Chapter 116 - Compensation and Situation

We made it back to the carriage, our scarves removed now that we were far enough away from the ashes of the dead. The caravan was bustling, tearing down tents, passengers packing their things. Though busy, things felt somber and tense. It was a strange atmosphere, and I didn't much care for it.

As we approached our carriage, I stopped for a moment to pet the giant ptarms in charge of pulling us, glad to see they had been unharmed in the incident. I would have thought they would be the targets of the beasts, but there wasn't a single harmed bird that I could see. Another curious thing for my curious-thing pile.

As I patted the soft plumage of the bird, I saw movement in the corner of my eye, turned my head, and found Marsha, Corswain, and the other Aegis from before, the one in the more ornate uniform, waiting at the carriage for us. They looked very serious, but that was hardly a surprise, all things considered.

I suppose petting giant birds would have to wait. I was not looking forward to whatever this conversation was going to be about.

"Ladies." Corswain nodded, a gesture mimicked by the other soldier. "This is Aegis Commandant Luther."

"Greetings." They said, gruffly, in a higher-pitched tone than I expected. Now that I got a good look at their face, I realized they weren't a man at all. A woman. And they were human. Maybe? Their eyes were a little too dark, their skin paler than I had ever seen on a human. And their teeth were all sharp. They reminded me of Danica now that I thought about it. And...were those gills on her neck?

I felt Eira tense next to me once she got a good look at Luther. She sensed something; I didn't. Was it a Hastera thing? Something connected to her past? Something else. Damn my sheltered upbringing and general disinterest in anything other than dungeons!

But more importantly, who was this Luther?

"You said you wanted to talk to us?" Eira said after taking a deep breath.

"Inside the carriage, if you wouldn't mind," Marsha said firmly.

This was serious, I guess. But they had warned us earlier.

"Very well. Make yourselves at home. They're your carriages after all." I sighed and waved them inside.

We all settled in the carriage. Eira sat next to me, and held me protectively. I could feel her muscles coiled like a trap spring. Her eyes didn't leave Corswain or Luther.

Something to ask her about later.

"So what's this all about? We are exhausted, and frankly, sore as all the hells put together." I asked, making sure to play up my weariness.

"It's a few things," Marsha said with an equally tired sigh. "As a representative of the Scarlet Aegis and the Hastera Caravan Company, I extend our apologies for the incident last night, and extend to you the offer of half of your ticket price. We had failed in our duties, and for that we wish to give you a token of our remorse."

She and the others made stiff bows before us.

"Yeah, I guess that's fine. What happened anyway?" I asked.

Marsha looked at the other two. Luther nodded, expressionless.

Corswain cleared his throat before looking at us. "The crystals were sabotaged. Replaced, to be more exact."

"Replaced? How? You all were guarding them constantly?" Eira asked, shocked.

"We have no idea. But we have some suspicions. How well did you two know Caru Gavyn?" Luther spoke up.

"We didn't. We said hello when we started, and I had a rather strange conversation with them about magic while I was doing some simple mana practice; then they disappeared." I told them, leaving some parts out of course, but mentioning the important stuff.

Marsha held up some papers with a picture on them. "Can you confirm this is Caru Gavyn?"

I stared at it, and it was definitely not Caru at all. The face on the document was of an elf, certainly, but an elderly one, wrinkles and all. Which, for an elf, meant they were extremely old. Elves didn't typically start to wrinkle till they were nearly eighty years old. A fact my vanity was grateful for.

"Who the hell is that?" Eira asked as she leaned in and got a good look at the image.

"We don't know. We also have no idea how they got past the screening and our verification. When I went to review their papers so I knew where to send compensation and condolences, the picture had changed, as had all the other papers. Either they did some magical Ptarm-shite, or they finagled their way into my documents vault and stole all evidence of their visage and other info we need!" She shoved the papers back in her coat angrily.

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"Ms. Medwin. Let's be honest. We know who you are. We know that officially, you aren't part of The Medwin Family anymore; that is something we were able to confirm." Corswain said plainly. I felt Eira go cold with a sudden tremble of fear.

"Do not worry. We don't care enough. The Medwin Family is a Silver Trident problem, as far as we're concerned; you aren't a part of that problem. We just need to know if this is something your family might know about at all. We're just clearing up leads." Luther said, her gruff high voice said with almost no intonation.

"No. Of course not. We'd have nothing we'd need with crystals like that, or a weird vanishing scholar. You don't think Caru had anything to do with monsters, do you?" Eira said, a flash of realization in her face.

Luther shrugged. "Don't know. Your records have checked out. Both of you, so I'm inclined to believe you. Also, you might not have realized it, but you took down one of the Fireheart Wolves, and that bought us enough time to get a handle on things elsewhere. We would have been stretched too thin."

She reached into her coat and pulled out a small velvet bag, emblazoned with a symbol I didn't recognize. She tossed it to Eira, who caught it midair.

She opened it and looked puzzled.

"A corpse-stone? Why? These are valuable!" She closed the bag and set it beside her.

"That's from the wolf you killed. We're mercenaries, not thieves. It's only fair." Luther shrugged. "You can trade it in at the Bounty House when we get to Porthynys Harbor. That should help with your honeymoon or whatever this is."

Luther gestured vaguely at me. I blushed at the implications of what she thought, but I admit, I didn't terribly mind the idea either.

I had a lot of questions I needed to ask Eira later.

"In any case, we should get moving. We've got more people to talk to before we can go." Corswain said, slapping his knee and standing up, opening the carriage door for the others. They exited one after the other, Luther taking up the rear.

"Before you go, Commandant Luther, can I ask a question?" Eira said suddenly.

The soldier turned her head back, her expression somehow darkening without changing her expression at all.

"No, you cannot ask why a Shau-gan is a mercenary in land. Mind your business, Medwin." Luther replied sharply and shut the door behind her with an indignant slam that rattled the glass windows.

"Yeah, that checks out." Eira sighed and flopped sideways onto the bench.

She seemed to want to melt into the cushioning, and I didn't blame her in the slightest. I felt exactly the same way.

"Dare I ask about any of that?" I cocked an eyebrow before I leaned over, using her thigh as a pillow.

"It's a lot to explain. Can I try later, after we've wiped out a bottle of wine and passed out for an entire afternoon?" Eira sighed, sounding more exhausted than after a dungeon crawl.

"Yeah. Sounds delightful, honestly." I said, grudgingly relinquishing my pillow.

The hours went by in a delightful drunken haze, and we fell asleep in eachother'ss arms, an empty bottle rolling across the floor as the carriage rolled on.

We awoke to the sensation of the carriage rolling to a stop. My head felt like the gods themselves had a vendetta against my skull, and my stomach agreed. In retrospect, wine after all the potions from yesterday was doubtless a foolish mistake.

Note to self: don't do that again, you idiot, I chided myself.

Shut up, you're not the boss of me, I replied to myself.

Eira groggily sat up, her expression matching mine as she grabbed her head.

"Why did we stop?" She mumbled, before standing shakily and walking to the windows, opening the blinds and yelping at the bright light, pushing a window open and popping her head outside, the carriage suddenly filling with delightful fresh air.

"Ah gods above, it is way too bright for evening, what the hells?!" She whined and covered her eyes with her hand.

"What's going on?" I asked, discovering that at some point I had misplaced my chest binder. How did that keep happening? I guess that was ok. It was still sweaty from the life-or-death fight last night.

"I guess we made it to the harbor." She said, pulling her head back inside.

"Already?" I was confused.

"Yeah. Definitely. Did we sleep longer than we thought?" She asked.

My stomach growled, signaling my previous nausea was likely due to being utterly empty.

"Yeah, I guess we did. I guess it's morning or something?" I asked with a shrug, digging around in the mess we made in our two-person drunken revel, finding my spare chest binder. A looser one this time. I didn't need to keep my chest under control quite as much today, methinks.

"We get packing, and check out with the caravan, and find an inn. I need a little extra sleep, and food, before we take care of everything else. We've got a day or two till our ride to the island anyway." She said, turning to help me pack.

"Let's do our best to avoid any more surprises, monsters, and other such nonsense the rest of the trip, yeah?" I laughed as I stuffed things away, not really giving a damn about being orderly. I could handle that later.

"Gods, don't jinx it!" She joined in my laughter.

I was starting to feel better about this trip again, the dangers of the day before seeming to disappear behind us.

The check-out process was simple and quick. Marsha thanked us for our business, Corswain gave us a little nod, and we signed some documents confirming our arrival, receipt of compensation promised, and stamped documents for the border folks for our return trip.

"Be good, Medwin," Corswain said as we walked past.

"I promise nothing, Aegis." She said with a wink. The soldier managed a smirk before waving us on.

The city was surrounded by a pale stone wall, almost white in color. The gate guards welcomed us with smiles on their faces, urging us to enjoy our stay.

Then we entered the city proper, and I gasped at what I saw.

It was a far different experience than I had expected. Revenstahd was large, but it was also cramped in its own way, dirty in others, and always felt like a bit of a rough place.

Porthynys Harbor had wide streets, short buildings, colorful displays everywhere, people laughing, music filling the air along with food smells I had never experienced in my life. It smelled so good I felt a small bit of drool threatening to run down the corner of my mouth. If I didn't know better, I would have assumed it was a festival of some sort.

The people of Hastera also wore bright, colorful clothes that made me all too aware of my own. I had thought mine to be bright and cheerful, a gorgeous white and blue. But there were colors I had no idea you could even dye clothes in. I wanted some. I wanted some so badly.

Also, I noticed Hasteran's taste in clothes showed off more skin than I was expecting. I suspect it had something to do with the humid heat of the day, which finally registered to me, as I noticed I was beginning to sweat.

Eira grasped my hand excitedly. "Come on, Alta! Let me show you my hometown!"

She pulled me along, excited as I had ever seen her.

I decided that this would be fun, and left my worries behind me for the time being.

There was time enough for that some other day. Starting now, Alta Marchesi was on vacation, baby!