Traveling through the lands of Guldan didn’t feel any different from riding along the roads of Leka An or through the forests of Elysia. Granted, we had to look out for the giant anti-magic beacons that were supposed to be placed on the side of the road but they didn’t look as menacing as we had initially thought.

We encountered the first one very quickly on our way from The Rooster Thief and it was in perfect working condition, which made good sense. If you were against magic and wanted to make a point of where Guldan land started, you would always make sure the magic-nullifier on the borders was operating perfectly.

The beacon itself consisted of a thick brass base that looked like a tree trunk, some twenty feet high. A flat silvery ring rested on top of this massive metal pipe-like structure. I couldn’t make heads or tails how this device could work or how it would be able to bar mana or magic at all, and so the first time I saw it, I wanted to test it out.

I took a look around us and once I was sure there was nobody watching us, I started chanting my simple telekinetic cantrip in order to make a gold coin hover over my hand.

Once the coin was floating on my hand, I walked toward the beacon while maintaining the spell.

Name : Telekinesis

School of Magic : Transmutation

Verbal Components : 8 words

Somatic Components : Simple

Material Component : None

HP Consumed : 0

MP Consumed : 0

Divine Mana Consumed : 20/lb.

Range : Touch

Casting Time : 4 seconds

Precondition : None.

Description : Divine mana is being channeled from one point in space toward another in a straight line. The amount of mana used for this spell is directly proportionate to the amount of weight moved and the force with which it is moved.

Some fifteen steps away from the large device, the coin suddenly defied my spell and obeyed gravity again. But, I could still feel the protective magic of my pendant in effect and nothing else changed. Most importantly, Kai’s skin color did not fade to gold as we approached the nullifier, which had been my main concern about traveling in Guldan. At least, nothing changed until I touched the beacon.

I was half-expecting something dramatic to happen when I touched it. That I might be thrown back with tremendous force or something but nothing visibly happened. I could tell that my protective barrier had been canceled, but nothing else seemed to have changed. And, as soon as I removed my hand from the cold brass base of the device, my protective barrier came back up. In the interest of gathering more information on what we might face further down the road, I thought of testing the beacon some more.

“Kai, can you please touch the beacon too?” I asked him, wanting to make sure these things wouldn’t give his skin color away. “Let’s see if the nullifiers will have any effect on already cast spells.”

“Sure,” he replied and gingerly approached the cold metal trunk before putting his hand on it. “Nothing is hap—”

Before he managed to complete his sentence, his eyes closed and he collapsed to the ground in front of me. Caught completely off guard, I wasn’t even able to catch him before he hit the soft grass in front of my feet. I fell on my knees and rolled him over to look at his face.

The one thing I didn’t expect to see was him smiling and then bursting into laughter once he saw my worried expression.

“You should have seen your face, silly,” he said and rolled on his side laughing as I dropped my hands down.

“That wasn’t funny at all, Kai,” I told him, a little angry, but mainly relieved it was only a joke. “So the beacon didn’t affect you at all?”

“No,” he replied, once he’d managed to control his laughter. “Not that I can tell anyway.”

“Then let me try one more thing,” I said, and I blew the flute for my magical steed to appear. Nothing happened.

I continued blowing in vain as I walked away from the anti-magic device until I was about fifteen steps away from it and my companion finally started to materialize.

“Looks like these things don’t have a large range,” I said. “However, we shouldn’t underestimate them. It may be that their power can vary.”

Kai stood up. “I guess it makes sense to avoid them when we can. It won’t hurt really.”

I agreed with his thinking and so we continued our journey south toward Ferrumheim. It became a bit tiring trying to avoid coming within reach of all of the beacons so that we would not suddenly be left without a horse, but we didn’t have to take too many diversions.

We were used to riding through forests a lot denser than the ones of Guldan, though the weather here was much chillier than around our hideout in the jungles of Yubna, especially at night. This did not matter much to us of course, since we were always resting in the comfort of our chest home and wearing magical protection while riding.

***

Around noon of the third day of our travels away from the inn at the crossroads, we saw a small city in a tiny valley between barren hills. The city looked like it was made entirely of wood and stone, but there was a long black metal vehicle of sorts resting next to the river running through the city.

This must be Ferrumheim… and that black thing is the transportation train that Jaha told us about.

The dark metal of the train was in sharp contrast with the rest of the village and the land surrounding it. The valley in which the village sat had a yellow-green hue, while the mountain to the south was covered in green trees.

And now I realized exactly what the line of squares represented on our map. The same lines, presumably made out of metal, started where the train was and traveled toward the tree-line, leading to the mountain. It was the lines on which the train would probably move.

We started our downhill walk to the entrance of the city when I noticed the multiple beacons in and around it. There was no escaping them. We had no choice but to hope these would be no more powerful than the ones we’d encountered before.

I couldn’t understand how the citizens of this place could live with such ugly constructs next to their homes. Most of the buildings looked like they were only two stories high which meant their view would be obscured by the beacons.

Entering the village was only possible between two mana-nullifiers roughly the same size as the ones we saw on the road leading here. There were no guards or patrols at the city entrance, which seemed strange to me, but the closer we moved to where I thought the train would be, the more people I saw. Without the benefit of the unobstructed view we had from the hills, it was harder to navigate the town.

“I remember the train being next to a river,” I told Kai, who was merrily walking next to me, a bag strapped to his back. “Do you think we should just walk by the river until we see the train?”

“Yeah,” he replied, and pointed with his hand to my left. “Let’s take that way there.”

We walked on the narrow path between two buildings to reach the river and looked up to see people through the open windows of the buildings. Most of them were having lunch, while some were already taking their noon nap.

Once we emerged out of the buildings at the other end of the path, we found ourselves standing on a stone road parallel to the small river. People were sitting by the riverbank, fishing, some even sleeping in the sun. The temperature was certainly not warm enough for me to consider sleeping outdoors but I guessed that these people were raised in a climate much colder than we had been.

We continued on the stone road, smiling back at the people who greeted us. The men and women here did not look at all different from the people of other nations. With the exception of those in Yubna, who were always in proximity of their monkey companions, the only difference was the tough-looking blue clothes everyone was wearing here. They looked like they were hardened people, but I suspected this may be the norm for manaless either way.

Before we knew it, the sun’s glare on the shiny black surface of the train reflected into my eyes. We walked toward it but soon saw there was only one way to jump on the train and that was through a small wooden building standing in front of it. We crossed its entrance and were met with a line of three people standing in front of a large brown wooden desk where an elderly man was sitting.