“Honestly, the people nowadays are spoiled, what with the various ways to transfer information over long distances quickly. Sometimes it is hard to remember that just half a lifetime ago, someone who wished to send information from one end of the continent to another could only rely on couriers, where a message might take weeks if not months before they reached their destination.

Nowadays, with the streamlined usage of flying couriers that flew along established routes, such messages would reach their destination within a week. If you happen to be close to one of the teleportation gates and your message’s destination was also close to another, then if you were willing to pay a premium, the message might well reach its recipient in the same day.

Honestly, it’s a bit of a luxury to have such speedy communication, and I doubt anyone who got used to it could even go back to the old days without.” - Musings from the personal diary of Aelfried Stahlfaust II, the Undying, famed War Hero of Knallzog, circa 610 FP.

“Is that true? I recalled seeing some of their people proselytizing their guild in my hometown before. I had not put much thought into it at the time,” said Lise with some wariness as the conversation topic shifted back to healing and Aideen related her less than savory past encounters with the Guild of Unburdened in Posuin. “If they’re really going to try to pull off that sort of tomfoolery in my homeland, they better step over my dead body first.”

“That is odd, Young Miss. I was certain that I had sent a letter to the Master and Madam about this Guild before, shortly after our Association clashed with them. From what you described, it seemed that the letter had not reached them…” said Maester Soren as he shook his head with some consternation. While he was employed by the Duke as a retainer, he was also stationed semi-permanently in the Imperial City, where he could progress with his personal researches better, while another healer typically accompanied the Duke’s family in their home province. “There could be some foul play involved if that was indeed the case.”

“Well, I’ve seen them use planted spies to poison nobles who were against their activities before, or even straight up resorted to assassinations to remove obstacles in their way. I don’t think they’d have the leeway to do all those here, since they lacked the influence they had in Posuin, but bribery and the likes should be well within their capabilities,” replied Aideen as she gave her input on the matter as well. “You also said that your home province is further off to the south-east, I believe? So they’d get news about the happenings in the west even later, wouldn’t they?”

The propagation of information was something that generally only happened slowly. While flying couriers - much like what was commonly in use in Ptolodecca for message delivery - were commonly used all over the world, they were generally saved for important and urgent messages due to the relative scarcity of trained birds to use in that manner. Given the short lifespan of such birds, and their rather finicky health when kept in captivity, even with breeding programs there were never really enough of them to go around.

Ptolodecca went around most of those restrictions since they made use of undead for their needs, but for other nations such a thing was simply not replicable. For some it was due to how they viewed necromancy with shifty eyes, but for most it was simply due to the lack of skilled necromancers to pull such a thing off. As such, live birds were the most commonly used method to deliver messages over long distances quickly.

What it meant was that the eastern parts of the kingdom, like the Duchy of Reiselnulf where Lise’s parents ruled, would receive non-urgent information from the western parts far more slowly. Even a letter sent by courier - human couriers who rode their mounts between cities in a relay fashion - would take days if not weeks to reach its destination, assuming it even reached there at all, as at times messages were just lost due to human error or accidents.

While it was certainly possible that Soren’s letter simply never reached its destination due to happenstance, given the Guild’s presence and attempt to proselytize, Aideen couldn’t help but wonder if foul play might not have been involved instead. As such, she still advocated the young noblewoman and the old healer to be cautious, just in case.

“I mean I doubt they have the pull to do anything too big around here with how little foothold they had, but better safe than sorry when dealing with those sorts, no?” she had said to them.

“I know what you mean, Miss deVreys,” said Lise with a nod. “Fortunately the knights who were with me are unlikely to harbor traitors. Their families had served our Duchy for many generations, and they had been trained since young to serve as our sword and shield. That said, I will inform my knight-captain to be more alert on our return trip next month just in case.”

“I wish you a safe journey, then,” said Aideen with a nod. This time she had not planned to follow the young noblewoman along, as she thought that the situation in Clangeddin was far different than how it was in Posuin. That, and her current plans mostly called for a brief look into the Empire for the time being, as she planned to reach the northern plains by wintertime at the latest.

She did accept Lise’s offer of hospitality and spent the week they stayed at her place chatting with the young noblewoman regarding various things. With Maester Soren, she freely exchanged knowledge related to healing, while with the young noblewoman herself, their talks often verged more into gossip and other rumors that circulated around the Imperial City.

Some of the rumors made Aideen shake her head in disbelief, like rumors that claimed that the current Crown Prince had a rather unhealthy obsession with his own sisters. While it was not unusual for royalty to marry their own cousins or otherwise slightly related people - partly since the high nobility circles were relatively small ones - such things were still considered as immoral by most.

That said, she had recalled from her history lessons that there were past dynasties - now long swept away by the sands of time - that attempted to keep their bloodlines as “pure” as possible and went as far as intermarrying with their own siblings and children. Such dynasties always collapsed after several generations, however, so whatever they tried for was clearly ineffective.