The thrill of watching the land go by so fast that it was just a blur wore off after the first ten minutes of flight. Nym streaked through the sky about a quarter mile above the ground, going south so fast that he soon left Delvros behind completely. His destination was a town called Valderbough, where supposedly it didn’t get that cold even in the deep winter months.
Nym had a mental image of Cold Paw napping on the beach, snuggled up next to Analia while Monick and Nomick built elaborate sand castles using magic. Bilder would be out swimming while Ophelia sipped at a foaming mug of beer. It was a nice image, one he hoped would come true someday. Cold Paw would need a thermal barrier to protect him from the heat, but Nym could practically hold that in his sleep at this point. At least, if he could figure out how to keep channeled spells going while he was sleeping, he could.
He spent the flight daydreaming, not coming out of it until he reached the southern coast of the continent some two hours and the better part of fifteen hundred miles away. He wasn’t sure exactly where his destination was, other than on the coast. Fortunately, there were a lot of overlapping languages between the neighboring countries, because his plan was very much to just scan the coast line until he found a town and ask people to point him in the right direction.
Worst case scenario, he didn’t find Valderbough and the Earth Shapers got set down somewhere else. They’d picked it more or less at random, so he didn’t suppose it would matter to them too much. On the off chance that someone did have a reason for the specific destination of Valderbough, Nym thought he should at least attempt to get close to it.
He spotted a fishing village a few miles away and flew off towards it. One of the nice things about leaving Delvros was that he no longer needed to worry about having a license. He landed near a middle-aged woman tending a huge cauldron, the kind used to cook communal meals, who gave a start at the sight of him.
“Gaah!” she yelled, her accent thick. “Do not do such things!”
“Sorry,” Nym said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Foolish child! At my age, the heart does not like these kinds of games! Shoo! Begone. Go back to playing with your friends and leave me alone.”
Nym waited for her to finish scolding him, then said, “I’m a little lost. I’m not sure where I am now, but I’m looking for a town called Valderbough. Can you tell me which way to go?”
She squinted at him and gave the cauldron another stir. The aroma coming up from it wafted over to Nym, prompting his stomach to gurgle. Unable to help himself, Nym gave his attention over to the food. “I might want to buy a meal from you as well,” he admitted.
“Of course you do. Boys your age are stomachs on legs. Very well, I shall make a bargain with you. I will tell you which direction you need to fly off to, and I will give you a bowl of this stew. But first, you shall take lunch out onto the ocean and deliver it to my husband. His name is Revaro, and he works on a fishing boat. It is very large, and should not be hard to find.”
“I’d rather just pay a bit of copper for it,” Nym said.
“I do not want copper. I want my husband to enjoy a warm meal on his lunch.”
It was revenge for scaring her, he knew. He could just fly off and find someone else to ask for help, but that stew did smell delicious. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Where is this boat at, and what does it look like? And what does your husband look like?”
Nym got his directions, then wrapped the bowl in a layer of hardened air to keep the stew from spilling and a thermal barrier to keep it hot. He took off out over the water, looking for the large boat painted white with two sails on it. It did not take all that long to find it, as most of the boats stayed within a mile of the coast and judicious use of perfect sight let him observe them from a ways away.
Five minutes later, he touched down on the deck of the two-master next to a bearded man, thick across the chest, and whose hands were knotted with scars. “Are you Revaro?” Nym asked.
“It depends on who wants to know,” the sailor said, eyeing him warily.
Nym presented the stew. “One stew, to be delivered to Revaro, per his wife’s instructions.”
The beard split open to reveal a grin and the sailor started laughing. “That old devil woman. This is why I married her. Here, hand it over.”
Nym relinquished the stew and released the magic he’d cast over the bowl. The pent-up steam billowed out for a moment before it was carried away on the sea breeze. Revaro didn’t bother with a spoon or anything like that; instead he just tipped the bowl back and took great swallows from it, pausing to chew for a second or two and then repeating.
Nym just shook his head, bemused at the sailor’s actions, and flew off. He was ready for his own lunch, and had other things to do with his evening. Hopefully Revaro’s wife wouldn’t be upset that he didn’t stick around to collect the bowl and return it.
A few minutes later, he was eating his own bowl of stew, and it was every bit as good as it smelled. The woman, whose name was Resari, was giving him directions, none of which were all that helpful. They involved a long list of towns and which direction of the road he should follow when he reached each one.
The problem was that she gave him directions to walk on foot, which included going around a lot of impassable landscape and avoiding certain areas that she deemed unsafe. When Nym tried to interject and tell her that he was going to fly the whole way, she just scoffed and told him he’d never even get close.
In her defense, most people didn’t do overland flight. She’d likely assumed he’d come from somewhere nearby and would be on the road for weeks or months making the trip. Nym asked if she had a map he could follow along with, but there was no such luck.
Finally he hit on an idea. “Let’s say I got on a boat and just followed it up the coast. I’d go northwest, right? And how many miles would I have to go in order to reach Valderbough?”
Resari snorted. “There is no boat here that would be so foolish as to attempt that voyage, no matter how many shiny coins you tossed around.”
“Look, please just tell me where I am right now in relation to Valderbough. That’s all I need to know.”
His stew was over half way gone. Once he finished, he was leaving one way or another. He could not for the life of him understand what was wrong with the woman. It was a simple question. He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t know the exact number of miles, but surely a guess wasn’t out of the question.
Nym finished his stew, thanked Resari, and flew up into the air. “Wait!” she called out. “I have not finished giving you your directions.”
“Yeah, thanks for the meal. Your directions aren’t really helpful. Have a good day.”
* * *
An hour later, and several hundred miles northwest of the fishing village, Nym tried again. It resulted in the same kind of dickering where random people wanted to trade favors for information. Nym could only assume it was a cultural thing, and declined to help. He had other stuff to do. Eventually, he found a small coastal city and approached a foreign sailor on the docks, hoping for better luck.
“Excuse me,” Nym said. “Could you tell me which port this is?”
“Karu,” the sailor said shortly. He waved Nym away and kept walking.
That was rude, but also more than he’d gotten from talking to the natives. More importantly, he recognized the name from the maps he’d studied back home. He wasn’t quite sure how to get to Valderbough from Karu, but he knew the general direction he needed to travel.
He gave himself another hour to travel, and that was as close as he was getting. He needed to get back up north soon. Archmage Veran was taking steps to disseminate information about the underground tunnel network they’d uncovered, and there were plans for a strike force to start cleaning them out once soldiers with mage support units had gotten into position to block off as many exits as possible. He’d told Nym he was putting the strike force together personally and wanted Nym on it.
By the time his hour was up, Nym was pretty sure he’d overshot where he needed to be, so he picked a nice little town called Dohr that was about fifty miles up the coast with roads leading away in three different directions as his teleportation point, then headed back to Geldrin to get the Earth Shapers.
A quick scry showed Monick building some sort of chicken coop for a farm nearby. Nym flew over and landed next to him while he was hunched over, etching runes into the base of the wall. “What’s this for?” he asked.
“Ahh! Damn it, Nym, don’t do that!” The earth mage spun in place to glare at him. “Everyone hates when you sneak up on them.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You don’t even have the decency to bring pastries with you anymore.”
“The bakery doesn’t exist anymore,” Nym countered.
“There are other bakeries,” Monick muttered. “Did you need something?”
“Wanted to know where everyone is. I found a town that’s… close to Valderbough, I think.”
“How close?”
Nym shrugged. “It’s someplace warmer than this town is going to be in a month. I also have some news for you, so… we should gather everyone up?”
“Uh, my brother is a few farms that way. Ophelia and Bildar are discussing putting up a new town hall with the village council. I’m not sure where Analia’s at.”
“I’ll send her a message. Think we can get the whole crew together in an hour? I’ve got some work to do this evening.”
“Maybe. I’ll let Nomick know. You go talk to the rest and tell us, huh?”
Plans made, Nym sent off messages to Analia and Ophelia, then walked down the road with Monick. They chatted about what was new in Geldrin, and Nym regaled Monick with tales of difficult southlanders and their endless requests in response to simple questions.
Soon enough, they had everyone gathered up for lunch, though Analia was somewhat annoyed at being called in. She’d been out hunting for herbs again and had to fly back. After Nym promised to take her back out when they were done, she mellowed out. Everyone got their food, and then Nym said, “Are you guys ready for your teleport down south?”
“What, right now?” Bildar asked.
“In the next hour or so, yes.”
“What’s the rush?”
“Well,” Nym said. “We kind of found out that there’s a bunch of undead in some secret tunnel network under the forest, and that a lot of the earth mages who didn’t make it out weren’t eaten by ghouls. They’re wights now, helping dig the tunnels faster and farther. And we’re going to be taking a run at them this evening, so…”
Everyone stopped eating to stare at him.
“What?”
Five different voices started talking at once.
The thrill of watching the land go by so fast that it was just a blur wore off after the first ten minutes of flight. Nym streaked through the sky about a quarter mile above the ground, going south so fast that he soon left Delvros behind completely. His destination was a town called Valderbough, where supposedly it didn’t get that cold even in the deep winter months.
Nym had a mental image of Cold Paw napping on the beach, snuggled up next to Analia while Monick and Nomick built elaborate sand castles using magic. Bilder would be out swimming while Ophelia sipped at a foaming mug of beer. It was a nice image, one he hoped would come true someday. Cold Paw would need a thermal barrier to protect him from the heat, but Nym could practically hold that in his sleep at this point. At least, if he could figure out how to keep channeled spells going while he was sleeping, he could.
He spent the flight daydreaming, not coming out of it until he reached the southern coast of the continent some two hours and the better part of fifteen hundred miles away. He wasn’t sure exactly where his destination was, other than on the coast. Fortunately, there were a lot of overlapping languages between the neighboring countries, because his plan was very much to just scan the coast line until he found a town and ask people to point him in the right direction.
Worst case scenario, he didn’t find Valderbough and the Earth Shapers got set down somewhere else. They’d picked it more or less at random, so he didn’t suppose it would matter to them too much. On the off chance that someone did have a reason for the specific destination of Valderbough, Nym thought he should at least attempt to get close to it.
He spotted a fishing village a few miles away and flew off towards it. One of the nice things about leaving Delvros was that he no longer needed to worry about having a license. He landed near a middle-aged woman tending a huge cauldron, the kind used to cook communal meals, who gave a start at the sight of him.
“Gaah!” she yelled, her accent thick. “Do not do such things!”
“Sorry,” Nym said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Foolish child! At my age, the heart does not like these kinds of games! Shoo! Begone. Go back to playing with your friends and leave me alone.”
Nym waited for her to finish scolding him, then said, “I’m a little lost. I’m not sure where I am now, but I’m looking for a town called Valderbough. Can you tell me which way to go?”
She squinted at him and gave the cauldron another stir. The aroma coming up from it wafted over to Nym, prompting his stomach to gurgle. Unable to help himself, Nym gave his attention over to the food. “I might want to buy a meal from you as well,” he admitted.
“Of course you do. Boys your age are stomachs on legs. Very well, I shall make a bargain with you. I will tell you which direction you need to fly off to, and I will give you a bowl of this stew. But first, you shall take lunch out onto the ocean and deliver it to my husband. His name is Revaro, and he works on a fishing boat. It is very large, and should not be hard to find.”
“I’d rather just pay a bit of copper for it,” Nym said.
“I do not want copper. I want my husband to enjoy a warm meal on his lunch.”
It was revenge for scaring her, he knew. He could just fly off and find someone else to ask for help, but that stew did smell delicious. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Where is this boat at, and what does it look like? And what does your husband look like?”
Nym got his directions, then wrapped the bowl in a layer of hardened air to keep the stew from spilling and a thermal barrier to keep it hot. He took off out over the water, looking for the large boat painted white with two sails on it. It did not take all that long to find it, as most of the boats stayed within a mile of the coast and judicious use of perfect sight let him observe them from a ways away.
Five minutes later, he touched down on the deck of the two-master next to a bearded man, thick across the chest, and whose hands were knotted with scars. “Are you Revaro?” Nym asked.
“It depends on who wants to know,” the sailor said, eyeing him warily.
Nym presented the stew. “One stew, to be delivered to Revaro, per his wife’s instructions.”
The beard split open to reveal a grin and the sailor started laughing. “That old devil woman. This is why I married her. Here, hand it over.”
Nym relinquished the stew and released the magic he’d cast over the bowl. The pent-up steam billowed out for a moment before it was carried away on the sea breeze. Revaro didn’t bother with a spoon or anything like that; instead he just tipped the bowl back and took great swallows from it, pausing to chew for a second or two and then repeating.
Nym just shook his head, bemused at the sailor’s actions, and flew off. He was ready for his own lunch, and had other things to do with his evening. Hopefully Revaro’s wife wouldn’t be upset that he didn’t stick around to collect the bowl and return it.
A few minutes later, he was eating his own bowl of stew, and it was every bit as good as it smelled. The woman, whose name was Resari, was giving him directions, none of which were all that helpful. They involved a long list of towns and which direction of the road he should follow when he reached each one.
The problem was that she gave him directions to walk on foot, which included going around a lot of impassable landscape and avoiding certain areas that she deemed unsafe. When Nym tried to interject and tell her that he was going to fly the whole way, she just scoffed and told him he’d never even get close.
In her defense, most people didn’t do overland flight. She’d likely assumed he’d come from somewhere nearby and would be on the road for weeks or months making the trip. Nym asked if she had a map he could follow along with, but there was no such luck.
Finally he hit on an idea. “Let’s say I got on a boat and just followed it up the coast. I’d go northwest, right? And how many miles would I have to go in order to reach Valderbough?”
Resari snorted. “There is no boat here that would be so foolish as to attempt that voyage, no matter how many shiny coins you tossed around.”
“Look, please just tell me where I am right now in relation to Valderbough. That’s all I need to know.”
His stew was over half way gone. Once he finished, he was leaving one way or another. He could not for the life of him understand what was wrong with the woman. It was a simple question. He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t know the exact number of miles, but surely a guess wasn’t out of the question.
Nym finished his stew, thanked Resari, and flew up into the air. “Wait!” she called out. “I have not finished giving you your directions.”
“Yeah, thanks for the meal. Your directions aren’t really helpful. Have a good day.”
* * *
An hour later, and several hundred miles northwest of the fishing village, Nym tried again. It resulted in the same kind of dickering where random people wanted to trade favors for information. Nym could only assume it was a cultural thing, and declined to help. He had other stuff to do. Eventually, he found a small coastal city and approached a foreign sailor on the docks, hoping for better luck.
“Excuse me,” Nym said. “Could you tell me which port this is?”
“Karu,” the sailor said shortly. He waved Nym away and kept walking.
That was rude, but also more than he’d gotten from talking to the natives. More importantly, he recognized the name from the maps he’d studied back home. He wasn’t quite sure how to get to Valderbough from Karu, but he knew the general direction he needed to travel.
He gave himself another hour to travel, and that was as close as he was getting. He needed to get back up north soon. Archmage Veran was taking steps to disseminate information about the underground tunnel network they’d uncovered, and there were plans for a strike force to start cleaning them out once soldiers with mage support units had gotten into position to block off as many exits as possible. He’d told Nym he was putting the strike force together personally and wanted Nym on it.
By the time his hour was up, Nym was pretty sure he’d overshot where he needed to be, so he picked a nice little town called Dohr that was about fifty miles up the coast with roads leading away in three different directions as his teleportation point, then headed back to Geldrin to get the Earth Shapers.
A quick scry showed Monick building some sort of chicken coop for a farm nearby. Nym flew over and landed next to him while he was hunched over, etching runes into the base of the wall. “What’s this for?” he asked.
“Ahh! Damn it, Nym, don’t do that!” The earth mage spun in place to glare at him. “Everyone hates when you sneak up on them.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You don’t even have the decency to bring pastries with you anymore.”
“The bakery doesn’t exist anymore,” Nym countered.
“There are other bakeries,” Monick muttered. “Did you need something?”
“Wanted to know where everyone is. I found a town that’s… close to Valderbough, I think.”
“How close?”
Nym shrugged. “It’s someplace warmer than this town is going to be in a month. I also have some news for you, so… we should gather everyone up?”
“Uh, my brother is a few farms that way. Ophelia and Bildar are discussing putting up a new town hall with the village council. I’m not sure where Analia’s at.”
“I’ll send her a message. Think we can get the whole crew together in an hour? I’ve got some work to do this evening.”
“Maybe. I’ll let Nomick know. You go talk to the rest and tell us, huh?”
Plans made, Nym sent off messages to Analia and Ophelia, then walked down the road with Monick. They chatted about what was new in Geldrin, and Nym regaled Monick with tales of difficult southlanders and their endless requests in response to simple questions.
Soon enough, they had everyone gathered up for lunch, though Analia was somewhat annoyed at being called in. She’d been out hunting for herbs again and had to fly back. After Nym promised to take her back out when they were done, she mellowed out. Everyone got their food, and then Nym said, “Are you guys ready for your teleport down south?”
“What, right now?” Bildar asked.
“In the next hour or so, yes.”
“What’s the rush?”
“Well,” Nym said. “We kind of found out that there’s a bunch of undead in some secret tunnel network under the forest, and that a lot of the earth mages who didn’t make it out weren’t eaten by ghouls. They’re wights now, helping dig the tunnels faster and farther. And we’re going to be taking a run at them this evening, so…”
Everyone stopped eating to stare at him.
“What?”
Five different voices started talking at once.
