So occupied by my personal concerns, I had little attention to spare for the bigger picture. On the outside, the town didn’t seem any different from how it was before. Very little changed in the layman’s life with only the fall of one bridge in the mountain depths. At first. But the quietude on the surface was deceptive. Unseen behind the scenes, gears of change had begun to spin, and little by little, the effects began to manifest at large.

In the following days, word of the incident spread from the Guild to the town and from the town to the neighboring towns and villages, and to the Jarl, and from the Jarl to the royal court of Argento in Bryggford.

By the end of the second week, the news reached us that the Guild’s upper echelons had indeed confirmed the dungeon’s reclassification to D-rank. The same would be conveyed to every branch office in the world along the Guild’s own messenger network and soon everyone everywhere would know that the old slumbering menace under the Ursus mountains had shown a new face of itself. The town watch stationed a permanent guard at the dungeon gate, and they turned away all unqualified visitors.

But that was not the end of the business, hardly even the beginning, only a subtle prelude of other things to come.

Efforts were made to repair the broken bridge, but to no avail. I heard they tried to shoot ropes tied to arrows across the gorge, but the difference in elevation and the battlements constructed to fend off invaders predictably thwarted such plans. Arrows had to be launched in a high arc to carry so far, only to meet the projected top side wall. Potent arbalests were crafted to fire grappling hooks in a more direct line, but there were no such surfaces along the edge where hooks could stick, again by design.

Recruiters set out to find magicians with the necessary skills to shape stone, but I held scant hopes for this plan. There was no mortal magician powerful enough to instantly remake a bridge of that length, lest the world should already know his name. But if the frame was restored only partially, the unsupported end would immediately collapse under its own mass. This was why the dwarves had used reinforcing runes, the secrets of which their surviving kindred would never share with man.

There was no way around it: the old way was gone.

The change in the lay of the world had to be accepted.

What befell in the dungeon didn’t concern only adventurers, and those other concerned parties soon scrambled to make their voices heard. The Northern Merchants’ Guild issued a public bounty of two hundred silver to whosoever could find another crossing over the Earth Vein to the south, or could reliably point out the location of one, and thus reconnect the small kingdoms to the imperial markets. When there were no takers yet by the end of the first week, the bounty was raised to five hundred.

A few days later, a coalition of Argentian landowners declared they would add another five hundred silver to the guerdon. The farms were still safe this year, but if they failed to sell their surplus and buy seed for the next year’s crops before winter fell, the North was liable to face widespread famine and long-lasting repercussions.

The farmers put plainly what the merchants had sought to downplay—that the matter was, for many, that of life and death.

Soon after, Jarl Fossler of Faulsen issued a proclamation that he would add yet five hundred marks more to the pot from his own pockets, if only to encourage the speedy discovery of a new route.

Days rolled by, but no bridges were found.

There was a lot of ground to cover and sparse few D-rankers around, and those who did have the qualifications to enter either returned in hot haste before the first nightfall, less than eager to return, or else were never seen again in this life. To aid people’s waning courage, the reward money was increased yet again.

There were now two thousand silver marks to be had, asking for no grand heroics or superhuman skills, but only a bit of bravery, quick feet, and a good eye.

A frugal person could live out the remainder of his or her expected lifespan with such a sum, perhaps not lavishly, but in decent comfort. I would gladly have added my own life savings to the deal also, if only my imperial bank account were valid in Argento. Alas, the financial institutions on this side and the other were on no better terms than the rulers were, and there was not even a bank in Faulsen.

Hope, however, was not all gone.

Gradually, adventurers from other regions began to assemble, lured by the promise of easy money. Due to the multiple revisions to the sum, very few had accurate, up-to-date knowledge of the size of the bounty, and the expectations were prone to shoot way over the mark. A rumor that the successful bridge-finder would be given his weight in gold by the King soon grew more popular than the official truth. The pledge had to be put formally on paper with signatures from the related parties, and the bill was then nailed on the Guild’s board and the door of the town hall to quiet the endless questioners.

You would expect such a steadily building crowd of seekers would find a way home for me in no time at all.

Regrettably, they achieved little else but added to my troubles. Not half of the new entrepreneurs were of a high-enough rank to be allowed into Baloria. Those able to travel this far from major towns were vagrants and vagabonds free of societal obligations and prior commitments, to which a lifestyle of misery was often a prerequisite. Turned away from the dungeon gate, their only remaining option was the same as my own—to seek promotion by any means available.

The beggarly quest selection suddenly had many more takers, however trivial the labor, and Ms Vera’s days grew busier in response.

Many times, my landlady would try to recruit me into their ranks with assurances of safer income and various other benefits. When indirect suggestions had no effect, she would move to formal requests, then to forceful demands, straightforward threats, and on to flowery sweet-talk, and finally even bribery, but I could only turn her down each time. She took the hint and gave up after I declared I would find another collector for my copper if this continued much longer.

Ms Vera was undeniably correct that working for the Guild was the safest, easiest way to get by, but such contracts also came with terms I couldn’t honor.

My goal wasn't steady life, but to go home. As soon as I would reach rank D, I would dive into Baloria once more. I was also surprised to learn Ms Vera’s salary was a meager fourteen coppers per day. Even less than you got for picking up flowers. The payment matched the required effort in this case too.

Naturally, the increase of traffic in the town was not solely a bad thing.

All human settlements aimed for growth. The disaster with the bridge may have been a setback for the North as a whole, but a stroke of fortune for Faulsen. The newcomers weren’t only taking all available work, their presence also created new job opportunities. The tourists needed rooms to stay, food to eat, tools, equipment, and medicine. Wealthier fortune-seekers would even rent or buy abandoned cabins.

Many depended on alcohol to forget the horrors of the stone halls, and burned away their slim earnings in the local pubs and taverns night after night. The drunken raiders would then vent their disappointments by brawling and causing general disorder, while others would turn to ransacking the townspeople's homes in place of caves. The town watch then, finding themselves direly shorthanded in the face of the sudden anarchy, could only—hire adventurers to bolster their ranks. I heard several gave up adventuring altogether to become full-time guardsmen and bouncers.

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Patrolling the streets, protecting merchants, escorting transports, delivering messages, and such like errands were the type adventurers tended to favor. Quests of that nature were gladly taken over harvesting weeds and digging up roots. And so I didn’t need to fight over my farm as much as I feared.

I began to get the hang of the trade too.

I was never much of a botanist, but I understood the basics. To flourish, plant life required three things above all else: warmth, light, and water. So I would conjure a Water Sphere, let the rising April sun warm it, and then dowse the hills by the Grim Oak Grove, to revive the stirring flora weeks ahead of its usual schedule. A bit underhanded, but desperate times called for desperate measures. This kept me in business through the hectic days when the town was too much abuzz for a maid to fit in.

In the dingy wood, I also found herbs, roots, and mushrooms to add variety to the dinner table. The general goods store paid as much for brassroot as the dyer for firecups, but the amounts required were more reasonable. I was making money. Very little of it, but there was certainly capital coming along. And then...

...I was back to staring down the quest board again.

“…”

I thought I had discovered a veritable copper mine, but failed to consider that even if the supply were virtually infinite, the same didn’t apply to demand. The dyer wouldn’t need endless piles of redcups, or dog roses, and the herbalist could only move so much ointment per season. When the businesses had filled their stock, it would take time before they asked for more. Which left me unemployed once more, in the beginning of my third week in Faulsen.

What I had assumed would be a delay of a week or two at worst was now looking to take a full month at the very least. I had a bad feeling it would take more.

After my landlady’s fees and other necessary expenses, I had only managed to save eighty-eight coppers. Nary one silver. It was not much of a war fund. I also had to invest in new soap, and later a small utility knife and whetstone, so that I wouldn’t ruin my primary weapon by chopping up sandy roots, or skinning hares and squirrels. The knife was the priciest, though secondhand. It was a tool of many uses, a daily necessity, and needed to be of a high-enough quality.

Eighty-eight coppers. When I could have used a million.

So I looked bravely at the board again.

A handful of dungeon-related quests had appeared on it over the past week.

Slay ten goblins, rank D. Retire ten ghouls, rank D.

Map the full district of Qiln, rank E. Map the district of Arden, rank E.

Retrieve samples of water from the wells of Arden, rank E.

Retrieve tails of Frostails, rank C.

Retrieve intact troll eyes, rank C. Retrieve an intact mountain troll heart, B.

All required going into Baloria. There was no point in me even looking at them. It was demoralizing.

I contemplated sending a letter to Ferdina. It seemed an obvious thing to do, but there were complications to this as well.

A standard letter had to go around the mountains by the highway. It was possible I would be home faster than my message, robbing it of any meaning. The Guild on the other hand used trained birds to send messages to the other bureaus. It was much faster and the birds could cross over the mountains too. But there weren’t a lot of birds in use and the further the destination, the higher the odds of failure. The service was also reserved for important correspondence, and was not open to all members.

If I begged Ms Vera, she could maybe help smuggle a short message for me among the other mail. But birds were birds. There was a non-zero possibility the message never reached the recipient, or ended up in the wrong hands. For previously discussed reasons, it was better not to let outsiders know there was someone connected to the Imperial House trapped on this side.

As galling as it was, I dared to send nothing. Not one word of assurance.

I would have done so only for my personal comfort, at any rate. I was worried ill about the Princess, but maybe assuming too much in thinking the feeling was mutual. What was one maid to royalty? If I ever made it back, that was fine, but if I didn’t...another servant would be trained to take my place. The end.

“...”

Was that truly the case? Did I think so only to soothe myself? The thought that the high and mighty of my homeland were, even now, losing sleep over one wretched servant, while I could do nothing to ease their worries—that was far worse than anything else.

It was intolerable.

My wandering gaze then landed on a peculiar post in the low corner of the wide board.

> Subject: Need Testers!

>

> Rank: F* (Very Easy)

> Freshly moved to Faulsed with her shop, alchemist Vivian Townsend is developing new elixirs for adventurer use, and is looking for volunteers to test their effects. Strong, healthy members of both sexes are welcomed!

>

> Schedule: As soon as possible!

>

> Reward: 10 coppers.

>

> *Please consult your nearest physicist before attempting.

The task sounded rather daunting, but the client being an alchemist attracted me. Restorative potions, antidotes, and such were of great aid out there in the field, and if the assignment went smoothly, I could perhaps negotiate a small discount too. Maybe it was better to look beyond the sketchy job description and meager fee in this case, and favor potential long-term benefits?

This person wouldn’t be experimenting on anything genuinely dangerous, right?

I could fix most damage with magic, so you could say it was the perfect assignment for me. What doesn’t kill you…

…It won’t kill me, will it?

Only a little hesitant, I took the bill.