As expected, Sigmir hadn’t been too happy when I told her that Lenore and I would have to check something out two days later. Even that was a bit of a concession on my part, estimated from the place I had seen the Traveller-group the day before and assumed that we travelled at our fastest pace, not the leisurely speed we had used whenever not in a hurry.

Still, after we had taken the night to enjoy the others' presence and I had explained that I had discovered something interesting that I wanted to continue investigating, she finally accepted a compromise. We would all push on at our highest speed, until we got relatively close to the area I was interested in, where I would split from the others, with them waiting on the south-side of the ancient road, the area I was interested in being on the north-side. That way, if Lenore and I had to flee, we would have a place to flee to, with reinforcements waiting. Even convincing Sigmir to accept that had required a lot of quick work with my tongue.

The next two days made a part of me regret that compromise, mainly my legs. With the others sticking with me, until we got near the area, I had to push myself hard, to catch up to the scouts I wanted to observe, as I was once more the physically weakest link. It made me a little envious of Olivia’s magical tricks that allowed her to move quickly, especially when she, during an evening-chat about magic, let slip that the magic mostly helped with receiving power from the ancient road, instead of expanding her own power. Sure, it only worked on those roads, but the efficenity made me green with envy.

As we were running, I started to wonder about something else. Namely, how the classification between monster and person worked, because intelligence didn’t really work, not when thinking of beings like Lenore and that bear I had attacked a few days prior. Lenore wouldn’t be seen as a person, despite being at least as smart as many people, just like that bear. The bear had quite obviously magical abilities and the wisdom to retreat into a well-prepared and secured position, instead of attacking in a frenzy.

To say nothing of the Arachnids I had seen and their magically hidden village, if that was what their magic concealed. I hadn’t actually been able to see buildings or anything like that, merely them, going about their daily business. Maybe the difference wasn’t actually innate to the system but a cultural one, an understanding between the various “civilised” races to treat each other with a certain degree of respect, while treating other races as monsters.

Fitting in with that was the treatment of the Naga, they were considered people, even if their bodies were as monstrous as the arachnoids I had seen just a few days prior, the only difference was that their bodies were based on some sort of sea-snake with arms, or maybe sea-dragons or something along those lines. The simple fact that Naga were the premier seafarers in an ocean filled with monsters, that gave them a seat at the table.

The centaurs, slightly less monstrous as their other half was at least based on a mammal, were a similar case, only that I had a feeling they used military strength as a deterrent, whereas the Naga used mercantile power.

All that assumed that the arachnids were treated as monsters, but the careful concealment of their village made me think so. As did the fact that I hadn’t read about them on the forum and that the others had overheard people talking about exterminating the crawlies.

The more I thought about it, the more confident I got in the proposition that the whole monster-person differentiation was a cultural one, used to create an us-vs-them dynamic that made people feel better about slaughtering the “monsters”..A small part of me wondered where Pantheon would go with that idea in the future, as it opened up interesting avenues for story-telling. So far, Mundus was a giant sandbox, allowing everyone to play as they went but there had been some glimpses that something more was going on, making me wonder.

By the time we reached the area where I would split from the others, I was thoroughly exhausted, which may or may not have been Sigmir’s intention all along. Instead of setting off that day, I stuck around for one more night, taking the time to carefully set up a frozen cottage for the others, so they would be as comfortable as possible while I hopefully would be able to spectate the contest between the arachnoids and the Travellers.

While I would have loved to show Sigmir just how much I would miss her while skulking about, I was simply too exhausted, falling asleep before I could give her more than a single kiss. I would have to make up for that, once I was back.

In the morning, I retreated into my Hallow and Lenore and I set off, flying at a comfortable pace, compared to the punishing speed we had travelled at the days prior. Finding the Travellers was almost comically easy, as they had literally left guide-marks, leading from the ancient road into the forest, to their camp-ground. Sure, they were the scouting-party for another group, but still, couldn’t they at least have tried to conceal their actions?

It reeked of arrogance, making me shake my head while Lenore settled into the dense foliage of a nearby tree, hopefully far enough away to quickly get away, if they realised that Lenore wasn’t just another bird. Or worse, if they made the connection between some of the videos that had shown images of Lenore and the curiously coloured raven sitting in a tree. While there were other Ravens with a couple white feathers, and crows with interesting plumage, Lenore’s bone-white head, wing-tips and the ice-blue claws, almost glowing, claws stood out. I could cloak us in shadow, making her look like a normal, if very creepy, raven, while also blocking magical scrying but that wasn’t something I could constantly keep up, not without creating even more problems.

That meant, moving around carefully and avoiding notice were the keys to keeping safe, banking on the fact that there were countless small critters in the forest, making it difficult to investigate any single one. If you wanted to hide a tree, the forest was the best place, even if the tree was a bird of a very different plumage.

For the rest of the day, we watched the Travellers establish and secure their camp-site, with a single pair scouting the area, while three of them stayed in the camp, guarding it, at least while they were active. It was interesting to watch them literally vanish from time to time, when they logged out, it was a process I had never really been in a position to observe. Part of me was weirded out, their fading out of existence sending shivers down my spine, much to my amusement. I wasn’t bothered by creating Ice out of nowhere, I had no problem using Death-Magic to turn once living beings into dust but when someone just disappeared, it felt wrong.

Overall, observing them was rather boring. They didn’t do anything that I would consider out of the ordinary, even watching one of their spellcasters do their thing as she warded the camp-site was nothing new. I was almost certain that the spell she used was based on the same principles as the spell in the Grandmother’s grimoire, only adapted to Earth. That particular revelation was actually the most interesting thing that I got out of the day, mostly because it reminded me that a warding-spell known to everyone wasn’t the best thing to use.

Sure, just because someone knew how to cast the spell didn’t mean they would be able to dispel it without the original caster noticing, but it meant that dispelling it would be easier by orders of magnitudes, depending on a couple of variables, especially the question of stealth. I was certain that I would be able to break their wards, thanks to my abilities with Darkness-Magic and its dominion over the change-part inherent to magic, but unless I was very careful I wouldn’t stand a chance to do so without the caster noticing. And even that chance was mostly because I had watched them cast the spell and knew a variation of the spell. Otherwise, I would be out of luck.

But that question, how to break or circumvent their wards, along ways I could use to counter the methods I had considered earlier, for my own wards, were what kept me entertained, while they prepared fire-pits and generally readied their camp-site. Luckily, Travellers didn’t need to dig latrines, or I might have called the whole idea off, there were some things I really didn’t need to observe.

Hopefully, the coming days would be more interesting.