Ember followed Chris through the throng of adventurers, having to dodge an armored warrior every now and then. Most of them ignored Ember, but many of them had their eyes on Chris. It seemed that his inquiries had made him a person of interest to many of them. After a few minutes of this, they finally approached a table where a hulk of a man sat.

  He was dressed in full plate armor. It was relatively dull and unimpressive in terms of looks, but it looked very sturdy. At his side was something Ember thought was an axe. Maybe it’s a shield? The shield had a handle sticking out of the top, but the slab of metal was far too big to be an axe. It was taller than Ember himself.

  Chris tapped the man on his shoulder. “Our last member is here.”

  The man stood, and Ember had to take a step back. He was at least seven feet tall. Ember wasn’t short by any means, around six one, but this man dwarfed him, and the armor made him seem significantly bigger than he appeared. The man turned to face him, and he had a massive beard that covered the majority of his face. His nose was almost as big as Ember’s fist, and his eyes gleamed with a certain amount of intelligence that belied his very rustic-looking appearance. His hair was split and tied into a braid that went down each shoulder.

  The man stared down at Ember. “Ah,” he said. “You must be Chris’s companion.”

  His voice rumbled. It sounded like something Ember would have thought a mountain would sound like if it could talk.

  “My name is Boulder,” he said.

  “Boulder?” Definitely fits him.

  The man didn’t say anything. Instead, he stared at Ember. It was just a touch uncomfortable—the intense gaze. Then the man let out a boisterous laugh that echoed throughout the entire Guild Hall, even above all the noise.

  “Worry not, friend! I come in peace.” He tapped Ember on the shoulder heavily, enough for him to stumble slightly. “So you’re the commoner, Ember. Chris has told me much about you.”

  He gave Ember a toothy grin. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I hope we can get along.” He held his hand out.

  “Yeah, I hope so, for my sake,” Ember said reluctantly as he took it. The man's hand dwarfed his. It made him feel like a child.

  “You’ve been the talk of the guild, little man.” Ember looked to Chris, confused, but before he could talk, Boulder spoke, “After all, that sword of yours is hard to ignore.”

  Chris then interjected. “All right, now that we’ve all met, let’s get going. We’ve got about a half-day’s ride ahead of us before we reach the goblin encampment.”

  “Of course,” Boulder said, his deep voice booming. “Let us away.”

  Ember didn’t have time to talk as Chris ushered them out of the Guild Hall. Despite his massive stature, Boulder walked with a certain agility that didn’t make much sense considering his size, how much armor he wore, and the massive shield-axe thing on his back. Many of the citizens who weren’t adventurers stared at Boulder as they walked by. On the flip side, many adventurers ignored Boulder, but their eyes fell on Ember’s sword. The massive man’s comment wasn’t something Ember hadn’t noticed before. The pointed stares were hard not to notice, but now that BOulder said it out loud, Ember couldn’t keep a crawling sensation off his back.

  To the left of the Guild Hall was a large stable area in which Chris and Ember retrieved their horses. Boulder didn’t retrieve one himself, though. As they got situated, Ember stared at the horse reluctantly.

  “I have no idea how to ride this thing,” He told Chris.

  Chris waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. All you gotta do is tap your heels against the back of the horse’s flanks and pull the reins in the direction you want to go. It’s like the cart.”

  Ember sighed, slightly worried. Boulder watched with amusement on his face as Ember stepped his foot into the stirrup and pushed himself up and over. He was immediately uncomfortable, the saddle hard and wobbling as the horse adjusted itself to his weight. The horse pranced nervously under him.

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  As they clopped onto the cobblestone, Boulder held out his hand for the reins. “I will guide your horse until we exit the city. That way, if you fall, at the very least you will not fall on cobblestone.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Ember replied, relieved if not somewhat embarrassed, and handed the reins over to Boulder. He felt odd being led by this massive man in front of all these people, but any embarrassment he had immediately disappeared when he thought about falling off his horse in the middle of town. He wasn’t sure if he could live that down. At that point, he might give the sword to someone else and take a nosedive from his room's window.

  They were silent until they finally exited the sub-city, which Ember still hadn’t found a name for. His grip was white-knuckled as he held the knob thing on the saddle. He wasn’t sure what it was called, but it helped him stay upright.

  “All right,” Chris said as they stood just outside the gates among the massive tent cities, which were almost as large as the city itself. Several hungry eyes looked their way, and it took everything Ember had not stare back. His two companions seemed oblivious to the stares, though the line of people attempting to enter the gate weren’t as good at ignoring the stares; several people looked at the small city nervously.

  “I took a look at our route before I recruited Boulder. We’ll have to head down the path for about three hours, and then we have to take a left.” He pulled out a compass. “I have this compass to guide us. The goblin encampment shouldn’t be too far off the beaten path, though.”

  Boulder nodded and then handed the reins back to Ember. “Of course. Let us be on our way.”

  Chris then tapped the sides of his horse, and started down the road. Ember attempted to do the same thing, tapping his heels ever so slightly against the flank of the horse. But he wasn’t expecting the horse to just lurch forward, and with a yelp, he tumbled off his perch.

  “Ow!” he mumbled as he rubbed his side.

  Boulder let out a booming laugh. Chris just shook his head as Ember got back on the horse and tried again. This time, he braced himself for the lurch and managed to stay on. His cheeks burned as he bit his lip to keep from letting out a groan. At least it happened out here and not in the city square. The snickers he heard from the line still made him contemplate the nosedive.

  They trotted forward, and Boulder didn’t even need to run—his walking was fast enough to keep up with the horses.

  Chris then turned to Boulder. “Say, do you know why the city looks so... extravagant?”

  Ember stared at Chris, jaw dropped. He’d never expected Chris to actually ask questions. Chris always seemed to know almost every answer to every question.

  Chris looked at Ember irritably. “What? I can ask questions. Don’t look at me like that.”

  Boulder chuckled. “The sub-city is an offshoot of the main city, Watertown. It’s what you would call a satellite city. Because of that, it takes on the motif of Watertown.”

  “Huh. So Watertown has a lot of water in it, I guess,” Ember said—stating the obvious, he knew, but he just had to say it.

  “Of course. I’ve only been there once or twice myself, but it’s quite the sight.”

  Ember then watched, almost horrified, as Boulder reached down, picked up a rock, and ate it. Even Chris seemed taken aback. Boulder crunched on it as if it were a piece of candy. His gaze traveled to their bewildered expressions.

  “Ah,” he said before finishing off the rock. “I’m part dwarf,” he said happily. “We love rocks.”

  “Dwarves eat rocks?” Ember stuttered.

  “Of course. We come from the rock. Why would we not eat them?”

  “I—” Ember stopped mid-sentence. “You know, I never thought of that. I guess that does make sense. We come from flesh, and we eat flesh. Still, you eat rocks?”

  Boulder gave him a goofy laugh. “Where do you think my nickname came from?”

  “But how does that even work, like, body-wise?”

  The man shrugged—a seemingly monumental effort for someone so large. “How should I know? All I know is rocks taste good.”

  “Are there, like, better-tasting rocks than others?” Chris asked.

  Boulder ran a hand through his beard. “Of course there are. That’s like asking if there are better-tasting types of fish. Usually, roadside rocks aren’t the greatest in the world, but they can get the job done if you’re hungry. The really good rocks are those inside mountains—especially deep in the core. Those are the good rocks. Surface rocks tend to be a little too chalky.”

  “Chalky...” Ember muttered in disbelief, trying to quantify exactly what that would even entail. His biology background is swimming, trying to logic out the man's food system.

  Boulder smiled, “If we ever get to my homeland, I will gladly show you what a truly good rock tastes like.”

  “Uh... thanks?”

  Chris just shook his head. “So you eat rocks.”

  The man laughed. “Of course I do.”

  “Can you eat anything else?”

  “Of course I can, but rocks are the best.”

  Both men went silent as Chris and Ember tried to come to terms with the fact that their companion ate rocks.