Chapter 10.03 Y

Chapter 10.03 Y
Chapter 10.02 Y	Chapter 10.04 V
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Chapter 10.03 Y is the 4th chapter of Volume 10. The Y stands for Ylawes Byres.

tl;dr[edit | edit source]

After things get worse with the Yorrned Caravan, Ylawes Byres leaves with the Silver Swords and two thirds of the caravan.

Just like the last one, this chapter is focused on Ylawes’ travels through the New Lands. As their mana and food situation grows worse, Ylawes urges the merchants to turn back around to Goisedall, but they refuse and push onwards, opting to halve the rations of non-important caravan members instead. Tensions rise, but Ylawes manages to defuse the situation for now.

The adventurers discover that their mana is being drawn away to multiple specific locations. But right as some of them are away to investigate, the caravan comes under attack by Creona Flashbirds, which steal food with the help of blinding flashes of light.

The ones investigating return with the news of a group of dead settlers. Just as they determine that these deaths weren’t caused by monsters, they notice that some of their Healing Potions have frozen – even their magic has been sucked dry, and only high-grade potions remain usable. The merchants are evasive about how many they have left, but among the rest of the caravan, there are only two, and Ylawes gives the one in his possession to Dawil in secret.

The caravan discovers copper ore in the hills, and they settle down. As the adventurers go and try hunting for food, they find out that this choice of location has left them far from any of the animal herds they met on the way there. Even worse, their Bags of Holding fail while they’re out exploring, and not just theirs – the whole caravan is out of storage space, and thus the merchants demand some settlers sleep outside. That night, Ylawes discovers that his hidden temper might rival that of Yvlon’s.

The next day, they ride out and locate a river filled with huge, easily catchable, fish. They get huge cheers when they return to camp a day later. The evening brings a swarm of magical insects that confuse their hunters, the Flashbirds, with beautiful patterns of light. The group is in awe, and as Ylawes talks with Poke Duo about the sky, Rasktooth notes a black spot in there that Yawes cannot see, as well as something that could be a square star or a weird cloud. Ylawes tells Falene to reach out to The Wandering Inn, and, as he sleeps that night, he sees a vision of the Silver Dragon.

The next group that goes fishing returns with a lot fewer fish, and to make things worse, the farming is going as well as one might expect in salty soil. Alarmed, Ylawes once again urges the merchants to turn back, this time in the company of the farming and mining groups. However, they use [Enforce Contract] on his team, just like on the other groups, so they are forced to stay.

Amidst growing starvation, and now even dehydration, the adventurers set out to hunt again. They encounter some giant snails, but let them pass, and manage to separate a Landshark from its pack a while later, which they kill quite easily. But as they arrive at the camp with the corpse, the rest of the shark pack returns, lured by the smell of blood. The colonists barely manage to fight them off, but lose the corpse in the process. Dawil is injured, and so Ylawes gets Insill to rummage through the merchants’ wagons, to look for Healing Potions and their contract. He is discovered but manages to return with a potion, and Ylawes talks himself out of the ensuing confrontation.

Sometime later, Ylawes notices that Poke Duo is still quite active while everyone else is sluggish due to starvation. By now, he is hungry enough to eat maggots, so he asks them to show him their food source. It turns out to be a colony of tubeworms near the river, which don’t taste great but are abundant enough to feed the whole caravan.

Armed with that knowledge, Ylawes plots desertion – they trick the merchants into bringing out the contract, and Dawil destroys it with a well-aimed axe throw. The merchants try to apply force via their hired [Guards], but only Salamander is up for it. After Ylawes beats him, his team and two-thirds of the caravan make for the river. As they set up their new camp, a projection of Mrsha arrives. She explains that the [World’s Eye Theatre] couldn’t find them before, most likely due to them sitting right on top of the magic interference, and the chapter ends on a positive note.