Book 2: Chapter 20: Travel

  [Time Remaining; 682 Days, 18 Hours, 12 Minutes.]

  The wagons never stopped for long. From the moment they left Vrung’s Quarry, the convoy traveled like a steel warship over the ocean. Meaning it was slow, implacable, and always under very heavy guard. They crossed through dry red hills where the wind howled like a dying beast, rapid moving rivers that thrashed the wagons about like turbulent aircraft, and frost bitten high plains that signaled to all the coming end of fall and the fast approaching chill of winter.

  Day after day. Week after week.

  At night, the wheels groaned to a halt and camp was set. Tents flared open like blooming flowers, the glyph-sealed wagons parked in the center like caged relics. They were treated as bird’s held hostage in their homes.

  Inside the wagon, it was cramped and uncomfortable. Everyone was worried, everyone had questions, but no one had answers. Throughout the first day, there were attempts by Alex and the others tried to talk among themselves. A fools ambition to come up with a plan of action. Perhaps escape, perhaps just a means to maintain survival.

  That was put to a stop by the guards rather quickly. They didn’t seem to like when the prisoners talked together.

  So they tried to tell Alex and the others to stay quiet. At least, that was what he assumed they were telling him at first. Because he couldn’t understand them at all the first day of travel. The soldiers had taken their translation rings after all.

  They had taken everything.

  It was rather bureaucratic, more organized than he had thought it would be. The captain had the soldiers set up a table, after, Alex and the others were brought up one by one to empty out everything in front of him onto the table.

  The Captain, Tharek Drenn, was blank faced as he went about the work. Turning over and looking at each item before writing it down on a long piece of parchment. It was thorough work, and immensely boring.

  Alex waited patiently as Holly’s items were counted before him. Tharek looked at her sword, potions, ring, armor and other odds and ends she had bought in the Dungeon Shop as well as their time in Vrung’s Quarry.

  They seem just as bored as we do.

  He mentally nodded towards the two guards, which flanked the table, to Obby through their mental connection.

  “Yes, it doesn’t look like they expect to make a haul during this. Maybe you will get your stuff back after all.” Obby whispered in his mind, even though nobody could hear him besides Alex anyway.

  I surely hope so, I spent a lot of points on some of this stuff.

  “There is one of them here that isn’t as bored as the rest though,” Obby highlighted a person in his vision. His eye turned slowly, carefully, to not raise attention until he glazed over the area that Obby had pointed out. Off to the side, seemingly pretending to tie up some horses for the day, was the man Alex remembered having held a dagger to Celeste’s throat when they were arrested.

  The man wore the same armor as the rest of the rank and file soldiers that milled about, except for his cloak, which had a much better level of glyphwork embroidered into the fabric.

  Despite the man’s efforts, Alex could see that he was casting suspicious glances at the group as they waited their turn for the items to be essentially counted for civil asset forfeiture. Once his eyes met Alex’s, he nonchalantly looked away pretending to have been doing nothing of the sort.

  He’s probably the lieutenant then. Given his level of power and his abilities.

  “Agreed.”

  Cale Varr, that’s what some of the other soldiers had called him, right?

  While the many soldiers refused to talk him, they had no misgivings about talking to eachother in front of him. Names were rather easy to pick up, context was key, but Alex hard some sharp ears now that his stats had been rising exponentially.

  We certainly need to watch out for him.

  “Next,” Tharek’s voice rang out over the camp.

  Alex stepped forward.

  The man’s voice still held a strong baritone, but it was as flat as Devon’s scrawny ass. “Items, weapons, armor and other resources on the table.”

  He didn’t waste time in emptying out his items. Pills, potions, tools, tomes, scrolls and other items all came out of his bracelet with a quick flash. A scarlet feather, a small lonesome multi-sided dice, a lacquered box, his bracers, all sorts of trinkets hoarded over the past days thanks to his gamer-style looting mindset, landed on the surface in front of Tharek.

  The last items to appear, were a twenty or so randomly assorted rocks. They landed with a distinctive rain of thuds and cuchunks, tumbling and rolling about haphazardly.

  He received a raised brow from across the table for the last part. Alex simply smiled back, slipping his bracelet off his wrist, and placing on the table next to his recently acquired rock collection. From behind him, he heard the distinctive chuckle of garret trying to suppress his reaction in horribly faked cough.

  This had been his plan back at the shop. He didn’t feel comfortable pulling Obby into his soulspace, but he could perhaps get away with hiding sentient item among other equally unassuming stones.

  He looked at Tharek with a small, innocent grin, “I really like rocks.”

  “I see that, care to explain your reason why?”

  “Oh, they all just seem so different from the ones back home. And Tom-Tom seems to also like them,” he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder where the little Kobold was standing in line, licking a rock.

  “Very well… “

  A long few minutes followed as he watched Tharek go over his many items, looking at each, noting something down on a scroll and then placing the item inside a wooden crate beside him. This continued in silence for some time.

  Then he got to the rocks. His hand hovered over the little pile, seemingly unsure of where to start. Alex pretending not to care, looking off to the right and watching some soldiers set up a large tent in the distance.

  A rock was chosen, looked over, and unceremoniously lobbed into the crate before the man moved on to the next one. To Alex’s view, he seemed to spend more time on the rocks than the other items. Perhaps because he wasn’t exactly sure how to note and inventory the stones in a way to distinguish one from another?

  Or because he knows I’m up to something and is trying to figure out what it is.

  Eventually, the captain picked up the rock in question; Obby’s rock.

  It was difficult not to have his entire body tense up at the action, Alex focused still on the background around the camp. Presenting an air of nonchalance, calm and uncaring, or at least he hoped so. He felt his right leg begin to develop a sudden twitch as the blood in his ears began to pump louder, his heart speeding up rapidly. Still he focused to keep his face placid.

  Just a rock buddy, its just a rock.

  Tharek peered at the stone carefully, turning it over in his hand one way, then back again. He scratched his fingernail along the surface, seemingly scraping away some nonexistent dirt. Then he wrote something down on his parchment... and tossed it in the crate.

  The was no large exhale, he knew better than to give the big moment up after having gotten away with it. No, Alex scratched at the skin on his wrist where the storage bracelet once sat and looked bored.

  The rest of the items all got looked through and eventually Tharek looked up at him.

  “The ring,” he said.

  Of course, the translation ring still sat on his finger. He pulled it off and handed it over with a scowl, but didn’t dare refuse. Then he got up and joined Holly who waited on the side of the dirt patch.

  So then there they were, all together in a prison wagon, bound and tied, unable to understand the guards who yelled apparent obscenities at them every time Alex attempted to talk to his friends.

  At least, at first.

  Things went as normal for the first day, the soldiers didn't speak to them, not much, anyway. Food came twice a day, consisting of hard bread, and even tougher meat. They got one bucket for waste, two for water. Wards hummed softly at the corners of the wagon, giving a constant reminder that even if they broke free of their chains, magic would still be shackled.

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  But people crack faster than steel.

  By the third day, the guards got tired of having no means to tell their prisoners what to do, or what not to do. The language barrier became such a headache, Tharek eventually went into the inventory boxes himself and gave them all back their rings.

  After that, it was more terse silence. Awkward, long, and filled with the insistent ramblings of Tom-Tom, who the guards surely wished had a ring they could take from him.

  Garret was the first to make any headway with their captors.

  On the forth day, he leaned through the bars and said, “You ever get tired of the same jerky every day?”

  The guard on the nearest logfire looked over, deadpan. “Says the prisoner eating free jerky.”

  “Fair point,” Garret said. Then after another beat, “But, for real, do y’all have pepper?”

  By day six, he had names. He had joked, punned and budded up to a few of the soldiers who were assigned to their watch. Darn, Laro, Till, Jex, each of them began speaking with Garret on occasion. Meal times, breaks, whenever they stopped to make camp.

  “What do you mean you never played hide-the-boots with your sergeant? That’s classic basic training memories right there.” Garret was holding court with a few soldiers lazily standing about the wagon.

  “No, are you crazy, we’d get pack duty for a month,” Jex said.

  A female soldier, Till, punched his shoulder and nodded, “Damn right, my stats can’t handle tossing all that weight everyday.

  Garret chuckled and slapped his knee, “No, trust me its worth it. Getting a chance to have one up on your sarge, you’ll smile the whole month.

  The other soldiers murmured. Garret snapped his fingers like he just remembered something important, “Oh, don’t ever underestimate the joy of sending the new recruit out to find a potion of K-9P!”

  By day seven Eric joined him in getting the Terraxum regiment to open up. Of course, he used less jokes, more strategy. He asked about their battles and victories. Subtly moving topics toward enemy formations, terrain advantage, supply line management. All of them tactical questions disguised as small talk.

  Over time, more and more of the soldiers started answering.

  And then came Allie.

  It was a younger guard, barely more than a boy, who stumbled during morning camp setup slamming his chest against a metal pivot mechanism at the side of the siege wagon. The boy nearly knocked himself clean out, coughing hard enough to dry-heave.

  She saw the signs immediately: heat stroke, early-stage. If left untreated, it would spiral fast, the soldier dying within hours.

  “You need mintroot and rest,” she told him through the bars. “Maybe a cooling salve.”

  He ignored her.

  During the next hour, he collapsed during gear check. A few of his fellow rank soldiers gathered, trying to get him conscious.

  Allie leaned out of the bars again, flat-toned, but loud enough to be heard. “Still think I’m the threat?”

  A few minutes later, the wagon door cracked open and she was ushered out under close watch. She worked fast, not putting on a show, no sass given. She set the guy into a recovery position, stripping his armor and uniform, demanding herbs and alchemical tools.

  There was hesitation, but she got what she needed. The boy was standing again by sunset. The next morning, their food came with pepper and salt.

  Even Tom-Tom found his place in the tension. Not by helping any real way. But just like with garret, by talking. Sort of. He talked constantly.

  “You know kobold use beetle shells to stir tea? That is culture.”

  “You know Tom-Tom once ate basilisk egg and didn’t die? I mostly didn’t die.”

  “Say, where do humans store their venom sacs?”

  After a week of unending lizard focused commentary, the guards gave him roasted nuts just to keep his mouth full. The soldiers called it peace and quiet. He called it diplomacy.

  But amid the slow interpersonal thaw, whispers stirred.

  They came in late-night mutters and sideways glances. Alex heard them all amid the camp. Half-questions whispered over fires, and muttered curses just outside the wagon.

  “Is it true?” one soldier asked Garret during a latrine break.

  “Is what true?” Garret replied.

  “That you're Worldstriders.”

  Alex, listening from the shadows inside the wagon, went still at the question. None of the soldiers had been this direct, this out right pointed in their rumors. The word felt heavy around him as he watched the interaction, like someone had just brought up politics in front of uncle Jeb at thanksgiving dinner.

  “What’s a Worldstrider?” Garret said carefully.

  The soldier just stared, unreadable. “Dangerous,” he said at last. “Rare.” Then he walked away.

  That night, Alex sat against the bars and stared at the stars above the tented sky through the slats of the wagon prison. They were different from the ones he knew. Brighter, farther apart in places, almost alien. Then there was the apparent black hole that continued to swallow the sky. A warped mass of unknown origins and might. To him, it seemed like it didn’t exactly belong there, like it had been moved and taken to an environment it just wasn’t native too, and now it was trying to devour everything it could to maintain its existence.

  Just like him.

  He didn’t sleep that night. Not because of any fear, because something was coming. Judgment, maybe, or worse.

  The journey bled on.

  ***

  Twelve days went by, maybe more. It was a bit hard for him to keep track of them, honestly. The sun came and went through slats that ran across the wagon roof,. Between them, the light lazily shone, filtered by dust and the thin haze of travel fatigue. He counted days in breakfasts and dinners, a solid constant in the travel-life. The air changed, from pine to dry grass to mountain chill. Sometimes, they passed towns. Other times, there were stone ruins swallowed by the forest, old rocky markers stamped with long dead glyphs that none of the team could read.

  But the soldiers could. They always grew quiet around those.

  The wagons still locked tight each night, but the tension? That began to loosen. Like a drawn bow slowly easing back, the suspicion and initial bias the Terraxum regiment had against the their captives began to slacken.

  By the second week, their guards stopped just being guards and they became people.

  “You see that ridge?” One of the younger soldiers, a girl with white hair braided down her back, said to Cole one morning. “That’s where the Silvan Crows ambushed a trade convoy two years ago. My brother was there. Lost an eye in fight, he did. He never fails to bring it up at family dinner.”

  “Still win the fight?” Cole asked.

  “Barely. That’s Terraxum for you. Bleed and burn, but don’t back down.”

  “As Stone, so Stands the Legion,” Cole said.

  The girl smiled at that, tapping her green hued tattoos along her arm, “The Terraxum Army motto, yeah.”

  That kind of talk became common. Between food rations and firelight, stories drifted. Talk of noble houses, House Velcryn, with their stone-walkers and hexcraft prosthetics. House Thorneth, who bred their warriors from birth in war schools. And of course, the Crown, always watching. Always demanding.

  The soldiers never said it outright, but it was there, under every line they spoke. The thrum of duty. The fear of stepping too far outside it.

  One night, Alex sat by the bars of the wagon, chewing through stale travel bread, when a grizzled sergeant leaned nearby to light a pipe.

  “You all seem decent,” the sergeant said without looking at him. His voice was harsh to his ears, like gravel poured over iron. “But you’re not in the wild anymore.”

  Alex turned. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means the throne doesn’t care about decent. Doesn’t care if you helped some allied kobolds, slayed some wild beast horde, or patched up a sick rookie. The throne wants control. Anything that threatens that? Gets erased.” The sergeant exhaled smoke and walked away before giving him a chance to respond.

  Alex didn’t finish his bread.

  By the third week, things eased up even more. They were let out of the wagon daily, under guard, of course, but no longer caged. No longer song birds to be gawked at.

  He walked the campground as the regiment set in for the night. The sun was still up, beginning its crest over the edge of that black hole in the sky, but leaving enough light allow work and training to be done before night set in for good.

  The squad trained in the dried up dirt just a few paces away from the Terraxum regiment’s own training circle. They got to spar and practice, as long as they stayed under close watch. It was annoying that they weren’t allowed weapons, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get some practice in.

  Alex stretched his limbs gratefully, and watched the soldiers go through their own drills on his right. There was an elegance to their moves, rigid forms and circular footwork, each movement chained to the next. As style of marching, it allowed for fast reposition even in large groups on the battlefield.

  He saw it very much like Sylvaris’ Martial style, but colder. Less breath and spirit, more muscle and well set, heavy placements. The soldier’s cloaks embroidered with glyphs shone in the sunset rays, glittering just so.

  Speaking of glyphs...

  Alex saw them clearly green-ink tattoos burned into the skin of nearly every soldier. Some had only one or two arms tattooed. Sharp lines, and hefty sigils easily syncing with the earth element that each of the soldiers seemed to embody.

  Others had more, covering their bodies entirely and bore them like battle-maps, winding down arms, across shoulders, curling around spines. He noticed one soldier, a huge man with a voice that crackled like falling trees, whose glyphs even reach his head and face and glowed faintly when he fought. They moved, too, reshaping as he pivoted, chaining together and pulsing into his strikes.

  “Body tempering glyphs,” a nearby soldier muttered when he caught Alex staring. “Enchanted into us by military scribes. They are standard issue, and not only help enforce our bodies over time, but give our enemies a signal of our strength and status. These?” He tapped a part of a tattoo on his left leg. “I received after I survived the Siege of Korrith Vale. I killed eight enemies soldiers, earned a promotion and an expansion to my glyphs. One of my unit died in the battle.”

  Alex nodded slowly.

  The glyphs weren’t weapons then. They were a path to power. A symbol of military identity. Some sort of cultivation tool that mimicked an aether gathering technique, but focused entirely on growing their physical stats.

  His mind flicked to Obby, to the enchantment formulas he had been teaching him and the [Lattice Spiral] enhancement they had made to his aether gate on his neck. He couldn’t help but begin thinking of a way he could mimic the tattoos, but tailor them to his own body, his own abilities. How efficient could the tattoo be if it didn’t have to focus on earth attuned aether in it’s effects?

  This is what glyphcraft could do for me, he thought. I can treat my body itself as a cultivation tool, if I’m willing to endure and bleed for it. He realized.

  If he was able to a closer look at the tattoos, inspect exactly how they functioned, he would be able to get a head start on mimicking them. He could imagine a method for himself to craft the effect from scratch, but that would take a lot of time, and probably be far too many glyphs to fit on his body. The Terraxum soldier’s tattoos were more complicated for certain, but cleaner, more streamlined and compact than anything he would be able to come up with on his own.

  It would just take some time for him to figure out a way to see the tattoos close up.

  That night, the wagons were still locked, but loosely. The door was latched, but the lock hung on the hook beside it. None of them would need to shout into the night if they needed to use the bathroom, the buckets being a long discarded method.

  Tom-Tom had somehow gotten a blanket with mushrooms embroidered along the edges. No one knew who gave it to him. He claimed “mysterious kobold diplomacy.” Alex was damn certain that one of the soldiers made the thing and given it to him. How they had made it so quickly, he wasn’t sure, but he assumed there was some kind of system skill involved.

  Peter was sharing campfire riddles with a young lieutenant.

  Allie treated minor wounds like a field medic again.

  And even Kate, cold, caustic Kate, had begun nodding to the squad leaders as they passed.

  The soldiers never let their guard down entirely. But the tone? It wasn’t hostile anymore. It was curious, just on the cusp of friendly. And what kept the soldiers from moving over that line into friendly, the whispers. “Worldstriders.” That name again.

  “Is it true?” another soldier asked Henry over a cookfire.

  Henry shrugged.

  The soldier pressed. “They say Worldstriders bend the world. That you’re not even from here. Is that true?”

  He saw Henry look over his shoulder, at Alex, at the squad, at the bracers glowing faintly around their wrists. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “How?”

  Alex placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder, and smiled down at the soldier, “Heavenly System stuff of course. You wouldn’t quite understand.” Then he winked.