Arrival

Gerus tied all the staves to his horse's saddle and rushed back from where we came. Jel and Matila were a bit confused, so I began to explain to them the situation in a more detailed manner than our previous quick exchanges.

"So, this human, Gerus will take those staves to the army of humans. Is that?" Jel asked.

"They aren't an army exactly, but a guard force. However, they aren't prepared to face zombies and skeletons. Bludgeoning weapons were more adequate to face skeletons, actually, in the proper way. Slashing ones were better for facing zombies, though."

"So specific, could they just use magic like you?" Matila asked.

"No. Neither magic nor divine power are common among humans." I answered her.

"And what are you going to do with this bull?" Jel questioned while investigating the bull carcass, thoughtfully damaged by the undead bites. 

"We can't leave this to rot, and as Gerus said, several diseases can spread from such carcass." I said, then I explained my next steps. "I am going to bury this bull, then we continue our journey."

"Are you going to pray for him too?" Matila asked. Jel looked at me with curiosity. I think the loaded question here was that they were curious whether I would bless animals or not. I don't know the specific rites for the goblin pantheon.

Nonetheless, this is a good point to assert later: whether animals had or did not have souls. I remember that in Olympus, there was meat—very delicate ones, by the way. Consequently, there is husbandry in the afterlife, but how is it performed? One day, I will know. However, my current issue is providing an adequate answer for Matila.

"I am going to pray for him. However, I don't know if the soul would be able to comprehend what I trying to convey." Jel and Matila exchanged confused glances, but they did not pursue the matter any further.

---

Charon is a godlike being that is responsible for guiding souls through Styx if they pay the appropriate amount in obols for the trip. He had a peculiar feature that not many gods share: multilocation. He can exist simultaneously in more than one place at the same time. Thus, he can guide every soul that arrives for the Crossing.

All intelligent beings become self-aware souls and will meet Charon. Normally, they will discuss fees and destinations, then take the famous ferry to the destination. Most of the souls do not arrive with obols, so they rely on Charon benevolence to lend some money.

Usually, the newcomers believe that they will be scammed by Charon. However, he does not rely on such a shameless scheme, as he understands that people lack the funds to do the trip. Some mortal realms have this custom, but the majority do not.

Commonly, the cost of the trip is equivalent to one hour of regular work in Tartarus, which is one iron coin. The lowest value for the currency in the divine realm. So, many people go and apologize to Charon when they discover that he must charge everyone who arrives at the Styx River, and he didn't mean to scam anybody.

However, people sometimes try to scam him. Some people think that they own nothing to Charon and default. That is very risky because Charon can multilocate, a terrible feature. Therefore, he can chase you endlessly until you repay him. The worst tales say that he enslaved some fools who denied him an iron coin.

But, there was something else that made Charon furious. When unintelligent animals arrive at the Styx, he can't argue with beasts and charge them for that, nor can he put them gently on the ferry. When people tell this story, the subsequent question is always the same: "Wait a moment, Charon did not carry only self-aware souls?"

The answer is a sounding yes. As in everything, there is an exception when an animal soul is blessed by a formal cleric of any religion. A blessed soul, regardless of its origin or its capabilities, is granted passage by the Styx. Consequently, there were some issues about the fees and the management of this trip. Humanoid souls always arrive aware of themselves, so even if they died lacking proper mental health, as souls do not have bodies, maladies of the mortal mind do not impair the immortal one.

However, animals do not possess any intellect, so they arrive as simple as they were. Which makes Charon deal with them, and as blessed animals or monsters can sometimes be violent or unruly, and therefore the ferryman always has headaches having to cope with them.

This time, a bull arrived at Styx border. Charon came to receive the new soul. He looked at the animal, which was in unrest, terrified of its new location.

"Fuck, a bull? C'mon, who sent me that?" The ferryman cursed.

Using his Authorities, he discovered that the person responsible for that animal was none other than the newly appointed Hermes, Athena and Asclepius apostle, Rufus.

"Goblins. Now, a bull. At least, he left me a lot of prepaid money. He left obols with me, but to send every damn creature that he finds."

Rufus was unaware at that moment, but nobody can scam Charon. So he charged clerics that sent him animals a hundred times the fee for a trip to the patron deity's divine realm. Just reaching the gates of Tartarus and having an audience with Hades costs an iron coin. But to reach the fiefdom of Rufus within Hermes domain, it usually costs 10 irons. Following his thumb rule, Rufus is now being charged 1000 iron coins or 1 silver.

"I hope that he stops sending animals. Otherwise, even this ridiculous number of obols of his will not be enough to pay the fees."

---

Rufus buried the bull, cleansed its body, and made a prayer for the soul (?) of the animal. Then they resumed the journey to Wheatstone. About ten minutes after finishing this rite, he felt a dread chill; none of his Authorities were triggered, but he felt his soul shivering.

"Are you okay, sir Rufus?" Jel noticed my sudden shuddering.

"Yes, I am. I don't know, but I felt that something went bad."

"Maybe Gerus found a monster on his way back?" Jel tried.

"I am not sure, but let's pray that he arrives safely at the caravan."

The surrounding areas of the hills had some small farms focused on husbandry. I guess for the size of those businesses, they are mainly focused on producing meat and milk. One thing that made me worried was when I noticed that people were avoiding us, some farmers even ran back to their homes.

Goblins are always treated as plagues, and I felt bad for the girls. But I believe that they didn't have the same perception. As they were marveling at the farms and animals, for people who have always lived within the forest's premises, the view of hills and plains was a massive change.

As they were making comments and asking what those animals were, we spotted, at some distance, three big guys holding sickles. I guess our last part of the journey would not be free of problems.

"You, who are you?" the biggest fellow asked in a threatening tone to us, as soon as we got close to them.

"I am a cleric of Hermes, Athena, and Asclepius. And they are my aides, Jel and Matila, forest goblins. It's a pleasure to meet you all." I made our introduction politely, while I disregarded the fact that they were holding farm tools as weapons to intimidate us.

I could see that the other two tightened their grips. While the other, said: "What are you purpose in invading our lands?"

I feel aggravated now. We were not holding weapons, nor had we entered any of the side areas that we passed by. "We are not invading anything. Our destination is the village of Wheatstone, by the way, we have an important message to deliver to Lady Mystral." I pushed forward an appeal to authority argument. I dislike using this method, but to face an argumentum ad baculum, I have no other choice.

The three big farmers were not fighters, as they were holding the sickles as if they were going to reap wheat. Hercules trained me to use those as weapons because farmlands have a significant number of them available for cheap, so knowing how to use them, even at a basic level, could be very useful.

"I don't believe you." One of the farmers replied.

Jel and Matila sensed the tense atmosphere, but I made a small gesture to them to stay put, for now.

"So we have a problem. We want to go to Wheatstone, and I have urgent matters to discuss with Lady Mystral."

They remained silent. I think that they were not smart, as they came without a proper plan. Did they think that we were going to attack them as soon as we spotted them?

"Please, if you have nothing else to discuss with us."

"You are a cleric, is it like a priest or shaman, right? Do the blessing stuff." The biggest one spoke again.

The way he spoke sounded bad. My language ability was helping me understand what he was trying to say, but it was hard anyway. "Of course. Athena provide them with your wit to guide them through the tough roads." It was a makeshift prayer for them, but it was enough to trigger the divine skill and give them a perception buff.

The trio felt the blessing, and I was thinking about how naive they were or how distant from reality these guys were. If I were an evil priest with goblins, which was a reasonable assumption, I would have the opportunity to curse them, not give a blessing. They even gave me time to cast something over them.

Perhaps, they were courageous or had some means to void a curse? Another point to unveil later is the ignorance about magic, both arcane and divine. Or people with magical skills were always good ones.

"You are a priest, then. I can see better; they are not savage; they are green, the rare forest goblins."

Do they have myopia? I was not expecting them to confuse the goblins beside me with their savage cousins. They mixed brown and green. Are these colors so alike? Maybe they couldn't discern colors.

"I am James, they are Robert and Albert. Sorry for that, priest."

"No problem..." I said, but I was worried about their naivety anyway. "I recommend you use caution and avoid requesting blessings. If I were an evil cleric, I could have cursed you." I explained my concern to them.

They started to laugh nervously. I guess the farmers were a bit bizarre, but again, I lack enough information about common sense. Another point to verify later. I will need to carry a small notebook if this continues to happen. Surprisingly, Jel and Matila had much more natural behaviors than I would expect from tribe members (aka the prejudiced view of goblins in general that I held, but now it appears that humans are the uncultured ones). 

After this quick exchange, the farmers let us continue our travel and explained that we were very close to the village and that they were worried that some kind of bandit was getting to their town. We said our farewells, and I explained to Jel and Matila, who did not comprehend human language, what happened.

As we got closer to the village, the river presented more rapids, and the road went down and up with the hills. After one hour of this, we finally saw, from the top of a hill, Wheatstone. My initial destination, finally!