Chapter 177: Acceptance
Chapter 177: Acceptance
"What reasons do they use to refuse?"
"Debt disputes. Missing work contracts. False sickness. Cargo limits. Security concerns. Sometimes they simply say the stars are unfavourable and laugh."
Rohan opened his eyes. Although his frustrations continued to grow and grow the more he listened, he wasn’t surprised by this one bit. The Origin Realm was just like this, in more ways than he wished to admit.
Greed, corruption, it is everywhere there was something of value. ’I appears that this single fact holds true even across universal borders...’
"And people accept this?" He asked, though he knew there was little value in doing so. It was more just to validate his concerns.
Maerin’s gaze hardened.
"You act as if we have a choice."
Rohan exhaled slowly.
"Sorry."
"Do not apologise to me. Remember the difference."
He nodded once. That was fair — he wasn’t the one taking advantage of them, after all. That was the merchants.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Rohan processed the new shape of his prison.
Seven months until the merchant ship arrived. A planet with one human settlement. Valuable resources. Hostile environment. Exploitative trade. No local vessel. No other human civilisation nearby, at least not on-world. A Great System that gave quests and seemed intent on steering him toward knowledge.
’I guess I can kiss goodbye to entering university in the upcoming assessment...’ Rohan almost laughed that this was even a concern for him right now.
And Hestia somewhere behind all of this, having thrown him into the situation with far too little warning. ’She could have at least sent me somewhere more... hospitable.’
Perhaps if he informed her of his urgency to return in time for his university entrance assessment, she might have sent him to a more favourable location.
But knowing her, he doubted the outcome would have changed. She’d probably utter an excuse like ’I’m incapable of opening a portal to any other star system.’
"You’re a goddess who created the Great System, that oversees this whole universe! Surely you could have sent me somewhere better..." He muttered quietly to himself.
"Ouch!"
A jolt of electric shock coursed through Rohan’s body. ’Aha! So you are still watching, listening even!’
’You wanted me to learn your universe,’ Rohan thought darkly. ’Congratulations. First lesson: it’s awful.’
A new panel appeared.
[Quest Chain Unlocked: Ashbound World]
[Quest: Learn the Price of Passage]
[Objective: Discover what is required to leave Cael Athis aboard the next merchant vessel.]
[Reward: Route Toward Civilised Space]
[Penalty: None]
Rohan stared at it.
Maerin saw his focus shift and leaned forward.
"Again?"
"Yes."
"What does it say?"
Rohan hesitated.
Then decided that if he wanted answers, hoarding every detail would only slow things down.
"It says I have a quest."
Maerin’s face did not change, but the room seemed to tighten around the word.
"Quest," she repeated.
"You know the term?"
"From stories."
"Good stories or bad stories?"
"Old ones."
"That was not an answer."
"It was the answer you are getting for now."
Rohan accepted that with a grimace.
"It wants me to learn the price of passage."
Maerin’s eyes sharpened.
"Wants."
"That’s the feeling."
"From your invisible system."
"Yes."
"The one that appeared when you entered Veyrhold."
"Yes."
"And rewarded you with this conversation."
Rohan paused.
Maerin was quick.
Very quick.
"Apparently."
She leaned back slowly.
"Then either your system is clever, or something behind it is."
Rohan thought of Hestia’s calm face.
"Unfortunately, yes."
Maerin caught the tone.
"You know who made it."
"I’ve met her."
That made Maerin go still in a different way.
Not fear exactly.
Wariness sharpened by old superstition.
"Her."
"Her name is Hestia."
The air in the room changed.
Rohan noticed because Maerin stopped moving entirely.
Even the faint softness that had appeared after his comment about the merchants vanished.
"What?" he asked.
Maerin looked toward the door, then back at him.
"That name is not used lightly."
Rohan’s stomach sank.
"You know it."
"I know fragments."
"What fragments?"
"Not now."
"Maerin."
Her eyes snapped to his.
"You are alive because Liora spoke for you, because you saved two of mine, and because I believe ignorance explains more of your strangeness than malice. Do not mistake that for trust."
Rohan held her gaze.
Then he leaned back.
"Fine."
He hated it, but fine.
Too many answers at once could be as dangerous as none.
Maerin stood.
"You will eat. Then you will rest under watch. Tomorrow, if Bryan lives and Liora confirms all she claimed, you may be given guest-right."
"And if they don’t?"
"If Bryan dies, that is not on you unless Liora changes her account."
"That wasn’t what I meant."
"I know."
He looked at her.
She did not soften.
"If Liora withdraws her word, or if your ash-working endangers Veyrhold, you will be bound, questioned, and judged."
"Honest."
"Would you rather I lied?"
Rohan almost laughed.
The echo of Hestia’s words was so sharp it felt deliberate.
"No," he said. "Apparently I hate that less."
Maerin moved toward the door, then paused.
"One more thing."
Rohan stood more slowly, his whole body complaining.
"What?"
"Do not speak of leaving too freely."
"Why?"
"Because half of Veyrhold dreams of it. The other half has buried someone who tried."
That silenced him.
Maerin’s expression remained hard, but there was tiredness beneath it now.
"The merchant ship is hope. It is also poison. People kill for less."
Rohan nodded.
"I understand."
"No," she said. "You are beginning to."
She pushed the fabric aside and led him out of the inner chamber.
The ash-house felt busier now. More people had arrived while they spoke. Through one open partition, Rohan saw Bryan lying on a raised stone bed while two healers worked over him. His face was pale, but he was breathing. Liora sat nearby with her leg splinted, arguing with another healer who seemed entirely unimpressed by her stubbornness.
She saw Rohan and lifted one hand.
He returned the gesture.
Maerin noticed.
"Liora’s family will owe you guest-bread if she lives."
"Guest-bread?"
"A formal thanks."
"Is it actually bread?"
"Sometimes."
"That is the first good thing I’ve heard all day."
"Do not get attached. It may be fungus cake."
Rohan stared at her.
There it was again. That almost-smile that vanished before it fully formed.
He decided Captain Maerin of Veyrhold’s outer watch might be dangerous, suspicious, severe, and deeply inconvenient.
But not humourless.
That helped.
A little.
They passed into a side room where a bowl of thick grey stew and a cup of warm mineral water waited on a low table. The stew looked questionable. It smelled better than it looked, which was not difficult. Rohan sat, picked up the spoon, and ate before anyone could tell him what was in it.
His body did not care.
Food was food.
Warmth spread through him with the first mouthful. The taste was earthy, salty, faintly smoky, and unfamiliar in several ways he chose not to investigate. Something chewy might have been root. Something soft might have been fungus. Something crunchy was either mineral or a mistake.
He ate all of it.
Maerin watched from the doorway.
"You were hungry."
"I fought ash monsters and dragged a man across a death field."
"Skarn."
"What?"
"Not ash monsters. Skarn."
"I’ll use their proper name when they stop trying to eat people."
"Fair."
When he finished, exhaustion hit like a physical blow.
The room blurred slightly at the edges. His forearm throbbed beneath the bandage. His burns prickled. His thoughts, which had been racing since the gate, began to slow under the combined weight of food, warmth, and too many revelations.
One settlement.
Crashed ship.
Merchant vessel.
Seven months.
Impossible price.
Exploitative trade.
Great System quests.
Hestia’s name known in fragments.
It was too much.
And yet, underneath the frustration, a stubborn thread of focus remained.
Seven months was not never.
A price was not an impossibility.
A merchant ship was not freedom, but it was a route. Routes could be studied. Prices could be earned, avoided, stolen, negotiated, or broken. Systems gave quests. Quests gave paths. Veyrhold had resources. The merchants had incentives. And Rohan had already survived long enough to reach the only human settlement on a planet that did not want him alive.
He was not free.
Not even close.
But he had a direction.
That mattered.
As if responding to the thought, the Great System stirred again.
[Quest Updated: Learn the Price of Passage]
[Suggested First Step: Gain Veyrhold Guest-Right.]
Rohan stared at the panel, too tired to even be properly annoyed.
"Subtle," he muttered.
Maerin’s eyes narrowed from the doorway.
"What now?"
Rohan let his head fall back against the wall.
"It wants me to make friends."
"Veyrhold has few of those to spare."
"Then I’ll start with not getting stabbed."
"A realistic ambition."
The panel faded.
Outside the ash-house, somewhere beyond the thick walls and heated stone, the wind continued scraping across the Ashen Marches. It moved over the marked paths, the broken ridge, the skarn nests, the black slabs, and the wreckage fields of a ship that had fallen from the stars centuries ago.
Inside, Rohan sat beneath a roof built from that same wreckage and felt the shape of the planet closing around him.
Cael Athis.
Kharon-7.
The Ash.
Whatever they called it, it was a hellish place to be.
A world humans had not been born to but had been forced to endure.
A world with one settlement, one merchant ship every two years, and a price for escape so cruel it might as well have been another wall.
Rohan closed his eyes.
For the first time since entering Veyrhold, he allowed the anger to settle into something colder and more useful.