Night had fallen by the time Alex made it back to the village.

Despite the festive sentiment that lingered in the air with all the decorations up, there were very few people mingling outside now that the stars had come out. Unlike earlier, too, the doors and windows to the houses stood closed. His way was only illuminated by whatever light seeped out of the cracks of the shuttered windows and the occasional brazier at a street corner.

The only lantern to be found hung over the side of the Bedstone Inn, and Alex put his head down against the cutting wind and picked up his pace when he spotted it in the distance. The day had been a pleasant affair weather-wise, but it seemed nighttime had a bite to it here in Riverbend. Alex mentally added a nice warm coat to his list of things to buy.

Of course, the thought came just in time for a gust to sweep past him, whipping the wind chimes of a nearby house into a frenzy. With how quiet the streets were, the sound of the chimes clinking and whistling was an eerie addition to the night. Alex shivered despite himself.

He heard the clamor almost a street away, however, and when he opened the doors to the inn, the heat of the common room hit him like a hot breath to the face. It wasn’t only the heat of a large hearth well-stacked with firewood, but the warmth of people drinking and being merry together. It seemed he’d found all the missing villagers from the streets.

The place was crowded shoulder to shoulder, the long benches crammed with people, tables littered with food and drink. And smoke, too. With all the pipes carelessly dangling from loose fingers, Alex could guess they had never heard of second-hand smoking before. Thick plumes of the stuff hung near the rafters like clouds, the air thick with a surprisingly pleasant woody scent.

Looking over some heads, he caught sight of the chasing crew on the other end of the room. They’d found themselves a nice spot near the fire, and he bumped his way over to them with no small amount of toe-stepping and excuse-mes.

“And where have you been?” Cedric asked with an easy smile when Alex slumped down on a chair at the head of the table. Daven, sitting to his left, had tried to speak with his mouth full of half-chewed potatoes, but his sister shut him up with a practiced glare from his other side. Next to the crew leader, Valerian looked up from his own plate only long enough to give him a nod before turning back to it.

“I went into the forest to train for a bit,” Alex said. In his experience, it was better to tell an innocent truth than a complicated lie. He leaned to the side and put both hands up toward the fire. “I just didn’t expect to get so cold when the sun went down, though.”

Cedric’s smile was quick to curdle on his face. “You didn’t go too deep into the forest, though, did you?”

The leader’s voice was as serious as Alex had ever heard. It made the hairs on the back of his air stand. “Not really,” he said, watching the man’s expression. “I followed the river south, mostly.”

Before he could ask more, Daven finished his mouthful. “Why? Is there a reason not to go too far inside?” He leaned over the table, curious. Even Diana perked up. As different as they were, inquisitiveness seemed to run in the family.

Cedric’s eyes shot to the archer and his sister. “Oh,” he said, as if just realizing what they were talking about. He seemed surprised at the question, or that he’d brought up the topic at all. He coughed into his hand. “Well, ah, there’s a Nefayn camp farther west, or so I heard. And you know what they say about them…”

“Don’t listen to him,” a girl’s voice suddenly said, just as a plate of food was planted on the table in front of Alex. He looked up to see the barmaid from before standing behind him, balancing a tray full of mugs brimming with ale on one hand. “The Nefayn want no more business with humans as we usually want with them. Probably less, really.” She smiled down at Daven. “That’s what dad says, at least. And they’ve surely never bothered us here at Riverbend. Cedric just likes to embellish his tales.”

“Come now, don’t tell me you don’t enjoy them.” Cedric was laughing again. Any hint of a frown had vanished from his face by the time Alex turned back to look at him. The guy changed moods like socks.

“Maybe,” the barmaid said, her smile forming dimples on the corners of her mouth. “Now, Mister Chaser. It’s been two days and you have yet to introduce me to your new friends.” She punctuated her words by placing a mug of ale in front of each of them. A few patrons around them groaned at the drinks that didn’t go their way, but she easily waved them away. “Are you perhaps embarrassed of me? Poor little country wench that I am?”

“New friends?” Diana asked, brow raised.

“I’ve only met his last crew,” the barmaid clarified.

“Last crew?” Daven paled. “They didn’t die here, did they? And we’re next?”

Diana sighed. “Why did you jump straight to that conclusion?” she muttered. Across the table, Valerian had a small smile on his face. The archer’s antics seemed to be able to break through the man’s tough exterior every once in a while, Alex noted.

“My former crewmates and I parted ways just after we left here some three months ago,” Cedric said. He still had a smile showing, though Alex thought it was a bit too bright. “But, you know, we don’t have to talk about them. And I’m sure they’re fine too, Daven. Right, then.” He clapped his hands. “Guys, this is Lanna, she’s Orson’s daughter,” he said, then proceeded to introduce each one of them to the girl, until he got to the siblings.

“Oh we’ve heard a lot about dear Lanna here,” Daven said, gaining a mock glare from his crew leader. The archer only grinned.

“Oh, yes. Hello Lanna the barmaid,” Diana piped in, face dead serious. “It’s nice to put a face to the name Cedric has been talking about glowingly since Holdensfor.”

Lanna’s smile grew bold, but she couldn’t hide the blush rising on her tanned cheeks. She looked at the crew leader with a raised eyebrow, daring him to contest Diana’s words.

Cedric put his hands up in surrender. “I admit, I admit,” he said, matching the barmaid’s smile. “Please spare me, oh great country wench!”

The siblings burst into laughter, while Lanna folded her arms—empty tray and all—in mock anger, though she couldn’t hide the satisfied look on her face.

xx

Lanna the barmaid only left after the other patrons grew too rowdy waiting for their drink. Their table was farthest from the bar, but the common room had only grown louder as the night wore on—not helped by how Daven was cackling as Cedric and Lanna took turns trying to embarrass the other. The barmaid found herself constantly outmatched, unfortunately, though she showed herself to be a good sport.

Scooping some gravy with a piece of black bread, Alex watched the people around him. Daven grew talkier the drunker he got, and Diana too, in a way, only not as obnoxiously loud. Valerian looked about the table with an expression as far from apathy as Alex had seen all day, and Cedric looked like his charming self, all back in control of the situation.

While the others had been laughing at Cedric and his country flirt, and Alex did too to keep appearances, his mind kept going through the earlier interaction over and over. He couldn’t tell what the hell that had all been about, but it certainly made him more suspicious of the crew leader than he was before. Cedric had been too uncomfortable with the topic of his old crew, and then whatever that had been about the forest.

Was he just worried about me, as he considers me a part of his crew now? Alex nearly snorted out some food. Doubt it. That’s not how people work. He had a head for recognizing people like Cedric. A gut feeling born of necessity.

There was something else going on here. Alex couldn’t say how he knew this, just that he did. But should I be the one trying to solve it?

He didn’t really need to follow Cedric and the crew around anymore, even if that would be the prudent thing to do. Having figured out a bit more about his powers gave him some more wiggle-room in what his future looked like.

So long as I don’t venture into any dungeons, at least. Yes, as eye-opening as his little training had been, he wasn’t any more powerful than before, beyond the stats he’d boosted earlier.

He was certainly more confident in defending himself against the level of monsters he’d encountered so far, but he doubted that meant much in the grand scheme of things. In reality, if Alex wanted to find out why and how he’d ended up in this world at all, he needed to be strong enough so that when he asked questions, people answered.

Besides, the overflowing dungeon was too obvious a quest-starter to ignore, which put Cedric—as the last one to supposedly prune it—right in the middle of it all. And what better place to start the game than the quaint, beginning village, no?

His decision made, Alex waited until the laughter had settled down a bit to prod some more. “So, if you had a crew a few months ago, how long have you all known each other?” He asked the question as nonchalantly as he could, popping the last of his gravy-soaked bread in his mouth.

Diana put down her ale and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “We met up with Cedric on the road,” she said. “Last month.”

The crew leader nodded. “Yes, five weeks, if you want to be accurate.”

“Holdensfor,” came Valerian’s answer.

“Yup,” Daven said, popping the p. He belched, laughed at himself, then belched again.

“Valerian joined in last week,” Cedric chimed in when it was clear the archer was too preoccupied trying to count how many times in a row he could burp. “And you can really feel the sentiment he has for us behind his fond words.”

“Word,” Diana corrected, smiling. She had drunk more than anyone on the table, by his counting, but seemed doubly less affected than her brother. Alex himself was only on his second mug. It wouldn’t do to get drunk in front of people he didn’t know.

Valerian shook his head, a good-natured huff escaping him. “Someone must keep the children alive.”

“You’ve mentioned Holdensfor twice now…” Alex left the unspoken question hanging in the air.

“Iss’ the closest city to Riverbend,” Daven slurred, apparently paying attention again. He opened his arms wide as if to hug the whole table. “Tell him about the huuuge walls.” He turned to his sister expectantly, only for his eyes to widen when he noticed her empty tankard. He looked back and forth between their drinks, then hastily grabbed his mug and gulped it down, ale sloshing down his neck.

“You’ll get there one day,” Diana said, patting him on the back.

Cedric laughed. “It’s a town,” he said. Leaning back on the bench beside him, Valerian smiled indulgently too. “Definitely not a city,” Cedric continues. “Three day’s walk south of here. You didn’t pass there coming here, Alex?”

“No, no,” Alex said, trying to keep his voice steady. I need to get my story straight sooner rather than later. “I’ve been basically stumbling across the woods and a few tiny villages since I left home.”

“Fair enough,” Cedric said, then winked. “I won’t pry.”

Valerian grunted an agreement to the sentiment, though Alex tried to act unbothered. “Well, besides Cedric crushing on the local barmaid,” he started again, “what made you all decide to come here? I’m not really familiar with how Chasers choose their work, but Riverbend doesn’t sound like a place a couple of second-ranks would usually venture to.”

It was a bit of a gamble to assume, but Cedric himself said the dungeon here was tame.

“It’s a job,” Valerian said, as if that was explanation enough.

Cedric shrugged. “Diana and Daven needed some experience in the field. I knew I’d find work here with the Selection Festival coming up, and on the road too.” He nodded toward an older couple sitting closer to the bar. “We came with that peddler family there and a few others in a small caravan. Not enough robbers on the roads this far south of the big Republican cities to get a good payday, but there’s always a merchant or another going to a village festival that will shill out some coin for protection.”

Alex nodded. Republics, then, not monarchies. If the coin wasn’t enough confirmation, this was. I can work with that. “Sounds like a good deal,” he said. “Now that you mentioned, I have a couple of things I might need to buy from them. Warm coat, for once.”

“You’ll see them and their wares during the festival,” Cedric said. “Big wagons full of trinkets and fabrics and everything in between, hard to miss.”

Alex peered down the room to the peddler couple again, but as his eyes scanned the rest of the patrons, someone else caught his attention. On a smaller table set against the wall, a short, nondescript man sat nursing a half-empty drink by himself. The only thing marking him out were his clothes. They weren’t strange exactly, but certainly odd in comparison to everyone else around him. His dark pants were baggy in his thin frame, so much that the fabric folded down atop each other. Thick beige robes with tangling vines climbing up his sleeves in green embroidery covered him to his mid-thighs, and though the quality of the attire might have once been notable, it all looked drab now in the smoky haze of the common room.

“Who’s that?”

Cedric craned his head, following Alex’s eyes. “Who? The Reaper? He hitched a ride with the caravan too.”

Alex opened his mouth, closed, then decided to just go for it. “What’s a Reaper?”

Diana’s pale red eyebrows jumped up. “You don’t know about the Reapers?”

“Not really, no.”

“They even came to our village.”

Alex shrugged. “Not to mine.”

“Well,” she started, glancing down to see that her brother was still alive hunched over the table, then continued, “They’re graduates from the Republican Magickal Academy in Versal—Runkast, that go from town to town and village to village helping with the crops.”

Earth mages of some kind? Alex considered. Makes sense for powers to be entrenched even in the most fundamental things like agriculture.

Cedric snorted. “Runkast rejects, perhaps. Most who graduate but don’t get a good offer end up working with the Farmers.”

“And yet the League and its allies eat because of the Farmers,” Valerian interjected. His voice was flat and low, though not unkind. “There’s three things a society needs to survive. Only three. The chaser, the mother, and the farmer. All the rest are optional, if optimal.”

Cedric paused, then nodded. “Fair point,” he conceded easily. He didn’t seem to care much about the topic either way. His eyes followed someone in the crowd, until he pointed toward the solitary Reaper just as Lanna brought some food to his table. “Reapers don’t pay for food or rooms at any inn or tavern inside the territory of the League. I suppose just for that the gig isn’t so bad.”

Alex hummed. The League again. A group of these republics, maybe? But then what was the CCC from earlier? “Won’t Reapers just abuse this system for free food?” he asked, trying to stay on topic.

Diana took offense to that. “No Runkast alum would do that,” she said, frowning.

“Some do.” Cedric shrugged when the fiery mage glared at him. “I’ve heard stories, actually. But Jeran there seems a nice enough fellow, if a bit boring. Barely said a word the whole way from Holdensfor.”

Alex shot another look at the hunched form of Jeran the Reaper. With deep frown lines on his brow and sunken eye sockets, the man just looked like he was tired of everyone and everything. I would be depressed too, if my job as a fucking mage involved glorified landscaping.

Diana didn’t look convinced, but she kept quiet. Until she pushed herself to her feet. “I think it’s past time for bed now.” She looked at her brother snoring on the table next to her. “Well, I'm going to bed. Daven went double or nothing on the earlier bet for the rest of our stay here in the Bedstone,” she said. “But since he’s loving the table, he’ll be more than fine with the floor.”

“Oh boy,” Cedric said. “What’s the new bet?”

A smile crept up Diana’s face. “Who could drink the most before passing out.”

Cedric laughed, and Valerian shook his head, amused.

“How are you not falling right beside him?” Alex dared to ask. “You drank enough for the five of us.”

Smiling, Diana took hold of her empty mug and turned it around in a half-circle. Two of her fingers lit up with arcane power, and when she touched a spot on the rim of the mug, a small cluster of runes carved into the wood glowed bright blue.

“It won’t filter out all the alcohol, but it does help,” she said, looking proud of herself.

Despite the loudness of the common room, there was a short silence around their table. Until Valerian started laughing, a low rumbling that set his wide shoulders shaking. Alex didn’t know what to be the most surprised about, the odd but genius use of magic or the laughter.

“Come,” Valerian said, rising to tower over the table. His voice seemed to startle the girl, who had been just as shocked as Alex. “I’ll be retiring as well. I will take Daven up to your room’s floor.”

When they were gone, Cedric gulped down his drink and shook his head. “Well,” he said, laughing. “You don’t see that everyday.”

Alex nodded. Suspicious or not, the man did have a point.