Gorban’s training with the army in the capital had not just been a one-way street. While he had learned a lot about riding tarands and figured out how to apply his polearm skills to tarandback, which he in turn trained his men on, he also studied the northern pole arts, further expanding his skillset and repertoire.
That was obvious now as he came at me hard, his staff coming forward in a jabbing thrust that was uncharacteristic of his original southern style.
Rather than block, I moved out of the way. If it were a guandao, I would need to be wary of the blade on the end, but with a staff all he could really do was thrust and smack, and even with his prodigious skill he would not be able to smack me with enough force to do any damage without a large windup. I danced around the thrusts, letting the end of the staff breeze past my chest, shoulders, and legs with slight twists and turns.
Fortunately, so much time on the boat ride south has helped me burn away some of the extra padding I had been carrying, so my actual body size was a lot closer to the leanness I was presenting with as Deklan. Still, I had to be conscious to leave a little extra room, which probably looked like inefficiency in my movement to the polearm expert.
“Hmm,” he said after a series of thrusts, stepping back slightly. “Acceptable.”
“Thanks.”
“Now dodge this.”
The man flew into motion again, swinging the staff to force me in one direction before aborting the swing and smoothly switching to another thrust. I stepped back to avoid it, as Gorban knew I would need to, and suddenly he was right in front of me, an open-palmed hand thrust speeding towards my chest.
I lifted my off-hand in an outside block, forcing the thrust to my left, then swept up my sword with a right. Gorban twisted away, following it up with another swing of the staff down at me. This time, I caught it on my practice blade, forcing the staff tip to the ground as I stepped forward with a front kick.
The Guild Leader leapt backwards, grinning.
Speeding up, we continued to exchange blows with our practice weapons, neither of us succeeding at landing a hit on the other’s body. In no time at all I was pouring sweat off my body, and the hot air was burning my lungs.
“All right,” Gorban said, stepping back and setting the butt of his staff on the ground. “That’s enough. I can tell you have some skill to back up your claim, but you aren’t acclimated to this climate yet.” He nodded at Shirel, and the silence spell dropped. He returned his practice weapon to the rack, and the two started walking away. “Don’t forget to drink lots of water,” he called back over his shoulder.
“Wonderful,” I panted, sweat stinging my eyes. “So happy I could entertain you.”
Trudging back into the Guild with my belongings, I finally made it to my room to dump my pack before returning to the dining area. I ordered an inexpensive meal and got a pitcher of water, which I greedily gulped down. I would need to source some pitchers and waterskins and store them in my inventory, or I legitimately might die from heatstroke in the desert when I started exploring it.
I would also want to get a shade structure. Maybe fashion a hammock, if I could not find one for sale, though I was pretty sure I had seen some on my way through the city. Clearly, there was a huge chunk of the middle of the day where I would be best served to just enjoy a siesta in the shade.
* * *
The city came to life in the evening, once the heat of the day started to break. The streets filled with people, the buzz of their conversation rapidly emerging from the earlier silence like a tide coming in. Commerce and socialization sprung up all over the place, and I made my way through Haklan once again in appreciation of the changed city.
I picked up some sort of kebob from a street vendor who had started grilling as soon as the temperature allowed, and ate it as I meandered. It was delicious, using a combination of spices that stood apart from what the chefs in the capital tended towards.
Several storefronts opened and started putting up displays of textiles and other local goods, and I perused them as I went, buying a few items that caught my eye for my family.
Something about the stand the fabrics were draped on caught my eye.
“Excuse me. What’s this stand made out of?” I asked a younger woman who was watching her wares.
“Hmm? The… stand? It’s just whistlewood. It grows between here and Taraponi, especially to the west.”
“Thanks,” I said, making a mental note. Whistlewood looked a lot like a type of bamboo. I was not in the south as a tamer, but I could think of a few animals on Earth that lived in regions where bamboo grew, and I was interested in taking a look, if I could find the time. I was pretty sure there was a dungeon northwest of Haklan which might take me close.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Continuing through the streets, I really started to feel swept along by the energy of an evening in Haklan. I did some shopping and grabbed a late dinner at an eatery, enjoying some of the local fare.
With a meal in my belly, the long day started to catch up to me, and I wanted to wash some of the dried sweat off before I got into bed, so I headed back to the Guild’s inn. Unsurprisingly given the state of the rest of the city, the Guild itself was buzzing with activity as well.
I glanced around at the interesting collection of people. I saw plenty of people carrying bows, but also a number with various swords, polearms, and other melee weapons.
Unlike in the north, I also saw a lot more adventurers with wands tucked in their belt or staves in their hands. Combat magic was alive and well in Haklan, which was where magic circles were invented. With the reforms I had made over the past years to create more equality in the Kingdom, a lot of skilled Al’Tiolese magic users had started to come out of the woodwork, especially with the Adventurers Guild opening here.
When I had asked Atlessoa to use her network to look into it for me, we discovered that there was a pretty established practice of underground magical training happening in the city. It was not illegal for southerners to learn magic, of course, but given the history between the two races in the Kingdom, there was a legacy of keeping magical talent secret in case of retaliation from the crown for conspiracy of rebellion or some such accusation.
Some of the younger magic users, more flexible than the older generation, began testing the waters with the Adventurers Guild here, and with Gorban’s leadership, the new crown’s support, and no immediate backlash, the ability to make a living while using magic continued attracting magic users who wanted to make the most of their skills. Some mages began taking work in civil services and construction, but even in the south that was an industry that was still heavily run by northerners with some lingering divisions, so more often than not young adults who wanted to work as mages found their way to the Guild.
I got more than a few glances from local adventurers for being a new and clearly non-local face, and tried to present myself as friendly and approachable, insofar as I was able. Being “friendly and approachable” was not really my forte, but I could fake it a bit better with illusion. I planned on eventually finding a party to join around here to get some help with the bigger dungeons, since I was not interested in taking on too much danger alone now that I had Sera and our family to return to.
Several such parties were moving through the Guild together, checking the quest wall, delivering monster corpses outside, or heading out into the desert to hunt. I was excited to see so much activity in this Guild, much more than I was used to seeing in the capital. Despite this branch being newer, it seemed a better representation of what I had in mind for the Guild, and I could not help but grin to see it all coming together.
* * *
The next morning, after turning in early and sleeping like the dead, I woke up at dawn, got dressed, and headed back into the Guild proper. The smell of nikopi filled the tavern area as people sipped a morning brew to try and wake up and face the day. There was still quite a bit of foot traffic, though more subdued than the night before, and I knew now that once the day got warm enough it would grow quiet again until the evening.
Adventurer parties were eating breakfast, discussing their plans for the day and the quests they would be pursuing, but I also spotted solo adventurers looking around and hoping to form new or temporary parties. It was fairly obvious they were rookies, largely Iron rank, and my appraisal confirmed it.
I was an outlier. A new high-rank adventurer without an established group and not being from the city made me stand out a bit. I would need to prove myself as capable before I would have any luck finding a group to work with, so I took a look at the quest wall for something at the peak of Silver rank that I could solo.
This one will do, I thought as I eyed a new addition. A merchant from Taraponi had reported that a rhinothell had been disrupting travel on the road to Haklan. I grinned, and set out to make a bit of a name for myself.
After putting back a mug of nikopi and grabbing a breakfast wrap of some kind, I headed out the door, hoping to beat the competition to my prize. I found my way to the north gate, leaving the city and heading past some unusual farms. Rather than the grain and vegetable produce I was used to seeing, farmers were largely growing flax and cotton, but I also saw some kind of cactus, some bushes that I could not quite place, and what looks like a kind of legume. There were still some grains, but rather than the wheat, rye, oats, and barley I was used to seeing, it was amaranth, millet, and maize or sorghum, or at least this world’s closest version of those things.
The limitation to growing more staples like that seemed to be water, more than an issue with the land. Haklan was just on the precipice of being desert, so the local ground was very sandy, but it was only completely inhospitable further south. The aquifers in the region were probably hard to access and limited, and the salt from the sea was also a factor. Taraponi was a better producer of raw goods, and trade between the two cities was critical, with Haklan providing salt and seafood and other resources from the ocean as well as being a home for artisans and crafters.
Sparse but hardy desert grasses still covered much of the land here, though I did not need to look far to see sandy dunes as well. I would not get the full desert experience until I left to the south. I was headed north, into a savannah-like grassland, which was where the rhinothell lived.
* * *
Three days later, covered in sweat, sand, and grime, I finished dragging the rhinothell carcass by the horn back to the Adventurers Guild. I had kited it back as close to the city as I could before I killed and gutted it, so the meat would still have value, but without a sled or a wagon I had simply manhandled it back, earning myself a number of stares as I hauled it through the roads of Haklan.
I glanced around at the adventurers who were staring, then saw one of the receptionists step outside to see what the commotion was. I waved her over.
“Could you get your butchers to take this from me?” I asked. “Don’t want to let the heat spoil all this meat.”