No Path Changes

For the first three days I had ignored what was happening around me. It was not very often that this road would be empty, but it had happened once before, when Mith’Rik had attacked the docks in Halestone. Most of the travelers had gone to defend the city and the battle had taken quite some time. Many lives were lost, but ultimately the travelers had come out victorious against the beast. Only a few days later my road was full of travelers wearing new armor crafted from the blue and green scales of Mith’Rik.

But when some sort of event like that happened, usually I would receive a letter in the mail explaining the absence, or a group of travelers would be discussing it on their way through the town. And by town I mean, Burk’s Tavern and my own home. We had named it Shy Thorn years ago. Both of our buildings were separated by a wide dirt road.

By the eighth day I still had not seen anyone. And it had never been eight days on my road without seeing a single soul.

On the eleventh day I received something in my mailbox and a pang of excitement bubbled in my chest. I opened the cracked wooden box as I left for my stand that morning, hoping that it would be some explanation as to why there had not been anyone coming through Shy Thorn.

But there was none.

It was just a job meant to be handed to travelers to help some lady named Helga get her cat out of a tree. Low paying too, just a certificate for three copper pieces, hardly worth the paper and ink that had been used. I was unable to find the papers for the last job, but I assumed it had passed its expiration date. I always received new jobs if one had expired.

I took the page and walked down the dirt road to my regular spot. A small section off the east of the road where the grass is trimmed in a half circle, perfectly sized for me to fit. I was not sure who maintained it, and still it eludes me, but at one point they had even left a small wooden chair that I have hardly ever used. It seemed to be more a spot for the travelers to rest their feet, and some of them did, but others… Well, I’ve seen some things happen in that chair that my eyes will never forget, and heard words I’ll never be able to unhear.

All day I stood and watched the sun as it finally settled on the horizon. The weather was nice, certainly nice enough to be walked in. Yet, not a single traveler came through.

It was difficult not to hang my head and stare at my feet as I walked home that night, wondering when I would see someone again.

Everything came together on the twelfth day.

As I walked out of the door of my home that morning I made sure to grab the Helga notice off of my table where I had left it, and before walking down the road to my spot, I stopped at Burk’s Tavern to order a drink and some breakfast.

When I walked in, the tavern was empty and Burk stood behind the bar. A tall man, brutish, a former traveler himself. He had a long, thick, white beard and his left eye was covered by an old gray cloth patch.

“Fancy anything?” he said, the same greeting as always.

“How about some meat and drink?”

He disappeared behind the polished oak counter and came back up with a mug and a piece of burnt beef. It was cheap stuff though, so most days I managed to ignore the burns. Only a single copper for all of it.

“Safe travels,” he said, still looking directly at me. I stared at him for a moment.

He and I never said much to each other. Often it was just greetings and thank yous and goodbyes. But I had never seen his right eye look like it had in that moment.

There was a thick dark bag under it. Exhaustion? No. Couldn’t be. His voice still had energy. Hunger? Certainly not.

Sadness.

Burk must have been thinking of the same things I had been. I wanted to say something to him, but just as always, the only thing I could manage was, “Hope business goes swell today.”

He nodded and gave me a half-grin, and I walked out with the door of the tavern creaking behind me.

The weather outside was wonderful. The sun was high in the sky and the wind gently blew the fragrances of all of the flowers of blues and greens and reds directly into my nostrils. I ate the burnt meat as I walked down the road to my spot. The charred bits found their way between my teeth. Luckily, I was able to wash them out with the water.

Helga’s job was tucked tightly into my pocket and once I reached my spot I steeled my legs and prepared for another day’s work.

For a while, there was nothing. I looked south, down toward Shy Thorn and saw smoke rise from the chimney of Burk’s. Smelled the smoke as the wind blew it toward me, ruining the aroma of the flowers.

At about midday, there was no sign of anyone, and although my legs felt fine, I could not help but eyeing the chair next to me. By then it had probably been months since I had sat in it, and for some reason the chair was calling to me.

I went to sit. But as I touched the chair, a small piece of wood broke off of the arm and rammed itself into my finger.

I pulled my hand back and looked at the chair. The wood where it had chipped was lighter than the rest, untouched by the elements and time. The splinter in my finger was long, and when I pulled it out, no blood followed.

As irrational as it may seem, I decided that I would just remain standing for the rest of the day. The odds of getting a blister in my bum were likely lower than I thought, but I was not willing to risk it.

A few more moments passed and an overwhelming sensation in my head started buzzing. Something was telling me to pull the Helga paper from my pocket. I only ever had those feelings when that meant there was a traveler close. I couldn’t pull the damn thing out fast enough before I heard footsteps coming from Shy Thorn, toward me.

Travelers! After all this time! That must’ve been why Burk’s chimney was pushing so much smoke out earlier. Gah, I don’t know how I had missed that. He always turned the fire on for people passing through.

I straightened my back without thinking, and cleared my throat as the two approached me. They were both adorned in brown pants and a white cotton shirt, but one of them had a sword that looked worth fifty times in gold what his garments were. Aside from the sword the only differentiating factor was their hair. Two humans, both with light skin and similar faces, like they could’ve been brothers. The one with the sword had lime green hair, and the one who seemingly did not have a weapon at all, had brown hair.

They talked amongst each other as they walked and I could only hear bits and pieces of their conversation.

“Tavern… eh.”

“Yeah… Not a great design… Old part of the world… Wait till…”

Their footsteps crunched through the dirt as they walked, and eventually they made their way directly in front of me. Oh, I was so excited! I couldn’t tell if the feeling in my stomach was because of Burk’s burnt meat or my nerves!

“Greetings, travelers!”

“What do you have for me?” the young man with green hair said.

“There is a damsel… Helga! Her cat is stuck—”

The young man with brown hair ripped the page out of my hand.

“Three coppers?” he said.

“Why, yes, after all it’s just a cat—”

Green hair cut him off. “Yeah it’s kind of shit, but you need the money so you can buy some new gear, plus these little jobs give decent experience believe it or not.”

“Man I hate early game quests.”

My face turned to a frown. I wish I’d had a better job to give them, but I just passed them along as I received them.

Brown hair stared at me. “Yo, why is he looking at me like that?”

Green hair turned. “I told you, dude. Crazy realistic, right? Isn’t it kind of creepy.”

I never really thought of myself as creepy, but even when I tried to tell them off, or even rip the page out of their hand, I was not able to. It would have been bad for business. And wherever these jobs came from always gave me a small commission once the travelers had completed them.

I smiled at them, almost gritting my teeth. “Safe travels!”

They were already turning by the time I said it, and I watched as small puffs of dirt raised in the air under their feet. They kept talking and just as before I was able to make out some of what was said.

“…after this, we’ll just head out, next town?”

“Yeah…. town… Really starts after that… new zone… Tharasus… more fun.”

I watched them until they were gone, not thinking much of what they said at first, and started back toward home. The day was basically done, but there was a weird timing with jobs—almost immediately after I’d hand one off, I would have mail, and in the older days I would hand out hundreds. I used to receive stacks instead of individual pages. But even before the people had mostly disappeared, that had stopped.

Once I reached home, there was no letter waiting for me. That meant the day was over. And as I walked inside of my humble little house—just a rough dining table in the middle, a chest, my bed, and a few pots and pans next to my fire pit—my mind went back to what they had said.

Tharasus.

I’d never heard of a place called Tharasus. And what was that about a new zone? What did that even mean? A new place, maybe responsible for the lack of business we’d had in Shy Thorn?

I laid in bed, tossing and turning that night, racking my brain on Tharasus.

It meant nothing to me, but it would not leave my thoughts. I knew the entire land of Kilanenthal and I had never heard of a place even remotely similar in name.

My mind was occupied with nothing but Tharasus for the next several days, and on the twentieth day I had decided that I would do something I never had before.

I was going to leave Shy Thorn, follow the road north, and figure out what this place was. Really, figure out what lay beyond Shy Thorn at all.

I stopped by Burk’s as usual.

“Fancy anything?” he said.

“How about some meat and drink,” I said, four times.

He disappeared behind his counter four times, each time reappearing with the meat and water.

After the fourth time he said something I’d never heard him say before. “Aye, big order. Must be a long road ahead.”

I smiled at him and he said, as he always did, “Safe travels.”

As I left Burk’s there was a nagging feeling telling me to check my mailbox. I had no intention of doing so. Today was for walking, and despite the nagging, that’s what I did. But as I walked down the road, the nagging turned to a dull pain between my ears, so eventually I checked the box.

A paper. A job. A lady named Catherine needed help with—surprise surprise—getting her cat out of a tree. These damn women and their cats and their trees.

I returned to my walk, the wind blowing at my back, until I reached my spot. A tear almost fell from my eye as I passed it. I would miss that spot.

The road stretched out far in front of me, and I made it a few hundred feet before my legs began to feel strange.

I brushed off the feeling and kept walking.

But before I knew it, my legs were moving slower. Hesitation. Fear. Probably all of the emotions in that same family, piled up.

After I reached a tree I had never seen before, I took another step.

Then another.

But on that third step, I could not seem to do anything more than hover my foot over the ground. No matter how hard I tried, it would not place itself on the dirt.

I took a step back, and my foot hit the ground fine. Then I tried to step forward with the other leg—it must be something strange with my leg muscle. But even the other foot would not place itself on the dirt.

There was nothing blocking the path. Nothing really stopping me, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not get my foot to step more than a few feet beyond that tree. I tried running, I tried tiptoeing. Everything.

Whether it be magic, or something inside of me that truly was not ready to move forward, I was not sure. But once the sun began setting, I decided that Tharasus could wait until the next day and I returned home.

It has been one hundred days since then, and for many of those days I tried to move north with no success. At one point I had even tried to head south, but that same strange thing happened.

I have not tried in ten days. And it is not because I don’t think about what is beyond Shy Thorn.

I do.

I think of it more often than anything else, really.

Oftentimes while I stand in my perfectly kept spot, I’ll gaze north, down that endless road, toward that tree out in the distance, wondering if maybe that day is the day. If perhaps, whatever had been stopping me before would not stop me again.

But I do not even try. Not anymore. The feeling of sadness is far too much to face day in and out, and even though I don’t own a mirror, I would hate for that sadness to form bags under my eyes like Burk’s.

Every so often I’ll see a traveler or two pass through and they’ll rip the job sheet out of my hand before I can tell them what the job is.

They come in with worn clothes and eager voices, just like the ones that had mentioned Tharasus. And just as those two did, many of them talk about Tharasus like it’s a whole new world. Some of them even speak of places beyond it.

When I sleep, sometimes I wake up and feel like I’ve dreamed of those places. Vast cities with towers taller than the smoke that comes from Burk’s chimney. Grass that is not green, but purple. Seas as black as the ink on my papers. But when I wake up, any bit of what my mind has created escapes me, and all I have left is the name.

I cannot deny that I would like to see where the road leads. But I cannot escape the feeling that my journey on it will always be the same. A traveler’s stop for easy copper and the beginning of someone else’s adventure.