Chapter 73: Scenic Road

  CROWN

  I’d learned a lot about what to consider, lately. I tried to pay attention to some of these details that I knew would be important later while I approached the checkpoint.

  The terrain was idyllic and pleasant enough. Much of the continent was covered in forests, aside from some mountainous areas and the coasts or lowlands. A large crescent-shaped region broke up this mega-forest with a savannah-like area of tall grasses dotted with small clusters of trees.

  This was where I’d placed my Avatar, right at the edge of this grassland. I was approaching via a road, but to call it a ‘road’ was being generous. It was more like a wide path where the grass had been trodden down, but it still reached to my thighs on either side… and I was not short in this body. If anything, I was a little taller than my ‘human’ body.

  The road wasn’t in great shape, but it also didn’t look to be well-used anyway. I didn’t see any signs of wagon tracks, and I knew that the vaskan had the wheel, so I figured it wasn’t a trade route. That was puzzling to me, because I didn’t see the point of having a road without trade, in this era. It didn’t add up… but that was part of why I was here.

  | CROWN: Probably not that important, but can you trace where this road leads? ?

  | DUCK: Can we get a video game console so I can say no? ?

  | DUCK: I’ll take a look.

  It took me a second to realize how odd that was. I’d thought Duck mostly had memories from Tastka, but if she was joking about video games, she must have at least some of my Earth memories. Interesting. And she was certainly a lot more emotional than the Terminal Orpheus had left with me. Yet Orpheus didn’t seem to think Duck had anything unusual about her aside from her origin.

  I put that out of my mind and approached the checkpoint.

  There wasn’t much to it, really. I knew that a decent-sized village lay further beyond, but the checkpoint itself was pretty basic by most standards. The grass had been cleared out for a large open area of rough dirt. I’d thought that there were huts or something here, from a distance, but two of the three structures were just hide tarps on stilts over crude benches. One of the shelters had a rough-hewn table as well, next to a small fire pit.

  Shelter from the rain with something to keep warm, I thought to myself.

  I got a good look at the watchtower itself, too. Calling it a ‘watchtower’ was a bit generous. Here on the frontier of the nation, they didn’t have anything fancy. So the tower was basically two stories with a ladder up the side to reach the top platform. It was made of large hewn timber, with the frame forming the support for the first floor, which was a true building. Simple wooden walls with a base of what looked like fired clay bricks made up the building, with a single doorway using a hide curtain as a door.

  The only thing that I wasn’t sure about was the dome-like top of the watchtower, which looked to be made of giant leaves with an odd sheen to them. It reminded me of the shelters the elves used, but none of this looked to be shaped by magic, only simple manual labor.

  I saw one of the guards for the checkpoint up in the watchtower, so it wasn’t surprising that on my approach, the other was already walking toward me. He was a heavyset man, with a slight dusting of scales on his neck and slit pupils. Despite my earlier confidence in my skills, I had some sudden doubts that I could easily take him in a fight. I wasn’t really a warrior by nature, even if I’d learned things as Tastka and had System skills to help me out.

  The class could give me attributes and some muscle memory, but it was still up to me to figure out how to use it. It was a little like power-leveling an MMO character, in that respect. I had all the stats and a general idea of what the abilities did, but I didn’t know the rotations or what worked well with what, yet. If a real 50th-level vaskan came after me, they would probably take me down with minimal effort in a straight-up fight.

  “Stranger!” The large man called out. I braced myself for a challenge… but instead he continued in a mild, friendly tone. “Come, sit! Have you journeyed far? Can you speak?”

  The accent was slightly different than what I’d learned, but even without the help of my Admin powers, it was easy to understand him. I smiled -- glad that the vaskan were simian in ancestry and had many similar expressions to humans – and lifted an arm in greeting.

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  “My thanks!” I called out. I put more emphasis on the hard consonants, and drew out one of the vowel pairings, trying to give myself an understandable accent. The language was syllable-timed, so drawing out those vowels made it more difficult to speak in a way that I was sure the guard would understand. “I come from what your people call the Frosted Forest!”

  The second guard had climbed down to meet us, or so I had thought. He vanished into the small building at the base of the watchtower, while the first thumped the table and gestured for me to sit. I did so, internally confused, with my staff leaned against the table for now.

  A few blinks and a puzzled expression were followed by a look of comprehension as the guard worked through my artificial accent. “Hah! A long journey! What news do you bring?”

  The other guard emerged from the building bearing three tankards of some liquid. My nose immediately picked up the scent of a light alcohol of some sort. I’d had some in my previous incarnation, though I never learned how it was made. It had surprised me when I returned to the Sanctuary, since I’d thought fermentation would be impossible, but apparently my attempt to rid the world of bacteria hadn’t included molds, yeasts, or the like.

  So, we had drink. And it also suddenly hit me why they were so friendly. By this time, the elves had developed long-range communication through magic, but the vaskan were less magical, and had far fewer caster classes. They couldn’t use such magic casually…

  So travelers weren’t viewed with suspicion so much as eagerness for what happened in the wide world beyond their borders. I wondered if that had been true in ancient human history, or if this culture was particularly welcoming. It would make my task here easier if true.

  | DUCK: Hey boss, I traced that road. It branches off into a bunch of small villages, then ends up at some kind of complicated gravesite. ?

  | DUCK: The place is thick with belief. Not enough to make a god, but it’s a lot. They might be doing ancestor worship or something like that one elf tribe. ?

  | CROWN: Maybe. Most of them follow some kind of animism. It might be honoring what they view as powerful spirits.

  I would have to check out the place later. For now, I needed to answer the questions believably. Fortunately I knew some things that counted as news. I just had to be careful not to give too much information and mess up my Reality Point generation.

  “The roads are clear, but a village eight days Nightward was wiped out by the Living Rot,” I said. “The other tribes nearby are taking care of the problem. It looks like a dam diverted the river through an Entropic pool.”

  Both guards winced, the second just now taking a seat and sliding me a drink. I took a sip gratefully… I didn’t think this primitive alcohol would be good, but it tasted all right. A bit thin, like watered down mead, but not bad.

  “Terrible way to die,” the second guard mumbled. He was thinner and lighter than the first, and the only obvious sign of his Totem was the large eyes being almost completely black, with barely a hint of sclera.

  “Rainy season is looking to be heavy again this year,” I continued. “But I haven’t stopped by many villages in a while, so that’s about all I know.”

  The larger man grunted, but nodded. “I’d like to hear a story before you move on if you have time. If you’re stopping at Kelstad, you can make it well before nightfall. Going further will be tough even if you leave now.”

  “We should probably ask the questions.” The smaller man prodded his companion. He looked at me. “Single person though… [Wanderer] or [Record Seeker] or something else?”

  “[Wanderer].” I confirmed that with an easy swig of the drink. “With a second class in [Patternist] that is lower.”

  Truth. That [Wanderer] class was level 50, while my [Patternist] class was 43. Even an amateur caster would make travel easier though, so they didn’t need to know that.

  “Totem, any companions or weapons to declare? Trade goods?” The bigger guard sounded bored about it, but I was grateful they didn’t seem to care that much. I’d expected more of a fuss.

  I shook my head at the last question. “No trade goods except some metal I’m exchanging for local money. I travel light. Does that count?” I suddenly had to ask. If they counted that as a trade good… that could complicate things. “My Totem is a nightsleek… I’m a Challenger that got very lucky on my hunt for a grannel. I carry some bone daggers for self-defense but that’s it.”

  “Nightsleek? Don’t go telling everyone that.” The smaller guard looked a little worried, then shrugged. “Personal trade doesn’t count. Just go to the money-changer instead of hawking it to merchants.”

  Good, good. This was a lot simpler than I’d feared. I was starting to realize that while this ‘nation’ was large relative to the villages and tribes around it, it still hadn’t developed bureaucracy to the point that everything was bogged down. Probably because there just weren’t enough people who could do the work. My System meant that literacy ended up being near 100% for any culture that developed writing, but it appeared that this didn’t lead to a flood of red tape.

  The larger guard had by now fished out a rectangular tile. He slid it over, revealing a wood-backed token about half the size of a playing card, covered in white clay and stamped with a symbol. “Temporary visitor pass. No merchant business in the Domain. Don’t go into the Chosen Wards if you go to the city.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, friend.” As I reached for the tile, the big man clapped his hand over it, preventing me from taking it.

  He grinned at me. “But first… tell us about how you got that nightsleek Totem. That’s a story, I bet.”

  I considered… then I smiled back. “I’ll give you two stories. That one, and the story of another village I passed through. I just remembered, this might be news you will want to know.”

  I decided that this was as good a time as any to start work on the incursion defenses.

  All it needed was a good story.

  What Lurks Beneath

  Well, if you like this, let’s have one with some similarities.