As Sigmir and I quickly walked down the highway, we could hear angry voices behind us. Looking over my shoulder, just to make sure Hafta wasn’t doing anything stupid like trying to shoot us, allowed me to see Gwan and Jendar blocking Hafta, while Phraan looked on, an amused smile on their face, almost as if they were enjoying a show. Gren, who had been in the lead, was walking past us, going back, while Olivia simply waited for Sigmir and me to catch up.

“What a pleasant relationship.” Sigmir muttered, when we reached Olivia, who fell in with us.

“What happened?” Olivia asked, looking back for a moment, before focusing on me again.

“Jendar asked me to try talking to Phraan, thinking we might find some common ground, you know, both of us being elves.” I explained and could see how quickly Olivia’s face warped into a mask of amused horror.

“Oh, dear.” she chuckled, her head shaking with helpless laughter, “That was a mess before we ever met and I doubt anyone could have solved that with a few words, certainly not you.”

A small part of me felt insulted by the certainty in her words, but then, if I was being honest with myself, I was aware of my sorely lacking social skills.

“At least things are out in the open now, no longer festering in the dark.” Sigmir said, looking a little annoyed at the situation.

“Better for their mess to boil over here, barely a day from town, than somewhere in the wilds, where they need to rely on each other to get back home, that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

“True, even if they all decide to walk their own path, breaking up their group, they can easily return to Narristo.” I agreed, before pushing their mess out of my mind. I shouldn’t have tried to meddle, but how could I get better at handling social situations if I always remained in the background? At least, this way the damage done wasn’t to my group, or anything I really cared about.

After a quick mental exchange with Lenore, she flew off to notify Adra and Rai, who had been scouting ahead. If anything, I had a feeling the two would be glad if it turned out that our journey with the other group ended prematurely, as I had no desire to push back into that mess, especially if either Hafta or Phraan blamed Adra or myself for their troubles. Especially Phraan, something about their confident, pleasant yet completely indecipherable demeanor gave me the creeps, as if they were simply looking down on everyone around them. If Jendar, the only one I had actually liked talking with, caught up with us, I’d be willing to continue on with them, but the impetus had to come from them.

Once we caught up with Adra and Rai, we simply informed them that the other group had some interpersonal trouble and we likely would split ways at this point, even as we continued down the same road. They simply accepted with shrugs, making it obvious that it was no skin off their back, especially as we would reach Narristo on the next day.

As we continued walking, I began to consider my conversation with Phraan, going over what they had said and what I had said, trying to extract as much information as possible from our exchange. The most important part, to the point that I considered using the replay-function of the capsule to isolate and save it, was the explanation about the geography of Arbotoma, especially given that our destination was on that continent. It also helped a great deal with our current plans, confirming that we were on the right path, even if we had to speed it up a little. With that in mind, I considered our overall money-supply, which was limited, and whether there was a way to travel quicker. The problem, so to speak, was that the Ancient Road allowed us to travel at an incredible pace, at least if we really pushed it, something that couldn’t really be increased, even when using mounts.

“That comment about the forest providing their life-span, that sounded interesting.” Lenore butted in, after landing on my shoulder. From her question, it was obvious that she was going over the same memories as I, just from a different angle. For a moment, I considered her words, before I realised that for a native, it certainly would be. For a traveller, not so much, as at the end of the day, my time in this world was limited, but not necessarily by the life-span of an elf, or even of a human, but by the life-cycle of Road to Purgatory. Still, the idea to channel massive amounts of power with Blood Magic to accomplish some purpose was intriguing, especially as the sheer amount of power needed to constantly rejuvenate an entire race of people had to be immense.

“That, it does. But it makes me wonder, the energy they use, there has to be a down-side, right? I mean, if they use the energy, the forest is then lacking that energy, unless they manage to bind themselves into the natural cycle in some way, making sure that the forest replenishes at least as much energy as they take.” I mused, trying to imagine the sheer scale of it all. It also brought up another question, namely one of numbers. Could the elven forest supply arbitrary numbers, or did elves practise some sort of population control, limiting the birth-rate or something along those lines, to keep their immortality going?

“But how would we control it all?” Lenore asked in response, obviously amused, “The Elves likely use their forest, with the tree in the center, as a giant magical formation, generating and distributing the power through a living network of some sort. Unless we’d be able to form a ritual the size of a continent, there’s no way to handle that much power.”

“We wouldn’t really need that much, just improving the way Blood Magic absorbs and transmits power would do. With that, and some natural resources, we’d be able to do some interesting magic.” I replied, my mind starting to consider ways to improve just that. So far, I only had the Athame, its enchantment forged into the blade itself in some way I didn’t understand.

“Do you think we could use the connecting patterns we’ve been researching for a while to improve transmission of power within the Blood Magic, maybe allowing us to generate less Miasma? Cause I think that would be a major hindrance, if we try to do something really big with it.” As I put my thoughts into words, I could feel Lenore’s mind join mine, and together, we started to form models, trying to adapt the connecting patterns we had used for Ice-Magic to Blood-Magic. The frustrating part was that we were almost working blindly, trying to fumble our way to a solution without really understanding what we were doing. Adapting the dwarven patterns, partially developed for Crystal-Magic, to Ice-Magic had been one thing, there were many similarities as my talks with Jendar had proven, but Blood Magic was something entirely different.

By the time I felt we had bashed our head against that mental wall for long enough, it was almost time to camp for the night. Quite some distance behind us, easily visible for anyone who cared to look, I could see the Oakenrocks move along the road, not trying to catch up but also not falling behind. Maybe they had somehow managed to talk things out, but it was quite obvious that they had no desire to make contact again, otherwise they could have caught up with a bit of effort.

“Lenore, want to look for a camp-site?” I suggested, causing her to hop off, taking to the sky again.

“Olivia, any ideas on how we could increase our rate of travel?” I asked, causing her to study me for a moment.

“There might be a way.” she replied, her voice pensive. “Tell me, why do you need to move quickly?”

“You have heard that we Travellers are supposed to learn in this world?” I responded to her question, with a question of my own.

“I have. that’s the reason the Gods let you travel to this world.” she nodded and for a moment, I considered how to put things, to remain truthful without telling her about the soul-prison as having possession of that might very well be seen as blasphemy.

“My teacher gave me a quest, something I want to resolve while in this world. To do so, I have to travel to the other side of the world and find a particular place.” I explained, only fudging the truth slightly. “For that, I need to keep moving quickly, or I might run out of time on my journey. Yet, at the same time, I want to follow the task of the Gods, to learn, to train, to experience.” I finished, hoping that I wouldn’t be caught in a lie. It might get awkward if I did.

“I see and I think I understand.” for a moment, she paused and studied me again, “I will ask for Eleutheria’s help, to hasten our steps. That way, we should be able to travel swiftly, at least as long as we are in relative safety, as the blessing will take quite a bit of power out of us all, as we will need to pray together, each morning.” she finished, leaving me wondering if that would be worth it. Time would tell, but I was willing to try.