile teased the corners of her somber mouth. “Travel conditions are what they always are to the north along the Way. Roll the bones and take your chances. Maybe keep a sharper eye than usual for anyone wearing the Scourge’s emblem.”
After a brief shuffle of papers on her desk, Conona held up a scrap of parchment between two thick fingers. On it was sketched a rough symbol, a wave-like curve slashed through with two horizontal straight lines.
“They fancy painting this symbol on their cloaks and tunics. With the blood of their enemies, they’ll say. I think it’s as likely they crushed some berries and faked it, given how bad some of them are with a weapon.”
Brin hesitated. Galen couldn’t see her face, but he imagined her brows lowering and her mouth pursing in thought. He wasn’t sure, either, how much of Conona’s brusque manner was honesty and how much was bravado. Was the Way safe enough for Farsafe’s caravan?
Galen half-thought an Appraisal check might roll for him, but the dice and the narrator both remained silent. Maybe the roll had happened for Brin, either as an NPC direction or for her benefit as a PC. Galen still had no idea which she or Danto were, but he’d been trying not to think about it.
You could drive yourself crazy trying to figure it all out.
Conona tossed the sketch onto her desk and leaned forward, elbows thumping the scarred wood. “Merchants know the dangers of the road, particularly the wild section north from here to Thandre. What’s with all this scouting? What sort of precious cargo are they planning to move through here?”
Galen had wondered much the same thing.
Brin was quiet another moment. “I’m only following my commander’s orders. If there are answers to those questions, I don’t have them.”
Conona grunted and sat back in her chair. “Of course you don’t. That doesn’t make me any less curious, mind you. But it is what it is.”
Brin dipped her head in acknowledgment. Galen noticed that she didn’t apologize, though.
“So.” Conona sighed, as if forcefully expelling her frustration over the lack of answers. “You’ve followed your orders. You’ll be turning back toward Chanford Falls in the morning, then?”
“Those are the orders. Yes.”
And that was that. They’d reached Utfast. They’d gathered the information they’d been sent for. Their mission, just like that, was half over.
All the warm, golden moments of the three days they’d just spent on the road curled in around Galen, the bright sunshine and fresh breezes and complete freedom of the road, all threaded through with the brilliance of Brin’s and Danto’s companionship. The feeling coalesced and then twisted, shifting from contentment and into a hearkening of what that lack of contentment would feel like once it was gone.
Galen wished suddenly, whatever the danger, that they could just keep going. Never go back to Chanford Falls. Never go home to, as Danto would put it, the same old drudgery of his regular life. Abruptly, Galen wanted it so badly that tears pricked the backs of his eyes and pain twinged in his chest.
Brin had said he could change his life, if he really wanted to. She had changed hers, certainly.
It’s not the same. She doesn’t understand.
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No one had been counting on Brin, not really. Her older siblings were the ones being counted on. Brin was more like Galen’s sister, Jodri, who could walk away anytime she pleased once she was of age. She’d be expected to do so, even.
Not me, though. I’m stuck.
Was he, though? He’d just been pondering the futility of trying to figure out who in this world was, or had been, a real person and who was merely lines of intricate code. He couldn’t imagine anyone who’d pre-ordered Redemption Wars would be content to be stuck in one of the NPC-like roles of his pretend family.
And if they were only lines of code, then how much did he really owe them?
His kneejerk reaction to that was to worry about how it would make him look—like an irresponsible, selfish ass who’d turn his back on the needs of his family in order to run off and have fun. He’d struggled enough with his real world decision to enlist, and that at least had promised some benefit to his family.
“I have something to ask of you, then.” Conona planted her hands on the desktop and stood. The chair rasped across the floor as she pushed it back. “Not a favor, but a paying job. You can handle it without making much change at all to your current plans.”
Brin remained exactly where she was, shoulders and braid set in straight perpendicular lines. “A job?”
Conona stepped around the desk and passed Brin, drawing Brin to turn as well, until Conona stood in the center of Brin and Danto and Galen.
“A young man and his great-grandmother were traveling from Thandre to Diairm. Their escort quit, and they’ve been left stranded here in Utfast. They’re looking for someone to get them the rest of the way. I imagine you could at least see them as far as Chanford Falls?”
Brin’s brows drew down and her mouth pursed, just as Galen had earlier envisioned. Instead of answering, she side-stepped closer to Danto, forming a perhaps-unconscious line with him and Galen.
“They were robbed, but the family is wealthy and can arrange payment on arrival. And pay well, I imagine.” Conona’s expression was unreadable. Her tone remained as steady and imperturbable as ever.
Beside Galen, Danto tilted his head, as if he’d heard something Galen hadn’t.
“I’m not sure…” Brin drew the words out, “how ethical it would be to earn coin while on militia duty.”
“Then donate the coin to the militia’s coffers. You’d be doing a good turn, as well, wouldn’t you?”
[You rolled a 14 for Appraisal.]
And now Galen heard beneath Conona’s typically-even speech a note of desperation. Her mouth tightened.
Over a young man and an old woman?
He must not have rolled high enough to get more than that. The narrator said no more.
Conona glanced from Brin to Danto to Galen and sighed. “Listen. This pair comes with some… challenges. But they’re more of the inconvenience variety than anything threatening. I just… Meet with them. See for yourself. But it would mean a great deal to me if you would get them out of my hair.”
Brin continued to stare at Conona, her frown intact. After the quiet had stretched enough to threaten awkwardness, Danto elbow-nudged Brin.
“We have to at least see what it’s all about. I mean, aren’t you curious?”
Brin shot a sharp look at Danto, who seemed utterly oblivious to it. Then she sighed and her shoulders relaxed and she shrugged at Conona. “We’re here for the night, anyhow. I suppose it can’t hurt to speak with them.”
All the tension leeched from Conona’s body. She smiled broadly, opened her door, and motioned for them to follow.
Conona led them out of her office, and they descended the steps to the common room, wading into the aroma of roasting meat and baking bread and the constant murmur of voices. Galen’s stomach twanged, and his mouth watered.
Early evening sunlight wafted through west-facing windows. Through the lingering day’s heat and smoke from the kitchen’s cooking hearths, a cool breeze drifted. Galen didn’t fail to note the heavy shutters on all these windows, too. He caught himself feeling grateful for the wall which surrounded Chanford Falls.
A half dozen tables with chairs sprawled across a bare but clean wooden plank floor. At the tables, an assortment of travelers took meals. To Galen’s eye, they looked well-armed and experienced—everything Conona had just said indicated that people didn’t wander casually along the road past The Dread Watch.
At a corner table near a cold hearth, an old woman, plentiful in size and bedecked in simple but colorful clothing, held court. Her kirtle was yellow, her cloak orange, and she wore scarves in an array from red to green to blue. The colors reflected in the steel gray of her hair.
A young man about Galen’s age slumped in a chair around the table from her, nursing a mug and looking like he’d prefer to simply slide beneath the table and vanish. Conona led Brin and after her Galen and Danto toward that table.
“And a right adventure it’s been!” the woman was declaring to a pair of travelers at the next table. Those men wore bemused expressions, and one chuckled heartily.
“Master Wilm.” Without so much as a glance toward the old woman, Conona marched up to the table and stood in front of the crestfallen-looking young man. She half-turned and gestured behind her, toward Brin and Danto and Galen. “These militia scouts from Chanford Falls will be returning home on the morrow. It seems possible—likely, even—that you might make arrangements to travel with them.”