Thankfully, running was the best medicine they could seek. At first, they just trekked, trying to smarten all of their muscles. Only when the familiar heat in their legs and bowels finally heated their bodies up, did the medicine started working. Step by step, the residual pain was subsiding, giving way to a blissful feeling of running in the open.

While Victor's party considerably shortened the way they needed to cover by using the mine tunnels, there was still quite a bit of distance to cover before they would reach the city. Yes, it was visible as soon as they emerged from the hole, but that only meant that they could probably reach it by late evening.

As their bodies got used to the exercise, the pair gradually speeded up. While the sun was slowly setting behind the outline of the city in front of them, they could freely run with their greatest speed because most of the residents already moved back before the closing of the gates. So all things considered, if they want to make it in time and avoid infiltrating the city in a rather dangerous way, they had to make haste!

At some point, if one were to spot them and correctly measure the speed they were running at, one could think they were some kinds of legendary devils, reaching the speed of a running horse! According to the common physical laws of the western continent, it should be impossible! There was no way that someone who didn't give up his entire life for athletic training could reach that speed!

To understand this strange event, one had to know that the way magic worked differed between the western and eastern nations, not to speak about other continents. In the west, where common people embraced the faith of the one and true God, they could freely access his blessings, that either enhanced one effort in practising certain skills or allowed one to influence the world in a small but useful way.

On the other hand, eastern nations never acknowledged the "Teren" as the god, calling him an evil instead. This belief resulted in them lacking any kinds of blessing and limiting their magic usage to operating small amounts of their internal energy to enhance their actions.

One could easily understand that this exchange wasn't fair. Mastering the use of internal energies was an insanely hard task, requiring from three to even ten years of practice, only to slightly enhance one's psychical abilities. Compared to them, westerners only needed to receive a baptism of the faith in the chapel to be blessed with God's grace! To this day, various deeds supported by their faith were unachievable for other nations! Preventing food spoilage? Creating buildings that were so elusive that without a piece of knowledge about them it was nigh impossible to see them?

Nevertheless, by using the small amount of their internal energy circulating through their bodies to create a minuscule explosion under the soles of their feet whenever they lifted their legs from the ground, allowed Victor and Leila to achieve speed impossible for any westerner!

But this blissful jog couldn't last forever. As soon as they got into the range of discernable sight from the city, they had to considerably slow down and take up the appearance of insanely tired people. There was a reason why they didn't even bother to scrub the dirt that got on their clothing and faces while crawling through the tunnel!

When they finally reached the gate, there was an annoying realisation that hit them. The hours of the gate closure got changed!

That was a grave miscalculation on their side. According to the information they got on this particular city when the seasons changed towards the colder times, most of the Dariedic towns shifted their time scale by one hour to honour some kind of weird tradition!

Left with no other choice, Victor came to the city gate and softly knocked on it, while making extremely exhausted expression and resting his back on the wooden doors near the lurking window. He continued to do so before a harsh voice could be heard.

"The hell are you trying to achieve by knocking! Gates are closed already, get lost!"

Apparently, some kind of annoying guard was nearby and got bothered by his knocking! Using the fact that the peep window wasn't opened, Victor answered.

"Sir, we got separated from our caravan! My companion is gravely hurt and can barely stand on her legs. Please, let us in, just this one time!"

Hearing his pleading voice, Leila raised her eyebrows high with her eyes filled with a pleasant surprise. She didn't know her fiance could utter such words with such a voice! In the end, she had to immediately hide her expression, bit her mouth and spread some blood on her hands as she slightly bent downwards. Just a second later, sounds of footsteps stopped and the small window opened on the small doors imbued into the gate. After observing them for a second, the guard asked.

"How do I know you are really from the caravan? Everyone can say that!"

This was a huge headache for him. If those people indeed were merchants from the recent convoy, letting them rot outside the gates would create a grudge too great for him to handle. While this was the capital city of Dariedic order, its wealth came mostly from those foreign caravans that exchanged various goods for the only worth kept in the city - war spoils from the barbarians!

Seeing the hesitation on the gate guard face, Victor hesitantly reached for his pouch and after keeping his hand on it for a short while, he pulled out a few flowers he gathered on the way to the abandoned mine. As if lifting his hand made his heart bleed, he finally passed the herbs through the window.

"Take is as the token of my goodwill and a proof of my identity."

Victor couldn't help but feel amused seeing the guard's reaction to those weeds, but he still had to maintain his acting. In the end, his voice shaken more than he intended to, almost making him break his act!

"Ok, give me a moment!"

After swiftly grabbing the flowers from Victor's shaking hand, the guard closed the peephole and proceed to rummage with something on the other side of the gate. Just a moment later, a small door opened, finally giving them access to the city. To maintain their story, Victor slowly lead Leila through the opening, while making sure to block her 'injury' from the guard sight.

"Remember! If I catch you later on doing something sketchy, you won't get away easily!"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

As they passed him, the guard warned them, just to keep his consistency clear.

"Oh, before I forget, would you mind telling us where the Urielian caravan is staying at? We would love to reunite with them!"

Turning around for a bit, Victor asked the guard just to enhance his story a little bit. It was true that he knows most of the people from the caravan since they hailed from the outpost manned solely by Perran military, but there was no actual need to visit them. Appearing on their side would make people remember them and connect their faces with the caravan, while all they needed to do was to deal quickly with their matters and leave.

"As far as I know, they settled in the Rose Inn. You can find it by going southeast from here. Good luck!"

Annoyed by his pestering, guard tightly pressed acquired herbs to his chest, as if trying to underline that he won't part with them anymore even if they asked him to do so.

Not wanting to linger in the presence of the security officers anymore, Victor swiftly pulled Leila with him. Their act of being wounded ended as soon as they quit from the guard visibility on the corner.

Quickly cleaning up the blood from her hand, Leila finally could stand up straight. Just after a few steps, they took deeper into the street, she realised that Victor tensed up a bit and yet again take a pitiful pose of a stranded person. Immediately following his lead, she took a quick peek at the cause of his action.

"Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment?"

Not wasting even a second, Officer bowed deeply to a stranger on the street. The person he was talking to didn't appear any different from other civilians on the street. All that was 'unique' about him was loads of bags he was carrying with him and slightly better quality of his own clothes when compared to the others around.

"What do you want beggar?"

Even if his expression was clearly annoyed, the man still stopped his steps and looked at Victor. This in itself was quite strange, as people like this guy would ignore most of the beggars or just shoo them away.

"I'm not a beggar, sir! We just lost touch with the rest of our convoy while we were moving through the woodlands, hence the pitiful state we are in!"

As if angered by the man's remark, Victor refuted him with a short explanation.

"Okay then, why are you bothering me?"

Not wanting to waste any more time on this persistent guy, the man opened his posture as if saying to hit him with it.

"I believe you will be interested in those!"

Not paying any attention to the provocative stance of the man, Victor unpinned his pouch from his belt and slightly opened it to let the man see its content. It was as if a thunderbolt struck him right where he stood. Like he couldn't trust his own eyes, he had to rub them for a short while and only then take a second look.

When he confirmed the content of the pouch, he instantly covered it with his hand.

"Are you seeking damn death here?"

He whispered and pointed out at the closest inn.

"Let's talk in there!"

Decisively pulling them into the building, the man quickly rented a room and guided them there. Only when they finally sat down on the chairs around the table did the man calmed down.

"I'm Dorien. What are your names?"

"I'm Neller and she goes by the name Victoria."

Victor didn't even try to make their names sound real. The man sitting opposite to him didn't seem like someone who would miss this point or dig deeper into the topic. Opportunity to get his hands on the fortune they got in their pouches was apparently too tempting for him to bother in uncovering their real names!

"Tell me then, how much of the Ikka do you have and what do you want for it?"

Unable to wait any longer, Dorien put his stance straight. He would do everything to acquire those flowers. Just from a single look at the 'merchants' sitting across the table, he understood that they didn't bother much with a trade in their lives. Threatening them with his position or personal might wouldn't bring many results.

"As we are the ones who brought the wares you are clearly interested in, don't you think you should be the one to call the price?"

For some reason, Victor gave up his initiative and pushed in on the opposite party. This utterly confused Leila, who thought that since he was the one to start the conversation up, he will be the one to call the shots!

Hearing this answer, Dorien quickly reached for his pouch, only to stop his hand in the air. Only then did he realise that he already spent all of his gold he took with himself!

"Erm… could you maybe wait here? It seems I run out of the money I took with myself and would like to fetch some more…"

He didn't even need to finish his phrase. From raised eyebrows of the merchants, he knew that they would never accept those terms. Since they came here with Ikka, they had to know perfectly their worth and implications behind it. After just a quick thought, Dorien hesitatively reached under his shirt and pulled out his beloved medallion.

"Will this do? I don't know what it's made from, but it's clearly more valuable than it looks. I tried many times but even with all my might and tools I couldn't break it!'

As if conscious that the medallion was clearly not enough for the flowers he wanted, he tried his best to raise its relative worth in his counterpart eyes. Who would've guessed that Neller stoic eyes would suddenly brighten up!

After leaning for a little to take a closer look at the medallion, the man fell into deep thought. Only after a few tense moments passed on, he asked the question that Dorien was waiting for.

"May I take a look at it?"

While the Dariedic officer hesitated for a bit, he still took the golden pendant and placed it on the table. Surprisingly, when Neller picked it up and checked it out, the shine in his eyes seemed to disappear.

"I know what it is. For you, it's just a fancy piece of jewellery, but in truth, it's a heritage of one of the fallen Urielic clans. I recognise the patterns on its outer ring, but to be honest, I can't fathom where did the middle part come from."

With a sudden bout of honesty, merchant placed the medallion back on the table along with two pouches full of Ikka flowers.

"Those flowers are just a way to get some money for our wedding. On the other hand, bringing this medallion back would earn me favours with an influential family back home. I think that those two pouches are more than enough for it."

With his eyes back to their usual look, trader placed his offer. It was all up to the Dorien to take the decision now. At first, he strongly hesitated. After all, this medallion saved his life before. But compared to the comfortable feeling he had while wearing it, those flowers would give him an opportunity to cross the bottleneck he was at in his career! Maybe he could even be granted nobleship! After weighing the pros and cons, he finally extended his hand to the Neller.

"I'm down with the trade. Deal?"

"Deal!"

******

"Is this really it?"

After leaving the inn and finding deserted alley, Leila asked her fiance with a worried look on her face. If she was right, this artefact would someday take her beloved's life! In such a situation, no matter how important it was, she could only hate it to the bone!

On the other hand, Victor slightly cut his hand and allowed a few drops of blood to fall on the medallion. For a second, both of them thought that it started to shine just a bit, but this illusion faded almost instantly. As if alarmed by the situation, the officer tightened his grip on the amulet and closed his eyes for a while, only to open them a moment later with a dejected look surfacing on his face.

"It is fake. There is no reaction to the key in my blood:"

As if dropping a great weight from his shoulders, Victor finally breathed in and straightened himself.

"It being fake doesn't change the fact that is rather valuable. Let's pay for a grand fest with it!"