Chapter 113 — Preparations

Chapter 113: Chapter 113 — Preparations

The formal paperwork took less time than Arlen expected, though the weight of it settled into him with considerably more significance than the modest stack of documents alone suggested.

"Transfer credentials, activated," Lyra said, reviewing the final signature with careful, practiced attention. "Effective whenever you actually depart. Your rank, confirmed status, and full quest record transfer intact to whichever branch you eventually settle at — no need to prove yourself twice, though I suspect that was never much of a concern for you regardless."

"Thank you," Arlen said, "for everything, honestly. I don’t think I properly understood, when I first walked through these doors, exactly how much this guild would come to mean to me."

"Most people don’t, at eighteen," Lyra said, something genuinely warm entering her usually composed expression. "I’ve processed a great many registrations in my time here, Arlen. Very few adventurers grow into everything their record eventually shows. You did." She set the finalized paperwork aside. "Where will you actually go first?"

"The capital, I think. Kess made it sound worth seeing properly, and I find myself genuinely curious about the Sundered Depths."

"A fine choice. Ambitious, but you’ve earned the right to be ambitious." Lyra extended a hand, which Arlen shook with genuine feeling. "Safe travels, wherever this next Chapter carries you."

He spent the following days working through the practical business of departure with the same careful, methodical attention he brought to everything — sorting through the accumulated belongings of a year and more spent building a life in Greyhaven, deciding what deserved to travel with him and what belonged, more properly, left behind.

His journal came first, of course, the worn, thick volume that had carried him through every significant discovery and reflection since his very first quest. He packed it carefully alongside his growing collection of guild documentation, the careful records of every ability he’d catalogued, every meal properly documented, every hard-won lesson patiently absorbed.

He found Cobb and Sil at their usual table one evening, the three of them sharing what Arlen understood, without needing to say it aloud, would be one of their final ordinary meals together.

"Feels strange," Cobb admitted, working through his stew with less enthusiasm than usual. "This table’s not going to feel the same, without you here to fill the third seat."

"You’ll manage," Arlen said. "You always do."

"Doesn’t mean we won’t miss the company," Sil said, characteristically brief but genuine.

"I’ll miss it too," Arlen admitted. "More than I probably know how to properly express."

They talked long into the evening, trading old memories — the burrow-wasp contract that had first tested Arlen’s cover story, the countless shared meals and easy conversations that had built, gradually and without any single defining moment, the particular warmth of genuine friendship.

"You’ve changed a lot, since that first evening you sat down here," Cobb said, near the conversation’s natural close. "Nervous rookie, barely able to afford a hot meal, if I remember rightly."

"I remember that too," Arlen said. "Feels like a different lifetime, honestly."

"In a way, it probably is." Cobb raised his mug in a small, informal toast. "To whatever lifetime comes next, then."

"To whatever comes next," Arlen echoed, and found the sentiment carrying more weight than the simple words alone conveyed.

He found Ysolde in her kitchen the following afternoon, the familiar warmth of the guild’s cooking space carrying its own particular significance now that he understood how few opportunities remained to properly enjoy it.

"Heard you’re finally going," she said, not looking up from the pot she was tending. "About time, if you ask me. Man your age shouldn’t stay planted in one kitchen his whole life, however good the company."

"I’ll miss this kitchen," Arlen admitted. "More than I expected to, honestly."

"You contributed more to it than most people ever bother to," Ysolde said, finally turning to face him properly. "That culinary archive’s considerably richer for your entries. I intend to keep adding to it myself, in your honor, so don’t think leaving means you’re done shaping this place."

She pressed a small, carefully wrapped bundle into his hands — dried spices, he realized, unwrapping a corner curiously, along with a handwritten collection of her own recipes, several of which he recognized as ones they’d developed together over the past year.

"For the road," she said, gruffly affectionate. "Can’t have you eating badly, wherever you end up next."

"Thank you," Arlen said, genuinely moved. "For everything. The kitchen, the encouragement, treating my ridiculous hobby like it actually mattered."

"It did matter," Ysolde said firmly. "Don’t let anyone ever convince you otherwise."

He spent his final full day of preparation reviewing his accumulated documentation with Eldrin one final time, finalizing what would be forwarded to the capital archive under Arlen’s own name, and found the professor’s parting words carrying the same warm, genuine weight as everyone else’s careful, deliberate goodbyes.

"You’ve built something remarkable here," Eldrin told him. "Not just your own growth, though that alone would be worth noting. The documentation, the careful contribution to the archive, the genuine curiosity you’ve brought to every discovery. I hope you carry that forward, wherever you settle next."

"I intend to," Arlen said.

That evening, back in his own quarters for what he understood would be one of his final nights there, Arlen worked through the last of his packing — the traveling cloak Bram had given him years earlier, patched and weathered but still serviceable; his sword, its blade carrying the accumulated wear of countless careful, deliberate battles; the small collection of personal effects that had, gradually and without much conscious effort, come to constitute the whole of his material life.

He held the journal a long moment before finally packing it away, turning through a few of its earliest pages — his clumsy, careful handwriting describing the north trail, the Silverleaf patch, the quiet, overwhelming joy of his very first quest completed on his own terms.

I’ve come a long way from that boy, he thought, closing the journal gently and setting it into his pack alongside everything else that mattered. Further than I ever properly imagined, standing on that wall, watching adventurers pass through the gate.

He finished the last of his packing as the evening settled fully into night, his quarters considerably emptier now than they’d been that morning, and found himself standing at the center of the modest, familiar room, turning over the strange, quiet significance of a departure that had, after so many months of careful anticipation, finally arrived close enough to properly touch.

Tomorrow would bring the harder goodbyes — Reya, Fennis, Halvard, Garrett, the full weight of everyone who’d shaped this remarkable year into something worth carrying forward. Tonight, though, he simply stood in the quiet, settled satisfaction of preparation properly, thoroughly completed, ready in every practical sense for whatever the road ahead finally, genuinely had waiting for him.