This was the saltsmith’s first attempt at exploration on their own. The escape from the dragon’s lair had been exactly that, an escape, fleeing from danger to whatever safe space they could find.

Now that they had a home – in the loosest, most inhuman sense of the word – the saltsmith could begin to gather resources. They knew exactly what they needed, but crafting everything would be the difficulty.

The subclass of saltsmith was, in vague summary, a parallel function to blacksmithing where magic altered the basic principles that they knew and understood.

The system used sulphur as an example. In regular smithing, it was a contaminant that would damage the final product. In saltsmithing, sulphur could be magically added to products for increased resistance or to enhance certain types of damage.

The possibilities were endless, although the system did mention that saltsmithing was considered much more difficult than standard blacksmithing due to tenuously balancing the effects of irregular materials.

They needed a hammer, which required a handle, an ingot to make the head, and a wedge. The ingot was optional; they had no hammer with which to form the ingot. But, if they could get a makeshift crucible and enough fire, they could use a mold to get the head of the hammer close to specifications. That required sand and resin, which could be drawn from the lake and trees respectively.

None of this fixed the primary problem – a lack of an anvil.

It was a head-scratcher, a chicken and the egg situation.

The saltsmith conceded their inability to make progress and chose to explore. The mountains could have caves and other structures that produced ore, which was necessary at any step of the process. Perhaps some mining would let the saltsmith internally solve their forge problems, like waking up after a sleep with your mind reset and inspired.

As soon as the saltsmith climbed further out of the treeline and onto rocky terrain, dotted by scraggly pines and scant bushes, they began to feel something strange.

It was a pull, nearly magnetic and rooted in their soul. With a body, they would have described this feeling as coming from their heart or their core, an irresistible urge to chase a wild idea for creation.

Now, they were nothing but a soul in a Jack O’ Lantern. Perhaps it was the flame that was pulled along by magic, drawn to some unknown place.

The saltsmith’s curiosity led them to follow the insistent impulse, limbs slowly crawling over rocks and sheer stone cliffs to find the point of magnetism. They stopped at a small crevice, big enough to fit the saltsmith’s round head but hardly large enough to call a cave.

The system typed out a notice for their mental workdesk.

NEW! [ skill: resonance ] - passive skill, landwise class; You are aligned with the subterrain facet of the land, therefore while seeking out the subterrain, unoccupied pathways underground will make themselves known to you. While focusing on a specific material, only caverns or mines with that specific material will resonate.

Oh, fascinating.

Without hesitation, the saltsmith maneuvered their way into the crevice like a very strange insect. They lacked the fear humans normally would have due to concerns like venomous creatures or becoming trapped. It was much easier to escape when you were both metal and a functionally floating object.

Far underground with only a few inches of clearance, the saltsmith’s glowing face caught a glimmer of something, a vein running along the wall. With [ skill: capture ], they broke off chunks of the metal, rock included, and examined it.

It looked like iron. It might not be, given that magic existed in this world, but the saltsmith would bet their… actually, they had nothing to bet, but they would bet something important that this was iron ore.

They broke a few pieces off of the wall with their skill, almost like ripping chunks from a very firm loaf of bread. The system pressed a warning into their mind: they had no more room for captured objects.

With an internal grimace, the saltsmith began rearranging their many limbs. It proved very difficult in this small space, but eventually they made a basket out of three sets of bony arms. It was crude and barely functioning, but it did hold the ore-laced rock.

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When the saltsmith finally emerged from the crevice, they were burdened by more ore than they could reasonably carry. After some debate, the saltsmith found a place to carefully pile up their haul before returning to the crevice. Even if [ skill: resonance ] provided new locations for veins, it seemed silly to leave this one half-tapped.

The sun was dipping low in the sky by the time the saltsmith felt they were done. They weren’t entirely sure how they would get back to this pile, but maybe their new skill could draw them to gathered resources as well as the subterrain ones.

The night was filled with moving ore and getting lost. Their internal map provided by the system had some landmarks in the way of terrain, but it wasn’t quite detailed enough to know exactly where to go each time.

By the time the morning rose, they had a pile of ore on the front stoop of the dilapidated cabin.

The prolonged effort left them exhausted, so the saltsmith slowly crawled toward the settlement, careful to avoid attracting attention. There was an exceptionally large juniper tree between the stables and the tents, one who’s thick foilage could easily hide the saltsmith.

They splayed themselves out over a few sturdy branches like a many-limbed feline and settled in to rest and observe.

🎃 🎃 🎃

The northern landscape consisted of a mottled grey, green, and brown from the air. Grey by means of stone. Green from various hues of foliage, from the blue-greens of tall conifers to the waxy brown-greens of shrub brush. Brown was speckled here and there by upturned roots and patches of sand.

The goats were nearly invisible from high up, their bell collars the only discernable feature when not covered by coarse hair. The herd was mostly grey and brown, or a calico-like mixture of the two.

Varys the goatherd kept a sharp eye out anyway. Ze knew for a fact that dragons ate livestock, though they preferred wild game. With Nyrinus the Verdant so close to the guild’s new location, Varys had to be on guard, watching the skies.

Though they were mostly dairy goats, there were a few wethers and a buck to keep the population going. He seemed to do his job, even if it annoyed the others to no end.

Varys was just grateful to get out of the city. Ze was from a small village in-between larger cities, one that saw plenty of merchants on carts and horse alike, but few needed to spend the night in the village. It had a bustling tavern and not much else.

Hir life was spent herding up until a beast broke into the paddock at night, killing sheep and kerdund alike. With no flock to tend to, Varys tried to go to the Sovereign City Corcyra for work.

Ze was unsuccessful. Too shy for front-of-house jobs, too ignorant to be an apprentice, not bold enough to sell hir own bodily wares.

Not that Varys wanted any of these things. Ze enjoyed tending to herds, as it was a quiet pastime where no one bothered hir. Ze could do small crafts, like whittling, or simply read while keeping an eye on the herd.

So, when the rumor about the adventurer’s guild leaving for greener pastures flitted by, Varys snatched the opportunity.

Ze did think that the rumors literally meant pastures, not this rocky landscape, but it was still a good job with little expectations for uncomfortable forced socialization.

Meals were perfectly fine, as far as conversation went.

The couple, Azhar and Rakhi, kept a lookout for the goatherd but otherwise treated hir like a teenaged nibling – allowing a respectable distance yet still fretting over socks that needed darning and whether Varys was keeping warm.

The carpenter and the chef often talked about life, though Varys couldn’t say ze found the conversation very interesting.

The mage and the guildmaster would often argue with the weird jester lady, though Rakhi sometimes said that the arguments were more like teasing in a loud form.

A few others came and went, though they didn’t have tents like the rest of them did. It was mostly a thin mage with glasses and a book strapped to his side – a regular with the guild but unwilling to live out of a tent to keep their company.

The settlement was a few weeks in the making, so although the guild was still active, many of the adventurer parties and individuals had yet to wander over to the new location.

Yianna knew they would join over time. Several of their guild members were entrenched in long-term quests or wanted to live out the remainder of the season in a city, until there were more amenities. It was hard agreeing to move to a place without baths, without roads, without really… much other than pleasant company and fresh air.

The Northern Kovatelli guild had a lot of adventurers registered, but the Adventurer’s Guild was a global network assisted by the System, so hundreds of thousands of people could use their services.

Certainly, there would be a delay in usage while they moved to a new location. Yianna was fully prepared to eat those costs, but it hardly bothered her. She had been running this guild for centuries now, under a variety of names and faces.

War had run through the continent, system flares sending beasts careening into the city, conflicts between Sovereign Cities and the Kovatelli Crown. All while the guild stood strong.

Perhaps the literal building did not have good timbers and a stone foundation as of yet, but Yianna was more than confident in her standing. The staff were the guild.

The cook Samir wanted to become a mage; he practiced, unsuccessfully, producing a magical light when he thought no one else was looking. He was eager to leave the clutches of his family, eager to move on and begin his own life without every ounce of his power stemming from marks and coins.

The summoner Nanazin was an anchor to this guild’s functioning, in a way she herself wasn’t aware of. Her acquisition of vetta roots fulfilled many requests in the city, but now, in such a wild land, her herbalist upbringing could provide healing potions without forcing any travelers to go elsewhere for their goods.

Though Juniper the Jester seemed useless to the settlement’s progress, she was a bright, shining voice – the sentiment of hope where it was needed and the harsh reality when all everyone could taste was sugar and sweetness. Although she was a bit more sullen pessimism in the last few days as she recovered from food poisoning, after catching, badly cooking, and eating her own fish.

The carpenter Atteberry was new but reliable. He was grouchy in the manner that all tradesmen were: too much work, not enough time. But he made progress and continued to uplift the others with their successes, no matter how small.

The landwise Azhar and the beastmaster Rakhi kept the settlement from starving, as their consistent efforts to grow food and raise beasts gave hope to all guild members here. No one had to live off of travel rations, not while beans and milk were available for Samir to work his magic.

And finally, Varys. Ze was a simple child, still a teenager. Hir hair was a white-blond not common in this dark-complexioned, dark-haired kingdom, which suggested to Yianna that ze had traveled far and continued to seek out something that was missing.

Perhaps ze would find it here.