Fort Spoas was a town overlooking a steep cliff over a river. With a steep hill on the west side and the desert to the north, all it really needed was a good wall to the south to form a formidably defensible position.
As they were coming in for a landing on the desert side of the fort, the passengers gathered near the exit ramp, and one Iron Legionnaire spoke. "Tan, are you a settler?"
The archer from the Empire spoke. "No. I am an adventurer."
"But you are planning to stay here, on the Frontier, are you not?"
Tan coughed. "I have nowhere else to go. I cannot return."
"Whatever the reasons for you to be here, the Iron Legion would like to hire you as an informant. We need agents to be our eyes and ears here on the Frontier."
"What interest does the Iron Legion have in this place?" Tan asked.
"Opportunity. Just like you."
"I'll do it." Remian offered. "I'll be your informant. It is a paid job, isn't it?"
"It is." The legionnaire confirmed. "But looking at you… you're not likely to survive longer than a day or two. We need someone tough, someone who can last at least a year to write us regular reports."
"Give him the job. I can't write." Tan said.
"I can write. I can read too. No problem." Remian spoke up.
"You can't even leave town, or you'd be squashed underfoot by the first Wild you come across!" the legionnaire snorted. "We need strong agents."
"How about this. He can be your agent, and I can assist him." Remia offered. "He can tell me what to write, and I'll write the reports for him."
"Adjutant to an agent, eh?" the legionnaire considered for a bit, then nodded. "Very well. We can use an extra pair of eyes. But Tan, you have to replace your secretary as soon as he dies."
"Whatever." Tan rolled his eyes and marched off as soon as the exit ramp connected. He didn't even say a word to Remian or anything.
The legionnaire quietly handed Remian an iron token. "Stamp it onto every communiqué, so we know you are an official agent. We will establish a small camp here; bring all reports to the camp quartermaster, whoever he may be. He will handle the rest."
"That will be me, to begin with." One of the other legionnaires spoke up. He turned to Remia, sharp blue eyes under curly black hair framing a square face. "I am Maximus Flavius, legionnaire of the Fifth Legion, Third Century. Black sheep of the family. Just call me 'Max'."
"Black sheep?" Remian blinked.
"My family doesn't like me because my hair isn't golden." Max laughed, but it was a forced laugh. "I am seen as a disgrace to the family name. That is why I am in the Legion."
"You could always dye your hair color. Or use magic." His colleague snorted.
"Then that would be a disgrace to my true self. I would rather disgrace others than myself."
"For Jupiter's sake, it's just hair color!" his colleague turned to their leader. "Markus, tell him!"
"He makes his own decisions, as does every man." Markus said without turning.
With that, the three legionnaires also disembarked. Alone now on deck, Remian gave the airship that brought him to the Frontier one last look, then hefted his backpack and stepped down the ramp.
Meanwhile, the crew of the airship were busy unloading the airship's real cargo, crate after crate being slid down a lower exit ramp and collected from the desert sand bordering the town. Remia eyed the symbols on the boxes. Most of it came from the Seven Kingdoms, like the airship. They seemed to be luxury goods and weapons.
For a captain to fly an airship all the way here with as few as six passengers at the end… the profit made by that cargo had to be formidable. Either that, or the cargo he was taking back from here was worth all the cost and effort.
Coming from the opposite direction, people from the town were bringing crates to load onto the airship. Piled up and guarded by three different groups on the sparse grass growth between the sands and the town, they bore symbols that Remia couldn't recognize. One looked like a bird. One looked like a claw. The third one looked like weird squiggly lines.
Meanwhile, two other groups gathered nearby almost casually. They did not make a move, but the fact that they were there in numbers made Remian worried. All of them were armed, some of them with weapons no better than sticks with nails stuck into them.
Five different armed groups? Who were they? Why were they all standing around the airship ramp looking at each other menacingly?
The airship crews arrived and met with the groups. Trading commenced, crates and money exchanging hands. The entire time, the non-trading members of each group fingered their weapons nervously, prepared to draw weapons and spill blood at the drop of a hat. The whole thing was a tense, volatile affair.
Thankfully, nobody dropped any hats. The airship crews took their coin and their new crates, loaded up on the airship, and left.
Like an idiot, Remian stood there watching the whole thing.
A sandy haired boy came up to him from one of the groups. "You! Who are you?"
Who, indeed? Lacking any other sort of identification, Remian wordlessly held out the token in his hand.
"Iron Legion?" the sandy haired boy looked back to his leader, who shook his head dismissively and gestured for his return. They left Remian alone.
Not so the others. As the groups left, nervously, one by one, the last one hesitated, then sent one blocky guy over. "Hey. You wanna join our gang?"
"Your gang?" Remian blinked.
"The Blood Claw!" he said, a bit proudly. "We do right by each other, and we bring back good hauls from our hunts. We just happen to have a bit of room for new hands right now."
"Really? What happened to your old members?" Remian asked.
At that, the blocky guy's face soured. Saying no more, he turned away and marched off with his friends.
Remian grimaced. Whatever happened to their friends for these guys to come back with 'good hauls' to sell today, it couldn't have been good.
He walked into town proper, made it past the first street into the town square and promptly collapsed.
***
When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking up at a high ceiling of thick wooden beams.
"Where am I?" Remian tried to sit up, only to find his muscles aching, his head spinning, and his lungs burning. "What happened?"
"I have no idea. We found you in the town square, completely naked." The person who came over to greet him was the priest he met on the airship. "It looks like you've been mugged."
"Mugged?" Remian closed his eyes. "No. I may have been robbed, but I was not attacked. I think I might have passed out from exhaustion."
He should have expected it, after such a long flight. Even though he managed to get some sleep, he had been a lot more tired than he realized. His body had always been weak. To get this far on his own was already difficult enough. Trying to explore the town after a long flight like that without any food or rest…
Speaking of food. "I'm hungry. I don't suppose…?"
"Here." The priest handed him a bowl of hot soup. "It's not much, but it's what we have."
"Thank you." Remian took a deep gulp, feeling the heat and the soup fill him. "Ahhh…"
"I have a spare shirt…" the priest went on.
"Stop. Why are you giving him everything? We already have so little to begin with!" a thin, sharp-nosed nun appeared beside the priest, a hand on his arm.
"It is the way of our Lord to help those in need."
"But that's your dinner, and your last shirt!" she gasped.
Remian froze. He looked at the bowl in his hands and the shirt in the priest's. "Really?"
"I'm already wearing a shirt. I need only wash it." The priest said, opening his robe a little. He was indeed wearing a shirt under it. "The sacred text is clear. He who has two shirts, give to him who has none."
"You won't survive for long here with that mindset." Remian grimaced.
Beside them, the nun nodded furiously.
"But I'll take it." Remian accepted the shirt. "One day, I will repay this kindness tenfold. One day soon. Until then, you must survive. I have few friends here as it is. I don't want to lose one."
"You have friends here?" the nun perked up, suddenly brightening.
"I am an agent of the Iron Legion." Remian grimaced. "Or rather, a clerk for an agent. I would show you my token, but…"
"You mean this token?" the priest held it up. "We found it beside you. Whoever robbed you didn't think to keep it."
"Perhaps even robbers have a sliver of kindness." Remian suggested.
"Or they simply dared not take it." The nun added with a sniff.
Remian had to admit, the nun was most likely right. Robbing an unconscious man of his gear and clothes was one thing. Stealing a token of the Iron Legion and impersonating an officer, or even a clerk, was a whole different story.
"So… being a secretary to an agent of a Legion that has hardly any presence here… how do you plan to pay us back tenfold?" the nun asked pointedly.
"By starting a business." The idea had taken root two weeks back, but the details of it remained a bit fuzzy. "But at the very least, I hope to return this shirt by tomorrow."
"A business, you say? What sort of business? How will you start it?" the priest asked.
Remian hesitated. "The basis of a good business is to profit by fulfilling needs. The more needs, the better fulfilled, the more easily one can turn a profit and the less trouble one would face. At first, I thought to go into trading, but it seems the airship captain has already gotten to that directly. Security would fulfill the most needs, but I couldn't provide that to save my own life. At this point, I'm thinking either an inn, a tavern, or a board."
"A board?" the nun blinked. "How can anybody run a business by opening a board?"
"That depends on the board." Remian grinned. "And the people here."
"And then what?" she asked.
"Then I take over the town." Remian shrugged. "And start to build my own kingdom."
The nun took off her slipper and threw it at him. "Nonsense!"
She stalked off with a sniff, muttering under her breath about little boys making fun of her.
Then she came back to retrieve her slipper.