Luna had learned that the merchant company was paying fairly and not a single one, of the people she had talked to, had left the city in over a year. Joan on the other hand had learned that one of the drivers for another merchant company had told a story about seeing torches near the river one night. They were now going to follow up on the information and try to find out more.

Finding the merchant company the driver worked for was easy, but the driver himself was out on a tour south and would return in about a month. Nobody at the company knew about the story, so they had gone and talked with more people. They dug up a few more hints and one merchant could even show them on a map where two logging camps around the north road would be set up this year. It took them all day walking around the city talking to the locals. Most never left the city, as they had all they needed right here. As it was, they had no solid leads, but the name of a tavern called ‘Toppers Wheelhouse’, frequented by cart drivers.

In the evening they stopped at said tavern in the hopes of finding other drivers with a story to tell. Three rounds of ale, none of that for Luna though, bought them the information they had been looking for all day. Roughly three days' travel up north was a marshy stretch of land next to the river and the road had to travel a bit further inland. Three different drivers remembered seeing torches at night in that area, but had not really thought it suspicious at all, thinking it was just a boat traveling down the river, which was unusual but not unheard of. The sightings had been scattered over the past few years and only with the Pathfinders showing up and asking about it did they realize that there might be something suspicious going on.

They of course promised on their mother’s grave to not spread the story, but neither Luna or Joan expected that promise to last longer than it took them to leave the tavern.

They returned to their inn for the night and Joan penned a report detailing their findings and next course of action. After a sumptuous dinner, who knew when they would have the opportunity to eat food from a real kitchen again, they went to bed.

The next day started the same way the last one had. Joan woke Luna in the early morning hours, Luna complaining loudly how Joan could live on no sleep. They had breakfast in the common room, shouldered their backpacks and made their way through town. On the way they purchased some fresh loaves of bread, which would be a welcome addition to their travel rations for the next few days. Joan stopped on the way to post their report for delivery to the Pathfinder Guild and reported their findings to the guard captain.

“It is always best to maintain friendly relations with the local guard and military. We are working for the same side after all. It is known to happen that guards take bribes, but the captain here is known to be strict but fair, he started out as a regular guard in the capital and rose through the ranks. Caused quite the stink when the locals got an out of town guard as their captain, but he earned their respect.” Joan explained to Luna after they had passed the city gates.

Without the coach for easy and quick travel, Joan set a relaxed pace. There was no point running themselves ragged, they would be on the road for a while and getting blisters from overdoing it was not going to help in the long run. The road followed in sight of the river, which added at least some variety to the scenery.

The river came down from the mountains to the north and the large Lake Midding, sitting just under the mountains. Three larger streams and many little rivulets ended in the lake, which then fed into the Midding River. Luna wanted to know who had come up with the names, but according to Joan even the oldest maps of human make had those names on it and nobody knew who exactly to credit.

But no matter how uncreative their naming had been, it was rather catching and easy to remember. The whole human kingdom, now three kingdoms, was split by a mountain range running from west to east, from coast to coast. The mountains were majestic, in parts reaching beyond the clouds and only two easy passes led through them. The western most part of the mountain chain had been named Westing, the middle part Midding and the eastern part Esting. Since three major streams sprung from those mountains, they had inherited the names.

North of the mountains all lands now belonged to Demholt, which also marked the end of the continent, ending at the north sea, while the southern part was split between Laven and Zollan and Midding River formed the natural border between the two. West of Lake Midding sat the last of the great human cities, called ‘City of Gods’ as all major temples had been built there. The kingdom did not allow houses of worship outside the city. Even in these troubled times the city had kept its status as a neutral location.

Luna had read about the city and its many shrines to different gods, but never much cared about the idea of gods in general. While their village had their own priest and healer, to her, he had only been another villager, never openly talking about his god or goddess. Luna did not even know if he followed a specific god.

“The City of Gods is a neutral place, because all schools for clerics are located there. If a family decides and the child is willing, they can travel there and take their Rite of Ascendancy in front of an altar to a god or goddess, or even in front of the central altar dedicated to no god in specific. Those doing it at the central altar become neutral clerics if they are accepted. They gain access to a cleric class that serves all the gods, but does not get any domain specific Skills. The gods have no personal name, like you and me do, they are simply known by their domain. They stand for a concept and if someone dedicates their life to a concept they can become a cleric to a god.”

Luna had quite a few of them right now, but decided on the obvious one first. “What are the domains?” She asked.

“Anything. Nature, balance, life, death, growth, harvest, battle, honor and I could just keep going. Every concept you could come up with either is a domain in itself or belongs to one. I am sure you have heard of people traveling there in the hopes of receiving a boon or quest to give them a chance of unlearning a class. There are also rare cases in which these pilgrims were offered a cleric class, some even pledging themselves to domains never heard before. Nobody knows how the gods do their work or decide, discussions on the topic frequently lead to scholars shouting at each other over who is more wrong or right.”

“So the domains of gods are just like domains for a class when it comes to earning Experience. Some things belong to it and some things don’t.” Luna summarized what she understood of it.

Joan laughed. “You just neatly explained the standpoint of the Simplicist faction. My advice is to not bother with it. It is not worth the time.”

“What factions?” Luna’s curiosity was not satisfied with just dropping the topic.

Joan sighed deeply. “The Foundationist faction believes that all classes and Skills come from the gods. The Creationist faction believes that everything and I mean everything was created by the gods. The Egalist faction believes the gods do not care about us at all and that we should stop worshipping them. Those are just three other major schools of thought, the last one obviously strictly against any form of religion as a matter of principle. All of them fools in my opinion.”

“Does that mean the City of Gods has temples for every domain? How does that work if not all of them are known?” Luna kept asking.

“How should I know. I guess they build a new one for it?” Joan shrugged her shoulders. “The Pathfinder Guild has their nominal headquarters there, but I do not visit often. I spent 6 month there for basic training, never leaving the training grounds if I could help it. You might get a chance to see it, depending on where the investigation leads us. You could walk there from here in 15 days if the weather keeps. Now please find another topic to pester me about, or even better, use that Windwalk Skill of yours and hunt us some meat for dinner.”

Luna decided to not argue and activated the Skill and promptly turned around and started walking next to Joan again, who looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“Not going to work. The backpack is too heavy and I would have to spend way too much Mana and Stamina to keep it going. I would not make it far enough to hunt anything. Maybe it will work when I have more Strength? I’ll keep that in mind and test later, but for now I cannot hunt without dropping off my backpack.”

“Then focus on walking, I am picking up the pace.” Joan told her.

Luna just looked at the woman’s back, wondering if she had mentioned a sensitive topic there. Clearly religion was not Joan’s favorite thing to discuss. She decided to just shut up for now, there were enough other things to think about.

The first day of travel passed slowly, but Luna got used to traveling in companionable silence again. Joan had told her that she was happy to explain things from time to time, but that she was also used to working alone and talking all day had not been her idea of doing this mission together.

Luna realized that she had been a bit over excited since they left the capital and concentrated on finding her inner balance again. She was outside in nature after all, the place she had loved the most all her life. On the second day she finally found it again, the feeling of freedom she had felt when she had just gotten her Hunter class and started leaving the village on her own.

It had not been obvious to her, but her prolonged stay in the city and always being surrounded by people had dulled her senses and the connection she felt to nature. She swore to herself to never stay inside any kind of large human settlement for longer than a week ever again.

When they made camp for the night Luna went out to hunt some fresh meat, while Joan prepared a small tent for them to sleep in and gathered firewood. During dinner Luna explained her feeling to Joan, that it felt like she had just rediscovered a part of her that had been dulled while in the city without her even noticing.

“Luna, you still think like a human. Even I keep forgetting that when I look at you, but you are not. You are either more than a human or less than a human, depending on how you want to look at it. You have met a true dryad, a being that is nature incarnate. If you, a Sylvan, are a combination of both human and dryad, then that means you are part of nature in a way humans are not. Humans build houses, villages and cities, surround them with walls, all to shut nature out. Of course you feel more at home out here than packed into a stone structure.”

Luna just looked at Joan deep in thought and finally nodded at her. Being sent to the Pathfinder Guild had been her biggest fortune, but she needed to strike a balance between her visits there and staying outside the city. She could not allow herself to deny that part of herself.

While the nights were still cold, the days had been very pleasant so far. Only a slight drizzle had marred the perfect record of sunshine, but they managed to reach the area the suspicious activity had been reported in on their fourth day. The road ran around some marshland, following the raised terrain that came down from the hills starting in the west of the road. They set their camp near some trees, hidden from the road and went to look around.

On the southern side they did not find anything, but the ground was tricky and they only barely managed to not sink into the ground far enough to get their feet wet. Luna made a mental note to thank Peter for the excellent footwear he had procured for her, as with her old boots she would now be cursing up a storm.

Circling back around they finally found the clue they had been looking for. Hidden inside some suspiciously discolored brush stood a wooden pole with a blue marking on the top. Making their way over they discovered the brush was dead and pinned to the ground with stakes. They easily shifted it to one side and found a footpath through the marshland that led directly to the river. There, someone had spent quite some effort to artificially build a small hidden cove. Two wooden posts at the river edge marked the spot where a small rowboat could be tied down.

The good weather in the past days worked in their favor, as fresh tracks were still visible, especially in the soft marsh next to the river. They could easily identify the tread of several different types of heavy boots. Looking around they did not find any other clues and they made their way back. Now that they knew what to look for, they could easily follow the path the group of people had taken and found the place where they had crossed the road into the forested hill terrain east of the road.

Joan decided to stop there for the day and make a cold camp for the night. Joan also decided that they had to relocate their camp away from the marsh and back south into a more hidden location. They could not take the chance of being accidentally discovered. The night was cold, even with two people sharing a tent, but their safety and the mission took priority over their comfort.