“We leave in an hour!” A man shouts from the seat of a horse-drawn carriage. He’s wearing almost all brown, save his dirty-grey shirt. His hair is short and messy, brown eyes and looks more or less like a farmer. His eyes scan across the cobblestone area his carriage is currently in, nodding and counting on his fingers once he sees people reacting.
Around the area were tall stone walls, buildings supported by wood but mostly made of stone, and a bunch of people. A large gate leading through the wall had two massive doors flanking an incredibly worn road leading out of the city into the forests surrounding it. The sun had risen a while ago but was still far from its peak as a gentle breeze barely moved the air around.
“I know the deadline is when the carriage leaves, but they’re already cutting it a bit close, don’t you think, Shiira?” A human man with just shorter than shoulder length, wavy dark brown hair commented to his companion as they sat on a bench along the border of the cobblestone area. He was of average height, somewhere around 185cm (~6ft 1inch), with a strong but slender build, brown eyes, and a scar across his right cheek. He was wearing leather armour with metal pieces added at choice locations. A blade hung at either hip, a short sword at his right and a longsword at his left, hinting at the man's dual-wielding nature.
“An hour is a long time, maybe they are just getting everything ready?” An anthropomorphic fox woman with a single bushy tail replied to the man. Her accent was thick but understandable, still mastering the language and learning certain nuances. She was about 150cm tall (~5ft), her body slender to the point of underdeveloped. She wore only simple leather armour and pants not fully reaching her ankles, a backpack and a bandoleer of small blades and spikes in small sheathe. “Not everyone is as used to this as you are, Yalen.”
She smiled at Yalen, seeming to compliment him but also using his experience as a potential excuse for the others he was waiting for to arrive.
“I suppose. But it would be a shame if someone, or everyone, in my group were late. I would hate to go into the unknown with just the two of us.” He looked at the carriage, considering the possibility of having to go almost alone, it wasn’t a positive thought.
His mind briefly remembered the briefing, as well as the writeup and notes given to him once he took the frontier exploration job. His experience with the Guild had given him a group-leader position. Though, except for Shiira, he didn’t have anyone else at the time. The normal Guild process in cases like these was to gather a party and assign them to the leader. Then they would just meet up at a decided location, the logical one in this case was the carriage taking them to the ship. Often it worked out fine but if you were unlucky you might end up with people who had very conflicting personalities.
Shiira inhaled to reply but stopped herself as a large shadow hid the sun from her. Looking towards it she couldn’t do much but almost cower in fear as a massive man stepped up to them.
The man was a giant, easily over 7ft tall, built like someone who had been fighting his whole life. With short dusty-brown hair and piercing grey eyes, his incredibly muscular body was covered with scars and healed wounds. He wore a leather-covered breastplate where the leather reached down to his waist. On his back was a sturdy backpack with a short bow attached to the side, but also a massive two-handed sword scaled to the man’s size.
“You Yalen?” His deep and rough voice asked with the tone of someone considering murdering you if you replied wrong.
Yalen looked at the man, there was an almost familiar feeling to him. Not that they had met before but rather that the aura he radiated reminded him ever so slightly of a warrior lost in bloodlust.
“I am” He replied in kind to the giant man. Not in a rude manner, just more direct than normal.
The man looked the two of them over for a few seconds. “Toron Ghel. I’m part of your group.” He didn’t seem to wait for a reply but simply sat down on the same bench as the two were already on, the wood creaking a little under the man’s massive weight.
It seems that he took care to sit as far at the end as he could. Yalen wasn't sure if it was for Shiira’s sake that he sat that far away or if he just wanted to sit more alone. There was easily room for three more men between them.
Choosing to ignore this for now and trying to start on a positive note, he took out some notes he was given by the Guild as part of the information package.
“Ah yes, Toron. You’re a combatant, right?” Having found the name on the piece of paper with some extra details, he just wanted to verify that it was correct.
Toron remained silent, simply nodding. Just looking at the man one could easily assume that he would be doing the heavy lifting. The sword on his back alone seemed to weigh the same as a small person, perhaps not far from Shiira’s.
Yalen chose to look at the positives, this man looked somewhat daunting but there was a certain quality in his gaze. It was hard to properly explain what it was, but it could be loosely defined as experience. Yalen recognized it, but the other question was if Toron would be able to follow orders, he had signed up for this but only time would show.
The conversation died down, it was hard to casually converse with the new addition to the duo. Shiira wanted to say something but she couldn’t help herself from just keeping awkwardly quiet, nor could she help herself in trying to scoot a little closer to Yalen, further away from Toron.
Toron understood the awkwardness his presence created. He wanted to do something if only to fill the silence, but he was at a loss for what to say. He didn’t have very much experience in social situations past intimidation, which was part of why he was going on this journey in the first place.
It didn’t take too long until the uncomfortable silence was broken by an oddly enthusiastic voice. A short male kobold walked up to the group on the bench. He was wearing a padded leather coat over a tight-fitting leather armour set. His purple-hued scales were mostly covered by clothing. His eyes were covered by some smoked lens goggles, not too uncommon for many of his kind; their darkness-attuned eyes didn’t adjust well to the harsh light of the sun. He had a small crossbow dangling at his side hanging over an ornate and expensive-looking messenger-bag style leather pouch. Across his chest was a bandoleer of multicoloured vials and potions. No matter how you looked at him, his appearance screamed Alchemist.
“I am Harroc, Harroc di Ywratsi. Nice to meet you!”
He was no taller than knee height to most people, he held out his tiny hand towards Yalen, seemingly having recognized him. Holding a piece of paper in his other hand one could assume that he had the details of his appearance there.
Yalen tilted forwards on the bench and reached out his hand in return. “Nice to meet you, Harroc.”
Checking his notes after the little introduction he had him down as an Alchemist.
“You’re an Alchemist? My notes say that you bring more than just potions?”
Yalen did have better notes than this, but he kind of wanted the little lizard to explain it himself.
Harroc tilted his head, seemingly pondering something. But in the end, he seemed to have persuaded himself to reply instead.
“I am a herbalist, an Alchemist, I know very little magic but I know a lot about Explosions.” He put a strange hard pressure on ‘a lot’ when explaining about explosions.
“Ah, you’re one of those alchemists.” Yalen smiled at him, emphasizing the word ‘those’. He had heard and read about alchemists a bit. They were mages... sort of. They had only a very, very small amount of mana, so they couldn’t cast spells, but they could amplify it with the addition of normal chemistry, making magic in their own right. Most used it to make drinkable spells in the form of healing potions or buffing magic, but certain individuals enjoyed the unstable side of things
Harroc smiled, the fact that the bossman knew what he was about made things much easier. Nodding eagerly to the statement. “I also know things.” He smiled with a wide toothy grin. “I read a lot.”
Harroc was knowledgeable about a lot of things, not all of it immediately useful but he was on a personal quest for knowledge after all.
Sitting down on a grassy patch, reading and noting things in his notebook, he made himself comfortable, seemingly accustomed to waiting.
Yalen turned to Shiira, about to make some comments about their new friend, but abruptly froze before he could say a word. He felt a strange chill come rolling across his feet, like someone opened a door in a warm room, the cool air crawling by his legs.
Turning towards what he felt was the source, he saw a large red-furred fox with nine large bushy tails and deep yellow eyes standing there, looking at him. She looked like a somewhat normal fox of her kind had it not been for the nine tails. There was a strange intelligence behind her eyes, Yalen’s intuition strangely urging him to speak to it, not as an animal but as a person.
“Can I... help you?” He still felt a bit uncertain, there was supposed to be another fox person on the roster, but he didn’t expect an actual fox.
“Yes. I think so.” The fox replied in the common tongue, with no weird accents or yelps or anything you’d expect an animal to speak. Her feminine voice sounded like just someone speaking.
It caught Yalen off guard ever so slightly, not enough to react to it, but enough that he started to wonder if the notes were wrong and if he was supposed to have a sapient fox on his team.
“I’m Evesi.” The fox didn’t clarify anything more than this. She just found a patch of shade and laid down in it, waiting.
This forced Yalen to double-check his notes. There was a surprising amount of information on her in them, much more than on the others.
Evesi was listed as a Cleric of an unknown deity or godly force. She defined it as the void, not a void or one of several, but specifically as ‘the void’. It held personal importance enough for her to obtain powers and abilities from it, however, it also changed her perspective on reality. She had strange abilities over the dead, raising corpses of anything that used to live with incredible ease, however, she was also an incredibly good healer. The only reason the Guild even approved of her was her strange morals, though hard to pin down they were always positive regarding the party she was in.
Yalen didn’t feel entirely comfortable having her with the group, but they needed a skilled healer, and she was vetted by the Guild so she fell under an acceptable grey zone.
“My notes have you down as a healer, what else can you do?” Yalen again had more notes on her but wanted her to introduce herself properly. It was also sort of a test of trying to hide things.
Evesi looked at the man that was going to be her boss. “I told the man everything he wanted, it should be there?” She tilted her head in confusion.
“Didn’t they record their notes and share them? Or was it just that the haste of things had them miss a few things?”
She didn’t mind sharing, she never hid her Necromancy, even though it tended to make people a bit uncomfortable.
“I can heal, I can make you stronger, faster and so on. I can make your weapons burn or freeze your targets, I’m very hard to kill, I can shapeshift and I can bring friends if I have access to corpses!” She sounded honestly happy about the latter thing.
Yalen didn’t exactly know how to handle this, he might not have brought her with him if it was up to him, however, he didn’t choose the group; it was done by the Guild. He was just given leadership over the group.
Shiira had it almost a bit harder, it seemed that this Evesi was the same species as her but higher in rank, or at least had more experience and lived longer. If the legends were true about her kind then they would grow more tails as they grew in power, age or experience... nobody knew but there was more of something. Given the other natural abilities like shape-shifting, something that Shiira also didn’t have, she started feeling a bit inadequate. It was the human equivalent of a day-one bodybuilder comparing himself to someone like Toron.
Yalen wanted to ask further about most of the things she listed, but he was again interrupted, this time by a white-haired man.
This man looked oddly average, yet inexplicably attractive. Seemingly wearing only a light blue robe, some leather shoes and his backpack. His white loose hanging hair reached his shoulders. Though not underdeveloped, he was not meant for physical prowess.
“Aldar Dant, at your service.” He made a fancy bow and sent them an oddly warm smile.
The first thing Yalen noticed was just how captivating the man was. Yalen didn’t feel any compelling feelings or anything feeling unnatural, but he just recognized that this man was strikingly attractive, even for being as lanky as he was.
Quickly glancing over his notes, this Aldar was listed down as a Fire mage, quite skilled at that. But besides magical knowledge and a substantial level of knowledge in fire magic, this man didn’t bring too much to the table.
Yalen sighed. He had read the notes before but for some reason, he expected something else. It appeared that he was given the weird group.
Getting up from the bench Yalen wanted a proper introduction, but they might as well just get in the carriage and take it there.
“Everyone, please get your things and board the carriage, we can talk in there.” He smiled honestly at the group, they might be a weird bunch but that didn’t mean that they were useless or anything but just a bit odd. He had been with odd people before, and you can be surprised at just how much you can end up putting your trust in the people you least expect.
Yalen, almost as if by example, started walking towards the carriage, making sure that Shiira came along. Mostly for her sake he kept her a bit close, she was good at what she did but she didn’t do too well socially yet.
The carriage driver looked over Yalen and the bunch of people following him. “I got six of you, this your group?” The man waved a paper almost as if he wanted to prove that his statement was correct.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“That’s correct.” Yalen nodded. “Once we’re settled, we can leave if you want.” He knew that his group were the only ones in this carriage, not a bad idea to split the different groups per carriage. The trip to the docks where the ships are to set off takes a full day, not counting when they would camp for the night on the way. There was some time for the group to get to know each other, and to see if anyone in particular simply could not stand each other. Better that they worked that out before it’s too late so they could swap out some members before they board the ship.
Yalen was the first one to board, helping Shiira to get into the carriage. Not that she needed it but she took the aid nonetheless.
The rest of the crew piled in one after another, the whole carriage creaking a little to the side as Toron entered, though righting itself as the rest spread out their weight inside the simple enclosed wooden carriage. It had seen quite some use but the sturdy construction still had many years left. There were some simple windows, the boards fastened together acting as shutters. Yalen reached over to unlatch them and swung them open to allow for some airflow. Two benches were built into either side of the entrance, a shorter one connecting them along the far wall.
The group settled into the U-shaped seating arrangement, Harroc being the last to enter. His smaller stature requires him to more literally climb up the stairs.
Their baggage was put on the roof in a wooden bowl of sorts made on the top, everything was covered with a tarp and tied down, so they only had a few of their belongings or smaller bags with them inside.
The carriage driver seemed happy about everyone being there a little early, so rather than waiting another half hour, he simply set off. The carriage lurched into movement as the two horses pulling it started walking on command, heading out of the city.
“Well, we might as well get this out of the way. Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves?” Yalen started the talk. After all, if they were to be companions for potentially the next few years, they should start by getting to know each other.
“I can start. My name is Yalen, and I’m the group leader appointed by the Guild-” He specified that the Guild decided this, just to make sure that everyone was fully aware of this being done at a higher level, that he didn’t just decide this himself. “-I have been the leader of groups before but to be honest, not to this extent. I consider myself acceptable at combat, decent at wilderness travel and have some experience with how the Guild does things.”
Parts of him wanted to go on, but he decided to keep it short and simple, anything more could come up in future talks.
He turned to Shiira sitting next to him, his body language signaling her to follow his lead, passing off the torch.
She scrunched up a bit, feeling awkward being put in the spotlight.
“Shiira. I’m good with survival. I can use Telekinesis.” She said flatly. In her mind, she said this in much more detail. She pictured herself displaying her abilities by lifting something random or sharing some of her extensive experience living in the wild, but once she was put on the spot she became much less articulate and ended up with a much simpler than planned explanation.
Yalen wondered for a moment if he should let her handle this herself, he knew she wanted to get better at the social aspect of life, but her past didn’t make this easier. Though he wanted to help he knew that if he interfered too much, she would never need to take the steps herself. Instead of adding more to her explanation he simply looked at the next in line, which happened to be Aldar.
Aldar smiled and seemed much to bask in the attention when it moved to him, almost like the metaphorical spotlight only brought him joy.
Spreading his arms out like he was talking to his fans, he raised his voice just a bit more than necessary. “I am Aldar Dant, master of fire.” Moving one hand out in front of himself he seemed to manifest a small fireball, no larger than an eyeball, it burned calmly in his hand lighting up the inside of the carriage.
His presentation and tone of voice explained two things, one was that this was kind of a humorous over-the-top way to introduce himself, a good ice breaker.
The other was that he seemed to honestly believe he belonged in a perpetual spotlight.
Aldar himself felt that this went well, he showed that he could manifest fire, and they knew his name, a good introduction!
“I’m also good at other things, but I don’t think that’s going to be too useful on this trip.” He lifted one of his eyebrows with a smirk as he explained this, hinting at the intimate nature of this skill.
There was an almost collective sigh in the carriage.
Toron wanted to forcefully change the subject, the skinny mage was almost a little annoying with the way he seemed to crave attention.
“Toron, I fight.” Short and to the point. He briefly considered going into detail but what’s the point? He knew from experience that anyone just looking at him would assume the truth. He wasn’t dumb but he knew he wasn’t too smart, he was good at fighting but that was about all he had any proper skill in.
Harroc decided to jump in shortly afterwards, he was excited and didn’t care if that could be seen in him or not.
“Harroc. I make potions, I know about plants and herbs, I can make explosions and I love learning!” Happily smiling widely as he introduced himself he felt this covered the important bits.
He chose to downplay just how much he liked explosions, but they would probably see this later anyway. He didn’t particularly like fighting but he loved using explosions, and what better way to use them than the demolition of objects or enemies?
He was hired by the Guild to document the flora and fauna, something he was eager to do!
The focus moved to the last individual in the carriage, though the main reason the collective looked at the nine-tailed fox in the cart was that Yalen did so first, hinting that this was not just a pet to the unknowing.
“Oh, I guess that’s me,” Evesi commented as the focus turned to her. “I’m Evesi, I heal, I buff and I make corpses into friends.” She smiled widely.
“So... you’re a healing necromancer?” Aldar asked, not being entirely certain how to feel about this. Parts of him hoped that he was wrong, though he loved fire and was not against using that in combat, desecrating corpses like that was a bit weird.
Evesi smiled widely, it’s been a while since someone confronted her directly about it. Though there was a distasteful tone to his confirming question, he was really on point.
“Yes! I can also shapeshift and give boons.” She added some extra parts, puffing her chest as she did so. She felt neat doing this, not everyone liked Necromancers; she knew this. But she wasn’t a necromancer raising shambling corpses, she made the corpses into friends. This was different! She was better than those lowly necromancers!
There seemed to be a weird silence in the carriage, everyone was just so different. Yalen wanted to start some small talk but he knew from experience that forcing these things never worked out. It would either fix itself or not. And in the latter cast that was just meant to be.
Luckily for him, there was one person without any social restrictions.
Harroc broke the silence as he looked at Evesi, jumping down from his seat and taking out a notebook and ink-pen as he walked over to the uncommon fox.
“Can you move your tails individually?” He had only barely read about her kind before and he was curious.
Evesi enjoyed the eager little kobold and replied by moving one tail at a time back and forth. The curious lizard man's eyes widened behind his goggles as he quickly took notes in his notebook. “You said you can shapeshift, what do you shift into?”
“I take a form similar to hers, just with more tails.” Evesi replied, nodding towards Shiira. Further hinting that they were, if not the same race, at least related.
Leaning into Harroc’s ear she whispered so only he could hear “I can also become a human.”
It was not a secret, it was very known amongst her kind that this was possible, but given how eager he was, she decided to play with the info a little.
This caused his happiness to peak, he jotted down things in his notebook with great enjoyment before he turned to Shiira.
“Can you also shapeshift?”
Shiira felt uncomfortable from the questioning. She couldn’t shift and didn’t know if this was because she just didn’t know how to, if she was supposed to learn or if they were just different. Based on Evesi’s introduction she seemed to have many more skills than Shiira had, raising a familiar sense of not being good enough.
She quietly shook her head.
“Oh, but... You can use telekinesis? Can you lift me?” Harroc almost looked like an eager puppy at the thought of this working.
Shiira didn’t know how to react to this, she looked to Yalen, almost as if asking permission. He smiled warmly and gave her a nod in return. If the eagerness of Harroc could rub off on her just a tiny bit, it could open her up a little more to social interaction.
Looking back at Harroc, Shiira extended a hand towards him and moved her hand almost as if she was picking something up in the middle of the air, she seemed to have to focus a bit but as she did, Harroc started hovering. Not by much, only a foot or so off the ground but he was hovering.
Harroc himself almost squealed in delight at this. He had never flown before, and though he had jumped and been lifted a lot, this felt so different.
His vocalisation of joy caught Shiira off guard, breaking her focus that had him fall to the floor again. Landing without any effort he started scribbling notes as he asked her more and more questions about her abilities.
This seemed to have broken the ice, it didn’t get everyone talking but it at least opened the door, having the more social people converse a bit amongst themselves.
The carriage suddenly jumped a bit more than before, signalling uneven ground. This only lasted for a few moments before they stopped, the carriage parked off the main road. “We’re stopping here for the night!” The carriage driver shouted as he climbed down from his seat. He walked around the carriage itself before opening the door for the group. “We’ll set up camp here and continue tomorrow.”
Now that the door was open they could properly see how dark it was, and everyone in the group was more than ready to stretch their legs.
Getting outside they could get a better sense of the area, which wasn’t too much to speak of. There were a few clouds in the moonlit sky, and the area itself was only a larger clearing in the middle of the forest, with trees and brush all around them. The only exception was the road itself and the clearing, the clearing was completely grass-covered and was not bad for a camping spot.
Yalen spoke up as everyone was still around. “I think this is a good spot to give a practice run.” He wanted to know more about everyone's capabilities. He knew Shiira’s limits and skills but nobody else.
Listing different common jobs he took note of who fulfilled them, the only non-open job was that everyone should set up their tents. Toron volunteered to get water, taking all the empty waterskins as well as the buckets for the horses, Aldar was fine with lighting and maintaining the fire, Shiira went hunting to save on rations and menial tasks were done collectively. Caring for the horses was the only task given to the carriage driver, due to his day job he was not given any other tasks than this.
It didn’t take long before the camp was set up, the wood was piled up and with a snap of his fingers Aldar had lit it up with great ease. Though this could be done with mundane tools, it was somewhat amazing to see how convenient the ability was.
Shiira came back with some rabbits a short time later, they had only a single piercing wound in their side and a slit throat. Given her telekinetic abilities and bandoleer of small blades and spikes, it was not hard to guess her hunting tactic.
Toron came back with a substantial amount of water, a single trip to a nearby stream was all he needed to fetch enough water for the entire group, his physical prowess aiding quite a lot there.
Yalen did his part, but he also made sure to keep an eye on everyone, to see how they fared. His leadership instinct wanted to see how they did, but also if there were any areas for improvement to be addressed in later talks. Unless something weird happens they would be spending quite some time together in the future.
A guard rotation was decided on, the more nocturnal of the group was given the job. Harroc would cover the first shift. More acclimated to darkness, he had taken his smoked goggles off. Shiira had the next, followed by Toron would get the last. There were six of them, and a three-man rotation allowed them to alternate and get a full night's rest every other day.
Though the day had been calm, sitting in the carriage for long periods was a common source of travel fatigue. Sure, there were some toilet breaks here and there but mainly this had been a whole day of moving.
Finally turning in for the night was surprisingly nice, and most of them fell asleep instantly. Yalen slept very lightly during Harroc’s shift. It was not a complete lack of trust but more that he didn’t know him yet. However, during Shiira’s shift, he allowed himself to relax just a bit more.
“Wake up!” Toron’s strong voice ordered everyone to rise. The volume and strength behind his statement had everyone instinctively understand that something was wrong.
In the darkness, it was hard to see what was going on. Toron had pulled his sword, looking ready, barely illuminated by the remainder of the fire. Yalen didn’t see anything but pulled his swords when seeing Toron’s tense body language. It was not until Aldar properly came to and conjured some small floating orbs of fire around them that lit up the area, that they could all see what was going on. Shiira was missing and there were signs of someone being dragged along the ground away from the camp.