"Why is there a camp here?" Bratt said with a look of surprise. "They're not thinking of settling down here, are they? They ran pretty fast."
The camp did not look newly set up, which meant that these people had fled the city at the first moment after something happened in Baldur's Gate.
Anser looked at the pattern on the tents and vaguely felt that it looked familiar.
He waved his hand. "Let's go around it and avoid causing any misunderstanding."
"Alright…"
At this moment, the people in the camp also noticed them. Several young men in their prime, carrying weapons and patrolling, hurried over and blocked the front of the camp.
Just as Anser was about to speak, he caught Bratt staring blankly at the crowd out of the corner of his eye, his expression filled with surprise.
"Emon—" Bratt grabbed his longsword and waved it hard over his head, his face full of excitement.
A burly man walked out from the camp. He was wearing a half suit of armor and carrying a black battle axe on his back. He looked up at Bratt on the slope, his face full of disbelief. "Bratt?!"
"It's me, it's me!" Bratt was all smiles. He turned to Anser and said, "His name is Emon. He was the captain of my old adventuring party. He's with the Stonemasons' Guild now—he's reliable."
Anser suddenly understood. No wonder the emblem on the lantern had looked so familiar. Wasn't that the stone-face sigil of the Stonemasons' Guild?
"Let's go over."
They walked down the grassy slope. Bratt quickened his pace and threw his arms around the man coming toward him, thumping his shoulder and back with loud pats.
"I thought you were dead." Emon's eyes were slightly red, his deep voice carrying a hint of hoarseness. "The entire Harbor Hospital was gone—nothing left but a huge crater…"
"I was lucky. I didn't die. The captain pulled me out," Bratt said, grinning from ear to ear.
"The captain?" Emon's expression changed slightly. "Didn't we agree to stop adventuring?"
"Strictly speaking, it wasn't adventuring. It was running for our lives," Bratt said with a self-deprecating smile. "Don't you know what Baldur's Gate is like now? Monsters are everywhere."
"Mm." Emon's eyes dimmed. How could he not know?
Anser looked at the man beside Bratt and silently marveled, So sturdy.
This man named Emon was a full two meters tall. His arms were thicker than Anser's thighs, yet his steps were light, and he did not look clumsy.
At this moment, the dice popped up the man's information:
[Emon, Human, Level 4 Barbarian (Berserker)]
Not bad strength, Anser thought.
Judging by his build, his aptitude was certainly not poor either.
After all, big meant strong.
Bratt pulled Emon over in front of Anser and cheerfully introduced them. "Anser, this is my former captain, Emon…"
"Hello, Emon." The corner of Anser's mouth lifted into a faintly odd smile.
A Berserker serving as a captain—he felt like he had heard of that somewhere before.
Seeing the handsome Nornoth, Emon looked surprised. Then he looked at Anser and immediately felt that the man and the horse were a perfect match—someone like this ought to ride a horse like that.
"Haha, hello, current captain. I'm the former captain, Emon…" He had a good impression of Anser and unconsciously cracked a small joke.
After a brief round of introductions, Emon introduced Anser and the others to his companions.
Everyone had come out of Baldur's Gate, and with acquaintances among them, the atmosphere was fairly harmonious.
Only Nornoth stood by Anser's side the whole time, and no one really dared to get close to him.
Emon was the head here, and it was obvious that the others all respected him greatly.
He invited everyone into the camp's "reception hall," which was actually just a pile of open-air wooden stumps with a rough wooden board set up, since the tents were too small and only big enough to sleep in.
"How is the situation in the city now?" Emon asked urgently.
"Sigh, not very good. A lot of people died…" Bratt glanced at Anser and began recounting, item by item, the events that had happened recently.
He had a real talent for storytelling. His narration rose and fell with twists and turns, gripping the heart, drawing constant gasps of amazement from the people around them.
In his telling, Anser became the protagonist of the story, appearing again and again at critical moments, slaughtering enemies in great numbers and becoming the hero who turned the tide at the brink of collapse.
He successfully reaped a crowd of admiring gazes; even Emon's expression changed.
Sure enough—when you're out on the road, your identity is something you give yourself!
What were clearly acts of fleeing or forced choices instead became a heroic epic of a brave warrior who disregarded his own safety to save the human race.
Anser kept a straight face and put on the air of an expert, but inside he was already cringing so hard he could curl his toes. He kept shooting Bratt meaningful looks, but Bratt thought he had not added enough "details" and instead got even more enthusiastic.
This "mouthpiece" was better off not having at all.
He simply used going to the bathroom as an excuse to leave the open-air reception area, taking the opportunity to quietly observe the surroundings.
The location of this camp had been chosen very well. The terrain was high, the ground firm, with no snakes or insects. Water was easy to access, and the forest was not far across the riverbank. Under normal circumstances, wild beasts would not recklessly wander in.
All around were fertile fields bearing signs of cultivation. Amid the weeds were mixed shriveled grains of rice or vegetables.
The camp had roughly forty people. The elderly, the weak, women, and children made up half of them, all bringing their families along. For Emon to have brought everyone out safely was indeed no easy feat.
When he strolled back over, everyone was waiting for him. Seeing him arrive, they all rose to their feet.
"Emon, are you planning to settle here?" Anser asked.
"Just a temporary stop," Emon replied. "We followed the map and came here, and found that this place had been abandoned for some unknown reason. We were also afraid of living off our reserves. Since the season is suitable, we can plant some vegetables or the like…" His voice was deep, and he spoke in a clear, well-organized manner.
"Mm. Then why didn't you stay in the village? Do you know the group of people in the village?" Anser pressed.
"Many of the houses in the village are dangerous structures. Most of them can't withstand wind and rain, and the well has dried up, so drawing water isn't convenient. I don't know the group you mentioned, but they were already in the village before we arrived yesterday." Emon's expression was solemn.
Anser lowered his gaze slightly. Among those people from Amn, there were certainly some of an evil alignment. He worried that they harbored ill intent, but since the other party had arrived so much earlier, it was impossible that they had come specifically to block them.
After all, even he himself had not known he would come here today.
"Do the numbers match the footprints?" Anser looked toward Finn.
Finn shook his head. "Hard to say. Many of the traces were destroyed by the heavy rain."
"Could they be smugglers?" Bratt guessed
Smuggling around the Cloakwood and the Skarn Rock near the river mouth had been rampant for an unknown number of years, almost an open secret.
"It's possible," Emon said with a heavy expression. "As long as they don't come to provoke us, we'll just pretend we didn't see anything."
He had to be responsible for the brothers of the Stonemasons' Guild and did not want to stir up trouble.
Anser smiled, inwardly disagreeing, but it was not easy to say much more.
The continent of Faerûn had never truly been peaceful. Divine authority, faith, politics, magic, races, survival, planes, desire, money… contradictions and oppositions were incomparably intense.
Harmony was temporary; conflict was the dominant tone.
The Goddess of Magic was both "well-behaved" and a homebody, yet when had disasters and conspiracies ever spared her?
Even if you do not go looking for trouble, others will come looking for you. A mere dislike can be enough for someone to draw a blade and strike, let alone when you may unknowingly get in someone else's way.
...
As evening fell, everyone was exhausted, and Anser and the others decided to stay the night.
They chose an open patch of ground on the west side of the camp to set up their tents, and Emon also sent people to help.
By the time they finished, two campfires had already been set up in the camp. Over one hung a large iron pot, bubbling as it boiled a thin rice gruel that looked rather bland.
Over the other campfire, more than a dozen foot-long strange fish were being grilled side by side, with some long loaves of bread piled nearby.
Emon invited them to sit at a crude wooden table, looking somewhat embarrassed. "None of us really have much experience surviving in the wild. We only managed to catch a few fish."
Anser caught sight of the holes in the fish bodies and silently chuckled.
They had clearly been speared onto the sticks—typical bravado from a hopeless angler.
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