Chapter 106: The Northern Road
The first caravan left the starter village with seven wagons.
Only two belonged to people from the Prime Universe. The organizer rented the others from local farmers and hired drivers who knew the northern road. That decision cost more than buying cheap wagons in the Sanctuary, but it prevented forty visitors from discovering that owning a wagon and guiding one across an unfamiliar country were different skills. At least when they rented a wagon a driver who know what they were doing was included with the price.
Golden Axe traveled with the caravan as guards.
The organizer was a cloth merchant named Maren. She had cleared Fey Nights and failed Orc Highlands twice before deciding that defeating an orc chief was unnecessary for buying and selling fabric. She hopped to find some good things that she could ship outside of the dungeon.
She controlled the wagons.
"We stop when the drivers say we stop." Maren told the assembled travelers. "We camp where the scouts approve. Guards protect the caravan, but they do not decide what anyone is permitted to purchase. Anyone who leaves the group without telling me will not be searched for until the wagons are secure."
Her attention moved to Matthew.
"Guild Leader Matthew advises me about threats. But he is not in charge of you all."
Matthew nodded. "Agreed."
Several younger guards looked disappointed. They had expected the first organized expedition into Corathen to feel like an army marching into unknown territory. Instead, they were escorting flour, tools, medicine, empty sample cases, and a baker who had spent most of the morning arguing about yeast.
Dellin occupied the third wagon beside two sealed pots of starter purchased from the village bakery. He checked them every time the wagon struck a rut.
The road passed between cultivated fields for the first hour. Farmers waved from behind fences. Children stopped their chores to see these strange villagers that were so different from the ordinary people of the village. At one farm, an old woman placed a table beside the road and sold boiled eggs until the final wagon passed.
The people of Corathen did not treat the caravan as part of a quest. It treated them as travelers with money.
By midday, the fields gave way to low wooded hills. The road remained broad enough for two wagons, but exposed roots and old rain channels forced the drivers to slow. Golden Axe’s tracker moved ahead with two local scouts. The other guards rotated between the front, rear, and the side nearest the trees.
The first problem was not a monster.
A stream had swollen during the previous week and damaged the wooden bridge crossing it. The stone supports remained, but three boards had broken beneath a freight wagon. The wagon rested crookedly across the center, with one wheel hanging above the water. Its driver and two passengers had been waiting since morning for help from the nearest farm.
Maren examined the blockage. "Can we drive through the stream?"
One local driver shook his head. "Not with loaded wagons. The south bank drops too sharply."
Several craftsmen stopped the visitors from pulling in five different directions. They unloaded jacks, ropes, and short beams. Golden Axe’s shield-bearer supplied strength where they directed it. The mage used a small earth spell to steady the damaged bank instead of attempting to lift the entire bridge.
The work took two hours.
During that time, the healers treated the trapped driver’s crushed foot. Dellin distributed bread before deciding he could charge for the next basket. Merchants compared the wagon’s broken axle with local replacements and added spare parts to their Redbrook lists.
When the wagon finally rolled free, the carpenters replaced the broken boards with timber intended for camp repairs. The new surface would not support heavy freight forever, but it would last until the nearest road crew arrived.
Maren recorded every contribution.
"For payment?" One adventurer asked.
"For expenses," She answered. "If a guard uses a potion protecting my wagon, I replace it. If a carpenter uses lumber opening my road, I purchase more. A caravan that expects people to lose money helping it will run out of helpful people."
They crossed one wagon at a time. The damaged wagon returned south. Before leaving, its owner paid the craftsmen in dungeon coins and gave the tracker a local map with three water sources marked along the northern road.
It was the caravan’s first completed work in Level Five.
Matthew considered the result more useful than killing something without knowing why it had approached the road.
The road climbed after the stream. Golden Axe’s tracker moved ahead again, but he did not pretend the booklet purchased in the starter village made him a local expert. He asked the scouts why they avoided one patch of pale grass and learned that the ground beneath it remained soft enough to trap a horse. He asked about bundles of reeds tied to low branches and learned they marked legal campsites near clean water.
Before nightfall, the forward scouts returned without signaling an alarm.
"Six ridgebacks near the road." The tracker reported. "Heavy grazing animals with bony plates along their backs. Larger than cattle. They have not noticed us."
"Can the guards kill them?" Maren asked.
"Probably."
"Can we avoid them?"
"There is an old charcoal road around the western hill. It adds two hours and will be difficult after dark."
Maren looked at the sky. "Then we camp here and take it at first light."
No one received experience for that decision. No monster dropped valuable materials. The caravan avoided damaging wagons, exhausting the healers, and the possibility of using up another portion of their supplies. Because while a domesticated ridgeback wouldn’t normally cause issue, a herd of wild ones tended to spook easily and were known to stampede.
Matthew approved.
The drivers arranged the wagons in two close lines rather than a circle. They explained that circles created blind spaces and trapped people in the center if something broke through. Guards hung bells along the tree line. Cooks used covered fires while scouts confirmed the ridgebacks remained on the opposite hill.
The travelers ate in groups determined more by cooking pots than profession. Golden Axe shared a fire with Dellin, two drivers, and a dwarven metalworker who hoped to reach the eastern mountains.
One driver unfolded a regional map and showed the dwarf why the capital road curved west instead of following the river east. The eastern bank flooded each spring. An older road remained beneath the marsh, but only people willing to lose a wagon used it.
"Does every road like that come with a warning." Dellin asked.
"Every road has things you need to watch out for." The driver answered. "Whether anyone writes them down is another matter."
Matthew listened while the drivers discussed patrols, seasonal fairs, supply routes, and bridges that charged separate tolls. None of that information appeared in a monster guide. All of it could determine whether a party reached its destination.
Before sleeping, the tracker checked the bells and found one tied too close to a branch. Wind would have kept it ringing throughout the night. A local scout corrected two other placements in return.
The second watch produced the only alarm.
Three bells sounded along the eastern line. Half the visiting guards moved toward them at once, leaving the western side of the wagons almost empty. Matthew stopped the reserve before they followed. The last thing he wanted to see was every armed combatant rushing towards the sound of a bell and leaving the camp unprotected.
The cause proved to be a loose pack mule. It had pulled its lead free, wandered into the warning cord, and become more frightened each time another bell rang. One driver caught it with a handful of grain while the guards searched the trees.
Nothing had approached the camp.
The local scout did not laugh. He used the mistake to change the watch plan. One group would investigate an alarm. A second would remain with the wagons. The reserve would move only after receiving a signal from Matthew or Maren.
"A bell tells you where something happened." The scout said. "It doesn’t mean every armed person needs to run there." He said while admonishing the guards.
The guards reset the cords and returned to their posts.
No monster had attacked, but this caravan still discovered a weakness before something dangerous used it.
The caravan carried experienced fighters. Corathen still had things to teach them about sleeping beside an ordinary road.
The night passed without an attack.
At dawn, they followed the charcoal road. It was narrow, muddy, and lined with abandoned pits, but it returned them to the northern road beyond the grazing animals.
They reached a toll station that afternoon.
Four road guards occupied a stone building beside a striped gate. They wore the king’s colors and carried short spears. Their captain examined the wagon permits, counted the animals, and asked Maren what she transported.
"Trade samples, tools, preserved food, medicine, and personal belongings."
"Any living monsters?"
"No."
"Unsealed alchemical substances?"
Two herbalists raised their hands.
The captain inspected their cases and charged the listed toll in dungeon currency. Maren requested a written receipt recognized by the next station. No one threatened the guards or attempted to convince them that visitors to the Dungeon Master’s country should be exempt from its laws.
The captain copied the caravan’s point of origin into a district ledger. A gateway had opened near the southern village, but this was the first complete caravan from it to reach his station.
"Will more follow?" He asked.
Maren looked back at the seven wagons. "Many more."
The captain sent a mounted message north before lifting the gate.
Fields appeared through breaks in the woods, followed by the farms surrounding Redbrook. Red clay walls gave the market town its name. Hundreds of buildings stood within a low defensive wall, while workshops, animal pens, and warehouses occupied the roads outside it. A river curved along the eastern edge beneath three stone bridges.
The caravan entered before sunset.
The gate guards searched for undeclared monsters, active curses, and restricted goods. They did not demand that every traveler prove a combat level. Merchants received directions to the public caravan yard, while anyone staying in town was told where to obtain temporary lodging.
Maren accepted the delay. Passing through a guarded entrance into a functioning town was the reason she chose Redbrook instead of an unmarked trail around it.
Only after the wagons were secured did Golden Axe’s tracker point toward a hill inside the northern wall.
A church stood there beneath a square bell tower. Behind it, rows of grave markers climbed the slope.
The symbol on Matthew’s Level Five map changed.
[Resurrection site located.]
[Redbrook Churchyard.]
[Visit the graveyard anchor to register this location.]