To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what we should do after the fight with Lord Adelwulf. The person I thought most likely to take the lead in rebuilding the region lay dead before me, and I found out that one of my traveling companions was next in line to lead his own people. The next few hours were a blur as Lord Adelwulf’s cronies were all chased off or captured and the werecreature alliance seized the mansion. Trakban had settled into his role as chief of his tribe alarmingly quickly, giving orders and planning a meeting to further discuss the fate of the realm.

And I gotta hand it to him. The guy was a natural. The way he took charge during the meeting was something else. Despite the not-so-subtle threat levied at Adelwulf’s younger brother, he was adamant that under the new lay of the land, no one race would be esteemed as above or below another. All were to be equal in the eyes of the law.

If it seems like I’m glossing over this little resolution, the truth is it’s because I wasn’t actually present for a lot of the meetings. Instead, I offered to spend some time helping those in the hidden village move their things closer to the mansion. It was through the process of going in and out of the woods with Edcar that I noticed something incredibly ridiculous. While finding the village was a nightmare of a process that involved turning random directions that you just had to know with no hints given to you, getting out was as simple as picking a direction and walking. Like, how did they pull that off? This whole time, I had been under the impression that the curse of the cursed woods meant you were stuck for all eternity with no way in or out, but the reality was getting out was the easy part! I mean, I guess it makes sense for hiding a village where you don’t want to be found, but…ugh, the more I think about it the more my brain hurts.

Although I guess one reason the curse was programmed that way might be to protect the kids in the village. It would be much easier for them to leave the woods and just end up at the edge of the forest than it would be for them to get hopelessly lost, where not even someone like Edgar who knew the woods like the back of his hand could help them.

Anyway, one thing that I hadn’t expected to come in handy from my upbringing was my ability to pack stuff in a cart. I’m serious. Dad often had me help him pack and organize his cart when heading out for his business trips, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating by saying that those experiences I had as a kid might have saved us two or three trips back and forth. Like I’ve said a few times up to this point, thanks Dad.

All told, this moving project took about a week to pull off, which worked out fine considering Trakban spent the entire time in meetings. Expecting a possible assassination attempt out of revenge, he’d requested Arzias stick around as his bodyguard, and I guess having a giant lizard with a battleaxe who freaking ate the previous ruler of the region was a pretty great form of deterrence. Which was great considering the state of Trakban’s staff and his current lack of a spellcasting focus. I mean, I say that, but the truth is, for the duration of the week while I was traveling back and forth helping the hidden villagers move their homes and belongings closer to the mansion, he was hard at work trying to figure out how to focus spells through his hands. Along with continuing to do the pushups, situps, and jogging routine that Lady Adelwulf’s personal militia was doing out of a desire to, as he put it, “Better utilize my gods-given physical strength to stay well-rounded,” which…good for him. I mean, that on top of his thirty minutes to an hour of magical practice every morning, I dunno, after this quest, something awakened in the big guy.

At some point in the week, Fortuna actually brought this up to me as a concern.

“I mean, I’m happy the guy seems more focused and determined, but…how’s that gonna affect our team?” she asked, her arms folded.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m the person you should be asking, either.” I leaned back into my arms, grateful she was sitting in the front of the cart next to me, holding the reins.

“Do you think he’s gonna want to stay behind?”

“Maybe. I mean, I guess I probably would, if it were my homeland.”

“Aren’t you worried? I mean, he’s the only one among us who can do magic beyond…well…my shapeshifting.”

This was definitely something I had been concerned about. Sure, I had been studying magic myself, a little bit, to at least get a handle on how it worked, but while I could ignite a small campfire with a jet of sparks and about ten minutes of snapping my fingers, he could at least reliably conjure stuff.

At the same time I also kinda felt like we’d missed out, because we hadn’t really gotten a chance to see him fully let loose. Which was a shame, considering he was the lynchpin in the fight against Lord Adelwulf, and we only got by because of his brute strength.

Thinking about this, I began to hope that, should he opt to join us for the rest of our adventures, we wouldn’t run into any more antimagic fields, though I also found myself wondering what other bad guys would put themselves at such a deliberate handicap. It worked out fine for Adelwulf because, as it turns out, the fields didn’t affect transformations due to lycanthropy, and he couldn’t use any magic anyway. Presumably, it didn’t affect Fortuna’s shapeshifting either, considering she kept her “normal” human form during the fight.

This would probably be something we’d have to ask Trakban about when we got to see him. I decided to put a pin in that discussion and change the subject, since we had the cart to ourselves.

“What about you? What’s your plan, exactly?”

“What do you mean?”

“You got us the ship and you’ve been following us ever since. Aren’t you…done?”

“I guess,” she said, shrugging. “But it’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

“Don’t you have any friends or family, you know, besides your…” I trailed off, remembering what had happened to her parents.

“No. To be honest I’m lucky I don’t have more enemies. Why do you ask, though? You tryin’ to get rid of me?” She smirked.

“Ah! No, of course not! I like having another girl around!”

“Arzias is a girl, you know.”

“Yeah, but like…does she even count? Femininity in lizardfolk is…kind of hard to see for people who aren’t super familiar with their culture, and even then I’m not sure if I could pick the males and females out of a lineup.”

“So what, you don’t think you can have the standard girl’s night slumber party discussions with her?”

“That’s not what I mean,” I stammered, blushing a bit.

“Relax, I’m just teasing you. It…feels nice to have someone that actually wants me around, is all.”

An awkward silence hung in the air for a while, before she finally said, “What about you? When we eventually catch up to the Heroes, you’re not gonna bail on us, are you?”

I hadn’t been expecting this question, though I probably should have since joining the Heroes was my end goal in all of this. I’d just focused so hard on getting there that I’d neglected to think about those that were with me. Of course I wasn’t 100% on how long Trakban, Fortuna, Arzias, and the ship’s crew were going to be traveling with me anyway.

“You know, I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” I finally said. “You don’t think they'd be willing to let all of us come with, do you?”

“I dunno, saving the world is the very definition of dangerous,” Fortuna said, frowning. “We’d probably just get in the way.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I sighed.

“You’re not gonna let that stop you, are you?”

“Probably not. Should I?”

“Probably not.”

And that’s…kinda where we left the conversation, as we’d essentially arrived at the mansion and began unloading things. I think the thing that surprised me the most was the werewolves’ ability to quickly disassemble and reassemble their entire village over the course of a week or so. It was almost as impressive as the city of Brightdale’s rapid pace of rebuilding an entire giant stone bridge in a day. It’s kind of a shame that these construction skills aren’t more widely utilized.

The rest of the week passed along at this pace, leaving myself with a lot of time alone in a cart with Fortuna. While I wouldn’t argue that all of our conversations were super important or had far-reaching implications for the future, I did learn a lot about her. For someone so young she’d been almost everywhere I had, though this was her first time sailing to new continents and islands. She also talked a lot about her dad and how much she missed him.

On the last day as we were finishing up the move, she noticed a lute that had gotten mixed in the things we were moving. Nobody from the village recognized it, so she shrugged and said, “Guess I’ll take it.” I wrote this off as some odd kleptomaniacal behavior, but on the way back to the mansion she began playing some older tunes she’d learned from her dad. In addition to his life of crime, the guy was apparently a pretty accomplished musician, whose success was only prevented by his poor choices, namely blowing all his money on booze and gambling following the death of his wife. It’s all really quite depressing, but let’s put a pin in that for now. We’ll come back to that.

After all were settled in and the village relocated in its entirety, Trakban and Arzias finally joined us for dinner, clearly worn out from a week of endless meetings discussing the future of the region. And when I say worn out, I mean Trakban had scarcely sat down at our little booth in the freshly-built tavern before requesting the biggest tankard of ale they had, which naturally was a comically-sized miniature barrel holding approximately half a gallon.

As he drained the tankard, Fortuna broke the silence by asking, “You doin’ okay, man?”

Trakban sighed loudly. “Yes, everything is fine. I am merely tired.”

“How did the meetings go?” I asked.

“I cannot possibly think of a reason that we needed a full week to plan out the future of the realm. And the truth is, there is still much work to be done. A work that I do not imagine will be finished for a long, long time.” He took another sip of his ale.

“So what’s the plan, exactly?” I asked. “Who’s gonna rule over the region?”

“For the time being, our plan is to have a council to represent the people, though we have not decided upon a head. The plan is to reconvene periodically to evaluate the state of the realm and our actions going forward.” He noticed that his tankard was empty and waved at the waitress for another one.

“So…I guess that means you’re probably going to want to stay here for a while, then…” I said, sulking a bit.

“What gives you that impression?” Trakban asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Aren’t you gonna want to stay and keep tabs on everything here?” Fortuna asked before I got a chance. “I mean, you’ve already established yourself as a bit of a VIP here.”

“While that is true,” Trakban began, pausing to consider his words. “The truth is I have no great political ambitions. I cannot say that I feel particularly qualified for a political office, nor do I really feel qualified to represent my people as a whole. In addition, if we are to try a different form of government in this region, I feel it necessary to do away with the tribal system of inheritance that places me at the head of my people. So to that end, I mean to step down as chieftain.”

The table got really quiet as the four of us looked at one-another, before I finally got the courage to ask, “Are your people going to be okay with that?”

“They will have to,” Trakban said flatly. “Though I have taken measures to ease the transition. I have named my brother as my successor.”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” Fortuna said. “Adelwulf said you were the runt of the litter, yet you’re the heir to the chieftain’s seat. How does that work?”

“Have you never met an eldest child who also just happens to be the smallest?” Trakban asked, smirking. “Surely it is not such a strange thing!”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come.

“Why didn’t you tell us you had siblings?” Fortuna asked.

“It is not as if we are close friends or anything,” Trakban muttered, folding his arms. “I have chosen to keep my family life private up to this point because that was my prerogative.”

“I was just curious. I guess the only one I’ve gotten to know much about over the course of this trip is Ilala, and that’s because we just spent a week riding around in a cart. Heck, we don’t know anything about Arzias,” Fortuna said, frowning.

“What there to know about me?” Arzias asked. “Me lizard. Me strong. Me from…how say in common tongue…” she trailed off. “Angry Island? Maybe?”

I chewed on my lip trying to piece together what she just said. “Angry Island…that’s a volcano…umm…oh! The Isle of Rampage?”

“Yeah! That the one!” Arzias said enthusiastically.

“Interesting…well, now we know something about Arzias,” Trakban said, trying to change the subject. However, when he sensed that Fortuna and I were still staring at him expectantly, he then said, “All right, fine, I have three siblings, a younger brother and two younger sisters. I am smaller than all of them, the sisters included. Now laugh at me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why would I laugh at you? Hello! You’re talking to someone who is shorter than everyone else in the party!”

Fortuna chuckled before covering her mouth and blushing. “Sorry! It’s just…it’s kinda cute that you’re self-conscious about your height, is all, considering you still tower over us.”

“Got nothing,” Arzias shrugged.

I waved my hands, as if trying to scatter the conversation before Trakban felt more embarrassed, “Regardless…can we get back to what we were talking about?”

“What?” Trakban asked. “Oh, right…you were asking me what I plan to do next, correct? The truth is, I have been wondering the same of you all.”

Fortuna and I looked at each other, before glancing over at Arzias, who shrugged saying, “I still need wizard, so I stay with Trakban.”

“We’re planning on sticking together,” I replied, gesturing between myself and Fortuna. “Although we have no idea where the Heroes went off to next.”

Arzias opened her mouth again. “You know, now that me think about it, Isle of Rampage have really old temple in it. Maybe Heroes go there!”

I rubbed my chin, thinking about this. “Is there a Gem in the temple?”

“Gem…what Gem?”

“Uh…shiny…red…rock?” I tried, resolving to spend more time learning Arzias’ language.

“Ohhhhhh! Yeah, shiny red rock, super important! In shrine in fire mountain…er…volcano! Guarded by scary fire monster. Eats lizards and orkies!”

“Orkies?” Fortuna asked. “Wait, there are orcs on your island?”

Orcs weren’t quite as rare as shapeshifters, minotaurs, and lizardfolk, but they mostly kept to themselves, especially during the…shall we say…less harmonious times, before the Demon King rose to power and the various races spent most of their time fighting one another. Even at this point in our history, it depended greatly upon the individual clan whether or not they wanted to have anything to do with the other races of the land. I’m not really sure who fired the first arrow or swung the first sword or axe or whatever, and any firsthand accounts from the time will be heavily biased in favor of who wrote it, so I’m not going to waste time speculating. All I knew for sure was that, for some, the wounds of the past were still too fresh, too recent.

Regardless, Arzias then said, “Oh yeah, whole big family of them!” Big family, as it turns out, was lizardfolk for “clan”. “They have their half of island, we have our half. Volcano in middle. Though they have gate for trail to temple.”

I shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s as good of a place to start looking as any. Hopefully we can catch the Heroes there. Are you guys sure you want to come with me?”

“We already talked about this,” Fortuna said. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

“I did promise Arzias I would help her out,” Trakban said, nodding.

Arzias merely flashed a very toothy grin.

I smiled. “Good. Happy to have you guys along!” I extended a hand, as the others piled their hands onto mine in solidarity.