From high in the sky, Lenore and I could see incredibly far. With our increased attributes, it was quite easy to rise to altitudes normally impossible for birds and our Intuition allowed us to see further than normal, too. It allowed us to see the entire peninsula, clear to the tip where Phalladri, the southern-most port of Aletoma was located.

Since Hatterion, we had been travelling swiftly and carefully, always moving in the forests and towards the south, staying away from any larger town and if we ever got close to one, I was either hiding in the shadows or within my Hallow. Most of the time, both.

Either due to those precautions or by simple luck, we had managed to get away from any potential pursuit, we even got ahead of the rumours. At first, we had occasionally heard of some insane Mage who had performed horrific magic and attacked Hatterion but after a couple of days, those rumours had fallen behind us, as all of us pushed ahead at the fastest pace possible. Certainly, some mounted couriers could have kept up, but those rarely focused on spreading rumours and gossip. It would take a few days for those to catch up, which was evidence of just how quickly we had been moving.

Well, only part of the reason we had been moving that fast was the need to avoid and outrun pursuit. None of us was foolish enough that an event like the Cold Night wouldn’t be spread across some magical communication channel, informing the nobles of every suspicion, so speed wasn’t just to flee.

No, another part of it was that there were incredibly few interesting encounters on the way, there were no monsters that could challenge us and due to us sticking to the forests and backroads, the few people I suspected to be bandits didn’t even try to fight us. As always, without some good reason, intelligent people didn’t try to attack the massive, heavily armoured fighter rushing down the road, or they might suddenly get a tip, and a spear right behind it, or get axed out of nowhere.

With little to do but run, we had covered the distance quickly, though I had managed to grind out a skill-point in Darkness Magic, partially due to the constant need to conceal myself, partially by studying the strange, complete darkness, the void that even swallowed light.

From what we could see from up high, Phalladri was quite similar in structure compared to Torop, the whole city built around a bay, the hills around it and, most importantly the river feeding into the bay. It was easy to see just how important the harbour was, but also the dichotomy between the danger of the ocean, or rather the monster living inside it, and the wealth that came with it.

The sheer discrepancy in wealth and status between the area around the docks and the large, noble manor houses up on the slopes and hill was clearly visible with the naked eye, making me wonder just why people were content to wallow in poverty if the option to head out and literally fight for a higher level and status existed.

But when considering it, it wasn’t so different from the real world, the situation of the Empire a rather sad mirror on reality. Sure, everyone had the theoretical option to head out, but how many actually had the chance? Without equipment or information, without a start to get anywhere, how many people could just start killing monsters and gain power?

If it was so easy to gain power, everyone would do it. No, from what I had seen during our journey, most beasts were between level twenty and thirty, strong enough to be a lethal threat to even groups of normal people, while far too weak to be a threat to actually trained fighters, making it easy to guard the towns but hard to give power into the hands of the common people.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

It made me wonder how levelling in the Human Empire would work for Travellers, surely not everyone would be forced to either content with much more powerful foes or submit to a faction from the start? While it felt realistic, sometimes realistic and fun couldn’t co-exist. But then, there were many oddities with the length Pantheon Entertainment had gone to provide immersion and fantastical realism that didn’t mesh with a classical gaming experience. Only time would tell just how well the masses outside the relatively few, selected testers would feel about the game.

Winging down, Lenore kept quite a bit of distance from the city, carefully approaching to avoid any magical detection. We were out here scouting, so getting caught would be troublesome at best and lethal at worst. We simply didn’t know how well the city was defended magically and if there were measures taken against people entering from within their Spirit Beasts.

As expected, even from afar, there was a trace of magic in the air. It wasn’t as powerful or concentrated as the shield we had witnessed in Torop but there was a tricky subtlety to it that made me frown inside my Hallow.

“We might have to study it a little more,” I suggested to Lenore, who kept circling closer, though staying a safe distance away. For once, her ability to see magic wasn’t as useful, the structure was too spread out, too wide, to be grasped with a single glance, forcing us to slowly make our way around the city, trying to parse together what the magic actually did.

If it was defensive in nature, it was a strange defence, it was more akin to an elevated level of certain elements in the air, not necessarily able to actually affect anything but more akin to a scent that would cling to people. To what purpose, I wasn’t able to deduct, though I had a couple of theories.

“Do you think it reacts differently to different beings?” Lenore suggested after we had studied the strange effect for some thirty minutes.

“Possible, it could also just be a simple, first step, a tag to mark people that can be detected with further spellwork, closer to the city,” I replied, reminding her that the strange concentration started almost half a kilometre away from the city, rising high enough to cover the highest peaks within the town.

“Stay high and let’s fly across town. Maybe we’ll be able to detect something else from above,” I suggested and Lenore immediately flapped her wings, climbing back up into the sky.

Up there, still quite a distance above the cloud of magic that lingered around town, we started to glide across the formation, making very sure we wouldn’t actually get into range of it. If nothing else, trying to infiltrate a town by air would be the most obvious weakness of walls so I didn’t want to get caught in whatever preparation was made to defend from airborne attackers. It could be something as simple as the prepared, heavy crossbows we had seen in Yaksha to something much more sophisticated, like the Shield of Torop.

“I think I recognise some of that spellwork,” I muttered, trying to figure out just what we were looking at. Compared to the soft shield that covered the outside area, there was a clear, almost crystalline hardness to the magical formation closer to town, something that made me frown. Parts of it looked quite similar to the Magic Devouring I had used in the past, almost as if it was built to achieve the same effect but using different parts. If that actually meant it was a dispelling formation or something entirely different, I just couldn’t distinguish.

“We should try and see what happens if we scry the place, but carefully. I don’t think we can be too cautious, we don’t want to get into trouble before we bid farewell to Aletoma,” I sighed, feeling that the Human Continent was far less fun compared to Aretia. Rigid structures, deep intrigues and far too many schemes and annoyances stretched across the land akin to a spider web, the wonderful hallmarks of civilisation. If anything, I made a mental note to avoid the place as much as possible in the future. Some people might enjoy the experience, but for me, it felt stifling, almost like the real world. If I wanted to muddle around in a structured, civilised society, I could do so without logging in, what I wanted in Mundus was the excitement and the challenge, the wildness and open skies. Wondering what was behind the next bend in the road, not seeing a sign on the road that told me the name of the next town and how far it was.

For now, we had a town to infiltrate, a passage to book and a monster-infested ocean to cross. All in a day’s work.