Chapter 3 - Hollow Victory

The rays of early morning sun cut through the foliage with golden beams so thick you could almost reach out and touch them. Tropical birds were awakening, and their chirping songs echoed through the forest.

Moss-covered stones stood tall amidst the trees like looming towers on either side of the well-worn path. They were fragments, ancient pieces of the Never-Ending Mountain that loomed overhead. NEM reached as high into the sky as the eye could see, it’s peak hidden by an ever-present vortex of cloud and storm.

Maralyn Rayne stumbled through a stream, boots splashing, but she didn’t stop running. She was so close now that she could see the edge of the forest. She ran harder, all out sprinting, despite the strain on her lungs and the protest from her legs.

That was when the tip of Rayne’s boot caught a rock and she hit the ground hard. She blinked, her vision blurry, and realized that she’d lost her glasses.

“Fayr,” she spat out dirt. She reached out, hand feeling around, and scooping up her glasses. She started forward again only for her vision to swim, and she wobbled in place.

“Whoa now,” came the voice of her mentor, Marcus Durane. He walked over to her, and in his hands, he offered a couple bottles of water. He was a tall man, with dark skin, his hair buzzed close to his head. His eyes were hard and wrinkled, but not unkind.

Doing her best to repress any more swearing and frustration, Rayne took one of the bottles and began gulping the water down. She didn’t stop until the coolness burned her throat and she had to gasp for breath.

“Be careful,” Marcus mentioned, “too much, too quick, might make you sick.”

“I’m fine,” she answered, tasting salt on her lips. “I can keep going.” She capped the bottle and started forward again, but only took it a few steps before she felt nauseous. 

“I’m…” Rayne trailed off before keeling over and throwing up in the grass.

“You keep pushing yourself,” Marcus said as Rayne brushed the sweaty strands of hair out of her face. She didn’t look at him, but scooted herself back until she was resting against a tree. It was only then, after having a moment to rest, that she realized how tired she really was. Her legs shook, even as she sat, and her hands trembled. She was soaked with sweat and morning dew.

“I’ve got to get better,” Rayne said quietly.

“I never quite thought I would have this problem,” Marcus said almost to himself as he stepped a little closer. He knelt down in front of Rayne and took a sip of his own water. “I thought you would be a spoiled little brat, always thinking yourself better than you were.”

“Huh…” Rayne smiled a little at that, then she shrugged her shoulders. “Parents never believed I could do it. They were always picking, always prodding me to do or be better. Maybe it’s the same now, except I’m the one I have to prove myself to.”

“You can’t be everything in a day, Rayne,” Marcus said. “Now come on, I want you to get washed up. There are some people I want you to meet.”

“Other guild members?” Rayne asked as she pushed herself up. Even that brief reprieve gave her body enough time to relax and make getting up again that much more painful.

“Yes,” Marcus answered. “It’s often hard to get everyone together since we’re so busy going to the ends of the world.”

Rayne had met a few of the other Explorer’s. It had been a strange realization that the amount of actual Explorer’s was perhaps smaller than she had originally thought. There were, however, plenty of people that worked in the guild hall. There were librarians, archivists, scientists, archeologists, just to name a few.

When the Explorers brought back ancient relics, or discovered sunken cities, there was an entire crew waiting to study or excavate those sites. It was a part of the Explorers that wasn’t often depicted in the stories that Rayne had coveted growing up.

Marcus led the way up a winding dirt path. As Rayne followed, she couldn’t help but let her eyes wander across the island. It was called NEM, due to the massive mountain that no one had yet seen the top of. It also meant that the island itself was huge. The largest part of the Broken World, in fact.

NEM was a tropical paradise. 

Beaches wrapped the entire island, with tall palm trees and lush foliage scattered throughout. Around the island were massive rocks. Boulders that were the size of houses, sometimes even bigger, coated in moss. They sat embedded deep in the sand or stacked atop one another in impossible ways.

As Rayne’s eyes followed up the immeasurable incline of NEM, she focused on the cool gray of the stone, the crags and ledges that rippled up into the sky. There were all sorts of caves and cracks where trees and plants grew from, where entire flocks of birds made their home. Streams from the ever-present storms washed down the mountain, creating smooth trails across the rock face.

The island, being what it was, was also a heavy tourist attraction. Similar to when Rayne had first arrived in the East, she would see the ferry boat pull in and tourists from all over the Broken World come to visit. There were the classic tourists from Old York, their flowering buttoned shirts, and their cameras clicking and flashing as soon as their feet touched the sands.

Explorers themselves were also a subject of tourist attraction. In just the few weeks that Rayne had been training, she’d had several of them ask her for photos. There had even been a couple of reporters asking her for interviews. Rayne had declined, well, she’d tried to. They were persistent.

“We’re Explorer’s, Rayne,” Marcus had said. “We are known as the elite, the protectors of the Broken World. Discoverers and fighters. We’re different.”

“I don’t feel different,” she had answered. “I’m just me.”

“Not anymore,” he replied. “Now you’re an Explorer.”

There were other tourists too, sometimes monks on a holy pilgrimage from Volthum making their way to NEM to pray to the gods. Sometimes Rayne even saw the flying ships from Seraphine. They would sail through the clouds and anchor at the side of the mountain, thousands of feet in the air.

The Explorer’s Hall was also a feature of the Never-Ending Mountain. It was the central headquarters for all the Explorer’s in the East. The builders constructed the hall at an angle to follow the steep slope of the mountain. The hall was made of dark gray glass that reflected the sky and stone above. At the top of the angled structure was a large ovular opening into the mountain. It was there that the guild’s various ships flew in and out of.

This was the place. This was the place the heroes of the world called home, and it was Rayne’s home now too.

Home. The word left a bitter taste in her mouth. Rayne wasn’t exactly sure what she’d expected from her parents, but whatever it was, she couldn’t have anticipated their reaction. When she’d returned home, the ship had landed, the ramp had come down, and there they were.

They weren’t angry. No, it was so much worse. They were disappointed. The look in their eyes hurt the most. Because she could see in their eyes that they’d already lost their daughter. 

Maralyn Rayne was already gone. Gone, just like her grandfather.

The worst part was that on that flight home, Rayne had thought they’d be proud of her. She’d gone after her dreams in a way that few people ever would, and she’d reached them. She’d been given an opportunity to join the Explorer’s Guild and…

The victory felt hollow. She’d been willing to give it all up to follow her dreams, and as it turned out, that was the cost.

She hadn’t even managed to retrieve the Oasis Spark, and in turn, the notes at the end of her grandfather’s journal were just that, notes. Without the magical accumulator, she couldn’t figure out why he had been so interested, or what it all meant.

Now she was wondering if it was worth it. She’d moved into the guild almost a week ago, and every step of the way had been a challenge. Every morning a run through the tropical forest, after that climbing rocky paths up the Never-Ending Mountain.

Rayne felt like a failure at everything. She couldn’t finish the run, or her climb. She was weak, and she’d realized all too quick that her knowledge base was lacking too.

For the longest time, Rayne had been determined, because she had to prove to everyone else that she could do it. But now Rayne had to prove it to herself, and that was a whole lot harder.

“Hey, Marcus…” Rayne said as she stumbled after that tall man. He grunted in response, but didn’t look back. “I’m going to train harder. I want to make you proud of me. I don’t want to make you regret choosing me.”

Marcus stopped at that. He turned his head towards her, and she could see that his hard expression had softened just a little.

“Rayne, I didn’t choose you because you’re already the Explorer you need to be,” he said. “I chose you because you have the drive to fulfill the potential I know you have. I believe that if you train hard enough, you’ll be an Explorer First Class before you know it.”

They reached the entrance to the guild hall. The never-ending mountain loomed overhead with its height and majesty enough to make her dizzy if she thought about it too much. Their boots crunched through the white gravel that surrounded pockets of plants and trees that had been planted as a decorative garden in front of the building.

The doors slid open as Rayne approached. It was something that still made her flinch in surprise, even though she’d seen plenty of them in Old York during her time there.

“Get cleaned up,” Marcus said, “and when you finish, come to the mess hall.”

“Yes sir.” Rayne nodded, and they parted ways in the lobby. The guild hall was an interesting building. It had been carved into the mountain, so it’s floors were polished and flat, but the walls and roof of the rooms were still rough-hewn stone. Pipes and wires crossed overhead, providing light and plumbing for the building.

Rayne made her way across the lobby and to the elevator, another luxury of technology that her homeland in the North didn’t have. Seeing as the guild hall had over twenty floors, it made it much easier than having to run up and down the stairs all the time.

The elevator dinged to a stop at the third floor, which was the floor where all the Explorers and workers stayed. It was a triangular corridor, with the tall, slanted windows open to the island on her right, and a row of doors down her left.

Some of the doors were marked with personal touches. One had a variety of paper cutouts on it, another had a movie poster that had come unstuck on one corner, and another door had some crystals embedded into the wood of the door for reasons Rayne had yet to figure out.

Then there was Rayne’s door, and the only thing that made it distinct was the small bronze eleven. Rayne reached up to her neck and pulled at her money cord. She still had a couple of bells and towers, but now she had her keycard too. She swiped it once, frowned, swiped it again, and it opened with a click.

It was a small room. Smaller than anything Rayne had ever had before. The walls were a dull stone gray, and all the furniture consisted of a desk, a bed that looked more like a cot, and a little closet for her things. 

On her desk was a stack of books and a handful of notes and maps. On her bed was her backpack filled with everything she could carry on her way out of the house, and that’s what she had. Rayne had always lived a life with everything, and she had walked out of it with only what she could carry.

It was more uncomfortable than she’d thought it would be. Perhaps she wasn’t as hardened to the world as she’d thought. Pulling her purple ribbon from her hair, Rayne tossed it on the desk and went through her closet for any clean clothes.

She grabbed her toiletries bag and her fresh clothes and made her way down to the bathroom. Even if her room was small, the facilities were nice at least. But they felt foreign to Rayne. She wasn’t used to living in such a shared space. Back home, her things had been hers, but now, whenever she ate, bathed, or lounged around, it would be around other people.

But they were people like her. 

People who sought adventure and wanted to study artifacts and magic. Rayne wondered if maybe she could meet some of them, like really meet them, become friends even. She hoped so because the guild felt a little lonely.

After a steaming shower, Rayne still felt tired, but also clean and refreshed. She dropped her things off in her room, tied the ribbon back in her hair, and made her way back downstairs to the mess hall.

The mess was on the ground floor, and it was a tall open space with long metal tables spread throughout. One side of the room was all glass, and it provided a perfect view of the forest, and beach and sparkling sea. In the distance she could see the hazy towers of Old York, and to the left of that, the barest shape of Volthyr castle.

“Welcome back,” Marcus called to her, and Rayne found him sitting at one of the tables sipping his coffee, but he wasn’t alone. There were two others who she’d never seen before. Well, not in person anyway.

One was a woman, she looked to be in her mid to late thirties, and even though she was sitting, Rayne could tell she was tall, with tanned skin and dyed blonde hair that was turning dark at the roots. Her half-closed eyes made her look a little sleepy, but the violet color of her irises took Rayne aback.

To her left was a sword laying across the length of the table. It was her sword, the one she had read so much about. The sword was five feet long, and almost nine inches wide, and made of black Errington 1057 steel. It was an unruly, ridiculous, and intimidating weapon.

The boy, on the other hand, was about Rayne’s age. He had black, brushed back hair and rich brown eyes. His honey-colored skin told her that he was from one of the southern islands, perhaps Alexandria. An old wood stock rifle sat leaned up against the table, a couple of bags and bullets strewn about next to the sword.

“Rayne,” Marcus said as she sat down next to him, “this is M’natherine, Explorer First Class.” He gestured to the woman. She eyed Rayne with a lazy expression, and a smile spread across her lips.

“Sup,” M’natherine said with a lazy tilt of her head. “Nice to meet Marcus’s lil protégé.” Her voice was a mixture of disinterest and a hint of huskiness.

“Hi,” said the boy without waiting for an introduction. “My name’s Alex. Alex Alacarte.”

Rayne froze in her seat. THE M’natherine…? The Explorer who spent thirty days in the Vaskeer desert, and fought with a southern nomad tribe against an army of bandits? And Alex, Rayne had imported a teen magazine from the East because it had a big article on the boy who had become the world’s youngest Explorer.

“Wow…” she breathed, losing herself in the moment. “It’s nice to meet you both. I’m…” She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’m Rayne, Maralyn Rayne.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alex said and reached out a hand. Rayne shook it and couldn’t help but realize she was actually meeting the Explorers that she’d been reading and learning so much about. She had questions, so many questions, but would that be polite? She wasn’t sure, she didn’t know what to do. They didn’t follow Northern etiquette rules.

Then she had a bit of a realization. M’natherine she’d heard of, and Alex she knew… but as she looked to Marcus, Rayne realized that she’d read nothing of Marcus Durane. She had been so enamored with meeting real Explorer’s and becoming a part of the guild that she hadn’t thought about it before. Of course, there would be members of the Guild with whom she wasn’t familiar, but still… Just in the short time that she’d known him, Rayne could tell that he was a highly respected Explorer and yet…

“I’ll introduce you to some of the others later, if they ever show up.” Marcus took a sip of his coffee. 

“It’s rather hard to find a time when a bunch of the Explorers are in the same place at the same time. Now Rayne, grab something to eat, then we’ll do some weapons training.”

“Weapons…” Rayne perked up at that. She hadn’t worked on any weapons since joining the guild. She thought back to being in the Valley of Wyte and facing a dragon woefully unarmed. It had not been a fun experience.

“Oh, weapons sound fun,” M’natherine half smiled. She reached over and nudged Alex. “Alex wants to do some weapons training.”

“Really?” Alex looked over at Rayne and then he looked away. “I mean, I’m not opposed, but…”

“After the way you fumbled fighting that ogre on Alexandria…” M’natherine shook her head. “I think you could use it.” 

Alex opened his mouth to object, then he thought better of it and begrudgingly nodded.

“Fine,” he huffed.

Rayne smiled to herself. Maybe this was the start of something. She hoped it was. Somehow, she wanted the camaraderie that she’d read about, to make friends and allies of everyone in the guild.

Hopping up from the table, Rayne got herself some food from the cafeteria line and ate rather quietly as M’natherine and Marcus caught up with one another. Alex occasionally turning to her and asking some questions.

When she finished, the four of them got up and they made their way down a part of the building that Rayne hadn’t been by before. There was a gym room behind glass walls, and past that was a huge open cavern. There were lights at the top of the room so bright that Rayne had to squint when she first entered.

They illuminated a large gymnasium. On one side was a sports goal, and along the wall was a colorful rock-climbing wall. Next to that were some human dummies and wooden swords. It was an Explorer’s dream come true.

“Wow,” Rayne gasped as her eyes adjusted and she looked around.

The others walked over to the wall where there was a row of lockers, and next to the lockers, any weapon imaginable. Alex whistled as he walked by, perusing an assortment of spears.

“Go ahead, pick something out,” Marcus gestured. “We’ll gradually get you trained in an assortment of weapons, but for now, pick something that you’re maybe more comfortable with.”

“Are you a sword person?” Alex asked, “or maybe a bow and arrow? What do you like?”

“I don’t know…” Rayne said. She noticed that there were weapons from all four corners of the map. 

There were the curved blades of the Southern Tribal People, some more classic sword types from Volthum in the East, and they even had some weapons particular to the North.

Rayne reached out and touched a familiar weapon. It was an imperial guard’s sword. It was a double-bladed weapon with no cross guard, and square at the tip, rather than pointed. She gripped the sword in her hands and looked to Marcus as if for approval.

“It’s up to you,” he said.

“I’m not sure…” Rayne muttered, but she nodded anyway. “I’ll try it though.” Alex smirked as she turned to face him. In his own hands, he had a five-foot spear. He twirled it around his hands with an almost expert air about him.

“What are the rules?” Rayne asked.

“Blades are dulled, but still dangerous,” Marcus answered. “Avoid the face, fingers if you can, unless you want to break something. Winner puts their opponent in position of a killing blow.”

“But…” Rayne frowned, “what am I allowed to do? Or not do?”

“There isn’t really a right or wrong yet,” Marcus taught. “Do what you think you should do. I want to watch how you act, how you think against an opponent.” For some reason, not having any rules made Rayne feel more nervous. The fact that she could do anything to fight, and that her opponent would have the same freedom.

“Okay,” she said to herself, hands gripping the sword tight. “Calm down, think.” She watched Alex. He seemed relaxed, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Alright,” M’natherine said, sounding impatient, “You guys can fight and stuff.”

Alex smiled, and he darted forward, thrusting the spear in experimental fashion, just to see how Rayne would react. She stepped to one side, easily dodging, but she hesitated, not sure how to proceed, so Alex pushed again, this time faster.

Rayne reacted more out of instinct, using the sword to push away the spear. Now, she thought, he’s open, so she lunged forward, swinging the blade. Alex took a half step back and rotated, using the back end of the spear to repel.

Rayne backed up, again unsure. She glanced at Marcus, who watched her with quiet interest, his face revealing nothing.

WHACK!

Rayne yelped and staggered back as she was hit in the stomach by the dull end of the spear.

“Fayr,” she swore, rubbing at the spot. She couldn’t help but glare at Alex, who smiled apologetically.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “You kinda looked away right as I made a move.”

“One more time,” Marcus said, and so Rayne got herself into a fighting stance, and this time, she could feel the irritation building inside again.

She started first this time, reaching out with the sword and catching the tip of the spear, moving it out of the way so she could step forward and make a swing at Alex. He stepped to the side and swung at her feet.

Rayne made a split-second decision. Instead of jumping back, she jumped forward. Alex’s eyes widened. He wasn’t expecting the move, but he reacted well, pivoting, and swinging again.

Rayne gritted her teeth and made a barrage of wild attacks, each of them deflected with skill.

When she finally stepped away, she was huffing and tired. Alex pressed forward, made a fake, and before Rayne knew what had happened, she took a hit to the upper chest.

“Break me, fayr…” she swore and coughed, rubbing at what was sure to be a new bruise.

“Sorry again,” Alex said, wrinkling his nose. “Not bad for your first time, though.”

“I was fayring stupid,” Rayne muttered.

“I mean I’ve seen worse,” M’natherine grinned. “Not much worse, but still worse.”

“Very interesting,” Marcus mused to himself, a hand on his chin. 

“You were a noble from the North. Did your parents never give you any arms training at all? I thought that was a common practice.”

“My father never liked the idea,” Rayne answered. “He isn’t from the North, and it reminded him of my grandfather, who… also fought…” her words trailed away as she thought about it. Aaron Rayne had resented his father, Marshall, for being an Explorer. Rather than be a dad, Marshall had been traipsing across the East going on adventures that had become legendary to everyone but his own family.

“That’s alright,” Marcus said. “That’s what training is for.”

“Soon enough, you won’t suck at all,” M’natherine said encouragingly. She looked over to Alex. “You dropped your footing in that second bout, dummy.”

“Ah,” Alex reached out and took Rayne’s sword, and then took both the weapons back to the wall.

Rayne kept her head down, still feeling a little frustrated from the run, and now from the fight.

“What are your plans, M’natherine?” Marcus asked. “Are you going to hang around the hall for a bit? I think it would be good for Rayne to spend some time with Alex. She needs someone closer to her age.”

“I do think that’s a good idea,” M’natherine said. “But to be honest, I actually came back on business, and…” she looked at Rayne. “I think your recruit will be of some assistance.”

“What do you mean?” Marcus furrowed his brows.

“She wasn’t the only one on that mountain, from what I hear.” 

M’natherine got up from the table and gestured for them to follow.

“Come on, lemme show you.”