I followed Elena’s suggestion and stepped forward. Though she was responsible for negotiations, I figured that since these dwarves were adventurers, it was best for me to take point.
“Halt!” one of the crag dwarf guards commanded angrily. “Are you insiders or outsiders?!”
Insiders or outsiders? I wondered. So...residents or not, I supposed. The average person would’ve cowered at his imposing tone, but I was very familiar with the way crag dwarves spoke.
“We’re with a merchant caravan,” I said. “We had to step out for a bit.”
“You’re...just two girls?” the guard asked, seeming suspicious for a moment.
I deliberately kept my voice gentle as I extended my right hand to him. “I’m part of the caravan’s escort,” I said. “Apologies for the trouble. This is foreign coin, but it should buy you a few drinks.”
“Ah, thanks, missy.”
After counting the silver coins I’d given him, the crag dwarf grinned and told his companions to clear the way. Too little coin would’ve offended them, and too much would’ve been suspicious. For this many dwarves, just enough for booze was perfect.
As we stepped through the gates, we were met with a town completely unlike anything I’d seen in Claydale. The buildings were different, the people were different, there were no plants anywhere. Everything was built of stone, and fiber-woven awnings jutted out into the streets to block the sunlight.
Above all, what struck me was the strange hunger glittering in the eyes of the people here.
“Stay close,” I told Elena.
“I will.”
We had to find a relatively safe inn in this town. According to the owner of that tavern, safety here was best bought at an inn affiliated with one of the four factions. He’d told us that the Kiluri, the “company” that traded in food and daily necessities, would be amenable as long as we could pay. They owned several inns that visiting Kal’Faan merchants patronized.
Elena and I went inside one such inn. The middle-aged receptionist eyed us suspiciously, but when I handed her one small gold coin, her expression instantly shifted to a smile and she treated us as valued customers. Lodging for one night, meals not included, cost two silver per person—about the same as an upper-class inn in Claydale. The room, however, was closer to what a roadside inn might’ve offered for five small silver.
The small gold coin paid for two nights with meals for us both, and the remainder we gave to the receptionist as a “tip.” Though the woman’s silence had been expensive, Elena needed a safe place to sleep so she could recover her stamina.
After we went into the room and I confirmed everything was safe, Elena breathed a sigh of relief. She produced a small knife and handed it to me.
“Alia, is this worth any coin?” she asked.
It was the knife she kept on her person in case she needed to take her own life. Young noble ladies commonly carried such things, and since Elena was royalty, the hilt of her knife was embedded with gems that could be sold in a pinch. To my knowledge, a proper shop would’ve paid about five large gold for the entire thing.
I gently pushed the knife back to Elena. “We’re okay for now,” I said. “We’ll probably need money at some point, but until that happens, you should keep it.”
“I understand,” she replied, seemingly catching the implication.
Two drifter girls trying to fence such an expensive item would attract attention. We could only sell that knife if we were in a position where Elena’s identity didn’t need to be fully concealed. I could freely give my own name, which was an alias in the first place, but she couldn’t let anyone know hers.
Elena clutched the knife to her chest and nodded. “Let’s go over our next steps.”
Our ultimate goal was Elena’s safe return, but first, we had to inform Claydale that she was alive—within three months at most. We’d already discussed this during our journey to this town, but I figured that trying to borrow communication devices from the local “Adventurers’ Guild” was pointless. For one thing, governments across the continent strictly controlled such devices, so while there might be a few in the possession of guilds and high-ranking nobles, the possibility that a group of merchants had any was negligible. For another, if they somehow did but Elena’s identity leaked before we could return home, it was very possible she’d end up kidnapped as political leverage.
We also considered asking traveling merchants to allow us to accompany them to Kal’Faan, but with the empire being a month’s journey away, all merchants who came here had connections to either the Kiluri or the Hogroth. We would need connections of our own to convince them to take us along.
We agreed on the importance of trying to keep Elena’s identity hidden, ideally until we reached Kal’Faan. We deliberated how to make our way there without revealing who she was. One option was to present ourselves as adventurers and take on work as guards, but it was likely anyone traveling to the empire already had personal guards given the lengthy journey to and from there.
Another option was to go by ourselves, but the monthlong trip was a problem; no post towns along the way meant there was no place for Elena to rest, and her health points weren’t high enough to make the arduous journey through rocky terrain and desert. Even just these few days of travel had considerably reduced her health. She was putting on a brave face for me, but she wasn’t eating much, so I couldn’t push her too hard.
“You should rest for today. You haven’t been sleeping much,” I told her. “We can think about this tomorrow.”
“All right...”
Elena must’ve also been feeling her body’s limits. No sooner did I cast Cleanse on both her and the bed than she obediently sat down. Since I was her handmaid, I tried to help her change, but she firmly refused and said she would do it herself.
“Also, you should wear these,” I said. “They’re in my size, sorry. But they have defensive powers.”
“Th-These are yours?!”
I handed her some of the mithril-fiber undergarments Gelf had made for me. I had ten sets total, five in black and five in white, each consisting of thin tights with matching garter belts, panties, and bustiers; I gave Elena the white ones. She’d spread out the small silk undergarments, which tied at the sides, and then had frozen in place, her face bright red.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing! Um...”
Now that I thought about it, this style of underwear originated from Dandorl and was still only widespread among female adventurers and a handful of noblewomen. Elena was probably wearing bloomers, so I figured she’d probably need to get used to this more modern underwear.
She looked back and forth between the underwear and me several times, unsure of what to do. Her face was red all the way up to her ears.
Finally, she muttered quietly, looking down at the floor, “P-Please help me put these on.”
“Got it.”