"Good, good," said Li, nodding to Tia and to himself. He held her close to him, making sure the vines attaching him to the Vukanovi were secure. "Tia, how about we go back inside with the others?"

Tia shook her head and yawned. "No. Want to stay here. With just papa." She blinked a few times as she smiled and stared straight down, her sight scanning across the sheer length of the mountainside. "And like seeing this. Very new. Never see big rock so close before."

"Mountain," corrected Li.

"Mountain," nodded Tia. "Very, very big. Like it. Maybe, if I grow up and find new home for papa and me, it will be on mountain."

"Is the cottage not enough for you?" asked Li, a little worried. After all, perhaps the small confines of the cottage did restrict her somehow, considering she was a dragon and all.

Tia shook her head. "Cottage good. Like being there. With old man and papa. But something about mountain feels nice." She swayed her head from side to side with a smile, her nose flaring as she took in a breath of the thin but crisp and clean mountain air. "Free."

"I can see what you mean," said Li. "Well, make sure not to leave me too soon."

"Never!" Tia giggled. "If papa stay at cottage forever, then I do too. No worry."

Li ruffled Tia's hair with a smile, wondering himself what would happen as Tia grew up. She matured at an astounding pace, learning and developing physically and mentally far faster than any human child. A side effect of her draconic heritage, he figured.

In just about three months, she was basically now a ten-year-old. If she grew at this pace, then within another month or two, she would be a teenager. How would she change then? Would she go through a group of troublesome teenage years like human children did? Or would she stay much the same? Would she want to stay with him still? Or would she want to leave?

Li would ask Azhar when he met the adventurer out west. But regardless of the answers he got, he told himself he would try and respect Tia's wishes. He did not want to confine her to anything. He did not want to keep her under any of his expectations. He wanted her to be free and happy and grow as she wanted to.

Though of course, he would still be overly protective whenever it came to be that her life was in danger. That, Li did not think he could ever really compromise on, though he was getting better at letting her face combat by herself and make her own decisions.

As the hours passed and the night grew deeper, Li found himself thinking with Tia sleeping softly in his lap. By daybreak, they would pass the Triforge Mountains and soon encounter the Shibboleth. According to legends, it was a great cleave in the earth that split the Hinterlands from the main continent. Created when Helius and Noctus combined their powers for a powerful attack to blow back the first herald of Wrath -a demonic giant called Asmodai whose fiery head reached above the clouds.

A little side thought Li had was that it seemed that as time went, the power level of this world went down. From what he heard of myths and legends, the very first war against the demons that directly involved the gods was one of massive, planetary scale, involving the eastern continent too.

Many of the creatures described in them would easily be capable of razing the entire continent. Asmodai, for example, Li could identify as a Musphelite, a high level variant of Jotunn that was at minimum level eighty.

If what Li recalled about the god was true, that they only appeared when the world was in its gravest need, then he could understand why they never appeared again, for the threat level of the demons or creatures and magic in general seemed to deteriorate over time.

Why, Li did not know. Perhaps a question to hold and ask someone of scholarly knowledge like Ven'thur or Alexei later.

But besides that side point, Li's talk with Tia raised questions about the north. He had been getting routine updates from Riviera by Ivo for the duration of their travel. Every few days, Ivo would report through Li's totem the status of the farms, the guild, and the city itself.

So far, nothing of note worth was happening.

Most of the troops that were stationed at Riviera had left on march for the west, but that did not mean the city was undefended. Leon, Launcelot's brother, had arrived recently, and with his key, the defense of Riviera was complete. The walls flowed with power, its statues ready to animate at a moment's notice, and above them, an azure dome of magic stood tall and strong.

The farmers, of course, could not enjoy the defenses of the dome and walls, but Iona had been working overtime, stationing the justicars in key locations around the farms and raising a veritable army of powerful treant warriors.

It would not be an exaggeration to claim that with Iona's power, Riviera's own defenses, and Li's totem that could fend against demonrot, that Riviera was the safest place in the entire duchy, and it showed. Migrants from all around the kingdom, including beastmen from the west, were filing into the city.

The city itself could feed them with the massive amounts of crop from the farmer's guild, but it lacked housing. Most of the refugees therefore camped along the farms in large tented settlements organized by Sindra in tandem with the city council. Alexei was generous in providing financial support and manpower as well.

But the situation to the north was much murkier. Li had received only a single update from Meld through the synarch seed, and that was almost a week ago to say that they were flying on Gronn en route to a key destination.

Li figured now was a time as good as any to get another update from them. He put his hand into his pocket, caring not to move much to awake Tia, and withdrew the stem of the synarch seed he had given meld. He channeled magic into it and focused, reaching out to the seed of the stem in Meld's possession.

After almost a minute of waiting, the connection established, and Meld's voice rang through into his mind.

'Having a long break now, are we?' said Li mentally.

'My greatest apologies.' Meld's voice, or her mental voice, rather, sounded incredibly tired.

Li raised a brow. 'Is something the matter?'

'I am recovering from a few injuries.' A pause. 'Nothing grievous, however.'

'Was this not supposed to be a stealth mission? Explain to me everything that happened. Your last report to me came from atop Gronn's back. You were one day's flight away from Cicero's safe point, were you not?'

'That is where I am now. There were complications. We flew high, far higher than the clouds themselves, for Cicero recommended that was an elevation that elven clairvoyant mechanisms could not identify. However, shortly after my last report to you, we were attacked.'

'Elves?' asked Li. He did not have an exactly clear idea of what level of technology the elves had. He knew generally that at a standardized level, the elves seemed to have technology that straddled the line between modern and magic, existing at a steampunk aesthetic. That kind of technology likely did not have the ability to take to high elevations with any real finesse.

However, the elves, from what Cicero knew of, had remarkable outlier cases where they had advanced technology that equaled modern era weaponry that Li was familiar with. Artillery lines and standardized rifles, for example, were not unheard of, not to mention the presence of nuclear weapons.

It was not unthinkable that the elves could possess fighter jets or craft even more advanced.

'Not elves,' said Meld. 'Dragons.'