The next three days ended up much the same. Woodcutting in the morning, running to the barracks shortly after. Do running drills and strength exercises until they were ready to topple over then after lunch they would meet up with Torbjörn, Evira, and Alf to do combat drills. Alternating between doing one on three, two on two, and one on one, Saga pushed themselves to try every trick they knew, trying to work both to their offensive strengths and knack for prolonged combat. Then after that was done, they would run over to Train with Sasha and Olga, working on spatial awareness. With each day, they made little steps forward. Small but noticeable. The structure of it made for a comfortable anchor point so they threw their all into it.

They made a point to always stop and talk to new people at the barracks, picking their brains on how things worked in this world. As the final day before departure approached Sasha joined Saga on their way back to the Inn.

“I hear you were made to guard Jasper.”

“Olga told you?”

“Overheard it. Jasper was making a stink about it at the Alehouse.”

“Pff. I drew the short straw, not him.”

“I am inclined to agree” Sasha laughed softly then dropped their voice. “Jasper is not just a rich kid. He is a nasty kind of person. But he is often smart about how he goes about it. He makes sure most of it doesn’t make it to his father without significant altercations to the truth beforehand. ” Sasha said and Saga gave her a concerned look.

“This sounds personal.” Saga said.

“You know how Paths work?”

“Somewhat, yes.”

“Jaspers current path is Broker.”

“Rogue?”

“Yes. He’s all grace and mind. A broker gets a different kind of ability to read people and situations in ways they can leverage in negotiations. High-level brokers intrinsically know the value of any given thing and any given time and exactly how to get you to do what they want in exchange for it. It ”

“And his father is rich and employs a lot of o people here, so he will know he has leverage in most situations going in. Yeah, I can see how that leads to problems even without having skills to enhance it.”

“Right. You get it. When I arrived here. I arrived alongside two others. One of them was this quiet kid, Graham. He had gotten into trouble back home and he was just gonna help out as his grandad's place.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“One day, Graham is at the alehouse and he has a thing for one of the barkeeps. The problem was. So did Jasper.” Sasha said as Saga began to chew her lower lip nervously. “Jasper doesn’t like competition. In anything. He starts befriending Graham and shows him all the cool stuff money can get you. We told him jasper is bad news. But Graham isn’t listening.”

“It's an act. He gets Jaspers's trust and gets Graham to tell him why he is in the town?”

“Exactly. And then he starts to go on trips to Alebridge, and Graham starts getting messages from his family to come home. Before we know it, Graham has left on a caravan.”

“What did Jasper do.”

“Turns out his family had debts due to Graham getting in with some rotten people. And Jasper bought part of the debt.”

“But not acquit them I take it.”

“No. He made Graham work for the same people that once held his debt until graham had worked it off. Then someone close to Jasper died. Then a few months later, graham ends up dead in the river, conveniently carrying a confession he had killed Jaspers's old business partner.”

“The debt?”

“Generously cleared.” Sasha scoffed “To save the family more suffering at the hands of their worthless son. His own words..” Saga's voice dripped with venom and Saga felt familiar anger wash over them. Maybe she should have done more damage when she had the chance.

“I am starting to think I shouldn’t try too hard to save this man should something happen.” Saga said grimly. She knew a thing or two about people who exploited others and hid around money. There was plenty of those back home as well.

“You shouldn’t. If it’s him or you, let it be him who dies.” Sasha's tone was soft, but the message was clear. Saga nodded.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. The reveal that Jasper was some sort of spider in the web, a manipulative wannabe mobster made for a complicated journey. As they reached the inn they found the rest of the party gathered. Lenara greeted them, hugging Sasha who smiled and hugged her back. “Good to see you again Sasha.” The elven hunter had returned from whatever it was she had been doing and Saga noticed the woman had a bunch of scrolls attached to her pack.

“What are those?” Saga asked, leaning in to get a better look.

“They are maps of the local monster sightings in the stretch from here to Alebridge. I went out to the nearest Sentry and collected it.”

“Sentry?”

“Aye. The jarls all have large towers that are worn if any of the Jarls citys are under attack. They also double as observers of the local fauna. Jotting down notable dangers for travelers to avoid.” Lenara removed one of the scrolls and smoothed it out over the table. It was a crude map of what Saga could only assume was the road they were going to take.

“See the triangles?” She pointed at where there were three or four triangles mapped out across what was a large area.

“Yes.” Saga nodded.

“Suspected rock trolls,” Lenara explained.

“Suspected?”

“Rock and Mountain trolls can lay dormant for weeks and just appear as rocks. It's hard to tell if you’re dealing with rock trolls or just young mountain trolls.”

“What's the difference?” Saga asked, pondering what their own had to say on trolls. They were a staple in old Swedish folklore. But they had a feeling it was a bit different here.

“Mountain trolls you can mistake for rocks are adolescent and harmless. If anything, they like to help out if you give them something shiny like a gold coin return.” Lenara explained. Fishing out a gold coin is an example.

“And Rock Trolls?”

“Aggressive, Simple Minded, and Destructive,” Ingrid said. “And extremely hard to put down. Unlike many other trolls, rock trolls don't care about fire. They are mostly rock, so they cannot catch fire.”

“If we go up against one, I am mostly useless” Ordan chipped in. The fire mage was carving up more stones with runes, having a small pile already done and in a bag on the table. Olaf walked over as Lenara explained how to best handle a rock troll if you couldn’t run. Mainly it involved as much blunt force you could muster and frost magic.

“I have talked with the caravan leader. We leave early in the morning. Young Master Jasper has his carriage, it will travel in the middle. He also hired a guard of his own, some mercenary nobody can vouch for. I don’t like it but there is little we can do if we want to go as early as possible.” Olaf explained to the displeased grumble of everyone.

“Saga. The mercenary might be to keep an eye on you. Or it might be getting rid of you. He is only level 5, so he should be even a match for Sasha should he start problems. You two will have each other's back on this trip. You are at the lowest level of the combat paths. Both the regular caravan guards are level 10” Olaf continued as Saga and Sasha shared a glance and nodded. They were supposed to be training together during the journey either way.

“Lenara will be our caravans scout and pathfinder. She has done it before and we can always trust her eyes and ears. That alone makes this journey a lot safer already.” The large warrior motioned to Lenara who tipped a nonexistent hat with a smile.

“I’ll do my best.”

“I will be riding the front with the Caravan leader. Vetra will be riding in the back with Ingrid. The two caravan guards are reliable lads or so I am told. I asked for them to ride at the sides. They are the only ones aside from Ingrid with mounts not attached to a cart.”

Saga listened to every word. This was a lot different from how they have seen this group activity. Everyone was silent and laser-focused on the task. You could tell that everyone but Sasha and Saga had done this before

“Now get some rest everyone. We are up early tomorrow. I need you sharp” He clapped his hands together and everyone began to put their gear up to their rooms. Saga stretched and tried to shake the jitters they were feeling.

It had been only days since they woke up in this strange world and now Saga was going to share a caravan with a creep and possibly hired killer. It was absolute lunacy. But they felt so strangely alive. Their old life had been so lonely, and they hadn’t been able to see past 30. Everyone else was doing things and they were just, stuck. Wasting away. No plans. Nothing.

Now. Now they had a whole new start. They would make the most out of it.