“We’ll keep two people on watch at all times,” Adam said over dinner. “There are seventeen of us, so we take one hour watches during the night. Nobby and Brittany will take watch along with someone else too. Teically, there will be at least four on watch at all times but, you know, two of them aren’t people.” Adam motioned his head to Hades, his owl familiar, and Zeus, his giant elk steed.

  The farmers looked at the familiar and the steed. They hadn’t seen the creatures eat even once. Whereas the mules, which were kept by the roup, required a great amount of feed, Zeus did not. Yet, the giant elk could move all night long if required, and had certainly been a great help in keeping a great pace.

  “Adam?” Rick called.

  “Yes?”

  “Pardon me asking, but why did you make the outpost se?”

  Adam had hat their outpost was much rger thaher group's, and that had been by his request. “Well, I was uhe assumption that the Outbreaks wouldn’t occur daily.”

  “Yes?” Rick replied.

  “So it would get pretty b on the days the Outbreaks don’t happen. This way we have enough space to do what we like in camp, right?”

  “Right…” Rick stared at Adam for a long moment. That’s when he realised it. Adam was a Half Elf.

  “Since you’ve asked me a question, could I ask you some too?” Adam asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How e you became an adventurer?”

  Rick paused for a moment, taken aback that Adam was ied in his past. “We’re farmers by birth. We became adventurers about five years ago. We wao make more money for our families, so we pooled our moo buy helmets, and we made our own shields out of wood and hide. We grabbed what ons we had, axes mostly, and we adventured out during noonval and nightval.”

  “Nightval?” Adam asked.

  Riodded. “Dangerous work, but it paid well. As the months and years passed, we bought greater ons, and armour too.” Rick pulled down his colr to reveal the shirt beh. It was thin, but the man wore hide u.

  “Must be a killer during noonval,” Adam said. His nightval bear leather tunic had kept him quite cool, and he could only imagine how they were sweltering in their and hide.

  “We drink a lot of water,” Rick said, throwing a look to Jurot. “Thank you for that.”

  Jurot nodded iurn, biting into his cheese and cracker. The cheese had matured over the time they had spent moving, and if he had left it for a few more days, it would have gone bad.

  “We started off hunting bears first. There were seven of us, but…” He looked into the fire.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “We make sure their families are taken care of.”

  Adam bowed his head slowly. “Farming doesn’t make enough?”

  “We’ll be able to drink every few days with our friends and family, but we ’t do more than that. If we want to watch a tour, we could stretch our , if we prepare for it months in advance, or if we pool our money and take turns.”

  “We make enough moo pay for the Gods too,” John added.

  Riodded. “We pay our monthly dues well enough.”

  “How much are the monthly dues?” Adam asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “A copper for each person, but we try to pay a silver for one person too,” Rick said. “It’s good to have the Gods’ blessings.”

  “True enough,” Adam said, gng between Dunes and Vonda. “I seem to be overpaying for my visits at the temple, but I suppose I rarely go.”

  “How much are your dues?”

  “I usually drop a gem for each of the Gods I follow. Lady Eveil, Lady Arya, and Lord Sozain.”

  Sir Vonda’s eyes pierg his cheek with their heat.

  Adam cleared his throat. “I don’t have much e to the ods, but I suppose I should pay my dues to them from now on too.”

  “The Gods of Bance, War, ah?” Rick asked, furrowing his brows. “Don’t you pray to Elvish Gods?”

  “I’m only half an Elf,” Adam stated, before smiling. “I pray to those three because I have a e with them.”

  “A e?”

  Adam nodded. “They’ve helped me out before.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Lord Sozain granted me his powers, and then Lady Arya did,” Adam said. “Lady Eveil, well… I feel a little guilty, so I try to send her my prayers too.”

  “Guilty?” Rick asked, intrigued.

  “Aye,” Adam said. “She almost…” Adam stared at the fire, realising that there were many eyes on him. “Let’s just say that I made something difficult for her once.”

  “You made something difficult fod?” Lucy asked, staring at Adam.

  Adam squinted his eyes at her. “You know what I did.”

  “I do?” Lucy asked, trying to remember. “Oh! Oh…” Lucy recalled how Adam had almost led Lady Eveil to her death actally.

  Jurot nodded slowly, as one of the only few people who knew Adam’s story. “They are good Gods to pray to.”

  “You’re close to the Iyr,” Rick said. “It shouldn’t have been a surprise you worshipped them. I heard that the Iyrmen pray to Lord Sozain, and sometimes to Lady Arya.”

  “Yes,” Jurot said. “Baktu and Wahtu.”

  “I hear you Iyrmen learn your letters and oo…”

  Jurot nodded. “We do.”

  “ you speak the Devilkin tooo?” Rick asked, trying to not look at Jaygak and Lucy.

  “Yes.”

  “What about the Savage’s tongue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Savage tongue?” Adam asked.

  “What do you call ‘em?” Rick asked, trying to remember the hose with green skins. Goblins?”

  “Orcs,” John, one of the farmers who wielded a boy, said.

  “Goblins and Orcs,” Rick said, nodding his head.

  “There are no Goblins in the Iyr,” Jurot said. “There are only Iyrmen.”

  “I’m talking about the green and grey Iyrmen,” Rick said.

  “Orcish Iyrmen, but Iyrmen all the same,” Adam said, trying te the versation.

  “I speak some of the tongue,” Jurot said. “Not as well as my sister, Kitool.”

  Rick bowed his head. “I meant no offence, I just meant that all Iyrmen learers and numbers and nguages.”

  “Yes,” Jurot replied.

  “Must be hard work being an Iyrman.” Rick let out a sigh. “Learning your letters, your numbers, yuages, yhting.”

  “It is not so hard when you find it fun,” Jurot stated.

  “I hear the Iyrmen don’t keep wealth for themselves,” John, one of the farmers who wielded a bow, asked. “They say you give it all to the Iyr.”

  “Not all of it, but most,” Jurot firmed.

  “That’s a lot of tax.”

  “It is spent well.”

  “I suppose you ,” John said, smiling pyfully. “You’re defended by our try so I suppose you don’t have to spend mu that sort of thing.”

  Adam shook his head, as though the words have been a blow against his head. “What?”

  John ughed. “Just a joke. I heard it from one of those from the roup, the Wizard girl. She said that the Iyrmen grow rich cause we’re defending them all the time.”

  Adam scoffed. “You believe that?”

  “No,” John said. “I was born and raised in Red Oak. When I was a boy, big enough to carry the potatoes bay mother, we were attacked by a wolf which had e too close. I didn’t scream before it was cut in half before my feet. There was an Iyrman, with a giant gve, as red as blood, the handle as bck as the night I tell yht there. She was old, wrinkled, and I remember seeioken. Gold.”

  “Was she a Devilkin?” Jaygak asked.

  “No, no. She was an Orc.”

  “Vezar,” Jurot said.

  Jaygak squinted her eyes. The name sounded familiar. “Vezar?”

  “She travelled with Bck Arm,” Jurot added.

  “Oh!” Jaygak nodded her head. “Vezar fought back the Dragon Turtle from the Southern Sea.”

  “No,” Jurot said. “She fought back the Sea Azai.”

  Jaygak squinted her eyes harder, before looking to Kitool, who nodded her head. “Then who fought back the Dragon Turtle?”

  Jurot and Kitool stared at her for a moment.

  “I meant from the Southern Sea.”

  The pair tio stare.

  “I meant i twenty…” Jaygak thought about how to word it. “Almost twenty years ago.”

  “Ten years ago?” Jurot asked.

  “Was it ten years ago?”

  “Redbde?”

  “Oh,” Jaygak said. “Yes.”

  Adam gnced between the Iyrmen, who were having their own versation. “Anyway, Vezar.”

  John nodded. “She was old, then. In her fifties, I think. Is she…”

  “She is alive,” Jurot firmed.

  “I’m gd to hear it,” John said, smiling. “I’d love to meet her again to thank her.”

  “I will send your request to meet her,” Jurot said.

  “Oh, no, that’s fine,” John said, chug nervously. “I don’t want to bother such a great warrior.”

  “She saved your life, it is good to make such a request,” Jurot said.

  John wasn’t sure how that worked, but he tio smile nervously. “If it isn’t a bother.”

  “You know…” Adam said, quietly. “I mean, you guys e by one day when we go back. It’s not far from Red Oak, and you could stay a few days.”

  “We will sider the offer,” Rick said, gring at John.

  John chuckled again, gng aside.

  “Everyone in Red Oak knows the strength of the Iyrmen,” Rick stated.

  “Red Oak and the Iyr work closely together,” Jurot firmed.

  “We’ve no issues with the Iyr, and we’ve no issues with others because the Iyr’s nearby,” Rick said.

  “It’s a shame that the other towns and cities have fotten,” Adam said. “People from tral Aldnd are terrible about that sort of thing.”

  “They say those from tral Aldnd don’t like Iyrmen,” Rick said, looking to Jurot. “Is that really true?”

  “Some do not,” Jurot said. “They do not teach them the stories of their past.”

  “Which stories?” Rick asked.

  “The Bckwater Crisis.”

  Riodded.

  “Have you heard it?” Adam asked.

  “Aye,” Rick said. “The only story I know.”

  “It’s a story most people have heard in Red Oak,” John said. “We gather around a fire during nightval, and they sometimes speak the story.”

  “They say the Iyrmen were outnumbered two to one,” Rick said. “Is that true?”

  “No,” Jurot said. “It was four or five to one.”

  “Is that right?” Rick asked, doubt in his eyes.

  Adam and the Iyrmen smiled.

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