by Stone Thomas
“But,” I said, “it’s adventurer quality.”
“Every adventurer starts off with lousy gear and a dream,” Carzl said. “Then they wake up and buy better gear. I suggest you do the same.”
“Thank you, Carzl,” I said. “We’ll talk more when I return.” He bowed and wandered off.
“Next!”
“What are we to do about the farms?” one of the farmers yelled. I knew none of the folks working the land were farmers by trade, but they were good earnest people working hard to make sure we didn’t die of starvation.
“I wish I had answers for you,” I said. “I can see that the ground resists providing for us, but I need you all to keep at it. We have more mouths to feed now than ever. No one is more vital to our success than those that till the land.”
“And the mine?” someone yelled. She held a pickaxe over her shoulder and her face was dark with soot. “Is it worth mining these or should we focus elsewhere?”
She handed me a few tiny energems like the ones Cindra had shown me recently.
“I thought you’d be more concerned with the goblins,” I said.
“They’re harmless,” she replied. “Like rats without the diseases. Greedy little monsters though.”
“There’s no use in mining gold if goblins will just steal it. Keep mining iron and keep the quarry going for Vix. Whatever energems you’ve collected, bring them to the temple. I know they’re small. I’m still hopeful we can find a purpose for them, so don’t give up. The priority right now is iron, then stone, then energems.”
“We need sewers!” a woman yelled.
“We need more wells!” another woman shouted.
“We’re out of wine!”
“Mamba,” I said, “you’re not helping.”
“Sorry, Arden,” she said. “I just wanted to participate. It’s a very lively group.”
The next questioner announced herself simply by clearing her throat.
“Oh, Lily,” I said. “I didn’t expect you to line up.”
“It seems to be the only way to get an audience at the moment,” she said. “I heard you were getting ready to leave. Ambry and I are ready now.”
“Ah,” I said. “I’m leaving for Landondowns now. Our trip to Valleyvale has been delayed.”
“Delayed?” she asked. “By how long?”
“Not long, I hope. Please keep up the good work you’re doing here while I’m gone.”
“So that’s it?” she said. “Keep working, I’m leaving? This is not okay, Arden. Valleyvale is in danger.”
“So is Halcyon,” I said. That sent a ripple of quiet through the crowd. “Nola sees what’s in store for us, and if we don’t improve our defenses, it’s not good. There’s a woman in Landondowns she wants me to bring back, and possibly a bastion stone. That’s the priority.”
Lily stomped off, but I couldn’t chase after her now.
“I think she’s just disappointed,” Vix said, “that she doesn’t get to go on another exciting adventure with us.”
“About that,” I said. “Vix, where I need you most right now is here. Put some of that newfound knowledge from Laranj’s temple to work. Nola deserves better than what we have, and we desperately need to fix that front door. You have free reign to build whatever else you think is necessary around here.”
“Free reign?” she asked. “No idea’s too big?”
“Or too small,” I said.
“Or too big,” she repeated, a smile stretching across her face. “I do want to see the world, but I’m always itching to build.”
“I’ll even skillmeister you first to sweeten the deal,” I said.
“Fine,” she said, “but you were going to do that anyway.”
“Guilty as charged,” I said. For someone covered in the blue curse of an officious lawmonger, it felt like a fitting thing to say.
“I saw earlier that you had a skill coming up, Siege the Day. It—”
“Unlock it, unlock it, unlock it!” She jumped as she chanted, her tail whipping behind her. I placed my hands on her shoulders to steady her and peered into her eyes.
“Done,” I said. “Siege the Day is open. Plus, you can build towers higher now and use steel in construction. We don’t have steel, but now I know we want it.”
Her eyes were wide with excitement. She was like a small human child opening Giftmas presents.
“My only other request is that you keep an eye on Brion,” I said. “Nola thinks she can handle him, but I’m not convinced.”
Because I’m such a lousy judge of character, Nola said.
No, I replied, it’s because I know how badly you want to do the right thing, even if you put yourself in danger to do it.
Takes one to know one, she said.
“I’ll sniff him down,” Vix said.
“Perfect, I think. That just leaves you two,” I said, turning to Mamba and Cindra.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Cindra said.
“Don’t what?” I asked.
“Find some reason to send us both away and head off alone,” she said. “If you go alone, who’s going to keep you warm at night?” She stepped close to me, her eyes darting from my eyes to my lips.
“Are you using Flirt on me?” I asked.
“If that’s what it takes,” she said. “Halcyon will be productive, safe, and efficient while we’re gone. We’re going with you.”
Mamba, perpetually in motion, nodded. She held a snake that slithered across her shoulders and down one outstretched arm to stare at me.
“You’re serious?” I asked. “You’re sure?”
“We’re both,” Cindra said.
I took a deep breath. “Okay. But it’s because I trust you both to be strong and capable, just like I trust Vix. It’s not because you used Flirt on me.”
“Even better,” Cindra said.
I took one last look at the temple. This wasn’t like taking a shopping trip to Valleyvale (that went pretty badly, actually). And it wasn’t like investigating Meadowdale just a short trek from Halcyon (which, incidentally, was also sort of a disaster). This was a trip that might last weeks, through territory I had never seen and to a city besieged by Duul’s cretins.
“Here goes,” I said, my head still stinging from its encounter with Hork’s forehead. “Every journey into the terrifying unknown begins with a severe head wound, right?”
We set out south, but didn’t make it more than a few paces.
“Wait!” a mousy young woman yelled behind us, running down the steps from the hilltop as quickly as her short legs could take her. Her voice was small for someone not quite so far away.
She ran until she was just a few inches from me. “Master Arden? I’d like a moment.”
“It’s Lexa, right?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said, blushing behind small glasses. “You know my name? Of course you do, you know everything that happens here. Sorry. I’m glad I caught you before you left. I wanted to update you on the map situation.”
“Have you made progress?” I asked.
“See for yourself,” she said, handing me a rolled up piece of parchment.
It was a drawing of a handful of buildings on a hill surrounded by a wall. An indented path in the hill led to the entrance of a cave.
“That’s the temple,” I said, “and these are the buildings we’ve completed. It’s a map alright, but I’m not sure I needed a map of Halcyon itself.”
“Watch,” Lexa said, dragging her finger across the parchment. The image of the hill moved across the paper, revealing the trees of the forest to our west. “You can also zoom in.” She touched one of the trees and held her finger there. The longer her finger sat in that one spot, the closer the image became until we were staring at a tree from what seemed to be twenty feet over its tallest branch.
“And out.” She touched the image of a compass rose in the bottom corner of the map. Touching this spot brought the image back to a bird’s eye view, then higher, until the city was a small dot surroun
ded by trees.
“How did you accomplish this?” I asked.
“I’ve been making maps for a long time,” she said. “I unlocked a few of these skills in Valleyvale, then trained up and paid for skillmeistering. Maps like this are an item adventurers pay good money for, so that made me one of the few people that could afford to pay for upgrades at Gowes’ temple.
“What’s new, however, is the skill you unlocked for me when I moved to Halcyon.”
“Carto-gopher?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Until now, all of my maps were created based on places I had actually been. Carto-gopher lets me make maps of places I send my scouts instead.
“I was worried I had to send actual gophers into the wild and hope they would update the maps as they went. It turns out, scouts don’t have to be gophers. They don’t have to be animals at all. They just have to carry one of these.”
Lexa handed me a small compass. Its needle glowed with blue magic.
“I used my skill to link compasses like these to the map you’re holding. The map should update automatically based on where the compasses travel to.
“If I can make more, we can find the right animal for the task so we don’t have to bother any of the workers.”
“Gi-ants,” I said. “Our newest citizen is a gi-ant queen. I’ll ask if she’ll send her children out on mapmaking errands for us.”
“The compasses degrade the further they get from the map, but that’s the compasses’ only limitation I’ve observed so far. The stronger my skills get, the longer they should last, and I’ll hopefully develop some other skills that will add detail to the map.
“That is, if you think this is even worth pursuing.”
“Yes,” I said, “a million times yes. Lexa, you are amazing.” She pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose and smiled.
“Here’s what we’ve mapped out so far,” she said. “This is Meadowdale, just an hour south of the mountains and the Savior’s Sea. Valleyvale is a good day’s walk to the east of that.”
“Right,” I said.
“Now let’s zoom out,” she said. “You can see that it’s all forests, plains, and marshes beyond that. Then the map is blank.”
“Because I haven’t been there yet,” I said.
She corrected me. “It’s because one of these compasses haven’t been there yet. Take this compass with you everywhere you go and the map will keep updating.”
“How many of these compasses are there?” I asked.
“I made three,” she said. “I tied one to a chick-hen as an experiment, which really paid off. Over the last few days it has covered a lot of random terrain. You can just make out which one that is here.” She pointed to a small blue dot on the map that represented that chick-hen’s compass.
“I also gave one to a woodcutter,” she said, “which paid off in a different way. She only covered territory close to Halcyon, but she was very thorough. This dot is her. I’d like to make more compasses, but I need rare metals to make the compass needle and I’m all out.”
“Since you make maps,” I said, “you must have a good handle on geography, even if it’s not pictured here, right?”
“Somewhat,” she said. “Life in Valleyvale wasn’t exactly cosmopolitan, but I learned what I could in the short time I spoke with the man who sponsored me.”
“How far are we from the beastkin lands, the elf lands, and the Imperial City?”
“The short answer is far,” she said.
“And the long answer?” I asked.
“Imagine a clock,” she said. “Meadowdale and Halcyon are near the twelve. The Imperial City is near the center of the clock. That’s about three weeks of travel on foot. The clock’s face is divided into three sections, one for each of the human lands, the beastkin lands, and the elf lands.
“The human lands take up the space roughly from the ten to the two, a full third of the known world. The elves have less space, roughly from the two to the five, but their cities are closer together and built up higher to compensate. They do a lot with the little land they have.
“The beastkin are the opposite. They like their open space. They control the five to the ten, and their cities are sprawling, spaced out, and far apart.
“Everything beyond that,” she continued, “is the wilds. Picture that as falling outside the frame of our little clock. As far as I know, no one has ever charted the wilds, or settled there.”
“What are the major cities in each of the lands?” I asked.
“I don’t really know,” Lexa replied. “I’m better at mountains, deserts, bogs, and things like that. Cities are smaller than geological features, so they’re harder to pin down without going to the city first and Surveying the land. I could do that though, if you think it’s worthwhile.”
“No,” I said, “stay here. It’s too dangerous to go on Surveying missions. I’d like you to make more of these maps. Can you connect them all to the same compasses as mine?”
“I can,” she said. “I’ll get started on that now.”
“Thank you, Lexa,” I said. “It may seem like a simple thing to you, since mapmaking is your skillset, but being able to cross the terrain beyond our borders without getting hopelessly lost is indispensable. You’re as key to our survival as the people who feed us and fend off invaders in combat.”
“I’m glad you think so,” she said. “There is just one problem with the map that I haven’t been able to fix yet. When you go inside, the whole view changes and shows you the inside of the building you’re in. If you want to check the world map, you have to step outside, rather than stand in the temple, or an office, or any place like that.”
“I’m sure I’ll make due,” I said. “It’s a small price to pay for something this impressive. Thank you.”
She ran back toward the temple as Mamba, Cindra, and I set off.
After spending the morning focused on Halcyon’s problems, it was a relief that Lexa had made progress on a tool that would help us with the task ahead. Even when I wasn’t managing Halcyon’s specialists closely, I could trust them to work hard behind the scenes.
I was back in a good mood, and it wasn’t even Gowes’ fault.
+20
“So much wonderful exercise we’re getting,” Mamba said, a few hours into our never-ending walk toward Landondowns.
“Yes,” I said, “wonderful.” I was mildly out of breath. I had meant to pick up running to increase my endurance on these long trips, but things had gotten too busy. Plus, I tried to make time for the girls amidst my other temple duties. That seemed like endurance training enough.
The cramp in my left butt cheek said otherwise. It said, “Arden, if you aren’t going to value your butt, neither am I. And I am your butt.”
Point taken. Adding points to Strength might improve my ability to lift heavy things and attack well in battle, but it was no substitute for hard work. If I wanted legs that could go the distance, I’d have to make time to train. Later.
“I greatly overestimated how exciting a journey through the woods would be,” I said, eyeing the odd, crooked shadows that stretched from the bases of the trees. “If it weren’t for the little blue dot that shows us moving on this map, I’d think we hadn’t made any progress. Nothing seems to change, it’s just tree after tree after tree.”
“I don’t mind it at all,” Mamba said. “I love the forest. The smell of the sun, the crunch of the clouds through the leaves. It’s home to me.”
“Is that why you were living in the woods when we first met you?” I asked.
“All I wanted there was to find myself lost,” she said, stopping at the edge of a tree’s thick shadow and hopping over it. I took a long step past the shadow myself, wondering why Mamba was so keen on avoiding it. “Every young gypsy is sent out for a time, though most return quickly enough. Not me. I had nothing to return that they’d want, and nothing to want for a return.”
“So you would just wander the woods, homeless forever?” I ask
ed.
“Not all who are lost wander,” she said. “And now I have a home, with a head priest no less. It’s ironic.”
“Mamba, sweetie,” Cindra said, “do you know what makes something ironic?”
“Yes,” she said.
My eyes returned to the map as we walked, so I let Mamba’s lack of explanation slide. This map was a marvel. If Lexa really could create more maps hooked up to the same compasses, we could create a commercial empire just selling these to adventurers, pre-loaded with all the cartographic data we had collected up to this point.
We could call it a geographic projection sheet. GPS for short. We could even send adventurers out on mapquests to keep the information updated!
Mamba kept jumping over shadows, and Cindra played along like a good sport, but I had more important things to think about than playing hopscotch with the forest. Things that were a matter of life and death, a matter of the balance of the universe. I was getting hungry.
I was too distracted to notice who was oohing as we kept walking.
“Mamba?” I asked. “Was that you?”
“No,” she said, “this is me. I can’t be this and that. At least, not without an awful lot of effort.”
Oooooh.
“I meant that sound,” I said. “Cindra?”
“I heard it too,” she replied, “but I don’t know where it came from.”
Ooooooooooh.
“Oh no,” Mamba said. “The darkwind is awake. That’s too bad. I thought we avoided stepping on the shadows.”
The shadows that stretched from the bases of the trees started to move on their own, gliding across the ground in front of us. I brought up Razortooth, though I wasn’t sure how effective a bent spearhead would be against roving shadows.
“Mamba,” Cindra said, “you seem to know something.”
“I know a lot of things,” Mamba said.
“Such as?” I asked.
