Chapter 14 - Still Working On It

Calling the Before Dawn Market a ‘market’ was a ridiculously large stretch by my–and realistically anyone’s–standards.
A good underground black market needed a little bit of danger to feel right. Like, that feeling you got when someone was about to mug you. Without that, where was the fun?
The “market” that Nel brought me to consisted of a total of three vendors hanging out in a small clearing with hand-pulled carts and wagons. It was just a relatively short ten-minute walk out from Gold’s Lodge north gate. The clearing wasn’t even well hidden, only barely off a side path hidden by brush that had to be shoved aside. Nel’s claim about sponsorship quickly felt less like an actual rule and more like the man had spotted an opportunity for free drinks. There certainly wasn’t any kind of approval process when we arrived.
That was annoying of course, since I’d have preferred to retreat back to the room I’d rented for the night and just come here by myself if that was an option. Still, I’d only been taken advantage of by a drunk who liked piss-poor ale and that wasn’t quite the same as being made a fool of, so I just smiled and nodded as he made the introductions.
Edward, Edwin, and Edmund… because apparently the triplets’ parents wanted to torture themselves, were the children of self-taught alchemists and all seemed to aspire to follow their parents’ path. After the restrictions went into place, the brothers–though they each argued about who had come up with the idea–pooled their coin to bribe Samel into using his control as Steward to create a minor gap in the Settlement’s Restrictions timetable.
So, for a single half-hour before dawn, the three brothers got away with selling excess supplies and the lower quality clippings that would otherwise be deemed unsuitable for sale by the normal market standards. Since I only needed enough of the clippings to reasonably mix into a reliable fire starter, their inconsistent quality really didn’t bother me that much.
I played nice, shook a few hands, paid twenty-five gold for an entire barrel of herbs that rightfully should have cost me ten at the most since they annoyingly sold “bulk quantity only” and was on my way before I got sucked into more of other people’s problems. It took far longer than it should have for Nel to stop following me before I could deposit the barrel into my bag and get on my way.
Dawn had broken across the cloudy sky in rays of orange and gold. I was just about to exit the east gate to begin the walk back, having briefly considered buying myself a wagon and horse. I’d ended up dismissing the idea since then I’d need to add a stable to my growing list of projects. I’d been looking in at a few horses at a stable right inside of the gate when I heard a horse whinny, and a familiarly cheery voice called out.
“Corbin! Well isn’t this a pleasant surprise. I was just on my way to bring some good news to Daniel, care for a lift?”
“I was actually just going to buy my own wagon, you can go on ahead,” I said, trying not to look at him. Dartigan just laughed.
“Things are going that well huh?” he asked and I sighed. “Come on Corbin, if you really need a wagon you should buy it from me. Hop on and we can talk prices.”
I looked over my shoulder at him, then back toward a particularly handsome black mare with brown streaks in her mane. Maybe Cocoa would be a good name… Or Wanda. Eh, neither really worked for her and I really didn’t need to get ahead of myself.
“You’re annoyingly persistent,” I said, turning to the man, shaking my head and climbing up onto the passenger seat.
“Wouldn’t be a good merchant if I wasn’t,” he said, snapping his reins, causing his horses to start forward.
I took a look over my shoulder into the back of his wagon, noticing the interior was quite a bit larger than the last time I’d ridden with him, despite the exterior appearing exactly the same. He caught my gaze and gave me a wide smile.
“Gotta have some room for a few of those oaks. The Crown Shipwrights are ravenous over the idea of a ready supply of them,” he said, seemingly unbothered about letting me know about it.
“Should be a good payday for Daniel’s crew then,” I said, looking out into the sparse trees as we started to put some distance between us and the gate. Dartigan looked over at me curiously.
“Maybe I should keep you out of the room when I negotiate the deal.”
“Unless you’re trying to meet with Daniel in my cabin to negotiate, you’ll be fine,” I shot back, eliciting a nod from him.
We broke free of the trees and into the vast plains that covered the land between Gold’s Lodge and Danwood. Dartigan whistled approvingly.
“Well look at that. Daniel really did go and start improving the road. That’s some fine initiative right there.”
Where the path from Gold’s Lodge used to abruptly turn from paved stone to a misshapen trail, barely wide enough for a proper wagon that had been worn only by occasional travel, now sat a wide, impressively even dirt path. You certainly wouldn’t see wagons riding side by side, but there was more than enough room to maneuver.
“I figured the man was more bluster than anything. I might have to go easy on him,” Dartigan said with a nod. “How’s your new life treating you? You find that quiet you were looking for?”
“Still working on it,” I muttered, staring out toward the wall of green that made up the massive forest in the distance.
“Yeah, might take a bit more time to do nothing,” he said, rolling his eyes. “So, what brought you back out here then, Corbin? Decided to drink the night away in the tavern? Did you woo the locals with your rapier wit?”
I looked over, catching him smiling without taking his eyes off the path.
“Needed to see what passed for ale around here,” I said.
“For as much as you’ve gone on about it, whatever ale you make better be nothing less than impressive,” Dartigan chuckled.
Though he was every bit as talkative as I’d remembered him being, after I mentioned being hungover–a lie–he thankfully let us ride in peace, only breaking the silence every so often to compliment the progress of the road. The moment the work crew came into sight, his comments went from mild compliments to incessant curiosity.
Daniel wasn’t with the crew and while there was some idle curiosity from the guys and Bram was more than willing to show off his Stonemason abilities, Thomas had been placed in charge of the actual operation. Bram, while proving incredibly effective with his new abilities, hadn’t quite discovered how to be a leader just yet and the older Thomas kept the crew on a strict schedule that didn’t include time for “talking to passersby when there’s stone to lay.”
There was a noticeable shift as the wagon moved up onto the cleanly cut, paved-stone path and Dartigan was able to urge his horses faster still.
“Oh you are something Corbin,” Dartigan laughed, the crew quickly getting back to work as Bram continued to rapidly cut the new stones for placement.
“Hmm?” I asked, having briefly zoned out as I turned my attention away from the trees that were taking up more and more of the horizon.
“Never heard of a quiet life that includes massive amounts of roadwork,” he said, looking over at me with even more curiosity. “You could’ve warned me that Danwood’s got a new Activated, and a Stonemason at that… A road like this really expands trade options.”
“Sorry. I missed the part where that was my job,” I said, holding a hand out to him. “There’s actually two, Daniel’s a Woodwright now. That’ll be one gold for the information.”
Given the fact that Daniel would probably come running the moment he saw the wagon, there really was no point hiding it. The moment the two of them had Activated was the moment my planned version of quiet had gone off the table. Sure, I could still have moved, but part of me wondered if that would just be an exercise in futility.
Dartigan nearly yanked the reins hard enough that the horses pulling the wagon whinnied in protest.
“You’re pulling my leg,” he finally said.
“Nope. I’d hired his crew to help do some land clearing and within a few days they Activated one after the other,” I explained, trying not to meet his eyes. Since I already knew exactly where this conversation was going to go, I added, “someone’s gonna need to reevaluate what ‘Random’ means with Activation.”
“I knew there was something special about you,” he said and I started to shake my head.
“No, nothing special at all. I paid some folks to do some work and it just happened to end with them Activating. At this point, my bet is that the system just cared that they were finally doing different things instead of cutting down the same trees day in and day out,” I argued and Dartigan let out the sort of sound people made when they didn’t believe you and I briefly considered if I wanted to jump out of the wagon and just walk the rest of the way.
“If that’s what you want to tell yourself. All I know is I’ve seen hundreds of woodcutters spend years chopping trees and never Activating, might be something for the System Archivists to investigate. I’m sure the crown would love to know if there’s a way to speed up the triggering of Random Activations.”
“I literally just hired some people and they got to work, which caused two of them to Activate. That’s all they’d discover if they investigated what happened here,” I shot back and Dartigan shrugged.
“Maybe. Those scholars have spent a long time learning the System though, never know what quirk they might discover if they did decide to take a closer look. Maybe you or one of the others have a latent Natural Trait that makes it more likely, or your purchase and work orders triggered an undiscovered Settlement bonus. Even with all we know about the System, new things are always being found.”
“Well tell them to work on the research that keeps them in Graham’s Rest if you’re going to. I’d never get any quiet if they came here,” I said and he laughed.
“Not my call, Corbin. But I’ll do you the favor of keeping it to myself… for now at least,” he said, his smile growing a bit wider. “Daniel start a Lumbermill yet? Refined Great Oak would certainly fetch an even higher price.”
“And commission for you I’m sure,” I said, unable to hide my amusement at the man’s eagerness. “But no, no Lumbermill. Up until they started working on the road, they’d been making good progress on clearing the fields for me.”
“Heh, well you might be losing your labor soon if Daniel wises up,” Dartigan laughed and my lips turned down. “Maybe you should be looking to hire a few full-time folks. I’m sure there’s at least a couple miners in Gold’s Lodge that wouldn’t mind a change of career.”
“Guess you’re less likely to get crushed by a cave working on a farm,” I offered with a shrug. “Not that I’m actually looking for people to help me when I get to that step.”
“How far are you from getting the fields prepared? I’d imagine it couldn’t be that far, but then again I didn’t expect to come back to even an inch of the road being paved, let alone what, a few kilometers?” he asked, looking back at the crew that were only specks in the distance now, then looking toward the buildings just starting to become visible.
“Couple weeks. Apparently Poor quality is Middling to some Merchants, gonna spend some time increasing the quality before I plant,” I explained. The large swathes of felled trees that were easy to pick out were towering higher and higher as we inched closer and it was hard to take my attention off of them.
“I’ve tried to tell our company’s regulators that we should be offering to sell the surveys before purchase,” he said. While he surprisingly didn’t sound like he was trying to make an excuse for it, I found myself getting annoyed at the comment all the same.
“What, and get people changing their mind?” I muttered. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it had slipped out and Dartigan let out a wry chuckle.
“That’s almost exactly what Director Gandrey said when I suggested it to the Regulation Council,” he said, casting another look my way. “I’ve never met a man your age that was so well versed… not outside of the Graham’s Rest at least. You must have quite the interesting upbringing.”
“Interesting is overrated,” I sighed and he chuckled again, starting to pull at the reins. We’d closed in on the small trail that was starting to quickly get worn into the ground up to my cabin… where Daniel had been standing at the door.
He quickly came hustling down, nodding at Dartigan briefly before he turned my way.
“Hadn’t realized you weren’t in the area. Garth was hoping you could show him to the clearing where the Stoneboar ran off from before it got too late in the day. Figured he’d get a start on at least locating the start of its trail,” Daniel explained before I could say a word.
There was a brief moment of silence and I could practically feel Dartigan’s attention shifting between Daniel and myself.
“Another Stoneboar, Corbin?” he mused. For some reason, the simple question made my skin crawl more than it should have. “You know the strange part? That one we passed on the North Spoke Road had its bounty nullified a few days ago. No claim, no report of death… just nullified.”
“Yeah… strange,” I said and Daniel raised a brow, a smirk quickly spreading over his face. Before he could say anything I hopped off the wagon and straightened my clothes. “Where’s Garth at? Better get this show on the road.”