Advent of Eternity - Chapter 102 (Patreon)

Joseph’s magic set Knell down on a knoll covered with dead, yellow grass. Large, burgundy-trunked trees dotted the landscape. They were thin and wiry, with emaciated limbs that hung at odd angles, all completely barren of leaves.

A jagged mountain rose in the distance, casting its shadow over a large town. Its stone walls rose just high enough to cover most of the houses within, but Knell could just barely make out the tips of a few taller buildings.

The walls didn’t look like they were made to withstand much of a siege. They were cracked and large sections were covered with moss and vines that had crawled over from nearby trees. If someone had wanted, they could have easily circumvented the small gate at the city front by clambering up the foliage and slipping over the walls beside it.

“I’m not sure how I felt about that,” Cyll said. “That Joseph bloke is starting to creep me out.”

“Only starting?” Stix asked, scrunching her nose. “There’s something off about him. He’s… weird.”

“Don’t tell that to his face,” Maya said. “I don’t think I’d want to offend him. He carries himself like he’s powerful, and from what I picked up from that conversation, he is.”

“He is,” Knell confirmed. “I believe he is marginally trustworthy. As long as our goals align with each other, Joseph’s aid will be beneficial – for now. We share the same goal. Of that much, I am certain.”

Knell unfurled the parchment that Joseph had given him. His eyebrows crept upward. It was a map of the world – or rather, about half of it. Eight of the Sixteen Seas were drawn across it, with x’s drawn in fine red lines upon five locations.

“Wow, that’s a pretty detailed map,” Maya said, peering over Knell’s shoulder. “It’s got distances marked out and what looks to be a good number of landmarks as well. That’s got to be pretty expensive. There aren’t many detailed maps of the world in circulation.”

“You’re assuming he got it right,” Cyll said with a chuckle. “It’s easy to draw a bunch of water and say something is near a big mountain.”

“I doubt Joseph would sell me false information,” Knell said, studying the map. He located the Shattered Sea – where they currently were, and also the smallest of the Sixteen Seas. One of the x’s was near a city by the name of Apton.

“That’s not too far from Melwood,” Maya said. “Looks like about two weeks at the speed that the Withered Rose was moving.”

“Really? I was thinking it would be more like three,” Cyll said, rubbing his chin.

“Three? How? Maybe with the wind in the wrong direction the entire way over.”

“Ah, I see the problem.” Cyll nodded his head sagely. “You forgot to account for the number of times we get lost.”

“Why would I account for that?”

“Because we get lost.”

“Do you know how to properly navigate?” Knell asked. “Cyll has been leading us, but his skills are far better suited to fighting than anything else.”

“Davis did most of the navigation for my crew, but I picked some up,” Maya admitted. “I’m still nowhere near a real navigator, though. You should really get one.”

“I’m aware,” Knell said wearily. “It’s on the list.”

“There’s a list?” Stix asked.

“In my head. It grows every day. Come on,” Knell said. He set off toward Rosewood – assuming that Joseph had actually put them down where he’d promised to. “I think this goes without saying, but ensure you do not share our purposes here with anyone. We need to be discrete.”

“Is this a good time for this?” Stix asked, wringing her hands as they walked. “I mean, aren’t there a bunch of other things we really need to do? Like fixing Maya’s arm and taking care of those bandits?”

Knell glanced back at her as they walked, not missing a limping step. “There will always be something more pressing or important. That’s the line of work we’ve put ourselves in. If we treat everything personal as unimportant, then we’ll never get around to doing it.”

Stix chewed her lower lip. “Oh. I didn’t think about it like that. I just… didn’t think we’d be doing this so soon.”

“You’ve gotten comfortable with the status quo,” Cyll said from beside Stix. “Alan has been gone so long that you’re worried that we’ll find something that crushes that last little bit of hope you have. After all, if we haven’t confirmed he’s gone, then he could still be alive, right?”

“What? No. I…” Stix trailed off, then sighed. “Yeah. I don’t know. It’s not like I don’t want to know. Realistically, I know he’s probably dead. I guess I’ve just been letting myself pretend otherwise, since I didn’t think I’d be in a position where I could ever find out more in the near future.”

“Trust me,” Cyll said, his eyes flickering with unreadable emotion. “It’s better to have closure. Nursing a false hope will never end well. At least we should be able to figure out what happened, one way or another.”

“Don’t you think the Guild would have already found out if it was easy?” Stix asked. “I mean, if he vanished in some sort of anomaly, that’s got to be pretty dangerous.”

“We’ll determine things for ourselves,” Knell said evenly. “Never trust information from someone who has good reason to hide it. The Guild wouldn’t want people to know that something had happened to one of their teams, no matter what the cause was. It could be as simple as being lax in a dungeon or as complex as some sort of plot.”

Maya stopped walking. “You think Alan got caught up in some big kerfuffle and was trying to, what, overthrow the government or something?”

Knell snorted. “You’ve got an overactive imagination. I just haven’t ruled that out. It’s not uncommon for adventurers to grow displeased with how the Guild is running things. It happened with soldiers under my father’s command all the time, but he actually resolved the issues. The Guild likely just brushes them under the rug.”

“Or the Guild could have come into conflict with the local government,” Cyll drawled. “That’s always fun. Even back when I was bouncing around, the Guild kept getting its dick caught in the proverbial beartrap of any local governing body that they came across. Except they usually ended up winning those conflicts. I guess that makes my metaphor pretty useless.”

“It was very descriptive,” Maya said.

“Don’t encourage him, please,” Stix said. “I’m not sure if it’s possible for Cyll to get worse, and I certainly don’t want to find out.”

Knell had to admit that he was slightly curious to know that himself, but he wasn’t about to voice that particular opinion or Cyll really would go off the walls.

They drew up to the walls of Rosewood, where a lone guard leaned against the gate. The woman wore old metal armor covered with scratches and scrapes, but none that compromised its function. She watched them with careful eyes as they approached, shifting slightly to adjust her grip on the pike in her hands.

Above her, a stained guild flag hung from several daggers that had been jabbed into the wall. Another flag hung just below that one, depicting the silhouette of a tree before the setting sun.

“What’s your purpose here?”

“Visiting. Heard there were some interesting dungeons in the area,” Knell said, coming to a halt and leaning heavily on his staff.

The guard cocked an eyebrow at him, unphased by his appearance. She’d probably seen many adventurers with equally bad injuries.

“You?”

“I have my talents.”

“And a great party,” Cyll said, puffing his chest out.

“I’m sure,” the guard said. “Carry on, then. Make sure you follow curfew.”

“Curfew?” Knell asked.

“Be inside a building or outside of the city by nightfall. Failure to comply is punishable by death.”

“May I ask why?”

“No.”

“Fair enough,” Knell said, shrugging. He pointed up at the second flag. “What’s that flag represent? I don’t recognize it.”

“It’s our Ruler’s standard. You’ll see it on a few buildings that have restricted access. Don’t try to go into them.”

“What if I stumble into one on accident?” Stix asked.

“You won’t. They’re heavily guarded.”

“We’ll keep that in mind. Anything else we should know about Rosewood?” Knell interrupted.

“Yeah. The dungeons here aren’t that interesting. You’re wasting your time, and you should just leave.”

“Fortunately, I particularly enjoy drab and boring dungeons,” Knell said. “Thank you for the information.”

They entered the city, heading down the main street. Tight rows of single story houses lined it, most of them made of a mixture of brick and wood. Like the city walls, much of the inside was old and didn’t look like it had been well upkept.

“Would it kill them to replace some of the bricks?” Cyll asked, stepping over a large hole in the center of the path. “Imagine what would happen if you were riding a wagon and hit that. Boom. No more wheels. Or maybe no more horses. Depends how unlucky you are.”

“Something tells me that not a lot of people bring their wagons here,” Maya muttered. “Look around. Everyone on the streets is on foot, and they don’t look like they’re really brimming with wealth to spend.”

Knell was of the same mind. The city looked… poor. There weren’t many people on the streets, and the ones that were wore old, stained clothes. While many of them bore weapons, most were rusted or of obviously poor make.

In the distance, standing tall above all the short buildings surrounding it, Knell spotted a three-story tower. A large, blue guild flag fluttered from its peak. Directly across from it on the other side of the city was a thoroughly out of place mansion, made of white marble and trimmed with a glimmering metal.

“Guild first,” Knell said, setting course toward the tower. The sun was setting, though there were still a few hours left in the day. As much as he wanted to determine why Rosewood had a curfew, it was best to avoid kicking the hornet’s nest until he had all the information he needed.

They reached the Adventurer’s Guild a few minutes of walking later. The entire thing was ringed by an iron fence, though there was a large opening leading up to a well paved path that wound through a small, colorful garden before coming to a stop at the Guild entrance.

The guild itself wasn’t extravagant, but by no means was it dilapidated. It looked well kept, and the windows on its bottom floor were clean, allowing Knell to see into the building where several people sat around at red wooden tables.

“Huh. Looks like these guys could afford new stones,” Cyll observed.

“So they could,” Knell agreed. He studied the guild for a few moments. “Curious. That fence isn’t doing much with the gate missing, though. I suppose it’s symbolic. But… why?”

“Your guess is probably better than mine,” Stix said. “But maybe it’s some sort of power thing? Like, ‘oh, we’re the Guild. We’re cool and rich. You’re stupid and poor’. That kind of thing.”

“Could be,” Knell allowed. He turned and headed back into the city. “We’ll take a closer look at the Guild later. I don’t want to test our friends gifts too much.”

He tapped his chest, where the necklace Joseph had given him hung against his chest.

“So what are we doing, then?” Maya asked.

“We’ll start by finding an inn,” Knell replied, looking up at the setting sun. “We don’t want to be outside during sundown, after all. Now, keep your eyes open for an inn – preferably one with rooms that have windows.”