We made good time traveling towards Woodhoot. I set Walker on monster-duty, with Lilly acting as a secondary spotter. None of us wanted one of the leeches to drop on our head. Filthy things. While they walked and talked ahead of me, I followed behind to focus on expanding the previous work done to the path. Even though I felt a little worn from my other work this morning, the road we walked didn’t require as thorough a job because I didn’t need to consider strengthening anything beyond what would travel on top. Where the pathway was thin, I pulled more dirt to widen it. Where the dirt was loose, I compacted it. My assistants did a pretty fair job of evening the road, though I did find a few places that could be improved, either thickened or flattened further. In areas where the ground contained larger deposits of rock, I shaped those into tunnels that went underneath the budding roadway, something that would keep the waters from flooding on one side or the other.

The most difficult part of the path-making was when we came to the forest closer to Woodhoot. It was near the end of the day, and a good portion of my mana and overall energy felt spent. That the thick trees and deep roots of the forest made widening the path more difficult didn’t help. Not that I let my face or posture reflect any exhaustion.

“Walker, if you return before me, this is likely where you will be needed most,” I told him.

He nodded in acceptance and then looked back at me with his lips pursed. Anyone could tell he wanted to ask something, so I raised an eyebrow and waited.

“Master, I have a question,” he began with a redundant statement. I simply gestured for him to continue.

“Those bandits, when I cast [Analyze] on them, their information came back showing the class [Bandit], except for the one guy who was a [Bandit Lord],” he began. I snuck a quick peek at Lilly, who was very intentionally holding an appearance of disinterest. I knew the reason he cast the spell was likely to help her, to see if it would give him the name of the noble. Whether doing so was her idea or his, I didn’t have a clue.

He raised a hand and pointed, shooting a magic missile out that cracked against a snake hanging from a branch ahead of us before he continued, “I know that you haven’t yet tutored Lilly on classes and tiers yet, but I was wondering if you could explain why they didn’t show differently. Like if they were an [Archer] or [Warrior], why they weren’t [Bandit Archer] or [Bandit Warrior]?”

It was a fair question that led to a whole host of other questions that I didn’t feel up to going into the details about at the moment. Information that wasn’t covered at the Arcanum. I hesitated. On one hand, would these two live long enough to benefit from it? On the other, would my pride as a teacher and tutor allow me not to teach? Still, I felt that if I were to have both of the blonde-haired siblings with me for the foreseeable future, then the better educated they are the more helpful they will be. That, and I was enjoying tutoring again recently, though only time would tell if that feeling was due to the students or the act. With what I considered to be well-contained exasperation, I began, “The class [Bandit] is one of the overtaking classes, are you familiar with those?”

He nodded and gave an example, “Like a knight?”

I noticed Lilly was now paying attention as well, so I decided to give some background, “Precisely. At adulthood, all humans and elves and dwarves—other peoples, I imagine, as well—are given a class. This is the first-tier class. Once that class reaches level one hundred, then it changes. The levels start over, and a new type of class is offered. The same goes to get to tier three. But there are some types of classes that affect the class type of others, mostly political classes like [King] or [Duke], though some religious ones as well. Those classes enact laws and grant authorities that alter their subject’s class.”

I paused in my speaking to look at an unusually large and girthy tree and gazed at the pathway near it. I decided to move the pathway to go around the tree by pushing other, smaller, trees back rather than try to move the large one. Looking back down the trail we came, I noticed that while I had been expanding the path by pushing trees and bushes to the sides, those trees and bushes I moved now crowded against ones that were already there to create what looked like walls of brown and green on either side. It made the shadows thicker over the trail, creating unusual darkness. I could easily imagine the [Wagoneers] complaining about a haunted road, but there was nothing for it. Perhaps in the future, I would alter the path again but, for now, it was workable and that’s all I needed.

But focusing on my path-making was just a way to collect my thoughts. I didn’t tell them that the transition from Tier three to four was vastly different. That it granted you a spot for a second class. That this second class could merge with the first to make it stronger before advancing to the final fifth Tier. The concept and practice held intricacies that would keep the conversation going for days. Days I didn’t want to spend. While I wanted them to learn, I also wanted that knowledge to be something they could reasonably use. There was no way to know if either would ever advance that far in their lifetimes and planning how to do so was a quick way to get killed taking some foolhardy risk. Instead, I focused on answering the surface part of his question.

“The [Knight] class you mentioned earlier is one such class, having authority granted to them to oversee tracts of land and the subject living on it. Without that authority, their class would be [Armored Cavalryman] or [Heavy Maceman] or some such. The altering of the class changes some of the skills, making them stronger if they are working at the behest of whatever noble they serve. [Bandit] is similar in that it replaces the class the person originally had, but where a [Knight] works at the behest of a noble, [Bandits] earn their class by breaking certain laws. I once knew a woman who was a third-tier [Elite Spearfighter] in one barony and a [Bandit Lord] in the next, all because of the difference in a single law. Granted, she intentionally broke that law, but that’s neither here nor there.”

I shook away the memory of another dead friend, “Do you understand?”

Both nodded thoughtfully, and I spotted the chimney smoke of one from the village of Woodhoot over a tree. We were close now, and while it wasn’t tasty the ale there would do wonders for my sore feet.

When we arrived, little Fin once again took our mule. Miles, the chubby innkeeper, happily waved us inside, though there was no sign of the logger Brom. Surprisingly, a [Ranger], one of the scouts by his uniform with a plain unshaven face and short brown hair, was sitting and sipping on an ale. I took a seat nearby, but not too close, and watched as Miles poured ale into a wooden mug for me unasked.

“Nemon Fargus?” the ranger asked, his voice soft enough so that it only carried to me. It made me wonder if all the scouts were trained to act with clandestine pretensions.

“I am,” I answered as I took the ale, drinking a big thirsty gulp. Walker and Lilly seemed to have been conveniently distracted with conversation by the innkeeper.

“I have a message for you,” the man half-whispered again.

I wanted to sigh and roll my eyes. He was delivering a message, not communicating a secret of the kingdom. The dramatics felt asinine.

“Go on,” I intoned after summoning my patience and assuming an official air.

“The commander wants to know if you are satisfied with his part of the bargain,” the [Ranger] answered.

This again? What was the game I was playing with the man? Oh, I remember. I turned, looked at him evenly, hissing out my words, “You tell your commander that I’m not pleased with his tricks. There is no way he knew where I was headed and didn’t know about the damned nobleborn bandit there. Or the nest of a giant spider. That’s no gift. He saved me three days of searching to saddle me with a week of caretaking? Either he didn’t know, which is sloppy, or he knew and he’s serving me rotten meat. If he means to provoke me, that’s not a battle anyone this side of the kingdom can win.”

The [Ranger] froze in his spot. I pinned him with a stare for at least half a minute before turning my eyes to my mug.

“I’ll let him know,” the ranger’s answer came a few moments after that.

“You do that. I’ll be in Lark soon enough,” I said. For conversation endings, I thought I did pretty well. I stood and approached the innkeeper who was nodding and laughing heavily. His belly shook under the leather apron he wore as he laughed.

“—aye, I can do that. I’ll have one of the lads carve up a sign,” Miles said in a cheery voice.

“Please, that’s not necessary, this can stay between us,” Walker pleaded with the man.

I gently set my mug on the counter and Miles the innkeeper poured ale from a jug refilling it, his hands working seemingly without thought or attention.

“I just agreed to your little lady’s request about a name for my inn,” he informed me with a smile and a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh?” I asked.

He gave me a nod, “Yessir. We’ll be callin’ it Walker’s Rest from now on.”

I couldn’t help but laugh along with them. When I looked back, the Ranger was gone. No one seemed to notice the door open and close. Only a half-filled mug and a silver coin on the table serving as proof he was there. This time I did roll my eyes at the theatrics.