The amount of shops overwhelmed Jano as he walked through the main thoroughfare. There were small twinkling lights hanging above, with sounds of almost omnipresent laughter and joy. He had the majority of the money remaining which they had been given for their trip. An allowance almost, but enough for food and supplies. He had spent the morning hours training with Robin and then the last of the afternoon training by himself. He had been focussing on his shield, which now slowly crept up his legs to almost his thighs. It wasn’t particularly great but it was getting better. That was the main thing.

Dariea had explained that they were leaving soon and the army would be moving out in the morning. He had barely seen her as she rushed around the barracks trying to find him, before she disappeared just as quickly. She should have known to look for him in the training yard she had muttered as she lett. Jano had grown used to her erratic behaviour and decided to have a wash and explore as the sun began to glow a deep orange.

It would be an hour or so until full dark, but shadows were beginning to stretch across the streets as the red sun started to fade overhead. Still there was plenty of activity in the streets of Goshnia. He longed to be a part of it in a strange way he couldn’t quite place. It was relaxed but thriving. With families and friends heading to their favourite taverns and restaurants. The weather was warm enough for them to be sat outside, wine in hand as they idly chatted. He exited the bathhouse and to his surprise, Robin was waiting for him.

“I thought you’d never leave that training yard. I am glad you had a wash though. Thinking of exploring on our last night? If you weren’t, then you are now. I need a friend to shop and drink with, or I could end up in trouble.” She laughed as she grabbed him.

He had been expecting to explore alone and was kind of looking forward to it. He debated for a moment asking her politely to leave, but those hopes were dashed. She would just beat him into submission with persistence. It was something he quite liked about her. She reminded him a little of his wife. Plus she did know the area better than he did.

“Well I was intending to go by myself, but sure let’s go.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” She said, with a smile.

“Is Gryff around?” He asked more out of obligation than anything else.

She shrugged. “Haven’t seen him. He was skulking around the training yard last I saw him as I was leaving. Haven’t you been with him?”

“Not at all no. He’s not been training.” Jano tried to think if he had seen him.

“Hmm.” She furrowed her brow. “Oh well, he’s a sour bastard at the moment anyway.l

She linked his arm and pulled him along. He wasn’t expecting the sudden movement and stumbled over his own feet almost dragging Robin down with him. She turned and looked at him disappointingly.

“Seriously Jano. Stop messing around, come on.”

He caught up to her and ignored her irritated glances. He didn’t know why he was exactly in the wrong considering she had jumped him like that. They quickly passed from the Chaos-Shaper’s barracks into the town proper. It was bustling.

“Lamoran style kebabs! Get ‘em while they’re fresh.” A street hawker cried as they passed by an intricately carved statue of a former queen.

Jano’s nose and stomach alerted them that they were in the food section of the town. There were several people standing outside of their respective establishments trying to convince passers by to dine in their restaurants. There were plenty of others with small stands at the side of the paths in little enclaves selling more immediately available foods. Most of which were placed on sticks.

“There’s so much here.” Robin cried as she ran ahead. “I want to eat everything!”

Jano recognised a shadowy figure in the distance. She skulked through the streets, clearly trying to keep out of sight but without looking too suspicious. He knew that cloak and the outline of the figure below it.

“Hey, is that Dariea?” He said, more to himself than to Robin.

—-

“Oi. Where are you going? I’ve only managed two separate food vendors. I was hoping for at least five.”

He had been watching Dariea. She flicked to a few merchants and then hung nearby a tavern for a few moments. As she began to head out of Goshnia he instinctively followed his suspicious looking master and it wasn’t until Robin suddenly appeared alongside confused and angry that he realised she hadn’t been with him the last few minutes.

He pointed ahead to the whooshing cloak which had just disappeared around a slight bend off the main road.

“Didn’t you see?” He muttered.

“See what? Why are we leaving the city?” She responded, sounding none too happy. She had a small bag of sugar laden treats in her hand as she caught up to him.

“Dariea! She just disappeared around here!”

“So? Can’t you just let her be in peace?” She snapped. “Don’t you think she deserves a night off too?”

That didn’t make sense. Something pulled at him. They rounded the bend, Jano was trying to be quiet in pursuit of his master. It wasn’t like she hadn’t kept secrets from him before. The path ahead snaked and curved and in the dying light, he just managed to see the vague outline ahead. She was looking left and right, as though seeking something out.

“I want some more food Jano. I don’t play the status card very often, but you’re making me seriously reconsider,” she said only half joking.

“You’ll get your food. I’m just curious. Turn back now if you don’t want to come, I mean this in the nicest way, but I really don’t care either way.”

“Hey. There’s no need to be like that. I thought we were friends,” she waited a little while in the silence but when it became clear he wasn’t going to respond, she went on. “Where do you think she’s going? And why do you think she didn’t just Jump to wherever she wants to go from inside of Goshnia?”

They rounded another bend as the path became more narrow. Dariea was no longer in sight, so he started to run.

“Ugh!” Sighed Robin as he began to speed up. “I’ve just eaten!” She complained, but Jano noticed she kept her voice down as she got more invested in the pursuit. Soon enough he heard Robin’s feet pacing alongside his own as she ran just off his shoulder now. The path was too narrow for them to run side by side.

“Either she doesn’t know exactly where she needs to go so she can’t Jump there directly, or she doesn’t want to be followed or for anyone else to know where she is going. Jumping apparently leaves clues. Though I don’t know what they are.” He was starting to become breathless as they ran.

They turned another bend just in time to see Dariea passing through a familiar black abyss. She was Jumping after all.

“Dariea!” Jano shouted at the top of his lungs as she passed through, he noticed she turned her head at the last moment before passing through.

Robin thundered towards the remnants of the Jump. The portal was beginning to shut. “Run! We can make it.” She shouted as she neared the thing. Jano began to sprint. It was half the size it had been by the time that Robin reached it and jumped through head first.

Jano put every effort into getting there, but it was getting smaller still with every second. He gritted his teeth and forced his feet to move faster than ever. He strained every sinew and began to feel light headed. Then he leapt towards the portal and felt himself become subsumed by the brief feeling of nothingness. As he passed through the portal, he realised a gust of air had been propelling them both. Robin had obviously propelled them forward.

He slammed back to the dirt with a thud. He looked up and around at his limbs; everything seemed in the right place. He let out a small sigh as he immediately began to panic. It was very dark. He jerked his head from side to side.

“Which of you wants to explain just what the fuck you are doing here?” He heard the scorn in Dariea’s voice before he actually located her. Robin stood by her side, chewing on something she had evidently kept in her pocket for just such an occasion. Dariea looked at her, though she lazily pointed to Jano who was still a crumpled mess a few feet away. He placed his hands on the dirt below and realised it shifted slightly below him. Like an amalgamation of crumbling dirt and sand.

“Umm,” he mumbled as he stood up straight and bowed to his master. As though that would matter. He saw the incredulous look on her face as he did so and quickly moved to dust off his clothes as if that had been his intention all along.

“Well?” She demanded.

A battle cry sounded somewhere very far off in the distance. Dariea did not respond. This time, she actually looked cross.

“I thought you looked like you might need a hand. The way you moved reminded me of the way I snuck about Qursa. So I followed.” He tried to put on the most dumbfounded expression he could muster. Something that screamed innocence. He wasn’t sure he managed it.

“You thought you should follow me when I looked decidedly like I didn’t want to be followed? That makes absolutely no sense.” She looked around her. “But I suppose that doesn’t matter so much now. You’re here and I had to hold open that portal for a bit too long to make sure you got through and weren’t ripped apart in the process. So I can’t quite be bothered to try and send you back right now.”

Jano looked quickly at Robin. They both looked a bit surprised that being ‘ripped apart’ was a potential outcome. He looked above Robin’s head. There was a portal, much bigger than anything he had ever seen. Or that was what he first thought. In fact, it was a yawning mouth cut into the side of a huge cliff. It was monstrously wide and there was no light at all to see what was inside.

“So then, where are we?” He asked sheepishly.

“Well if you must know, we’re at the Grand Cave of the Freelands.” Dariea motioned with her hands as if she had unveiled a surprise.

“And what might that be?” Jano immediately felt stupid as Robin’s face changed from a star struck expression to one of incredulity.

“How can you—“ she began, but Dariea cut her off.

“It is a mythical place of pilgrimage Jano, to those in this part of the world some believe this is where the first of our kind emerged from the shadow. Robin, you’ll have to forgive him, this isn’t taught in the Empire.”

“So what are we doing here?” He asked.

Dariea sighed, it was quite obvious to Jano that he was forcing her to reveal plans that she probably didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help himself. He noticed Robin also seemed to stiffen and pay attention. The enmity between the clans of Molinia were ever present in their minds.

“To be totally honest, I’m not sure. I am searching for something and I think it’s somewhere in here. But I’ve been following breadcrumbs and it could be nothing.” She said.

“The Grand Cave is massive. None but the strongest can venture even a little way into it, and nobody has made it all the way through. Unless you believe the legends of course. What are you searching for?” Robin demanded, her regal training coming through.

“I am aware of that Robin. I am, or should I say, we are looking for the Tumerian Relics of your people.”

“The what?” Jano asked responsively, without much time to think through his words.

“The Tumerian Relics? They are just as much a legend as the depths of the Cave itself.” Robin replied, her tone had a dismissive edge to it that took Jano by surprise.

“Well we have reason to believe they were stored here, by those who created Molinia and founded your clans. Some call this cave the hiding place of the gods themselves; though I put as much stock in that as I do in flying pigs. If war is coming to these lands between yourselves and the Empire, then the more resources we have at our disposal the better.”

“So that’s why we were sent here personally is it? A little errand for the Chaos-Shaper’s?” Robin could not keep her voice down.

“Do you think I wasn’t told about your trip to visit the Queen of Goshnia for your little trade trip?” Robin looked harshly at Jano.

“Don’t look at him like that, I was told by your mother. When we all agreed about our mission to look for the relics.” Dariea snapped harshly and Jano started to feel very much in the middle.

Robin looked as though she was about to reply, to shout back at Dariea. Nothing came. She simply looked down at the sandy ground beneath their feet. It was silent now that the shouting had stopped, a small breeze flickered the sand around without any noise whatsoever.

Jano wasn’t sure if it was Dariea herself that had ended the argument, or the fact that Robin had realised she hadn’t been told everything by her mother. It was a feeling that Jano was intimately familiar with, albeit from Dariea herself.

“Okay. Well let’s go in and look for these amulets or whatever you called them. If they’re important, we stand a better chance together.” Jano finally spoke to break up the silence. Dariea looked as if she was going to speak; but this time it was Jano’s time to cut her off.

“I don’t want to hear anything about how dangerous it might be. I bloody know that it will be. It always is with you. We can try and muddle through and if not, we can wait until the next people decide to enter a mythical cave renowned for its danger.” He finished the words and he was pleased with himself. It was the most confident he had felt addressing those from outside of the Empire since he had left.

“Actually, I was going to agree. I was simply going to say I have no clue as to where they might be in there. It’s revered for a reason.” She laughed a little as she spoke.

“Oh.” Jano paused. Trying to contemplate a threat which not even his master was aware of. All this talk of mythical caves and relics had drawn his curiosity. After all, how often was it that myth turned out to be anything other than a simple story. “Right.”