As he walked toward the camp, Anser's thoughts churned. He wondered who would call themselves a friend of his.
'Gwyneth, Emon...'
Maybe it was someone he actually knew. Or maybe it was just another boastful adventurer.
He didn't have many friends. The latter seemed far more likely than the former.
Walking beside him, a young adventurer silently led the way, unable to hide the uneasiness in his eyes.
What if the information turned out to be false? What if this Paladin got angry?
Paladins were good people—but that didn't necessarily mean they had good tempers.
"The meat of an Otyugh is poisonous. Don't eat it," Anser said suddenly.
The young adventurer froze for a moment before glancing back. His companions were struggling to drag the dead Otyugh behind them.
"We know," he replied without slowing his pace. "It's just... wild vegetables are getting harder to find, and no one dares go near the river anymore. People don't even have the strength to run."
Anser listened quietly.
He knew the man was saying it deliberately for his benefit, but he wasn't offended. It was only human nature.
There had been at least several hundred thousand people living around Baldur's Gate, from every race imaginable. Once disaster struck, everyone fled for their lives, and nearly everything edible along the way had already been picked clean.
The Kuo-toa had overrun the River Chionthar, devastating its ecosystem. Fish had become scarce, and the creatures frequently attacked fishermen and anyone unfortunate enough to travel alone near the water, leaving no one willing to venture into the river anymore.
The greatest danger during the escape wasn't the Underdark creatures—it was hunger and the lack of basic necessities.
Fortunately, it had all happened during July and August. The wilderness still offered wild fruit and edible plants. Otherwise, countless more people would have starved to death.
Anser intended to offer them some help before he left.
But before that, he didn't want to make any promises.
After walking another kilometer or two, a crude refugee camp came into view. Dim lights flickered in the darkness, revealing figures sleeping directly on the ground.
During a desperate flight like this, even tents had become a luxury. By this point, most people considered themselves lucky if they still had a tattered blanket.
The moment they approached, a sharp alarm bell rang out from inside the camp, jolting the sleepers awake.
Grabbing whatever weapons or wooden clubs they had within reach, roughly a hundred people gathered together. Fear filled many of their eyes, and the dark circles beneath them spoke of countless sleepless nights.
Like frightened birds at the mere twang of a bowstring.
With a click, Anser flipped open his pocket watch. It was already well past midnight.
It wasn't hard to imagine how miserable a life on the run like this must have been.
His gaze swept across the crowd.
Finding no familiar faces, he couldn't help feeling a little disappointed.
The young adventurer hurried into the camp and quietly whispered to several people, occasionally glancing toward Anser.
A moment later, a dwarf studied Anser carefully before turning and rushing into a tent. Soon afterward, he emerged, helping another dwarf with a thick red beard walk outside.
The red-bearded dwarf stood just under one and a half meters tall, clearly a mountain dwarf. But his complexion was ashen, his right arm was gone, and his iron armor was covered with sword marks and dried blood.
He pushed through the crowd and looked toward the blue-and-black-robed figure standing about fifteen meters away. His eyes lingered on the visitor's seemingly radiant skin and glowing eyes, and he momentarily lost himself in a daze.
Anser found the dwarf strangely familiar, but the drastic change in his appearance made him hesitate.
Finally, he asked cautiously, "Soradin?"
"Anser?"
The dwarf shrugged off the people supporting him and stepped forward, his face filled with confusion and disbelief.
Anser closed the distance in just a few strides. His dice spun slightly, displaying the dwarf's information.
[Soradin Ironmountain, Dwarf, Level 5 Fighter (Champion)]
He hadn't mistaken him.
The red-bearded dwarf really was Soradin, whom he had met at the Adventurers' Guild in Rivington. Back then, Soradin had been instrumental in helping him purchase such a large quantity of supplies.
He was also the one who had warned Anser to leave Rivington after the River Chionthar burst its banks.
"I'm glad you're still alive, warrior of Clan Ironmountain."
Anser placed a hand on his shoulder, and a steady stream of white Lay on Hands energy flowed into the dwarf's body.
Soradin's faintly nostalgic expression froze.
"So you really are a Paladin? How is that even possible?"
He had heard the rumors about Anser, but he'd never fully believed them. After all, he had guessed where that holy symbol of Tyr had come from.
Who would have thought...
The rumors had actually been more accurate than someone who knew part of the truth.
"It's a long story." Anser opened his dragonhide pouch, took out a bottle of ale, and handed it to him. "A moment like this deserves a drink, doesn't it?"
Soradin's eyes widened. He snatched the bottle, popped the cork open one-handed, and tilted his head back, gulping it down in great swallows. Ale ran down the corners of his mouth and soaked into his dry, tangled beard.
He drained the entire bottle in one go before finally lowering it. The light returned to his eyes.
"Haah—burp—now that's what life tastes like."
Anser smiled.
"You've been moving a little slowly. What took you so long to get here?"
"Those bastards from the Zhentarim had their eyes on me..." At the mention of them, Soradin's beard practically bristled, and his breathing grew heavy with anger.
Noticing that everyone around them was watching, Anser opened the Party Storage and tossed out several beast carcasses. They were prey he'd casually hunted on his way here.
"Looks like no one's going hungry tonight," Soradin remarked as he looked over the scorch marks covering the beasts, a thoughtful look crossing his face.
A middle-aged man beamed with delight.
"You two should catch up inside the tent. Dinner... uh, late-night supper will be ready soon."
"I want ten pounds of roasted meat!" Soradin declared grandly with a wave of his hand before pulling Anser into the tent.
The tent was crude, with almost no furnishings. It also carried a foul odor—a mixture of rot and mildew.
"So why did you come back?" He plopped down onto a blanket.
From what everyone else had described, Anser hadn't fled here with the refugees. He had deliberately returned with some other objective in mind.
"I went to Baldur's Gate to see what was happening."
"...Yeah... I guess you're just built differently..."
"..."
Anser laid out some food and more drinks, and the two ate while exchanging stories about everything that had happened to them.
Soradin's eyes grew wider and wider, his face filled with shock and disbelief.
Meanwhile, Anser also pieced together Soradin's circumstances.
Soradin claimed he had a grudge against the Zhentarim. During the evacuation, they'd targeted him. After being lured into a trap, he lost all his cargo, had one of his arms severed, and barely escaped with his life.
After that, he had no choice but to flee alongside the refugees, enduring one hardship after another. Fortunately, the Underdark creatures had begun fighting among themselves, allowing the refugees to settle here temporarily without being attacked.
None of them had recognized the Otyugh. When they saw it feeding on corpses and gradually drawing closer to the camp, they had attacked first out of self-preservation.
It turned out that ignorance could be just as dangerous.
The Otyugh had most likely been deliberately lured here by the Underdark creatures to dispose of the countless corpses around Baldur's Gate and prevent a massive plague from breaking out.
As for the Zhentarim, Anser suspected someone had been committing crimes under their name. The organization dealt in plenty of shady business, but it also cared a great deal about maintaining appearances.
Knowing full well that mountain dwarves never forgave a grudge and refused to back down, very few people willingly picked a fight with them.
Besides, whoever had attacked Soradin hadn't even managed to silence him afterward.
That level of incompetence didn't feel like the Zhentarim at all.
"The last two months have been absolute chaos. If you weren't here, it's hard to imagine what it was like..." Soradin took another drink before continuing. "Just the day before yesterday, someone claiming to be one of Talona's Chosen started a cult and lured away a lot of sick civilians..."
"Wait." Anser's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately cut him off. "Where is that Chosen now?"
"Huh?" Seeing how serious Anser had suddenly become, Soradin paused with his mug halfway to his lips, his face full of confusion. "The Chosen are actually real?"
"Yes. I've already encountered several of them. The infighting among the Underdark creatures started because Chosen began appearing."
"So that's why so many people have fallen ill..."
Talona was the goddess of disease and deadly poison, also known as the Lady of Poison and the Mistress of Plagues. She was a Chaotic Evil deity whose domain was Death.
From common illnesses to failed harvests, from contaminated wells to devastating plagues, everything was blamed on her.
Her priests were rarely seen, typically appearing only in regions ravaged by plague or in lands that had only recently emerged from war.