Fantasy Roadtrip Vibes, Redux

With a flash of light, we had arrived in the City of Gildhaan, the Trade Capital of Ir'fornu. Stepping out from the well-decorated sigil room of the newly connected city, we were immediately greeted by a large shop just as busy with customers as Phyllis's Phiner Phylactery. The sight alone of this bustling quarter made me smile as I took in the fragrant aromas of parfums and spices that may as well have been the beauty section of a stereotypical department store. But this small space was a mere drop in the bucket of what was a prime example of this city's bounty. 

The City of Gildhaan was one of the most prominent trading hubs in the world and functioned as the only crossing point from one side of Ir’fornu to the other. The River Madhua, which divided the continent and cut through the city centre, was a cursed river that consumed any humanoid that tried to cross its murky waters. Gildhaan was placed at the southern end of this feature, and, after decades of methodical bartering with the souls that haunted its shores, acted as the only safe crossing. This made the city the place to trade in goods from both sides of the continent. 

That was, if you could navigate the bureaucratic nightmare that was the Merchants Guild running the city like a business.

"Oooh, that smells so nice!" Aesandoral squealed as she lifted one of the nearby parfums. "And the bottle is so pretty!"

"Yuck, really?" Rionriv replied, her feline ears pulling back as she turned her nose up at the fragrance. "It smells like something Papa Jorian would wear."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"I think this smells nice." Rionriv lifted a dainty bottle filled with a pink liquid and pushed it Aesandoral's way. "Sniff."

"Oooh, so fruity! I like that one too."

"Hey," I approached the two, glancing at the fairly priced fragrances. "Could we save this for after we get set up with—"

"Iz!" Aesandoral turned towards me excitedly, holding her bottle my way. "Do you like this smell?"

The thick aroma of sandalwood and cardamom smacked me in the face. There was no doubt that the scent was intoxicating and something that I could imagine Aesandoral wearing. Unfortunately, I wouldn't have the chance to explain that as Rionriv immediately turned towards me, throwing the powdery smell of raspberry and vanilla towards my nose.

"This is better, right?" Rionriv insisted, her tail forming a question mark as she looked at me expectantly. "Right, oracle?"

As both sisters vied for my approval, I took a cautionary step back. My senses were already overwhelmed, and the feeling of their bodies pressing tightly up against mine was only making things more difficult to manage. The last thing I wanted was to gild over both of them in such a public setting.

"They both smell great for you two," I finally replied, reaching into my pocket and withdrawing a pair of gold coins and handing them over to the stall's clerk. "Here, my treat. Now, can we leave the shopping for after we get ourselves on a carriage roster for the next caravan to Bucharion's Pass?"

"Sure." Both sisters replied with pleased expressions before excitedly applying the purchased parfums to themselves.

"Now, where'd Sharzin—" I mumbled, turning to see the groundling standing just out of view, holding her own bottle of fragrance. "Oh, there you are. D-do you want me to buy you one too?"

"What?" She replied quickly, looking between me and the bottle before hastily placing it down. "No. Come on, dummy, let's go get that carriage."

With that, the rogue raced off through the crowd, moving surprisingly in the direction of the Caravan Guild House. Hesitating to follow for a moment, I looked down at the scent she had been eying before sighing.

What is going on with her lately? I thought, tossing a gold coin to the clerk and pocketing the bottle. She's being exceptionally difficult.

"Come on, slowpoke!" Rionriv nagged as her floral scent passed me by, making my heart skip a beat. "Caravan's waiting, or something."

"Yeah, come on," Aesandoral added, sneaking up from behind and hooking an arm with mine, allowing her earthy scent to intoxicate me further. "Let's get a move on."

"Yeah, yeah." I exhaled a calming breath, trying not to allow myself to get too excited. "Let's go."

As we departed the space filled with various tents, tarps, and stalls, we emerged onto the busy thoroughfare of the city proper. Here, the Tudor-style town presented itself before us. Long gone were the exotic fragrances, replaced by the delicious smell of fresh foods luring in shoppers to nearby delicatessens and boulangeries. By the time we had arrived in the city, it was late in the afternoon, nearing evening. This meant the local merchants were hard at work to get their final sales of the day, trying to clear out their inventory so they could provide fresh delicacies the next morning. As I passed by windows growing empty of treats, I ignored my watering mouth, making sure to note which of the shops I wanted to revisit before pushing ahead with my companions.

Eventually catching up with Sharzin, we led the group to the edge of town, where I knew we would find a large set of stables connected to a three-story building. There, at the Caravan Guild House that oversaw all transportation trains leading to and from the western half of Gilhaan, we made a deal to book passage on a carriage train heading to Bucharion’s Pass in the morning. Locking ourselves in after paying the measly amount of twelve gold coins for transportation and boarding, we decided to enjoy the remaining hours of sunlight exploring the city.

It was nice to travel from vendor to vendor, exploring a few shops and the tent bazaar on our current side of the city. While the eastern side of the river city had vastly more extravagant cuisine, we decided to remain in the half of the city we had found ourselves. After all, to travel across the bridge to Eastern Gildhaan required going through the fantasy equivalent of border security and paying a crossing toll. It was an unnecessary hassle, one I regretted putting into the story at all, but this city was all about profit, and it made sense at the time. Luckily for us, there were still plenty of baubles and tchotchkes for the triop to get excited over on our current side of the river. 

After an evening of shopping and a nice meal at the tavern attached to our inn, we retired for the day. The following morning would be an early start, and mark the beginning of our next journey.

—ooo—

It was day three of the week-long trip towards Bucharion's Pass, and our group was becoming bored. The trip northwest was often one fraught with danger, but with the small army hired to defend the caravan of six carriages, no creatures had yet stepped up to challenge us.

This made for long days of watching rolling grasslands pass by, distant swaying trees come and go, and even more distant snow-capped peaks slowly grow larger ahead of us. While the sights were breathtaking and we were all enjoying the time relaxing after everything else that had been going on, we had grown bored. Travel games only lasted so long after all.

It was around day four when things started to get loopy in the carriage the four of us shared. It all started with a single question that I had been meaning to ask for quite a while. Looking to spark a conversation to take my mind off some recently reared traumatic Tahvin memories concerning road trips to Arizona, I turned towards the rogue who, at this point, was sitting across from me in the opposite corner.

“Hey Sharzin, can I ask you a question?” I inquired as the carriage bounced us slightly. 

“Uhh, sure,” Sharzin replied quickly. “But you already know the answer, wierdo. They're black.”

“What?” I responded, looking across at her in confused shock.

“What?” Sharzin returned, equally confused.

“I-I—” I stammered as my mind flashed back to the lingerie Sharzin had tempted me with at the hotel. “Zin, did you think I was asking about your panties?”

“Weren’t you?”

“No!”

“Oh, okay. What’s your question?”

“What is wrong with you?" I asked, staring at her in utter disbelief. "I-I’m not some sort of—uhg, anyways. Sharzin, is it that you don’t like school because it’s hard? Or do you not like school because it’s boring?”

At this, Rionriv, who was seated directly beside me and looking out the window, perked an ear.

“Uhhh…” The rogue thought for a moment before continuing. “Probably the second one.”

“What?” Rionriv quickly responded to her, now paying full attention to the conversation. "What does that mean?"

“It’s just, like, whatever—a lot of it isn’t practical for real-world applications, especially in my field.”

I glanced over at Rionriv, who in turn stared at Sharzin, dumbfounded. It was as I had suspected since our mission underground. After seeing the way she had worked with her runes, doing quick math and calculations, I began to realize that she wasn't just an average girl. Sharzin was never a bad student. In fact, she was a genius. 

The fact of the matter was, the rogue just never cared to begin with. Having seen it before in my past life, I now understood that Sharzin found school too easy and, thus, decided it wasn’t worth her time. Recalling all the way back to the first semester I had spent with them, I remembered seeing her test answers at the time I had barged in on their final exam. I knew well at that moment that she was purposely refusing to answer questions she understood. The problem was, I never knew why.

“Ri, you took a pretty advanced runic-computation course this last semester." I cut in, drawing the sorceress's attention. "Do you remember any of the questions? And could you write one out?”

“Uh, yeah—” Rionriv replied, her tail swishing and thudding against the back of the cart curiously as she withdrew a piece of parchment from her bottomless bag.

I watched as, with the tip of her finger, the sorceress transcribed a series of runes, numbers, and other squiggles representing magic allotment to the sheet. Lacking even the most basic knowledge of runecraft, I thought the problem looked exceptionally hard and potentially beyond what Sharzin could accomplish. Which was exactly what I was looking for.

As Rionriv finished the question, she handed it over to Sharzin and watched her eagerly. We both observed intently, serenaded by the snores of Aesandoral, who had fallen asleep in the warmth of the midafternoon sun coming in through the carriage window. After a few minutes of examining the sheet, Sharzin scribbled on the paper and handed it back to us. It was then that Rionriv and I looked over the runes, and since I didn’t know the first thing about this type of magic, my eyes drifted to the doodles within Sharzin's response before anything else. 

A-Are those dozens of little dicks hidden between the symbols? I thought, chuckling softly to myself as I glanced up and over at the rogue.

“Sh-Sharzin, this is right.” Rionriv gasped, leaning in close to the page and examining it thoroughly. “Wait, are those penises?”

“Like I thought." I followed up the sorceress's shock with my own response. "Zin, you’re like too smart for the classes you’re in. I think you should be taking more Ri-level stuff.”

“I think we should just test out of school...” Sharzin responded with a shrug, a reply that sent Rionriv into an existential crisis.

As expected, this response was met with a hearty amount of protest from Rionriv, who insisted on maintaining consistent access to the school's library and courses. Like watching a game of tennis, I observed Sharzin return the regularly served debate with a rebuttal that Rionriv could learn spells on the fly and had already done so many times. As though she had been preparing for this day for a long time, the groundling went on to remind the sorceress that the Al'magi libraries were regularly accessed by alumni even decades after graduation.

At this, Rionriv went quiet, pondering over Sharzin’s points as she attempted to formulate a new argument. As she did, I released a small chuckle before reaching into my bottomless bag and withdrawing the bottle I had purchased days before. Slowly slipping it from my bag into the cart, the scent of patchouli filled the space in the moments before I tossed it over to Sharzin.

"A reward," I said softly, smiling at her. "For being so smart. You shouldn't be afraid to show it off more."

Catching the bottle, the rogue looked at it and then back at me. I watched as her face grew pink at the gift before she shied away from me. Nervously, she fiddled with her hands, slipping the dropper from the bottle and placing the oil on her wrists before dabbing it around her neck.

As I watched this, I couldn't help but glance at Rionriv and Aesandoral. I began to laugh, thinking of the group I travelled with and how, regardless of the world I was in, the typical student tropes appeared to be present in every reality.

"What's so funny?" Sharzin asked softly as she slid the bottle into her bag. "I like the scent."

"No. No. No." I replied, slowly regaining control of myself. "It-it's just, it doesn't matter the world you're in, I guess. Students follow a cosmic trend."

"What does that mean?" Rionriv followed up, glancing my way and shooting me a stern look even though her ears gave away the curiosity she held.

"It means this group dynamic is pretty standard to a point. I had friends like you three when I was in school."

Nodding to Rionriv first, I continued. "You've, of course, got the smart one who is looking for every excuse to stay in school forever."

"Not forever!" She protested as I turned my gaze to Sharzin.

"The genius, underachiever looking for every excuse known to man to leave school as quickly as possible."

"School is dumb, that's all. Who needs it?"

"And, finally," I finished, turning my gaze over to the still soundly sleeping Aesandoral. "The athlete who's just hoping to pass by the skin of their teeth."

“And who are you in this dynamic?” Rionriv then asked, extending a finger and pushing at my shoulder hard enough to gently rock me.

“I’m the weird guy that shouldn’t even be here but stays for the parties. I’ve definitely been that guy before and am again.”

“Did you go to a lot of parties?” The sorceress continued with her questions, this time shyly looking away while brushing a stray hair from her face. “Like, with your guy friends—or girl friends.”

I watched the hair slip back out from the spot where a human ear once had been, now dangling in front of her face. The faintest blush hung to her cheeks as she looked down into her lap.

“Yeah, more than most,” I replied softly, experiencing a strange feeling washing over me. "I enjoyed it a little too much, honestly."

There were two voices in my head. Two wolves were looking to take charge of handling the weretiger in that moment. The first was Ishara, pushing me to play a game with Rionriv’s current emotions to get back at her for the hotel streaking. The second voice was Tahvin saying the same thing, but also because she was attractive and since I couldn't do anything about it, flirting was the best case scenario to blow off some sexual steam.

Taking charge of the moment and not wanting to waste the opportunity, I leaned towards her. Carefully, I reached my hand over, brushing the hair from her face once more, my fingers softly tracing along the side of her jawline and up the side of her head to the tiger ear above. There, I gently played with the soft tuft of fur, watching as her body quaked at my tender touch.

“And I had mostly girl friends," I whispered, leaning in so my mouth was close enough to her ear for her to feel the warmth of my breath. "But don’t worry. None could hold a candle to your beauty, princess.”

“Eeep—” Rionriv squeaked loudly, her face turning flush as she pulled her hands up to hide her lips.

With a soft chuckle, I began to brush my hand down her jawline once more as a static shock zapped me. But I didn’t flinch. I continued my movement, gently pulling her chin towards me with a single finger as I took the other hand and removed the barrier from her lips

“Rionriv,” I whispered, my mouth drawing close to her quivering lips as goosebumps coated her arms. “A beautiful name for a beautiful—”

A gild dropped between us, landing in my lap. Rionriv’s eyes opened wide as she looked down at the coin and then to me. It appeared my own games earned me a reward, whether that was a result of me getting the sorceress all hot and bothered or inadvertently doing it to myself, the moment was open to interpretation.

“What? No!” Rionriv shouted as the same thoughts undoubtedly came to her mind. “Phyllis doesn’t know!”