Predicting exactly when the weather would break wasn’t possible, so the Borderless Association of Adventurers guessed that it was soon and organized a farewell party. A great many of their adventurers came to Gomi for the winter and would venture back into the world as soon as they were able. With Gomi’s remote location, few of them were likely to ever come back.

  Tandis coordinated the affair and invited the rest of the town to come. After four months in the same dungeon, many of the adventurers had formed friendships with the permanent residents. To Tandis, it wasn’t right to leave those people out, not when they could potentially miss the person more than any of the Association staff.

  The fairgrounds weren’t ready yet, and Luther did not appreciate it when Hans asked about speeding it up, so they used the guild hall and the courtyard immediately in front of it for their party space. The area was bustling, but it wasn’t impossibly crowded or embarrassingly sparse.

  After everyone had a chance to go through the line and fill their plates, Hans took a deep breath and stepped up to give the obligatory party speech.

  He began by announcing promotions to Iron for Gunther and the Minotaurs. The young tusk and adventurers like Pogo and Young Charlie stepped forward to accept their new ranks and receive their Gomi necklaces with Nightsight enchantments. Hans had debated moving The DCs and the Crawlers up to Bronze but decided against it. He had just spent a dinner telling them they missed out on being young adventurers. Pushing them to Bronze would only make that worse.

  In terms of their skill and competence, they would be fine at Bronze, but they hadn’t had any of the other normal Iron adventurer experiences. Most students would need two years or more to make rank, so Hans decided that promoting his Irons could wait. It had only been a year.

  With that out of the way, Hans started his speech.

  “You all know how the job works,” Hans began. “You might see some of the faces around you again, but between the size of the world and the dangers we face, there’s a good chance you won’t. This dwarf I used to run with… Oh gods, you’ve all probably heard his name more than you’d like by now.

  “Anyway, Boden took that as a challenge. If he only got to meet an adventurer for one run or one party, he went out of his way to become the legend in one of their stories. I’ll let you guess where most of his stories come from.”

  The adventurers laughed.

  “So if you haven’t left an impression, you have one more night.” Hans looked to the back of the crowd and blanched slightly. He cleared his throat. “Galad, sorry. Galad would like me to tell you I was joking.”

  When that round of laughter subsided, Hans raised his beer.

  “You’re always welcome here, and look out for each other out there. To bastards and wanderers!”

  The crowd did their part of the toast, resulting in several adventurers leaving their seats for a refill, and Hans gladly stepped down to rejoin the crowd. He mostly enjoyed these gatherings, but as he got older he noticed he wanted to slip away earlier and earlier. Olza’s theory was that eventually a party full of people reminds you of all the people who aren’t there.

  That sounded pretty accurate to Hans.

  He also knew that morale and self-confidence were unusual forces. People performed better when they were motivated and sure of themselves, and he remembered being a young adventurer. An upper-ranked adventurer treating you well and complimenting your skill was like a buff spell. Their evaluation of you was more trustworthy than your own, and if they said you were ready, well damn. Your sword arm never felt so powerful.

  Hans didn’t find it hard to be sincere and mostly liked the adventurers who wintered in Gomi, but the effort was draining. And yet, he wanted them to have the best chances of success. If giving an Iron the time of day could possibly make them better adventurers, he owed them that much.

  He did his rounds and smiled when he saw Devon doing the same. The Paladin no doubt had similar feelings as Hans. Was this a trait they had in common, or had he taught Devon to dread these kinds of things?

  What was he teaching Kane, Quentin, or Gunther? Was he supporting their success while quietly transferring all of his weaknesses and hangups onto them too?

  Where’s the fool’s root?

  No, this wasn’t going to be one of those nights, but he did need to get away from this crowd.

  A rumbling at the other end of the courtyard drew his attention. The adventurers called for Yotuli to share a speech, practically pushing her up onto a table. Hans had seen her dragon arm hundreds of times now, but the white-gray scales and streak of deep red surprised him anew every time.

  She smiled graciously but nervously. Though she had embraced her role as a Cleric of Daojmot, she didn’t relish public speaking. One-on-one, her willingness to really listen was just as important to her as what she had to say, if not more so. Standing in front of a crowd cut what made her impactful in half.

  That’s what she thought, at least. Hans disagreed. She was far more effective in front of a crowd than she realized.

  “I heard it said that what connects bastards and wanderers is that we trade,” Yotuli began. “I’ll get more wood while you start the fire. I’ll stand guard so you can sleep. I’ll grab the bread while you play lookout. We’re a people woven together by everything that we’ve done for one another, and that’s what makes us feel connected. Our time may have been short, but we all traded with one another, so even if we don’t meet again, we will always have that thread.

  “So raise a cup. May your journeys be blessed and your stomachs full. To bastards and wanderers.”

  That affirmed Hans’ opinion. She was better than she realized and still getting better.

  The faces on the adventurers around him bore an expression that was more than revelry. There was a warmth in their eyes–a rare form of peace where an entire group was grateful to be where they were with the people they were there with. If Daojmot was more than an idea, those faces were proof. And Hans had a part in making this moment possible. His chapter of his Association.

  Hans wiped his eye and under his eyepatch. His left eye may have been gone, but the tear ducts remained. Wiping an eye he didn’t have seemed strange.

  A sudden thought came to him that had him laughing to himself.

  Yotuli’s speech made him feel hope and gratitude, like he had made some pretty good choices to end up in Gomi. She carried a responsibility similar to Hans: Her time and attention made life a little bit easier for other people. Hans wasn’t leading a spiritual movement, of that he was certain, but they shared that overlap at least.

  She was also better at it than he was, which got him laughing to himself all over again.

  “Mr. Hans?” Yotuli said, approaching Hans from behind. She must have worked her way around the crowd to find him.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Hans raised his glass to her. “That was a good speech.”

  “I’ve been trying to learn from you and Galad.”

  “Hopefully leaning heavily toward Galad.”

  Yotuli smiled. “I came over to thank you. I am grateful for all that you’ve done for me, and-” She gestured at the city around them. “And for us. So, thank you.”

  She hugged Hans and returned to the party.

  Hans wiped his eyes again.

  This was it. Moments like this were the payoff for his efforts to be a good teacher.

  “To bastards and wanderers,” he said to himself before finishing the rest of his drink.

  Quest Complete: Enjoy it.

  “Mr. Hans?” Gunther asked as he knocked on the door to the art half of the gazer research project.

  Hans was alone in the room, rereading all of the notes and observations related to the project–not just his own. The art posted on the walls changed as the project progressed and more of the Gazer Temple was searched and cataloged. A whole dungeon of material wouldn’t fit in one repurposed classroom, so the project had been restructured into major topics of study, and their related materials were organized accordingly.

  Instead of having all of the art on the walls, the pinned documents now summarized major themes, highlighted key symbols and imagery, and prominently featured major questions they had yet to answer. Those questions included:

  When and where did the Gazer Temple exist?

  Why were orcs treated as guests instead of subjects?

  What can we learn about gazer culture and history?

  Most of the rubbings and recovered statues were now in a third adjacent room, but Hans found himself fixating on the snake-like humanoid that remained in the room with him, one of three species they had yet to identify. He thought that, perhaps, remains of these creatures had been found but were misinterpreted, as was common when researchers had to extrapolate from incomplete and badly damaged skeletons and fossils.

  Lacking an extensive library, Hans worked mostly from memory, trying to recall any fragment of a reading that might be relevant. No breakthroughs yet.

  “What can I do for you?” Hans asked Gunther as he slid a seat out for the tusk.

  Gunther sat. When Hans peeled his attention away from his notes to give Gunther his full focus, he was surprised to see anxiousness on the boy’s face. In the most unusual and extreme situations–such as trading names with a neighboring dragon–Gunther was calm, confident, and often a bit playful. Stress was a rare emotion for Gunther to express.

  “You can’t tell nobody,” Gunther began.

  “Okay. Deal.”

  “I don’t know if I want to train with Master Bertram.”

  That was unexpected. Gunther and the Guild Master of Kohei got along quite well when they were together, which included Bert stepping into a mentor role for the Berserker half of Gunther’s Blue Berserker training.

  “What makes you say that?” Hans asked.

  “I uhh… Well… I’m scared. I don’t think I want to leave Gomi.”

  “I will never force you to go somewhere you don’t want to go,” Hans assured him. “I’d like to hear more about what concerns you, but I want to be clear that I won’t judge you for any of it.”

  Gunther considered the Guild Master for a moment. “There’s too many humans. I haven’t ever taken a trip like that or been gone that long. Not since I got here, anyway, and I don’t remember as much of the before as Kane does. I don’t want to let anyone down by not going, but if I do go, that means I won’t be helping here anymore, and that lets people down too.”

  “There’s a lot to talk about there, so I’m going to take it in pieces. Is that okay?”

  The tusk nodded.

  “No one ever believes me when I say this, but the things you’re worried about that might let someone down are solely in your own mind. You care about the people here. You want the best for them. You want to make them proud. Really, your worry about letting someone down is more about letting yourself down than anyone else. I swear to you, no one in Gomi would think badly of you if you decided to go or to not go. That’s you judging yourself.”

  “But Mr. Galad and Uncle Ed-”

  “Like I said,” Hans interrupted with a smile. “No one ever believes me. But please do me the favor and think about what I said more when we’re done here. Would you mind doing that for me?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Good. Now, you also mentioned that a big trip was intimidating. I’ve been nervous about every trip I’ve ever taken because there’s a lot to think about and a lot that could go wrong. All of the prep stuff we talk about in class, like making gear lists and analyzing routes, is built around making that less nerve-wracking. If I do those steps, I still feel nervous, but it’s not as bad.

  “The part where you go somewhere new and don’t know anyone or anything? That’s hard. It really is. But it does get better with practice. That’s why I encouraged you and Kane and Quentin to go to Kohei for the summer. It’s not the longest trip, you’ll be with people you trust, and then when you get to Kohei you’ll have Master Bertram and Donbia and Marrok there to show you around. Yeah, you’ll learn a lot from them, but they’ll treat you good too.

  “I think you’re ready for a trip like that, but I also know the first one is scary, so that’s why I suggested this trip instead of something else. Am I on the right trail here, or have I misread this completely?”

  Gunther shook his head. “No, you got all of it right, pretty much.”

  “Which leaves humans as the only thing we haven’t talked about.”

  “Yeah,” Gunther replied.

  Hans took a deep breath to buy himself a few extra seconds to think. These kinds of conversations always felt the most fragile.

  “Kane and I talked about this before his Osare tournament,” Hans began. “It’s wrong, and it sucks, and it shouldn’t be this way, but yes, you might run into some nasty people. And some of them will give you shit for being a tusk. The way hate works… Well, it puts you in a corner where if you let them get away with it, they keep doing it. But if you react and get angry, that’s used against you too, like it’s proof that they were right about how terrible tusks are.”

  Gunther’s gaze fell to his shoes, but he continued to listen.

  “All I know is what I’ve seen. I don’t know what it’s really like or how hard it really is to be a tusk, but I do know that it isn’t easy. Galad told me once that he didn’t expect to change people’s minds about tusks, but if the world was safer for tusks now, the next generation might have the chance to undo some of that hate.

  “You being out in the world, as a damn good adventurer who helps and protects people, could make things a little bit safer for your children someday. I wish to the gods that we didn’t have to have this conversation, but how you conduct yourself and how you react to the bullshit has the chance to affect every tusk that comes after you. You know how I know that?”

  “How?”

  “You’ve already done that for the people here in Gomi,” Hans said. “You were a part of making this place safe for tusks and are still playing a part in that.”

  “I know not all humans are bad…”

  Hans waited to speak, giving the tusk time to work through his feelings.

  “...but most of them are, from what I’ve seen. I don’t get why they can play by different rules.”

  “I don’t either.”

  Gunther looked up. “What do I do if they mess with me?”

  “If you can walk away, do it. Don’t let them bait you into something because that’s their game. If you have to protect yourself or someone else, do it and try not to kill anyone.”

  “Okay.”

  “Kohei is tusk-friendly, by the way,” Hans added. “But even if it wasn’t, a few days of you and Kane in the training room? Word will get around what a fight with you is like. Most of the people we’re talking about won’t have the balls to talk shit if there’s any risk to them whatsoever.”

  Gunther nodded.

  “There’s not a right or wrong answer in deciding what you want to do,” Hans repeated. “I’m here if you need me. Always.”

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Monitor for independently grown sections of dungeon.

  Complete the next volume (Bronze to Silver) for “The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers.”

  Establish a Hoseki-grade library in Gomi.

  Prepare the first collection of job debriefs for publication.

  Learn to help your advanced students as much as you help beginners.

  Prepare the Association for spring.

  Decide how to manage breeding requests for monsters like mimics and shadow scorpions.