The first thing Merrick noticed on the other side of the doorway was the humidity. The Steelhearth stronghold had climate control enchantments embedded in the city’s enchantment schema which did a great job of normalizing the weather, such as the ambient humidity, to a regulated baseline.

  Most strongholds were like that, only experiencing deviating weather during extreme conditions such as superstorms or droughts.

  Merrick had, naturally, experienced natural weather phenomena while training under Rod’s father, the master ranger. At the time, he’d even enjoyed the unregulated weather while they explored the wilds around the stronghold, hunting bandits and culling down monster populations. It’d tasted less stale, more alive than anything he’d gotten in the city.

  Even the dungeon’s air was artificially regulated, kept from fluctuating by the dungeon itself.

  Now, however, he found the humidity annoying.

  It was making his hyperventilation too difficult.

  “First time portalling? If you think that’s bad, just wait until you let a wizard teleport you. The nexus portal network is downright stable and smooth compared to that nonsense,” one of the nearby mercenaries was waiting near the teleportation landing zone, ushering people out of the way as they stepped through.

  The man clapped Merrick on his shoulder, gently moving his feet forward to prevent congestion, and reminded him that he shouldn’t make a scene. The guards hadn’t started shouting his name until after everyone else had passed through the portal and he’d been the last through.

  Unless someone came charging afterwards, and they shouldn’t since the teleportation network was one-way unless there was a receiving archway built on the other side, he was still good to make his getaway.

  “Yeah, sorry. I just need to catch my breath, the teleport was a little scarier than I was expecting,” Merrick lied through his gasping breath as he tried to gather himself. He leaned backwards a little bit into his [Meditation] skill to center himself before continuing, “I think I was the last one through. Unless the recruiter is on his way.”

  The mercenary checked a pocket watch that he’d pulled out of somewhere, staring for a couple seconds before nodding and tucking it away.

  “Not likely, we’re only the first wave of recruits for the expedition. We should be expecting at least another two waves of recruits over the next two years. Even after that, though, I can’t see the little squirrel making his way to the frontier. Isn’t really in his job description, considering the only thing he’s good at is locating and recruiting talent for his employees.”

  The man’s words were interrupted by an argument from the larger group up ahead. There seemed to be some sort of argument between the banished prisoners, as Merrick assumed they were, and a muscle bound man who was riding on the front of his own cart. A cart filled with, it looked like, steel tools such as hoes, rakes, and machetes.

  “Is that going to be a problem? It looks like some of the talent are stirring up issues.” Merrick pointed.

  “Nah, they’ll sort it out. Those guys aren’t the talent though, those are the muscle. Lots of man-power and manual labor go into erecting a new settlement, even with the help of mages. You’re the talent kid, don’t know how he managed to snag an alchemist on such a tight budget. Anyways let’s get moving.”

  Apparently, the mercenary knew who Merrick was. At least, he knew what Merrick had told the recruiter, that he was a decently talented alchemical apprentice fleeing an abusive master. Left implied was that there was some sort of unfavorable apprenticeship contract between the un-named master and Merrick, and that the fictional alchemy master was well known enough that Merrick needed to pretty much disappear.

  It made sense, in a sort of way. If the majority of the people who’d signed up for the expedition were… muscle, as the mercenary put it, then it’d make sense for the hired swords to place a higher valuation on the safety of those with skills and trades. It was probably easier to find extra laborers than an alchemist willing to rough it out in the wilds, trading his wares for food and services in lieu of an established currency.

  Still… Merrick was wearing a cloak that covered his face, how did the man know his occupation.

  “Did the recruiter pass out fliers with faces on them or…”

  The man let out a sigh.

  “You know, they say that the smart ones like mages and such lack common sense. Something about spending too much of their brain power on math and other complex bull shit.”

  The man knocked on Merrick’s cauldron, still tied to the chair he was carrying, before walking away while shaking his head.

  Fair.

  Merrick hustled to catch up to the mercenary, who despite saying he didn’t believe it would be an issue was beelining toward the ongoing argument.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “What seems to be the problem here?” he overheard the man ask one of his co-workers.

  “These thugs are trying to take tools from me without paying!” The burley man had vacated his seat on his cart at this point to walk over and start yelling in closer proximity to the men.

  “We already told you, we aren’t thugs. We just ended up on the wrong side of a business disagreement back in Steelhearth,” the leader of the four agitators spat off to the side, “We also told you, we’d be paying you back for the tools. Either through labor, protection, or once we made it to the settlement.”

  “You pay now or you fuck off. I already said that.”

  “Pay with what? The shirts off our backs? We’ve got nothing.”

  “Then fuck off, I already said that. You can’t have my goods for free.”

  “Who is going to buy your tools then, you fool? Anyone who needs a tool for their trade would have brought one with them. You think packing up a cart of mid-quality steel is going to make you a fortune, when the people bankrolling this project almost certainly already sourced a stock of tools for the workers they’re recruiting? We aren’t trying to rob you, we just don’t want to walk through the gods damned wilds unarmed.”

  “Not my problem, criminal!”

  At this point, even the burley man’s donkeys were starting to get stressed out. Merrick wondered if they were going to try and bolt off before realizing that there wasn’t actually much room to maneuver.

  He tuned out the on-going arguing and finally observed his surroundings. The first thing he’d noticed was that the area they’d been teleported to wasn’t exactly flat. Like most area outside the walls of the stronghold, it seemed to be a mixture of grasslands and periodic forests.

  The grass grew taller than Merrick in several places, and was at least waist high almost everywhere else. A quick observation revealed to him that the area where everyone was standing was a roughly oval shaped zone of compressed dirt.

  Merrick scratched at the floor with his feet, eventually dislodging some dirt and allowing the grass that was imprisoned below to start standing itself back up straight. Well, semi straight. Whatever force had pushed the area down and then compacted a two inch layer of dirt on top had also broken grass, so it kind of just stood up half way before drooping back down.

  “Guess that answers how they keep the teleport targets clear when there isn’t an archway on the opposite side.”

  “Meow,” his feline companion quietly whispered.

  “Yep, they don’t. I guess part of the process involves terraforming magic, impressive to get it to work so accurately over distance. Presumably blindly too, unless they can see where they’re aiming the archways.”

  By that point, almost every single one of the people who’d signed up for the expedition were watching the argument. Considering that there were less than a hundred people present, Merrick hoped the men could work things out amicably. They’d all be relying on each other, eventually.

  There was one person, however, that wasn’t paying any mind to the arguing at all. A mousey looking woman dressed in scholar’s robes was fussing over a chart spread taunt over a flat space on her carriage’s bench. A map, by the looks of it.

  Merrick wandered over as the woman tweaked her tool, a sextant he was pretty sure it was called, to move its shadow on the map. Hey eyes flicked up toward the sun and down to a nearby compass before she adjusted it again.

  “What’re you doing?” Merrick asked, partially curious and also partially because he hoped to make a friend. A friend who, potentially, would let him store his chair and cauldron in or on her carriage.

  Even though Merrick waited for the woman to make eye contact before speaking, he somehow managed to startle her anyways and she fell backwards onto her butt.

  “You shouldn’t sneak up on someone like that!” she said as she stood up and brushed herself off. Merrick was momentarily distracted by the two circles of grass now pushing their way through the cracked and broken dirt layer before he defended himself.

  “You were looking right at me though. I specifically waited.”

  “What? No. I was staring off into the distance while I ran calculations. Calculations I’ll now need to restart since you made me loose my train of thought.”

  “Right. You were staring off into the distance, around me somehow. Sorry.”

  “Hmph,” The mousey girl turned back around to run her finger across the chart while mumbling numbers again.

  “If you can tell me the equation you’re trying to solve, I can probably help.”

  The woman paused with her back turned to Merrick, no longer moving her finger across the paper. Her eyes shot back to Merrick and properly took him in for the first time.

  He watched as her eyes roamed over his hood, lingering slightly, before moving to his chair, cauldron, pack, and swords. He tried not to scowl as her lips started twitching.

  “Are you trying to come onto me, by any chance? If so, I feel the need to let you down gently and let you know that you’re not really my type.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m offering my help, I’ve got an evolved version of the [Mathematics] skill.”

  “Which one?”

  Some might consider that a rude question since skills were generally considered a private matter, but Merrick figured it was a fair question since he’d offered the information without prompting.

  “[Quick Math].”

  Her eyes shot around once more before her face shifted to a scene of smug satisfaction, almost like she’d solved a puzzle.

  “You’re a logistician, then. That’d explain the wild get up, I guess. I was under the impression that the logistician was already on sight with the lady’s other retainers, preparing for our arrival. Are you his assistant?”

  Merrick filed the new information away for later, he hadn’t know anything about the sponsor for the expedition so far. Knowing it was a lady told him that it was a noble of some sort, one that was likely from a family that wasn’t in power with the Duke’s Alliance.

  “I think there might be some sort of miscommunication, I’m an alchemist by trade. I did go through several exploratory apprenticeships with the church though,” he made note of her slight wince when he mentioned the church but kept moving.

  ”I’m a bit of a jack of some trades at this point. I’m pretty good at math though, and it looks like you might be trying to chart our course? One of my apprenticeships was with a master ranger, between that and my math skills I can probably be of a lot of help if you just take a couple minutes to explain the formula you’re using and how the sextant and compass work into that.”

  “What exactly do you want from me in exchange? I already told you that you’re not my type.”

  “First of all, you can’t know that. My face and body are almost entirely covered by my cloak. Second, I don’t want anything like that from you.”

  “I can be pretty sure, but you still haven’t said what you want though.”

  Merrick let out a sheepish smile, clearly visible below his hood.

  “I was hoping you maybe had somewhere I could stow my chair and cauldron? I hear it’s going to be a fairly long march before we get to our destination.”