Chapter 200: 200

Everything is chaos in the morning. Maggie and Sora, or more correctly their stationed guards, have spotted people coming their way. Thanks to the effects of a mirage reflecting the castle in the heart of the desert, an off-route caravan is going to be paying them a surprise visit. 

This might be good news, it might not. If they're not bandits run out of civilization they're lost. Very lost. At least an entire day off the nearest caravan route that runs between Oasis. Deciding that caution is the best course of action, Cain decides to greet them before they arrive at the castle gates. If they're hostile, it's better to give the guards some warning, and they're unlikely to be so naive as to attack a castle from a distance. 

"Laura, I require your assistance for a moment. In Dragon form." Cain calls and then watches the twins play rock paper scissors to see who has to do it.

His mode of transport decided, Cain takes to the air, soaring over the dunes to meet the travelers. "Greetings everyone. I'm Cain, leader of the Darklight Host. What brings you fine folks to our humble abode?"

They're giving him a look like the words humble abode do not belong anywhere near a sentence that references a giant basalt fortress, but their leader recovers quickly. 

"The trade routes have been heavy with bandits lately, so we decided to take a longer route. Unfortunately, the oasis that was marked on our map has dried up, so we just headed north from that point, hoping to find a ruin with a surviving well." The man, a human fully wrapped in cloth against the desert sun, pulls a map from his clothes and shows Cain their intended route. Indeed, the castle is in a direct line between the oasis he was headed for and Assah. 

"Please, do come in. We're having a bit of a Guild Gathering, a number of our members reached level 100 last night. We've got water and shelter inside the castle walls." They're not far away, so Cain has Laura take to the sky again, headed for the front gates so he can open them. 

The entry is a simple set of double doors, but behind it is a stone hallway, leading to a portcullis and the second set of doors, designed to slow or trap attackers that breach the main gate. Fairly standard for a castle as far as Cain knows. 

"This is an impressive fortress you have found." The leader says in appreciation when they reach the gates.

"I built it around a set of desert ruins. There were enough bits of the old buildings to build a replica of an outpost of the old Schaub Empire. See, over to your left is the old stable, it's been renovated and you can keep your camels there." Cain explains. 

"Appreciated, friend. But tell us, how far is it from here to Assah?"

"With camels, about five days I would imagine." Cain shrugs, never having even ridden a camel before. 

The caravan members file into the castle, tying their weary mounts in the shade of the old stable and getting to work removing their burdens and rubbing them down, before bringing out feed for them and leading them to the water troughs.

"What all do you guys sell, that you would risk such a long detour through the desert?" Sora asks, coming in to supervise their guests. 

"We're cloth merchants, bringing silks and fine linens from the Southern lands. We do a half-year loop selling a bit of everything. Normally we leave the Holy Landis Kingdom and stop in at the villages along the Ridgeline of the Beginner's Valley, turning north before Montauk for safety and following the trade route to Assah, then back down the coast and home." One of the merchant guards informs her. 

"Yeah, that place is way too dangerous. But this year there are all sorts of bandits along the trade routes." Another complains.

Cain suspects Montauk and the bandits are very much interconnected. Since he drove the old Guilds out of town, the survivors and their allies will have had to make a living somewhere. 

"The Guardians were driven out of Montauk and most of their members were killed. That might well be the cause of the bandits along this stretch of the trade routes. They've been sporadically attacking the city as well, every time they can gather enough mercenaries, or trick another group into helping them." Cain informs the merchants, who sigh in disgust.

"If that's the case, there is no winning for the caravans. As you can see, most of us don't have an interface, so we mostly rely on the guards if it comes down to a fight with bandits. But if a high-level evil Guild is out there in the desert looking for victims it makes things hard."

"Why not skip the desert section entirely? Use a transport circle to move between your last point of call and Assah?" Sora asks. 

"At five gold a head, including the camels? We'd need much higher quality goods to be able to afford that. The noble merchants do it that way, but then they're selling magical silks and gold jewelry. We provide things the common man needs and can afford." One of the junior merchants says proudly. 

That makes sense, Cain has gotten used to the high-level items and extremely high prices associated with them, but with fewer than one in fifty among the population not including those born of two transfers getting a system, there are a whole lot of people who are not working on that same financial scale.

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They're the primary reason Earl RhickJaymz set property price limits. Sure, skilled adventurers could pay the high rates, but who would work the shops, clean the streets, do the paperwork, or work the docks and the fishing boats if only high-level transfers were left in town? 

Cain notices one of the guards removing his shirt and head covering to wash in the water trough provided for the camels and begins to laugh. "I should mention, before you get too comfortable, that there is a former hotel right next door that has running water in the rooms. There's no furniture yet, but the showers work."

The guards all cheer and the shirtless one waves it around his head in victory before running across the street to the elegantly carved black building with the row of evenly spaced doors. If this world had cars, it would be a roadside motel, being next to the stable that serves as the town's parking lot.

A few others go with him, but half the guards stay to watch the camels, and the others are still working. 

"Let Sora here, or Maggie, who will likely be along in a minute, know when you're done. We're still getting things set up here, the castle isn't finished, but we will have a lunch buffet in a few hours, and some of the group might want to see your goods. You said you carry products for the commoners, but what exactly?"

"Spices, cloth, leather, some smithy tools from the Dwarves, and a small assortment of crystal dishes. They nearly bought us out at Mountainheim though."

[The merchants have foreign spices, Dwarf made tools, and some other things if anyone wants to come to visit them.] Cain sends in Guild chat. 

Sora gets along quite well with the merchant guards, who she discovered are usually hired from among the ranks of mediocre transfers. They sign on for a leg of the journey, to get to new training grounds and strengthen themselves, making some coin along the way.

This leg of the journey pays well, as it is dangerous, but there's not much left to sell, instead the merchants restock at the Ports and visit all the slightly inland villages between them as they head back to Landis. 

The whole thing intrigues the little Tengu, and her exotic appearance intrigues them, with her fluffy black wings and her elaborate kimono, a garment they've never seen before. Only one of the guards, who is an actual transfer and not born in this world, even knows what a Tengu is. 

"Did you random roll that class? Or did you come here from another continent?" The guard asks and Sora looks confused. 

"Sora is Summoned, not a transfer. One of my Class abilities lets me call for Lieutenants to help me out, and she's one of them." Cain explains. 

"Oh, like the Puppet Master of Gillibrand. He's got Summoned Lieutenants." Their leader says and the others nod in agreement. 

"He's kind of a jerk though. If he had someone like Sora working the gates it would be much more pleasant to visit his city." A guard laughs. 

"Is that along your trade route then?"

"Not quite, but close to it. They're very particular about who they let set up in the markets there. It's a popular place, but almost all transfers, since his puppets and summons take care of the essentials and city functions." The caravan leader says with a hand gesture that indicates his annoyance at the city that thinks they're too good for him. 

"If the summons run the city, does he not go out to level up?" Cain asks. 

"Nah, there's supposed to be a scaling dungeon in the city, always the same level as the person who enters it, so the rumor is he goes every morning before sending the summons to work." 

Or he just sends the summons. What Cain knows, that very few others would, is that a Puppet Master gets experience from his summons actions no matter where they are.

Now that they've got the castle set up, Cain could do the same thing, and have his companions run dungeons on his behalf. His bonus experience passive won't be in effect if he's not in the dungeon with them, but it's still experience. As good as any other transfer gets, and much less work.

The other Puppet Master doesn't strike Cain as a do-it-yourself sort of person.. At least from what he's been told. 

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