Mary-Ann quickly settled into a routine.

In the morning, she would rise with the sun and after a hearty breakfast, set out on the road towards the capital.

After a tiresome day of continuous walking at a steady yet fast pace, she would stop whenever she comes across the next outpost. There she would enter the inn and order a room, a bath with extra hot water and food and drink.

She would then go straight to her room and eat her dinner there, after which she bathes and cleans her clothes before allowing her weary body the rest it needs.

This repeated for multiple days on end since the road that follows the dragon mountains is as long as they are and settlements don't just come from nowhere. Villages are normally founded around or near places of interest such as mines, crossroads, ports, important natural resources and dungeons. Due to the size of the kingdom, one would usually have to travel multiple days before encountering the next village.

It is in front of the gates of one of these settlements that she now finds herself.

All villages are protected by the crown by the same troops that guard the outposts but in relatively smaller numbers.

The soldiers in these villages act as peacekeepers and as a mini standing army in case of a bandit or monster attack.

Most of the actual guarding is done by a militia which has been trained by the royal troops.

Compared to the royal troops, these militiamen are usually significantly worse equipped since the equipment is usually locally made or at least locally funded and imported from either the capital or surrounding villages that have a surplus they want to sell.

Most of the time, a village has its own blacksmith and, if he or she is capable enough, the blacksmith can also make arms and armour to equip the militia with or sell them to travelling merchants, adventurers or to neighbouring villages if he or she can make enough of them.

Another building that is always present in one of these villages is a barracks, most villages have two even, one for the royal troops and one for the militia.

But the building that is usually always found in a village and which is often the very first building to be build when a new village is founded is an inn. If the village is big enough, there are often more than just one of them, especially is a lot of trade passes through the village.

In case of a dungeon village or town, it is standard practice to set up a branch of the adventurers guild. In fact, smaller branches of the adventurers guild can be found in most villages which are often staffed with a small detachment of adventurers, most of which are actually low ranking locals. Depending on the size of the village, the branch itself and the importance of the village, an adventurer with a rank that is a couple of tiers higher than the other adventurers is assigned as the branch leader.

If the village is truly special or important enough, there would also be a small branch of the mages guild that specialises in selling magical commodities and teaching low-level and common spells to aspiring mages and maybe even a church of one deity or the other. In the kingdom of Ralomar, religion and churches have to adhere to some rules, some of which some might find strict or even harsh.

To prevent trouble between followers of different gods, it has been decreed many centuries ago that there can only be one church in every village, town or city and that if the clergy of a particular god wants their god to be represented, they can claim a single altar in the shared, Crown-owned church of that village, town or city.

In fact, It doesn't matter for the crown which god has an altar in a church, as long as the clergy and followers of that god follow the rules and laws, any god can be represented in the church. It is not uncommon for the biggest churches to have altars devoted to the god of necromancy or the god of hell, demons and fiends.

Churches are usually only found in towns or more densely populated habitats. A church is only built in a village or town if a petition is sent to the Crown, which has to be signed by three heads of clergy from three different gods. Unsanctioned churches are, if found, immediately torn down by the soldiers of the Crown and the clergy that runs the church is chained up and sent to prison where they remain for two years or until the leaders of that religion pays a heavy fine. It rarely happens that someone is convicted of this crime multiple times but when it happens, the perpetrator is hanged without mercy and the clergy of the perpetrator is held responsible as well and punished accordingly by the king himself.

Nearly all of the settlements that lie at the Dragon Road are towns and because of the size of the settlement and because they are important for wandering pilgrims, they all have a church.

The town that Mary-Ann is about to enter is called Domwik. Why this town is named this way is lost in history.

There is plenty of speculation, mind you, but most of the speculating is done by people who have already drunk their fair share of alcohol.

From the western gate, the one Mary-Ann is entering Domwik through, she could, if she were to be so inclined, walk all the way to the market in the centre of the town and if she were to keep going to the east, leave through the eastern gate. This boulevard that connects these gates serves as the main hub of which all the rest branches out.

All the important buildings and some of the more common buildings can be found on this boulevard.

The church stands on the northern end of the market square while the small branch of the mage guild and the branch of the adventurers guild share the southern part of the square.

There are two barracks for the militia, one near each gate and the barracks for the royal troops takes up a corner of the market square. Another corner of the square is occupied by the local blacksmith and a small stable where the blacksmith or one of his apprentices can reshoe the horses of travellers of the dragon road.

Along the main boulevard and not far from each gate, multiple inns can be found as well as another inn on the corner of the square which is more luxurious and thus costlier.

The rest of the boulevard is taken up by shops and some of the homes of the more wealthier citizens.

The Last corner of the square is taken up by the town hall while the rest of the town is mostly taken up by residences.

Interestingly enough, most of the towns and villages along the Dragon road look the same since they all have been founded with funds that were sponsored by the crown. The only stipulation that came attached to this sponsoring was that the villages and towns adhered to a certain pattern and that certain buildings were built at certain places.

So as far as layout is concerned, at least as far as the important buildings of these villages and towns go, it is near identical to the next village.

Despite the general layout, every village and town feels different due to the style in which each building is build in and the personal preference of the citizens. The only buildings that look the same as in every other village or town are the church, the adventurers guild branch house and the mages guild branch house and even the style of the church can be changed if a petition with enough signatures is sent to the king and if the village or town is willing to fund the changes itself. So far, this hasn't happened many times before since the local heads of the different pantheons that are present in said town seem unable to agree on the style they want the church to look like. And even if they do manage to agree, it is still required that the followers of these pantheons pay 75% of the renovation cost.

As a result, only the church in the capital looks different from the other ones and only because it was funded by the crown and had the style chosen by the crown as well.

To remain as inconspicuous as possible, Mary-Ann decided to hire a room in one of the inns on the boulevard instead of taking a room in the inn on the corner of the market square.

As before, she orders a room and a meal with a drink.

Since she has reached the town around noon, she also places an order for a meal to be delivered to her room around dinner as well as her usual bath and extra bath water. After her lunch meal, she goes out again but leaves her spear in her room and makes sure to securely lock it.

She then casually strolls through the market square, looking at each and every stall and shop to see if anything catches her eye. Even though she is not paying much attention to her surroundings, she still keeps her spatial backpack in front of her to prevent pickpockets from stealing anything from it, like for example her money pouch.

Her main interest currently lies with getting a set of spare, comfortable clothes that she can wear while her other clothes are drying from their wash.

Unbeknownst to Mary-Ann, her shopping and her taking her money pouch out of what must surely be a spatial bag were noticed by a pair of men of the more unsavoury type. With greedy grins, they look at each other, deciding to shadow her to see where she stays for the night.

Soon after, Mary-Ann returns to her room. She had picked up a book at the market in which she quickly is engrossed in.

Thus she spends the rest of the afternoon until her food and her bath arrives. After a quick meal, a long bath and washing her clothes, she nestles herself in her bed with her book again while wearing her fresh clothes and sipping from a cup of tea that she recently ordered.

With her book and some candles to help her with her reading, she keeps reading until way after dark.

When she finally sets her book aside and goes to sleep, it is easily somewhere around midnight.

After blowing out the candles, she snuggles deeper under her covers and goes to sleep.

On the roof of a nearby building, the two thugs have been lying in wait all this time.

With a huff of annoyance, one of them whispers to the other:

"She finally went to bed, who would have known that she was such a night flower."

"Yeah, even though it is already this late, we still should wait even longer until we can be sure she's properly asleep."

"Agreed. And once she is, we can sneak in through the window, cut her throat and take all of her possessions.

If we then leave through the window one more, we'll be long gone before they find her corpse."

"Too bad we can't have our way with her for some fun, she looked really hot."

"If I'm right about the nature of her bag and the status of her money pouch, we can hire all the whores we want."

With this thought taking up both of their minds, both of them keep switching between hungry looking at the woman's window and staring in the distance whilst daydreaming about wealth and women.

After roughly another hour has passed, they finally make their move.

Thanks to their careful planning, they already have a rope attached to the top of the inn that spans all the way over the alley between their building and the inn. With their feet swung over the rope and with both hands, they monkey traverse the rope to the other side and onto the roof of the inn. Once there, they use another rope to climb down to the small balcony that is attached to the woman's room. This balcony is just about big enough for two grown men to stand on as long as they are not to fat and don't move too much.

As one of them keeps an eye out for any potential witnesses, the other one starts opening the window by trying to undo the latch that keeps the window closed by making use of some expensive thief's tools.

Inside of Mary-Ann's room, she suddenly wakes up.

Confused at first, she looks around for the thing that woke her up.

When she doesn't immediately see anything that could have awoken her in such a way, she is really confused.

Why are her instincts just about screaming at her that there is an imminent threat?

Just then, the moon breaks through the clouds and slightly reveals two silhouettes that stand on her balcony.

Even though she has no idea why they would be there, or rather, why they are most likely breaking in, she still slowly slides out of her bed. Luckily for her, she left her belt with her knife hanging on a nearby chair.

With a hurried yet steady movement, she pulls her dagger out of its sheath and flattens herself against her bed on the side that's furthest away from the window.

Right before the would-be intruders manage to open the window of her room, she shoves her pillows under the blankets to make it look like there is still someone sleeping there.

With a very slight creak, her window opens and in come two men.

Thanks to the moonlight that now shines through her open window, she can faintly see that they both carry a dagger.

With some barely perceptible hand signals, they count down before striking the lump on the bed which they took for a sleeping human.

The moment they stab her pillow, Mary-Ann's gaze and demeanour grow cold.

Since they came here to kill her, she should not feel bad if she were to kill them instead.

As soon as they raise their blades and stab the pillow another time, she jumps up.

With a shout, she swings her dagger towards the neck of the closest assailant.

With a soft and wet squelch, the blade goes all the way in and with a massive tug, it comes as easily back out again, leaving a massive and horrible wound behind.

With a red spray of blood, the first of the assailants goes down, clutching at the wound in the vain hope that he can stem the bleeding.

Startled, the other one looks up and at her.

Not believing what he sees, he just dumbly looks at the bed again before looking at her once more.

"What are you doing there instead of lying here?" he asks, baffled.

Not granting him an answer, she jumps on and over the bed, hitting the would-be murderer feet first.

With a wheeze as the air is knocked out from his lungs, the man goes down with Mary-Ann on top of him.

With her on top, she has all the leverage she needs to start laying into him with her dagger.

When she finally stops stabbing him, he has been stabbed so many times that his blood has just about spread everywhere and covered everything in her area.

Heavily panting, she just kneels there while clenching the dagger in her right hand that is white from how hard she is clenching it.

Staring at the mess she just made, she can't help but think 'What a mess I made and worst of all, now I need to bathe again and get rid of my new clothes since I doubt I will be able to get the bloodstains out of them'