CHAPTER 19: FERRY TO SAUVABELIN
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Current Quests
Justice For Courbefy: Find justice for the victims of the corrupt mayor of Courbefy. Use…
Chosen Of Knowledge: Escort Hugh on his journey to becoming a fully awakened iron…
Healer’s Materials: Gain Healer’s favour by donating alchemy ingredients to the church…
Wine tour: Vineyard wants you to try the different wines in the Megève area.
Acquire Follower: Dominion wants you to gain another follower.
Chosen Of Hero: Travel north to Lake Auvernier, find the chosen of Hero and recruit…
Team Executive Services boarded the ferry to the Leman Lake platform before sunrise. The team had left Adi’s farm before breakfast and a bleary-eyed Hugh had brought up that last night, Adi had suggested thinking about a team name. That way, they could register as a team on the same day that they’d be confirmed as official adventurers. No second trip through the paperwork or forms of the society required.
Upon hearing this, Dave had been firm. He’d spent enough time reading emails from the pharmaceutical marketing department to know that the name must describe nothing about the product while also being a phrase that the over-monied target customer liked saying out loud and being associated with. Hugh resisted this cunning approach but also admitted that team names like ‘Firebreath Chimera’ and ‘The Tinskanny Warblers’, two of the more notable teams in the region, make it seem like team names weren’t intended to be a place for truth.
“Is more about decoration!” Sam had said brightly into the chill morning air, waving her arms to emphasise the sense of splendour.
So they’d thrown names around between each other while making their way through the predawn streets of Champel. ‘The Chamois Originals’ was a good early submission of Hugh’s that they definitely would have picked had they also not simultaneously realised how easily that identified them as the people that the Builder cult were trying to find and kill.
Dave wrote down the best ones while they were walking to the ferry but they were all ultimately rejected. ‘Requested Quests’? Cute, but too much like a joke. ‘Expeditionary Solutions’ and ‘Wayfarer Solutions’ had a good sound. ‘Solutions’ set a positive tone but they agreed in the end that it presented the team as a scouting party. ‘Pathfinding Enterprises’ was rejected for the same reasons.
‘Noble Ventures Agency’ Hugh put forward and both Dave and Sam agreed that ‘Noble’ made an association with the class structure that might get them some jobs but it wasn’t quite right. It might be seen as presenting themselves as nobles. ‘Managerial Enterprises’ from Dave was on the right path but sounded too bland. Sam and Hugh explained that they needed something that nobles felt wasn’t also another group of nobles. They wanted the image of respectable folk that the nobles could pay for services.
They kept trying. ‘Deluxe Management’? Sounded like a cleaning company. Dave was playing with the word ‘executive’, repeating it a few times when Sam had piped up:
“Service!”
“Service. Services. Executive Services,” said Dave, slowly and clearly, trying the name out.
“Executive Services,” said Hugh, also letting the sound of it roll through his mouth. “Yes, indeed. The upper crust do like servants, to be served and have serves of comfortable things. I think this is a winner, Sam!”
“Yeah, definitely,” said Dave, nodding seriously and trying out the name again. “Executive Services. Hello, we’re Executive Services, here to perform adventure duties. How can we help?”
Sam’s face shone with happiness like the rising sun.
“With your permission, Sam, I think we’ve found our name,” said Hugh with a wink.
“Yes! Sounds professional, ka?”
Dave thought it was a bit funny that the first thing Executive Services did was get on a ferry to avoid a bunch of monsters but, he reflected, Bill Gates and Paul Allen had got their pre-Microsoft start with traffic software. Maybe the ferry ride would become good trivia for a memoir someday? It’d certainly make a good story that be fit for a future Wikipedia page.
The ferry ride was blessedly free of distraction. Sam smiled beatifically at the waves sparkling in the morning light. Even Dave and Hugh, who had intended to be studying, had a vicarious experience of peace and contentment with her, just soaking in the sights.
“I miss ocean,” sang Sam.
Dave’s heart panged.
“Do you think there will be dolphin?” asked Sam softly.
Dave winced like he’d been punched in the gut.
“There won’t be, no,” said Hugh. “It’s an inland lake, they can’t travel here. Still, how about these blue waters, hey?”
“Yes! So beautiful. And, with trees right next to the water. Would be good beach day! No. Lake day!”
Sam beamed at Dave who smiled sadly.
“How about a lake day at Auvernier Lake when we get there?” suggested Dave.
Sam smiled and bounced with enthusiasm and then looked to Hugh.
“Oh, yes. I’m sure there’s something to learn from the experience,” said Hugh coyly, causing Sam to clasp her hands in front of herself and twist from side to side.
“Someday but alas, someday isn’t today. I’m going to study,” said Dave. “Sam, make sure you look at the sights for me, won’t you? Just in case they’re worth visiting later.”
“Yes!” said Sam, who spun back to the railing and drank in the sight of blue water and late-autumn trees on the snowy, alpine background.
Dave tore his eyes from the world and opened Tome to look over his known spells. Dave had arranged a summary sheet for his own use the previous evening before sleep.
Inherent Spells
no memorisation needed
Spell
Description
Maestro’s Instant Image Of Many Forms
Illusion spell. Fixed pixel number. Big picture = less resolution.
Clairvoyant Eye Of Transvection, The
LoS summon a moving, invisible eye for scouting
Dispel And Quell Magic
Dispels magic. Suppresses what isn’t dispelled.
Mail By Appointed Rounds
Post letters to people
Paper Mill Production
A tonne of paper to make paper constructions of any shape.
Stationary Scry Of Farseeing, The
Magical sensor made at distant, target location. Can’t sense things that you are not personally familiar with.
Learned Spells
memorisation required
Animate Paper
Animate a paper construction to your will
Comfortable Country Cabin
Make a single-room cabin with a nice temperature.
Origami Golem
Summon a tough, strong paper monster that does your bidding.
Origami Mount
Summon a less tough paper mount that does your bidding.
For direct use on monsters, Dave didn’t have a lot of good options. The illusions would be good for tricking monsters in certain ways but were definitely a limited tool. Dropping a tonne of paper was a devastating attack but difficult to aim. He was very happy with the origami golem, though. That swirling, spaghetti monster of death was absolutely perfect for most of Dave’s needs so far; taking and giving damage while Dave stood in safety. Still, Sam had a lot of powerful abilities now and once Hugh got better, an origami golem might not add that much more to the team’s melee abilities.
No, Dave felt he definitely needed to expand his abilities. It was something he'd talked with Tzu about and they’d decided Dave’s repertoire of battle spells was so deficient that just taking whatever spells were readily available would be fine. He was working on two spell ideas at the moment; A lightning spell and a paper wall spell. For burst damage and battlefield control respectively.
The lightning spell, Dave was using Library Of The Mind and reverse engineering the spell from Ross Geller. It was almost complete. He’d asked Tome and confirmed that channelling the same spell through a spell slot would increase its damage. Although, it’d be likely that other optimisations could be made to the spell as well.
For the paper wall spell, Dave had, ironically, hit a wall. He could print up to a tonne of paper into existence and was certain that he could get up to a few tonnes if he made the paper a temporary summon. No, the trouble was, he couldn’t figure out how to get the wall to stay upright. Making a wall was easy. Making a wall that couldn’t be casually pushed over was very hard. Tome helped him find magic theory on anchoring magic to reference points in space but quickly learned he needed a better foundation in astral-reality interactions anyway so he went back and started learning that.
Hugh had a notebook, courtesy of Dave, in which he was writing down the draft of a publication about summoning Dave. He’d often take out another notebook from his dimensional storage for reference and continue writing. Like Dave, he’d often look up and enjoy the sight of the lake.
Executive Services passed the next two-and-a-bit hours of the ferry ride in blessed relaxation before the platform came into view. It was a veritable floating fortress. A star fortress, in fact. Each point of the star looked like the imposing prow of a great ship.
“It’s not very aerodynamic - well, hydrodynamic, I suppose,” said Dave, looking over the whole thing and noting the magical defensive arrays. “How’s it even move?”
“Magic,” said Hugh simply.
Dave nodded dumbly in front of Sam’s covered smile.
“I guess it doesn’t tear apart when it moves because of magic, too?” said Dave.
Hugh shrugged a weak affirmative.
They disembarked the ferry, walked across the platform and purchased tickets for the Sauvabelin return ferry. There was a half-hour wait so Dave shared a recent transport revelation with his teammates.
“We need a team vehicle,” said Dave. “I’ve gotten more work done today than I have any other day travelling. You too, Hugh. Sam, you think it’s worth the expense?”
Sam smiled in confusion.
“Oh, Sam,” said Hugh, catching onto Dave’s meaning. “We simply must have your blessing on this since it’s more of a boon for us than for you.”
Sam shrugged and grinned.
“I like watching nature,” she sang to her companions and then had an idea that made her grin guiltily, clasp her hands in front of herself and twist. “And, you can buy me books for reading while we are in a vehicle?”
Both Dave and Hugh were silent a second as they realised that Sam hadn’t done any mental maths on how much money Dave’s combined abilities created.
“Oh, errm… Sam…” began Hugh delicately.
“Sam, you could buy everyone in your village a new house and have money left over to buy them all books,” said Dave, who believed in ripping band-aids off quickly.
Sam smiled in confusion and fear.
“Tome has been keeping track of your share. An equal part of all profits,” said Dave and started manifesting Tome. “Tome, show her the party accounts sheet.”
Tome manifested out of Dave’s brain and fluttered open to a balance sheet, hovering in front of Sam’s face. Her mouth fell open.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“I’m rich,” said Sam in a little voice.
Dave had a brainwave.
“Yes, and perhaps we ought to arrange for some of that to be sent to your parents?” said Dave.
“Can’t!” said Sam with a huff. “I can’t get bank account.”
“Hugh, can the bank work with the church to transfer some money?”
Hugh got that far-away look for a moment.
“Yes, indeed. My Lady says it’ll be much like the arrangements adventuring friars of many faiths have with the church of Trade.”
“Vow of poverty, yeah, so their share of the adventuring money goes straight to Trade, who runs a bank, I guess?”
“The banks, yes,” confirmed Hugh.
“Bank monopoly? I hope prices are set in negotiation with Liberty, then.”
“They all compete under Trade.”
“Bank wars!”
“Oh, you’ve read the histories?”
“They’ve actually had bank wars?”
Sam smiled brightly at them both as a way of interruption. Hugh blustered on.
“Oh, yes. Sam. Well, you give the money to me, I give the money to a bank and the bank opens a trust fund for your parents.”
“But Dave has all the money!”
“Yeah, we can just change the numbers on the sheet and it’ll happen,” explained Dave quickly.
“Yes, please! Five silver,” announced Sam.
Tome flicked its pages to show Sam the new balance sheet.
“And, that will go to my parents?” asked Sam.
“After taxes, yes,” said Hugh.
After an explanation of the fees involved in moving money internationally, Sam decided that she hated taxes.
“Anyway,” said Dave. “Now that’s over. Sam, if we’re to acquire a vehicle, we need your permission because we’d be using a share of your money to hire it.”
“Hire it?” inquired Hugh politely.
“Well, they’re exorbitantly expensive, right?” said Dave. Hugh and Sam nodded. “Especially the kind we’d need. We need some kind of all-terrain vehicle. Goes everywhere,” Dave added for Sam who had suddenly switched to her I-didn’t-understand-that smile. “So, we’re looking for a hovercraft at the least, yeah?”
The other two nodded seriously.
“That would definitely make it more affordable,” said Hugh with Sam nodding along. “But affording it at iron rank?”
“I think we can, especially if we take into account two factors: One, that we’ll be getting more jobs done faster and two, we don’t actually have any living expenses.” The team’s faces suggested Dave ought to explain further. “Well, the more jobs done faster thing is self-explanatory, right?” His friends nodded. “The other is living expenses? Most adventurers live in and around a single location? From what I’ve read there’s a few towns in mostly-iron rank zones east of Oullins to choose from? Megève is just one of them? Anyway, staying in town means finding a place to rent.”
“Oh!” said Sam, catching on and smiling up at Dave. “If we always travel, we sleep in your cabin. No need to pay rent!”
“Exactly,” said Dave. “So, you see. If the maths works out in our favour, what we’re doing is cutting living expenses to increase travel expenses but the increased travel gets us more income and thus, more money to pay for the travel expenses.”
“Oh, I see,” said Hugh, catching on. “I don’t suppose you’ve done the maths yet, have you?”
“Can’t find the prices advertised anywhere,” said Dave with a shrug. “And not enough data yet on how many contracts we can do per day. I could make some estimates about how much money I’d get per monster with my looting ability but I’d need some data on how many monsters we’re likely to kill per job.”
Hugh nodded seriously and eyed the crowd.
“I’ll go ask then,” said Hugh.
“You can…” Dave stopped and facepalmed. “Of course you can do that. That’s the most obvious thing to do isn’t it?”
Sam giggled and patted Dave’s head.
“Just a quick survey from the church of Knowledge,” said Hugh with a wink. “Asking the people how many contracts do you complete per trip, how many monsters, what quality. All things are possible with Knowledge, Dave. Have a little faith! I’ll make sure not to go far. See you when the ferry arrives.”
Dave wordlessly handed Hugh a small stack of paper and a few spare pens. Sam and Dave watched as Hugh walked off to into the crowd. Sam once more turned to look at the beauty of the lake, singing to herself. Dave leaned backwards on the rails next to her, facing the other direction and watching Hugh chat amiably with a bronze ranked adventurer who looked to be roping a whole group of iron rankers into taking the quick survey. After a while, Dave spoke.
“You sure you’re comfortable with us spending your money like this? If you’re not, just say and I’ll do it with just mine and Hugh’s.”
“No, is fine,” smiled Sam, shaking her head. “Your plan is to make more money but spend more money? So, about same money, yes?”
“No, my plan is to make a lot more money. Well, my hope,” confessed Dave. “What I’m hoping, I suppose, is that we’ll end up paying twice or three times as much in expenses but make four or five times as much back in return. It just makes me nervous because if it’s such a good idea, why hasn’t every adventure team done it?”
“Stories say many people at higher ranks have vehicle,” said Sam “Maybe just not affordable for most? But you have looting, quests and also contract?”
“Yeah, still,” sighed Dave. “Make double sure that my maths works out, okay?”
Sam smiled and nodded up at him and went back to singing softly at the lake. Dave smiled vicariously with her and watched Hugh politely offer paper to the people around him.
In the last fifteen minutes before the ferry to Sauvabelin arrived, Dave worked on the theory for a spell for summoning temporary paper and surprised himself by getting as far as completing a draft of the spell before the ferry arrived. He was halfway through, double-checking it in disbelief before Sam gently took his arm and started leading Dave towards a quickly forming queue.
“Dave! Here’s the survey res- oh, hello! What’s that look on your face?” said Hugh upon returning to the team.
“Does this look right to you?” asked Dave intently, spinning Tome in the air with a finger so that Hugh could look at the spellcraft.
“Well,” harrumphed Hugh, “spellcraft was never my strong suit but… uh… It seems fine. Unintegrated, though. These booker spell slots spells use most of the same theory as rituals, don’t they?”
“Yeah, pretty much exactly the same except for obvious things like power sources, casting times and such.”
“Well, I must say. Nothing wrong, so to speak. I’m no expert on the details, I’ll assume you looked up the runes for the paper variables and that your dimension maths is correct so I expect it just needs polishing to make it run smoothly. Why do you ask?”
“Because I threw this together from nothing in just 15 minutes.”
“That’s a normal about of time for someone familiar with ritual ma…” Hugh trailed off.
“Yeah, I’m not.”
“Indeed, you’re not.”
“But I was just writing away and this just made sense. The lightning spell I just finished reverse-engineering. I have no idea how the theory behind it actually works.”
They showed their tickets to the deckhand who was checking.
“A talent then?” said Hugh. “They’re common hidden bonuses that come with essence abilities. Everyone’s heard something such as, maybe, a person takes a song essence and suddenly they have perfect pitch. I've never seen an example myself but it’s, you know? Out there in the folklore.”
“It’d certainly explain why I couldn’t figure out anything about that damned lightning. Tome, show him.”
Tome dutifully flicked over a few pages and showed Hugh Dave’s attempts to understand his reverse engineering of the powerful, directed lightning attack Ross Geller had shot at him. While the spell would work, Dave’s attempts to understand it were a mess and Hugh immediately crinkled his face.
“Yeah,” grumbled Dave. “I can’t figure out the link the charge has to the destination.”
“It’s advanced dimension-time magic. I tried to start with-”
“Yes, right there. An M’gana delay on the charge but the timing -”
“The timing, yeah.” Dave pointed to a graph. “The charge is too big and the delay runs out but -”
“But, so does the targeting and it just backfires.”
“Backfires, yeah. But that’s my attempt at understanding. My reverse engineered spell doesn’t backfire because it uses Starksen’s preemptive?”
Hugh nodded and pointed at Starksen’s preemptive in Dave’s reverse-engineered spell.
“I still don’t get it,” admitted Dave, “but at least I don’t need to. I can just copy other people’s spells. I’ll write my own when I understand magic theory better.”
Dave grit his teeth. They’d had this conversion before.
“Tome,” said Sam, gently touching the hard cover. “Dave needs spells to be powerful. Please help him quickly.”
Tome turned to Hugh.
“I’m afraid I too must side against you, Professor Tome. After all, if Dave dies your own ascension is also stopped and without a good array of spells to choose from, die he might.”
“We try, ka!” exclaimed Sam with a mischievous giggle.
“We are, Professor Tome but Dave’s a special case needing special attention, don’t you think?” said Hugh in a very professorial tone of his own. “Physically an adult, yes, but less than a year old in magical terms. A veritable child! Surely, an exception to perfection can be made? Come now.”
“Ah. May I?” said Hugh, taking up a pen from Dave’s pocket.
Dave watched in obvious confusion which turned into relief while he watched Hugh, as a representative of Knowledge, wrote Dave a note excusing him from ‘the usual high quality of a celestial tome’ and permitting ‘spells of ill repute’ and that teaching them to Dave would ‘not be a betrayal of the purity of magical knowledge on the part of the celestial tome.’
“Oh, that’s a bloody relief,” said Dave. “If it had a neck, I’d have wrung it earlier. I spent fifteen minutes trying to get it to understand the idea of a diverse spell selection being useful in battle. Eventually, I realised that it struggles with the concept of physical battles. I didn’t realise that you could give it permission like that.”
“I didn’t,” said Hugh. “Knowledge did.”
“Well, same statement but for her.”
“Even though your familiar comes from The Great Library, realm of the Celestial Book, my Lady is still in charge of all things within her domain in this realm,” said Hugh smugly. “And a visitor like a celestial tome must bow to the rules of the host.”
"This gods and astral beings stuff is nuts"
Hugh looked like he might be offended.
"Dave!" whispered Sam sharply.
"In the sense of understanding it, I mean. Doesn't seem straightforward at all."
Hugh smiled.
"With faith, all things are possible. You will see."
“From a distance, I hope.”
Hugh and Dave returned to completing each other’s sentences about magical theory as the ferry continued moving away from the floating star fortress, past beautiful scenery. The team had picked out a spot on the ferry according to Sam's preferences; in the open with a good view of the water and shore. The late Autumn didn't allow much in the way of sunlight so Dave let out Tzu and mentally directed it to hover over Sam at the same angle as the sun, suffusing her with golden light that she leaned towards and smiled at.
=Sam requires the respite due all warriors today. Rejoice in the sun. Tomorrow, battle.=
A few of the other ferry patrons looked around after hearing that.
"You got a verbal one?" asked one of the adventurers.
"Yeah," said Dave. "Most are non-verbal? Do you know if it makes a difference?"
The adventurer manifested their own astral lantern out of their eyes and shrugged at Dave.
"I don't think so," said the adventurer. "The tutor that mother got me said it didn’t change the abilities that each one develops. I've just always been curious."
The adventurer shrugged, nodded their head in goodbye and kept on walking to their seat.
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Dave and Hugh switched to researching the vehicle idea while on the ferry ride to Sauvabelin, which seemed to solidify Hugh’s opinions on the matter.
“You know, Dave,” remarked Hugh while writing. “This doing research while travelling towards the monsters really is time efficient. Yes, I’ve really come around strongly to the vehicle idea. We simply must find one. Did you have any starting ideas?”
Dave paused his maths and shrugged.
“I’ve not really been able to build a good impression of what’s available. It’s something of an exclusive market and, by the looks of things, mostly in Vitesse. There’s not much written about them except for the occasional mention that an adventuring team, almost always from Vitesse, came into town for an event on some vehicle.”
“I’ve seen a few,” offered Hugh. “Mostly hovercraft. I saw a crab-walker once, a caterpillar walker as well and, one time, a gold ranker with a mechanical sparrow.”
“Flying machine?” asked Dave. “That’d be good if we could get one.”
“You can basically, forget about it,” said Hugh, sadly. “They’re unaffordable by anybody who isn’t silver rank, realistically. Even you with your looting powers. I’ve been thinking about it for the last few minutes and I think I’ve found something of an answer as well as a conundrum.”
“Go on,” said Dave, intrigued.
Sam also turned her head and lent an ear.
“Well, most families who can afford a dedicated transport don’t need to. I was thinking about it and realised that if we weren’t in our unique, cult-related situation and money were no object, the best thing for us to do would be to book ourselves a one-way trip to an established iron-rank adventuring hub like Boiana, Svirsk, Greenstone, Migori or Lashkar Gah.”
“Not Vitesse?” asked Dave.
“Yes!” agreed Sam. “Everyone always say Vitesse best adventuring.”
Hugh shook his head.
“Best for making connections, I think. I borrowed Tome for five minutes earlier and I think Vitesse is only used for iron rank because nobles want to meet other nobles and Vitesse is the gathering place. According to the An Introduction To Adventuring by Arabelle Remore,” Hugh gestured at Tome who flicked to a page from that book, “It’s actually better suited as a bronze to silver zone. Those other places I mentioned are true iron rank zones that rarely manifest bronze rank monsters. They’re a lot safer than Vitesse and the adventurers should be able to get more field time in.”
Dave nodded along. He’d read a lot of that book too but had skipped the section detailing geography options since he didn’t have any options. Still, he had questions about what Hugh was postulating.
“Surely, even in those areas going to and from contracts quickly would be a good move?”
Hugh nodded.
“From what I understand, mounts or vehicles are common between towns but they’re usually dismounted or disembarked before the adventure starts.”
“Speed-running hasn’t been invented yet, I guess,” remarked Dave.
“If I guess your meaning correctly, I’d hazard a guess that it’s been done but isn’t accepted as common practice.”
Dave nodded. That made sense. There was always some lunatic keen for a mad idea.
“So, does it make sense for us to have a vehicle? In our situation?” asked Dave.
“Actually, yes,” said Hugh definitively. “Since we can’t travel internationally without being tracked and setting ourselves up in a single town would be really slow adventuring – since there’d be limited adventuring grounds at our rank. Francalbia just isn’t good for consistently ranked zones. We’d run out of room.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it on my map, too,” said Dave. “This northwestern, Francalbia region of the empire is a patchwork of unranked, iron and bronze zones. Not much silver but any amount of silver is a red-hot exclusion zone for us.”
“Yes! And that’s why a vehicle will do us well,” said Hugh, bouncing on his heels. “Especially a flying vehicle, if it were possible to afford one, because then we could just ignore the intervening terrain and fly to the next contract, avoiding all the zones that we don’t want. Goddess, I think we could even fly most of the time in an unranked zone. Without a vehicle we will almost certainly be slowed down like everyone else by having to use the safe highways and pay the tolls.”
“So, if we can’t afford a flying machine, it sounds like we’d better be able to afford something that can overtake a caravan on the highways?”
“That would be hard to avoid,” said Hugh dryly. “Even the cheapest hovercraft is faster than a caravan. Goddess, I think we could even overtake most caravans just by being a mostly empty caravan.”
“Actually, travelling with a caravan would also give us time to study,” said Dave.
“True.”
“But the caravan might be all we’re able to afford?”
Hugh nodded glumly.
“Then I’ll take out a loan with a bank,” said Dave with a grim look.
Both Hugh and Sam looked surprised.
“With… what collateral?” asked Hugh like a man who has heard about banking but is unsure of himself.
“They don’t… people like us,” warned Sam in a small voice.
Dave looked at them with sceptical, raised eyes.
“I am literally a money machine,” said Dave. “I suspect a bank would love to have me paying them interest for the next ten years.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Hugh.
Sam smiled happily.
Sauvabelin came slowly into view while the team idly studied, watched their surroundings roll by or remembered some old fact about magical vehicles. They disembarked without incident and split up. Sam and Dave took the most direct route out of town with their heads down and hoods of their cloaks raised against the late autumn chill. Hugh lingered at the adventure society contract board to take a copy of everything iron ranked that was northward and then joined his team. Anybody watching from the city would have seen only three cloaked and hooded adventurers walking the north road to Lake Auvernier until they rounded a bend.