Late that evening, Karl and the others had returned to the same Inn that they had stayed at the previous evening, for one last night of rest before leaving.
“How do you plan to go west? The road runs northwest into the city of Khizdila before you’ll find a secondary road running west into Gabil. And that is a four-day journey, all the way up to Nulnalgat.” The waitress asked as they made plans for the journey.
“We have the services of a Thunderbird, and there is a black dragon among us. So, I was intending to simply fly straight west until we saw signs of our target.” Karl suggested.
The stout young Dwarven woman nodded. “Just be sure to dress the ladies nice and warm. If you’re going to fly high enough to get up above the mountains, the air will get mighty cold.
Once you get to the Narabar river valley, the mountains will mostly end, giving way to the craggy hills of the west country. If you’re going straight west, the border shouldn’t be far from where the hills flatten out to badlands and desert.”
“Who named these places?” Ophelia muttered, struggling to pronounce half of the words that the Dwarf was saying.
The waitress chuckled. “They’re in Hill Dwarf. It’s a rough sounding tongue, a creole of Dwarven and Serpent with a bit of Orcish thrown in for spice. But, as they’re still all over the island, nobody ever tried to mess with their city and river names.
Besides, they picked names that the locals could pronounce, and many of them are lizardfolk or dragon descended.”
Tessa took out a map of the region and showed it to the waitress. “Is there anywhere here that you would recommend that we go to check in with the locals and ask about the targets we want to hunt?”
The woman pointed at the icon for a medium-sized city near the border, close to the southern shores of the island.
“Don’t stop there. Shatholaled, better known as the Sheit Hole, is a filthy place full of bandits and merchants. As you’re flying, you could stop in at Barukth. That’s a hundred kilometres north, but about the same distance by air from Bara.
That one is mostly Hill Dwarves and beastkin, so it’s a bit rowdy, but they’ll give you good directions on where there has been trouble.
If you run into issues, stop at the Weaponsmith and ask for Iggy. He’s an old Royal Guard, and he won’t send you astray.” She insisted.
“A friend of yours?” Ophelia asked.
The waitress shook her head. “Not personally. But I have met all his sons. They’re Royal Guards as well, on deployment in the west country at the moment.”
“Are there any names I might be able to pronounce?” Ophelia asked with a smile.
The waitress smirked and gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Aye. If you go west down the road from Barukth, you will get to Banar. Now, either of those can be pronounced with a Werebear’s huff and roar, so you should be fine on that front. But after that, it will start getting harder again.
Where are you stopping the night? The border is close to six hundred kilometres from here.”
Everyone turned to Karl, who simply shrugged. “If we don’t get distracted, that’s an easy day for our ride, as well as for Nachtia here. I don’t see why we can’t just go all the way to Barukth for the night.”
The black dragon snorted in annoyance. If she had her choice, she would be napping in the sun in the tiny space, not flying through the frigid air of a five thousand metre high mountain pass.
But that wasn’t information that the waitress needed.
The waitress went to serve another table, and Karl turned to Nachtia.
“Before we go, I have a question for you. Would you like to officially join the Darklight Host? You are a skilled team member, and a valuable asset to the Guild, so I would like to formally ask you to join us.”
The dragon smiled, and her eyes flashed black as her draconic instincts took over for a moment. Even Black Dragons, who were so often shunned and lived alone, yearned for a place to belong.
“Yes, very much yes. It would be an honour to join your Guild.”
{Guild Member added} Nachtia
Lotus pulled her into a celebratory hug, and Ophelia laughed. “You’ll never escape from the cuddle monster now.”
Nachtia’s soft laughter had a haunting echo that caught the attention of many of the morning diners.
“A small hazard of living with green dragon clerics. But at least I am safe for her to cuddle. After all, their most common cause of death is trying to pet things that they should not.” She insisted.
Karl could see that. While Lotus was more than a little flaky, even Doug seemed like the sort that just might try to pet a Dire Bear to see what happened. Possibly while stoned.
“If anyone needs to send goods or collect anything from the Guild Bank, I recommend that you do it now. We’ll be getting further away every day, and I don’t know how far the range extends.” Karl reminded them.
Mostly, that would be an issue for him and Remi, as they were the ones who were usually interacting with the shop inventory every day. But the Guild Shop had plenty of items ready, and Karl had already made an Epic Grade sword with [Holy Item] and [Flaming Body] on it to give to the Auction house this month.
A holy flaming sword was suitably impressive looking, and with the issues Drodh had been having with the Undead, it would probably be in high demand.
That should be enough to get them by, as long as there were no custom orders while they were out of range of the shop.
But that also raised another question in Karl’s mind. At what point would they move far enough northwest that they would be in range of Supreme Lady Matilda’s Guild House in Cyhosasa?
Once they were, they should be able to access the main Guild Bank again, and then Davis could transfer the items to the Guild Shop’s inventory.
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