Moira carefully planned and prepared for her upcoming journey, fully aware of the many nuances involved. She had secured the shipment of her herbal remedies to the city, a transaction that would bring in a respectable profit even after brokerage fees. With her traveling herb bag now refreshed and ready, she selected items that would be especially useful for a trip into the woods, including remedies for cuts, bruises, stomach aches, hangovers, and minor ailments. She added a few dried pellets designed to boost physical strength, knowing that novices sometimes wanted a quick edge.
"Never hurts to have a few physical boosters; rookies are often eager to keep up," she mused, adding them to the pouch before fastening all three clasps. Satisfied, she turned her attention to the outfit she had prepared for tomorrow’s meeting. The clothes were meant to convey her image as a modest but capable herbalist, well-versed in the demands of travel. She chose a nearly neckline-free blue shirt, a vest that had seen half the principality, and sturdy, well-worn leather boots with thick soles. This ensemble, completed by a simple skirt, would serve its purpose well.
The day of the meeting arrived quickly. The forester organizing the expedition was a jovial older man, who agreed to her joining the group in exchange for offering her products at reasonable prices to the others—a condition Moira accepted with a polite smile that did not quite reach her eyes. As she left the lumberyard, her thoughts were already on the dense forest they’d soon be exploring and the valuable herbs she might discover there. She knew the Kern family, the patrons behind this venture, and took it as a good sign. The Kern family held ownership over many local enterprises, either directly or through branch family members, which meant there was a lower risk of the trip being canceled for lack of funds or other obstacles.
In the days leading up to departure, she busied herself with preparations—maintaining her tools, refreshing her supplies, gathering provisions, and making sure she would lack for nothing important. Whenever possible, she visited the secluded part of the cemetery, rarely frequented by the townsfolk, to practice her main craft.
She was trained in a movement that emphasises concentration and weaving spells with willpower into proper patterns. The advantage of this method is the relatively high casting speed and the ability to change the formula on the fly. The disadvantage? It is difficult to explain how to weave invisible moving figures out of waves of magic. Thus, much of her practice involved honing this delicate skill on foundational principles of spell patterns. It is all about bending reality to the will of the practitioner. Whether this is accompanied by drawn circles and symbols, runes, long recitations of complex magical phrases in dead languages, or sheer determination, or all of the above and more. In the end, it is your sense of the waves of magic and how you bend them to your will that determines the outcome. At least that was what she believed in.
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Complaints had long since passed; necromancy and her particular casting method were now second nature to her. There were spells whose principles she understood well but had never had cause to cast. Yet she practiced diligently, confident that her mastery of magic’s flow manipulation would serve her in any emergency. She was optimistic that this trip would yield pleasant herbal surprises alone, though a part of her insisted on being prepared for more sinister developments. To avoid raising unnecessary suspicion among the innkeepers, Moira made sure to return from her cemetery visits with visible herbs or ingredients to give the impression of routine foraging.
Meanwhile, far to the north, Ashan spent several days recovering, carefully employing his Seer’s abilities to scan the surrounding forest. Apart from animals, he detected no other living beings in the area. It soon became evident that his people, under the tribal council’s leadership, had not reclaimed this ruined fortress. In fact, they had likely retreated northward, making this place an abandoned relic. The war, by all appearances, had ended in a loss, with that defeat now merely a distant memory. The vegetation flourishing amid the ruins hinted at many years of abandonment, and no signs of military presence or patrols remained. Nights revealed the lights of a settlement in the distance, but its structure suggested a peaceful village rather than a garrison town.
He was reluctant to admit it, but he feared what might have become of his kin. Most likely, everyone dear to him had passed away long ago. Had there been other wars in the meantime? He had no offspring—did his family line still exist? Did his tribe still exist? It would take only a journey north to find out, but he found many reasons to delay. The most important was that he still needed to regain his strength. Then he would need to gather supplies, assess whether the roads were safe for him; who knew, he might be far behind enemy lines and could be captured.
Given these and other uncertainties, it was easy for him to decide that he needed more time—and that this was a reasonable and sound choice. He set up shelter in one of the partially intact underground rooms of the old fortress. Survival skills were no stranger to him, so slowly but steadily he dressed himself in simple leather garments and began preparing food for the journey. In the midst of this strange and unsettling situation, it gave him a sense of purpose and stability, things he now craved more than ever.