Morning greets the hero’s party with bustling streets and the smell of freshly baked bread. Marvin and Ernest towel off after their morning spar and meet up with Rory and Rachel for breakfast, which is much simpler than what they had at the Other’s lair, but no one complains.

Ernest and Rachel head off to gather supplies and food, which ends up being uneventful, while Marvin and Rory look for an escort job. They stop by the guild first to see what is available. The guild took up the entirety of a block of land surrounded by roads, with three stories aboveground and at least one below. Due to an unfortunate wealth of experience, the walls of the first floor were much thinner than usual, and all support beams were reinforced.

Rory and Marvin walk in amidst the typical morning traffic and scuffling, and head over to the last of three boards. The first two contain subjugation and fetch requests respectively, and the last containing escort and transport requests. The two spend about an hour going over possibilities, finding three that would get them close but none going to the Handbell’s seat of power.

Rory gets the information for those merchants, then suggests they swing by the Merchant’s guild as two of them are leaving at the same time. One might think it strange that the Merchant Guild would take the risk of directly hiring escorts for caravans, but at the end of the day many of them ask the question, ‘Is it really any different than us independently posting a request at the Adventurer’s Guild?’

Because of this, the Merchant Guild in the capital decided to pay for a full time Adventurer’s Guild receptionist that could earn a bonus for helping with inventory during slow times. This way they would still be able to screen Adventurers, and the Adventurers would still earn points. Though the Merchant Guild typically only told B-ranks and higher about this option as making it to that rank meant a decent reputation backed up with ability.

When they arrive, they head over to the entrance of the warehouse district and let the guards know what they’re there for. Nodding, the guard motions them over to the empty booth off to the side and puts some mana into a small stone tablet. A minute later a very buff man holding a clipboard walks out of one of the buildings and makes his way over to Marvin and Rory.

“Hoh there!” he says once he’s within a respectable distance. “What can we help you with today sir Adventurers?”

“We were thinking about taking a job from the Adventurer’s Guild and noticed two merchants heading the same direction the same day,” says Rory. “We were wondering if this was coincidence or if there’s a caravan going and can get in on that?”

The primary concern of Rory and Marvin is both pay and additional expectations. Generally speaking, being hired by the Merchants Guild as a guard gave better pay and fewer restrictions if they ran into trouble and came out in one piece. Sometimes individual merchants would hire guards, and some of those times there would be additional restrictions that can frustrate the hot-blooded hero, such that they could only protect that merchant rather than the caravan at large. Thus, the points they would receive and reputation with the guild (if they were new), would be in the hands of someone more than willing to write a bad review.

Thus, the buff receptionist gathers the information from Rory before entering the booth and retrieving a stack of documents from the enchanted safe embedded in the floor. As these were copies of documents, the safe was designed to burn everything inside if it was moved from that location or a single failure of unlocking it with a key and magic sequence.

“Well,” begins the receptionist, “You’re half right and half wrong. But to answer your direct question, the Guild has a group leaving in five days and only needs four more people. That sound good or do you need to look elsewhere? They are heading to Salem it seems.”

Hearing that, Rory affirms their desire to participate in guarding the caravan. Rory and Marvin complete the paperwork for the group and officially register for the job. The receptionist informs them the other spots will be held until sundown for the rest of the party to register as a courtesy. Thanking him, Marvin and Rory head out to meet up with Rachel and Ernest.

The group ends up finding each other in a general store as simple miscellaneous items such as flint and tents are much easier to find. Hearing about the job from Marvin and Rory, they decide to head over with Rory and finish up shopping later as they ended up with more time. As Marvin parts ways with the group, he looks up to see it is close to midday and makes his way towards food.

After getting another meat sandwich, he wanders for a bit before hearing someone whistle in his general direction. Looking, he sees a familiar shop keeper smiling and waving at him while pointing to a knee high barrel. Finishing up his sandwich, he smiles and walks over to purchase the barrel of salted and smoked meat.

- - - - -

The day of departure arrives with overcast skies and a feeling of heaviness in the air. Should it have been clear weather, it would only take a little over three days to arrive at their final destination. This ended up marginally delaying the group’s departure as they were waiting for the final merchant to arrive.

“So glad we’re leaving before the storm hits the city,” says Ernest. “There’s always a sickness that seems to go around afterwards.”

Rory nods as the final carriage pulls up with a familiar symbol. He nudges Marvin and whispers that it seems the last carriage was also one of the ones who posted in the Adventurer’s Guild. Rachel, catching this, notes to the group it seems they lucked out then. Marvin shakes his head saying that the merchant is either young, or something else is going on, so keep an extra eye out just in case.

The first day passes with some light rain in the afternoon. The caravan made it to the post-town around lunch and took a break to rest the various animals pulling carriages before taking off again. While the rain only delayed their arrival at the camping area typically used by merchants traveling, they are tired and covered in mud. The hero’s party eats briefly before setting up their tents. Marvin walks into the woods to scout the area and set up his hammock and rain-fly.

It continues to lightly rain overnight and into the next morning, leading to a delayed start and further delays on the road. Fortunately for the caravan, the delays meant they made it to a village by nightfall rather than passing it in the morning. Merchants took the few rooms available at the inn while the guards found open spots in stables throughout town.

“Did anybody notice anything suspicious today?” Marvin asks his group once they settle in.

“Not in particular.”

“Only the usual.”

“Just the mud,” came the replies.

“Some bickering between the merchants and their personal guards about not getting stuck, but I’ve seen that a hundred times it seems,” says Rory.

“Forest was quiet,” says Ernest. “A few woodland creatures were moving but I can’t say I was surprised by that.”

“So glad this robe has a purification option…” finishes Rachel, shining brightly for a moment.

“Anything from the villagers you talked to on the way over?”

“A girl and a boy went missing a several weeks ago,” says Ernest. “They were about the age they start fooling around so people are worried but not surprised. Neighbors said they had talked about moving into a city and trying life there.”

“Idiots,” says Rory. “Nobody else has gone missing or anything around here have they? I didn’t hear about anyone else besides those two as well.”

(AN: These two actually made it to town but ended up running into slave-trading vampires. The hero party accidentally met them twice, once while free before this instance and once in the slums, though who would remember random encounters from across the street?)

“Nothing on my end either,” says Marvin. “It looks like the weather will clear up tomorrow, but it will be a few days before the roads are completely dry since it’s rained for so long. We should arrive in Salem in two days if we keep going at today’s pace.”

“That means we have about ten days then before we need to turn around?” asks Rory. “Ernest, will that be enough time?”

“Hopefully,” he replies. “It really depends on whether they remember the name Saidel. After all, she was barely into double digits when she died, but it was during the founding of the estate so maybe?”

“It almost sounded like her death was the reason they developed their territory and trained their people the way they did, so I’m more worried about how they will take an outsider mentioning her name,” says Rory.

“I say it’s half-and-half,” says Marvin.

“You always say it’s fifty-fifty though,” says Rachel while drying out her hair. She drops her voice a bit and mimics Marvin while scrunching her face, “If there are two outcomes it will be one of the two, so half-and-half.”

“Eh, it will be fine,” says Ernest. “It’s not like the Handbells are in league with some evildoer just for the sake of fighting evil right?”

- - - - -

Elsewhere, in the R&D department of the Other, twelve golems sneeze.

- - - - -

“In any case, I think we can get by if we manage to get the guards to pass a message along, so we will see at that time,” finishes Ernest.

“Oh! I just remembered I needed to tell you the owner’s wife offered to cook for us tonight,” says Rachel. “I gave her a whole bunch of meat and vegetables since her husband looked happy and well fed.”

“Ah, hot, properly made food,” Marvin says. “I’m glad we’re on night duty tomorrow then.”

The evening passes quickly for the hero’s party, who enjoy the meal with the couple and their eight children. After the meal, Rachel and Ernest play with most of the kids while Rory breaks out some nicer tea leaves for the chat with Marvin and the couple. About two hours pass with the group leaving sage-like advice to all involved as well as some news from the capital since they don’t get many visitors.

The night passes otherwise uneventfully. The party gets up and through their morning routine just in time to see the carriage belonging to the late merchant being loaded up with two large barrels. Once they are loaded, the merchant shakes hands with a shady looking individual and parts ways, the individual leaving town on horseback on a perpendicular course compared to the caravan.

“That was suspicious, right guys?” says Ernest.

“Totally,” says Rachel.

“Definitely,” replies Rory. “The real question though is whether he keeps going our direction or turns back. I can’t remember what the job posting said off-hand, but nobody we checked out at the guild should be going much farther.”

“Stick it in a report and I’ll hand it over when we get back,” says Marvin. “Nothing illegal has happened yet so far as I can see. And it looks like they’re turning around to head back to the capital anyway so they should be able to be tracked down.”

The hero’s party shrugs off the shady merchant and prepares for the day, as it will not be an easy trip and their more personal concerns loom large in their minds.