Silakan kembali lagi nanti.
The sun rose. The air was already hot, and the day had declared itself without consulting anyone. This did not matter to most of the party; for this company, sunrise is a fact that concerns precisely one of its members, and the rest treat it as optional information.
I. The Strongbox, and What Nero Giveth and Taketh
Before any soul could return to its body, Nero was gone. The strongbox was also gone. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
Nanang was present. Upright, eyes open, oriented in the appropriate direction. He was not, however, there in any way that would satisfy a careful observer. The party has developed a working vocabulary for this state: he is present, he is not available, things will proceed without him, and this is fine.
Nero returned from town while the others were waking. He had the strongbox. Opening it confirmed what the morning had already suggested: it was empty. This is the operational logic of Nero. He provides access to things, and he provides access to the same things in the other direction. Nero giveth and Nero taketh away.
II. The Bow That Was Never Promised
Traxex woke up. She approached the strongbox and opened it.
She looked at the contents, which were absent.
"Did you sell it."
This was not framed as a question. It arrived in the tone of someone who has already completed the accounting and is presenting her conclusion in the shape of an inquiry as a courtesy she is not fully committed to extending.
What followed was an argument of sufficient length and density that the chronicle, had it recorded the full exchange, would have produced a document that filled this chapter on its own. The chronicle will not do that. What the chronicle will record is the substance: Traxex was convinced, with the untroubled confidence of someone relating established fact, that the strongbox, if delivered untouched to its destination, would result in a bow. Not a possible bow. Not a bow that might emerge from a favorable outcome. A specific bow; one she intended to carry for the rest of her life.
The chronicle has no record of where this information came from. Traxex offered no source. She spoke in the manner of someone reading from a document that only she can see and has decided to trust entirely.
This is distinct from how Anaik makes similar claims. When Anaik insists a target must be kept alive for a better reward, he speaks as a strategist with a preference. Traxex speaks as someone for whom the outcome is already written; she is simply providing advance notice of what the record will show.
The argument had its familiar shape. Traxex with a complaint, delivered after the fact and without the information that would have made it preventable. Nero with a response that did not take the complaint gracefully. The chronicle concedes that Nero is not entirely innocent here; his greed is the spark of the matter, and this is known. The chronicle concedes with equal force that Traxex's persistence is in a category of its own. Both of these things are true. The argument required no new information to continue. It continued.
III. A Noon Account of the Party's Whereabouts
By noon the argument was still going.
The rest of the party had made its accommodations.
Anaik was sitting somewhere public, looking at nothing with the full and organized attention of a man who has assigned this as his primary task and intends to see it through.
Sogong had gone to town. The details of his excursion arrived to the chronicle incompletely, by way of third-hand report and selective emphasis. What is known: he calmed an ox near the blighted village by means the record does not specify. He also committed what the reporting party described as accidental vandalism somewhere in town. No trouble followed. Sogong has the particular quality of someone through whom consequence does not always travel in the expected direction. He returned without incident.
Nanang was, eventually, there.
The argument was still going.
It ended, of a kind. The central matter was not resolved; what Traxex received in place of resolution remains unclear. What she communicated as a closing statement, delivered with the finality of a verdict, was that she no longer had the will to live.
The chronicle does its best to record this company without offering opinion.
In this case, it found that difficult.
IV. The Burning Building and Traxex's Theory
Sogong returned from his excursion with new information: there was a building nearby on fire.
Traxex came to life.
"My bow." She said this with the specific quality of someone for whom a burning building and a bow exist in an obvious logical relationship. "We could rescue someone important there. Someone could give us a bow." This was delivered with the same matter-of-fact certainty she applies to all such claims. Not a theory. Not a hope. A fact she had arrived at ahead of the event and was now reporting on schedule.
Nero mocked her. "My bow my bow my bow." He delivered this with some commitment.
Traxex did not appear to hear it. She was already moving in the direction Sogong had pointed. The party rose and followed. This is what the party does: it goes where the most determined person is going and determines whether it was wise afterward.
Nanang stayed at camp.
V. The Counsellor, the Rubble, and the Reward That Was Not
They arrived. The building was burning in the way buildings run out of time. Distressed people stood outside it.
Traxex had one question: was there anyone important inside. The people outside were understandably confused by the specificity of the inquiry, but they answered: Counsellor Florrick. Before anyone could elaborate on who Counsellor Florrick was, or what elaboration might have been useful, the party was already inside.
The building was very much on fire. The party did not visibly register this. Traxex found the Counsellor with the efficient speed of someone whose purpose is settled, extracted her, and came back out. The rescue was clean. She was done.
The rest of the party continued to explore.
They found a man pinned under rubble. The room containing him was fully engulfed. The distance between where they stood and where he lay could be measured in heat and fire and the specific quality of a ceiling that has considered its options.
Anaik did not wait for a vote. He charged in. He found the rubble and attempted to lift it. The rubble did not lift. The room collapsed. The man died. Anaik walked out with the particular expression of someone who has applied significant effort to a thing that did not work and requires a moment to account for the result.
He turned to Sogong and Nero, who had been standing at the threshold.
"Why did you guys just stand around?!"
The chronicle noted this. A man had charged, alone and without consultation, into a room that was fully on fire, and had now turned to the people who had not followed him with a grievance about the following. The chronicle was prepared to consider what had changed in Anaik since the gnoll cave. Whether the weight of that fight had altered something in him. Whether he was capable of being made different by experience.
"We could've gotten more reward!"
The chronicle retracted its previous question.
Traxex had a bow. The party came out of the building to find her holding it: a bow imbued with lightning, the kind that does not let arrows arrive quietly. She had received, from the Counsellor she rescued, exactly what she had said she would receive. Nobody in the party appeared to find this remarkable. The pattern was already established: when the thing is impossible, it is simply a Wednesday. No question needed.
Traxex was pleased. She was also still angry about the strongbox. The chronicle noted both facts and predicted she would raise the second one again at a later time.
VI. The Cavern and the Criminal Question
Even without the strongbox, Traxex wanted to go to its destination. How she knew where that destination was, the chronicle has no record of. The party followed. Without Nanang, they arrived at a cave.
The cave had the character of something organized rather than incidental. Its contents suggested a criminal operation more than a caravan depot. The chronicle noted that the party, arriving with a carriage at what was clearly a criminal group's base of operations to deliver a missing package, had reached a point where the distinction between caravaner and criminal organization was less evident than it had been at the start of the journey. The party did not appear troubled by this. They proceeded.
The cavern was riddled with traps. Nero disarmed them efficiently, in the manner of someone for whom this is the expected application of his skills. Anaik also disarmed several. The chronicle noted this, considered investigating it further, and moved on.
From the high ground of the cavern, the party could see the criminals below, unloading a carriage. The cargo was clearly explosive, visible even from above. The conversation drifting up included specific instructions about what not to do near the explosives, and separate complaints about a missing package. The missing package was the strongbox. This validated Traxex's claim about the destination. It did not validate the bow.
One of the criminals spotted the party before anything had been decided. He did not have time to react. Traxex ignited one of the explosives.
A moment later there were no criminals. There was what remained after the explosives, what remained near the carriage, and nothing that was actively a problem. The party descended and looted the scene thoroughly.
There was no bow.
Traxex maintained that the bow required the strongbox to have been delivered first. The party, having reached the limit of its appetite for this subject, moved further into the cavern.
VII. The Bridge, the Chasm, and Nero's Brief Descent
The cavern was larger than its entrance suggested. It had chasms, and over the chasms it had bridges: the kind built by people who found the structural concept sufficient and did not consider the needs of visitors.
Anaik and Nero led across one. Anaik on lower ground, Nero on higher. Both were in the middle when the barbarians arrived: several across the bridge, more above on the cavern walls.
Anaik turned back immediately and without deliberation. He made it to solid ground.
Nero, before he could do the same, fell. The barbarians had cut the bridge.
The party laughed.
The barbarians across from Anaik moved onto his bridge to reach him. Anaik destroyed the bridge while they were on it. The chasm received them in the same manner it had received Nero. Anaik laughed even more.
Sogong and Traxex cleared the upper positions without notable difficulty. The fight concluded. Sogong revived Nero. Anaik was still laughing.
VIII. The Minotaurs and the Problem of Available Space
Further inside, the cavern opened into a large chamber barely touched by daylight. Bioluminescent plants covered the walls and floor; they made the space visible, and under different circumstances would have been worth stopping for. The criminal group's boxes were here too, rows of them, most containing items of low practical value. Anaik had been pocketing things since they entered. He continued. The chronicle recorded this as consistent with established pattern and moved on.
Without Nanang, the party had reached an unspoken agreement: do not move toward obvious danger.
A minotaur spotted them. There were two.
The positioning was poor: the party in a cramped section of high ground, Anaik alone below in more open terrain. The first minotaur charged toward Anaik, reached him, assessed the situation, and then, in a decision the chronicle cannot account for, ignored Anaik entirely and leaped past him into the cramped high ground where the others were standing.
The space was not designed for a minotaur. The space was now shared with one.
Before it could act, Nero toppled it with a single strike of his palm. What followed was brief. The minotaur did not survive the space it had chosen to occupy.
The second minotaur charged and also leaped. Anaik followed it up. The configuration was now the same cramped section, two minotaurs' worth of precedent, Anaik, and everyone already present.
"I hate this," Traxex said.
She is a ranger. She had a new bow. The target was a hand's width in front of her and there was not enough room to draw. This is what the burning building had delivered. A bow she could not use, in a space she could not leave.
The second minotaur also did not last long. The party decided it was too dangerous without Nanang and turned back.
IX. What Anaik Chose to Wear
In town, Anaik approached a merchant and opened his pack.
Out came: paintings. A fork. A plate. A mug. A candle. A ribcage. A quantity of meat of origin the record does not specify. A silver ingot. The merchant surveyed this without evident surprise. Anaik had been carrying all of it. This is consistent with what the chronicle knows of Anaik: he can carry a great deal, he is aware of this, and he applies the awareness comprehensively.
His request: the heaviest and most metallic armor available.
The merchant produced a heavy mail armor. The transaction concluded. Both parties appeared satisfied.
Anaik then found Nero. He asked if Nero had a spare cape. He was specific about the requirements: it did not need to be magical, did not need to be enchanted or imbued or possessed of any effect. It needed to be cool.
Nero had one.
The rest of the day, Anaik spent posing. He positioned himself in various locations around town in the heavy mail and the cape and conducted what the chronicle can only describe as a thorough personal review of his own presentation. He brought to this the same focused, undivided commitment he brings to combat. The day ended peacefully, without incident, while he was still at it.
The chronicle noted it. For once, nothing required adding.