Dinner at Stelur’s was a strange mix of tension and boredom, Adra did her best to keep the captain of the Centaurs, the only one of them in attendance, occupied, while the captain made thinly veiled attempts to get more information on us. Mostly she wanted to know where we came from and about our plans, I felt it was less about us in specific and more about a relatively powerful, armed group moving through their newly claimed territory.

But I wondered about them, from everything I had seen in Mundus, the parts of the population that turned adventurer seemed to be very mobile, enjoying their freedom to roam. It might even be a motivation to become an adventurer, a desire to move beyond the small town you grew up in, to see the world. So, would a tribe, kingdom or whatever the entity supporting the centaur-military called itself be so suspicious about a common occurrence? I just didn’t know and had a feeling that if I tried to sound out the captain, she would be able to gain more information from my questions and the way I asked than vice-versa. Thus, I kept quiet and let Adra do her thing.

What I did do, was silently amuse myself about the way the captain was sitting and moving, her body clearly not suited to use the furniture made by the sablekin. I even managed to give Rai an assignment, to study the captain’s movement and compare it to his knowledge of centaur-anatomy, looking for further weaknesses. I did the same, taking note of the movements she did with ease, those that seemed to be a little uncomfortable and so on. It allowed me to add more into my mental database on the various species and their limitations, which was a worthwhile study.

For the rest of the evening, after dinner, I mostly kept quiet and stayed in Sigmir’s shadow, trying to seem as unimportant and boring as possible. In truth, I was using the centaurs as involuntary test-subjects for experiments with scrying, attempting to shift my viewpoint without the need for a large, obviously visible, scrying window. What I wanted was an equivalent to my ability to share Lenore’s eyesight, allowing me to peek out of any shadow I wanted, as my ultimate goal. For now, I would be happy to reduce the size of my scrying window to small, black patch in front of my eye, while using a small magical construct of Darkness-Magic, similar to the construct I had used to help Lenore with her scouting, to shift my viewpoint.

Sadly, their conversations were as either as benign as could be, or the raunchous sort that one might expect from the locker-room of a gym, or, as it turned out, the tent of a few young centaurs. The part of their conversation that I overheard gave me a sudden desire to go out there and geld them, one after the other, with their friends watching. It seemed that humanoid females were partially desirable, at least the upper body parts of them, and the target of their interest was my Sigmir. Apparently, physical fitness and strength were what made someone beautiful in their mind, something my Sigmir had in spades, even if they lamented that she was lacking in the lower-body departement.

At that point, my scrying was interrupted by Sigmir, who gave me a squeeze to get my attention before kissing me.

“What brought that on?” I asked, quite curious. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.” I added, to make sure she didn’t misunderstand.

“You were getting a little scary. Not sure what you were doing, but some of your Astral Power was leaking out, dropping the temperature and making things dark around you. I don’t think anyone but me noticed, so I got your attention.” she explained, making me blush a little. It seemed as if my desire to do violence on the centaurs had caused my magic to react, hinting at a link between my emotions and my magic. That magic wasn’t just something I consciously called upon to change the world but that it might react simply due to me considering something. A link in the subconscious, maybe? It warranted further investigation, but not now, not while the centaurs were nearby.

“Thank you, love.” I gave her a quick kiss, before explaining in a whisper what had happened. She blushed a pretty shade of red while getting indignant about the centaurs, wanting to go out there and introduce them to her Lok’nar. I had to smile at that and now it was on me to prevent her from doing something rash, even if a small part of me wanted nothing more than to join her in educating the centaurs. The easiest and most enjoyable way to distract her was, quite obviously, placing myself on her lap, snuggling up to her and giving her kisses. Some tasks are a great sacrifice, but someone had to accomplish them anyway…

The next morning, we quickly left the settlement and the centaurs behind, using the fact that twenty centaurs needed more time to get ready and start moving than the five of us. I even used my magic to boost my speed, making sure that we would be long gone by the time they started to move. Lenore was once again taking joy in the warmer air, flying overhead, making sure that we would have some warning if there were enemies coming at us.

We kept going until it was time for a midday rest and I used the time to ask Adra what she had learned from the captain.

Sadly, it seemed as if the captain had been quite adept at dodging questions, so there was little she actually had found out, mostly the captain had talked about the greatness of the centaur-clan, the strength of their leader and the vastness of their territory. Adra was quite sure that the captain had been after one of two things, either to recruit us or to make us leave their territory as soon as possible.

Her reasoning for that was that, while the captain had mentioned the strength of their clan quite a few times, she had also added that it had a system for beings of other races to join in. When Adra explained about their system of governance, essentially a military dictatorship, with the dictator being chosen according to a complex system of personal strength and what amounted to family-connections within the clan, I was starting to laugh. It was quite obvious, just from hearing her explanation, that the system was made to make sure that only centaurs would ever be able to become the warlord, while others who joined them would always be subordinates. Those were the parts that made her think she wanted to recruit us.

On the other hand, she also mentioned that the centaur-territory was well patrolled and people relied on those patrols to solve problems, that adventurers were simply not needed and if we were to cause trouble, we would see ourselves hunted down by their patrols. It made me worry a bit, if they had informations on us, from the assistance we had provided to the wolves further north, we would be prime targets to be hunted down. If I thought about the world like a video-game, it would make sense that reputation-gains on one faction, the wolves in this case, automatically reduced the reputation with their enemies, which would allow the centaurs to spot us out. But if I thought of Mundus as a living world, which seemed to be the intention of the developers, then, without some sort of magic trickery, there were few ways to link us with the earlier trouble. I just didn’t know which applied and it worried me a great deal.

“We should take off the trinkets we got from the wolves, those that mark us as their friends. Wearing them feels right but it is simply a risk I don’t want to take. Additionally, we might want to hide that last magic bag from the patrol, I know I said it should be alright, but somehow, I’m starting to get worried.” I told the others, trying to get rid of the worry twisting my guts.

Luckily, the others seemed to mirror my thoughts on those matters, especially knowing that we would be within the newly claimed centaur territory for a week, if we continued to hurry on the old imperial road.

Once we had crossed that stretch of land, we would be within territory contested by the centaurs, a few beastman-tribes and some orc-clans. At least if we continued to head straight west, if we were to go south, we would stay within their territory for weeks, crossing hundreds of kilometers in the process.

The territory we were on was newly claimed, from what Adra had gathered, the centaurs had pushed North quite recently, pushing the boundaries of their old territory. Again, it made me wonder how it was connected to the appearance of Travellers in this world, if there was one who had joined the centaur military, adding their earthly perspective, organising and driving them to that push. If so, that Traveller was very cautious, as I hadn’t heard anything hinting at such a player. Which, with the way the highlight-reels worked, would be quite the achievement. Unless I was missing information. And I had a feeling, that just that was the case.