They left the camp at the break of dawn. It was at the same cold hour when their breaths turned to steam as soon as they left their mouths.

The group consisted of fifteen people all in all, including the non-humans. Three guards were part of it and were sent personally by the Ashen Gaze. All members of the the party wore warm fur clothes, along with long cloaks and hoods. They traveled by foot, except for Varhel. The young man was in his half-bird form, flying a few meters up in the air. It was a laid-back, cautious kind of flight, hardly exhausting him even after hours.

Ostrias didn’t come to send them off, but that was expected. His presence wasn’t really desired, too – everyone was cold (except for Zaster, as he couldn’t feel any real kind of bodily sensation) and wanted to get moving as quickly as possible. The quick pace set by Salelia helped all the apprentices – their blood quickly got pumping. Sweat even broke on their faces. The witch’s horses were with them, but they were used mostly for transportation of the baggage. The only disciple riding one was Nalia, although she was more half-lying on the back of the animal and barely managed to control it.

Ehrir felt strange after all the time he spent passively, just standing on the ship or going around the fields. To move for long periods of time got him tired quickly, but at least he wasn’t alone. Every time he moved from city to city while homeless, the feeling of loneliness weighed down his shoulders. It was different now. The group was loud, lively and definitely weird down to the bone. The ratman was occasionally scouting ahead with the aid of Varhel. The old man got on his knees twice an hour and did some strange spells that Ehrir couldn’t understand. The Undone One didn’t receive an explanation about it, but it probably was feral magic or something in that vein.

The group stopped for a quick lunch along the way, but after that they moved until sunset. During this time the fields steadily gave place to an area filled with hills and bushes. It was a gloomy, lifeless place. That made it safe enough for a setting a camp without the need for the guards to watch over during the whole night.

The dinner wasn’t too fascinating. Two pieces of grilled meat with a piece of bread was nothing compared to the delicious meals back at the Archipelago of Claws. Yet, Ehrir hadn’t forgotten the days where his meals consisted of half-rotten rubbish. He was thankful for what he had now. It was more than enough. Except for the sleeping space.

The sleeping space… It wasn’t nearly enough. The group had a limited number of tents available and the Undone One had to sleep in the same one as Varhel, the albino and the young man with the brands. The four of them were a weird bunch, especially when they prepared to sleep. The strange symbols upon Ehrir’s chest, combined with the scars on his abdomen and the Brands on his palms made him no more ordinary than the rest of the men around him. Given the circumstances, the fact he was an Undone One was quickly revealed and everyone in the travelling party knew by the next morning. Yet, they didn’t seem to care – all of them were weirdos already and they welcomed him as an equal. He still preferred to wear one of his trusty pairs of gloves, though.

There was no time for training with magic during those first days of the group’s travels and Ehrir didn’t have the chance to further refine his skills. On the better side of things, he got to quickly befriend Salelia’s apprentices, especially Zaster. The undead man had a quirky sense of humor, if anything, and his comrades liked him a lot. It was strange for the soul and heart of their company to be a living, walking corpse… But his jokes were seriously good, no doubt about that. He acted in a relaxed way when surrounded by his fellow disciples and his words about not being able to communicate with outsiders could be easily forgotten.

Steadily and over the course of half a week, the hills gave place to thicker and thicker forests. They were different from those that the Undone One was accustomed with. With conifers nowhere to be seen, tall and graceful deciduous trees reigned. It was still too early for them to shed their leaves, but the oaks, willows and beeches had already turned into a blurs of warm orange, yellow and red. There were animals of all kinds lurking around, in sharp contrast to the fields that the travelling party left behind their backs. Squirrels, different birds and insects could be seen at any time and even wild boars and bears showed up from regularly. Yet, no animal dared to attack such a big group of people, and even the pack of wolves they encountered once turned away quickly when met with such a threatening sight. Still, the soldiers now guarded the tents at night. The dark hours – still getting longer and longer – were usually filled with howls and other unpleasant sounds.

Occasionally the group encountered some ruin or remnant from another time while advancing through the forests. It wasn’t anything big in most cases – just a wall made from ancient cobblestone and covered with moss, or the fundamentals of a tower or building long since gone. As they got closer and closer to the mountain range marking the horizon, the ruins started to appear more and more often. Ehrir had never seen such things in his homelands, which felt almost hollow in their lack of historical evidence outside of books and scrolls. Yet, even this remote chunks of the south were… Full of history, of unspoken tales and unsung songs. The Undone One quickly learned (both through the old man and the other disciples) that many wars were waged in these parts. Dozens of kingdoms had risen and fallen amongst the very same forests that Ehrir roamed now. The place was abandoned primarily because of the more fertile soil in the valleys on the other side of the mountains.

If these calm forests were filled with so much history, what would the Inner Fantasy look like? That question slowly grew inside Ehrir’s mind until he decided to ask the other people in the group.

The answer of everyone was pretty similar.

“I haven’t been there, but they say that it is spectacular”, they told him.

The only one in the whole party that had visited it was the one born there – Salelia. The Undone One questioned her while they were traversing the forest.

“Oh… That’s an interesting thing to talk about… What was your name?” Her sweet voice echoed around and drowned in the other conversations that the surrounding apprentices were having.

“Ehrir”, uttered the Undone One quietly while trying to look away. It was too easy to get lost in the sorceress’ hypnotizing beauty.

“Good. Ehrir, although I’m born in the Inner Fantasy, I spent only the first fifteen years of my life there. My memories of it are mostly vague and I haven’t seen nearly all of that strange and wonderful land. But if I have to summarize what I have experienced there… It’s fascinating. That place is riddled with so much history, cultures, religions and magic that it can be overwhelming if you ever get to see it yourself. It’s like… Ah, it’s hard to put into words. I think that one of the more famous magicians from the last centuries presents it in the best possible way. In a scroll describing the geography of the Inner Fantasy, he says: Every pebble in this realm has seen more wars than any man can see in a lifetime. Every mountain has been shook numerous times by events so massive and tremendous that us mortals probably can’t even begin to imagine them in their full scope. Every meadow is covered with bones and ruins from countless civilizations dot the landscape. Beneath every town there are remnants of other cities, millennia older than the current ones. This place… It undoubtedly is the center of the world and the civilization as we know it. My quotation isn’t exact… But you get it, don’t you?”

Ehrir slowly nodded. The witch’s words were poetic to the point where he could barely understand some of them because she spoke in the southern tongue. But even so… They were beautiful and created a vibrant, moving picture of the Inner Fantasy in his mind. There were still mysteries about the legendary realm that he longed to know the answer of... But he didn't ask the witch. The answers could wait.

And while the group was getting closer and closer to the mountains (known as 'The Hundred Daggers'') the forests were becoming harder and harder to navigate. It got to the point where they couldn't go forth without using magic to clear the way. Fortunately, the trees easily split before the combination of Manipulation and instant Destruction that the group used.

And then they reached the lower parts of the mountains. At that point their relatively safe journey... changed, to say the least.