Chess woke to the soft murmur of voices, the soft crackling and popping of a fire, and the odd snort or snore from a horse.
They'd stopped the night before on a bluff just as the sun had set behind the trees, having finally escaped the forest's clutches. They'd watched as a scattering of fires lit in the plains below before the last rays of the day had hidden beneath the horizon and their heads were drawn up to the illumination of the night sky.
The fully exposed heavens had earned a round of baffled delight from the group of earthlings, for Astra had a remarkable three moons visible and a scattering of other much smaller fast-moving bodies hanging in the black and sparkling with the light of the hidden sun.
The big white crescent that Chess had captured a few glimpses of while in the forest looked a lot like the one gracing earth's sky and had led to her assumption that Astra would be similar to home.
However, the pair of distant blue-green spheres, that Amber called Dutra and Cutra, apparent home of the Dragons and Celestials respectively, had riveted the group's attention for hours before they found their hammocks.
Stace's eloquent, "holy fuck," had provided a small yet inadequate summation of Chess's feelings on the sight. Though she had to admit Gramps was right in suggesting the tides had to be a 'mongrel bitch in heat' on Astra. Which led him and Kan to a long discussion on low, mid, high, super high, and super low tides. Each of which bore the name of one sea god or another.
Amber had then fallen to naming each celestial object for them but the fanciful names had gone in one ear and right out of Chess's gaping mouth.
The magnificent view had led to a relatively quiet night.
For all their recent troubles beneath the colossal ironwoods, the remainder of the trip beneath their boughs had proved remarkably peaceful. The denizens of the forest, both bandit and creature alike, left the group alone. Most of the original party has spent much of their free time sleeping on or in the tinker's wagon in an attempt to remedy their sleep deficit, while Gramps and Kan drove with Flemming's constant assistance.
Kan, who appeared to no longer need the mortal reset each night, stood a stoic watch over them when they set camp each night.
The second day after leaving the Dryad's tree behind they had caught a brief glimpse of a herd of large Dashelk as they bolted at breathtaking speeds across the track in front of them in a blur of brown, green, and black that had everyone taking up their crossbows. Chess swore they had to be larger than the bull moose that had landed her on Astra.
Amber had sighed wistfully when she and Kan had failed to fell one with their shots. Which had led to an even longer archery session that evening. This time shooting at thrown chunks of wood. Which then had Chess making and repairing even more bolts as the others rested around the fire that evening. She made a point of replacing all of the arrowheads for the group with wood from one of the smaller dryad woodblocks.
When she had grumbled about it the next day, Amber had insisted that bolts and arrows were a good trading item to have for their now-planned stops at every village on their now longer trip to Portheel. Chess had to admit she felt it a relaxing way to pass the time as the wagons trundled along, especially now that her persistent headaches had faded to a dull ache in her neck only near the end of one of her bouts of work with her ability.
The archery practice had led Kan and Amber to start them on other training. Using staves as practice spears to run them through the first four basic drills Kan was intimately familiar with. Each of them, even Gramps, earned more than one sting from the switch Kan had made as a 'corrective tool'. Which he employed to punish any misplaced limb or incorrect stance.
Chess's grumbling about the barbaric treatment only earned her a round of derision from the others and a 'maybe he needs a bigger stick for you,' from Gramps, and an 'at least there's a reason,' from Stace which set a pang in Chess's gut.
Amber and Gramps had concluded that the group had to embrace and grow their narrative.
The following conversation led to the group collecting what ironwood and other deadfalls they could find for her to start making a vast assortment of common items. Each of which Ashley would demonstrate with her armaments ability so that they would be selling and trading items that wouldn't give away their exotic origins and abilities.
The piles of ironwood shovel, ax, and other handles along with wooden spoons, bowls, cups, and other household items quickly filled every nook and cranny she'd put into the tinker's wagon and then some. All to give weight to their growing story of being itinerant traders, healers, and repairmen.
Ashley spent most of her time with Gramps and her pets using his constant stream of advice to start on proper training for her Heliwr. Which she would immediately put to the test when she could. They had plans to buy a small herd of sheep to further this training if they could.
Chess found herself spending a lot of time with Stace while they worked on finishing the wagon. She'd even made the Lynx-kin a stack of ironwood paper which she was quickly filling with charcoal portraits of their entire party when they stopped each night. Chess worked on replacing her, Amber, and Ashley's armor before starting on a set for Gramps who bore the constant fittings with a lot of inappropriate jokes.
Amber spent most of her time, outside of answering Gramps' constant questions, tending to the still unconscious Steven, largely inside Gramps’ Stable after Chess had completed his armor. Thankfully his fever had broken on the second day, though the soldier had yet to wake. Amber’s Blood Share ability worked a lot like an intravenous IV and sustained him at the cost of her needing to eat and drink more. So they no longer worried he would pass before they reached civilization.
Kan, Kan was an altogether different problem. Chess found herself hesitant to approach him, outside of their training, since he’d been resurrected as a golem. What do you say to a man that just died?
The question plagued her more idle moments, and she had thrown herself into work as an excuse to put off the inevitable conversation.
Chess yawned and rolled silently from her hammock, her bare feet touching down on the smooth wood of the wagon’s bed. Stepping around a snoring Stace, Chess eased the door open and snuck out. The first rays of sunshine highlighted the small camp nestled between the two wagons. Gramps was already up and feeding the horses with Ashley’s help while Amber busied herself over the campfire.
The smell of roasting meat made her stomach rumble but she ignored it to look up. A sudden urge to finally confront her friend overcame her, and she found herself tossing Sprig over her shoulder before climbing to the roof of the wagon where he stood watch.
“Hey,” she said lamely and moved to stand beside him.
“Hey,” Kan grunted back, turning his helmeted head to regard her for an instant.
Chess rubbed the back of her neck and sighed, taking the time to study the prairie spread out before them.
The vantage reminded Chess of a time when as a kid the family had taken the Crowsnest through the Rockies and stopped to look down on Osoyoos. She stood there drinking it in, for long silent minutes.
A remarkably mundane yellow sun cresting the far horizon bathed the view in its colorful morning rays. To her right the cliff they stood upon continued to the sea’s edge with the large ironwood forest on its back. To her left hints of scrubland filled the limits of her vision. Held back by a strip of forest bracketing the sea's edge. Patchwork groupings of fields and copses of trees lay across the vista between. Each nestled around a small lake that lay in a long string snaking from the base of the cliff towards the blue expanse of sea that filled most of the distant horizon. Each azure body resembled broken footprints in the landscape and was connected to its neighbor by the thin ribbon of a river.
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“Holy shit is that…?” Chess breathed in awe as the morning mist blew out to sea, revealing the collapsed form of an unimaginably large white humanoid, lying face down in the surf at the edge of the world, its left leg thrust into the sky and towering over its surroundings as though the titan had seized up mid-step then toppled forward to lay half in the water and half out. Blocking all but a narrow strip of the sea at the mouth of a large natural bay. Large smudges of white and brown on the sea indicated ships in the bay.
“Caldur county and one of the best views in the kingdom. Or so I’m told. I’ve yet to see it all. And yes, that’s Portheel on the back of Silcith: the dead titan,” Kan said, gesturing at the fallen colossus and the city on its back and surroundings that resembled some sort of rampant cancerous growth. He took obvious pleasure in the view himself, and Chess heard the potential for a story there.
“I see why it’s called The Heel,” Chess murmured, noting the large tower sprouting from the upthrust appendage. “I’m surprised it’s only a county.” Chess forced her gaze from the city back to the surrounding countryside.
“That has a lot to do with the reefs, it’s dangerous to navigate them at anything but high tides. Though the Count has started projects to remedy that,” Kan explained, pointing to long lighter blue strips further out to sea.
The pair fell quiet again, and Chess kept up her study as the sun slowly rose.
“Hey, I know I’ve been a bit of an ass lately,” Chess admitted after a silent spell, turning to Kan.
“A bit,” Kan grunted his agreement, then let the silence continue.
“Fuck man, you’re not making this easy,” Chess breathed a laugh.
“I know.”
“Shit.” Chess rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m sorry, okay? I just didn’t, don’t, know what to say about you... dying and all that… How are you holding up?”
“Better than I expected. Did you know I can still get drunk? Freya’s a real warrior’s goddess with foresight like that…” Kan said with a hint of wonder.
“No shit?” Chess laughed.
“No sex though. Though that may be a good thing in my case. Sucks, but one less thing to worry about, I guess. Not sleeping is different but makes my new job easier.”
“She did turn you into a Ken doll. Makes me wonder what happens with the booze. Not sure you could find someone that appreciates the grinning skull look even if you could have sex.”
“Ken doll?” Kan asked and looked down at the working dwarf below.
“Nevermind,” Chess laughed again and waved it off, studying the panorama again.
“Wait, are those palm trees? Are we near the equator?” Chess asked, peering down at a copse near the base of the trail that curved its way back and forth down the long descent in front of them.
“Equator? That’s something you’ll have to ask Amber,” Kan suggested.
Chess nodded; a smile now fixed on her mug as she looked back to Portheel in the distance.
She saw a tiny shape detach from the distant titan’s limb. "Is that?"
"A Kobold skyship," Kan confirmed, amusement tinting his smooth voice.
"Kobold?"
“Small Dragonoids. They are mostly known as wily merchants…”
Stace’s voice interrupted them from below. “I hit level two overnight! I get to choose an ability!” she said to the group below. Chess looked down to see her friend bouncing on her toes.
“Hold your horses. What are your choices?” Amber asked patiently.
Both Chess and Kan listened as the cat woman listed them and their requirements for the group below.
Self-Cleaning Fur (Dampen Odor)
Steady Hands (Penetration, Soft Step)
Webbed Paws and Double Coat (Water Breathing, Soft Step)
Reinforced Claws (Penetration, Summon Calligraphy tools)
Mind link [Animated Golems] (Soft Step, Calligraphy tools, Heartwood)
Artistic Focus (Summon Calligraphy Tools, Heartwood, Penetration)
Flexible (Soft Step, Water Breathing, Heartwood, Penetration)
Life imitates Body Art (Heartwood, Penetration, Summon Calligraphy tools + All slotted Pyths, Cores, and Gems)
“Well to start, Life imitates Body Art will always be limited to the rank of your hardest-to-acquire anima,” Amber said.
“Right! Let's get this circus moving,” Gramps said, slapping a large hand down on Stace’s shoulder and pulling Flemming from the budding discussion, and moving to hitch the first two horses to the freight wagon. Ashley followed suit moments later and Chess climbed down to help her with the team for the tinker wagon. A few minutes of hurried discussion later Amber followed suit, which left Stace to finish cooking their breakfast which she handed out as they worked before turning to put out the fire and clean up.
The morning preparations were already taking on a hint of practiced ease and it wasn’t long before they were ready to brave the perilous descent down the narrow cliff-face road.
“If Stace hit level two last night doesn’t that mean you did too?” Chess asked her grandfather, after climbing up on Petal, the only free horse, and bringing her alongside him. None of the others were of the mind to let Chess have anything to do with handling the wagons on this part of the road. Today the normal order of march had been reversed and the freight wagon was set to lead the way down with the tinker wagon following.
“I took this. It wasn’t much of a contest.” Gramps winked and flicked a window into Chess’s sight.
Stamina Aura: Rank 2 (Reduce Carry, Dig, Binding, Logistics)
The Stamina of all mammals in a radius of Rank x Con(Mod) meters around you is increased by Rank x Con(Mod) x Will(Mod) percent. [Current 8 meters and 16%]
This ability can be toggled on or off with a thought.
Chess gave him a look.
Gramps chuckled, “Don’t worry I consulted your girlfriend first. I’m not an idiot. Now get! I want you to look for any potential hazards ahead. Mind any large rocks.” He waved her on before calling back to make sure Flemming and Kan were ready with the large break plates and to check if the drag shoes were still in place.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Chess muttered.
“She’s a girl and your friend,” Gramps said with a grin.
Chess blushed and kicked her horse forward without a response.
What followed were two of the most physically grueling hours Chess had experienced since finding herself on Astra as they pulled, pushed, cleared rocks, cajoled horses, and plain old worked to get the horses and their load safely to the base of the bluff. Thankfully no one sustained anything worse than a few bruises.
After a short break laying boneless in the grass at the bottom, the group made the short half-mile journey to the outskirts of the closest village.
“Finally! I hope Hildie will be willing to rent us her barn and a bathtub!” Amber crowed, as she hopped down and walked ahead to greet the pair of brightly dressed men that had left the small unwalled village and approached along the road. Both men wore heavy blue gambeson and bore long simple spears and open-face helms of burnished steel. The older man wore bright red billowing pants with a purple sash across his chest, a contrast to his partner's drab brown leggings and boots.
Chess had been studying the village as they approached and found it to have a few contrasts to what she’d been expecting. Most of the small houses, though haphazardly laid out around the lake, river, and road, and sprinkled amongst the fields and orchards, were made of tightly fitted black and grey stone with heavy slate roofs suspended by huge redwood beams that jutted out to create a covered porch on two sides. Heavy wooden doors stood open on most of the homes letting in the cooling breeze that flowed up off the coast. A much larger Manor house, almost a small castle, stood a little apart from the village on a small hill with a large wooden palisade dug into the base of its hill.
People scurried about their daily tasks as children ran roughshod through the village or worked the fields with their elders.
A large water wheel attached to a stout building sat on the bank of the river that tumbled down the cliff, to the east of where they’d just descended.
A cluster of tents was pitched on a large patch of grass that abutted the lake and a few larger buildings.
Amber struck up a friendly conversation with the older guard while the younger of the two men took a few steps beyond the pair and studied the intricate wagon for a long moment before a smile broke out on his face. “Tinkers?” he asked, eyeing Gramps with open curiosity before catching sight of Stace perched on the roof and freezing like a deer caught in the headlights.