Merchants

	Narvinda was a bustling trade city, merchants from every corner of the world met at this hub to do business. To the north of the city was the wide blue sea, every day fleets of ships came to the harbor to unload their cargos of ivory and spice. To her south was a long mountain range that ran parallel to the shoreline. There mountains helped keep the city safe from hostile invaders, however the downside of them was that they made life difficult for the traders who could not afford a boat and needed to navigate the perilous cliffs on foot.

	Jake Wimble had just figured this out. He was a simple goods peddler and could afford no boat to take him swiftly and safely into Narvinda’s port. He was still green at his trade, but he possessed a silver tongue and a friendly demeanor that helped him win over potential customers. He could also out haggle a stingy old crow who wouldn't let a beggar root through her trash for free. He was riding a cart drawn by a single packhorse. The bed of the cart was filled with his goods, all from exotic cities he had stopped by on his three month trip. He had fine wine from the hilly country on the coast of the sea, supple silk from distant countries over the mountains in the east, and beautiful gold jewelry from the desert lands across the sea. It was all worth quite a bit of money, however most of his profits would go to paying of the loans he took to finance the trip. Jake was only two days worth of riding from the city, but things had suddenly turned for the worse.

	He had spotted three horsemen tailing him since the morning. They had been trying to avoid being seen, but they were sloppy at it. Jake caught glimpses of them rounding bends or hanging around the tree line on long open stretches of the road. They always managed to stay far enough behind him so he could not see any details of the riders, and they never closed up on his slow-moving cart. Jake felt sick to his stomach. He knew he was about to get robbed, but the anticipation was killing him. Feeling faint he hunched over and stared at the ground. This, however, only brought him more bad news. In the mud were two fresh pairs of horse tracks. While he was no tracker, Jake could tell that these two horses were moving fast by the depth of the prints they had left. Somewhere ahead two more horsemen would be waiting for him to catch up, someplace quiet and out of the way were they could hide the cart. Then the three behind him would gallop up and it would be over. Jake clutched the horse's reins till his knuckles turned white. For a brief moment Jake felt that his panic might overtake him, but he was eventually able to fight it off. He felt that getting his mind of grim thoughts would probably be for the best at the moment, so he reached for his map. He unrolled it and found his location. He looked at his path ahead and paused. There on the map was what he needed the most right now, hope.

	A short ways ahead from where he was now a river cut across the road. There was no bridge, but instead a shallow ford. the road continues west to Narvinda after the ford, but on the opposite bank was a small trail that follows the river south to the other side of the mountains. Jake looked up at the sun. Good, it was a few hours till dark. He urged his horse faster, he would need all the time he could get. He would slip past the horsemen in the dark.

	By the time Jake got to the ford the sun was already halfway down the sky. Jake jumped of his cart and began to set up camp. he tied his horse to a nearby tree and began to clear the ground for a fire. He began to move rocks into a circle so the flames would not spread and began setting sticks upright in a teepee fashion inside the circle. Happy with his, he unhooked a bad from the side of the cart and opened it. Inside was a large wadding of tinder. he stuffed a generous amount inside the teepee and left a small clump of it at his feet. Next he took out a hunk of flint from the bag. He reached under his coat and drew his messer form it’ scabbard. The messer is a sword that is desperately trying to masquerade as a knife. Nobody's buying it however. It was a legal loophole of a weapon, the size of a small sword, however its tang is bolted onto the grip instead of being held in place by a pommel. This obviously makes it a knife, and therefore legal. Jake was not a fighter, and he had never had to use his weapon before in hate, but that does not mean he did not put it to good use. He used it as a multitool for just about any occasion, and tonight he used it to strike the flint to shower the tinder in sparks. When the embers caught hold of the tinder, he put it inside of the teepee with the rest and soon he had a jolly little fire burning. To any prying eyes it looked like he had just made camp.

	Jake spent the final twilight hours greasing up the axils and the wheels of his cart. No stray squeak or creek could be allowed to betray his plans for tonight. He watched the sky darken and waited. He felt like he had remained still for hours. He made sure that the fire would still burn for some time, but not give off enough light for his pursuers to see him leave. He got up and untied his horse, stroking her to calm her down and prevent her from making any winnies or grunts. The greased wheels were quite as he entered the ford. He came out on the other side and still nothing could be heard except the normal noises of the night. He turned his cart onto the path and drove onwards for a short distance until he could no longer see the main road. He then dismounted and covered his tracks the best he could before going back down to the ford. To complete his escape he took the lid off a barrel and rolled two struts into the soft mud. It now looked to all the world like he had awoken early in the morning and crossed the ford. The thugs would not realize his treachery until they bumped into the rest of their gang somewhere up ahead. It might not buy him a lot of time, but every minute counted now. He ran back to his cart and drove off south, quite pleased with his handywork.

	It was now midday, Jake's thoughts were dominated by just how long of a lead he really had on the brigands. What if they watched him leave last night and had continued following him? What if the ambush spot was a few minutes past the ford, and they were now hot on his trail? He knew such thoughts were bad for his moral, so he pushed them aside and concentrated on the map. It had unfortunately ran out of good news as well. This detour would take an extra seven days onto his journey. The path followed the river for about a half day’s drive then vered off to the southwest into a wide valley. He would then have to follow this valley past Narvinda before he would be able to take a path onto the main road again. Just his luck. He continued onward for another hour before he noticed that the path was beginning to come around the foothills of the mountains and curve south west. His eyes flicked back to the map to confirm his location. Around the next bend he should be coming into the vally.

	Suddenly a flock of birds took to the air far behind him, cawing excitedly as they went. Sound can travel far in the mountains, but he knew with even the most optimistic of measurements his pursuers could not be far behind. And if the birds were any warning they had thrown caution to the wind and were now racing towards him. He grimaced and urged his horse onwards, however a one horse cart can only go so fast. It was not long before the echos of horseshoes could be heard behind him. Jake pulled the messer out from under his coat and jammed it into the wood of his seat, close at hand. He had almost rounded the final corner to the valley. He was sweating up a storm and his teeth were clenched so tight he could break rocks in them. He rounded a corner and gazed in disbelief at the state of the valley before him.

	The whole valley was dark, like a thunderstorm in the evening. The air felt electrified. Strange flora grew up from the ground in stark contradiction to the plants outside the valley. Jake had never seen anything like this. His gut told him to turn around, that this was not the place to be. His brain argued that a worse place to be was tied up on an archery range in some cave. His horse slowed down and tried to stop, but it received a sharp whip from jake for it’s actions that forced it to go on deeper into the zone. Jake now realized what he had just walked into.

	“A...a demon realm.” He had heard of these places. Land totally overrun with monsters to the point where their vile energy seeps in the soil and the air until the whole province becomes a haven for debauchery. And he continued to press deeper into this land. Behind him his pursuers rounded the bend and skidded to a halt, unsure of weather to continue to pursue their prey or cut the loss and return to the main road. The five horsemen watched him go deeper into the zone like sentinels, their gaze pushing him onward and preventing him from turning back out of the hell he had just rode into.