T’potsa was approaching elderly for his kind; he was coming up on his 400th birthday celebration. In the next fifty or so years he might even consider retiring and having his sons and daughters care for him in the last hundred or so years of his life. He had been blessed with a rather large family, having twenty-three children. That was slightly higher than the average elf of his age and profession, but luckily, they were far enough apart that the burden had not been too heavy on his earnings.
Like most long lived races, elfs matured slowly, and despite his youngest daughter being close to 80 now, she wasn’t quite ready in his eyes to head out on her own. He would have to talk to his wife about his potential retirement, she might not look too kindly on him retiring at such a young age. He would have to remind her he was yet again, much older than she was, being only 350 years old herself, that large an age gap, even for the elves, always caused some friction. But he could not think of what life would be like without her or their children. It was for them that he signed on the long-distance drives that he found himself on. They brought in the most money and while not the most prestigious, it was enough that he had put all his children through some form of education.
His eldest G’topa had just made lieutenant in the imperial castle guard. First elf to make it into the guard at all in over four hundred years. Most elves didn’t have the stomach for the military services, most preferring slower more focused professions. Like himself, driving the transports the hundreds to thousands of miles between the gods' protected cities. He would often be gone from home for months, in a few cases years as they demanded that certain transports arrive at different locations as quickly and as safely as possible.
Luckily, his focus on the longer distances had graced him with various abilities to help speed up the journeys while also enhancing the protections offered by the transport cores themselves. True, he did have a fair amount of combat experience, because no one left the cities without a great deal of danger around the corner. That was why he had made friends with every single adventurer that rode in his company. If push came to shove, they were the ones that would help him get home. Naturally he minded his manners and kept himself as humble as needed when in the presence of the more “important” people that he was always bound to come across. He had learned very early in his life that no matter how much wealth those people accumulated, their short lives were always going to be their downfall. Either from just living till the end or some stupidly avoidable confrontation they had with someone higher up the social pole then they themselves were.
Meanwhile, he just smiled and bowed to their foolish requests, bright flames always burned out quickly they say. Almost as if the world was trying to put his thoughts at the forefront, T’potsa heard the door to the overly ostentatious carriage that he was driving guiding forward open and the servant to the wealthy noble who had hired him to drive the month-long journey to the central city of the Hyron empire. The noble had claimed repeatedly that he would be meeting with the emperor himself, which T’Potsa highly doubts, because anyone that important wouldn’t be traveling with this small of an escort. He believes that the person will most likely meet one of the central city's outer nobles, if he’s even that important.
As the servant arrived at the transport’s driving box, the servant bowed respectfully to which T’Potsa returned his own head bow. He mustn’t take his eyes off the road, or at least that has always been the excuse used by drivers since as long as he can remember.
“Good day Mr. T’Potsa, his lord the Viscount Branz wishes to know when we will be stopping for the night. He says that the swaying of the transport has been dreadful, and he is in need of a rest.”
T’Potsa gave a small smile, he had already mentioned this same thing the last two times the servant was sent out ten minutes prior, “We mustn’t stop yet, we are still in a known dungeon field. If we were to stop at this point in the forest, we would most likely encounter more than a few dungeon monsters. Specifically in this case, goblins and goblin-wolves.”
A grimace crossed the servant's face, but he quickly went back to a vacant expression, “Good sir, that is the same thing you said when last I was sent out here. I was told not to come back until I was able to get a more definitive timetable from you. The lord is very insistent that we should be able to stop, even if it’s only for a short while.”
A frown formed on T’Potsa’s face this time, “The known limits of the dungeon field should only be another two hours away. If the dungeon area hasn’t grown since the last time I was here, then we should be safe for a break once we reach that location. But it has been a while since anyone has tracked this dungeon's range.” T’Potsa lied, they should have already been outside the range, but his ability ‘safety zone’ was telling him that they were still in a very dangerous area.
That seemed to satisfy the servant for now, and with a much curter nodding of the head the man shuffled off to inform his master.
Still feeling very uneasy about their situation, T’Potsa took out the stone and sent a pulse to let the escort leader know that he wished to speak with him.
The escort captain, Narus, was a giant of a man. Standing over 6’10” and wearing armor thick enough to turn aside a rampaging bull’s horns. T’Potsa had known the human for over twenty years now, both often working the more lucrative transport runs because of their consistent record of successful returns from the more dangerous areas. Narus had a dark complexion, his rough skin reminded the elf of the dark colored drink the man often made from some nut that came from the eastern continent. In the man’s youth, he had braided this thick hair in his mighty warrior traditions, but as age had thinned out that same hair, the man had opted to shave his head, apparently as is tradition for his people. Narus seemed just as capable now as he did back in what he would have claimed as his “prime”.
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Narus led a decent team that had grown in the last several years. With more than a few promising young faces capable of taking over for the warrior. T’Potsa did not doubt his friend's claims of the others, but his experience over his many long years tempered his thoughts on the matter. The young are usually foolish in the same fashion, regardless of the race, his own included. Memories of such foolishness rushing to the forefront of his mind as the carriage moved ever forward.
T’Potsa could hear Narus’ heavy footsteps as the man approached the driver’s box. The transport was large enough that there was a hallway beside the Nobles' overly plush cabin that all others could use to move from their much smaller rooms and bunks. T’Potsa as the driver had his own room, attached to the driver’s box, so that he could always be near the core in case of emergency. Meanwhile, all of the other bunks were back behind the galley. So, everyone else had to walk the longest path inside the transport to reach the front. It was not the best setup T’Potsa thought, but it was also not his money that paid for it. This particular transport had three doors as accessways onto it, one solely for the use of the noble, and the others at the front and back of the transport for anyone else. The only good thing about his position as driver, was that he was allowed a quick exit by the door that was just behind his provided room. T’Potsa gave a large sigh to dislodge all his thoughts of the excessive wealth spent on this overly large transport.
Narus opened the door and T’Potsa smiled as he heard the floor creaking under the weight of the man still in his heavy armor. The thick tan and brown metal shined like polished bronze, but he knew it was a mix of something that made it stronger than steel by a fair margin. He had seen it turn away dire wolf teeth and saber cat claws. He also knew it was heavy, heavy enough that even with all the extra strength that he had, T’Potsa would struggle to even stand up with just the breastplate on.
Narus arrived beside T’Potsa and his deep voice rumbled out, “Is there an issue my friend? Did you see something that worries you? The younger blades are growing restless, they could stand to stretch their legs, swinging at the straw dummies that the lord provided can only entertain them for so long.” The giant man relaxed a bit and leaned against one of the wooden pillars, the pillar groaning slightly from the pressure.
T’Potsa signed again, making a mental note of that fact he thought to himself “I might need to spend more time at home after this.” He turned his head to the man, effortlessly still guiding the transport on its way even without looking. “No, I didn’t see anything, but that’s also part of the problem in some ways.” He took a deep breath before continuing, “We’re still in the dungeon field of the goblin forest.”
With that said, he continued to sit quietly as it was obvious that Narus was doing some quick math in his head. Narus quickly looked outside the driver’s box from the multiple windows and then turned his head back the direction they had originated from, finally coming to some thought on his own. “But that shouldn’t be possible, we should have exited the dungeon field hours ago with how fast you are moving us. Is that why you sped up before?” A look of worry showed on the man’s face.
T’Potsa nodded his head and answered while finally turning back to the road in front of them, “Yes, and from what my skills are telling me, we aren’t close to the edge yet.” A deep frown appeared on his own face, “We not only should have left the field, but we haven’t been running across any of the dungeon monster groups.”
T’Potsa looked up at the larger man after a few minutes had passed, “I get the feeling there are groups nearby, but none have attacked. If it was just a couple and they were further away I would just say a combination of the sanctuary field and silent running let us slip by unnoticed, but I get the feeling that if we stop like the lord keeps insisting…” T’Potsa trailed off at the end and let Narus finish the thought on his own.
Narus had brought about twenty of his small escort company with him, mostly low to mid-levels. Only a few of the higher levels stayed behind and only one other higher-level person accompanied Narus. This was supposed to be a straightforward experience for the newer hands. Help them get the hang of traveling the long distance their contracts often require. The road that led to the capital from their own city, while not the busiest, was still well patrolled and maintained. The goblin forest dungeon that was nearby had been consistent in its size for as long as T’Potsa can remember. This sudden growth was deeply unsettling to both men.
If the dungeon had expanded this much and the dungeon groups had started to get crafty about who they ambushed and when, that was very much bad news for the entire city. T’Potsa was debating turning the transport around, citing dungeon changes as the reason, technically correct and there was very little the noble would do directly to harm T’Potsa.
Narus spoke and pulled T’Potsa from his thoughts “How about turning around? Would that be feasible?” It was doable, but at this rate unless he pushed the transport to the breaking point and then some, they would still be in the dungeon field by the time night fell, and that was always the worst time to be out here. “We’d still be in the field even if we turned around and I pushed as hard as I could to get us back. I just hope we are nearing the new edge of the field before night falls. Or before the lord insists even more that we stop for a break.” T’Potsa said while trying to inject some good spirit into his words, though he didn’t believe them himself.
Narus did not appear to believe them either; it seemed like the man’s forehead creased even further into a frown. A few moments passed as T’Potsa let his friend do some thinking about their unfortunate situation, he calmly increased the speed of the transport again. The shaking grew slightly worse as T’Potsa hoped he was correct, and the edge of the dungeon was nearing.
Finally, Narus let out a heavy breath, before taking an even deeper breath in right after. The warrior steeled his gaze at T’Potsa, “We’ll just have to prepare for the worst then. If you can manage to find somewhere defensible, even if it’s still in this dungeon please take it. I’ll go prepare the lads for the possibility of dungeon field fighting. Gods, I wish we had Kartina and Bilan here.” With that, Narus patted T’Potsa on the shoulder and said, “Victory in bonds my friend.”
T’Potsa nodded and repeated those words, “Victory in bonds.” T’Potsa didn’t understand Narus’ strange sayings at times, but over the years he had learned the appropriate responses for the more serious ones. Narus’ heavy footsteps could be heard as he started back towards the guard's compartment. Taking a deep breath of his own, T’Potsa steeled himself and began to scan as far as he could see along the road, looking for a good spot to stop.
