Lucette and Ebris flinched as if they'd been slapped. The pair exchanged glances, a whirlwind of emotions raging across their faces.

  "Did you know of Ardyn's expedition to Caelryn Cave?" Simon continued. He infused vulnerability into his tone, making his lip quiver slightly. "Our carriage was attacked. There was...this rat, this Beast, and..."

  He shuddered. "I was the only survivor."

  Both merchants gazed at him in shock – but not skepticism. They were halfway to believing him, yet needed another push before they were willing to accept what he'd said as truth.

  Simon clenched his fists. "Ardyn never got to tell her." Now his voice sounded frail. He tried to force his eyes to well with tears, but his body didn't have the moisture to spare. "After we looted Caelryn Cave, Ardyn planned to tell Relia how he felt. They were going to...to..."

  He let himself fall to his knees. It was barely acting; standing felt more difficult by the second. Simon opened his mouth to speak further, lay on the spiel a little thicker, but his throat was dry as a desert, and all that came out was a noise resembling a pitiful sob.

  That did the trick. Ebris and Lucette's suspicions over the identity of Simon 'Cobblestone' had been quelled by a one-two punch of logic and emotion. The intimate details of Ardyn's personal life, gleaned from his unsent love letters, had fulfilled their need for empirical evidence. When combined with the visage of a broken young man pushed to his limit...

  Well, that would've been enough to tug the heartstrings of even the most blackhearted scoundrel.

  Ebris exploded into a litany of insults – not aimed at Simon, but at the late Ardyn Cobblestone. "Thrice-damned fool! Misbegotten imbecile!" The merchant paced in a circle, his muscles taut, rage mingling with grief in equal measure. "We told him! We told him Caelryn Cave was cursed! But he was just so convinced that riches untold lay within!"

  Lucette remained silent. She only stared at the ground, her expression wracked with heartache.

  "And look what transpired!" Ebris shook his fists at nothing. "Him, dead! The new hires, dead! A carriage demolished, and its Warding Orbs lost!"

  He jabbed an accusing finger at Simon. "What's more, he's even dragged his younger cousin into this folly! A boy who has clearly seen no more than a week of combat – if that!"

  Rude. Accurate, but rude.

  Too late, Ebris noticed that he hadn't been paying much attention to how the bereaved cousin Cobblestone was feeling about all this. The man sputtered, his accusing finger falling to the wayside. With an awkward air, he approached, placing a hesitant hand on Simon's right shoulder.

  "I...I am sorry. For your loss." Ebris cleared his throat. "Were you and him close?"

  Everything I knew about Ardyn comes from his letters. Your outburst just now practically doubled what I know of him.

  "Yes," Simon croaked. "My cousin sometimes spoke of you. Ebris Twobreath and Lucette Duvunoka." He included their surnames learned from Identify – more evidence indicating that he'd spoken at length with Ardyn. "Stalwart allies, he said."

  The transmigrator turned wistful eyes up at the merchant. "Did he ever speak of me?"

  Ebris winced. "Erm...on occasion."

  A polite lie. It fit right at home within Simon's web of deceit.

  Evidently, it wasn't out of character for Ardyn to have hidden family somewhere. Was he the secluded loner type? Albeit still well-loved, based on the merchants' reactions after learning of his demise.

  He hid his feelings for Relia too. Simon almost shook his head in exasperation. Should've opened your heart to her earlier. Honesty is the best policy.

  Ebris started speaking again. The transmigrator focused up, preparing to lie his ass off.

  "Ardyn was born in Caelryn City," said the merchant. "I assume that unlike him, you hail from Springwater Village?"

  Where? "Yes. We're distant relatives."

  "That explains your shabby attire. Few places have been sucked dry by Helmund worse than Springwater. Can understand how Ardyn beguiled you with legends of hidden treasure. No offense meant to you or your hometown, of course."

  Simon nodded. He didn't have enough context to BS a response this time. Instead, he waited for Ebris to continue, letting the man draw his own conclusions.

  The merchant sighed. "When we set out to check on the progress of Ardyn's expedition, we anticipated that our worst fears might come to light – yet this is beyond even our worst fears. Forgive me, Simon, but I must ask one question of you. "

  He grit his teeth. "What became of your carriage's Warding Orbs?"

  Only one answer fit the narrative Simon was attempting to sell. "Wards stopped working." He put on a tormented expression, as if recalling a moment that would haunt his nightmares for years to follow. "Their light faded out of nowhere. Then...then the rat came. Gargantuan awful Fell Beast. Destroyed our carriage."

  Ebris cursed again. This time, his words had no fire to them, more filled with misery than rage. "Fool, fool, fool. Told Ardyn that his Wards could expire. Been happening all over. Need to stay vigilant."

  Simon regarded the merchant carefully. You told me that this scenario was beyond your worst fears, he thought, but you already knew that the Warding Orbs failing was a possibility? And rather than asking 'did the Wards run out', you asked me 'what became of the Wards' – a vague, open-ended question.

  ...So that I wouldn't know exactly which kind of answer would satisfy you.

  He was struck by the gut-churning sensation of having sidestepped a trap. Ebris seemed to be mixing truths with untruths in order to completely verify Simon's story.

  Although, assuming that Ebris' rant about Ardyn being careless was genuine, Simon didn't think that the merchant had much of a leg to stand on. According to Identify, his carriage's Warding Orbs would be depleted within just two years. That was longer than the Wards guarding Caelryn Cave, but not by a lot.

  "Loath as I am to consider this right now," Ebris said, "the Orb shards from Ardyn's caravan might be salvageable." He glanced down the road. "You came from that direction, yes? Passed by Caelryn Cave? Could you lead us to–"

  "Stop."

  Lucette's low voice cut through their conversation like a melancholy knife. "You've interrogated the poor boy plenty." She breathed in a deep, ragged breath. "Can't you see he's on his last legs? Let's give him a proper meal before he keels over. He's family."

  Ebris blinked. "Oh. Oh!" Redness colored his cheeks with embarrassment. "Yes. Apologies, Simon. Lean on my shoulder – I'll help you to our carriage."

  It was the most beautiful sentence he'd ever heard.

  --

  Simon officially had two new best friends. Granted, that wasn't a high bar to clear, but anyone who'd saved him from starvation and dehydration was more than deserving of the title.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  He spent the next day recuperating in their carriage as it raced forward, fast as an Earth car on the highway. Ebris and Lucette explained to him their caravan was powered by a rare and expensive Artifact. All caravans were, merchant or otherwise. When paired with multiple Warding Stones, it was by far the quickest and safest method of travel in Valtia's Severed Isles.

  After days of endlessly marching across the empty wastes, pushing his body to its breaking point for just one more step, the sight of familiar scenery rapidly disappearing behind him felt disquieting. It put into perspective how little distance he'd actually traversed compared to what a magically-fueled vehicle could cover in a fraction of the time.

  The duo were amused by his understated reaction, interpreting it as the restrained awe of a country bumpkin who'd been too shy to ask cousin Ardyn about his fancy technology. Simon made no effort to correct them. Even if he'd wished to, the 'Sworn to Secrecy' Trait meant that he could never tell them the full story – and what he could tell would smash their trust into infinitesimal fragments.

  It was a notion that guilted him as the hours passed by. Ebris and Lucette were...nice. Really, really nice. The merchant pair had fed him, offered him shelter and transportation, and even extended their sympathies in the form of emotional support. At different points, both of them had individually whispered that they were willing to lend an ear if he needed to vent his sorrows.

  They were deserving of honesty. And the second he gave it to them, they would likely toss him out of the carriage while it was still moving.

  I'll have to leave soon as I can. The fabrication of 'Simon Cobblepot, Ardyn's distant relative' wouldn't hold up under prolonged scrutiny. Inevitably, the holes in his story would widen until they became the size of canyons. Ebris and Lucette were giving him space for the moment, but it was only a matter of time until they asked specific questions he had no answers for.

  The two hadn't even pressed him on why he'd been walking in the opposite direction of Springwater Village – which Simon hadn't known until they brought it up. He'd mumbled an excuse about being running from Caelryn Cave, but neither of them seemed to buy it. Nevertheless, they had said no more, not wanting to push a man in the midst of processing his grief.

  Because they were nice.

  To the point where he'd spent half the day working through a minor existential crisis. Ebris and Lucette couldn't have realized this, but this situation – right down to how they'd stopped a moving vehicle for his sake – was dredging up certain issues in...very specific ways.

  Ways that he'd only ever told Grace.

  Mercifully, the privacy gave Simon time to re-rationalize his worldview. Eventually, after hours of internal deliberation, he concluded that he still didn't need to put faith in the kindness of strangers.

  Ebris and Lucette had only shown pity because of his family name. In that sense, he wasn't a stranger, but rather an extension of their affection for Ardyn Cobblestone. Taking in Simon also allowed them to atone for Ardyn's death by helping a member of his family, whereas they'd been helpless to save the man himself.

  In contrast...Simon No-Name, the mysterious wanderer? He would've been left to rot.

  Yeah. That line of logic made everything make sense again.

  "What are you thinking of?" Lucette suddenly asked. Her voice was casual, but she couldn't hide the concern in her eyes as she stared at him. Some of his emotions must've leaked through to his face.

  "That." Choosing an object at random, Simon pointed towards a rolled-up rug stashed in the corner of the carriage. "Where'd you get it?"

  The carriage was stocked with an assortment of items that seemed largely unrelated to each other. He'd spotted food, weapons, coins, books, clothes of wildly varying sizes, random knick-knacks, textiles, medicines, and even a section labeled 'poisons and antidotes'.

  Most of the items were strewn about without a care, as if they'd been hurriedly tossed inside. The disorganization caused the merchants' carriage to resemble a traveling flea market...which apparently paid well, based on their respectable garments and surfeit of quality goods.

  Lucette's eyes were drawn to the rug he'd pointed at. "That old thing? We picked it up from – from a city. Caelryn City. Big, bustling place at the center of the Severed Isles. Like nothing you've ever seen. There should be a Waypoint near Springwater that leads to it. Maybe we can take you after our business here is finished?"

  Simon suppressed a frown. Her voice had hitched when mentioning the city. She'd been about to say something else, then hastily corrected herself, then attempted to distract him with promises of exploring the world beyond his provincial hick hometown.

  He was tempted to inquire further, but that would be too dangerous of a game. Asking Lucette or Ebris to open up meant giving them an opportunity to turn it around and do the same to him. Keeping his own secrets was far more important than learning of theirs.

  Especially when she'd handed him the perfect lead-in to fish for info about Valtia.

  "Caelryn City." Simon slowly spoke the words aloud, as if tasting them for the first time. "I've heard of it, but I've never been there. Never even been to a Waypoint."

  "I'd be surprised if you had. You'd need to own enough wealth to purchase a carriage – and pay the teleportation fees on top. Outside of the nobility, few are that fortunate."

  You are, Simon almost blurted out. Instead, he kept his eyes on the prize. "Is Caelryn truly so much grander than Springwater?" He injected a sullen note into his voice. "Ardyn didn't seem impressed with my village, but I don't see what's so wrong with it."

  Lucette adopted a conciliatory smile. "I doubt he intended anything bad by it. It's just...once you've seen what the rest of Valtia has to offer, your expectations adjust. And Springwater..."

  She hesitated, as if mulling over how to soften an impending blow. "Springwater Village is in bad shape. We should pass it by and head straight to Caelryn."

  Bad shape how? Asking directly would've revealed how ignorant he was, so Simon merely nodded.

  When he spoke next, his tone was alight with wide-eyed exuberance. "Could you tell me more of Caelryn City? What it like?" All he knew was that it shared a name with the Sealed Demon's cave.

  Lucette's expression brightened. She thought she had him by the hook now. "There's markets, stalls, and people as far as the eye can see. Duke Helmund's son visits too frequently for my liking, but if you can avoid him, the city is yours for the taking. One time our crew went there as a group, looking to sell some wares..."