97. Welcome to Rotgard

  Just when Serac thought her little Wayfaring party might grow into a quintet, it disbanded itself without warning. First with the unannounced departure of Renate, followed by the Tomasen twins running off in pursuit.

  “This here is Rotgard.” Lars at least had the decency to offer a hasty explanation. The news didn’t necessarily come as a surprise to Serac, who’d already taken note of the barren landscape around them. “My brother and I must travel upstream. Back to Town Market. I suspect Finless will target Jorgen & Sons in our absence.”

  “Should Zacko and I come with?” Serac asked numbly, for want of a more obvious choice. “Technically, we’re still on a ‘job’ to capture the Finless, aren’t we?”

  She now remembered why she and Zacko had been recruited in the first place. Palmr Jorgensen had identified them as unknown quantities: rookies who had the element of surprise on their KL-60+ superior. Well, so much for that. In their combined efforts to smite Mulaharta, Wayfarers both new and old had bared all. When (if) they next met, Renate would know exactly what to look out for.

  “No,” Lars answered, even as he passed COASTER to Hans and made new ice on the river. “You will only slow us down. And before I forget, this is yours.”

  Lars produced a jute-woven pouch and tossed it to Serac. She caught it, nearly losing her balance from the sheer weight of the thing. No wonder, for it contained all the gelatinous goop she’d [Harvested] from cave-dwelling Wildspawns, much of which had come from a giant tadpole monster.

  The sturgeons didn’t wait for Serac to thank them, as both brothers hopped onto the new block of ice. They then made a series of quick, short COASTER passes, STROKE-SIDE to BOW-SIDE then back again. And after several repetitions…

  [COASTER Spell: BREAKAWAY]

  The ice boat zoomed up the river with a burst of speed. Directly against the rushing currents, but it didn’t matter. The twins had generated their own localized dynamo to propel themselves upstream. Just like that, the Tomasens rapidly disappeared into the distance.

  Which left Serac and Zacko by their twosome with no local supervision. They’d ascended as a duo, and it seemed they’d continue as a duo, at least for now. It took Serac a while longer to come to grips with the abrupt loss of direction.

  “Should we follow them?” she asked aloud, happy for either of Zacko or Trippy to chime in. “Now that we’re out in the field, we could summon Ash and see if our castle’s any good at climbing trees.”

  “I’ll go along with whatever you decide, Princess,” Zacko said blithely, sharing none of Serac’s concern. “I do wanna remind you, though. We’re still under that ‘moratorium’ prohibiting us from foraging, and right now, we just happen to be on our own with no one to watch us.”

  “Good point.” Serac nodded, readily seeing the value of their accidental freedom. “I’m also really curious about this here Rotgard. We’ve heard so much about it, and there’s obviously something strange going on here that can’t all be explained by Mulaharta. The soldiers, the secrecy, the lies about Renate. I want some answers, and I want to find them for myself.”

  “I thought you might say that.” Zacko let out a small sigh. “In which case, I have another reminder for you. We’ve had a loooong day, and I don’t know about you, but I’m just about ready for some sleep. At the very least a nap.”

  Only then did Serac become aware of the ambient lighting. The Wayfarers had originally departed for their mission at around midday. Presently, the sun had just peeked out over some hills in the distance, thus brightening a forest-green sky into something a little closer to seafoam. Serac didn’t need a local to tell her this was the dawn of a new day.

  “You’re right,” she murmured weakly, marveling at just how long she and Zacko had been stuck inside the Realm-cave. “Okay, how about this? We do some light exploration and foraging. Once we’ve managed to top up our [Satiety] a bit, we find somewhere quiet to rest.”

  “What about the stuff you got in that bag?”

  Serac opened the pouch, then nearly gagged from the smell. While the bag was soaking wet, its contents had remained more or less dry. That didn’t stop the Rumpe-goop from assaulting the senses with an acrid mixture of dried blood and… was that gunpowder?

  “If you wanna try this thing raw, be my guest,” she spoke through a pinched nose.

  Zacko leaned in, took one look at the contents of the bag, then said, “On second thought, a foraging run sounds like a good idea. Seems like it’ll be slim pickings around these parts, but even berries or some such would be preferable to whatever that is.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “If I might make a suggestion, Wayfarer,” Trippy did chime in then, “consider picking up the skill of cooking. That way, as long as you have the raw ingredients, you’ll always have a source of [Satiety] at hand. Not immediately, of course, but something to work into your plans. As long as you’re in Pretjord, I’m sure it’ll come in handy.”

  No argument there. Serac made a mental note, adding ‘cooking’ to her growing checklist for self-improvement. And with that, she and Zacko went off on their foraging run.

  Contrary to Zacko’s hopes, the duo’s first glimpse at Rotgard offered very little in the way of ‘berries or some such’. The rivers had come roaring back, but the surrounding terrain remained arid, rocky, and lifeless save for smatterings of prickly bushes. It was a far cry from the lush greenery and bustling activity of Stamgard’s Town Market. Enough to make one question if the two locales indeed belonged to the same Realm.

  The foraging run was as boring as it was fruitless. At some point, Serac lost herself in some sleepy reflections.

  What a busy day. A near drowning. A wolf hunt in the forest. Haggling over quest rewards with a scumbag businessman. Turtle ride down the river. Cave expedition. Boss fight in a team of five. And now this: back to wandering a hellish wasteland, just like the ‘good old’ Naraka days. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Hm. Sounds like something Zacko’s mama might say…

  Speaking of Zacko, the man started to show clear signs of distress. He’d been the first to complain of fatigue, and he now leveled fresh complaints, a noticeable edge breaking through his outwardly breezy demeanor.

  “Shit, this place really is the pits, just like the Yakshas said. Don’t think we’ll be finding anything edible anytime soon, and I won’t lie, I’m starting to worry about my [Satiety] gauge again. Fast metabolism and whatnot. Do you think… maybe we ought to book it back to the Town Market? See if we can’t mooch some leftovers off a kind soul or two?”

  Serac made a face, one of mixed emotions. Partly, she worried about Zacko’s state of [Hunger], desperate as she was to avoid another starvation scare. But an admittedly bigger part of her felt nothing but distaste for the idea of crawling back to Palmr Jorgensen, empty-handed and begging for a handout.

  “Let’s just go a bit further, shall we?” she said with forced optimism. “Maybe over them yonder hills is a forest with wildlife for us to hunt?”

  “If this is going to take much longer”—Trippy came in with another suggestion—“you should consider setting down a Waystation. Remember, the one you’re currently tethered to is flooded and gods know how many leagues under the ground. If anything were to happen to you right now, you’d need a safer, drier place to reconstitute.”

  No argument there. Indeed, it was a small wonder Serac hadn’t thought of it herself. She was also reminded of her single charge of Waystation [Privilege]. In the free-for-all to end the Mulaharta fight, it’d been difficult to tell which Wayfarer had received the smiting blow bonus, but it evidently hadn’t been her.

  She ought to put down a Waystation and soon, like Trippy suggested. But surely, there was a better place for it than here in the middle of a barren nowhere. Perhaps, over those yonder hills, they could find a nice, private nook or grotto to settle in? Gods, she certainly was placing a lot of hopes and dreams on those yonder hills.

  And as Serac stared into the hopeful distance, she became aware of a sound that belonged to neither her nor Zacko.

  First a distant rumble, originating from somewhere beyond those yonder hills. The sound traveled through the very earth—the locomotive vibrations of something large or perhaps many. Serac’s closest reference point was the irrepressible march of Ashvanaga, her very own mobile fortress. And while she couldn’t picture a blood-stained stone castle rumbling across the Roots of the Realmtree, she also couldn’t outright discount the possibility. After all, her first boss encounter in Pretjord had been against an ‘ascended’ Hellspawn.

  But as the sound grew louder, and as visible shapes emerged from atop the hills, Serac was soon reminded that reality was often much stranger than anything her imagination could conjure up.

  A group of Yakshas. At least several dozens of them at a glance. They sped toward the outrealmers en masse, every individual riding on turtle—no, tortoise-back. Large, wrinkly creatures with bumpy scales, saddled shells, and dour eyes.

  Even a hell bumpkin like Serac ‘knew’ tortoises were meant to be slow and heavy in their movements. But not so, this Pretjordian lot. Their wide-set quadrupedal legs waddled and shuffled with impressive agility, kicking up dust and tree bark debris as they carried their Yaksha riders across the bare terrain.

  The riders themselves were distinctive in their appearance and instantly recognizable. For Serac had already spotted a few of them yesterday, on her way down the rivers. One-piece suits covering collars to ankles, dyed in various camouflage patterns. Slender harpoon guns slung over every man’s shoulder. Soldiers bore down on Serac and Zacko. And from the looks of it, they didn’t come bearing gifts.

  I need to start a new list for Day 2, Serac thought sleepily, a little too taken aback to be truly alarmed. ‘Surrounded by gun-toting soldiers’, check.

  The soldiers and their tortoises did surround the Wayfarers now, in an evenly spaced formation and with coordinated movement. Up close, the Yakshas’ varied typings were plain to see. Everything from salmons to halibuts to a mackerel or two. But no matter the colors of their scales nor the shapes of their dorsal fins, they all joined in the same gesture now, readying and aiming their harpoons in unison.

  One soldier among them was clearly the ‘grizzled veteran’ of the group. A stout sea bass with a scarred face, who now spoke with practiced authority.

  “You’re trespassing on restricted land. State your business in Rotgard, outrealmers, and do not dally nor prevaricate… if you wish to walk out of here on your own two feet.”

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