“A travelling mage is never alone. After all, who says no to a free escort?”~Merchants handbook, chapter 3 - How to get there
The merchant, Valla, paid reasonably. Most merchants tried to haggle on the price, which made it all the more awkward. All mages that got their travel licence also got classes on how to deal with annoying merchants. It really wasn’t that difficult, most could be easily dealt with by walking away. The rest is where it got complicated.
Valla just nodded, grabbed the coins and asked to meet her outside in half an hour. It honestly freaked Bernin out a little. She had expected at least one round of ‘Really? Yes, really?’. She had her whole response already prepared, only for nothing to be necessary at all. It was a little weird and made her suspicious. What kind of merchant didn’t even pretend to haggle?
Half an hour later, Valla arrived with a goat driven cart. She patted the spot next to her.
“Alright, unless you want to walk, there’s space on the cart.”
“I’ll take it.”
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Bernin took her offered hand and levered herself upward. Bernin sat down and looked at Valla. The woman was still suspicious, but she supposed it was better to be upfront about these things.
“I’m going to cast some wards. They should serve as an early warning system and basic projectile defence.”
She started moving her hands to the familiar patterns. She had cast her personal wards already of course. That part had been drilled into her. The new wards weren’t that different. They merely had to be spread over a larger area. She also anchored the spell to the cart, instead of herself. It helped that the cart was wood. It wasn’t that constrictive. The enchantment of her home in the university had been a pain. Glass really did not want to bend, but it sure loved to break.
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Bernin had been on edge for the first couple minutes in the dense foliage. There were trees and shadows everywhere and while it looked nice, the stress from the day had not left her trusting. However, it wasn’t easy to maintain stress for a long period of time. Eventually the absurdity of her worries caught up with her. She literally had a magical ward up to alert her to intruders and a second ward to catch projectiles. That wasn’t even counting her personal wards.
It was time to focus on the woman next to her, she had been quiet for the whole ride over, content to sit in silence. That was generally fine with Bernin, but something about this woman made her suspicious. The best way to figure this out was one simple thing, it was also something Bernin generally did not enjoy. It was time for small talk.