The Southern Forest was mostly uninhabited and unpassable wilderness. It stretched as far as from the Fire Mountains to the Ferston's doorstep.

In fact, the existence of the great forest was the reason for creating the Town in the first place, only afterwards did a dungeon appear nearby, bringing the necessity of constant surveillance and checking the population of monsters inside.

The woodlands were inhabited by powerful monsters, not like the forests scattered between different Derdanian cities and towns, in the northern part of Derdania, where the landscape consisted mostly of plains and hills, with forests scattered in between.

Thus, the land was unoccupied.

The most 'southern forestish' town would be Ferston, with The Fortress and its town satellites at the second place.

Despite its closeness to the woodland, Ferston was relatively safe. Beasts who were powerful enough to endanger a town protected by two mages, of which one was a master who either didn't see it as good prey or didn't live close enough to consider the possibility.

But now, the situation changed.

The caravan travelled through the woods, filling the only road maintained in the Forest to the brim with wagons, horses and some people walking on foot. The capital's guards and army scattered more evenly across the whole span of the convoy, waiting for a best to attack.

And it was sure to attack.

The monsters inhabiting the woods rarely have seen humans, even rarer did they fight with them. So, none of them feared the caravan, for them it was like a migrating pack of animals, fragile and weak.

And attack they did.

The first was a pack of wolves, which attacked from the front.

The beasts were dealt with by the warriors inhabiting the first carriages, swiftly and nearly without sound. The beasts were weak compared to them.

A few other packs attacked, other parts of the refugee group, but Adam didn't have a chance to witness those fights. His carriage was at the lead, like the day before.

Inside the wooden vehicle, augmented by iron bars, sat Adam, Max, Cynthia and Sylvia. Also like before, no one changed carriages apart from Frank, the kitten Dorian named. His brother stayed though.

Adam stared into Max's eyes, relentlessly seeking eye contact. His friend though, didn't like that and turned his head towards the window.

In response to being ignored, Adam sent a weak [Freeze] at Max's leg, specifically a part that had exposed skin, because of him stretching the leg.

"Ouch, what are you doing? You will freeze me!" The metal mage complained.

Adam, seeing his reaction, nudged Sylvia with his elbow.

She, in turn, stretched her arm and sent a small ember towards the spot affected by Adam's [Freeze].

"You too? Stop it!" Max shouted, while simultaneously moving his leg from the point of impact.

"You were supposed to train. How am I supposed to figure out ascension rituals if you din;r undergo one?" Nagged him, Adam.

"Yeah! Right! Work till your head hurts, or we will have to use the oscillating temperature therapy." Added Sylvia.

"What?" Adam asked, confused about the name.

"Ugh, nothing, let's just call it with another name, this one sounded better in my head than out loud," Sylvia responded, her brown hair fell down and covered her face as she curled up in embarrassment.

"Do you really have to nag me so much? I will train, but the sight outside the window is so beautiful right now, it would be a shame to lose it just for a few more minutes of practice" Max said, looking lovingly out of the window.

"Quit the bullshit. It's winter, and we are in a forest, there is nothing apart from the white ground and massive amounts of trees outside." Adam nagged again. "Start practising, or else..." In the end, Adam summoned a piece of ice, to float over his hand. A clear threat aimed at the metal mage's comfort.

Max succumbed to the oppressors and began his practice, which consisted of materialising a piece of metal, and then forming a shape, given by either Sylvia or Adam while simultaneously manipulating it around the carriage.

While the trio argued and then trained, Cynthia the nature mage slept soundly, apparently, she liked to sleep, a lot.

That's how the journey went for our mages, they mostly trained, or forced someone else to train while in the carriage, then did their voluntary duties when the caravan settled down to let the horses rest.

About the camps, there was one thing good about the southern forest, which in fact didn't from it, but from the fact that now, the caravan was moving behind another group of people, led by Edgar Steelarm, Max's father.

The Master mage led citizens of Ferstion in the same direction King led the capitalizens, to The Fortress. As such, the campsites were already ready and waiting when the royal convoy arrived, left by Edgar and his people.

Of course, as with everything, the weren't only pluses to the campsite situation. Steelarm’s convoy was way smaller than the one led by his older brother, and as such, the campsite was too small for all the capitalizens to fit there.

So, now instead of a circle, the Camp looked like the infinite sign, or kicked eight. Another circular plot of land was cleared by the King or some other powerful mage. There was really no way of telling whose magic did that, at least Adam couldn't.

In the camp, many fireplaces needed a spark, shit was plentiful and the food begged to be freshened up. The only thing they lacked, were holes to dig.

If we are talking about holes, it would be also good to mention that Max changed his tactic while preparing the foundation for the palisade. Now instead of using earth magic to take the ground apart, he started to create a shovel-like piece of metal, which he then used to dig.

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The change was brought by his need to train in metal magic. He didn’t look like he cared about the being behind Adam, but deep inside something told him it was unacceptable, he knew he could do much more, be better, and that infuriated him. He was a very competitive person, the fact he didn’t show that normally, was due to the fact he had no one to compete against.

But now, Adam and Sophie were his rivals, competitors on the road of magic. Now he had to get serious.

The journey continued, and the forest seemed never-ending.

Five days it took them to cross it, five days filled with trees, bushes, snow and surprise attacks from the nearby monster packs. Some people even though they would never reach their destination, that they were lost in the unexplored wilderness, but anyone somewhat knowledgeable knew, that getting lost in the Southern forest was impossible, there was only one road, after all.

They reach the southern outskirts of the forest, and an unbelievable landscape unveiled itself before them

From between the treetops, high, unreachable mountains poked at the sky, dominating the surroundings with their majesty. The Fire Mountains were visible from Ferston too, but to a much lesser extent.

There, the domineering peaks looked like a landscape painting, visible in good weather, and calming the minds of onlookers.

Here, the observer had to tilt their head to see the summit, the peaks occupied all of their vision.

Beneath the mountains, a vast valley layed. Its magnitude was barely visible from the traveller's current position, as it was located on a highland

A huge mountain stood next to the valley's entry, acting like a peninsula and blocking the sight of the rest of the plateau.

Before it, a town was located, similar to Ferston in shape and size, but very different at the same time.

Also, it was guarding the entrance to the forest, similar to what Ferston did on the other side of the path.

Here, the stone was abundant, even too abundant some may say. So while in the plains the stone buildings were a luxurious rarity, in the mountains they were fairly common. Not cheap and everpresent, but still present on every street.

The town had an edge against the capital, even. Its walls were fully made from stone, and as high as the ones defending the main city.

The caravan didn't stop in the town, despite the need to let the horses rest in a few hours. Apparently, The Fortress was near enough to reach it before nightfall. Also, they wouldn't find anyone there either way. The walls were empty, and no one went out to greet such a big group of people emerging from the forest.

As such, King ordered to ascend the hills and enter the valley's plateau, leaving the ghost town behind.

And so they did.

After ascending the steep hills, the caravan finally entered the vast valley, covered in snow, just like the rest of Derdania.

Some rivers, or rather streams were visible and clearly heard by the travellers as the water fell down, from rock to rock, splattering around and making a ruckus. It then flowed down, in the direction of the woodlands, to form a river somewhere among the trees.

Having finally left the confines of the dark forest, those who sat on a horse took off their hats and enjoyed the warmth of the sun, falling on their skin. Unfortunately for people in carriages and roof-covered wagons, the sun couldn’t penetrate the upper covers of their vehicles, so they had to satisfy themself with those of the sun rays that managed to fall through their windows.

The sun, to the disappointment of both parties, wouldn’t be around for long. The high mountains surrounding the valley’s plateau effectively blocked its light in the early morning and just as now, afternoon.

Just as some refugees noticed when they first saw the entrance to the valley, it was shaped like a bay. The highland was surrounded from most sides by high, unclimbable mountains whose slopes and scarcely forested sides occupied most of the surrounding landscape, clearly standing out from the vast, yet flat valley, white from snow.

In contrast to the forest spreading into Derdania for days of travel, growing just outside the valley, the highland was barely green, even scarcer than the mountain slopes surrounding it. Some conifers grew here, but they were rare and far in between.

After crossing the entrance to the valley, the abandoned Town, which the travellers admired for the amount of stone used in the buildings, disappeared behind the mountain that acted like a peninsula for the valley’s bay. The current ghost town was located outside of the valley, so it was no wonder that they lost it from sight.

Instead, few others appeared. Similarly to the first one, the number of stone buildings astonished the refugees. In their mind, the capital was the most prominent city in all of Derdania, but here even the towns had more of those expensive and difficult-to-build constructions than their home city. This site only raised their curiosity about The Fortress, rumoured to be the size of a small city, despite its militaristic function.

Adam’s carriage moved without stopping, the King wanted to reach their destination before nightfall, and for that, there was no time for leisurely sightseeing. That is for the carriage driver, he and his fellow mages had all the time in the world to admire the snow-covered peaks and their surroundings.

Yet, the pleasant-sounding time was filled with terror, among the curiosity and awe.

The landscape was different from what they had usually seen, the mountains felt domineering, unreachable and beautiful at the same time, they were their main focus related to the artistic majesty of the place, but they didn’t occupy the major part of the mage’s thoughts.

What did though, where the towns, scattered at the edges of the valley, were easily seen from the side windows of the carriage.

There were a total of three of them, four if the one outside of the valley was counted. Each was beautiful in its own right. Big, stoney and with tall walls, clearly built with defence in mind, yet still pretty. Outside of their perimeters, few crops durable enough to survive winter grew, but some of them looked damaged, even from a distance. It wasn’t damage caused by the harsh environment, it looked to be caused by vermin, and other animals feeding off the human’s work.

The communities were abandoned, and with them, everything outside and around. The bastion-like towns were empty as if something scared the residents out of their safe homes.

And that scared the mages, riding in the carriage towards a fortress. They were also escaping from something, but neither of them knew what they were running from.

If these settlements’ defences weren’t enough, what difference did The Fortress do?

Time flew by, and soon the caravan reached its destination.

At the very end of the valley, deep inside the Fire Mountains, The Fortress stood, guarding the pass that stretched far into the south, and was the only way to reach Derdania from the continent.

The Fortress was a massive citadel, built on the side of the mountain.

Its back pressed into the mountain slopes and stretched down in a semicircular fashion.

From where the caravan was, multiple towers were seen, stretching towards the clouds. The impressive buildings, visible against the mountains behind them, were similar to The Magic Tower, which nested in the centre of the capital, but much smaller. Instead of having about 30 stories, those towers were about 10 stories high. they were all the same, but due to the difference in height they were placed on, none of them shared the same highest point.

Apart from numerous pillars, a multitude of roofs were visible from behind the walls. The citadel had a few levels, each going higher up the mountain. There, buildings stood proudly, each level visibly higher than the one before. Each storey was also divided by a wall, defending the higher levels in case the lower ones fell to the enemy.

The walls that encompassed the whole structure were big, much bigger than the ones in the nearby towns, and comparing them to the ones surrounding the capital would be humiliating for the architects who designed the massive fortification.

From the wall, three outposts stretched into the valley. The outposts were basically the gates leading into The Fortress. Each of them consisted of a bridge, built above a frozen moat, and and a square bastion on the other side.

Only after going through the bastion, someone could get on the bridge, and assuming the drawbridge was down, then get inside the citadel.

"Huh, so that's why the castle back in the capital looked so lacklustre. All the budget went for this.... huge thing." Commented Adam, and immediately after, he got hit from the side by Sylvia.

"Auch" Adam complained.

The girls just looked at him disapprovingly before going back to looking at the gigantic structure, clinging to the side of the mountain.

The Fortress was truly a monstrous citadel, worthy to defend Derdania from southern foes.