“Feeling a lot better,” the wounded man muttered in gratitude the next morning. “Think I have to get going now.” He shouldered his pack and adjusted his weapons. The guy had weapons.

“Aye,” Blom answered with no small amount of suspicion. The man woke without a moan or a groan and here he was pushin’ creamed mash into his mouth as though he were a new man. Curious? Yes. He was in a lot of pain with a big ol’ gash across hisself and now he wakes up without a single bit of complainin’? It was time to figure out what that was all about.

“I’m already behind,” he said with an urgency.

“What’s the task then?” asked Blom from the other side of the bar. He was wipin’ the countertop down all slow and deliberate.

“I can’t say too much, you understand,” the man answered clearly. He was breathing deeply and with a certain type of clarity that Blom recognized from his days in the Island Realm and the South O’ Things.

“Aye,” Blom replied. The less he said now the better. The man was unwillin’ to open up and applyin’ too much force here would send him back into the Wildness.

“Things are bad on the other side of Assol,” the man explained. “Real bad. Insurrections and uprisings and trade problems have forced everyone into poverty.”

Blom paid real close attention and kept wipin’ his rag in the same spot. He had been to the other side of Assol, years ago when things were different.

“King’s outta control,” the man continued. “Taxing everyone, even the children. Taxing children! The Crown collectors come once a week and round up everyone who can’t pay up. Haul them off to some prison. Word has spread through the region about Dark Matters.”

“Dark Matters, eh?” Blom asked. He’d not heard the name before, but he knew the spirit behind ‘em. Different names for the same thing.

“You heard of the Kajuhicky Incident?”

“Aye,” Blom said quickly, heart flaring. “Fought in it.”

“That so, now,” the man said thoughtfully. “Last time we fought the Dark Matters, Kajuhicky went bad.”

“Saw it in person,” said Blom, reminiscing. “Bad business.”

“It’s gotten worse. We never recovered. The Dark Matters are back and the Crown is involved this time.”

Blom looked out at the common room quickly, making sure nobody could overhear. “Keep the word low, lad,” he warned. “That’s the sorta talk that earns you some labels out here. Gilba Gilba might seem like a bit o’ backwards but we’re up against the Madman’s Mountains and Ravin’ River.”

The man took this information in silently and nodded with a deliberate slowness.

“Now if I may ask,” Blom pressed, “what indeed finds you out here in the Outlands?”