“Is there more you can tell us?” Drell asked the bird. “Still can’t believe I’m talking with a bird.”

“He’s sure there is more… but these are the basics.” Kyessy reluctantly translated. “He said he’ll explain whatever he can, especially if we pool any equipped and inventoried ability cards. Which we are not doing. No chance.”

These four (plus Prissy) seemed to have been through a bit together, because Rinna, Hale and Drell certainly didn’t waste any time tossing a pile of cards out onto the large, flat boulder they’d settled on.

Kyesiara wasn’t having any of it.

“Pick those up. We need some space in between us and the battle,” she said. She produced a scroll, which when unrolled, allowed Corbin to note it was a mercenary contract with King Dennon of Fellwroth. It spelled everything out in strict legalese, but when it was fully unrolled, the whole thing glowed with a dark magic for a moment. It already had a number of skull icons burned into it in black, about a dozen, but before his eyes another fifty or so flashed into being. The magic involved was a black fire, which crept in from the center of each icon and ringed it in a reddish outline for a moment before that faded. A tinny little battle sound of roaring, swords clashing, and then a twinkling bit of horns emerged during this fascinating little tallying.

“Ten each?” she asked.

“We’re cutting Prissy in, aren’t we?” Hale asked.

“Oh for the sake of the gods,” Kyessy complained. “I thought I had made it clear we weren’t taking her.”

“She’s roight ‘ere, ain’t she? She kin hear ya perfec’ly fine.”

Kyessy turned and stared into her eyes. “You. Are. Not. Welcome.”

Drell was quick to defend her, though. “Criminitely, Kyessy, it’s fine. We’re still up over ten heads each, and look, we got some rescues on the contract too.”

This was true. Beneath the skulls were silver crowns now burning themselves somehow into the parchment: nine, to be precise. That began as bluish fire, and spread identically from the center to the outlying edge of the crowns’ edges. The blue fire remained, brightened, then vanished. Corbin distinctly heard a teensy, heroic horn fanfare.

“Live rescues are worth a gold each… that’ll be five gold for the kills, so fourteen. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind taking two gold instead of three.”

“She’s all roight with tha’” Prissy challenged.

“Tough to divide down fourteen by four anyhow,” Rinna remarked.

“Too bad some of those Fellwroth pricks went and got themselves killed during our little rock battle,” Drell said. “It would’ve been more gold for us.”

“You wan’ more kills, eh?” Prissy asked, eyes boring up into the tiefling ranger’s. “Tha’ c’n be arranged. Show me where to stab.”

“It’s fine,” Kyessy said, with annoyed finality.

The tension still hung thick in the air when they turned west and headed in the direction of the towering distant mountains, barely visible as purple teeth pointing up into the sky. Corbin had a momentary flash of memory, of driving in his parents’ car back when he was much younger, and seeing the Rocky Mountains begin to appear. There hadn’t been any discussion back then, just his father driving, his mother reading a romance novel or sleeping, his brother hogging the Gameboy, and the Rocky Mountains not moving in the slightest. In fact, they hadn’t moved for the better part of a day and a half, maybe eighteen full hours of driving, until suddenly they were practically in them.

He had no good way of telling how far–

You have inspected the mountains to the south.

These are known as the Spine of Creation. These are dotted with dozens of dwarven settlements, while upon them many nomadic tiefling tribes roam. They lie about two hundred miles distant, due west as the crow flies.

Far to the south lies The Parley, a huge mountain valley. This is the point at which the fae, the tieflings and the dwarves set up their annual market and celebration of brotherhood, peace and coexistence. Beyond stands Dveltherion, the great endless forest of the southern forest fae.

Well, there was that. Interesting. He should certainly take the opportunity to inspect everything he could see, starting with the other mountains and the horrible dark cloud hovering overtop it, straight to the north. That had a BBEG look to it, for sure.

“Awesome…”

You have inspected the mountains to the north.

The closest point is only about a hundred and twenty miles distant, and consists of a mighty fortress known as The Gates of Terror. It’s a lovely place to visit in the spring, since the wildflowers blooming in the meadows just south of the Gates of Terror shine with holy inner light. It’s less lovely when fireballs, lightning strikes, and winged servants of doom descend upon you for daring to look upon that which Vethros controls.

The Teeth of Vethros are almost assuredly artificial, a magically constructed range of mountains in a great V-shape concealing the horrid nasty jerk known as Vethros. No one knows exactly what Vethros seeks, what he looks like, or if he is even a male. Certainly, given the amount of malevolent, reddish blackish clouds rising in the north, and the fact that men are classically the architects of war and misfortune (seriously, look at any history textbook), it’s safe to assume this mysterious evildoer is in fact a male.

Less awesome. And really weird to speculate on the gender of the Sauron of this alien world.

Achievement unlocked: Inspector General

You’ve successfully used inspect on creatures, objects, people, and now landmarks!

What an inquisitive fellow you’ve turned out to be. Curiosity only kills the cat apparently, not the raven. Careful it doesn’t get you in trouble.

Reward: the purest kind of reward is knowledge, but here’s a free point of Inspect anyway.

By sundown they’d reached an abandoned trading post, inn, stable and tavern. It reminded him, perversely, of a Taco Bell KFC Subway all squashed into one highway rest stop building. Part of the east-facing wall had been caved in, but otherwise it seemed structurally sound and ready to keep the worst weather out. Kyessy delegated tasks, putting herself on firewood detail while Prissy was tasked with setting up camp and blocking up the open wall as much as possible with Drell’s help.

“Was that necessary?” He asked Kyessy. “Surely they know how to get things done without being specifically ordered.”

“Your felinian still holds your card,” she replied. “You don’t need to follow me around like a lost canidian.”

“A lost… Canadian?”

“Canidian. You know, adorable, stupid, good companion, makes a lot of noise for no apparent reason. Some small and some large, some shaggy and others less.”

“Huh. We call those dogs.” Apparently a constant across all worlds… not like the peacock buffalo.

She collected a great deal of firewood and piled it next to the tavern’s front door, then went after a second batch. Afterwards, she made slow and laborious work of several hairy, centipede-like monsters with her Unerring Aim ability. He’d never seen the ability miss before, but it did dozens of times before her arrows finally found their mark. She didn’t need to use it on these slow, worm-like mammals with their many legs, but it was good to see her putting his advice into practice and working on leveling up her cards. Furthermore, she never ran out of arrows, which was interesting as well. He eventually inspected her quiver and found it could return a fired arrow to the quiver for the low low cost of 1 MP, up to 200 times per day.

Immediately afterwards she retrieved all her arrows, then tied the carcasses together by the feet to take them to an easier spot for preparing the meat.

“What are those, anyhow?” he asked.

“Luck dragon larvae,” she said, and went about skinning them. In all, she ended up with about four feet of silky white pelt, but only about six inches or so wide. Each one ended up providing enough meat for two.

“Larv… larvae? Luck dragon… larvae?” He immediately began scanning the skies.

“Don’t worry, the mothers abandon the nest as soon as they lay and bury the eggs. The eggs themselves have an extremely high amount of luck. Protects them from being discovered and eaten.”

“But the mother just abandons them?”

“Too much concentrated luck in one area usually creates some interesting magic confluences. It ends up being unlucky. Anyway there’s a whole book of stories about fools who went after luck dragon eggs and ended up losing all their teeth trying to crack the shells open, losing their hands trying to raise the larvae, or falling to their deaths even trying to get at the eggs in the first place.”

“How’d you even manage to kill one then, let alone two?” But he thought he knew, even as the question came out.

“They don’t stay lucky forever. The more they use, the less they’ve got, unless they regenerate their stores after some peaceful rest. Doesn’t matter. I’m not explaining the world to you. You want to know, you buy an almanac.”

“There are almanacs eh? Hang on, I haven’t got any money!”

“Life’s tough,” she remarked, and quickly hacked off what were starting to look like chicken legs from the supermarket.

Afterwards she discovered a couple of herbs and berries, neither of which he’d ever seen before, and set to rubbing some of the herbs onto the luck dragon larvae legs.

“Oh, and these are poisonous,” she said before popping the berries into her mouth.

The berries she pulped up in her mouth and spit into the larvae innards, then slung the bodies next to the tavern’s fireplace. Drell had already scrounged up some of the remaining cutlery and cookware, and was getting the fire going in order to start cooking.

Now he was wondering if they were luck dragon larvae at all. He should’ve inspected them, along with the berries. Curse her and her possibly lying to him at every turn. He was beginning to think this ranger wasn’t going to be as helpful in curing his condition as he originally hoped. The upside was she didn’t particularly want to keep his card in order to make her rich and keep her alive, like Prissy. The downside was she didn’t particularly want his card for any reason whatsoever.

“Where’s Hale?” she asked. “I thought I put Drell on inn-clearing duty.”

Rinna gave her a challenging smile. “Hale’s leveling up his cards, apparently. And yes, we ignored your orders. Cilla’s on lookout up on the roof.”

Prissy and Rinna had tipped up several of the tavern’s tables in order to stop up the gigantic hole in the wall and keep the wind out. They’d also spread out the sleeping bags (handmade other world versions made of burlap with some kind of animal fur lining the insides. They didn’t have zippers, but those loop and toggle things he’d once had on his retro style winter coat) These were arrayed in a half circle around the fireplace, and cleared the rest of the tables to the sides of the room, save one big enough for dinner. Prissy looked to be in pretty rough shape, though in the last couple of days she’d gotten a lot of exercise.

From there, it was just domestic bliss. Hale was apparently the cook of the operation, because he came back in, put all the cookware in order, took one look at Kyessy’s handiwork, and got right down to business.

Before he could chuck the long, berry-filled bodies onto the fire, Corbin hopped down and took care of the eyeballs. He then immediately tried to sick them up, failed, and just made himself feel terrible for a little while. In the meantime, glorious aromas wafted around the inn that had Prissy loudly wondering when the food was going to be ready, because she and the bird hadn’t eaten a home cooked meal in days, and she could hardly wait.

“One learns that the anticipation is half the meal,” Hale replied, and used a pair of wooden tongs to flip the assorted bits.

Kyessy reappeared about the time dinner was served with another basketful of berries. These ones looked like large black strawberries, but on closer inspection they were clumped up in bunches like blackberries or raspberries. It was like an artichoke had gotten freaky with a strawberry, and got covered in ink. Prissy pronounced them to be delightful.

“Let’s tell haunting stories,” Rinna suggested.

“This is the only story we need,” Kyessy said. “We’re up and out at dawn, these two can stick with us or not, and we’re headed right to the bounty office in the nearest town. They should have enough cash in the strongbox to pay out fourteen gold. Then we hit the Guild House with the receipt, these two definitely aren’t welcome, and we look for a new contract.”

“Buzzkill,” Prissy muttered.

“If you don’t like it, you’re free to head any which way you like.”

“Sheesh, Batman, who brutally murdered yer parents and turned you into a joyless vigilante hellbent on justice in tight clothes?” Prissy asked.

Blades were drawn. “Is this how you plan to spend your last night on this planet?”

“Enough!” Corbin activated his newly renamed Terrifying Aura for the third time that day, and watched as Kyessy recoiled in sudden fear. He turned to Prissy. “Stop antagonizing her. You don’t know the first thing about her parents.” And then to Kyessy, “I had thought we reached a deal, Kyesiara of the Mountain Runners. You desired information regarding the changes to your world, and those I provided. And while I don’t anticipate that my end of the bargain is fully reached, you have yet to provide a single iota of help to me and mine regarding my request. You and I would both hate for you to become known as someone who went back on her word.”

Kyessy seemed to consider carefully, though her face was a mask of fury. Finally she turned specifically in Prissy’s direction and spat at the floor, then stalked out.

It was another full day’s march to reach the nearest down. Far in the distance, perhaps another ten miles, the Fellwroth capital sat atop a high hill, backed into foothills, with a series of sentry towers surrounding it in a u-shape. Corbin couldn’t be sure Prissy could see as well as he could, but since he could see it all, she could if she wished.

Corbin spent most of his time either on Prissy’s shoulder or running high recon circles. They were on the lookout for roving bands of Denspire soldiers or opposition mercenary bands. Those mercenary groups could be a coalition out of the Guild of a handful of opportunistic souls, or a band of dozens set into a regiment or company and drilled in military tactics. Given that Kyessy was about as likable as 80 grit sandpaper, she tended to run around with people either acclimated to her abrasiveness or like Hale, who desperately needed the money.

They’d discussed what to do in town, and it seemed odd that neither Kyessy or Hale would enter the city gates. As it happened, he was nervous about spending even a few hours on the king’s road, given that agents of a certain unofficial Guild might be on the lookout for him. When Corbin pressed, he learned that Hale was in deep debt for the enchanted equipment he was toting around and using to kill Denspire soldiers, and that criminal organization wanted a return on its investment. It wasn’t exactly Prissy all over again, but it was close, and Corbin wasn’t thrilled about the dangers of just walking into a nothing town like this one.

“There won’t be much, most like,” Rinna said. “The army marched through there and stripped it clean. Armies are hungry beasts.”

“War,” Drell murdered darkly.

“What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” Corbin tried.

No response from either of the ladies who could understand him. Prissy was too pissed off at Kyessy for being an insufferable, stubborn lone wolf badass, while Kyessy resented Prissy for fitting in with the rest of the group so quickly, and being much lower level, meaning Kyessy would have to pull extra weight. Or so Corbin figured anyhow. Kyessy could just be a plain old curmudgeon who hated everyone.

Rinna had strict orders not to let Prissy get a hold of any loot or cards they planned on trying to sell. So, just after lunch on the second day, they passed out of the meadows, out of the lightly wooded copses, left Hale and Kyessy behind, and entered bearing the contract from King Dennon.

Although bigger than Darryl’s little hamlet, this town had been trampled by an entire army surging through it and raiding the whole place for supplies. The bakery had barely anything on the shelves, and the fruit vendor was just closed up. A wooden, hastily painted sign said ‘out of stock’ with no indication when more might be coming in. The blacksmith, armorer and weaponsmith were all situated in a single building with three entrances and a single gigantic forge, which was stoked almost constantly. All three of the burly men seemed on the verge of murder, and the shelves of their shops were practically bare also.

They sought out and found the bounty office in one of the larger houses on the west side of town, which sported a good two dozen soldiers at guard post or drilling in the courtyard. Rinna had them stay at the front door, and headed inside with the contract. He reappeared about ten minutes later with a small sack of coin. Prissy got her two gold, which amounted to two hundred silver. She wouldn’t have it long.

“Where to next?”

“Uh… the magic card shop, obviously,” Prissy replied.

They decided against trying to sell any of their loot here, given the smithies probably wouldn’t have any coin on them. Armies had this strange habit of robbing from their own citizens right before robbing from the citizens of whoever they were marching to destroy. When you were in enemy territory, though, they called it spoils of war.

The only place that seemed like it hadn’t been cleaned out was a renovated shop featuring a huge image of an ability card. The illustration area of the card had been painted to look like a wizard throwing fire out of his hands, and while it wasn’t done well, it was clear from a good hundred yards out. The card’s title was just ‘Card Shop’, while the text box read ‘If you can read this, you should definitely come on in ready to avoid getting swindled like the poor saps who aren’t lettered.’

“Would you look at that,” Rinna said.

“Better head in, eh?” Prissy asked.