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Chapter 2 - The Kompas

The road had vanished entirely, replaced by packed dirt and shifting sand. Houses leaned like weary souls, their walls scorched and splintered, patched with cloth, scrap, or whatever people could find. Roofs sagged or were missing altogether. No trees lined this path, no fresh water ran at its edge—only the occasional dry well and the wind.

And at his side, always, the Abyss whispered.

Gruis walked like someone returning from a distant journey, though it had only been hours since he left. Still, the path from the East District to here felt like crossing a continent.

But here… here, at least, he belonged.

Gruis stood there for a moment. He reached into his coat and touched the edge of the parchment—his writ of ownership. The seal still in place.

A woman sweeping her stoop looked up. Her eyes lit with recognition.

"Ah, Gruis! Got that big purchase done?" she called, grinning.

Gruis smiled back, raising his hand—waving the proof of ownership. "Yes I did! All here."

"Good lad. Make something of yourself Gruis."

"You know I will." Gruis said back, his smile going from one ear, to the other.

She grinned back, nodded once and returned sweeping.

This was the thing about the slums. People didn't forget you here. They watched you grow up, watched you scrape by, helped when they could and asked little in return. Gruis—who had walked these alleys ever since he first arrived in Herto—was known not for being loud, strong or rich, but for always waving back, for helping carry a cart when a wheel broke, for remembering your name.

As he passed a set of stairs leading to nowhere, the scent of boiled roots and spice drifted from a nearby pot. Children dashed past him, barefoot and laughing, chasing each other with hollow bones tied to strings. A man in a canvas apron hammered dents from a pan outside his shop. Life, in its loud and quiet ways, carried on.

He passed a building more solid than most—stone and timber reinforced with iron brackets. A familiar painted sign creaked overhead:

Darrys & Donnies General Store. The D-brothers' place.

The front was cluttered with crates of rope, tin utensils, and herbal kits hung from pegs. A small glass case near the window displayed minor artifact pieces—mostly dim, cracked ones—but arranged proudly, nonetheless. Inside the store, Darry waved at Gruis without looking up from his conversation, his mouth already voicing a sarcastic comment Gruis couldn't hear.

It made Gruis smile. That store had outlived companies, entire bloodlines. Some, even said the brothers had.

Just a bit further, on the horizon, he spotted it.

The Copper Rest—or what was left of it anyway.

The wooden inn leaned slightly to one side, its two floors touched by the sun and pockmarked by age. A shutter flapped loose in the breeze. The signage was half-torn, barely readable through the cracking paint. But it stood, and now, it was theirs.

In front of the building sat a mountain of bags—bedrolls, cooking kits, armour bundles, and an impossible number of pouches, all stacked like someone had tried to organize chaos and given up halfway.

Three figures stood nearby.

Kiezel was first to spot him.

He bounded forward, arms wide. "There he is! The man of the hour! Barefoot and broke!"

Gruis laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Kiezel stood barely above his waist, but his presence filled the space like a parade. His white hair stuck up in every direction, eyebrows bouncing as he grinned.

"So… did it go according to plan?" he asked, eyes already darting to Gruis's hands.

Gruis held up the sealed parchment. "It's ours."

Behind Kiezel, Stein nodded once. His dwarven statue squat and solid in worn armour that had seen more patches than polish. His massive backpack threatened to topple him. His brown hair hung loose under a cracked helm, and the pickaxe strapped to his back looked like it could split a boulder if he sneezed too hard.

"Well done," Stein said simply.

Gruis smiled. "Wasn't cheap."

Stein's eyebrow rose, just a fraction. "Worth it?"

Gruis looked past him to the building. The boards were crooked, yes. The steps bowed slightly inward, naturally.

Despite all of that, Gruis nodded. "Yeah. Worth it."

A voice behind them, rougher, older, cut in.

"You boys planning on just standing in front of your future?"

Olix approached, leaning slightly on a carved walking stick shaped like a coiled vine. His weathered face wore its usual dry smile. His cloak fluttered behind him in the breeze, decorated with faded patches and pins from a dozen companies long gone.

Gruis straightened. "Olix, you made it."

"I would not miss this for the world," Olix said, eyes scanning the building. "You younglings are finally starting your own company, took you long enough."

Kiezel chuckled. "We wanted to wait until it was almost falling apart before moving in."

Olix smiled. "Attaboy, makes it feel more like home, doesn't it?"

Kiezel nodded, like a child receiving a compliment from his parents.

He stepped closer, putting a hand briefly on Gruis's shoulder.

"You make this place worth remembering," he said, voice quiet now. "Make us remember what we were once so proud of."

Gruis looked at Olix, his red eyes gleaming with determination as he nodded. Olix's words settled somewhere deep in his ribs.

After a short moment, but what felt like hours, Olix turned around, and gave them one last look—at the inn, the bags, the three of them standing under a sun that hadn't let up all morning.

Then, without ceremony, he turned around and began the long walk back, his cane sinking quietly into the sand with every step.

For a moment, the three of them stood in silence, all watching him go.

Kiezel clapped his hands. "So, we unpacking, or naming this dump first?"

Stein adjusted his backpack, narrowly managing the balancing act. "We are renaming it, I do not want to be known as…failure."

Gruis tilted his head and put his hand to his chin. "We should probably pick something that fits."

"Fits?" Kiezel said. "Like The Slightly Standing Shack?"

"How about The Pitfall?" Stein offered.

Gruis shook his head. "Ha…ha… No, something that… points forward."

Kiezel blinked. "Points forward?"

Gruis turned to face the door. His fingers still held the deed, warm and wrinkled. "A guide. A direction. Something that keeps us from getting lost."

Stein's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "You mean like…"

"Kompas," (Compass in Dutch), Gruis said softly.

Kiezel repeated it. "Kompas. I like it."

Stein nodded.

"Alright," Kiezel grinned, already dragging a sack toward the door. "From now on, we are the Kompas. Better we not get lost now, that'd be embarrassing."

Gruis chuckled, stepping toward the inn—his inn, theirs. The old wood groaned underfoot, but it held.

Gruis stepped up to the crooked doorway of the old inn, hand on the warped frame. The wood felt dry, almost brittle beneath his fingers, like it might splinter just from being touched. He pushed the door open.

The hinges screamed.

Inside, the air hit him like dust that aged for decades—stale, dry, and musky, with a weight that clung to the back of his throat. Dust stirred in the sunlight, drifting through gaps in the boarded windows like ash on water.

The floorboards creaked under his steps as he entered.

The entire ground floor was one large room, hollow and tired. What was once a tavern hall now sat in a state of half-collapse. Old barrels stood in the corners, makeshift tables scarred by knife marks and age. There were no real chairs, save for a couple of bent, half-rotted stools behind the bar, and one of those was missing a leg.

The bar itself was unimpressive—only waist-high on Gruis, its top warped with moisture stains, coated with the same thick film of dust that covered the entire floor. Cobwebs trailed from the undersides like drooping silk.

He took another step in.

"Home sweet home!" Kiezel blurted, bursting past him like a dart of white hair and mischief, arms wide open like he was embracing the entire building. "Smells like opportunity and only mild death!"

Gruis laughed, coughing mid-way through. "Opportunity, yeah! Death's optional."

Behind him, Stein dragged in the first of the bags, his heavy boots thudding against the wooden floor. Without a word, he gave the place a quick scan and made straight for the back of the room.

The saloon-style door behind the bar creaked as it swung open. Gruis watched it bounce once, then settle.

"Storage," Stein called from behind the saloon doors.

"Neat," Kiezel said, already dragging a sack twice his size toward it. "You know, with enough scrubbing this could be a pretty decent prep room. Or we just pile everything in there and call it treasure… my treasure."

Gruis wandered, through the saloon doors, as the others dragged in all their belongings. The storage room—big enough to store an inn's worth of goods, now fully empty—was just as dust-choked as the rest. Still, it would do. They had walls, a roof, and a door that... hopefully locked. That was more than most got down in the slums!

On the far side of the tavern floor, a wooden staircase leaned slightly to the right, leading upward with the same reluctant groan as the door had. Gruis ran a hand along the railing, testing the weight.

It did not buckle under his touch.

The upstairs hallway was narrow, lined with four simple doors. All were open. All looked the same.

Each bedroom was long, made of the same dark planks as the floor below, they held, like everything else in this old place—barely.

One window per room. No furniture. Just empty space, faint echoes, and potential.

Gruis stood in the doorway of the last room, staring at the soft bands of light cutting through the dust. The smell up here was drier, older, no one had drawn breath in these rooms for decades. He didn't move for a while. Taking everything in.

Downstairs, he could hear Kiezel laughing—Stein grunting in response, the dull thud of sacks landing.

Gruis smiled. The unease faded.

They were here.

As long as he had them, this place could be anything. Home.

Gruis remained standing for a long while, his eyes fixed on the dust floating lazily in the golden shafts of afternoon light. The room around him was still—silent, except for the sounds drifting up through the floorboards.

Their voices came in and out. Muffled, but unmistakable. Kiezel's energy was easy to trace—rapid-fire sentences, an occasional bark of laughter, the shuffle and clang of something falling over. Stein's voice came more rarely, quieter, like a stone placed with care. It was there, steady. A rhythm Gruis had grown used to.

They were talking about titles. What they'd call themselves once they were famous, no doubt. Gruis didn't need to hear the words to know the conversation. It was light, hopeful, filled with the dreams, a future they would reach together.

He sat on the floor, back against the wall, letting the sound wash over him. He closed his eyes. This—this was something he loved more than he ever admitted aloud. Not the words, not just laughter, but the presence. His friends being here. Being happy. Dreaming. Sharing those dreams in voices full of warmth and tomorrow.

Gruis wanted moments like this to last forever.

Time passed just like that. The light through the window shifted to a warm orange, the long shadows of late afternoon creeping across the wooden planks.

The peaceful silence was interrupted by a loud wham.

The front door slammed open with a force that shook the dust from the rafters. Gruis was on his feet instantly, heart jarring in his chest. He moved down the stairs without thinking.

Kiezel and Stein were already turning, halfway between the bar and the storage room, both frozen at the sound.

The doorway stood wide open now, bright light pouring in, silhouetting the hunched figure in the threshold.

A dwarf.

Gruis knew him immediately.

Bakstein.

The two had known each other once. They had never been close, but their paths had ran parallel for some time, until the road forked and their lives drifted apart. Gruis had wondered what happened to Bakstein—he had heard stories, half-whispers from delvers. Some said he'd joined the Dwarven Dominion. Others said he'd gone out too far and barely made it back each time.

But nothing could have prepared him for the way he looked now.

His long black hair, woven into a thick dwarven braid, clung to the sweat on his back. His beard, braided the same, hung down his chest, streaked with dirt and neglect. His eyes were sunken, ringed with red and purple, skin pale beneath the grime. He swayed slightly, like the act of standing was more than his legs could afford.

His lips were cracked. His breathing was ragged.

"I…" he rasped, voice almost lost in the heat behind him. His chest rose and fell as if each word cost him coin.

"Olix… Olix told me you can help me…"

His eyes met Gruis's.

"Please… help me."

Bakstein barely finished his sentence before he collapsed forward, onto the dusty wooden planks.

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