The caravan arrived with the mid-morning sun, three wagons rolling into Millbrook’s square with the weary creak of seasoned wood and leather. Elias stood at the edge, his new pack a unfamiliar weight against his spine, the short sword at his hip feeling more like a borrowed tool than a part of him. For the last hour, he’d been moving through a fog of handshakes and murmured blessings from neighbours whose faces were as familiar as his own.

  “That’s them,” his father said, nodding toward the wagons.

  “Yeah.” Elias’s stomach was a tight knot of too many feelings to name.

  A woman swung down from the lead wagon’s seat with the easy grace of someone born to motion. She was perhaps forty, her skin tanned to leather by sun and wind, her dark hair bound in a thick, practical braid. She assessed the square with a single sweeping glance. “Morning, Millbrook! Caravan Master Della. Silvercrest-bound, pulling out within the hour. Passengers, make yourselves known!”

  Elias raised a hand. She spotted him immediately and strode over, her boots kicking up little puffs of dust. Her eyes catalogued his gear—the new pack, the plain sword, the determined set of his shoulders.

  “You’re the Scout,” she stated.

  “Elias Thorne. Awakened a few days back.”

  “Fresh.” She said it like a fact, not an insult. “Fee’s paid to the Elder?”

  “Five silver, yes ma’am.”

  “Good. You’re in the third wagon with the other two. A merchant and a woman visiting family.” Her gaze shifted to his parents and Lily. “Your people?”

  He nodded.

  “Say your piece. We load up, then we roll. Be ready when I call.” She offered a brief, polite nod to Marcus and Anna before turning back to her work.

  “She seems… capable,” Lily offered.

  “Capable is what keeps caravans alive,” Marcus said. He turned to Elias, his expression unreadable. “Last chance to stay.”

  “I’m going.”

  “Figured.” Marcus pulled him into a brief, fierce hug. “Trust your gut. There’s no cowardice in a strategic retreat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Anna’s embrace was longer, a storm of lavender and heartache. “Oh, my boy,” she whispered into his shoulder, her voice thick. “When did you get so tall?”

  “Ma—”

  “I know, I know. You’re a man now, with a class and a sword.” She pulled back, her hands framing his face, her thumbs brushing his cheeks. “But you’ll always be my first babe. You write. You hear me? Every week.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “Eat proper meals. Not just hardtack.”

  “I will.”

  “And find a decent inn, not some rat-hole where they’ll slit your purse strings—”

  “Anna,” Marcus said softly. “He’s got a head on his shoulders.”

  “I know he does! That’s why I’m allowed to fret!” She dragged Elias into another crushing hug.

  Lily had been hanging back, uncharacteristically still. When Anna finally let go, she stepped forward.

  “So,” she said, and her voice was too high, too bright. “You’re off.”

  “I’m off.”

  “Really, truly.”

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  “Really, truly.”

  For a suspended moment, they just looked at each other—the big brother who’d taught her to climb trees, the little sister who’d followed him everywhere. Then she launched herself at him, her arms wrapping tight around his middle, her face pressed into his tunic.

  “I’ll miss you something awful,” she mumbled, the words muffled.

  “I’ll miss you too.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “I’ll write so much you’ll get sick of my letters.”

  “Even the boring parts?”

  “Especially the boring parts.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  She pulled back, scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “You better. And when I’m a proper Mage, I’m coming to find you. We’ll have the best adventures.”

  “Deal.”

  “Passengers up!” Della’s voice cut through the square. “We move now!”

  This was it.

  Elias hoisted his pack, took one last look at his family—his father standing solid, his mother weeping openly, Lily trying valiantly not to—and walked to the third wagon.

  Two others were already there. A stout man in a fine, if dusty, wool tunic was wrestling with a large leather bag. A woman in sensible travelling clothes gave Elias a nod.

  “First time leaving the nest?” the woman asked, a kind smile on her face.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “It’s the look. Half terror, half wonder. I’m Teresa. Off to see my sister in Silvercrest.”

  “Elias. Going to… become an adventurer, I suppose.”

  The merchant snorted. “Another dreamer. The Guild will chew you up and spit you out, lad.”

  “Herman, be kind,” Teresa chided. “We were all green once.”

  “I was never that green,” Herman grumbled, but he extended a hand. “Herman Wickes. Textiles. And I’m not being cruel, just honest. It’s a hard life.”

  “I know,” Elias said, climbing into the wagon bed. “I’m going anyway.”

  The wagon was half-full with trade goods, leaving just enough room on the side benches. Elias took a seat and looked back.

  His family hadn’t moved.

  “All right, folks!” Della called from the lead wagon. “Silvercrest by way of the Riverside! Let’s move!”

  A lurch, a groan of axles, and they were rolling.

  Elias watched as the square slid away—his mother waving, his father’s hand raised in a still farewell, Lily jumping and waving both arms. He saw the roof of his home, the familiar lanes, the fields that held his childhood, all shrinking, becoming a picture, then a memory framed by trees.

  Then the road curved, and Millbrook vanished.

  He turned to face forward, his heart a drum in his chest. The road ahead was a wide, pale ribbon, cutting through farmland that gradually grew wilder, rising toward distant, forested hills.

  He had never been this far from home.

  The world was unfolding in front of him, vast and unknown.

  “The first time is the hardest,” Teresa said quietly beside him.

  “Yeah,” he managed.

  “It gets easier. The newness helps.” She smiled. “Where will you start? The Guild?”

  “That’s the plan. Easy quests. Work my way up.”

  “Smart. Your class?”

  “Scout. Level 1.”

  “Scout’s a good start,” Herman chimed in, apparently deciding on pragmatism over pessimism. “Plenty of gathering work. Low risk, decent pay for a beginner. You won’t die rich, but you’ll die old.”

  “That’s… comforting?”

  Herman barked a laugh. “In this business, ‘old’ is the highest compliment. Remember it.”

  They talked of other things then—Herman’s complaints about tariffs, Teresa’s new niece, the unseasonable dry spell. Elias listened with half an ear. His full attention was on the world passing by.

  Fields gave way to open pasture, then to scrubland dotted with copses of trees. They passed other travellers: a farmer with a cart of turnips, a messenger on a lathered horse, a grim-faced party of adventurers heading the other way, their armour dented, their silence heavy.

  Elias activated [Keen Eye] without thinking, hungry for detail.

  “You’re using a skill,” Teresa observed.

  He blinked, letting it fade. “Sorry, is it—”

  “Not rude. Just noticeable. Your eyes go… distant. Scout skill?”

  “[Keen Eye]. It sharpens things.”

  “Useful. Practice it. Skills are like muscles.”

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  “Because it’s true,” Herman said. “My [Appraise Goods] is Level 34. Took fifteen years of looking at bad lace and worse pottery. Use it or lose it.”

  Elias called the skill back, this time with intention. He studied the wagon ruts, the flight of a hawk, the tell-tale shiver in a bush that betrayed a rabbit. His [Basic Tracking] hummed, a new sense trying to make meaning from the signs. He could see the tracks, but their story—age, speed, intent—was still a language he couldn’t read.

  After an hour, the familiar pressure built behind his eyes. After ninety minutes, he let the skill go.

  Progress. The limit was being pushed. Level 1 was a foundation, not a ceiling.

  ---

  They stopped for lunch by a chattering stream. Della had a small pot going over a fire almost before the wagons fully halted. Elias found himself moving to help without thinking.

  “You cook?” Della asked, not looking up from stoking the flames.

  “My mother’s a [Cook]. I know the basics.” He reached for his own supplies. “I have bread, some dried—”

  “Save yours. There’s enough.” She handed him a knife and a sack of carrots and onions. “Make yourself useful.”

  He activated [Basic Cooking], a skill he’d almost forgotten he owned. The knife felt right in his hand. The slices came even, efficient.

  “You’ve got the skill running,” Della noted.

  “Is it obvious?”

  “To someone who looks. What level?”

  “Twelve. It’s general, not class.”

  “Still counts. You’d be shocked how many fools burn their dinner in a dungeon because they thought cooking was beneath them.”

  The stew was simple, hearty, and delicious. The other drivers joined them—two brothers, Tom and Bill, who argued with the comfortable rhythm of long familiarity, and a quiet woman named Sara who listened more than she spoke.

  Elias ate and listened to their stories. Not epic tales, just the small sagas of the road: a broken wheel in the rain, a suspicious innkeeper, a lucky find at a crossroads market.

  “—and I told him, I can fix it!” Tom was saying, gesturing with his spoon. “Six hours we spent!”

  “And it lasted a day,” Bill countered, rolling his eyes. “I said wait for a proper wright—”

  “And pay a silver? I fixed it good enough!”

  “For a day!”

  Their bickering was a warm, familiar sound. For a moment, Elias didn’t feel so far from home.

  “Right, up and at ‘em!” Della called, dousing the fire. “Fifteen minutes. Water the horses, water yourselves. We roll.”

  ---

  The afternoon was longer than the morning. The novelty of motion wore thin, replaced by the ache of hard wood against bone. His backside went numb, then painful, then numb again.

  “First day is always the worst,” Teresa said sympathetically.

  “How long until it isn’t?”

  “A few days.”

  Elias groaned.

  Herman chuckled. “Welcome to travel, lad. It’s not all glory. It’s mostly dust and sore arses.”

  But even the discomfort couldn’t quell the thrill. Every mile was a mile further into his own life. Every hill crest revealed a new slice of the world.

  He was travelling. Truly.

  As the sun began to bleed gold and orange into the western sky, they passed a stone marker.

  “‘Silvercrest, 87 miles,’” Elias read aloud.

  “Four days more,” Della confirmed from the driver’s seat ahead. “Riverside tonight. Crossroads tomorrow. Timber Creek, then the city on the fourth evening.”

  Four days. Then the beginning would be over, and the real work would start.

  Della guided the wagons off the main road, toward a large, two-storey building of timber and stone that sat beside a wide, slow-moving river. Light and noise spilled from its windows. The Riverside Inn.

  “We’re here!” Della announced. “Rooms are five copper. Common room floor is two. Meals extra. Dawn departure.”

  Elias climbed down, his legs stiff and protesting. He stretched, looking up at the inn with a profound sense of arrival.

  His first night away from home.

  His first real step.