With their stint in Solhem having been cut short, the expedition’s members were forced to pack up their things and leave. Quickly.

It was demoralizing, with having spent so long on the road, but luckily nobody was blaming Livia for how things had turned out.

While they were busy, their wounded guest had somehow gotten hold of a strange orange-brown cat. It had left a heavy trail of its hair everywhere it went, every little nudge making more fall out, but it seemed to get magically replaced wherever it was needed.

It was keeping the woman calm, and they needed to go, so Livia preferred to let her keep it. But she was not about to steal some little girl or boy’s furry best friend, so she asked around first. But as she found out, the thing was considered a menace. Leaving hair everywhere. Impossible to catch. Of course it reminded her of her own cat back home, but she’d been getting better and better at keeping things so far out of her control compartmentalized.

But this cat… Apparently, even if you reached and grabbed it, all you’d be left with was a fist full of fur. And even getting that far was a chore. Despite walking up to kid’s and other friendlies alike–no matter your behavior; if you had ill intentions it would somehow sense it and start to run off.

This turn of events seemed to earn them a bit of leniency, because the most agitated of the townsfolk were suddenly happy to see them go slow, as long as they took that thing with them. Sigh. It should be alright, I just hope it doesn't run back in the night and make her even worse when she loses that too.

The final thing the [Guild] did in Solhem was get rid of one of their carts that had been emptied out successively across their journey, of everything from tinder to provisions. This led to the decision of getting rid of one of the draft animals; so it was a choice between the energizer oxen or their ferrari horses. Hm, rather easy one I suppose? We’re hardly strapped for cash yet.

Getting rid of the horses obviously meant more gold in their pockets, but they were also more useful in a wider range of diverse situations.

However, the decision was taken out of her hands when she made her intentions known; by Roldy.

“Uhm, right. Heh. Look Livia, I’m sorry for not bringing it up earlier but, well.” She looked at him suspiciously and then made her wish clear: Out with it. “I might have overdone it with the [Touch of Chaos] on the oxen earlier. Uhm, I know they seem fine, but I’m very sure that’s just cus I’m around. We’ve been bonding. Heh. They’re very likely to go berserk, daily, if we sell them. And yeah, maybe we’ve done enough damage to our reputation in Solhem for one round?”

Livia closed her eyes and tried to breathe deep. Not his fault, not his fault. I asked him to do his best. Apparently that meant his strongest, at the time.

So they ended up selling one of the horses instead, for a price Livia was pretty damn certain they could have possibly doubled in Dormata. That didn’t matter much when it had nothing to drag, it would eat into those profits if they brought it too. At least Elin’s [Regional Player’s Barter] was already starting to work, despite how they failed to visit any proper shops. Even if all it did for now was estimate how much they lost.

Once outside Livia felt that she needed to address their guest travelers, things had been going far from swimmingly after all, and they were well within range by now for the road to Dormata to be safe. Ish.

But the memory of getting held up at the gates and losing almost a day, even with Ronia at the helm, was still fresh. Not to mention the abrupt solution by way of Redd’s arrival.

And that was certainly fair enough. The [Guild] had no plans on going slow from here on either after all–it was a mere day at ease to recover from the road they had wanted, and everyone was on the same page on that count.

It would help them push further each day if anything.

Now that they were outside the gates–on the western side this time–Livia sighed again at their prospects, and looked up at the quickly darkening night sky.

There was no use traveling in the dark, so they found the nearest flat spot and simply camped out, like usual.

But before it got time for bedding down, Livia noticed–not for the first time–how Sten was worriedly watching their anonymous carry-on.

Sigh. Why do we keep picking up trouble. “I don’t suppose anyone noticed if a small town like Solhem happened to have an adventurer’s [Guild] present?”

Ronia seemed to be the one who’d had time for the best look around, because she gave a very sure answer. “There was none, we’ll have to wait until Dormata for anyone that might be able to identify her, they only get proper offices in the larger towns. The closest is Trollbro but that’s the wrong way,”

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Livia sighed again.

Sten spoke up then. “Well, we still need to give her a name, I doubt she’s going to grow more responsive any time soon. I don’t even get why she’s accepting us having her on the cart still. I’ve only seen her leave it to go do her business,”

In that way they were lucky that magic took care of such things when a high level person was unconscious and things stretched too far, even if it was far from a comfortable process. Or they would have had one shitty cart by now.

And as usual her [Guilds] creativity had somehow fallen to the ground, stricken dead, as soon as it came to naming something.

They tried brainstorming, but silence quickly descended, so Livia decided on another name from home.

“We can call her Jane. Jane Doe.” They all looked at her questioningly. “Yeah, it’s a name from home.”

----------------------------------------

When they woke the next morning the odd, magic cat was still there, seeming to have taken a liking to the women who stole food for her, or perhaps just sensing that it was needed.

Livia saw how Sten tried approaching Jane, but even if she had stopped screaming and panicking–or searching for her lost friends–she was still not ready for conversation.

All he got was a glare.

No matter, we’re bound to find a solution soon, possibly even someone who knows her there; once we get to the capital. Even if a small town like Solhem did not have the resources, most places treated a high level person like Jane as royalty, even if they were wounded for a time.

The road they were traveling on next was quite different from the enlarged game trail they’d been contending with since exiting the valley. This one passed between cities, and as a result it was wide enough for two carts to pass wherever nature had not placed too large of an obstacle.

That was nice, but so far it was just the same thing as the road directly between Salcret and Dormata.

What made this one different, and what was apparently present almost all over Doc Forrest, was a wooden fence-like thing right by the side of it. But it was no fence. It looked a bit like an aqueduct, but it was level and consisted of two, upheld, solid planks, with a thin metal railing lining the hole in between them where water would have run.

Instead you were meant to hang your rucksack on it if it was heavy, and then you could pull it along the track. It slid along very nicely, you just had to get a nifty little ball-bearing wheel for it, sold most places with a proper blacksmith. Redd had an old one so she could try it.

There were even little side-tracks for when you had an oncoming meeting, or wanted to let someone by.

It was unnecessary for an expedition with draft carts like theirs on hand, but it seemed like a real nifty thing if you were a poor, lone traveler, perhaps moving to settle on the frontier.

The novelty faded fast as they went along. They were just too tired to appreciate much of anything.

Luckily their second town experience proved much nicer. But they remained wary, and did not sell off anything more than a few of the maps–to intrigued artists they met actually.

Apparently they had an original style.

But by now they were close enough to Dormata that they just wanted to push through and get there quick. That's where the real money was found in any case.

Harold spent that whole time on the look-out for [Druid] activity, but had no luck. And Oscar was using every moment he could find to convince someone to chuck heavy sticks at him, so he could practice his new [Arrow Guard] Skill.

It might have sounded silly, but these were people with Classes chucking. And Oscar was preparing to block Skill-enhanced arrows one day. They hadn’t found a stick to survive even three chucks yet.

He had skipped getting straps for his shield so far, feeling that could wait until they were somewhere where enchanted items would attract less attention, and where they were more likely to find a proper expert.

But Kalle was the one to finally get lucky when they entered the third and final suburb to Dormata.

He was the first to find the magic he’d been looking for.