Crossroads

“So when that catastrophe happened, I thought this town would be the safest place,” Giselle concluded her recounting of the past few weeks of her adventure-filled travels from Erfurt to this town named Bakkberg.

Janne and Natan had simultaneously been surprised, relieved, and slightly disappointed at Giselle’s safe return. If she noticed, she hadn’t commented on it, and instead insisted that she needed to buy us a room and a meal as a thank you. The two innkeepers agreed it would only be fair to provide both of those to us for free, and so we found ourselves sat around a table.

Giselle had somehow simultaneously talked for about half an hour and eaten more of the roasted brochettes and steamed vegetables than Danayr and I combined.

In her rambles, she had, however, overlooked several important details.

“You said you were looking for your brother. I still don’t understand why you thought going off into the desert by yourself would be the best idea.”

Giselle looked at each of us, visibly trying to figure something out. She finished chewing a particularly tough piece of meat and collected her thoughts.

“There was an oasis about two days away from here. Barthelemy had a map, so I figured he would come this way if he’d reached it. Wait a second,” She got up and ran off into her room.

“What’s your plan?” Danayr asked.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It’s unsafe for her to run around out there by herself.”

“You don’t know her level, maybe it isn’t,” Danayr said. But it was clear in his tone that he wasn’t really arguing. “Chasing after a most likely dead man in the desert is not aligned with your plan of reaching the Cielese Sea.”

“I know,” I nodded, picking up a small piece of leftovers off my plate and chewing on it to give myself some time to think. “You’re right, that’s the priority now.”

“She could come with us. You can make an argument about travelling in the same direction and offer EXP or cores to sweeten the deal. I think the novelty of your train will wear off for her rather quickly, though. She seems -”

Giselle ran down the stairs at the back of the inn, carrying a large scroll in her hands.

“Here, come look,” She called out.

Thankfully, the place wasn’t too busy, so Danyar, myself, Janne, and two other patrons assembled around a map she spread out over an unoccupied table.

The map depicted a mountain range partially surrounding a very large lake. From it, a river ran down to what I presumed to be the sea. Country borders were marked in dashed lines, creating five enclaves around the lake. Towns and roads were also labelled, and it took me a second to find Dunija in all of the text.

“We’re here,” Giselle pointed at a triangle. “He was travelling this way, and he sent me a letter from Mitterberg. From there, he would have either gone north, where the dunes are lower, or joined up the King’s highway, to the west,” She motioned on the map.

“The brother is dead, sorry, sister,” One of the patrons said. That promptly earned him a smack on the shoulder from Janne.

“Come on, let them discuss,” She dragged the patrons away.

Giselle looked down, through the map rather than at it, and pressed her lips into a forced smile.

“I checked with the Bastt Caravan, and they had no records of him, so I cut through here,” she traced a line, “And you know the rest.”

“Mitterberg… I’ve heard that name before,” I leaned closer to the map. “Arkkon … Grimcroen …”

I moved my finger from one town to the next.

There wasn’t that much of a distance between the three, and as I looked at the roads joining them, I recognised some of the other towns based on their orientation, which had been buried by the sand.

It’s really a mystery how I managed to ride around that region for several days without stumbling into a city.

“How old is this map?” I asked.

My attention drifted from Dunjia to the Cieleese Sea. There was no region marked as the Demon King’s land. Before I could study it closer, Giselle wrapped it back up.

“It is what it is,” She said, returning to the dining table. “I’ll set out again tomorrow morning. I appreciate everything the two of you have done for me so far.”

She seemed to think the conversation was over.

Danyar gave me a nod before joining her at the table.

“What was your brother doing so far away from the capital? Was he travelling alone?”

Giselle put down her fork and paused for a second before giving Danyar a pleading look.

“Please don’t give me false hope. I’d rather not explain to you all the details only for you to get up and say that you never signed any contract or promised me anything and walk away.”

“Wait, it’s not like that.” I returned to my seat as well. “We were thinking that maybe we could be heading the same way. It would be advantageous for us to travel together in that case, right?”

“Which way are you going?” Giselle seemed to have gotten still for the first time since we’d met her.

I revealed our destination.

Giselle’s eyes lit up. Then, she squinted at me.

“Why? What would someone like you have to gain at the Sea? No offense,” She quickly added, “You just don’t seem like the scholarly or military type.”

I glanced at the plate of armour I was still wearing over my chest, and at my gauntlet that had temporarily morphed into fingerless leather gloves.

I chuckled.

“It’s a bit personal, but you’re right, it’s not research,” I replied.

“Well, alright,” She leaned back in her seat, and played with a lock of her hair. “I will tell you the full story, but I won’t travel with you. It’s not personal, I hope you understand.”

I involuntarily chuckled.

Another one…

Danyar shook his head, more so in response to my reaction than her words, and Giselle began her tale.

Her brother, Barthelemy Aller, was a brilliant scholar. He was also a boy, which, according to Giselle, made him stupid and reckless. He had set his mind on finding the source of the catastrophes and the blight, which he believed to be caused by something much older and bigger than the Demon King.

Hearing this somehow made me lose a little faith in my giant monster theory. If I hadn’t been the first one to think of it, how come the problem still wasn’t solved?

Under the pretense of agreeing to an arranged marriage with one of the bigger trading families in Dunjia’s capital, Erfurt, Barthelemy hired an adventurer to accompany him and set off into the desert.

Embarrassed and annoyed by this act of rebellion, his parents promptly disowned him and refused to send out a search party. Thankfully, Barthelemy had not cut his ties and sent out regular letters to Giselle and her other sister, Marie-Hedwige, keeping them updated on his discoveries and travels.

When the letters stopped, Giselle didn’t hesitate to leave her life behind and go look for him.

“But that tipsy man was probably right,” Giselle concluded, pointing to the patron from earlier. “He probably got eaten by a dire wolf…”

“You can’t know that for sure!” I tried to reassure her. “From how you’ve described him, he seemed like a good outdoorsman. Maybe he just ran out of money.”

I looked up at Danayr for any kind of support. He simply shrugged, not wanting to intervene.

“That’s kind of you to say,” Giselle finished braiding the last of her locks. She jumped up, and the loose braids instantly became undone. “I know he’s out there, and I will need my strength to find him, so good night, you two.”

She waved before running off to her bedroom.

“The map!” I realised, after she’d already left.

“It’s a good one. Comparing it to a more recent one could help triangulate the current position of the Demon King’s castle.” Danyar agreed.

I slapped myself in the forehead.

“We’ll ask her first thing tomorrow.”