A little before noon, Elwen and Varian arrived at to the north gate to meet the two merchants. The two had arrived before them, although they were still hurrying about, finalizing their preparations.

The wagons the men had brought were rather small, more like carriages that had the tops cut off. They were pulled by a single horse each. It must have made them faster, to not have to carry a large load in the wagon.

As they approached, the orc ran off, leaving only his human compatriot to finish preparing the wagons. He spotted them walking towards them, and moved to greet them.

“Ah, good, you’re here. We have the carriages loaded with the goods and all the supplies we need. If you’re ready, we can depart once Rax returns with some documents.”

“I see,” Varian responds, “we’ll take our positions then. If there are only the two carriages, it would be best if both of us are in the front carriage, so that we can respond to any attacks.”

The man appeared to be confused, “Wouldn’t it be best for one of you to be in each carriage?”

“Normally that would be true, but my companion here better at support. I do most of the fighting. Her abilities are very useful, but she wouldn’t do very well by herself. Together, we make a formidable team, but we don’t get the same advantages if we are apart.” Varian explained, smiling down at her with his arm wrapped around her shoulder, hugging her close to his side.

“Well, whatever works for you. I’m certainly no fighter, I’ve just found that the adventurers usually split up to cover more of the caravan.” The man seemed to accept Varian’s explanation. He took them to the wagon that would be in front.

Varian decided to sit in front, next to the driver, so he can keep an eye on the road ahead of them and get out easily if needed.

Elwen would sit in the back, on top of one of the crates loaded into the wagon. She would have to face backwards, due to the positioning of the crates, but she really didn’t need to keep an eye on things, so it would be fine.

One advantage of travelling in a caravan is that she wouldn’t have to walk. If she had to spend all her time paying attention to her surroundings, she wouldn’t be able to read her book at all. But if all she needed to do was sit on a box and shield and/or heal Varian when necessary…

Well, she would have plenty of time to study her grimoire and become a great witch!

Ok, it would probably take more time than a week, but at least she would be able to make some progress.

After a short wait, Rax arrived, carrying a few scrolls. He stuffed one into a small box underneath the lead carriage’s driver seat and the rest underneath his own in the rear.

The two men checked the harnesses on their horses one last time, and untied them from the post that was keeping them in place.

The two men took their positions in the driver’s seats of the wagons, waiting for Varian and Elwen to do the same. After they were settled in, the two merchants ushered their horses forward, through the gate.

The guards at the gate eyed them somewhat suspiciously, but let them through without difficulty. They, of course, made sure their papers were in order and that they had paid the tax, first.

Soon, they were in the open air of the road once again.

The wagons certainly did move faster than they were able to walk, but not by a huge amount. One could probably keep up with the carriage if they wanted to, they would just get tired after an hour or two.

However, this was supposedly the horses just walking at a comfortable pace, so they would be able to keep it up all day, if they were given sufficient breaks. Like this, they could cover much more ground a day than on foot.

“Say, Mr. Jones?” Elwen asked, “Why were the guards so suspicious of us?”

“Hmm?” The merchant responds, “Ah, well, they aren’t many merchants that go through this way. Usually, it’s just the supply caravans to the fort the Kingdom maintains near the border. There used to be more trade in this area, but after the Empire came it slowed down. Now that tensions seem to be rising, it has almost completely stopped. We might be the only merchants heading this way this week!”

The merchant gave a few hearty laughs, although Elwen didn’t know why.

“What’s the problem between the Kingdom and the Empire?” Elwen asked.

“Well, Krinburg used to be part of the Lionheart Kingdom, but there was a war, and the Aran Empire took control,” he continued, “The Kingdom never forgot about the war, and the nobles from the Empire blame the Kingdom for their economic woes.”

“Trade between the Kingdom and the Empire used to be huge, and it primarily occurred over land through the Ravensburg corridor. After the war, though, trade from the northern part of the Kingdom dried up, which means that a lot of people have a hard time making a decent living,” the merchant explained.

“There are still some success stories, but all-in-all the southern part of the Kingdom is much poorer than the north. It’s even worse in the Empire, there are all sorts of regulations and taxes and licenses that are meant to stifle independent traders. We are actually some of the few small-time merchants still left in the area, most everything is carried by one of the crown companies. Over the years, the Empire has extracted a lot of wealth from the people. And things are only getting worse. Still, the south is recovering, setting up its own trading network, and I hear that there is some effort to build a larger road through the mountains in the east, to reconnect the south with the north.”

Elwen nodded, mumbling a thank you for his answer. She thought that the history of the area was interesting and felt bad for the people affected, especially in the Empire. They were basically innocently prospering before the Empire came and took everything from them. Still, she couldn’t do anything about it, so she decided focus on more productive matters.

She turned her attention back to the book in her lap. She had asked Varian to take it out for her before they got in the carriages so she didn’t have to bother him for it later. After promising not to burn down the carriages trying to learn fire magic, he gave it to her.

She opened the book, turning to the page with [Lesser Heal] once again.

It was a strange thing, even though the seal was unreadable in her eyes, she felt like she still had an understanding of it, like it was on the tip of her tongue, hidden just behind the fog in her mind.

She ran her hand along the rim of the circle, staring into the center of it. The runes gently drifted along with her hand, deforming and reforming at random.

The blob at the center held its form, but the branches of the tree almost seemed to sway, like a gentle breeze was flowing through them. It was calming, she felt like she was looking at a little tree in a bottle.

Her hand continued to circle along the edge. She felt a tingling at the tip of her fingers.

She drew her hand back.

What was that? It felt prickly and cold, like her fingers fell asleep.

She looked at her hand, checking to see if something was wrong with. Seeing that it was normal, her gaze returned the book. There was nothing weird there either, it just looked like a normal page.

She reached out to the circle again, and when her hand made contact, she felt a little shock, like she was discharging a bit of static electricity.

She kept her hand on the circle and felt the same tingling sensation from before. She felt uncomfortable keeping it there, and not just from the tingling. It was like she was in a crowded room, being crushed by those around her. It was suffocating.

Pulling her hand back, she let go of the breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. It was strange, it felt uncomfortable and yet incredibly familiar at the same time, like she was doing something she had done since she was a child, but hadn’t tried to do in a while.

She put her hand back on the circle, trying to figure out what it was.

After a few moments of thought, she realized what it was: Mana. It was the only thing it could be. She quickly cast [Lesser Heal] on herself, focusing on trying to feel the sensation of it. She felt a faint tingling at the tips of her fingers. It was the same feeling she had when she touched the circle, just weaker. She stopped her spell and returned her hand to the circle, focusing on the sensation she had felt. Sure enough, it returned a few seconds later, although much weaker than before. Even weaker than with her spell.

After she had gotten used to it, the feeling transformed into a comforting, warm, sensation. It was like her body was learning what to do and adapting to it. Still, it was weak, barely noticeable if she wasn’t focusing on it.

Maybe it was the amount of mana she was using? If she put more in, maybe it would be stronger, like when she first felt it?

She tried to pour more mana into the circle. It was difficult, she hadn’t really tried to manipulate mana directly before, there were only a handful of times she had used magic so far, mostly just to see how it worked. When she tried it before, she just cast spells naturally, like it was something ingrained in her. Just like one would clench their hand, or walk from one place to another.

This felt like she was trying to squeeze icing through too small of a hole in a piping bag. There was a huge reservoir behind it, like a dam nearly overflowing with water, but she couldn’t open the floodgates enough to let it out.

Eventually, she managed to crack open the door just enough, and mana began to flowing through it like a river.

The circle began glowing, a light blue shimmer emanated from the once black ink. The runes began to slow, stabilizing as they drifted along their track. The blob, too, slowed, but the runes were far more interesting.

She could finally read them. She also figured out why they looked so familiar, earlier. They were magic runes!

Well, of course they were magic runes; they were a part of a magic circle. They were the ­same magic runes that she had read about before coming here, the ones used for runesmithing. Still, she felt like there was more to see.

She put more and more mana into the circle, until nearly half her mana was gone. She felt something change in the air around her, and a thin aura of mana coated her. The circle slowed more and more, until it finally came to a halt.

At the circle’s edge, the thicker ring became a ring of another script. This one was unfamiliar to her; she had never seen something like it. It flowed from one character to the next, she couldn’t tell when one ended and another began. The script looked squished, appearing to take up much more space in the vertical direction per character than the horizontal direction, and it seemed that some almost overlapped with one another.

As she continued to gaze at the strange writing, she felt a new understanding wash over her, like it was being beamed into her mind.

She closed her eyes, trying to incorporate the knowledge into her.

When she opened her eyes, a screen was there, waiting for her. It told her that she had acquired the [Feyspeaker] feat. The feat gave her a small, but not insignificant, boost to her intelligence stat, and a slightly higher boost to her magic. The most important thing to her, however, was the description: “You have acquired an understanding of the old tongue, gaining access to hidden knowledge and ancient secrets.”

She was surprised. Did this mean that the script in the magic circle was the very language she was trying to learn when she originally bought the book?

What was it doing in the circle? The runes weren’t used for anything else other than magical purposes; they were fundamentally related to magic. Is that also true for the ancient language?

In any case, this should enable her to learn new magic. She turned the pages of the tome, locating the circle for [Heal]. She had plenty of time to spare while they were traveling. She might as well start learning as much as she could.

Although she was starting to feel a little tired. Maybe it would be best to take a nap first?

No, she should at least try to get something done first. Besides, she was too excited to sleep. She wanted to learn magic!