Despite my wishes, night didn’t immediately start to fall once Lenore and I reunited with the others. There had to be some magic spell for that, maybe if I played a song on an Ocarina, but until I managed to get there, I would have to wait for Mundus to shade us from the sun. So, deprived of the opportunity to start my night with Sigmir as soon as we met, I joined them in walking down the ancient, imperial road, listening to their tales of Ladrin.

As Olivia had mentioned before, the town was famous for its natural hot springs which had been used for public bathing facilities for its entire existence. There seemed to be some buildings that hadn’t been built by the river trolls who currently occupied the place but by the people of the ancient empire, who also had created the road we were on. Their magically reinforced architecture once more proved to be impressive. It made me want to study those buildings, in the hope that the magic that held them together was locally contained, not spread out like that magic that maintained the ancient road, the sheer scale making it nigh impossible to analyze it. It was akin to the attempt of solving a puzzle, without knowing how most of the pieces looked, or having access to them.

What made me a little curious was the story of their visit to the Adventurers' Guild and their search for additional quests that might net us some EXP. While most quests went to locals, there were some constant, repeatable quests to hunt down dangerous prey in the mountains, beasts like mountain-lions, wolves, bears and similar creatures. Those quests were worth some gold, a bit of experience but nothing tremendously interesting. That was reserved for a single quest regarding a Manticore that had been reported on the road between Carinthia, the town on the east-side of the White Mountains and Narristo, its counterpart on the western side. Given that we were heading in that direction, Adra had decided to take the quest, even if it was marked as a Hard Quest, even for us.

To my understanding, that meant the monster would likely be somewhere around level 120, or there would be multiple monsters, all around our level, powerful enough to give us a serious fight. A part of me welcomed the chance, and the opportunity to gain experience-points, but at the same time, it was a risk. But so was everything that could actually help us gain further levels, especially in this place that was unsuitable for our current level. Easy quests, while highly unlikely to kill us, were either picked as soon as they turned up by local Travellers or natives, or involved having to track down something that had managed to evade everyone so far.

At the end of the day, the quest-difficulty only referred to combat involved in a quest. It meant that, unless outside forces intervened, you were unlikely to die on an easy quest, you might fail it due to inability to find something, but you wouldn’t die. On the other hand, an impossible quest was very likely to kill you, unless you got lucky or countered the quest-target.

What made the whole thing even less clear was that the difficulty was a snap-shot, made at the time of accepting the quest. So, if you managed to get lucky and gain a couple levels while travelling, you might find that the supposedly hard quest was a lot easier than expected. But it went both ways, if the target gained levels, or worse, gained the protection of a powerful being like the Grandmother, the quest-difficulty wouldn’t change, potentially leading you into certain death. Ultimately, the indication was useful, but nothing you should overly rely on.

But even more interesting than the quests they had taken on, and shared to me, was what they had heard inside. Namely, a weird group of people talking about raiding something. It had stuck out to them, because the way those people had talked had been so reminiscent of bandits that they had paid attention, only to realise that the people simply had a strange way of speaking. But what was merely a weird way of phrasing to the others was something entirely different as the described lingo was the same that was in use on the Internet, strongly hinting at the group’s identity as Travellers.

My interest roused led to me, asking more questions, gathering as much information as possible. It turned out that Olivia was the one who had paid the most attention to them, her interest attracted by the fact that a group of mostly dwarves and orcs was universally displaying the symbol of Helios, unusual as neither race traditionally worshipped the Olympian Pantheon. The Orcs mostly practised a shamanistic, spiritual faith, while the Dwarves mostly followed the Asgardian Pantheon or venerated their ancestors, with few exceptions. A group of such exceptions was unusual.

What the others overheard helped to paint a quite distinct picture of a group of Travellers, planning to subdue one of the areas the locals avoided, due to the powerful monsters. It was simply a case of profit and loss for the locals, where the fact that some parts of the forest had to be avoided was simply less problematic than the loss of life the clearing out-process would incur. Most likely, that was what had attracted the Travellers, their ability to change that dynamic and, in turn, get an inside-track, either to the local Nobility or the Adventurer's Guild. If they could demonstrate that even problematic assignments could be completed, they would get a reputation for getting the job done. Exactly what a mercenary group, or a clan of Adventurers, wanted.

Piecing together what the others had overheard gave me a relatively clear picture of the situation and even an idea of their target. Unless there were many groups of “spider-crawlies”, as they called it, around, they would visit the same mountain-side I had stumbled over just a day prior, following a scouting-party of five with four additional groups, for a total of twenty-five Travellers. Quite the raid, for the current state of the game, and only possible by planning ahead and gathering in an area.

For me, the whole thing led to a simple question: How could I use that information?

The most obvious thing might be to simply keep out of their way, But that would be boring and not a real advantage. Sure, if they happened to stumble across me, recognised me and wanted to make a name for themselves by killing me, it would be trouble, but just avoiding them felt a little too passive.

On the other hand, I had a few magical abilities I wanted to try, especially on Travellers, so a group of hostiles, who planned to attack what I thought was a known target, seemed to be an excellent opportunity. If I did things right, they’d never know who hit them, how they got hit or anything like that.

There was potential in that idea.

For the rest of the day, whenever there was a lull in the conversation with the others, I kept plotting with Lenore, who was just as interested in trying her Death-Magic on the curious bodies of Travellers, trying to come up with ways that not only kept the two of us safe and out of sight, but also made sure that the others weren’t implicated. What made things a little more complicated was that the arachnoids would likely get involved and I wasn’t certain whether they would care to distinguish between the enemy of their enemy or if they would simply go after anything walking on two legs. Their involvement, especially considering the massive, magical formation they had set up, would make things even more complicated.

Ultimately, by the time we stopped for the night, the only thing Lenore and I knew for certain was that we wanted to involve ourselves, trying to procure some test-subjects for our Death-Magic and my Mind-Magic. If we could combine the two, it would be even better.

That, in turn, meant we had to explain to the others that we would head out alone, again, and that I would have to set up one of my frozen cottages, to declare as my home, just in case I was killed in action. The latter part was something we didn’t need to tell the others, as I had no doubt that Sigmir would object to a plan that had a good chance to get me killed, while leaving her out entirely. I knew that I would object to such a plan, if the shoe was on the other foot, but the simple fact was, I would come back from the dead. She would not.

And that was the end of it, at least for me.

With a rough plan made, I began to look forward to the night.