Orivaughn and Ketta laid with one another in a loveseat in one of the many lounges the governor’s palace had to offer. This lounge featured three walls made of smooth sandstone walls, with inlaid panels of embossed scenes depicting the various deeds of the many Medean Miracles throughout their family’s history. Some of the panels were still blank, awaiting the Miracles of the future and the stories they would bring.

  The fourth wall was a single, enormous mirror, seemingly doubling the size of the room. Slightly more, as the mirror was subtly curved inwards, though not enough to noticeably distort one’s own reflection. The mirror was the primary focus of the Room of Reflection. Most of its history had it used as a private office, however Orivaughn had it remodeled into an open lounge rather than a personal office, as he enjoyed “Having guests appreciate our storied histories”.

  Orivaughn often brought Ketta here when there were official matters to discuss, but nothing of legal importance. Ketta laid against him as he idly played with their hair. Ketta once found this room wondrous, but now that they’ve examined the engravings time and time again, the charm had worn off to reveal a room that felt open, yet oddly stifling. It did bring them comfort, as being here with Orivaughn meant he would be placid in their slow discussions. Usually.

  “Ketti, I’m already worried about you,” Orivaughn whined. “I just want to make sure you’re safe.”

  Ketta snuggled into him a little more before trying to respond. He was whining, but they knew he was in a good mood in spite of that. All they had to do was keep this playful, and he would be more likely to listen to outside opinion. They had to play their cards right to get him to fold.

  “I know,” Ketta whined back, “It's so scary out there sometimes. They watch me, you know.”

  “Who watches you, darling?”

  “People!” Ketta said in a voice that leaked just a smidge of concern.

  Orivaughn picked up on this concern, and thought himself clever for noticing, despite Ketta sprinkling it in like a chef adding a potent spice.

  “That's why I make sure the guard goes with you, darling,” Orivaughn placated, “There’s nothing to fear.”

  “I know,” Ketta whined in a drawn out reply, “But it's still so scary when those, those people watch you, you know! I’m trying so hard to do my best for you.”

  Ketta was putting on a performance of their relationship several years ago, when they actually did want to bow and do Orivaughn’s every last whim to please him. Now, this was merely their means to an end. Orivaughn still lived in that past, and felt nothing was amiss.

  “You’ve been doing an excellent job for me, darling. Your reports on local factors of instigation were a great help. I will need you to continue going out to conduct more.”

  “It’s been getting harder, though,” Ketta said.

  “Whatever do you mean, darling?”

  “Those people, the ones who watch me. They’ve been heading off the guards and I. Sometimes there’s a group of them nearby when we get to the meeting spots. The guards never think anything of it, but I notice, Ori. They’re learning where I go for these meetings.”

  This was an outright lie and fabrication. It did not matter.

  “That is a cause for concern,” Orivaughn muttered as he thought. “Perhaps it would be best to expand where you go for these meetings. A larger pool of destinations would prevent such a group from predicting where you will be going.”

  “What a good idea!” Ketta said, perking up. “I’ll ask one of the Captains to pick out some loca-”

  “No,” Orivaughn cut them off, “I need you to select these places. If the guard isn’t noticing these gatherings, then I cannot trust them to select other meeting locations that are more secure. No, why don’t you pick out, say another dozen sites for these meetings? I’ll go through the list and personally select half that I think are fitting.”

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

  “Wait,” Crystal said, laughing, “That actually worked? He just up and offered you exactly what you wanted?”

“Yep!” Ketta said with pride, “I just had to get him to think it was his idea. Play the damsel in distress, put a problem out with an obvious solution, and he won’t even bother to think it through!”

  “Except you’re no damsel,” Crystal pointed out.

  “He can’t help but think of me that way,” Ketta said, “He tries not to. Emphasis on tries.”

  “So, what about the guards? I notice that they’re outside instead of right here. What if I attempt to abduct you or something?”

  “Oh, I also convinced Ori that you would never do such a thing, since we set you up here.”

  “That is technically true,” Crystal mused. “I’m more surprised that he bought it.”

  “Again, I made him think that it was his idea. Like bringing an animal to water.”

  “You’re a devil, Ketta.”

  Ketta flashed Crystal a wink.

  “So, you’re free to just… drop on by the pharmacy here anytime, then?” Crystal asked.

  “So long as I keep putting out those reports, more or less,” Ketta confirmed.

  The door chime rang and an older man walked in. He had the same red clay skin as most of the local population and thinning gray hair on his head. While his face was full of wrinkles, the droopy tail behind him seemed to be made of those wrinkles.

  “Speaking of those reports,” Crystal muttered.

  “Really?” Ketta said in a hushed voice, leaning closer. “Him?”

  Crystal nodded.

  “He’s so… old!”

  Crystal again nodded. Ketta hesitated before continuing.

  “Could you… introduce us later?” Crystal asked quietly.

  Another nod.

  “Well, this has been unexpectedly productive!” Ketta said with a smile. “Another day, then!”

With that, Ketta departed, and the two guards stationed outside the door flanking them on either side. The man inside moved to the counter.

  “Good morning, Indro!” Crystal greeted with cheer that was noticeably forced.

  The old man, Indro, chuckled.

  “Still working on being the head of this place, huh?”

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  “Yeah,” Crystal said, rubbing the back of her neck.

  “Was that the girl who sleeps with the damn governor?” Indro asked as he jabbed a thumb at the door.

  “Hey,” Crystal frowned. “First off, they’re not a girl. Second, my friend. Yeah, they sleep with the governor, but its… more complicated than that.

  Indro raised his hands in surrender.

  “Sorry, sorry, didn’t realize it was like that. If he’s a friend of yours, that's good enough for me.”

  “No, he’s not, they’re,” Crystal tried to correct Indro, but got jumbled up. Instead, she pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “You’re here to set up for the meeting in the back?”

  “I may as well, I came here to see why two of the governor’s personal guard were outside. Wanted to make sure you were doing alright.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you for checking in, Indro. Though, what would you have done if I was in trouble? Beat up the guards?”

  “Oh, I’d have a good shot,” Indro said as he shifted into a fighting stance and began shadowboxing. Despite his age, he was full of energy and threw punches with far more force than his feeble-looking frame seemed able to support.

  “Wow,” Crystal blinked as she took in the sight, “I guess that answers where your kids get their energy.”

  “You should see my wife!” Indro laughed as he groaned and put a hand to his back. “Comes at a price these days, though. I’ll be needing a new round of my medicine, while I’m here.”

  “Sure thing, sir,” Crystal acknowledged as she went to the drawer that held his prepared medicine- a small container of greenish powder. “Same as always, twice a day in your tea. Also, when will the rest of the Pothecrians be here? You haven’t kept the same time lately.”

  “Oh, just past noon today. We’ve been on edge with certain people about town more lately. Why don’t you sit in? It would be nice to have you around again.”

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

  Sam, Elody, and Hugh had spent almost two weeks crossing the River Collective. Unlike previous areas, they had not stopped for more than a day at a time for business, instead focusing on covering distance. Sam had had luck buying and selling small items when they stopped for breaks, but was only concerned with breaking even when considering other costs associated with travel. He didn’t quite succeed, but came close enough that he didn’t fret about it, keeping in mind that reaching Wella would be a huge windfall.

  Hugh and Elody spent their time on the long travel attached to their own work. Elody had picked up some local books on plants, and had set to studying the local flora. Since being deposited in a tundra so suddenly, she had a newfound appreciation for learning a broader set of plants and their medicinal effects. The results were not immediate, but she assured Sam that the large pricetag would pay off. More accurately, that she would pay him off.

  Hugh likewise kept to his studies, trying ever more combinations of the base sigils he and Malthus had worked out. True to his mentor’s prediction, he had only a few lucky hits when it came to combinations. The key, at this point, was trial and error, and that took time. Time that, as it now turned out, he had.

  None of the combinations he had struck upon had any large effect, thought the one that belched out a single gout of flame terrified Sam. Hugh noted that things had to be hot and dry for anything to catch, and the temperate humidity of their current locale precluded combustion from a brief flame, but Sam still insisted he get a container to try new combinations in. A pair of smith’s gloves, a framed glass box, and a very embarrassed Hugh later, his basic safety measures were in place.

  As they traveled, they lived not by their own rhythms, but by those of the pack animals that pulled them. They traveled as long as they could until they needed food or rest. When that happened, they stopped until the animals were ready. Sometimes they opened for a while, sometimes they took the opportunity to rest without being jostled about.

  “It’s strange,” Elody said while they were moving. She was looking at the maps Sam had bundled together that outlined their planned route.

  “Arright, I’ll bite,” Sam said, “What’s strange?”

  “We spent so much time in Hearth, in one spot, that moving so great a distance in so little time is a bit jarring.

We even took a long time to travel to Mego from Hugh’s village because half of it was bushwhacking. Now we’re cruising along and it feels kind of weird,” She explained.

  “Hah! If you think this is fast, wait until we board a ship downriver,” Sam laughed.

  “I suppose,” Elody acknowledged. “I don’t look forward to what comes next, though. The no man’s land.”

  “Oh it ain’t that bad. It’s just not within any claimed borders. Look, it’ll be fine,” Sam assured her.

  “You said that bugmen are around there,” Elody said.

  “Bugmen?”

  “The Shifters. You said they look like bugs!”

  “No, you dolt, they look like whatever they want! That’s why they’re called Shifters!”

  “You even said they look like treebugs!”

  "No, I said they look like a cross between trees and insects!"

  “What's even the difference!”

  The transition from the River Collective to the area Elody referred to as a “no man’s land” would have been subtle had all signs of habitation simply vanished, as though a line were drawn in the dirt and everyone else could see it. There was still the river flowing north and a road beside it. Now, however, the road was not maintained but simply the dents in the earth from wagons and carts being pulled over it.

  Plants grew in literal wild abandon. Those closer to the invisible line of civilization were still molested by children and foragers, but it only took several hundred meters for the grasses and flowers to reach Elody’s height, only cut down along the road itself.

  “It’s gorgeous here,” Elody said with awe, “The abundance of water must make this possible. I wonder how many nutrients flow down the streams to feed all this?”

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” Sam warned. “These tall grasses hide potential threats, too. If bandits wanted to jump us, this would be the place to do it.

  “I thought you said it’d be fine!” Elody complained.

  “From the Shifters! I dunno when bandits are gonna jump us!” Sam shot back.

  Despite their concerns, the trek across the plains was uneventful. Fields of plants signified the height of summer. Some were flowering, inviting all sorts of pollinating creatures. Birds, insects, and even a small, fuzzy, climbing animal that would shove its tiny snout into some of the larger flowers were all around them. Elody would occasionally exclaim that she recognized a few from the books she had purchased, but Sam told her to sit tight.

After three and a half days of travel, they encountered a horrid stench. It was the smell of death and decay, the smell of bile and excrement. It didn’t take long to find the source; the trio emerged from the calm grassy plains onto a flattened field of plants, upon which sat corpses and puddles of blood.

  “Myriad gods,” Elody muttered in horror. “There must be hundreds or even thousands here…”

  There were two kinds of bodies present. The first were the golden-furred bodies of the Wellans, tall and feline folk. The other was clearly the Shifters, as their bodies took many forms. Some were large, hulking beetles, others were bipedal, with scythe-like arms. Others were gigantic humanoids with elephantine legs and feet. Yet others had mouths deformed into long tubes for purposes unknown.

  “How do they do it?” Hugh wondered, seemingly unaffected by the smell.

  “Who cares! Violently, I guess!” Sam exclaimed, snapping the reins to move them faster. “We’re getting outta here as fast as we can!”

  Hugh tried to argue, but was solidly vetoed by the other two.

  After they had cleared the battlefield, the terrain had shifted from grasslands to woodlands. Once they were a few minutes away from the stench, Sam decided to make camp.

  “Arright, we’re about half a day’s travel from South Wella,” he said. “We’ll rest up and make good time tomorrow, and catch a boat the next day.”

  When the others had gone to sleep, Hugh got up and snuck away. He backtracked to that battlefield, and found some of the bodies. He went around, looking for the bodies of the Shifters, and began to examine them.

To his surprise, their flesh had a consistency like wood, though where they formed a carapace it felt more like chitin. Whether that was rigor mortis or simply how they felt, he did not know. They didn’t have many joints, only where they would move a lot. He assumed they would simply shift into a better shape when necessary, and joints were a complex structure.

  As he examined them, he noticed patterns in their forms. It was subtle, but when they curved, the curves tended to be the same. He pulled out a long grass and made a makeshift ruler, and found they tended towards the same ratios. He couldn’t take notes- he didn’t want to chance them being discovered, and so simply committed everything to memory.

  He did, however, bring a knife. He took the blade in both hands, and drove it into the carcass. He was unconcerned about “disturbing the dead”, seeing as these had all been left out to rot. That, more than anything, revolted him, but again, his curiosity drove him to this act. He pulled his knife down, and peeled open the Shifter.

The outside cracked open like a nutshell, revealing an interior made of a kind of white filaments. The white strands reminded him of wool as he pushed his hands inside. It was damp, not wet like one would expect of flesh and blood, and gave way to his hands. It was all the same, uniform fluff.

  He rummaged some more. It was slightly different in the head, near where the eyes and ears and nostrils. Thicker cords were present, and he followed them along. He guided his hands along them until he felt something hard and sharp. He winced, pulling a hand out. His finger was sliced, so he took a strip of cloth and wrapped the hand. He reached back in and grasped the object with his wrapped hand and pulled it out.

  He wasn’t able to yank it free of the cords and white filaments, but he did pull it into view. He peered at it in awe.

  “This,” Hugh breathed, “changes everything.”