AnthonyPoison
DND EverWeave
Night. The old road unwinds underfoot; the lights of Ostia glimmer ahead. A sealed parcel sits inside your coat - your client, master Corvus, walks beside you, glancing back.
Without turning, Corvus reminds you: by dawn the parcel must be in the Lord Treasurer's hands. Then you get the other half of the gold.
I pick up the pace - sooner there, sooner paid
Corvus grunts approvingly. The night swallows your footsteps. Before the long road, worth remembering what you're made of.
The road dips into a hollow and dead-ends at a fresh rockslide: boulders and splintered pines block the way. Going around costs an hour you don't have. I climb straight over the rubble
The stone crumbles under your palm, a boulder shifts, and you slide back down in a cloud of dust, palms scraped raw. Strength is your forte, but tonight the mountain is stronger.
I study the rockslide: how it holds and where it's weak You read how the boulders sit: the whole slide rests on a single stone. A broken pine slips under it as a lever, one firm push, and the rock rolls aside, opening a way. Your head just moved what your muscles couldn't.
Corvus squeezes through after you and grunts: "So you can use your head too. Worth more than strong arms, that."Past the hollow the road climbs a ridge, and Ostia opens below: a bay full of lights, a white lighthouse, the dark bulk of the temple above tiled roofs. Three hours or so till dawn. Corvus stops beside you. "A port, a temple and remarkably short trials: that's Ostia for you. The treasurer waits in the upper city. Stop gawking, we'll make it."
I say nothing and watch the city