123: Further into the Mountains

The tower in Felangst looked like a very safe place to stay the night, but it belonged to the Kaerzburdgers, and we wondered whether it would be best to introduce ourselves to them now, or to stay a bit undercover. In the end we decided to stay at the Forrester's Arms as civilians.

We saw some recruits training by the tower, but there wasn’t that much military activity. I expect most of the soldiers are at the picket or somewhere, so that made us think that Felangst was relatively safe.

Fred paid for two double rooms at the inn, for which I expect we will get remunerated when we get back to KITUM. I didn’t need much sleep, anyway, so I just slept under one of the beds for a bit, and just wandered around for the rest of the night.

We ate in the inn and the food was fine. But Guido had been in charge of buying all the supplies for the journey. He bought a frying pan, but being Estalian, all he is interested in is ham and chorizo, so every meal we have had on the road is fried ham and chorizo.

Anyway, Guido was quite tired and so I thought he might go to bed early. The inn had a pretty broad clientele, with some refugees and some soldiers travelling to and from the picket, and some merchants. Erina got talking to a merchant called Valeria, who asked her a few questions, like where were we heading. She told Erina that she had just come back from taking ale to the picket, and told us to be careful there. But then quickly left the inn.

Erina got a bit suspicious about it. I didn’t think she should have because it’s normal for merchants to start taking to you and when they realise they can’t make money from you, to leave it there. But Erina though it was a bit strange and so she followed Valeria out of the inn.

The merchant headed for the stables, and when Erina caught up with her, she was being sick (or was she just pretending, mum?) and she told Erina she must have caught something on her travels. Erina was suspicious again, but I think if I had just visited an army camp guarding a fortress occupied by plague daemons then I wouldn’t have been that surprised about catching something. But anyway, Erina was suspicious. Maybe it’s a wizard thing.

Erina offered to help but Valeria just said she would be alright and was going to go to her cart, at the tower, and sleep in that. Erina offered to have Guido take a look at her, but she said it was probably just a bit hot for her by the fire in the inn (It wasn’t that hot, mum). But Guido did have a look and said that there was nothing physically wrong with her and recommended a good night’s sleep.

Guido asked if Valeria had noticed whether anyone else at the picket had symptoms and she said she hadn’t. Guido seemed to think her story checked out, but Erina was still suspicious of her and warned the landlord that someone had been sniffing around the horses in the stables. The landlord said they had a few grooms sleeping there, and so it should be fine.

While Erina was snooping around we had a chat about her, and I think we all agreed that she was wrong about Valeria, but we also agreed that she was probably a spy for Katarina. She was probably projecting her guilt on Valeria. But then Valeria really did steal a horse from the stables and rode off into the night in the direction of Brass Keep.

So Erina got mad at us all for not backing her, and for suspecting her of spying. And she flounced out, but as she did she pushed Guido. Fred decided he needed to talk to Erina to calm her down. But before he could follow her Guido gave him loads of advice about calming down members of the opposite sex, and said he was an expert at it.

So after Erina had told the whole story to Fred, he agreed that it was odd that someone should approach a wizard and start a conversation like that. And he noted that she was also heading in the same direction as we were going and she might be following us (but it’s not following us if she goes first, is it mum?). Fred said that that worried him, but she might just be a spotter for a group of local bandits.

Erina told Fred that she was a bit frustrated at having to work with a bunch of amateurs. And Fred sort of agreed, but also mentioned that we might not look like a highly qualified team of investigators but we did get results in our own strange way. And he said we were definitely on the right side, and could be trusted.

That night Blume apologised to Erina for saying that she hadn’t stopped Valeria from stealing the horse, even if she hadn’t stopped Valeria from stealing the horse. She also told her not to worry about shoving Guido as she had shot him in the back. I think it was supposed to sound like a genuine apology, but it just sounded to Erina like Blume was threatening to shoot her.

And Fred had a quiet word with Guido and told him that if Erina was right then we needed to be extra alert on our way to Brass Keep. Guido said she was wrong, but agreed that we should be careful in any case. And Fred told him that it was important that we worked together, and I think that meant the rest of us shouldn't be so antagonistic towards Erina even if she was spying for Katarina.

I told everyone that I wasn’t sleeping very well, and I told them I just get visions of the upside-down world whenever I shut my eyes, and they just laughed. It’s very lonely, mum, travelling with humans, and they don’t take you seriously.

The next morning we headed out more carefully. The route was more difficult and we decided we did not want to push ourselves too hard or we might end up too exhausted to do much at the picket, or we might injure one of the horses.

On the way Erina had a word with Guido and said the two of them should make a fresh start and Guido just said ‘what.’ I’m not sure whether he knew what she was talking about and making it easy for her, or he didn’t have a clue. You can’t tell with Guido.

We reached Mittler Castle before nightfall. It was a ruin and all a bit eerie but we managed to set up a camp, and we had pan fried ham with chorizo again. Fred was a bit worried that this was a good place for an ambush and went for a scout around, but didn’t find anything. And we kept a keen watch all through the night.

The next day we travelled further into the mountains, and about midday we spotted a wagon in the valley below us. It looked like it had bodies on board, but none of them were moving, and we spotted some blood on the road. I thought it might be good to climb down and see if there were any survivors, but it was a great place for an ambush (as the occupants of the wagon had likely discovered) and so we just hurried on our way.

And by evening we reached a place called Hope Square. It was a penal colony set up by the Shallyans who thought that capital punishment for minor crimes was too harsh, so the prisoners were kept in chains and sent down the mines.

Blume thought that was all a bit too do-goody, and so she ate her ham and chorizo in full view of the prisoners so they could see what they were missing. They carried on mining all through the night, so it wasn’t easy for anyone to get any sleep.

The next day we continued our journey and come evening we finally reached the Picket. I’ll tell you what it was like in my next letter, mum, but I don’t expect it to be very nice.