“Who are your friends?” Lenore asked using my voice, as soon as she landed on Sigmir’s shoulder. We were both watching the two orcs carefully, curious how they would react and we were not disappointed. At first, they had looked confused when a seemingly wild bird had landed on Simgir’s shoulder, without any obvious commands or signs but when Lenore spoke in a human voice, their eyes boggled, one of them making a strange sign I didn’t recognise but it reminded me of some priest making a sign of the cross to ward of evil.

“They are hunters, living in a village down the road, maybe two hours from here. We thought it would be nice to spend the night indoors, maybe have a meal that you didn’t have to cook over an open fire.” Sigmir explained while reaching up and gently stroking Lenore’s feathers. It was a curious sensation, in a lot of ways. I had focused on my connection with Sigmir, to make sure there wasn’t any problem with the orcs, some sort of ambush or something along those lines, allowing me to experience an echo of her sensations, such as Lenore’s soft feathers under her fingers. At the same time, I was tuned into Lenore’s senses, due to being in my Hallow and experiencing the world through her, giving me the slightly strange experience of feeling both sides of the contact, which was profoundly weird. There was just no other word for it, my brain trying to make sense of a sensation it had never been meant to experience and for a second, I remembered the explosive effect of the connection between Sigmir and me when coupled with actual, physical stimulation, like kissing. There was definitely a lot of potential to be explored there.

“That sounds indeed enjoyable.” Lenore admitted, while I was busy daydreaming, giving me a mental kick for us to switch places, trying to create an illusion of us being one entity, a shape-shifter of some sort. I knew that shapeshifting wasn’t unheard off, I only had to look to Adra for an example of someone who could easily take the shape of animals, even if she hadn’t used the ability in a while. Ever since we had been stripped off our mounts and thus limited to the speed Rai or I could travel at on foot, she had simply kept to her normal form, not shifting in her four-legged travel form.

Prodded by Lenore and her hop off Sigmir’s shoulder, I initiated myshift out of my Hallow, landing in a crouch next to Sigmir, rising to fall into step next to her and taking her hand. It worked out quite well, the process of shifting in and out of my Hallow something we had practised to the point that we could fluidly make the switch, even testing some magical theatrics to use with it. If turning from a Raven into a Firnelf was impressive in its own right, doing so while emitting a cloud of icy mist or inky darkness added a certain flavour to it. In addition, it was simply fun.

“A nearby village you say?” I asked, a funny feeling in my gut telling me that I had met two inhabitants of that village, just further into the woods. Further into the woods and quite occupied with each other, at least before I had used them as test-subjects. I had to consider how to play things, just in case the funny feeling turned out to be correct. I had no desire to add another village to the tally of places I had devastated, not without reason, more importantly, not next to the ancient road, giving people who might be hunting me more to work with. I had no idea where Howardlight and his crusaders were, just that he had started in Valkar, with the Valkyries.

“I think I’ve seen it from the air, at least I’ve seen the smoke.” I added, deciding to simply keep my mouth shut as much as possible, hoping that the two orcs wouldn’t be missed until we had moved on.

“If you have seen chimney-smoke near the road, you saw our village. There are a few others in the area but only ours is near the road. The others are living a little away from it, keeping to themselves. They trade with us and we trade with travellers on the road, keeping everyone happy.” one of the orcs explained, trying to sound serious and respectful. I had to smile a little at his tone, it was one I had heard a few times, mostly from lawyers addressing the judge.

“They also have better soil for farming and more game, little to be had near the road. We have to travel quite some distance to get some hunting done.” he continued, making me raise an eyebrow at the obvious lack of game with them. Either they had been unlucky and had to return empty-handed or their backpacks were magical in nature, similar to the packs we were using.

My curiosity roused, I used a trickle of Darkness-magic to conceal the emanations of the Observe-skill, learning that both Orcs with us were in their mid-fifties, while their hunting canine was level forty-five. Not too shabby, but at the same time nothing to truly write home about, once more driving home the fact that most natives of Mundus had little interest in actively raising their levels, like my companions and I had. They preferred their safety and security over power. An idea I could understand, I certainly wouldn’t want to risk my life regularly, living on the edge of death every step of the way.

These two were a good example, they had most likely hunted for some twenty years, regularly killing game and whatever predator tried to contest their kills, and yet they were just a little over half our level, something we had mostly achieved in the last few months. Hell, most of it we had made during the ten days of brutal, exhausting hunting in the undead swamp, challenging groups of monsters multiple times an hour, risking death with a regularity that made it a wonder it hadn’t caught up with us. It made me wonder about my companions, and not for the first time, why they yearned for power, risking their lives to gain it.

I let the others continue with the conversation I had kicked off, allowing me to retreat back into my mind and thoughts. I liked it that way, silently observing the others as they made smalltalk, learning quite a bit more about the local situation and region. It wasn’t all that interesting, the different crops and which village planted them, which animals were migrating when, those small tidbits of local lore that could be useful but, most of the time, were not. With that as the background-noise, we continued walking for the rest of the afternoon.

It was about five o’clock when we reached the village and it was about as exciting as the two orcs had described it, meaning it was not. There were some fields around it and the village itself didn’t even have a fence, let alone a wall or any defensive installation. The buildings were mostly made from wood, with some of them being built out of grey stone, those being the bigger buildings.

Our two companions told us which of the stone buildings, the largest one, was the inn, before wishing us a good day, telling us that we would most likely see them later, in the taproom. Apparently, they were planning to get a drink once they had dropped their kills off at home, confirming that my earlier assessment had been right. Not that it mattered, I doubted any of us had an interest in stealing their bags or their kills but if we had nefarious intentions, the villagers wouldn’t have posed a hindrance. They didn’t even have guards. We were starting to get into the more civilised parts of Aretia, something I hadn’t quite expected, certainly not that stark a contrast.

I had to smile when we stepped into the taproom, it being a part of the village that could have been in any of the villages or towns we had been in so far, from Yari, the bear-beastmen town in the far north to Kolyug, the most civilised and orderly place we had been to so far, the common-rooms of the inns seemed to be made by the same template, with small variations. Long tables, benches, overworked servers and a smell of ale and food. Maybe it was a constant for the transient people, travelling the long roads.

As I smiled at the idea, Adra, as always our spokeswoman, walked up to the bar and got us a place to sleep for the night, alongside some food for the evening.