Departure Location: Border police checkpoint at the port of the free commune of Yuthsenia.

Departure Time: 16/13/973 P.C. - 11:22 AM

Arrival Location: Meridania stagecoach station.

Arrival Time: 17/13/973 P.C.. - 3:47 PM

Distance Traveled: Approximately 96 miles

Weather Conditions: T. Max 50.3 F - T. Min 31.3 F - Cloudy

Viryl and Anker decided that it would be more prudent to pretend not to know each other when they had to pass through the League's border police checkpoint.

Absurdly enough, Viryl, who was traveling without a shred of documentation, had an easier time than Anker. He showed the goods he had earned in the unexpected fishing trip and his symbjorm, and the agents signed his pass without a moment's hesitation. They obviously asked him to pay a small duty, but Viryl was not unprepared: he had given up half a gallon of black Borzael blood in exchange for twenty silver ducats, which were just enough for the tax.

They made it clear to him that there would be no restrictions on his stay in League territory: as long as his services as mercenary grafted favored the interests of the bourgeoisie and his earnings were squandered on food, alcohol and local prostitutes, the only limit to his actions would be what was left to pay a lawyer to get him out of trouble.

An unexpected knight of the Royal Order of Ferlonia, on the other hand, raised more than a few eyebrows, as was to be expected.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Anker had to answer tough questions and provide credible and relevant reasons for his stay in order to convince the border police. He told them that he had suffered an injury on his first mission that had resulted in persistent neuropathic pain: traditional medicine had failed to heal him and, therefore, in order not to ruin his still-fledgling career, he had decided to turn to a thaumaturge in Meridania of whom he had heard in his homeland.

He therefore requested authorization to remain in League territory for no more than twenty days for health reasons. Despite the fact that his story was undoubtedly convincing, as was his acting, he had to pay fifty silver ducats for the pass and a few dozen carlini in bribes.

Once through the controls, Viryl and Anker rejoined.

The next two hours were spent in the commercial district of Yuthsenia finalizing the business that needed to be concluded before continuing the journey: it would certainly not have been convenient to travel for dozens of miles with crates and barrels of Fekoro organs, bones and bodily fluids in tow.

When the time came to continue the journey, Anker suggested renting hippodrones, which is when Viryl spilled the beans and had to explain why they hadn't used them from Petratonna already. He had no idea how to ride them and had no intention of learning because he had an irrational fear of crashing.

So they fell back on public transportation. However, this complicated things slightly because Meridania, despite being one of the main cities of the League, was not at all well connected.

They traveled on the Crystalway in a third-class carriage to Clurintia and, arriving late in the evening, stayed overnight. The following day they bought two stagecoach tickets for the Clurintia-Meridania route.

The paved road was in excellent condition compared to the Ferlonian standard, however Meridania was located on a plateau surrounded to the east by the first row of hills of the Varanachi mountain range, so the engineers had had to plot a rather convoluted route between hills and hillocks to reach it, since the construction of bridges over the valleys and tunnels in the hard rock of the Varanachi was too expensive to be applied consistently along the entire route.

To cut a long story short, Anker, who was still recovering from seasickness, was put to the test again by the motion sickness caused by those endless curves.

After four hours they finally arrived at the Meridania stagecoach station, and Anker was free to get off and breathe the crisp mountain air.