Another few hours of riding have passed since the last encounter with the undead. As the determined Mistwalkers march forward, a weather-beaten wooden sign emerges from the grey fog. 'TERRANCE, FIVE MILES' is reads in slightly worn letters.

“We should be there within the next hour and a half.” Veros announces as they pass the sign.

“It'll be nice to finally rest a place to rest with a few hours to spare before it gets dark.” Kellar comments positively on the shorter distance they had to travel for the day, as they're used to fifty-mile journeys from checkpoint to checkpoint.

“Considering the fact our days are becoming shorter due to the mist, we'll probably have to stick to forty miles per day from now on, at most.”

Kellar twists his face with harsh reluctance. “Doesn't that mean more days we'd have to ration food for?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” The team leader admits with a small sigh. “But it's better than continuing on at night, with near zero visibility.”

Due to the thickness of the fog increasing as they continue north, more and more sunlight is gradually blocked out, making evenings darker sooner. Since they first stepped beyond the barrier, the length of their day has already dropped by over an hour.

Not much further down the road, yet another pair of dark figures of two undead can seen making its way onto the path.

“More of them.” Veros comments as the halts his horse. “Who wants to take care of these?”

“I'd like to.” The low but calm voice of Erik is heard as his horse takes a few steps forward.

Veros beckons him to proceed. “They're all yours.”

The quiet noble wastes no time is preparing his bow and grabbing an arrow from the full quiver at his back. He nocks it into his bowstring, and takes aim at one of the shambling corpses ahead. Before he looses the arrow, a strange sight happens. Both undead suddenly fall over limply at the spot they were standing, hitting the ground with thuds nearly at the same time. Confused, the archer lets his bowstring retract and drops his aim.

“What the...” He softly utters under his breath.

Veros suddenly points deeper into the colorless abyss. “Look!”

The Mistwalkers look into the fog, spotting two tall shapes beyond the now unmoving remains of the two corpses. They're approaching slowly, with the sound of soft thumps accompanying them. Soon the mist clears just enough to make out vague details of a horse, but once they reach the boundary of visibility, they stop.

“Are you Mistwalkers?!” A masculine voice coming from one of the two riders asks in an authoritative yell to cover the distance.

“We are!” Veros answers.

“How many are you?!”

“Six!”

The two riders decide to slowly proceed forward and approach the group, revealing themselves. One is a man with long, wavy black hair down to his shoulders. He has a thick goatee, but his cheeks, jaw, and upper neck are veiled in untamed scruff. He's in a heavily weathered iron cuirass and equipped with a bow, quiver, broadsword, and shield. The other is a woman with very short, dirty blonde hair, donning as much equipment as the man is.

“I guess you're making your way to Terrance, then?” The unknown man asks.

“We are.” Veros answers, slightly on guard. “Are you from there?”

The man nods. “We are. My name's Vincent. This is my wife, Misha. We currently reside in the fortified Terrance, and we do daily patrols in the afternoon. We come about five miles down, killing any undead we see, then return.”

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“I'm Veros, and this is my team. We're looking to hole up in Terrance for the night.”

“I suppose you plan on continuing north tomorrow, then? If you only cared about the Mistwalker wage, you'd have returned south after reaching Rosemont.”

“Yes, we do.”

After hearing that immediate confirmation, Vincent examines the group he just met, sizing them up and quietly pondering their capabilities.

“Alright. We'll escort you.” He eventually responds after a moment. “Follow us.”

Vincent and Misha turn their horses around and begin to lead the Mistwalkers north. As they approach the two undead they shot with arrows, Misha quickly dismounts her horse, relinquishes the arrows from the skulls of the corpses, and mounts again with the finesse of someone who's done it dozens of times by now.

“How many cards are you on?” Vincent asks aloud without turning around.

“This is our first sortie.” Veros responds.

The surprising answer causes Vincent to turn his head. “Really? Made it this far on your first time? Quite impressive. It took Misha and I three cards to build up the nerve to go past the Rosemont line.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About a month and a half ago. We reached Terrance and decided to stay.”

Veros furrows his brow a bit. “You haven't gone back to the gates since then?”

“We have.” Vincent nods. “Every four weeks we make our way down, collect payment, and come back up.”

“If you don't mind me asking,” The veteran, more curious than ever, poses a question. “What's your motivation for staying here?”

Vincent takes a deep breath and shifts in his saddle, trying to think of a short explanation. “Well, to make a long story short, we didn't have much of a life in Evatica, so we decided to make ourselves useful to the cause. You know, it may be dangerous, but it's an underrated benefit that as long as this place is shrouded in the mist, you essentially get paid to live out here, tax-free. Not that I want the mist to exist forever, but I'm certainly going to take advantage while it's here.”

“Couldn't you accomplish the same thing by living in one of the abandoned villages right next to the barrier?” Veros asks, interested in poking the brain of people who actually live in the misted region.

“Not necessarily. We wouldn't get the bonus for visiting every checkpoint that way, and the people who only sign up for Mistwalker duty to loot would be trying to break into our house every day. Frankly, that would be far more annoying than dealing with undead.”

Veros quietly considers it a very risky way to live, but if it's truly what they consider to be the best option for themselves, then who is he to judge? If they're competent and self-reliant, they really could live out their days in the mist with no issue and receive a wage for doing so. At the end of the day, they're still following the rules established by the crown for the Mistwalker initiative. If the mist ever does go away, hopefully by the deeds of Veros's own team, then they'll have saved up quite a nest egg from Mistwalker pay. Again, a risky way to live, but potentially very rewarding if you know what you're doing.

About an hour of quiet riding passes, and the road soon leads to the shape of a giant, transparent dome, with a chest-high gate and ten-foot tall palisades immediately within its borders.

“An arcane barrier?” Kellar, wide-eyed, exclaims what everyone in the group is thinking. “How the hell do you have one of those?”

“We'll let the chief explain all that to you once you're inside.” Vincent answers bluntly.

“Whoa, there.” The group is stopped by a guard at the gate allowing entrance into the village proper. “Picked up some Mistwalkers on your patrol, Vincent?”

Vincent nods to his colleague. “I did. They're heading north tomorrow. The chief's still in, right?”

“Yup. Stayed in today.” The guard replies. “You can head on in.”

He turns to unlock the gate and push it open wide enough for the horses to walk through in a single-file line. Once within the walls of the village, Veros and company look around and notice that the barrier doesn't reach as far the ones at the Legion checkpoints, but is enough to cover the entire mid-south section of the village. Additionally, the palisades line the interior side of the transparent boundary, providing extra safety to the people inside.

“Manor's this way.” Vincent beckons the group to follow him a bit further.

As they slowly make their way towards the center of the fortified area, the group notices that everything seems to be well maintained, as though this particular part of Terrance had been completely untouched by the unknown miasma plaguing everything else around it. A handful of other Mistwalkers are seen going about their day, doing normal daily chores that any villager might be caught doing. Needless to say, the six journeyers are surprised to see such a functional, though small community this far north.

“We're here.” Vincent speaks up again, snapping the others out of their fascination.

He and Misha dismount their horses and hitch them to a post in front of a very large house. The others follow suit, and are guided inside, where the first thing they see is a great hall with a long table centered in the middle of the room underneath a grand chandelier made from deer horns. At the opposite end of the hall is two large chairs on an elevated platform, overseeing the entire room. Unfortunately, no one else is there.

“She's probably in the back.” Misha speaks for the first time, revealing a voice that's slightly coarse for a woman, but also quite soothing all the same. “I'll go get her.”

She walks through the room and crosses an open doorway beside the two wooden thrones on the platform.