“Where there are meetings, there will be separations.” - Old folk saying.

The rest of Aideen’s stay with the goblins were relatively uneventful, though she did find herself interested in paying the denizens of the wild jungles another visit in the future, maybe to explore deeper into the jungle too, if she had the time then. As it was, however, they ended their stay at Ibonua after a week and a half there and returned to Clan Blacktower’s village together with Wiro, Jort, and a group of Ibonuans who carried bundles of Sylphid inside storage artifacts Aideen gifted them to trade with the Blacktowers.

Their stay at the goblin village was delightful – even if the hot weather and clingy, humid air took some getting used to – with some of the locals even asking them to visit more often. One of them even told Aideen that usually they had celebratory feasts like when they welcomed her twice a year, but when she visited they had two such feasts within a week – Seta had ordered another feast after the Sylphid business – and everybody liked that a lot, apparently

It was a smooth journey back to Clan Blacktower’s territory, with the larger group effectively making predators less inclined to tangle with them on the way back. Once they reached the village where the Clan lived, Aideen left the goblins to their own business – the barter between various goods for Sylphid plants – while she picked Miro up instead.

Miro had been catching up on things with his old friends in the clan and waited there for her return. Since it had almost been a month since she left, he was naturally done catching up and was ready to return, so they said their goodbyes to the locals and headed back to Clan Bloodfang’s territory together with Miro, a journey that went similarly uneventfully for the most part.

They had to pause for a couple days because they ran into a herd of migrating thunder lizards and camped to wait until the herd had completely vacated the area they were passing through. It was quite an experience in itself to watch so many of the massive beasts – each thunder lizard was easily a good seven to eight meters tall at the shoulder and up to twenty or more long from head to tail – passing by in unison like that.

One thing it definitely did was to make those watching feel small in comparison, compared to the wonders that life brought. Aideen was probably the least affected out of the group, as she still recalled the even more massive sea serpent she helped take care of in her younger days. That creature made even the majestic thunder lizards look like puny little insects with its truly extrafluous size, and it was supposed to be a young specimen of its kind, one that was still rather small, to boot.

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After the small interruption, they returned to the summer abode of the Bloodfangs, where Aideen’s group stayed for several more seasons, as she found that the simple life in the prairie was a good thing for the younger members of the group like her nieces and nephew as well as Kino to experience. It was hard to get such an authentic experience elsewhere after all, unless they went to the depths of the western islands further west of Elmaiya maybe.

Aideen gave the matter some thought and decided to lead her group back down south in the autumn, when the Bloodfangs migrated to near the northern coast of the continent. They headed straight towards Clangeddin territory, entering the region where Celia originally was born at, and headed further west to the Barony of Gerouz.

There, at the western tip of Clangeddin territory, they found a land where the people were poor but hardworking, people who eked out an existence out of the meager resources their land possessed, and for a change, nobles that understood and shared in their people’s plight while making an effort to better things for everyone. It was sad that she had to consider such nobles a rarity, but the Clangeddin Empire was old and clearly rotting from the inside out, which made it just the reality there.

One of the ways the local Baron tried to enrich the region was through maritime trade. Alcidea’s northern coast was mostly composed of steep, rocky cliffs, which made it unsuitable for building ports. That fact, combined with how a large majority of the northern coasts were in orcish, goblin, or elven territories, meant that maritime trade in the north was practically nonexistent.

The Barony of Gerouz happened to include a strip of sandy beach to its far northwest. It was not a large region, unsuitable for the creation of a large port facility, but the locals made do with what they had and built a small port there nonetheless. From that port, they traded with the Duchy of Algenverr in Posuin, further west from their location and cut off from them by the northern marshlands. That trade brought quite a bit of revenue to the Barony and was one of their main sources of income.

Aideen and the rest of her group made use of that trade route by taking one of the frequently scheduled trading ships between Gerouz and Algenverr as passengers, as the ships were wont to do when they had room to spare. That spared them the troubles of crossing the marshlands – something that wouldn’t threaten but would definitely inconvenience them – on foot.

One reason Aideen avoided crossing the marshlands – she had ventured there for a bit in the past – was not due to any sort of danger. Her group was more than prepared to handle whatever the marshlands might throw their way. It was the stench of the marshlands that she wanted to avoid, because the last time she explored there she ended up having to burn the clothes she wore, and it took weeks before the stench dissipated from her skin and hair as well.