Tav spent only a day in the woods, almost short enough a stay to make him regret spending his rank on Wilderness Survival. The forest was cool and the animals timid, and when wolves had attacked him he'd easily dispatched two and scared off the rest. The wolves were real animals, not dungeon monsters, which he'd expected from Karmere but was still disappointed by. Tav had set his achievements and kills to private until he could get the obviously human name off of the list. Real animals, though, weren't added to his recent kill log and wouldn't push that name any lower. Real animals didn't give any experience either, and Tav's status screen stayed at an agonizing 84999/85000.

Staring at the bodies of the wolves, Tav wished again that he'd brought along anything sharp. Iron-ranked Wilderness Survival wasn't nearly enough to let him butcher an animal with two blunt sticks. He had the vague idea of making a stone knife, but the dull pressure from the system told him he wasn't skilled enough for that, either. In the end he'd given up, left the wolves where they'd fallen, and kept walking.

The next morning, after sleeping in the fork of a tree, Tav followed a river until he stumbled on a road, unpaved and rutted with wagon tracks. Wilderness Survival suggested a direction to take and Tav obeyed. Only a few hours after that, Tav came to an outpost—a small gatehouse with a single guard sitting at a table outside. Tav inspected the man from a distance. Here he was: the first Karmeri that Tav had ever encountered. He looked... disappointingly normal. He was wearing light armor, leather reinforced with metal plates, and had a spear resting at his side. Tav had seen hundreds like him in Perrigen.

Tav straightened his clothes and tried not to look like a violent heretic before he approached. He'd been able to wash off most of the blood in a stream, although there was nothing he could do about the shredded clothes. He tucked the branches into his belt, raised a hand in a gesture of "look, no weapons, see?" and shouted a greeting at the man. "Hullo, the post!"

"Hullo, the road!" the guard responded. Apparently Tav didn't look obviously murderous. Or if he did, the guard didn't seem like he was paid enough to care."I was separated from my group," Tav said. He scrambled to think of a lie—he didn't have any relevant system skills, just his own practice in lying—so he decided to stick to semi-honesty. "I've had a rough go of it, I'm so glad to see a friendly face. Has anyone come down this road recently?"

"Not this road, no," said the guard. "What happened to you, kid—bandits? We'll have to let someone know."

"No, not bandits," Tav said. "Uh, wolves. Not too strong, though. I'm just trying to get back to my people."

"Where were they going? I can point you in the right direction."

So much for honesty. "Uh. I'm really terrible with names," Tav said. "Uh. The city was called—it started with a T, I think?"

The guard frowned. "Tyburgh? That's back the other way. You're well lost, son."

"No, probably not that. Maybe it was a D, then? Or a B?"

"Ah, that'd be Brightben," the guard said. "Were your group traders? They probably took the north fork instead of the river road, but they'll both get you to Brightben eventually. It's a long walk, though, especially with you in a state like that. You don't look like you have much in the way of supplies." The guard hummed thoughtfully and checked a schedule marked beside the gatehouse door. "Ah, you're in luck, son. There's a different trader who's due through here in the evening. She's a kind sort, I'm sure you can wrangle a ride from her. Your folks might not be happy to see their competition, but I'm sure they'll be glad to see you."

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"That sounds wonderful," Tav said. "Ah, the evening, you said? Is it okay if I"—he gestured vaguely at the table—"if I stay here for a while and wait for her?"

"Just what I was about to suggest," the guard said. "I'm Rutherford, by the way. And you?"

"Octavian. Just call me Tav."

"Of course. Now, Tav, I have an important question to ask you." Rutherford pulled a worn deck of cards from inside his jacket. "D'you know how to play Rum Knuckle, or am I going to have to teach you?"

----------------------------------------

Tav did not, in fact, know how to play Rum Knuckle. He knew how to play several other games, gambling being a favorite habit of many delvers, but he didn't want to mention that in case one of them happened to be more local than he'd thought. In the long list of stupid ways to accidentally out himself as a Perrigenese heretic, "suggested a better card game" had to be near the top. He let the guard teach him how to play, kept his mouth shut about the game being essentially a worse version of Gin Knocker, and lost several hands in good cheer. Out of curiosity Tav palmed a couple cards. [Grace] wasn't very powerful at only Silver rank, but it was one of his most broadly useful skills.

Grace (Silver)

Passive

Your agility, dexterity, and kinesthetic sense are all improved by a minor amount!

In a fight, [Grace] helped with dodging, aim, and coordination. Here, it guided Tav through some easy sleight of hand that would have gotten him in a fight back in the Academy. Rutherford, though, was either less touchy or less observant than the Academy students had been. Tav slipped the cards back into the deck and lost the next few games, as a show of good faith.

A few hours passed. Rutherford didn't seem inclined to small talk, which Tav was grateful for—less chatter meant less chance for him to screw up. The sun was nearing the horizon when a mule-drawn wagon emerged from the woods, a lanky brunette waving at them from the front seat. "That'll be Annria," Rutherford said. "She's the trader I mentioned earlier."

"Hullo, the post!" Annria shouted.

"Hullo, the road!" Rutherford yelled back. "Annria, is that you?"

"Aye, Ford, it is!"

When the wagon pulled up outside the outpost, Rutherford held out a hand to help the woman down. "Just the standard resupply for us today," he said, "but Annria, if you're still going to Brightben I've got a passenger for you! Don't cheat him too hard, you hear? Poor kid got separated from his folk and is going to try to find them again in town." Two other people, probably either guards, porters, or both, hopped out of the back of the wagon and started unloading crates.

Tav looked Annria over. She was tall, wiry, perhaps a year or two older than him, with the tan and muscles of hard work outside but without the scars of delving.

She eyed Tav back suspiciously. "A passenger, Rutherford? Has he given you any trouble?"

"No trouble at all, just a few rounds of Knuckle."

She kept looking at Tav. "And he was with a larger group? Have you seen them?"

"Nah, they took the other road. What's fare to Brightben these days, about one crown and twenty?"

"More like one and fifty, Ford. I carry cargo, not passengers." She paused. "But if I'm taking him to Brightben... you know, I wasn't actually intending to go that way. But Rod and Mar could use a break, and seeing as there's a youngster in trouble, I could go there and back quick-like. You've got an emergency mule? I can take that, drop off the boy, ride back, be done quick. Call it a public service."

Rutherford looked bewildered. "Riding double? You'll break my mule. Why so generous, Annria, do you recognize the boy? He got a rich family missing him or something?"

"More 'something,'" she said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Kid, you go wait by the cart, all right? I've got to settle up with Ford before we go."

"I'm not a kid." Tav finally spoke up. "I mean—okay, I know saying that makes me sound like a kid, but I'm not. I'm eighteen. My name's Tav."

"Good for you, Tav," Annria said. "Please, do me a favor and wait by the cart. Ford and I need to have a quick chat."