“No one heals himself by wounding another.”

― St. Ambrose

The scout led them through the winter woods and nearly all of them- other than the boys, the magus, and Mireille- were panting by the time they reached a clearing, and Lieutenant Philias declared a rest.

Falling backward into the snow Alyssa gasped and then laboriously sat up letting the straps of her backpack slide from her shoulders. Alea gestured and Butler One cleaned the surface of a small fallen tree before laying a blanket on top, the smaller girl then sat down with a contented sigh.

Mireille laughed at that and then sat down directly beside her on a bit of spare blanket while ignoring Alea’s indignant gaze.

Cyrus was off in the bushes to the side foraging around and suddenly there was a shrill shriek and the horned head was thrown back with something small and wriggling held securely by fangs the length of a finger. Throwing whatever small rodent he had managed to catch into the air he snapped and then swallowed the little creature whole.

Annabeth swallowed nervously at the sight and then went to prepare a small campsite for the two boys and the black-haired sisters.

Alyssa brushed some snow from the tree her other friends were already sitting on and then lowered herself onto her seat yawning sleepily.

The two half-elves walked over and Valens put down his blanket for the two to sit opposite the three friends.

The clearing had been created by the fall of a giant oak tree that still lay half-sunken in the earth and snow. Flurries of snow fell from above, the cloud cover had thickened considerably since the morning but thankfully it was a bit warmer if still freezing.

“What do you think of our group so far?” Vivienne quietly asked while chewing on a bit of jerky.

“Mh. I don’t care for his mightiness and the boys are somewhat unpleasant.” Mireille answered bluntly. “But what rubs me wrong is how they treat Annabeth. She seems to be a really nice person.”

“She is a commoner in a school made for nobles or the very rich,” Alea said softly. “And from my experiences, limited as they are, it is seen as normal to employ commoners to serve the nobles. They don’t see it as anything problematic probably.”

“I hope they pay her well at least.” Alyssa looked at the other group and met the eyes of the Lieutenant who gave her a disapproving glare.

Mireille followed her gaze and murmured, “Arrogant prick.”

“He is our superior for this outing so please be careful not to antagonize him without reason.” Alyssa turned back to her friends. “It isn’t that I did not have an inkling he would take my mending her clothes the wrong way. I – was- a bit rebellious.” She played with a strap from her coat and sighed, “but his disregard for her pain and the way he had tolerated the boy's attitude really rubbed me the wrong way.”

Vivienne looked at her with interest. “You should probably choose your battles so that they favor you more, just saying.”

Valens glanced at his sister in amusement.

Cyrus came back out of the bushes and put his bloody snout squarely on Alyssa’s lap while turning his head to look at her cutely.

“Aaah! Not with all the blood on you!” Alyssa struggled as Mireille giggled.

Alea smiled a bit and spoke a short spell cleaning both the wyvern and her friend. Putting a finger forward she touched Alyssa’s left forearm and a thin layer of ice cracked and fell. “Doesn’t that feel cold to you?”

Alyssa shrunk her neck and looked awkward. “I don’t feel the cold with my left arm. That wasn’t a problem until now and it seems to do nothing bad even when my arm freezes."

“That is a bit strange.” Mireille poked her too and another pane of ice flaked off. “You should have a lot to talk about with Iseret, doesn’t she also get cold and has problems getting warm by herself?”

“I’m not a reptile” Alyssa pouted and then hastily added, “Nothing against Iseret, she is a lovely person.”

“Wouldn’t have put it quite that way,” Mireille murmured as she remembered the black poison dripping from the Reborn's khopesh stabbing into the armored vampire.

“More eating less talking.” Vivienne was chewing on her second piece of jerky.

The group ate in silence only occasionally chatting- They were still exhausted from the first leg of their day’s journey.

Zhira walked along the forest's edge and inspected several trees more closely before coming back and sitting down near Alyssa and her friends while not taking part in their discussion.

Clapping to gain their attention Philias called to them, “We are getting underway in five minutes finish everything by then we will not be waiting for stragglers. He looked pointedly at Annabeth who was struggling to gather the remnants of the camp she had erected for the nobles.

Mireille grimaced and then went over to help her. Together they made short work of the few blankets they had laid out and the small table. ‘A table?’ Mireille looked nonplussed.

“Give it here.” Jeremy gestured and Annabeth passed him the folded wooden contraption. Grabbing it he simply pushed the whole thing into a large bag hung at his side where it vanished.

“Is that a bag of holding?” Mireille asked curiously.

“Yes, never seen one have you?” Jeremy grinned proudly then tilted the opening showing a mindbending scene of several sacks, a tent, and said table lying around beside some weapons. It all looked to be near and far at the same time.

Wincing Mireille pulled back and looked at a nearby tree to steady herself while Jeremy was laughing. “What a funny reaction, gets me every time.” He clapped on Talbert’s shoulder who shrugged with a grin of his own.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“That was five minutes, form up we are breaking camp.” The lieutenant called.

Annabeth smiled at Mireille and whispered, “Thank you very much but I get paid for this so you needn’t help me. Really, I’ll be fine.”

Mireille grinned and said, “Don’t worry about it. If you were too slow and got caught by our fearless leader we would all have to suffer through a lecture so it was purely in self-defense.”

The brunette giggled at that but shook her head. “I will simply have to do my best.”

Walking deeper into the woods they arrived on a ridge overlooking the land slowly declining toward the distant river. A cold breeze rustled the branches of the trees above and some clumped snow fell from a tree leaning over the edge disintegrating in the wind before hitting the top of the trees below.

In between some trees they saw a logging camp that sported some sharpened stakes angled outwards and a crude log hut spilling a stream of smoke from a chimney hole.

“That is our destination for this day. There are valuable mana-infused trees in this region and that is how this camp came to be.” Philias explained before waving for them to continue walking.

The sky was already deepening into a golden color and they would have to really make haste to reach the camp before nightfall.

Zhira looked at the camp with an unreadable expression but Mireille thought she saw some anger in her gaze before she took the lead leading them along a natural ramp that led down the incline.

“If they transport wood from here, where are the roads? And why don’t we use a road if there is one?” Mireille grumbled.

“I think they use some other means to export the logs, an airship or the river perhaps? It would be very troublesome otherwise.” Alea gasped in between the words.

“Are you alright?” Alyssa was in no better shape and stumbled before grabbing hold of the earthen hillside to her right.

“I would recommend focusing on the road.” Vivienne curtly reminded them.

Cyrus looked at them, looked at the road, and then simply jumped over the edge spread his wings, and glided on the wind toward the end of the ramp.

“Cheater.” Mireille smiled wryly.

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Somewhere in the Nordmark Lands

Calvin woke from a night of uneasy sleep and quickly washed using spells more than the slightly dirty water sloshing in a prepared basin. Rubbing his tired eyes he grabbed his gear and went down the stairs.

“Ah, Mr. Sattler, good morning!”

“Morning to you too lad.” The old innkeeper seemed a bit more cheerful in the morning. “Here ya go.” He put a pitcher of water and some bread alongside a slice of ham and a wedge of cheese before the wizard.

“Thank you.” He bit into the bread and winced at the solid crust.

“Sorry.” The innkeeper seemed to be anything but, “The baker doesn’t have enough flour to bake so often, the next time should be in two or three days.”

“It’s...fine...I guess.” Calvin sighed and dipped the bread into the water to soften it before taking another bite.

“Will you be leaving us today or do we have the pleasure of another day of your company?”

“Polite aren’t we?” Calvin grinned while Mr. Sattler guffawed, “I will be leaving today. No sense in wasting daylight.”

“That’s true even as I don’t see where you would get mercenary work in winter.”

“Oh, you would be surprised.” Calvin finished his meal and then got up shouldering his saddlebags. “Where is your boy?”

“He should be outside caring for your horse. Have a pleasant journey.” At the word pleasant and while looking outside he had to cough.

“I guess I will at that.” Calvin went outside and walked up to the stables seeing his horse and an old nag that probably had once been used to plow as well as three pigs and some chickens. “Where were the eggs today.” He grumbled a bit.

“They don’t lay as much, we don’t have enough feed for them.” The teenager seemed worried and apologetic at once.

“Mh. To an early spring.” Calvin nodded flicked him a copper coin, slid the warstaff into its holster, and mounted the horse. “Until next time.”

“Goodbye, sir!”

Riding through the village in the daytime was worse than during the night. All the little things were plainly visible such as a sagging roof, a broken door poorly repaired with some woven straw. People who worked outside at this time were few and far between and those he saw were even more destitute looking than the innkeeper and his stableboy.

The villagers eyed him suspiciously as he rode down the main road and soon he had left the small hamlet behind.

Soon he was on the forest road which seemed to be in about as good a condition as the village. Potholes and deep ruts marred the surface and if it weren’t for the cold that had frozen the puddles it would probably have been even worse.

‘Roads are the most important lifelines of trade, how can they get so bad?’ He concentrated on guiding his horse around the worst of it and was somewhat distracted so that he spied them too late.

“Halt!”

‘Oh dammit.’ He inwardly cursed then took a look around. In front of him stood a big man with a fur vest over leather armor hefting a large woodsman’s axe. Beside the man were three others attired in peasant's clothing with one of them having bound the lid of a large pot of all things before his bulging belly. In the woods to the sides, he more sensed than saw several bowmen. All of this had not been visible until he rounded a bend in the road going around a large boulder at the side of a small earthen hill. And yes, up on that rock stood another two women with bows.

The big man grinned with blackened teeth and began to talk. “Welcome to our wood. And because it's ours…”

“Oh please shut up.” Calvin grabbed his warstaff and speaking a short spell winds rose around him ripping him upwards toward the top of the rock while his horse panicked and ran back the way he had come. ‘That’s gonna be a pain to catch later’ And then he was in the air above the two female bandits and saw that they were near children.

Cursing under his breath he grabbed a wand from his belt and forcibly injected mana. Two arrows shot at him and hit his coat ricocheting in a shower of sparks as protective runes ignited.

The wand spat a large ball of webbing that unfolded underneath him and slowly sank to cover the two archers even as they tried to get out from under it. They did not seem to want to simply jump the near five meters to the ground below and the descent to the hillside looked treacherous.

Coming down with too much speed he bowed his knees and then tried to tumble forward which led to him entangling himself in the side of the web and getting stabbed by one of the girls for good measure but nothing penetrated his protective spellwork- for now.

Stumbling to his feet he grimaced as his right knee send him twinges of pain. ‘I’m not getting any younger that’s for sure!’ Inane thoughts flashed past as he sheathed the wand and activated the warstaff gathering fire energy out of the mana jewels inset under the wrapping in the middle.

“Get ‘m boys!” The heavy man with the axe shouted furiously. “You! Catch the damn horse! Archers fire!”

Grinning with dark glee Calvin loosed a ball of fire nearly a forearm in diameter and then stomped decisively on the hand of one of the girls still trying to knife him a shrill scream and some curses answered him before the fireball hit and a plume of flame exploded outward and up engulfing the six bandits on the road in roaring flames. Screams of anger turned to desperate shrieks as hair and clothing caught on fire and after the flames and smoke cleared there were only two men still standing beating at the smoldering flames.

Concentrating Calvin gathered air and water magic and then focused with the help of the staff to generate several lances of ice that he then shot at the archers in the woods who still tried to hit him- up to now with no success.

Screams from the forested area told of the effectiveness of his magic and the few bandits that were left fled into the cover of the trees.

Turning he looked at the two struggling teenagers under his webbing.

“Cease that racket or I will burn you to kingdom come.” Calvin looked disgruntled and his horse had already vanished from view.

The first of his captives ceased to struggle and began to plead. “Good sir, please spare us we only wanted somethin’ to eat!”

“Traitor, we could still get him!” The other was still struggling.

“Did you see the fireball I threw?” Calvin looked incredulous.

“You are…” she struggled, “just a streetmage! They do illushuns all the time! They are not real!”

“Mh. Of all the times to have an original idea.” The wizard laughed. “Is my web also an illusion?” He asked politely.

Her struggles slowed. “...no?”

“I still have a use for you so don’t fear that I will kill you.”

The first to stop her escape looked at him warily.

“I need information! Nothing else!”