Season 1: Chapter 88: Meeting

Chapter: Gathering the Unwanted

Location: Dwarven Mist Village – The Steamforge Library

The library beneath the stone hall was dim, warmed by glowing glyph-lamps and the gentle steam pipes that hissed like soft breathing through the floor. The shelves were stacked with timeworn tomes, old maps, dwarven logs, and scrolls bound with copper wire. A round table sat at the center of the chamber, carved from a single slab of obsidian and veined with magma-gold.

Riven Blackstone stood at the head of it, his yellow wooly hat slightly tilted as usual, eyes sharp and tone crisp.

"I hereby call this meeting of the Traveler Assembly to order," he began. "We need numbers. Soldiers. Eyes. Builders. Hearts that don't belong to the system anymore. You know what that means."

He tapped the table with two fingers. "We start with the unemployed teenagers. The ones left behind. The ones no one's watching."

Around the table, the team sat in various degrees of comfort and attention:

Oliver Woods, mask still on, hands folded.

Fern, quiet, already reading a dossier.

Nico, fox tail swaying impatiently as he leaned back.

Aurelia Dawnmere, her pale hair tied into a braid, golden armor slightly dulled from travel.

Cylde, fiddling with his hat nervously.

Basil, calm, sitting cross-legged on a mossed cushion.

Garrick Ironhart, arms crossed, leaning back with a grunt.

Goldie, lounging on top of a bookshelf, her cat tail lazily flicking, sipping from a bottle of soda.

Zack, standing in the far corner like a ghost, arms folded, watching everything with a distant look.

---

Riven spoke first:

"We need entry points. Cities. Hubs. The places where kids vanish without anyone blinking."

He looked at Goldie. "Where's the highest concentration?"

Goldie's voice was sing-song, bored but precise:

"Three spots. South Bastion's slums, the Wyrm Market underground in Vireholt, and the orphan district near the Glinthold wall. All have rising crime, missing persons, zero adult oversight. Perfect nesting grounds for 'unwanted people.'"

Oliver leaned forward. "We'll need cover identities. If we walk in armed, we'll look like recruiters or cultists. What would work best?"

Fern answered, eyes still on the paper:

"Medic caravans. Or food distributors. Offer something small. Trust builds through necessity."

Nico nodded. "Teenagers don't want lectures. They want something to eat. A place to sleep. Someone who listens."

Aurelia, her tone thoughtful, added, "Some won't come willingly. Many won't trust a thing we say. We need proof. Word of mouth, rumors, someone they know to vouch."

Riven turned to Cylde and Basil.

"You two have talents. Can either of you leave a mark? Something that draws attention but doesn't scream 'magic cult?'"

Basil gave a dry chuckle. "A forest bloom in the middle of a concrete street might do it. Subtle, quiet. Impossible to ignore."

Cylde raised a hand slowly. "I can… bend local perception. Make something seem… warmer. Safer. Might make them more likely to approach us."

Garrick, finally, growled from his seat, "And what happens when they do? We gonna train them all here? Feed them? Build enough beds?"

Riven nodded. "One step at a time."

Then came the core questions:

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Key Planning Questions Discussed

1. Where do we look?

Goldie: "Slums. Orphan quarters. Abandoned metro lines. Burned churches. Places we would've ended up."

Zack (finally speaking from the corner): "Also taverns with no curfews. Graveyards with fresh graffiti. Look for color where everything else is gray."

2. Who do we target?

Ages 13 to 19.

No guild record. No family tag. Former child laborers. Runaways.

Rebellious students, expelled alchemy apprentices, magic-sensitive youth with no formal training.

3. What do we offer?

Safety. Food. Shelter. A name that doesn't belong to the cities.

Basic training in magic, healing, crafting, or survival.

Belonging. A place where flaws are strengths.

4. How do we convince them?

Not through authority.

Use people like Nico, Goldie, or Cylde—unorthodox, strange, charming.

Let them ask the questions. Offer honest answers. Don't sugarcoat.

Present it as a choice, not a command.

5. How do we move them?

Hidden caravans. River boats with glamor runes.

Fake cargo permits written by Aurelia and Oliver.

"Healing shelters" as a front, run by Fern and Basil.

6. When do we start?

Riven: "In three days. Small teams. First to South Bastion."

---

As the discussion wound down, steam hissed behind them from the wall pipe, signaling the shift in water pressure.

Garrick stood up, wiping his hands on a cloth. "Water line's stable now. Draws directly from Goldie's lake. Should keep the village running."

"Then we can focus on society," Oliver said coldly. "The harder battlefield."

Cylde flinched. "You mean we actually have to walk into the cities now?"

Zack smirked. "Try not to faint."

---

Fern finally stood, tucking the scroll away. "Three days. That's all the forest needs to expand its eyes. We'll be ready."

Riven, calm but sharp, looked around the room.

"No one's going to fight for a world that doesn't want them.

So we give them a new one. Brick by brick. Branch by branch.

And it starts with the ones everyone else forgot."

The meeting was adjourned.

The Travelers' campaign had officially begun.

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Chapter: The Rise of the Travelers

The Lux Star hung high above the sky—brilliant, golden, steady. Its warm light spilled down over the landscape, piercing through the thick canopy of the new forest and casting long shadows across the carved stone roads of the outskirts.

The forest whispered behind them.

The dwarven mist village steamed gently in the distance.

And in a clearing just beyond the newly sprouted trees, Riven Blackstone stood elevated on a rune-inscribed platform of smoothed stone, the yellow wooly hat on his head catching the sunlight like a flame. His black clothes were neat, minimal—serious. His voice, amplified by a soft whisper spell, carried clearly through the trees and wind.

In front of him gathered the blue-ranked groups—independent guilds, fringe fighters, scavenger cells, urban survival crews, and ex-guild wanderers. Dozens of them. Humans and demi-humans alike. Young faces and weathered ones. Each wore different gear, different colors, different scars—but all listened with furrowed brows and narrowed eyes.

Phones were out—glow-screen devices recording, translating, or broadcasting.

Some stood in silence.

Others whispered between themselves.

A few had already posted on public boards, tagging the phrase "#TravelerCall" across the net.

Riven raised a hand.

"You all know me. Or you've heard of me. You've seen the ruins we walked through, the contracts we refused, the wars we didn't fight in. I'm not here to make you kneel."

A pause.

"I'm here to tell you that there's a movement growing. One not backed by kingdoms, guilds, or council coins. A movement built by the people who were thrown out. The ones too loud. Too different. Too broken."

He swept a hand across the crowd.

"I call them Travelers. And if you're here? You're already part of it."

Someone in the crowd—an elf girl with mirrored goggles—raised a hand. "What exactly is this? A rebellion? A cult?"

Riven smirked. "No robes. No worship. No statues. Just a path forward. A way to walk together when the world tells us we don't belong. We'll train. We'll build. And when the land beast comes in August—we'll be ready."

A demi-human boy with ram horns crossed his arms. "And what do we get out of it?"

"Everything," Riven said. "A name. A place. A purpose. The right to write your own ending."

Another voice—older, skeptical—shouted, "Where's your funding?"

Goldie, tail swishing behind her, shouted from the side, lounging atop a box of recording tech: "We got a lake. We got druids. We got engineers, rogue assassins, and an information network that reaches every gutter in five cities. You want coin? We'll make coin. You want food? We'll grow it."

Cylde sat awkwardly to the side, trying not to panic as someone pointed their camera at him.

Fern stood silently among the crowd, blending in, her druidic aura calming nearby animals.

Oliver watched from the edge, unmoving, hands tucked inside his cloak.

Nico leaned on a tree trunk, arms folded, ears flicking every so often in amusement.

Aurelia and Garrick kept guard on the flanks, surveying the crowd—ready for any shift in tone.

And in the shadows—Zack Erebus stood on a high branch, unseen by most, watching. Listening. Ensuring.

Riven finished:

"I'm not asking for oaths. I'm not asking for blood. I'm asking you to consider a future that doesn't wait for permission. A new banner. No guild ranks. Just movement. Forward. With us."

Silence followed for a long moment.

Then—

Hands raised.

Questions flowed.

People stepped forward, one by one.

Some signed their names. Others recorded the message to share later. A few walked away—but fewer than expected.

The first wave of Travelers was forming.

Under the light of the Lux Star, the campaign had officially begun.