Sam arrived just inside the northern gate where a group of 15 wagons were staging. It didn’t look like anyone was in the wagons yet, but it did appear like they were loaded and ready to go at any moment. Sam looked around at the group of people standing around near the wagons and looked to see if he could find Gertrude his contact person. There were what looked to be after a quick count 5 women and 25 men standing around. Sam checked his watch and saw that it was 10 minutes to seven, which was good as he was a little worried that he had left the hotel too late and wouldn’t make it in time after he saw the distance on the map to the northern gate from the hotel.
Sam walked over to one of the men who was leaning against one of the carts at the back of the line. “Good morning, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of Gertude from the Jeramiah Trading Company. I’m supposed to be travelling with them up to Galia and Gertude is supposed to be my contact” Sam asked the man.
The man pushed off the cart and looked out at the people gather before he pointed towards one of the women. “The brown-haired woman in the blue dress over there is Gertrude” he said. “I see thank you” Sam said giving him a quick nod of thanks before hurrying over to the woman the man had pointed out.
“Good morning” Sam said to the woman as she turned towards him. “My name is Samuel Holdridge. I’m supposed to be travelling with you to the capital”. “Okay, do you have the paperwork from the merchant’s guild?” she asked him. “Oh yes, sorry” Sam said as he put down the bag in his right hand and took the backpack off his back. Sam dug around for a moment before finding the papers and handed them over to Gertrude. She studied them for a moment before speaking. “Okay, everything looks good. You will be travelling in Cart 8, which is one of the two passenger carts we have in the caravan. Do you have your own camping gear?” She asked him. “No, I don’t” Sam replied. “Okay, that’s fine. Each cart carries 8 people; we have 4 2 person tents for each cart so you will have to share one with another passenger” Gertrude said. “I see, fair enough” Sam said. “Please go and stand by the cart with the 8 written on it. You can get in once it’s time for the caravan to depart as you will be sitting in there most of the day” she said. “Okay, will do. Thank you” Sam replied as he put the papers back into his bag.
Sam collected the bag he had placed on the ground and walked over to where the carts were waiting. Sam scanned the carts looking for the one that had an eight on it. When he found it he noticed it was located within the centre of the caravan. Likely to keep the passengers in the most protected part of the caravan Sam thought as he placed his bag down on the grassy patch next to the road and sat down next to it to wait for departure.
While Sam was sitting down waiting for the caravan to depart he noticed a group of what he guessed were adventurers heading towards them. There were around 16 of them in total and appeared to be 3 separate adventuring parties. Sam assumed these were adventurers rather than mercenaries based on their equipment. During his time in Pexicon he had seen adventurers up close and the gear they carried while Sam had seen mercenaries pass through Rimour once or twice and they tended to carry a more standard set of equipment and were mostly melee fighters. Sam watched as who he guessed were the party leaders who walked over towards Gertrude, each handed her a piece of paper which she then stamped and returned to them before they each returned to their parties. Sam was curious about this and decided he would have to ask them if he got the chance while on the road to Galadia.
Before long calls rang out for everyone to mount up. Two merchants climbed aboard the driver’s seat of each cart. Sam got up and grabbed his bag off the ground before heading over to cart 8. Sam decided to take his time so that he could join the end of the line for the cart. This would make it easier to see out the back as the cloth cover would mostly obscure the view outside for all but the two sat at the end.
Sam eventually boarded the cart storing his bags underneath the wooden bench. Inside his cart there appeared to be two families that knew each other. One comprised of a father, mother and Daughter while the other was a father, mother, son and daughter. The daughter of the 3 personal family looked to be a little older than him, maybe 14 or 15. While the children of the other family looked to be about 7 or 8 years old respectively.
Sam removed the sword from his belt and placed it on the ground in front of him. He left the dagger on his belt as it wasn’t getting in his way when sitting down like the sword was. Sam watched as the adventurers positioned themselves around the caravan. One party appeared to head up to the front of the caravan while another stayed at the back. The final party, the one with six members split up 3 on the left side and 3 on the right side in the middle of the caravan besides carts 7 and the cart he was in 8.
Before long Sam heard a shout coming from the front of the caravan and a few moments later the cart began to move forward. Sam watched as they passed through the northern gate of Vahlitice. The final leg of Sam’s journey to the capital and the royal academy had begun.
Once walls of Vahlitice had faded into the distance Sam poked his head out of the cart to see if any of the adventurers were around. There was one dressed in what looked like a mage’s robe walking just behind their cart. It was one of the party leaders that spoke to Gertrude when they first arrived.
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“Um, excuse me” Sam said. There was no response. Sam decided to try again. “Excuse me” Sam said again this time slightly louder. “Oh your talking to me. Sorry about that what’s up” the adventurer said as he pulled back his hood. The robe wearing mage looking adventurer looked to be about 17 years old not too much older than Sam. “I was wondering if I could ask you something. Oh, my name’s Sam by the way”. “My name is Winston. Fire away” the adventurer replied. “It was actually a question about the paper you handed to the merchant lady Gertrude. I was wondering why she stamped it and passed it back to you” Sam asked. “Oh that. When we accept escort quests from the Adventurers guild we need to get the request form that the guild gave us before leaving stamped by the merchant company to confirm we arrived for the escort. We also receive a different stamp once the escort is completed” Winston explained. “Why is that?” Sam asked his curiosity still not satiated. “Apparently back in the day during the first millennium when the Adventurers guild was first founded there used to be issues with parties taking escort quests that either just didn’t show up and went straight to the destination or bailed mid escort and still received the rewards for completing the quest despite not actually completing it. Sometimes the merchants never even made it to their destinations as they were attacked by wild monsters or bandits. So, to confirm that the quest was actually fulfilled by the adventuring parties that took on the quest the guild issues a magic stamp to the requesting party specifically for that quest so that they can verify the completion of the quest via the stamp. The stamp is also coded to the mana signature of the designated contact so that rogue adventurers can’t kill the merchants taking their merchandise and then use the stamp to state they finished the quest” Winston finished with a smile. “I see, that’s quite the process” replied Sam. “That it is but it’s still cheaper for merchants generally to hire an escort through the adventurer’s guild rather than hiring mercenaries despite the extra costs added on for the extra administrative tasks” replied Winston. “Oh, I see. Well thank you for answering my questions” Sam replied, his curiosity finally satisfied. “No problem, if you have any others feel free to ask away” he said before Sam sat back into his seat to ponder the information he had received.
The merchant caravan stopped 3 times to water the horses before finally stopping just after 5pm to set up camp. Sam helped the others in cart 8 set up the 4 tents they would all be staying in. Sam would be sharing a tent with one of the other men in the cart. It took them roughly 40 minutes to set up the tents and once they were done Sam assisted some of the merchants with setting up their tents as they took a bit longer to do so due to the other preparation around camp that they had to make.
Sam had initially wondered where the camping equipment for the adventurers were kept as they weren’t riding in any of the carts. As it turned out they all had magic storage items where they could store their equipment. Once they had set up camp Sam asked Winston about it and he told him that it was basic equipment every adventurer had with them. Sam hadn’t paid it any notice before but now that he thought back to it the adventurers in Pexicon didn’t carry much equipment on their person either. Sam then wondered as to why the merchants didn’t carry such magic items and it turned out they actually did. They were just designed to look like regular crates but apparently they could store more than ten times their actual size which blew Sam mind. Apparently storage magic was incredibly useful and worth the high cost to procure them. Sam made a mental note to purchase a storage item after he had gotten settled at the academy as it seemed like it would be very useful for carrying his school supplies and other stuff.
Sam enjoyed the rest of the night talking to the other passengers traveling to the capital. Sam learned a lot that he hadn’t known previously about travelling through Keivania from the merchants and the adventurers. Sam was mostly interested in what the adventurers had to say since he had decided to choose the dungeon diving class at the academy and thought he might be able to get some information out of them. They didn’t say much about the dungeon which they explained was because information on dungeons was restricted to those who were members of the diving guild. So, unless they had explicit permission from the guild to disclose it or they were talking with another member they couldn’t say anything. Not even adventurers who weren’t members of the diver’s guild could be told. Sam was a bit disappointed but understood why they couldn't tell him.
Sam quickly fell asleep that night enjoying the comfortable temperature in the tent. It seemed like the summer nights were beginning to cool down, and the air was less sticky. They were still quite warm, but they were starting to become a lot more comfortable.
Sam woke up early the next morning and spent some time doing some skill practice while waiting for the merchants and adventurers to get ready to depart. Sam had learned while talking last night that it would be about 3 days before they reached the next town where they would resupply for the last half of the journey. Apparently they were stopping in a dungeon town right on the border of the Jilkim Barony and the Crown territory. From there it was supposed to be about four days to the capital if they made good time. That would leave Sam with just over a week before the Academy entrance ceremony. That meant that he could explore the capital a bit before the start of school. He didn’t want to be completely oblivious after all, he knew he might have a hard time with the high ranked noble kids. Hell, he had had a hard enough time with the sons of Baronets.
Putting the negatives aside, Sam had been enjoying the journey so far. The storm while aboard the ship to Vahlitice was absolutely terrifying but other than that Sam had enjoyed seeing more of the world. Staying in luxury hotels may have helped with that, but he enjoyed camping out under the stars as well just like last night. He just couldn’t wait until he got to the academy so he could learn even more than he had already.
