“Greetings, Travellers.” the rider called out, stopping some twenty metres away from Adra. Even at the distance, I could see the halfling on her goat nervously fidgeting. Maybe that was par for the course, given that she was essentially sent out as an avalanche poodle, testing if the ground was safe and if not, she would be the only one dying.

“Hail, Soldiers,” Adra called out in response, looking quite relaxed in comparison.

After a moment of observation, the halfling spurred her goat onwards, approaching Adra to a normal conversational distance, stopping maybe three metres away.

“You wouldn’t happen to know what caused the earlier commotion? We heard it miles away.” the halfling asked, still looking a little on edge. Luckily, I had enough Insight to be able to listen, if I focused on the two of them.

“Some bandits were lurking in the woods. They lurk no longer.” Adra confidently replied and the halfling up front briefly froze, looking very concerned all of a sudden.

“Would you mind giving my captain some details? This sounds problematic.” the halfling asked, after glancing over her shoulder at the group behind her.

“No, I don’t think our leader minds. Exchanging information on bandits can be beneficial to all, except those vermin.” Adra replied, her tone distinctly disdainful of bandits. Not that I was terribly surprised, no traveller liked those who lurked in the woods and preyed on the unsuspecting.

“Thank you. Would it be possible to share a fire under the rules of hospitality?” she asked and I had to smile at the ploy. The rules of hospitality were tremendously important amongst many cultures on Mundus, to the point that they were widely considered to be sacrosanct, sacred to both major Pantheons and huge swathes of the populace. If my accusation of oath-breaking against Jakyl had been detrimental to his reputation, an accusation of breaking the rules of hospitality would be worse, especially for travelling people. Inns and taverns, places that lived with the rules of hospitality as their foundation would bar them, as would many stores.

When Adra glanced at me, I gave her a nod of acceptance, curious what the group of riders had in mind. We had come across a few small groups on our way from Gaber, but none as grand and militaristic as this one.

“Certainly. What a nice day for a picnic this is.” Adra agreed, drawing an amused snort of surprise from the halfling. Moments later, the halfling blushed bright red at her own outburst, before turning around and riding back to her captain.

Curious, I attempted to focus my senses on them, trying to see if I was able to listen to them, despite the distance. It was faint, almost impossible to hear, but I managed to capture a few snippets. That they were talking in an unknown language was no obstacle, thanks to the ability I gained from my bond with Lenore. How curious, that the captain addressed another soldier, dressed just like any of the other halflings, as Prince, sounding quite subservient. Somehow, I was smelling a conspiracy.

It didn’t take long to set up a simple camp, and soon, the smell of food and tea was filling the air. There was little conversation beforehand, both parties simply preparing their side of lunch, which would be shared afterwards, alongside some talk.

“Olivia, would you do the honours and offer a blessing?” I asked as the food was passed out.

“Certainly.” she nodded, understanding my obvious intent. “Lady Eleutheria, may you bless this food and let it ease our travel onward.”

There was a brief moment of solemn silence, a brief sensation of divinity washing over us all. If either side wanted to break the rules of hospitality now, there would be dire and certain consequences.

“We were told you spoke about bandits?” the captain began the exchange of information, nibbling on some travel bread.

“Indeed. A short distance down the road, we detected a group of marksmen hiding in the trees. Given their positioning and apparent intent to prey on travellers, we decided to register our complaints with them. They did receive them and will not pose further challenge.” Adra explained, euphemistically describing our slaughter of the bandits. Talking about dismembered bodies wasn’t seen as a suitable lunch conversation.

“What does she mean?” the person earlier referred to as ‘Prince’ asked quietly, easily overheard in the sudden silence after Adra’s explanation.

“They killed them.” came the quiet, slightly exasperated reply from one of the underlings.

“That, we did. There were some fifteen of them, all in prepared positions with crossbows.” I explained, joining into their quiet conversation with a bit of extra information. “None of you feel particularly powerful and if I had to guess, their initial volley would have seen half of you, maybe more, gravely wounded or dead. Or maybe all of your mounts, that’s what I would go for if I wanted to ambush a group like yours.” I added, stirring the metaphorical pot. A glance at the fire told me I also had to stir the literal pot, so I stood and walked over, quietly doing just that, leaving the halflings to consider their situation for a bit.

As if on command, I could feel the probing of Observe and quietly squashed the attempt, refraining from striking back through the connection.

“Decorum is a two-way street,” I said, speaking quietly and in an utterly unconcerned tone, before focusing my eyes on the Prince, who just happened to be the one who had probed me. Looking closely, I realised that he was both the youngest and weakest of them all. Curious, I decided to return the favour, and used Observe, concealing the use as much as possible, only to be surprised. The skill took effect, but bounced off, running into a solid, magical wall that allowed no information to leak out. While divination wasn’t a type of magic I was particularly good at, just the difference in level I could sense should have allowed me to get something back.

An awkward silence settled over the camp at my statement but the captain quickly broke it, asking Adra to give him some details about the attackers. When she did, not that there were a lot of details, mostly due to the messy fashion in which they had died, the captain’s expression soon became dire.

“Mercenaries.” muttered, shaking his head before falling silent again.

“You are Adventurers’, duly registered with the Adventurers’ Guild?” he asked, after a few moments of contemplation.

“We are,” Adra replied, pulling the Guild card out of her back and showing it to the captain. He looked it over, before glancing at the rest of us. There was a disgruntled look on his face, but after a few moments, that look vanished and he, once again, looked over our group, carefully studying us one after the other. There was no skill-use I could sense, but it was obvious that we were being judged.

“I would like to offer you a quest. Join this group and escort us to Galam. There will be excellent remuneration for you.” he offered and a blue window appeared before me.

Quest Alert! Escort to Galam Quest Difficulty Easy Join the group around Captain Erok and make sure they reach Galam unharmed. Quest Reward

20 gold-coins per person

Reduced if the escorted party suffers severe injuries.

Looking at the quest, a small part of me was feeling tempted. Twenty gold coins was a lot of money, especially given that it would be for each of us. In fact, it was too much for an easy quest, meaning there were additional factors and the captain was likely being creative in his use of the system, obscuring the details of the quest and the dangers involved. Just for that, I wouldn’t take the quest, despite the temptation of money.

But far more problematic was that Galam was in the south, behind the Daish Gate, and so completely out of our way. With that in mind, I mentally declined the quest, causing the window to vanish.

“I’m afraid that Galam is not on our way. You will have to make do without us.” I explained out loud, shaking my head.

The captain accepted my refusal with a nod, before focusing on Gilo.

“You, young woman. Can we at least convince you to join this group, it would be greatly appreciated by our people,” he asked, his voice stern and trying to be intimidating. There was a look shared between Mal and Gilo and after a few seconds, Mal gave a nod of acceptance.

“Morgana, I believe Gilo and I will take their quest,” Mal told me, her voice calm. Blinking, I checked to make sure there was no magic influencing their mind, finding none. Not certain what was going on, I frowned but nodded in acceptance. I would have to ask Mal later.

“Certainly. It was a pleasure cooperating with you and I wish you good luck in future endeavours.” I told her, briefly shaking her hand.

And with that, our group was back to five people. I was going to miss the two, the discussions on Alchemy with them had been fun.