Morning soon arose and with it—Ingrid and Malori set off to look for a cart and horses. The Druid had rather mixed feelings about how easily they were able to secure one for an extremely cheap price. Maybe it was Alice’s pessimism having an effect on her. She wanted to believe it was people being better than she had expected, but that seed of doubt was hard to ignore.
They brought the horses to the northern gates, where Alice had said she would be waiting for them. When they got there, she was flanked by a trio of guards. One was holding a spear with a grip that was a little too tight for simply resting at ease, and the other two rested their hands on sword hilts. Ingrid began to step towards them, but Alice just shook her head. Not looking back at the guards, Alice walked up to the cart and hopped into the back where Malori was sitting reading a romance novel.
Their little esper had seemed almost lighter since getting the cart, as if the realization that she could sit and read as they traveled had only just then occurred to her. She had a cheerful smile on her face that almost made her seem less nervous, and quickly buried her nose in a book. Nevertheless, it seemed good for Alice’s spirits as well, no longer having to deal with Malori’s lack of physical stamina slowing down progress. Ingrid smiled back at the two of them, chuckling at Alice’s teasing for Malori having such vanilla tastes.
Of course Malori argued against it, stating that the story of a pirate queen and a princess falling in love was inspiring and beautiful, but she couldn’t hide the tiny smile on her face. Ingrid turned back to face the road, loosely hanging onto the reins of the horses with one hand. They were more of a formality, if she was being honest with herself. Most people had to use them to command the horses, but it was far easier for her to simply ask them to do things herself. They were ever so happy to oblige, following the road to the point where Ingrid didn’t actually need to be sitting in the driver’s seat for any reason other than making sure the horses spotted any pot holes or obstacles in the road.
“Hey, Princess, now that we’re out of town, figure I should tell you two somethin,” Alice spoke up, walking to the front of the cart and gesturing for Malori to follow.
“O-Oh! Of c-course,” she stuttered as she closed her book and followed Alice. “W-What is it? Is something wrong? If you’re hurt I can heal you right away!”
Alice laughed, tousling Malori’s hair. “Appreciate it, Shortie, but I’m fine. I’ve gotten pretty good at keeping people from stabbing me.”
“Sh-Shortie…” she repeated quietly. There was a mix of indignance at the jab and revelry at the idea of her being given a nickname. Alice smiled at her in bemusement.
“I didn’t wanna bring it up in town in case a guard or someone woulda tried to take them, but I found these on the bodies of a couple of those dark elves,” she explained, pulling four small badges out of her scarf.
Ingrid and Malori leaned in. The make of them was similar to the pendant her brother wore, the symbol of his Umbrakinesis. These weren’t sigils of a sorcerer however. Emblazoned upon the four of them were pitch black roses, with dark gray stems dotted with disproportionately large thorns.
Ingrid looked up at Alice. “Is it a symbol you recognize?”
She shook her head. “No, but I figure they’re there for a reason. I doubt one little contingent of bandits are gonna have these made for each member either, it’s probably something bigger,” she explained, gesturing to the badges. “If we get in trouble with that group again, maybe having these could help us out? Might help us sneak past or get out of a highway robbery.”
Malori shuddered. “I-I’d like to not get r-robbed at all…”
Alice grinned and patted the shorter girl on the head. “Oh don’t worry, we have absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever!” she teased. “Seriously though, you got me and Ingrid here. No way a couple of bandits’ll actually get to us.”
“I mean, I’m kind of new to the whole fighting thing,” Ingrid admitted, “Besides, you were much better at combat. It’s still kind of jarring, if I’m being honest.”
“D-D-Don’t underestimate yourself!” Malori insisted, leaning forward next to Ingrid, “I saw the t-tree that you made. Th-That kind of magic is incredible!”
The encouraging words managed to earn a small blush from Ingrid. She didn't really have a plan in mind when she did that, despite what she said. It was hard to explain, like it just felt right without much thought. She knew she had to. She wondered if that was Nilin, blessing her with a way out of the fight, but that was a more religious view than she was used to taking.
“You flatter me,” she chuckled out, smiling at Malori. “By the way Alice, how long do you think the trip will be like this?”
“About the same timeframe as getting to Lhanbryde,” she yawned, laying down in the cart and resting the back of her head in her hands. “It’s a farther distance, but on horses it’s gonna be way faster than us trekking through the woods and taking a bunch of breaks.”
Ingrid tilted her head. “Lhanbryde? Where’s that?”
Alice and Malori both looked at her. “I-- are you being serious? The town we were just in,” Alice said, stifling a laugh.
“D-Did you not know what it was called?” Malori asked, a legitimate, innocent curiosity in her eyes.
Ingrid’s face went a deep shade of red as she faced forward, refusing to meet Alice’s eyes. “I uh, of course I did. I just thought it was pronounced differently! That’s all.”
“Oh gods, Princess you are a terrible liar,” Alice laughed, making the shade of red darken even further.
“Well I’m sorry! When we showed up to a burning town my first thought wasn’t to look for a sign!” she shot back.
“That’s true, it was a very s-stressful situation…”
“Yeah but like, it’s the next town north! You were planning to head that way and you didn’t even know what the next town was called!” Alice’s voice began to get higher with how hard she was laughing. Despite how much Ingrid loved to hear her laugh usually, now she felt nothing but indignation.
“L-L-Let’s change the subject!” Malori stuttered quickly, noticing Ingrid’s embarrassment. Alice managed to settle down, wiping a tear from her eye. Both Malori and Ingrid breathed a small sigh of relief. At least Ingrid was pretty sure it was a relief for Malori. She was probably just glad she wasn’t the target of Alice’s teasing at the moment.
“I-Ingrid, pardon me if this is o-overstepping, but do you know what your brother was hoping to answer in Reach?” the esper asked thoughtfully.
Ingrid clicked her tongue. She honestly didn’t know. Most answers to things she would have expected him to be looking into would have been found either in their house or in a library. At this point, it was almost a week since he had gone missing. It was baffling to think just how much had happened in a few short days. As she was struggling to think of what he could have been talking about, she let out a small gasp.
“Hm? Something wrong Princess? Leave the stove on?” Alice quipped.
“Before we left, the day before he went missing, he had been doing research into the Dark Fey War,” she explained, recalling the book he had been hiding under his shirt. “I told him that our sister would be furious if she found it, but he just got annoyed, like he had been thinking about it before.”
“What was he l-looking for about it?” Malori tilted her head.
“I’m not really sure, but he had bits of paper sticking out from different pages in the book, like he was marking things to come back to later. He had probably been at it for a while,” she said.
“So whatever’s in Reach might have something to do with the Dark Fey? Geography wasn’t exactly something I looked into a lot, but pretty sure I remember there being practically no connection to Avalon up there,” Alice yawned.
“It’s a stretch, but it’s the only thing I can think of. Gods, I wish I had checked his room for that book! If we had it, it might help us know what we’re actually getting ourselves into!”
“Just wanna say that I’m proud of the foresight.”
“Haven’t you patronized me enough? It’s not going to make the book appear,” she grumbled.
“Not what I meant. I meant the thing about us getting caught up in this,” Alice said, “Whatever Mattias decided to get himself involved in, we’re getting involved in it by going to look for him.”
The cart was quiet for a moment. Surprisingly enough, it was Malori who broke the silence. “I hadn’t th-thought about that…” she murmured.
“Having second thoughts, Shortie?” Alice asked, raising an eyebrow.
She furiously shook her head. “N-no! O-O-Of course not! I just hadn’t really th-thought about this being more than a simple t-trip to find Ingrid’s brother. I suppose it m-makes sense that whatever is afoot here is something m-more…”
“Mattias is a smart kid. No way he woulda done something this reckless and stupid unless it was something real big.”
“I just wish he would have tried talking to me about it. I would have liked to have helped him with whatever this is,” she said solemnly. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned, seeing Alice giving her a comforting look.
“It’s no use thinking about what coulda gone differently. This is the mess we’re in and we’re gonna deal with it,” she said confidently, leaning back again. Pulling out a small ration from her bag, she began to chew absentmindedly on it. “Focus forward and think about what we can do to fix this mess, then we’ll be in a better spot.”
“Sh-She’s right!” Malori squeaked. “We can’t change the past, but we can c-correct ourselves and solve the problems we may have caused or been given as we go f-forward.”
Ingrid couldn’t help but smile at their words of encouragement. Alice was right, she was stressed beyond belief thinking about all of this. She’d been having trouble sleeping as her brain ran through scenarios of what could have been done differently that may have prevented this entire ordeal. It wouldn’t change the fact that she’d still wake up away from home and without her brother present. It didn’t solve any of the problems. Focusing on what came next would though.
She asked the horses if they thought they could go a little on their own without her helping guide, and she received a winnie of affirmation from the both of them. Smiling, she hopped back into the cart with Alice and Malori.
“Alright then. Let’s think about what comes next.”
“We need to strike a balance,” Alice explained. The three of them were sitting in the back of the cart, huddled around a map of Cordelia. At the northernmost point of the map was the wall of mountains known as Caer Gaofar. The literal translation was ‘Windy Fortress’ in the common tongue. Ingrid had requested the horses travel without her guidance for a bit to join in. Alice pointed at a marked city on the map. “If we rush ourselves, we’re just gonna be exhausted messes when we find Mattias. Baile Stioballan is a nearby city, so I’d say we should take a day to rest and restock there.”
Ingrid heard Malori give a small sigh of relief. It was still very obvious how much she was struggling, so Alice saying that they should take it slow was likely a godsend for her. Ingrid found herself smiling at the statement for a different reason. Alice had said ‘when’ they found Mattias. Despite all of the hiccups they had already faced, Alice still viewed finding Mattias as something that would absolutely happen. Ingrid found herself filled with a bit of hope she didn’t realize she needed.
“This is gonna be the last big city, so it’s probably a good idea to stock up on things that might be tough to find in towns and stuff. I recommend mountaineering gear,” She continued, “Yeah we got the horses, and I know a route that we can start to take them on, but who knows what’ll happen. It’s good to have a backup plan, yeah?”
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Ingrid nodded, examining the map. “Where is this route you’ve mentioned? I don’t think you’ve pointed it out yet.”
“Right there,” Alice said matter of factly, pointing at a section of the mountain range at the north of the map. It was in the eastern section of the mountains, and there was only a single marked town anywhere close to it. “That town is called Burrafirth. If we realize we need anything last minute, we can probably grab stuff from there. Make sense?”
“W-What about hazards? I’ve heard that t-traveling through the mountains can be dangerous…”
Ingrid patted Malori on the back. “Weather and terrain are the big ones. I can more or less help with those however,” She said comfortingly. “Terrain might be a little bit harder though. There are a lot of factors to reshaping the ground. It was easier in the woods because of the plants, but dense foliage is rarely the problem with mountains.”
“If you can’t, it’s no sweat. Like I said, backup plans. Fortunately, there are a couple upsides to Caer Gaofar being as much of a bitch as it is. There are only a couple actual roads through it, so pretty much all the border guards are focused there. Means we can swoop over to a smugglers path and get through pretty much scot free.”
What Alice said made sense. Invasion was practically impossible through the mountains. It was one of the only reasons an all out war hadn’t broken out between Amalthea and Cordelia. She was about to ask how Alice knew about the path before being quickly cut off.
“Oh yeah we should probably be careful of bandits too,” She added, “It’s tough for soldiers to move groups in and out of the mountains, so it’s kind of a hive for that sorta thing.”
Ingrid winced, thinking about the fight with the raiders in the town. “Is there anything we can do to avoid that sort of thing?”
Alice sucked in a breath. “Yeah not really sure about that,” she admitted, earning a small whimper from Malori. “Best we can do is be ready for fights if they come. Other than that there’s not much.”
“D-Do you think we’ll b-be alright?” Malori asked nervously.
“I think if things get dicey we can probably weasel our way out,” she joked. Ingrid noted that she did not say yes. Given how Malori deflated, she probably noticed it too.
“Well, everything seems to be in order for now. Is there anything else you think we’ll need to worry about?” Ingrid asked.
“Not that comes to mind, but if I remember something I’ll bring it up,” Alice offered, grinning at the way Malori squirmed. Ingrid hoped she’d ease up on the teasing at some point, but given how long she herself had been a victim of Alice’s playfulness, she doubted it would be anytime soon.
“Alright then, I’m going back to guiding the horses. Don’t have too much fun without me,” she joked, standing up and returning to the driver’s seat.
“You know if you get tired I’m sure Malori and I could pull a couple shifts. Just sayin,” Alice called forward.
Ingrid smiled back at her appreciatively. “That’s very kind of you, but I think it may be better for me to do this. After all, it’s a lot easier when I can communicate directly with the horses. Unless there’s something you’d like to tell me, Alice?” she mused.
“I-I can talk to them as w-well!”
The two older girls looked at Malori, then at each other.
“Wait, you being serious?” Alice asked, bewildered.
Malori nodded. “I-I mentioned that I can speak telepathically. I can do it to a-any sentient creature! Th-That includes animals,” she explained. “I-I-I just have to see them and establish the link f-first.”
“That sounds a lot more versatile than I initially thought,” Ingrid admitted. She looked back at the horses, wondering if Malori’s communication would be any different than hers. It was hard to have a point of reference without being an esper herself, but it was interesting food for thought.
“It’s a good thing to note for later and all, but I’d still say we’re better off having Princess drive. She’s got loads of experience with animals, in fact I think she gets lonely without ‘em sometimes,” Alice teased.
Ingrid rolled her eyes, but didn’t hide her smile.
“A-Alright…” Malori trailed off. “B-But if you ever need a b-break then please don’t hesitate to ask!”
“Of course, Malori. Thank you for letting me know,” she said gratefully, tousling her hair.
They fell back into their comfortable silence after the brief exchange, periodically interrupted by random smalltalk from Alice. A few times, she actually got into conversations with Malori about her various romance novels. It was rather amusing, and Ingrid found herself giggling along with Alice at how flustered Malori got over it. The term ‘hopeless romantic’ came to mind, but Ingrid kept that to herself. After all, she didn’t want to get accused of calling the kettle black.
She shifted in her seat in the front of the carriage, pulling a blanket out of the bag to make it a little more comfortable. Eventually, she managed to get it into a comfortable position to use almost like a sofa. She was grateful for the comfort. Alice had mentioned it would be around two more days until they arrived at Baile Stioballan. It would feel infinitely longer if she spent that entire time getting a cramp in her butt.
“I-I thought it would be b-bigger…”
“Because you live in the damn capital, Shortie. It’s the biggest city in the country. This isn’t even in the top three.”
“Should we hire someone to watch the carriage by the stables? That way we can return to it once we’ve concluded here.”
“Sounds good to me, long as we aren’t stuck walking through the mountains. I swear if I have to trek through that on foot I’m gonna throw myself off a cliff.”
The trio arrived, thankfully, on schedule at Baile Stioballan. Ingrid wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it felt kind of lackluster. Alice had said it plainly to Malori though, she was from the capital. It was still an extremely large city, but without the borderline impossible architecture contained in Baile Cothrom. No massive hospital built into a tree, no perfectly sculpted palace from stone summoned straight from the ground, it didn’t look like nature and the city were one in the same. Granted, that was probably meant to be the norm for cities. Maybe she was the weird one here.
They brought the cart to a set of stables outside of the city walls, then paid for the horses to be watched for two nights. It was getting close to sundown, and they’d likely have to spend the rest of their daylight searching for an inn that wouldn’t kick them out for having Alice.
The stablehands gave the dark elven woman some strange looks, but at least it wasn’t the same outright vitriol that most of the townsfolk in Lhanbryde had. Alice mentioned that due to it being such a large city, dark elven citizens were probably present there in some areas. She also mentioned that they were probably just charged double for the horses, but Ingrid decided it would be best not to argue. Money wasn’t exactly an issue for her anyway.
Upon entering the city, Ingrid shuddered. “I feel… Weirdly naked.”
“D-Does wearing your armor and staff r-really make you feel more comfortable?” Malori asked, genuinely curious.
“Yeah, they just feel natural to me. Like an essential part of everyday clothes. Do you have anything like that?” she turned to the shorter girl. “Your holy symbol maybe?”
A look of understanding crossed Malori’s face. “Th-that makes sense actually… I-If I didn’t have my pendant, it would feel just wr-wrong.”
“Yeah, like leaving the house without at least two knives,” Alice mused.
Ingrid gave her a concerned look. “Wait, two?”
“Of course. One for quick access and one in your boot, in case the other one gets confiscated or something.”
“Y-You said at least two,” Malori pointed out. “H-H-How many knives do you have?”
A cheeky grin spread across Alice’s face. “More than two.”
Ingrid sighed. “Alright then, changing the subject. Do you have any idea where to look for an inn, Alice?”
“Hmm,” she thought aloud, staring up at the evening sky. “Should probably start heading towards the slums. Poorer inns won’t be picky enough to say no to customers. Money is money after all.”
“Sh-Should we ask for d-directions?” Malori suggested.
“Nah, keep walkin on the main road. I’m lookin for something.”
Ingrid tilted her head. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“I’ll explain later. I mean that, by the way,” she added, pointing back at the other two, “Not exactly something I wanna go broadcasting.”
Ingrid thought about prying, but decided it would probably be best to let this one go. If she said she’d explain it later, she’d explain it later. Plus, at this point she had enough pattern recognition to know that whatever Alice was looking for likely wasn’t something legal.
All of the secrets they had to keep hiding made her squirm slightly. She didn’t like feeling like a criminal, and while what they were doing wasn’t technically illegal, it felt dishonest. Alice had insisted she hide any sign of being a druid from sight to make sure they wouldn’t get stopped and slowed down. They’d been gone from the capital about a week now, and word had likely been sent to other cities that a druid in training was missing. Labhras was probably the one to report it.
Right, she hadn’t told Labhras about this little endeavor before leaving. Her shoulders sagged. She knew he cared quite a bit about her, he wouldn’t have taken her on as an apprentice otherwise. She hoped he was doing okay, and that he wasn’t too worried. Cecilia didn’t know where she was going outside of the general knowledge of Reach, and there was absolutely no way that Chimsley would talk. So it was unlikely that any areas had been put specifically on high alert for her presence. Still, it was better safe than sorry, especially when her brother was on the line.
“Is it really necessary to hide this much?” she had asked before the city was in sight.
“I know your teacher was good to you and all, but the country isn’t exactly stable. Things with Amalthea are tense, and if they figured out you planned to go through there to get to Reach,” Alice stopped, then pointed a lightly accusing finger at Ingrid. “Which they will, you’re a terrible liar. They’d just tell you your brother’s a lost cause and that it’s not worth it. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, they’d do anything to keep you out of Amalthea. Make a scene there and you could have an international incident. Screw up bad enough and who knows, maybe they’d take that as an excuse to declare war or something, I don’t know.”
“A-And we shouldn’t be w-worried about causing a potential incident?” Malori chimed in nervously.
“Oh I have zero problems making an incident, I just think it would really screw with Princess getting her brother back. Believe it or not, I’m prioritizing him over my distaste for the government,” she smiled. “For once.”
Ingrid ended up begrudgingly agreeing to their urging, but she seriously hoped that the next day would pass quickly. At the very least she had her staff ready to be taken out of her bag at a moment’s notice.
After walking for a while, Alice abruptly turned down a side road. “This way.”
Ingrid blinked, eager to know where they were going, but followed along with Malori at her side. They continued down the road until Alice made another abrupt turn, prompting Malori to almost trip as she tried to follow. This continued for a bit as they wove through the clusters of houses and buildings, until the streets got narrower and narrower. Eventually, the trio found themselves pacing through a set of alleyways not unlike the ones they wove through in Baile Cothrom to get to Keaton’s bar.
Alice silently guided them forward, making sure no one got too close to the trio. If any of the thugs or junkies looked like they were about to make a move, a quick flash of Alice’s knife generally made them back off.
“Here’s our spot,” Alice said plainly, before immediately starting to run her fingers gently over a smooth stone wall on one side of the alley.
Ingrid looked around in confusion. Where they found themselves appeared to be just a random section of the alley, with the next turn another building further. There were no signs of any entrances or doors either.
“Um, are you sure? There’s nothing here,” she pointed out, hoping to get some explanation.
“Not quite, Princess,” Alice mused, pointing to a section of the wall. “Take a peek. Might do you some good to recognize this stuff.”
Ingrid and Malori squinted where Alice was pointing. It was faint, barely noticeable, but when she looked closer, Ingrid swore she could make out a symbol of a small box with three diagonal lines in it.
“W-What does that mean?” Malori asked in quiet awe.
“That, Shortie, means safehouse. The thing with the underworld is that you gotta have ways of communicating that don’t call attention,” she said with pride, before stopping her hand over a section of the wall. “And here we go~”
Malori’s eyes went wide as Alice’s hand seemed to vanish into the wall, searching around for something. “A-An illusion?”
Alice nodded. “Yup! Pretty good one too. Must be a nice place if they’ve got a mage to set this stuff up.”
There was a clicking sound from where her hand entered the wall. She then proceeded to walk along the length of the wall, her hand still in the illusion. Once she reached a certain point, her hand seemed to push deeper in. “Alright, in we go!” she said before walking straight into the wall, vanishing behind it.
Malori’s jaw dropped. She turned to Ingrid with a look of giddy excitement, flapping her hands slightly as she examined the wall. “Th-the illusion is so seamless! Y-You would never guess it was even there in the first place! Oh th-this is incredible!” she gushed.
Ingrid couldn’t help but smile. It was nice seeing Malori this excited over something. She stepped forward and put a hand on Malori’s shoulder. “Well, we should probably head in then right?” she suggested before entering the illusion, Malori close behind. Before them was a musty stone staircase, with Alice standing a few steps down and looking back up at them.
“Come on, you two are so slow!” it was an insult, but Ingrid could more than see the adorably proud smile on her face as she guided them downward. At the bottom of the staircase was a hallway with a single set of double doors at the end. Leaning against the wall with their arms crossed was a tall, muscular, androgynous half-orc who looked them up and down as they came into view.
“I’m not exactly one to judge by appearances, but two of you look a little lost,” they said in a gruff voice.
Malori’s excitement faded at the sight of the half-orc, who towered a solid foot and a half over Alice, the tallest member of their little trio. She gulped, squeezing her staff tighter as she hid behind Ingrid.
Alice stepped forward, fiddling with a coin in her left hand. “We’re new in town, and those two are with me,” she said confidently, “This city’s underground gonna throw me up on a pyre for bein’’ a dark elf or can I enter?” she asked, flashing the coin to the half-orc in a way that Ingrid couldn’t make out.
They seemed to look closer at the coin, then sighed, nodding towards the door. “I’m not paid to give a damn about the races of people coming in here, only making sure they actually belong,” they grumbled. “Head on in. I’d recommend at least staying on your guard, but it’s no skin off my back if you get a knife in the ribs.”
“Thanks for the warning my friend, I woulda done so anyways,” she said with a flamboyant bow before opening the doors. “Come on in girls, let’s see what’s waiting for us in here.”