I am not yet ready to face her

Kiara is right. I have to face Amelia someday. But I feel that if I face her now, it’ll be too painful. I fear that I will simply be too focused on the secrets she’s been trying to hide. I think back to what Kiara said about carrying unnecessary baggage and recognize my insistence on her being honest about everything as a painful load that I have kept hold on even to this day. I guess, if I want to move past this, I’ll just have to put that down and walk away from it. But I can’t face Amelia shortly after doing that. I need some time to put some distance between me and my issues. I’ll just have to wait with facing Amelia until later. It's kind of a joke, really. It has been 6 months already and only now am I starting to move on. Like the last 6 months I have just been standing still. When it comes to our former village drunk, Noah, I guess he extended those 6 months into the rest of his life. I wonder how his life would have turned out if he had someone like Kiara to talk sense into him. He might have still been alive.

The next morning, when I check out the quest board, I notice there is a quest to accompany a dwarven merchant back to the kingdom of the dwarves. Maybe that’ll be a good idea. Something to get me out of the city for a while. Keep both Mia and Amelia out of my head and get some clarity.

I inform Kiara about it and she thinks it’s a decent enough idea.

“This won’t be an easy one that you can do alone like the sewers. You’ll need a party for this one.” Kiara informs me.

Fortunately, I have friends who joined the dark dragon with me. I search for Ryul and Shalia, but they have already left on a quest with Jason and Helena. Apparently, they left yesterday, when I was doing the sewer quest.

The next one I try to find is Leona, but some others have already asked her to join on a quest with them. I didn’t feel like insisting her to give up on the other party and join me simply because we trained together.

I then turn to Kiara, who has been with me during my search and I say, “Please tell me you are still available.”

I watch Kiara’s black lips turn into a soft smile, then she says, “Alright. But you’ll need more than just me. At least 2 more.”

A bit later we come across Ari and Sophie. I ask them if they are free for a quest and Sophie immediately tells me they are. Sophie is just really very honest and straightforward, so much so that she is sometimes unintentionally blunt. But I kinda like that about her. You’ll at least always know her honest opinion. Ari instead thinks about it for a bit longer and after some pleading from Sophie, she agrees.

“It’ll be quite a journey, though.” Kiara says. “The dwarven capital is 2 weeks away from here. Add the 2 weeks return journey and we’ll only get back here a month from now. Now, let’s tell the guys at the reception what quest we’ll be doing.”

“Right. That way, when somebody from outside the guild asks for us while we’re away, the receptionists can immediately inform them we’re not here and how long it’ll take until we get back.” I say, remembering Amelia coming over to ask for me.

“But mostly, it’s so that if we’re away for too long, the receptionists can send for a rescue party. Either fellow Dark Dragons or the Knights Hospitaller.” Sophie adds, which she is totally right about.

Our party then left in search of the dwarven merchant. I was first under the impression that he was a merchant similar to the ones that visit my home village, but no, this was one of the wealthier merchants. He had at least 10 wagons, all belonging to him, filled with goods that according to him were in low supply in the dwarven kingdom. With so many valuables, it is no wonder he would prefer protection from one of the more prestigious guilds.

We decide to split our party. Kiara and I take position on the wagon at the front and Sophie and Ari take up space in the last wagon. This way we have both ends covered. When we arrived at the city gate, the merchant and all of his employees had had to be checked if they were smuggling anything out of the city. The same went for all the carts. Kiara and I merely had to show our medallions, proving we are members of the Dark Dragons, and we could go unhindered. Come to think of it, this is actually a good way for rogue guild members to smuggle illegal things in and out of the city. Maybe it is a privilege only extended to the bigger guilds.

The first few days, I was expecting an attack on the caravan to happen any moment. It was what we were hired for after all. Kiara told me that roads near the capital are actually quite safe. It is the further we stray from the capital, the more dangerous it becomes. I instead spend my time chatting with the merchant and his crew. While they aren’t adventurers, they actually aren’t quite so helpless. Each of them is equipped with what they call a rifle. It is a weapon consisting of a long metal barrel with a wooden handle. Apparently, it catapults these metal marbles at a high speed. I have never seen anything like it. I asked some of the dwarves if I could try out one of them, but they all refused. They tell me this is a dwarven weapon and a human like me would not be able to handle it anyways.

When night falls, we usually stay over at an inn on the side of the road. The large trade routes of the kingdom are littered with such trade settlements. When we can’t rest at an inn, we instead set up our tents. The dwarves suggest they keep watch and allow us to sleep through the night, but Kiara rejected their offer. She felt it would be good practice for me, Sophie and Ari if we kept watch. It was always one of us and one of the dwarves for 2 hours.

Kiara also suggested I switched locations with our fellow party members. One day it was me with Sophia in the back, me with Ari at the front, Me with Kiara at the back again, then me and Sophie on the front of the caravan. It was a good way for me to get to know everyone on a more personal level. Sophie was a great talker and Ari a great listener. It also helped that the journey was mostly uneventful. There were a few monsters here and there, but since all of us were B ranks, we could easily handle them. Kiara even made it feel like a training session.

After nearly a week we finally got attacked by some bandits. Kiara and I were at the back of the caravan when we suddenly heard a loud explosion at the front. Kiara warned me that was a warning sign from the dwarves. We leapt from our wagon and rushed towards the scene of the battle to do our part. As we were fighting off the bandits, the dwarves manning the carts pulled out their rifles. These dwarven weapons made loud noises and a lot of smoke came out of them. Perhaps non-adventurers would be amazed by them, but I have a water elemental which I can summon and rune magic, so I can’t say I’m too impressed. I do however, need to admit they helped at repelling the bandits. Then again, so were my new Dark Dragon friends.

After the battle, our party checked the bodies of the bandits for any valuables. We were actually able to get a decent amount of copper coins from them. The dwarven merchant instead was interested in their swords and armor. He said he could sell those in the dwarven capital to be smelted and reforged. But Kiara told him that if it wasn’t for us, the bandits would be plundering his caravan already. Eventually she and the merchant agreed to let him have the bandit’s gear, in exchange for some money. Kiara sure knows how to get the most finances out of an adventure. Though I guess that’s probably because she has more experience with those than me.

The day after the bandit attack, we cross the border into dwarven territory. From here on, the landscape become more like hills and had plenty of farms, but the more mountainous the region became the less farms we saw and the more cattle. I guess it must be difficult to grow produce up in the mountains. Kiara also informed me that while human cuisine was a nice blend between meat and produce, dwarven cuisine had a much greater focus on meat.

We met a few villages on the way and at first, I thought they were just small settlements. Then I learned that each of those villages had a tunnel leading into the mountain and the underground portion of the village is easily up to 10 times the size of what’s on the surface. Almost like they have 2 kingdoms worth of territory on top of each other. All of a sudden, the dwarven kingdom seemed a lot bigger than I had always thought it to be.

After a full 2 weeks of travelling had passed, we finally arrived at the capital of the dwarves. The road up the mountain was long and I could see snow on the peaks of neighboring mountains. Eventually though, we come at a walled city. It is big. Not as big as Riledo, but definitely several times the size of Merton. Though remembering what they said about the villages, I feel I should imagine a city ten times this size underneath the ground.

We join the merchant all the way to a large mountain cave, protected by a huge gate, stone towers and lots of guards. I guess that’s the real entrance to the dwarven capital.

“This is our stop.” Kiara suddenly says. “Time to get paid.”

She was right. The contract was to bring the caravan to the dwarven capital, not inside. The merchant who contracted was very grateful for our services and paid the 4 of us 40 silver coins. While officially the money still belongs to the party, Kiara decided it would be best to divide it evenly amongst the 4 of us. That way, in the event one of us gets their money stolen on the way back, at least we only lose 10 silver and not everything.

We watched how the gates to the capital opened and the caravan went inside. Honestly, part of me wanted to go in and see what an underground city looked like. I asked Ari and Sophie and they seemed curious as well.

“The dwarves are more likely to hire their own adventurers. It is unlikely for us to find any jobs over there.” Kiara says. “If we go in you should expect it to be mostly for sightseeing.”

Kiara has a point. Most of my party are young adventurers. We are still trying to earn enough money for better gear. This is not the time for us to go on vacation. Then again, it could take a while before we get anywhere close to the dwarven capital again.