Chapter 69

  The road from Vyrdan wound through farmland before climbing into forested hills.

  They walked in silence for the first hour, each of them lost in their own thoughts. The morning mist clung to the fields on either side of the road, slowly burning off as the sun rose higher. Other travelers passed occasionally, merchants with carts, farmers heading to market, a patrol of guards making their rounds. None of them paid the party much attention.

  Arin found the anonymity comforting. Out here, he was just another traveler on the road. No one knew about the Dungeon tragedy. No one looked at him and saw the face of their fear.

  "Strange, isn't it?" Essa said eventually, breaking the quiet. "Yesterday we couldn't walk down the street without people staring. Out here, no one cares."

  "Give it time," Torvin said. "News travels. By the time we reach Valdris, stories about intelligent slimes in the Dungeon will probably have spread."

  "Maybe," Kelsa said. "But Valdris is bigger. More diverse. One story among many rather than the only thing anyone's talking about."

  They walked on, the rhythm of travel slowly easing the tension that had coiled in Arin's core since the moment he'd heard Varen's account of the fifth floor. The road didn't judge. The road didn't care what species you were or what crimes your kind had committed. It simply stretched ahead, offering the same path to everyone. It was a chance for a new beginning

  ***

  They made camp that evening in a clearing just off the road, a spot that showed signs of regular use by travelers. A ring of stones marked where countless fires had burned before, and the ground was packed hard from years of bedrolls and boots.

  Torvin built the fire while Essa prepared a simple meal from their provisions. Kelsa took first watch, settling against a tree at the clearing's edge where she could see the road in both directions. Arin helped where he could, gathering deadfall for the fire, his form shifting easily between humanoid and slime as the tasks required.

  "You know what bothers me most?" Torvin said once they were settled around the flames. "It's not that they turned on us. People are stupid when they're scared. I've seen it before." He poked at the fire with a stick, sending sparks spiraling into the darkness. "What bothers me is how fast it happened. Two weeks ago, that Gold rank veteran was buying us drinks and praising Arin's tactics. One tragedy later, she won't even look at him."

  "Fear erases memory," Essa said quietly. "When people are afraid, they forget everything except the thing that frightens them. All they could see was slime, not Arin."

  "That is how it has always been," Arin said. "People see a monster first. Person second, if at all."

  "That's not fair," Torvin said.

  "No. But it is real," Arin said, considering his next words. "I cannot change what I am. Only what I do. If that is not enough for some people, then I find others."

  "Like us," Essa said with a small smile.

  "Like you."

  Kelsa's voice drifted over from her watch position. "When I first agreed to let Arin join the party, I had doubts. I won't pretend otherwise. A slime adventurer? It sounded like a joke, or a disaster waiting to happen." She was quiet for a moment. "I was wrong. Arin's saved our lives more times than I can count. He's earned his place ten times over. And if the people of Vyrdan can't see that, then Vyrdan doesn't deserve him."

  The fire crackled and popped in the silence that followed. Arin felt something warm settle in his core, a counterweight to the cold rejection they'd left behind.

  "Valdris will be different," Torvin said with forced optimism. "New city, new start. We'll show them what we can do, and they'll judge us on results. That's all we need."

  "That's all we've ever needed," Kelsa agreed.

  ***

  On the third day, they found work.

  A merchant caravan had stopped at a crossroads inn, its guards nursing wounds and its master desperate for help. Something had attacked them in the night, creatures that emerged from the darkness with teeth and claws, vanishing before anyone could get a clear look at them.

  "Shadow hounds," Kelsa said after examining the wounds. "Pack hunters. They're drawn to the campfire's light but attack from the darkness beyond it. Nasty things, but manageable if you know what you're dealing with."

  The merchant, a heavyset man with nervous eyes, looked at their party with obvious relief. His gaze lingered on Arin for a moment, confusion flickering across his face, but desperation won out over caution.

  "Can you help? I'll pay well. I just need to get my goods to Valdris in one piece."

  "We're heading that way ourselves," Kelsa said. "We can escort you for a reasonable fee."

  They negotiated terms quickly, the merchant was too frightened to haggle. By midday, they were on the road again, this time with three wagons of trade goods rolling along behind them.

  The shadow hounds came that night, as Kelsa had predicted. Arin sensed them first, his awareness extending into the darkness beyond the firelight where shapes moved with predatory patience.

  He shifted to slime form and pressed against Kelsa's boot, a pre-arranged signal. She glanced down, reading his warning.

  "How many?" she asked quietly.

  He tapped six times against her ankle.

  "Six of them, circling," Kelsa announced to the others. "Waiting for an opening. We don't give them one. Torvin, guard the wagons. Essa, stay close to the merchant and his people. Arin, you're with me."

  They moved into the darkness together, hunter becoming hunted. Arin's Darkvision let him see what his companions couldn't, the sleek shapes of the hounds as they prowled just beyond normal sight. His Stealth made him nearly invisible as he flowed through the underbrush, positioning himself for the first strike.

  The fight was brief and brutal. The hounds had expected easy prey, not a coordinated response. Arin caught the pack leader with a Charge that sent it tumbling, and Kelsa's sword found its throat before it could recover. The others scattered, regrouped, attacked again, and died for their persistence.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  [Shadow Hounds Defeated - Level 12 x6]

  [+72 Essence]

  [+45 Mass]

  When they returned to the firelight, Arin shifted back to humanoid form. The merchant stared at them with something approaching awe.

  "You killed them all? Just like that?"

  "That's what you hired us for," Kelsa said simply.

  The merchant's eyes found Arin again, and this time there was no confusion in them. Just respect, the same respect Arin had worked so hard to earn in Vyrdan before it was stripped away.

  "I've never seen anyone move like that," the merchant said. "The way you just... flowed into the darkness. I couldn't even track you."

  "Practice," Arin said.

  The merchant laughed, a surprised sound that broke the tension of the night. "Practice. Right." He shook his head. "Well, whatever it is, I'm glad you're on our side."

  On our side… Such simple words, yet right now they feel like such a rare thing to hear.

  ***

  On the fifth night, while the others slept and the merchant's guards kept watch over the wagons, Arin let his thoughts drift to Levi.

  He wondered what his creator would have thought of all this. The Dungeon run. The success. The rejection that followed. Would Levi have been surprised by how quickly acceptance could turn to fear? Or would he have expected it, having spent his life working with creatures that most people considered monsters?

  You told me that intelligence brings responsibility. That being able to think means choosing what to do with those thoughts.

  Arin remembered those conversations, fragments preserved in whatever served as his memory. Levi explaining concepts that most people never bothered to teach a slime. Ethics. Choice. The weight of being able to understand the consequences of your actions.

  I'm choosing to keep going. To prove that you were right about me. That a monster can be more than its nature.

  The stars wheeled overhead, indifferent to the struggles of slimes and humans alike. Somewhere out there, the three who had killed Levi were living their lives, probably never thinking about the researcher they'd murdered or the creature they'd left behind. Arin still didn't know their names, their faces, their reasons. He only knew they existed, and that someday, somehow, he would find them.

  But that was a goal for later. For now, there was the road, and the party, and a new city waiting to be convinced that a slime could be trusted.

  One step at a time… One choice at a time... One person at a time.

  That was how Arin was going to change the world.

  ***

  On the seventh day, they saw Valdris.

  The city announced itself long before they reached it. The road crested a hill, and suddenly the world dropped away into a vast gorge that split the landscape like a wound in the earth. The chasm was easily a thousand feet deep, its walls of striated rock plunging down to a river that glinted silver in the afternoon sun.

  And spanning that impossible gap, connected by bridges of stone and steel, was Valdris.

  The city was built on both sides of the gorge and across it, structures rising from the cliff edges and hanging over the abyss on supports that seemed too delicate to hold their weight. The main bridge was a marvel of engineering, wide enough for six wagons to pass abreast, its span decorated with towers and market stalls and what looked like entire buildings constructed on its surface.

  "Now that's something," Torvin said, his voice hushed with genuine awe. "Dwarves helped build that, or I'll eat my hammer."

  "Valdris was founded as a neutral trading post," Kelsa said, reciting what she'd learned before their journey. "The gorge marks the border where three old kingdoms meet. Building across it meant none of them could claim it. Now it belongs to everyone and no one."

  "A city of merchants and dealmakers," Essa added. "Where gold matters more than blood."

  "That could work in our favor," Torvin said. "Merchants care about results. If we can do the job, they won't care what species is doing it."

  Arin studied the city, trying to take in its scale and complexity. Somewhere in that mass of stone and steel was an adventurer's guild, contracts waiting to be taken, and people who had never heard of the slime who cleared two floors of the Dungeon of Challenges.

  A fresh start. A blank slate.

  The merchant caravan began its descent toward the city gates, and the party followed. The road switched back and forth down the gorge's edge, each turn revealing new views of the city's impossible architecture.

  "Ready?" Kelsa asked as they approached the gatehouse.

  "Ready," Arin said.

  This time, he meant it.

  ***

  The gate guards were thorough but professional.

  They checked the merchant's cargo manifests, verified the party's guild credentials, and asked the standard questions about the purpose of their visit and intended duration of stay. When the guard's eyes landed on Arin, there was a moment of hesitation, a quick glance at a colleague, but nothing more.

  "Sapient slime," the guard read from their documentation. "Registered adventurer, Silver rank, Vyrdan guild." He looked up. "Transferring to Valdris?"

  "That's right," Kelsa said.

  "Guild hall's in the Market District, east side of the main bridge. Can't miss it." The guard stamped their papers and handed them back. "Welcome to Valdris."

  No hostility. No fear. Just professional indifference, the guard was treating them like any other travelers passing through his gate.

  It was, Arin realized, exactly what he'd hoped for.

  The merchant paid them before they parted ways, adding a bonus to the agreed-upon fee. "For the shadow hounds," he explained. "And for not asking too many questions about why I was so desperate." He clasped Kelsa's hand, then turned to Arin. "If you're ever looking for escort work, ask for Merchant Callum at the Trader's Rest. I'll vouch for you."

  "Thank you," Arin said.

  "Thank me by staying alive. Good adventurers are hard to find."

  He disappeared into the city's crowds, his wagons trundling along behind him. The party stood at the edge of the main thoroughfare, surrounded by more people than Arin had seen since leaving Vyrdan.

  "Well," Torvin said, looking around with something approaching excitement, "here we are. New city, new start, new opportunities to get into trouble."

  "Let's find the guild hall first," Kelsa said. "Register our presence, see what contracts are available. Then lodging."

  "And food," Essa added. "Real food, not trail rations."

  They set off into Valdris together, four adventurers ready to prove themselves all over again. The city swallowed them into its maze of streets and bridges, a new world waiting to be explored.

  Arin didn't know what they would find here. He didn't know if Valdris would accept him any better than Vyrdan had in the end. But he knew one thing with absolute certainty.

  Whatever came next, they would face it together.

  And that made all the difference.

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