“We just got stranded, didn’t we.” I said, staring at the mess of tracks left by the caravan wagons. It looked like they must have left in hurry, which made sense considering the circumstances.
Sanon looked over at me. If she were human, you’d probably be able to see bags under her eyes. We were both exhausted, that was for certain. “I think so…” she sighed.
Staying anywhere near Nauphi was unlikely to be a good idea, with our only saving grace being that my sack had been left behind about 100 meters from the town, the contents haphazardly strewn about on the ground as though it had been thrown out of the wagon in motion.
“Aaand my phone’s broken. Nice. Not like I wanted to keep that in any kind of good or good-adjacent condition.” I complained as I turned my attention to the other items. My sandworm armor was missing from the mess — I assumed it to still be on the wagon.
I hope they get some good coin out of it. I’m guessing it must have been Brom that threw the sack out, otherwise I might be without a map, assuming we find it here.
Sanon found my tent cloth and the associated stakes, but none of the structural pieces, as they hadn’t been in the sack to begin with. She rolled up the cloth and handed it over to me, and I promptly placed it inside of the sack.
Moments later, Sanon found the map as well, which was a massive relief. Knowing where the next town was would be a boon assuming Oresco hadn’t spread the news there or something.
Oh thank god. My Earth clothes are still here.
I hate to admit it, but my hoodie and jeans were items of high value to me. Not only did they hold quite a bit of sentimental value, almost as much as my phone had, but they were also my only other set of clothes. And if my hunch was correct, then they might have been the only other set I’d have for quite a while — clothes are probably expensive, and as you readers know, I am chronically broke.
I found Sanon to be staring quite intently at my hoodie. “That robe looks awful expensive Max. Is it from Earth?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s from Earth, though it wasn’t very expensive. I got it for like 20 bucks from a thrift store, but this, in addition to my jeans and my phone-” I said, holding out my now crushed phone. “-is all I have left of Earth, so I’d prefer to keep them around.”
While we talked, I also found my most important possession of all: my screwdriver. Finally, I could stab things.
“So, how do you reckon we proceed?” I asked, looking at the road going east. According to the map, there were two roads we could take. The more well-maintained of the two would take us by the coast. On that route, it would take us around two and a half months, if not longer, to get to the city of Arnekussos. If we wanted to find a town as soon as possible though, we’d want to take the lesser maintained of the two roads, which would bring us to Bybros.
Sanon took a gander at the map, considering our options. I was willing to let the Helsan native navigate in my place, even if she didn’t know the area. She might be able to recognize problems that I wouldn’t notice until it was too late. “We should go to Bybros, even if they already know about your… escapades. The chance that they don’t know is too valuable to ignore.”
“That sounds like a plan then! Though I think that road is on the other side of the town, so we’ll have to go around…”
It took us about half an hour to get to the road leading to Bybros. Like the main trade route we’d been on with the caravan, it wasn’t paved. Unlike the trade route, however, it was considerably more overgrown. It clearly hadn’t been used nearly as much as the main route. Still, the road was easy enough to follow, as the ground was still more worn than the surrounding terrain.
I hadn’t been entirely certain of the distance from here to Bybros since I wasn’t willing to trust the scale of the map. The distance looked comparable to the trip from Dilanja to Tokal, so I was under the assumption that it wouldn’t take very long. A month at most considering that I had to stop to rest pretty frequently back in the desert.
Sanon and I looked back on Nauphi as we walked, smoke rising from several areas of the now nearly destroyed town. Not my greatest moment, not by a long shot. Surely this wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
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A non-zero number of hours later, Sanon and I found that the tropical rainforest we had grown so accustomed to during our short time with the caravan had begun to fade into a wetland. Swamps, vast shallows of water, that sort of thing. Despite the connotations associated with swamps, it was actually quite the sight. Well, during the day it had been rather drab, what with all the murky water and questionably sized insect analogous life flitting about the place. I saw a number of fish-like creatures prowling the waters as well.
I even saw what looked to be a strange fish with an armored head. I hadn’t got a very good look at it, but the jaws on the thing definitely didn’t inspire any sort of confidence. I decided that it would be best to keep my distance from the water with stuff like that around.
Sorry Mr. Steve Irwin, but I’ll have to leave the dangerous wildlife to people like you for now. I think I’ve had enough near-death experiences involving animals for now.
Unfortunately, keeping my distance to the water would prove to be a bit of a challenge. Apparently, wetlands have a lot of water. My shoes were soaked, and Sanon didn’t seem to be enjoying it any more than I was. The road had decided that not only was flora welcome upon its surface, but that water was too! I could still see what was and was not road, but man was it annoying to differentiate. One moment I could be walking on mostly solid ground, and the next I would be chest-deep in muddy waters. Fortunately, I hadn’t yet actually experienced such a fate. I had managed to maintain my footing and keep everything above my ankles dry.
I felt a tap on my shoulder from behind, scaring the living hell out of me. It appears I managed to pass the acrobatics check by just a hair though, as I flailed around in an attempt to regain the footing I had so nearly lost. It would be some actual luck then, that I was pulled from falling by the culprit of the shoulder tapping — Sanon.
“Hey-! Be careful! There’s some really nasty things in that water, so don’t go falling now!” she reprimanded. “We should stop for a bit. Not long though, I just need to cool off.”
I suppose I could use a short rest too. The desert heat was bad, but it was dry. This hellhole is humid, and maybe even a bit hotter!
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Sanon and I then stopped momentarily as she took a moment to air out her robe. The caravan probably still had her armor set, not that wearing it in a humid-ass swamp would have been a good idea. How she hadn’t been melting in the heat before now had me quite confused.
I watched as Sanon aired out her robe. Ever seen a pinecone? If so, then that’s about what she looked like. All of her hairs were standing on end as she stretched. The translucent hairs on her face and arms were flushed a deep crimson as well, demonstrating that yes, they are used for heat regulation. My curiosity about dwarves’ biology hadn’t abated since first meeting Sanon, and I had some lingering questions. The only problem was how to actually raise these questions without either sounding like a creep, or just not making any sense. I decided to start with something innocent.
“Hey Sanon, do your hairs puff out when you’re hot or am I missing something?”
Sanon’s face betrayed a rather confused expression, with maybe a hint of curiosity. “Yes? How do you cool off?”
“Uh. I- I sweat?”
Sanon simply cocked her head at this.
Oh boy time to explain what sweat is.
…
So I explained what sweat is. Throughout the explanation, Sanon’s face shifted from curiosity, to disgust, and then to mild fascination… I think. That last one was kinda vague actually. Sanon had asked more questions about it, but most of them were conversational dead ends due to my limited knowledge on human biology.
“So does it just come out of your skin?”
“Yeah we have tiny holes all over our bodies called pores, and our sweat is produced in and excreted from glands under the skin. Or at least I think that’s how it works, I’m not a biologist. Should I assume that dwarves don’t sweat then?”
Sanon laughed. “No, we definitely don’t do that. I don’t want to imagine how it would feel to get wet whenever I run. Is it really that effective?”
I put my hand to my chin in contemplation. “I dunno about modern times, I’m not an athlete… but early in our history, hunters could pursue prey until it collapsed from exhaustion. We don’t really do that anymore though.”
“Why not?”
“Agriculture and animal husbandry. In short, we learned that we can choose where plants grow and animals live. Hunters still exist and do their thing, but only really for sport or to curb the population of pest animals like deer.” I said, knowing full well Sanon did not know what a deer was.
Sanon nodded in understanding. “Mhm! We have farms back home, but we can only grow in the northern part of our territory where snow is less common.”
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We had resumed our walking while we conversed. We ended up trading info about our respective cultures, which ended up being pretty fun. Apparently dwarves have a system of interconnected communities almost like tribes. Each one has a specialization based on their particular region.
The majority of the tribes exist in the Lontish shield region, which is a colder region in the south of the Lontish Commune. The shield region actually extends into the southern half of the territory of the Cher Horde, but that’s not something I knew back then.
Dwarven tribes, or “Euçpa” as Sanon put it, all tend to have an industrial specialization of some kind. The tribes around where the Bosznolaugna river meets the southern glacier specialize in boatmaking and the like, which is where Sanon comes from. This caused a bit of confusion for me, since she said she’d been an apprentice at a forge.
“Wait, but weren’t you were a forge apprentice?”
Initially I thought it would have made sense for tribes to extend themselves outside of their trades, and I was indeed right.
Sanon seemed confused by my question before realizing what I had meant. “Oh! I went to live as an apprentice in a different euçpa. The forge at home wasn’t allowed to take on apprentices.”
Apparently there was an agreement between the tribes over trade specializations or something, she never really went into detail about it.
Our conversation continued into the night, but it came to an abrupt halt when we noticed the goddamn lightshow the wetland had decided to put on. The lights here were different from the ones I had seen at the river the caravan had stopped at though. Some of them were solid and consistent, while others were strobing as though to communicate information of some kind. Others still were slowly pulsing as though the lights themselves were breathing.
Bioluminescence. All kinds of species of plant and animal used it here, and night time was the prime time for such a display. Some of the flowering trees used a consistent green-blue glow, though for what I did not know. I spotted a few insect-like animals utilizing it too, perhaps a similar behavior to fireflies on Earth?
Even under the murky water I could faintly see lights, though I imagine their uses may have been different. Anglerfish on Earth use the light to attract prey, though here in the wetland the conditions for such a behavior to emerge might not be present. But like I said before, I’m no biologist.
As entranced as Sanon and I were by the Helsan wildlife, I couldn’t help but find my gaze drawn skyward to the moons. The smaller Mis had definitely seen better days, even more so now. Fissures had formed on the surface as the tidal forces of Lus slowly ripped it apart, and it seemed that now the end of Mis had finally begun. The diminutive moon had begun having larger pieces of it ripped away, one of them having already impacted the larger Lus. If Lus hadn’t been tectonically active before, then it definitely just got a jumpstart.
Sanon was horrified and confused at this. “W-what’s happening to Lus and Mis?!”
“Ahh that would be our good friend the roche limit.” I said nonchalantly.
“That doesn’t tell me anything!”
“Oh uhh right. It’s basically what happens whenever two celestial bodies get too close to each other. So I guess a good example would be right above us. Lus and Mis got too close, and now Mis is getting ripped apart by gravity.”
Sanon’s face went blank. It seemed that my explanation had been lost on her.
“Wait! But what about the goddesses?! They’re supposed to be engaged!!” Sanon nearly shouted. For whatever reason, it seems this turn of events had her quite distressed.
“Well it looks to me like they’re getting a rather divine divorce.” I joked.
Sanon gasped. “Max! Now is not the time to be making jokes!”
[Did someone say Jokes?!]
Not now Literature! Fuck outta here! Do NOT make me do the thing! I didn’t build this damn machine for nothing!
[I know just the god that would have enjoyed that joke, but fine, I’ll go somewhere that I’m appreciated.]
Not without DSC approval you aren’t!
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Where was I? Oh yeah, writing.
So after Sanon’s worldview was shattered, we turned in for the night. Want to know how we slept when the ground was covered in water? Too bad! I’m not telling!
Ok we slept in a tree. I regret sleeping in a tree. Do you know what it’s like to wake up with a massive fucking bug just sitting on your chest?! Bro was just breathing in my face! And now? Now the fucker is following me! I named him Max Jr.! I love him very much!
So anyway Max Jr. is like… a weird beetle looking thing. He flies and he makes an awful whirring noise when he does and I hate it.
“Are you- are you keeping that thing???”
“Yeah I guess. I don’t think he’s leaving any time soon.”
And so with a bug on my back we continued on to Bybros!