Everyone had the day off to explore the new town, while I was set to head out on a 'mission.' As I slipped into my dress, I hesitated, unsure whether to conceal my wings or not. In the end, I decided to take Ju's advice and hide them, so as not to appear too far outside the norm. Maybe it was just her elvish prejudice talking.

We were in Koreia, the provincial capital of Ahetia. It was a growing town, but nowhere near as cosmopolitan as Uldaman, and only a fraction of its size. Nearly everyone here was human, which might explain Ju's creeping paranoia. Ahetia was a vast province, roughly the size of California, but sparsely populated, with only around three million people, about half of whom were concentrated in the five or six major cities.

There was no zeppelin line to Koreia, so we had to fly from Uldaman to Maratha, the province's second most important city near its western border, and from there, use coach transport and a couple of fixed portals. The zeppelins couldn’t venture further due to the wyverns inhabiting the mountains about a hundred and fifty kilometers north of Koreia.

On very clear days, the white peaks of those mountains could be seen from the provincial capital's highest points. Technically, they were still part of the province, but few dared to enter, and even fewer returned.

These wyverns were fiercely territorial and aggressive towards any perceived rivals, which was why no zeppelin line existed and why no avian creatures lived on Adrai, the other continent.

However, the wyvern population on this continent was much smaller than on Adrai, allowing for the development of some flying machines, flying mounts, and even avian tribes in areas not dominated by wyverns.

I was planning to visit some of the bigger taverns around the army district to try and gather followers for our endeavor. The idea had come from Michael. In the game, this was the best way to recruit followers, and theoretically, it should still work, he’d said. Well, we wouldn’t lose much—maybe just the cost of a few drinks—if it didn’t pan out, so I decided to go along with it.

At first, I felt a bit unsure, but as I got closer to the district, my confidence grew. Perhaps Cala’s memories were helping; she’d done some recruiting for her raids back in the day. I passed by a couple of taverns that looked too run-down—no point recruiting from places where you'd find the kind of people more suited to robbery than anything else. We needed people who could help free my castle and, eventually, help administer it.

In Uldaman, I’d heard rumors about gangs of outlaws occupying the area around my castle, but here, there was no such talk. On the other hand, I was told that the property hadn’t been properly administered for some time, so it was possible we’d encounter marauders or squatters when we arrived. The few followers I hoped to recruit today might not be enough to clear them out, but the plan was to first inspect the area. If we did find a gang too difficult to dislodge, I could always return to the regional capital and recruit a couple hundred soldiers.

Hiring that small army would cost a fair bit—around ten gold per hundred soldiers per day—money I didn’t have on hand. I could take out a loan against the domain, but I hated the idea of being in debt. As long as I could avoid it, I would. Why spend that kind of money on a mere rumor?

Finally, I found an inn that looked promising: “Ahetia's Lion.” It was a massive building with several floors and a sprawling ground-floor room packed with at least a hundred tables. Most of the seats were occupied by various classes of soldiers, mercenaries, and even a few bandits scattered about, all talking, playing cards, drinking, and eating.

As I entered, I noticed the prostitutes by the stairs leading to the first floor. They greeted me, but I kept walking, careful not to engage. I didn’t want to be rude, but I also didn’t want to give the impression that I was looking for company. There were all kinds of offers on display, though not in an overly disturbing way. From upstairs, I could hear music and lively chatter and further above were the rooms that could be rented by the hour.

The custom for signaling that you had job offers was to pick up a small flag from the bar and place it on your table. People would come by to inquire about the work, and word about your job offerings would quickly spread by word of mouth throughout the entire inn. When you were done recruiting, you simply laid the flag flat on the table. This straightforward method seemed to still be in practice; I spotted two such tables, one of which appeared to be recruiting for the army.

I didn’t want to start the recruiting process immediately. First, I wanted to get a sense of the kind of people frequenting this establishment, and besides, I had some thoughts of my own to mull over. After scanning the room, I found an empty table and sat down. A young waiter appeared almost instantly to take my order.

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"A skoal, please," I ordered.

The waiter smiled, clearly surprised by my politeness. "Certainly, my lady. Anything else?" he asked with a bow.

'Waiter, level fifteen,' my Identify spell informed me. A surprisingly high level for someone so young: he must have been not older than fifteen. Maybe fourteen.

"No, that will be all for now." I answered.

"Very well, my lady," he replied with another bow, disappearing in an instant. He returned less than a minute later, placing the skoal on my table.

I was glad to see they served skoal—a kind of beer mixed with fruit juice and distilled alcohol. I had ordered it instinctively and chuckled as I picked it up. It had been Cala’s favorite drink, and just stepping into this kind of establishment seemed to have automatically brought out her side of me.

Speaking of Cala, I had been mulling over what happened with that token in the judge's room. No, I wasn’t truly Cala. That was clear for me now. I didn’t have all her memories or thoughts, just fragments, as if the process fusing us had been interrupted. Maybe that interruption saved our lives. I don’t think we would have survived another, even bigger explosion.

So, how did that trick with the token work?

After much back and forth these past few days, I had a theory. According to this theory, Cala was still connected to me in that ethereal world, but no longer through White Flower, our common possessor. The ethereal world was outside our space-time—perhaps a different realm, with its own set of properties. I recalled that Black Angel that White Flower had also 'connected' to me. It was exactly as she described, added like a piece of baggage in the ethereal world. So now, I likely had two additional 'baggages': Cala and White Flower. This must have happened during the third implosion in the Death Node. After that, there were no more disturbances and no further explosions occurred.

Being completely in the ethereal world, they obviously couldn't communicate with me, not being in this space-time. Time had no significance for them. If they were to return to this world, it would likely feel to them as if only a second had passed since the Death Node explosion, and they suddenly found themselves somewhere else.

But with her body somehow attached to mine, I could tap into her mana, as I instinctively did when casting that spell.

How did this happen? Call it divine intervention, perhaps. Maybe that warning I received not long ago was a clue: “Lores Deimosdottir, some things may be better left unspoken.”

Lores Deimosdottir. Did that mean what I thought it did?

Oh well, back to Cala: could I free her? Could I free White Flower? If I understood White Flower and the Black Angel correctly, it should be possible. Either I would need to learn how to do it, or they might be brought back into this world automatically if I died. Okay, since I had no intention of dying anytime soon, I should probably look for some books about the ethereal world and figure out how to free them that way.

I took another sip from my "beer" and realized the glass was empty. I glanced up, and the waiter noticed immediately. Now that’s a good waiter! I made another small gesture, and he nodded in acknowledgment. Soon enough, a second 'skoal' was placed on my table.

I sipped from the glass, savoring the taste, and then stared contentedly at it. Its very dark, shimmering black color reminded me of Sid and I sighed.

The boys had done some research, and Hew discovered in some dragon tales, that a motherly breath from a mother dragon, or a dragon’s call, should be enough to wake him. That sounded promising, but where was I supposed to find a dragon?

Tom had the bright idea to ask me to transform him into a dragon. It sounded like a great plan, so we quickly called an ad-hoc council, discussed if there were any risks, and decided to give it a try. I attempted the spell right away, but it fizzled out as soon as I tried to focus on the concept of a dragon.

Why?

After some research in the transformation book, I found the answer: he simply wasn’t dragon material. You can’t just transform into anything you want; there are always certain requirements to meet.

Next up was Tina, but I got the same result. This time, though, the spell fizzled badly, leaving me with some superficial burns. Nothing serious, but unpleasant enough to teach me a lesson.

I learned to test the spell first before fully committing, and that way, I realized—without burning myself—that nobody was truly dragon material. Not even Alice had the right qualities for it. Lynx came the closest, but even with him, the spell fluctuated, and I didn’t want to risk forcing it.

"May I sit at your table, my lady?" A broad-shouldered rogue, dressed in a mix of peasant garb and trapper’s gear, asked politely, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I glanced around. The tavern was relatively full, with a few scattered chairs still available at other tables. My table had two free benches on either side and was in a prime spot near the terrace doors. Outside, the sun was already blazing, making it uncomfortably hot. The remaining seats inside were too close to the kitchen, where waves of smoke and steam drifted out.

"Be my guest," I replied magnanimously, raising a hand. My instincts—or rather, Cala’s instincts—telling me that he might be a good recruit.