After the merchant group resumed their travels for the afternoon, I continued to ride with Merry and Lillian in one of the carriages. Delan was elsewhere with Karl, to try to scout out bandits in advance and to look threatening respectively.

“I didn’t know that dungeon Keepers could have kids,” Merry said.

“It’s a bit of a story… but I actually once was a kid from the Trellian Kingdom,” I explained.

“Trellian Kingdom?” Merry asked.

“I was kicked out of my home when I was young. I don’t… I don’t like to think back on it if I don’t have to,”

Merry and Lillan looked at me from the other side of the carriage inside.

“It’s in the past. Maya took me in, and now I am here,” I added.

“Maya… is that the Keeper of Diamûn?” Lillian asked.

“Indeed. And she’s my mother.”

“I’ve always wondered what Diamûn is like,” Merry asked.

Her tone was carefree - this was down-time for her.

“I’m not sure what the outside world knows, but it’s out of date now. Me and Mother spent the entire winter redesigning it.” I explained.

Merry suddenly looked over at me with excitement.

“Oh, has anyone been in it yet?!”

Merry almost leapt on top of me as she asked. I waved at her to try to get her to back up a little.

“No, no one. Why do you think I’m coming with you?” I said.

“Oh,”

Meanwhile, Lillian seemed to be tuning out of our conversation. I looked at her as she seemed to be getting sleepy.

“Hey, Merry, can you quiet it down? I want to take a nap,” Lillian asked.

Merry offered her shoulder for Lillian to rest her head on. I let the two have a few minutes so Lillian could fall asleep. I wasn’t sure how Lillian could sleep on the carriage - it wasn’t exactly the smoothest ride. Actually, maybe I can, I thought. You have to learn how to do some things when you’re homeless.

After Lillian fell asleep, Merry quieted her voice and asked:

“Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?”

“Uhhh… what is this Guild you mentioned?” I asked.

I had heard the name before, but Mother didn’t explain a ton to me about it. She wanted me to discover the world on my own terms - though I feel like that was a smokescreen for wanting me to explore the world as a personal goal.

“You don’t know?” she asked.

“Mother didn’t tell me too much. She wanted me to find out on my own,” I said.

“Ah,”

Merry seemed to understand my situation.

“Well, the Guild - it’s actually the Association of Adventurer’s Guilds, but people tend to call them collectively the Guild for short - they’re organizations of people who can be hired to do jobs, more or less,” she explained.

I got the sense that she was either simplifying it for me, or just wasn’t good at explaining it. Either way, I think I kind of understood what she was saying.

“So, like guarding this merchant caravan?” I said.

Merry nodded.

“They came to the Midlands Guild of Valdor for an escort. We were in town, so here we are,”

“They didn’t come to you?” I asked.

“The Guild is sort of like a union. You don’t go to the individual members, you go to the union as a whole and they decide who goes,”

“So, they’re a company, right? They sell the services of adventurers?” I said.

“That’s a more serious way of putting it. By the way, I think we didn’t mention it earlier, but our group is called the Northern Pathfinders,” Merry added.

“Why’s that?”

“Delan is from far up north. Our area of expertise is dealing with the territories of the former Trellian Kingdom and farther.”

“Oh…”

It started to make sense why they were here - and why they never found Diamûn. They had no reason to. It still stung a little bit that people were around and never found it. I started to show my feelings of disappointment a bit.

“Are you feeling bad about us not finding Diamûn?” Merry asked.

“...yeah,”

“Don’t make it your problem. As you said earlier, it’s in the past,” she said.

 

We made camp at sundown. Fortunately the weather remained clear, so it looked like smooth travels tomorrow to make it to Berta. The Northern Pathfinders had their own camp - this was a personal choice of theirs, apparently - while the merchants had their group elsewhere. I had asked what they were carrying when we stopped for the day. They had a variety of goods from former Trellian territories, in search of what goods could be sold in the more populous south.

“Hey, I just realized, you didn’t bring any supplies with you, Kaya. We’re making food, so come eat up when it’s done,” Delan called over.

The Pathfinders had made a campfire off to the side of the road, opposite of the merchant’s camp.

“No, I’m good. I don’t actually need to eat, actually,” I said.

“Well, isn’t that a nice perk right there?” Karl joked.

“Or sleep, for that matter,” I added.

“You wanna do the night watch then?”

“Karl!” Delan yelled at his party member.

“It’s fine. It gives me something to do, other than sit around all night. Sometimes not needing sleep isn’t as fun as you’d think,” I said.

I was on the far end of the camp on the edge of the forest. The others were closer to the convoy. Merry was to the side of the campfire while this discussion was going down. She stood up and walked over to me.

“Can you eat? Like, I know you don’t need to, but can you anyway?” she asked.

“I… yeah, why?”

“Why don’t you join us, then? It’s a great way to get to know people,” she explained.

I looked at her, then over to the meal they were cooking. They had some meat cooking over the campfire, presumably something they had hunted previously. It smelled pretty good - I figured they must have borrowed some spices or something from the merchant caravan.

“You know what, I’ll take you up on your offer, how about that.” I said.

“What about the nightwatch? Usually it’s Delan and Lillian who cover it,” Karl asked.

I started walking over to the rest of the group. The sun had finished dipping all the way under the horizon by this point. Lillian poked her head out of the party’s carriage.

“I’m okay with Kaya helping,” she said.

“Do you think you’re up to it?” Delan asked.

“I think so,” I said.

Delan sighed.

“Well, I’m okay with it then. Do you have Farsight?” he asked.

“She doesn’t,” Lillian chimed.

“I can probably sense someone coming anyway, so I think my lack of Farsight is fine,” I said.

“We can talk about that later, let’s talk about dinner!” Merry called.

She was making sure that dinner was cooking properly behind us. We all turned to face her.

“I suppose so. The night is still young,” Delan said.