Once again, Lenore and I were flying above the others, scouting the way forward. Not that there was a lot to see, we had spotted a pack of wolves earlier but they had been more interested in getting as far away from Lenore’s shadow as possible, running like frightened hares. Not that I blamed them, according to Lenore’s estimation, they were around level twenty, barely even a bump on the road for us. If that were the predators of this region, there would be no worthwhile combat, not unless we decided to try our hand at taking out a city.

Alas, trying that was neither realistic nor worthwhile, at least not when looking at the defensive features of the two cities I had seen on Mundus. Both, Neamov and Kolyug, had defenses against large-scale magic and trying to overcome those was not on the menu, at least not yet. I had made a mental note to try, close to the end of the beta, simply to see what would happen. Pantheon Entertainment should be grateful, especially if I managed to wipe out a city or two. People wanted to play in this “garden” called Mundus, but for some people, that meant using a lense to burn ants. I couldn’t understand the idea of taking pleasure in destruction, it was so much more interesting to learn something new.

“That is one impressive village.” the awe in Lenore’s voice caught my attention, normally she was quite scathing when spotting villages, seeing them as far beneath her notice. Curious, I focused my mind on the outside, looking through her eyes, down onto the ‘village’ she had spotted.

Only to realise, that was no village, it was a space station. Or rather, it was a city and a large one at that. Guessing the size was difficult, without any object to compare its size to and from a distance, but I thought it was even bigger than Neamov had been. That might have been due to the massive cliff that had towered over Neamov, towering over the dwarven construction, overshadowing it a little.

In contrast, Ladrin, the city I was now looking at, was more sprawled out, a wide river flowing through it adding to the impression of size. The city-center was just that river, or rather, it was one of the islands in that river. There were two of them and on one of them, the reason for Ladrin’s independence was clearly visible.

Where the dwarves of Neamov had dug into their cliff to create their citadel, something I had been unable to see first hand, only knowing it from Olivia’s tales, the trolls of Ladrin lacked such a possibility. Instead, what they had was a massive moat, easily a hundred meters across on either side, the river flowing around the Island they had used to construct their bastion. To make things even worse, the bastion wasn’t directly connected to the shore on either side, instead, a single bridge connected it to another nearby Island, which looked fortified as well and had more bridges connecting it to the shore.

Unless my guess was wrong, which was entirely possible, the bridges had been built by the same people who made the ancient, imperial road, which added to the awe I felt for them. Making a road that lasted many centuries was difficult, especially when the road was heavily used, but to build bridges that lasted just as long should be even more difficult, at least according to my understanding.

Other than the Island-Bastion, the city was surrounded by sturdy-looking walls, with four obvious main-gates, one on each end of the city, almost at the cardinal points. Only one of them was on our side of the river, the other three were on the opposite shore, one gate likely continuing the road we were on, while the other two gates served another part of the ancient road system, this part following the river to the north and south. Part of me wanted to take a closer look at the actual crossroad, just how those ancient builders had created the link, but given that it was close to the center of the city, I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to take a close look. Such important infrastructure would likely be at least somewhat guarded, which meant I would invite serious trouble to myself, thanks to my troublesome social traits.

Sadly, while the feats of magic and engineering made me feel a sense of awe, even as there was a burning, competitive spirit roused deep within me, the prospect of meeting many people and getting into trouble stung me. While I didn’t overly care for social interactions outside a small, very exclusive, circle, the outright rejection wasn’t pleasant. Especially not as it implicated my companions.

“Want to try again?” Lenore asked, likely sensing my feelings.

“Not really, but what else is there? We can cross at will, hell, even I could likely create something from ice to get everyone to the other side.” I grumbled, knowing that I really didn’t need a bridge. Doubly not with Lenore’s wings.

“But our funds are slowly dwindling, as are our supplies. Didn’t you hear Adra about the lack of forage, how the forests are depleted? Though, given that everyone is using the same road, that’s somewhat to be expected.” I continued, while thinking about potential ways to deal with the situation.

“Well, we could simply fly across and wait for the others, might take a day or three but it’s not like we couldn’t take care of each other during that time. That way, you don’t have to feel guilty for depriving Sigmir of the city-experience, even if I feel that the experience is overrated.” Lenore suggested, curiously disdainful about cities. Looking into her mind a little deeper, past the thoughts she deliberately sent over our connection, I realised that some bleed-through from my mind had somewhat tainted her impression of cities, due to my impression of the ravens living in modern cities. It was quite confusing, but that was the impression I got.

After sating my curiosity, I began considering her idea a little more seriously. It had a lot of merit, especially when taking into account that we could use the time the others were in the city to scout a wider area, maybe allowing us to find something interesting. Normally, we tried to stay within some thirty minutes of flight-time of the others but if we knew that we had time, we could actually use our wings to the greatest effect.

The only down-side I could see was that I’d be separated from Sigmir for multiple days, which I didn’t like too much, but it might prove useful in the future.

Overall, the idea felt quite good, especially the part about getting away from the road for some time, flying freely, as the road felt more and more narrow, less a place of adventure and more simply a path from one place to another. The further west we came, the less wild the land had been, turning more and more tame, until nothing near the road even thought to challenge us.

In the depths of my mind, I could understand why that was, how Pantheon Entertainment had planned things out. The east acted as a mid-level zone, interspersed with both low-level zones, like the area in which I had started, and likely some higher-level areas as well, even if I hadn’t stumbled into any. Contrary to that, the western parts seemed to be lower-levelled, more geared towards casual players that simply wanted to enjoy a fantastic world without too many dangerous monsters, or simply new players who were starting out, while also containing some of the truly high-level areas, hidden away in less accessible places, to draw the high-level players back, so the new players could see them and aspire to their awesomeness. Or something like that. It was a little akin to standing in front of the auction-house in some of the older games.

Focusing back on my connection with Lenore, I wordlessly communicated my agreement, while considering how to explain to Sigmir what I was planning. Hopefully, she understood that I didn’t reject her companionship but that I wanted her to enjoy our travels as much as possible, which included seeing the various cities of the world. It was only that I wasn’t able to enjoy them the same as they could, not unless I used quite a bit of effort to ingratiate myself into their society. Not something I wanted to do on the road, not for just a few days.

Similarly, staying in my Hallow came with its own set of problems, one of which was that I would be a little bored, unable to truly act on my own, even my magic limited to tiny experiments that could be contained within my Hallow. Seeing the cities simply didn’t match up to the idea of freely flying with Lenore and the prospect of finding an adventure, maybe some place that we could lead the others to.