The rain had stopped by morning, but the air still clung to their skin like a wet blanket.

  Karl stood at the edge of the makeshift camp, watching the fog curl around the trees. He hadn’t slept. No one really had. The silence was heavy, broken only by the occasional nervous cough or the creak of wet leather.

  Then came the low rattle of wheels.

  Tanir arrived with three carts.

  One was stacked with wooden crates, another filled with sacks of grain and barrels marked “vinegar.” The last was half-covered in canvas, filled with nothing at all.

  Flanking the carts were five of Tanir’s men—grizzled, quiet, dangerous. None of them spoke unless spoken to.

  Tanir swung off his horse and looked around.

  “We leave in twenty,” he said.

  ---

  The players gathered quickly. Karl organized them into groups. The new ones still looked wide-eyed. Some had never even ridden in a cart before. Others looked thrilled—like this was all just part of some high-stakes roleplaying event.

  “You five, into the vinegar cart,” Karl ordered. “You’ll smell like hell, but no one will check.”

  “You three, bottom of the grain sacks. Don’t move.”

  “The rest—under the canvas. Try to breathe quiet.”

  The players obeyed, mostly.

  One of them whispered, “It’s just like that one stealth mission. God, I love this game.”

  Another muttered, “If I fart in that cart, it’s your funeral.”

  ---

  Karl rode with Tanir in the lead cart.

  They moved at a steady pace, sticking to the lesser roads—those winding forest lanes that had once been trade routes, now only used by smugglers and deer. Tanir handled the reins with the easy confidence of someone who’d spent half his life skirting the law.

  “You trust them?” Tanir asked as they rode.

  “No,” Karl replied honestly. “But they follow me.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Tanir snorted. “For now.”

  ---

  Midway through the second hour, they reached a checkpoint.

  Two bored-looking imperial conscripts stood beside a barricade of logs and rusting spears. One was smoking a crooked pipe. The other scratched at his neck with the butt of a dagger.

  Tanir pulled up and hopped off the wagon with practiced nonchalance.

  “Morning, gentlemen.”

  “Papers,” one of them said, barely glancing up.

  “Of course,” Tanir replied, handing over a sealed scroll.

  The guard unfurled it, squinted, then grunted. “Merchant?”

  “Flavored vinegar, smoked fish, dried roots. I’ve got five crates bound for Easthold.”

  “You got anything worth checking?”

  “Not unless you want your eyes to sting.”

  The conscript snorted. “Move on.”

  And just like that—they passed through.

  ---

  Inside the canvas cart, one player let out a long-held breath.

  “I almost sneezed.”

  “Shut up,” someone hissed.

  “I’m just saying, if I died to my own allergies I’d never forgive myself.”

  “Do you even have allergies in this world?”

  “...I don’t know.”

  ---

  By late afternoon, the forest thinned.

  They crested a hill, and on the other side, nestled between two ridges like a bruise in the land, sat a town.

  Not a city. Not even a proper village.

  Just a sprawl of low buildings, rotting fences, and flickering torches.

  The smoke of wood fires drifted lazily into the air. Chickens ran through alleyways. A man in bloodstained trousers urinated against a wall without shame.

  And above the crude gates, a painted sign:

  **Vinter’s Hollow**

  ---

  Tanir pulled them to a stop just beyond a crooked bridge.

  “We’ll rest here tonight,” he said. “Try not to get stabbed.”

  Karl frowned. “What is this place?”

  “Three words,” Tanir said, dismounting. “No. One. Cares.”

  He gestured toward the buildings.

  “Thieves, deserters, smugglers, whores. If someone doesn’t belong in either kingdom, odds are they pass through here.”

  One of the players perked up. “Did you say whores?”

  Another elbowed him. “Dude.”

  “What? It’s an immersive setting!”

  Karl groaned.

  ---

  The players climbed out of their hiding spots, stretching and grumbling.

  Tanir’s men began to unpack the carts, making it look like a regular merchant stop. Crates were unloaded, fires lit. A few locals drifted closer—drawn by the scent of foreign goods and the promise of trade.

  Karl kept his hood low.

  He didn’t trust this place.

  And for good reason.

  A man with a missing ear and two knives eyed them from across the road. A group of children chased a dog with a severed tail. Laughter came from a nearby shed—followed by a scream, then more laughter.

  ---

  “This is a mistake,” Karl muttered.

  Tanir heard him.

  “Welcome to the real world,” he said. “Where the rules don’t apply.”

  “I thought you were taking us straight to the border.”

  “We’re there,” Tanir said. “This town’s in the gray. Neither the Empire nor Thalgrenn claims it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because no one wants it.”

  ---

  They made camp in a crumbling stable.

  Hay was dragged in from the loft. Blankets spread over uneven floorboards. Players took shifts guarding the carts.

  Some wandered the alleys, wide-eyed and curious.

  Others kept to the fire, muttering about “XP farming” and “side quests.”

  Karl sat near the entrance, arms crossed, sword close.

  Tanir leaned beside him, chewing a strip of dried meat.

  “You really think you can win back a kingdom?”

  Karl didn’t answer.

  “I hope you can,” Tanir said. “Because if you fail, it’s gonna be one hell of a story.”

  ---

  And out beyond the hollow, the wind howled through the pass.

  The stars blinked overhead.

  Tomorrow, they would cross into Thalgrenn proper.

  But tonight, they rested in the land of no flags.