Dreamday, 4th of Octavius, 11th year of the Stringless Era

  “Yeah, this is the goooooooood life,” Theria purred.

  The redhead laid in the sheets of their private room. A thin blanket laid crumpled up next to her, tossed aside in the throes of passion that had ended with her womanhood leaking her husband’s seed.

  Oras drank in the sight of her nakedness for a bit, before placing a kiss on her cheek and swinging his legs out of bed. Wordlessly, he moved to the desk inside the chamber. It was less than two steps away, marking one of the few pieces of furniture in the chamber.

  For the price they had paid, it was a more than acceptable room. Fixes to their clothing, food, and this place to stay the night combined had cost them 1 Gold. Selling the knives from the cultists had brought them 2 Gold, which put them at 17 in their current coffers.

  Oras wrote that down in the little notebook he always carried with him. Journaling was a habit he had picked up young and his mother had sponsored the habit. It was good to have a clear ledger of one’s activities. It was also good to have details written down if ever there was a story to tell.

  There was not much paper to write on. The journal was the kind of book that could fit in a shoulder bag. Ink was expensive as well. Oras kept himself to the facts and some opinions. The cultists and goblins they had slain, the broad impact Torm had on him, lessons learned from the adventure, that sort of thing.

  He left the page open so the ink could dry for a moment, then put on his clothes. Theria was already in most of her own garb, only keeping the boots off for as long as possible. She clearly enjoyed the opportunity to wiggle her toes.

  “Simple request, can you cum in my mouth next time?” she asked.

  “I could - Why?”

  “‘Cause it ain’t as messy.” Theria tapped her groin lightly.

  “...I will keep it in mind,” he promised. “Now, let’s get breakfast.”

  Theria slipped into her boots and the two of them headed downstairs. There was no one in the inn besides the two of them. The innkeeper was still present and greeted them with gracious amounts of dark bread, salted butter, sausage and cheese. After living primarily off of foraged plants for four days, they eagerly devoured all on offer.

  Oras tipped a Silver coin at the end. He had to do it, for the amount of service they had gotten out of their money. The innkeeper took it, then left Oras and Theria to wash down their breakfast with mugs of clean well water.

  “So, my guy, ya know how we’ve been married for over a week now?”

  The way Theria intonated her words made Oras raise an eyebrow. Like all people, his wife had a specific cadence she used when she really wanted something. “Yes?” he asked, over the rim of his mug.

  “How long before ya start looking for wife number two?” Her green eyes expectantly looked at him, while he calmly took a gulp of the water.

  “I do not have a set plan. My rough idea was to wait until our path naturally takes us up north, into the land of the Stringless.”

  Repeatedly, Theria bobbed her head in agreement. “Right, right - so are we prioritizing a mission that takes us north?”

  “Not immediately, no. It will be wise to take one or two more missions with Torm. After that, we should have the experience to confidently move out on our own.”

  “Urgh, do we really need him for that long?” Theria played with her bangs, an annoyed expression on her face. “I like the guy, don’t get me wrong, but him being around makes things sort of stale, doesn’t it? It’s our adventure and he’s giving us a sense of safety we haven’t really earned.”

  It was a perspective that Oras understood, even if he didn’t share it to the same conviction. ‘No doubt that true ambition can only manifest during dangerous times,’ he thought. ‘Nice as he has been so far, he might insist on his share if we find something truly valuable as well… then again, the safety he provides is worth it.’

  Theria bumped his mug with her own. “Ya wanna work this out on your own, bro, or do ya wanna fill me in on what’s going on inside there?”

  “I understand your concerns. For now, he is helping us build a reputation.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like that,” Theria told him. “We gotta build our reputation, not rely on his.”

  “There is nothing wrong with relying on other people.”

  “‘Course there’s not,” Theria immediately agreed. “It’s just cooler when we achieve stuff on our own.”

  Oras hummed again, not swayed but not dissuaded either. “I will make the decision in the guild.”

  “Whichever it is, I’ll be followin’,” Theria assured. She may have had her proud streak, but she was his wife first and foremost.

  Being blessed with such a woman put a smile on Oras’ face. He downed the remaining water, before continuing. “If we meet someone during our travels that qualifies for a second wife, I would wish to make my move quickly.”

  “We’re on the same page that we want a Stringless woman, yeah?” Theria asked.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Saying a ‘Stringless woman’ is redundant.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Theria waved off. “We on the same page or not?”

  “We are,” Oras assured. “The Supernatural Elephant teaches us that this is the way of the proper harem: a human and a String. That they adjusted their name means little.” To keep his hands busy, Oras grabbed the top of the mug and rolled the lower edge by circling his wrist. “Speaking of elephants, you still want one?”

  “I neeeeeeeeeed one,” Theria declared in a cutesy tone. “Elephants are so adorable! I want to have one to cuddle and to dangle from its tusks and to scrub its sides with a broom!”

  Watching his wife swoon over an animal easily three times her size was adorable and odd. She danced a little in her chair at the mere suggestion of getting an elephant as her pet. It was a wonderful fusion of her feminine sides and her tomboyish charms. Other women that Oras knew, although they did still venerate elephants as the holy beasts they were, would have reserved a reaction like that for cats and dogs.

  “Can we buy one?” Theria asked, once she was past the adoration stage.

  “I don’t even know what it would cost. Definitely more than we have ever had.” Elephants were kept as pets and caravan animals by the wealthiest people on the Elephant Peninsula. More commonly, one met such a noble creature out in the jungle. “I read that they have much larger elephants out north, in the savannah.”

  “Really? How large.”

  “The description was that their shoulders reach twice as tall as a man’s head.”

  “Nature’s Wisdom, that’s enormous.” Theria looked around the room, perhaps imagining such an animal fitting into it. “I think one of our local ones would work better.”

  “Definitely,” Oras agreed.

  Theria drank the rest of her water. “Alrighty, imma go to the little girl’s room real quick and then we can go.”

  _____________________________________________________________

  They were not as early that day, but still early enough that the foyer of the Adventurer’s Guild was mostly empty.

  Torm looked up from his work of applying fresh oil to his sword. The steel had a light, supernatural sheen to it. The way it had cut through bone during the last mission had made Oras suspect that it had an enchantment to it. Now that he saw it glimmer in daylight, he was certain of it.

  ‘Probably just a standard sharpness enchantment though,’ Oras thought and waved back when their mentor gestured in greeting. Torm did not stand up, instead returning to his craft. ‘Looks like he won’t be joining us unless we ask him.’

  Oras appreciated that, it reduced awkward conversations. It also kept the boundaries between them clear. While he was teaching them, Torm did not aim to become their friend. The Dragonhoard party would move on eventually, while Torm wanted to sit behind that receptionist desk. Acquaintances was as far as their relationship was likely to go.

  The clerk behind said desk was the same that had registered them. He acknowledged their presence with a friendly nod. There was no reason to talk to him before they had picked a mission though.

  Theria and Oras headed to the blackboard.

  The first thing Oras noted was how few of the jobs he had seen just 9 days ago were still there. In his corner of the land, he had rarely thought about just how dangerous the world they inhabited was. Humanity and the other species of civility and reason were constantly besieged on all sides by all manners of monster, thinking or not. It was no wonder the Empire of Strings had gradually been ground down by the task.

  ‘Makes me wonder if, over the millennia, adventurers are just as insufficient an answer to the dangers of the world,’ Oras wondered, while looking for a job.

  He was still staying in his weight class. There was a job to slay a giant, which was certainly more than he could deal with. Similarly, scouting out rumours of a drake having laid a clutch of eggs near a village was way above his pay grade. Although he shared with Theria that they should aim high, he wanted to actually get there.

  Only an idiot tried to make their first leap take them across a chasm.

  ‘This one looks good,’ Oras thought, marking a note that was about another goblin slaying note for later, before continuing further down the blackboard. Obviously he had to check all of the missions before he made a decision. Anything besides getting all available intel would have been foolishness.

  After over thirty minutes of contemplating his option, he was ready to take that goblin slaying mission.

  “...Where is it?” he asked aloud, when he returned to the spot and found only vacated cork.

  “Someone else took it,” Theria gave him the obvious answer. “That’s what happens when ya keep lookin’ for the best one.”

  Oras was about to sigh and agree with her, when a worker from the guild stepped between them and pinned a new note down on the empty spot. The words ‘Precursor ruins’ caught his eyes immediately.

  Recent renovations on the Path of the Supernatural Elephant had unearthed what appeared to be Precursor Ruins. The locals, wisely, decided not to investigate any further than the first couple of structures they had managed to clean off dirt. The lands of this world were old, and there was more buried in the earth than the remnants of the Precursors - not that Precursor ruins were safe. Ancient security mechanisms had ended the life of many a careless adventurer.

  The mission was simple, to go out there, do a secondary inspection of the ruins, and then return with the evaluation to the guild. Entering them was not required, highly discouraged even, which made this entirely appropriate a mission for a beginner team.

  “To take your time leads you to great places,” Oras stated and took the note off the wall.

  It was at that point that Torm joined them. The veteran stepped up next to them, waiting in the queue by their side. His old eyes strained a bit, reading the small writing on the note. “A simple scouting mission,” he said approvingly. “Are you interested in having me accompany in that again?”

  “I am,” Oras answered, somewhat to Theria’s disappointment. “I only know what a ruin looks like. You know common markers. I will rely on your experience.”

  “Smart policy,” he approved.

  They got to the front of the line in barely any time at all, at which point the procedure was through within just a few minutes, and then they were out and about.

  “We will be on the road for a bit. Do you have enough rations?” Torm asked.

  “Always,” Oras confirmed.

  “How about ya?” Theria asked.

  “I should be good. If we follow the Asla road, we will come through several villages anyhow…?”

  Bound inside the statement was a question. There were two ways to get to their destination. The Path of the Supernatural Elephant was a highly ornate road that connected Kumse to Asla, being the places where the god-machine made landfall and entered the sea respectively. The Path and the road were not the same thing, however.

  The needs of the elephant were vastly different from carriages. The Path had, over many, many generations, become marked by where the massive form of the machine treaded. The Supernatural Elephant was said to always take the same steps, which was proven where it entered Kumse and no doubt continued down the road.

  Those giant, stumpy feet left massive indentations in the ground that could not be maintained away. Instead, they were worked with, which would have forced any carriage using the Path to constantly be swerving. Many also thought it improper to use such hallowed a way as a commercial route.

  So, the two were separate. Parallel for much of it, but separate all the same. The commercial route offered several villages on the way, while the Path was a sanctified journey and wilder. Since the southern route was the most commercially valuable of the four roads leading out of Kumse, it was the one most heavily patrolled.

  The street was, by every measure, the safe and swift choice. The Path was spiritually fulfilling. Oras had seen it before, but he had not followed it before and their objective would take them almost all the way to the Ylieli border. It could be a religious experience and they were more likely to find trouble - which had its upsides.