"One has to understand, it is not a fine line that separates genius and madness, but how others perceive the results instead." -Kærl Vonnegut, professor of mental health in the Paradise Institute of Mental Discourse.

Most people would either have rented a carriage or a horse when they travelled from one town to another. Even mages - with their various means to accommodate long-distance travel - typically had done so, to save themselves unneeded effort.

 

Celeysria Ambervale wasn't most people.

 

After she left the gatehouse behind, she simply allowed her magic free reign as it flowed and coursed through her. Blood magic was often also called "internal" magic due to how it does not cause anything visible to happen outside the mages' own bodies, but her well-attuned senses easily felt the mana as it saturated her blood and muscles, how it charged her body with energies she wielded like another of her limbs.

 

When she took a step, she seemed to blur, easily ten paces away when her feet landed, and she just kept that pace as she went down the well-used road, easily overtook several wagons ahead of her, which elicited surprised looks from those left behind in her wake.

 

And she did that while she simply walked at what was to her a leisurely pace.

 

Where experienced wind mages might have used low-altitude flight, and earth mages literally had the earth under their feet move for them, blood mages like her travelled long distances simply, as they infused their bodies with magic, and thus empowered themselves that each step they took covered the distance of ten unpowered steps. She could have pushed it harder and ran, but that would be rather tiresome, and definitely unneeded anyway in her situation. Her current pace on the other hand, she could have maintained all day long with no difficulty. She figured she would arrive at the next city down the road, a large trading hub named Hoststadt, by sundown or so. A journey that would usually have taken a day and a night by carriage done in one-third of the time.

 

Along the well-trodden road she passed by many carriages. Some were passenger carriages, others carried goods for trade, where larger merchant companies typically travelled with a convoy of carriages, usually with a smattering of mercenary guards that rode to their sides.

 

Most paid her no attention other than a glance and maybe a wave, for it wasn't like mages who travelled down the road on their own was anything unusual.

 

The journey itself proved a peaceful one, where she took in the sights as she walked. While banditry existed, as a whole they were smart enough to have avoided the main roads, and those that weren't smart enough typically didn't have a lengthy life expectancy.

 

It was not until she was maybe an hour and a half out from her destination that she saw something she had not seen before, which naturally piqued her curiosity.

 

It looked like a particularly large fleet of merchant caravans - easily thirty wagons or thereabouts - but with nary a mercenary guard in sight. One of the people who rode in the back of one of the rearmost wagon spotted her, and apparently alerted the rest that she approached, for shortly after, a small wagon had split from the group and positioned itself to trail them.

 

"Hail and well met, traveller." Greeted an old orcish woman who sat beside the wagon's driver as she caught up with it. "What brings you here?"

 

"Tis' the road to Hoststadt, is it not? We head for the same destination, matron."

 

"That we do, lass." The old orc chuckled. " Hah! I called ye lass and for all I know yer likely older than me!" She added with a guffaw.

 

"Wise men say one should never ask a woman their age." Cal replied, which elicited more laughter from the old matron.

 

"A wise man indeed." The matron said. "Helga of clan Bronzemane, pleasure meeting you, traveller."

 

"Celeysria Ambervale, off the archipelago."

 

Now that she had time to take a closer look at the caravan she realized why they had no mercenaries with them. Well over half the members of the caravans were orcs, with a smaller portion of other races and some mixed-race for the rest. The caravan must be one of the traveling merchant orc tribes she heard about before.

 

Why would they need to hire mercenaries when likely half if not more of the "merchants" themselves were perfectly able and definitely would have jumped at a chance to have their own mettle proved in a fight?

 

"Never seen a merchant orc tribe before, to be honest." Cal admitted to the matron. "I don't think we have any back home."

 

"Aye, not many of the kids like the sea, tis' true. We mostly stay on land, though… if yer from the archipelago did you perchance happen to run into some young bloke on the way? Name's Duron, kinda skinny, half a mer. He was scheduled to meet us in Hoststadt in a week or so, might be ye ran into him"

 

"Wait, wears lots of earrings on his crest? Gaudy golden ones?"

 

"Aye! That's me grandkid all right. Guess you ran into him then."

 

"Was on the same ship coming here, we landed yesterday, so i assume he had business to handle still in Serda. Didn't see him when I left town this morning."

 

"Oh, he's early, that is good to hear."

 

"Seems a smart enough bloke to be honest. I bet he's delayed because he's waiting for the jerky to finish."

 

"Jerky?"

 

"This kind, have a try." Said Cal, as she tossed a small pouch at the old orc matron, because of course she would not let good food pass her by. she had bought out what remained of Silas's previous batch after she gave it a taste, and had a few crates of the stuff in her pendant.

 

The old orc matriarch plucked out one of the pieces of smoked meat, gave it a tentative sniff, which had her eyebrows quirked in curiosity, before she popped the whole piece into her mouth. Her eyes seemed to glow as she chewed.

 

"Good business sense, that brat. This stuff will sell like hotcakes compared to the barely edible crap most have for sale. You said he's waiting for his order to finish?"

 

"A Deepmaw's worth, yes."

 

"I don't even know what that is but something about its name tells me it's not something the fishermen fishes for."

 

"Think of a fish-lizard, ten meters long, and teeth the size of daggers. Ugly as sin, but tasted damned good roasted."

 

Cal could see the gears as they clicked in the old matron's head as she calculated profits from potential sales when heard the words "ten meters". The news seemed to have made the old woman look younger.

 

"Good tidings you bring, and for bearers of good tidings we offer the finest of orcish hospitality for the night should you accept."

 

"I gladly accept. In no hurry anyway."

 

"Good to hear, just a shame we're out of bear meat, otherwise I would cook my special stew in your honor tonight."

 

"Bear? Any specific kind?"

 

"Not really, they taste the same, why?"

 

"Be right back in a moment."

 

Helga watched dumbfounded as Cal seemed to have disappeared from where she walked along the carriage - now back in its position in the midst of the caravan. It was not three minutes later when the elvish woman reappeared just as suddenly as if she had never left her spot.

 

And carried over her left shoulder was a four-meter black bear, its neck twisted.

 

"This one good?" Cal asked, and it looked like she had not exerted herself at all. The forest was at least a hundred meters away from the road they travelled on, what it would have costed most people to take on a bear that size not counted, and to have brought it back like a sack of potatoes over one shoulder on top of that.

 

Helga gaped for a while before she came back to her senses. "You hunted down a bear? In so short a time?"

 

"Hey, I was curious about your special stew."

 

Helga rolled her eyes at Cal's reply.

 

The stew was hopefully every bit as good as she advertised.