Your journey will never truly be over. You’ll understand what I mean once you complete your first expedition through Idroa. It’s dangerous, taxing, and absolutely thrilling. If you ever get bored here, you’re doing something wrong. Just put on a backpack and leave your cosy home. Trust me, it’ll be the best (or last) major decision of your life.

Lavanya Sanghvi - the Monster Bane - Adventurer’s Guide to Surviving the Idroan Wilderness

____

“I know you’re the mayor and all, but give it a thought,” Floyd said, accompanying him down the corridor. They were on the basement floor of the council building. “I don’t have to have been to Riverside to know it’s a shithole and that your talents are wasted there.”

Silas nodded thoughtfully, whilst inwardly rolling his eyes. “I’ll consider it after I find my family.”

“Good man, of course,” Floyd said, patting him on the shoulder. Although it was meant to be an affectionate gesture, it felt more like a hammer bashing down. Silas turned to Floyd in alarm, but the Champion continued on as if it had been nothing out of the ordinary; it made Silas wonder, how high was his strength?

The redguards at end of the hallway moved aside deferentially as Floyd walked up, flinging open the doors. “Montigo, I’ve got someone for you, and if you dare say you don’t have the time…”

“Whaat?” the man inside, who Silas assumed to be Montigo, slurred. His office, and seemingly bedroom as well, was a compact suite with its curtains mostly drawn at the top corner of the room, making it dim and stuffy. There was, however, a light mist in the room that smelled distinctly of weed, easily sourced back to the bong beside the Seer, who sat slouched on a bean bag, gaping at his visitors.

There were several more bean bags scattered around the room, as well as a collection of cabinets, a wardrobe with clothes spilling out, and an expansive desk littered with mushrooms and pills. To the side, there was also a king-size bed, in use by a snoozing blonde with her lingerie hanging loosely off the footboard. For that matter, Montigo himself wore nothing but boxers.

“I said you better do some work for my man, else I’ll fucking kill you,” Floyd clarified in a very civil manner.

“Ooooh,” Montigo responded, suddenly laughing. “Of course, of course, anything for the big man.”

Softly sighing, Floyd turned to Silas. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He gave one more painful shoulder pat before striding away.

Taking in a calming breath, simultaneously breathing in the vapours in the room, Silas pulled up an empty bean bag to Montigo and seated himself. He eyed the drugs on the table with longing; although he had never gone in deep while on the streets, he had partaken whenever his petty thefts had paid well.

“You want some?” the Seer asked, limply holding the bong with one hand, scratching the scruff across his chin with the other. He had bushy eyebrows, half-lidded bloodshot eyes, and a swollen nose. Although his aura was strong, it wasn’t violent, more mellow and scholarly.

There was a considerable pause before Silas shook his head. Perhaps at another time, but right now he needed all his facilities to organise his thoughts. “I’m told you can locate people,” he eventually said.

“Sure can. It’s all people see me for, Mr Locator, they call me,” Montigo replied. Silas had asked about him several times in the market, and he had yet to hear anyone refer to the Seer as Mr Locator.

Clearing his throat, Silas continued. “How does your power work?”

Montigo clicked his tongue, slowly shaking his head. “God knows, I just do my little dance, and they pay me and leave. Gimme your hand.” Silas stretched out his arm, and Montigo clasped his hand tightly. “Well, who do you want to find?”

“My brother and sister,” Silas answered, his gut coiling into a knot as he realised this was the moment he had been waiting for. What if the answer came back that both of them were dead. What would he do then?

Closing his eyes, the Seer entered a meditative state as his breathing slowed, keeping to an even pace for almost a minute before he began to tremor. His shakes were tame initially, but then grew intense into spasms. Without letting go, Silas stood up and held the man down with his free hand until the tremors stopped.

Slowly opening his eyes, Montigo spotted Silas standing over him and grinned, flashing his yellowed teeth. “They were bad, weren’t they? I’m not surprised. Your brother, he’s close: he’s some ways north-east of here. It was weird - I saw him with humans but also a few wacky aliens. Your sister’s far though: far south-east, and I made out the Eiffel Tower in her backdrop.”

“How were they doing?” Silas asked, stammering. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

Montigo winced, “Your brother, eh, he looked pretty bad, not gonna lie. You should probably hurry to him - no risk of death from what I saw, but he looked weak and dirty. Your sister’s on top of the world though: she’s hella strong. She had people following her and was wearing fancy armour and all.”

Blinking with his mouth agape, Silas considered the information he had just heard. He should have been happy that they were both alive, but hearing his brother’s condition made his heart lurch. “Can you specify their locations?”

“Na, sorry, that’s not part of my skill set,” Montigo said. “Anyone else you want me to find?”

It was awhile before he answered. “Yeah. Aengus and Mia - we were in the tutorial together. As for their surnames, ah, give me a second,” Silas said. He knew he could find Aengus’s on the leaderboards, but that still left Mia.

“Don’t need them,” Montigo replied. As they were still clasping hands, he went into his dream-state immediately. This time, he didn’t shake nearly as badly as before, which Silas figured depended on the distance to his targets. Did that mean the Seer could potentially kill himself if he tried to spy on someone on the other side of the globe, or would that just severely tax him?

Eventually coming back to reality, Montigo nodded sagely. “Mia, she’s north-east, man, and by what I saw she’s most likely in the same place as your brother. She’s not doing amazing but not terribly either. As for big man Aengus, he’s somewhere west of here battling a wyvern. That’s Aengus Abercrombie, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah, you’ll probably find it hard to get to him then. Those rankers are all practically the same: they don’t stick to settlements like us ordinary dudes, they’re always hunting this and chasing that,” Montigo said. “So, anyone else?”

Silas thought about it, whether there was anyone else from his past he particularly wanted to find. His dad flickered into mind but vanished just as quick. “No one. Thanks, this means a lot. What do I owe you for this?”

The Seer chuckled heartily at that. “Nothing, not when Floyd vouches for you like that. Here, let me get you something.” He crossed the room to one of his cabinets and dug out a small package wrapped in paper. “I was saving it for a rainy day, but I reckon you’ll need it for the road.”

Figuring from the odour that it was a handful of rolled blunts, Silas accepted the gift.

“You want anything else, boss?”

“No, this is more than enough,” Silas answered. He thanked the Seer and was soon on his way out. He rushed to the market and bought all the supplies he would need: food, healing salves, a lighter, and so on.

Stopping by Skully’s, he then told the Runesmith he was leaving and thanked him for everything he had done. He also asked Skully to tell Floyd he was gone if they chanced upon each other, to which the skinhead replied it was fine as he regularly saw the strongman. Following this, Silas hurried to the hotel and immediately began packing.

“Where are you going?” Olivia asked with a tone of concern.

“To find my brother,” he replied. It sounded like Chloe had done well for herself, so it only made sense to go for Ethan first. Besides, there was the chance he could find Mia there as well.

“I didn’t know you had a brother.” Seeing that he didn’t respond, she was quiet for a few moments before haltingly asking, “Can I come? With you, I mean.”

He didn’t stop packing, “Sure.” He had expected her to ask, so had taken the liberty of getting her supplies. Chucking over the second rucksack, he passed over the stuff he had bought.

As she helped him, she noted his rush and asked, “Are we going now?” The first sun had already dipped under the horizon, the second crossing it, and only the third smaller purple sun was still up, giving the sky a golden-purple glow.

He glanced out of the window. “Yeah, we’ll be fine.”

“How did you figure out where your brother is? Did you meet the Seer?” she asked.

He gulped as it dawned on him that he had never asked her if she had friends or family she wanted to find, always expecting her to follow him. “Do you want to meet him?”

…

“No,” she said after a pause.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She had more conviction this time round.

In truth, he didn’t know much about her life prior to their first meeting. She had definitely been homeless for longer than him, although her homeless situation had been different as she had always been drifting from house to house when he had known her, only occasionally sleeping rough. But before that, he had no idea. He figured something had gone down in her family as in his, but he wasn’t going to demand an answer.

Finished packing, he quickly moved onto engraving his new armour; when Floyd had visited, the Champion had gifted him a set of the hard-plate reinforced body armour that they had begun production of in New Derby. It had a thin layer of wool as padding, atop of which rested ceramic plates in addition to metallic covering at critical regions. Although it restricted his mobility, it wasn’t a serious drawback because of his enhanced strength and agility. Instead of being camo pattered, it was jet black, giving him the appearance of a brawny dark trooper.

As he had already worked on it over the last two days, he only had to engrave three strength runes to complete it. While at the market, he had also bought Olivia an expensive set of armour which, although wasn’t as good as his, was still a high-quality set. He spent the following hour engraving their armour, before swiftly leaving New Derby through the northern gates.

____

Reynard Holden, the Runesmith, was originally a tattoo artist from England. Awakening to his engraving ability early on, his buffs allowed his team to storm through the normal tutorial. Coming to Idroa, he joined New Derby when it was under Masie Snyder’s, the Ranger’s, rule and set up an engraving parlour. Because of how powerful his runes were, his influence over New Derby grew rapidly and gave him an extremely stable position for when Floyd Godson, the Champion, arrived.

Old friends with the Champion, Reynard aided Floyd in his quest to become mayor as he used his influence to draw over more and more people, allowing Floyd to take the position in a bloody and well-attended duel. From here, Reynard continued practising his engraving until he managed tier-two runes, after which he began arming New Derby’s elites with focused powers.

Stefan Sommer - the Chronicler - Heroes and Villains of the First Age