“I just don’t like him,” Ingeri whispered from where she sat in the carriage. It was odd for her to be the one to speak out about pretty much anything, but at least one other person inside the carriage agreed with her sentiment. Said person, Ungelica, glanced up to the roof, her eyes trailing out the shape of Adam where he laid atop it.

Ingeri followed Ungelica’s gaze, her white eyes joining the immigrant’s dark eyes to look at the roof. If they touched the wooden roof, it would surely be cold. Adam had a tendency to make things around him cool down to such a degree where being near him could easily give you a cold or worse. This was not why Ingeri found the creature unsavoury.

No, she had her reasons. It was a beast in form and spirit, yet it masqueraded with human language and human spells. It disgusted her. She and Ungelica were both the only women in the group as well as the only sorcerers of any kind. This did not mean their opinion was any more valid than the other’s, but they did have one area that they simply couldn’t explain.

He didn’t feel right. Neither of them had ever felt the Magick that inhibited a Monster, and yet, it simply didn’t feel right. It wasn’t supposed to be any different than theirs, and yet, it was. Somehow. This they could not explain.

“I know you do, but will you please shut up about it?” Pritte said in that smooth voice of his, crossing his arms in annoyance. His armour, silver in sheen and colour, clacked and clinked against itself. Pritte was a man of strong emotion and little restraint, and yet, here he sat. He had objected to this trip many times, and even though the rest of the bunch were dressed in civil clothing, he was armed to the teeth, full armour trusted arming sword by his side.

“Hey hey hey, don’t say things like that! Let’s all be calm, right?” Shaun pleaded, acting as a diplomat as sorts, something he had acted as for quite a few months now. In fact, he had acted this very same way the first few weeks they’d had Adam on the team as well. But, unlike now, his role had mostly been to keep Pritte from slashing Adam open, or ot keep Adam from freezing Pritte solid. He’d also had the role of teaching language to Adam (apparently he used to be a well-educated noble or something before all this, who knew?), but that wasn’t quite as important. “We can discuss this all later, there’s no need for quarrelling.”

Ungelica huffed. If there was any time to talk about this, wasn’t it now? Adam was on the roof, Katte was acting as the coachman, having reached the ripe, marriageable age of 17 only a few days prior. This whole trip was partially to celebrate his turning of age, but it was mostly because Ungelica had pestered them until they went.

Man, what was so interesting about that Deus guy anyways? Sure, he was one of the Three Divine Gods, but even so, he was really just an old forgetful dude who wandered about. Why should they go to a town just to watch him come by and stop for a drink? It was all ludicrous, at least, that’s what Ingeri thought. Really, all this modern hoo-lah about Divine Gods was just an affront to the actual Gods, namely the very golems she summoned.

Still, telling Ungelica that her religion was an offence to the Gods wouldn’t be very nice, and Ingeri really did like Ungelica, so she avoided doing such things to her face. Her thoughts were a different matter entirely.

Ingeri sighed and returned to staring out the window.

Hours passed, and they arrived at the metropolis of Millhim. Well, it was a metropolis by the standards of the times, but it was more or less just a remarkably large village surrounding a manor, the owners of which owned all the nearby land. The group was met will little fanfare, but their mere presence there was actually a rather big deal. Hunting groups were not common at this time, and their role here would serve as security, of a rather lax kind.

Their first day would be spent at an inn, the only inn there was in Millhim, in fact. It wasn’t quite certain when Deus himself would arrive, but a day or so after their arrival was the common estimate. The inn itself, the Standing Mare, was actually quite well-kept, with linen curtains that were almost white. As usual, Adam spent the night tied up outside. At some point, they had asked if he was actually fine with it, and in the scraggly Augur that he had learnt at that point, he told them it was better than the woods.

Ingeri had only ever talked to Adam herself a fair few times. She found the experience to be horribly uncomfortable on every level. The first step, the worst one, was to look into those soulless, haunted eyes of his. His eyes reminded her not of anything resembling human in intellect or emotion, but rather of a golem of her own creation. It felt as if the only thing keeping him moving was Magick.

And then, the actual contact had to be initiated. Augurium was a rather northern country, ill-tempered and so wrought with harsh and long winters. This was nothing new to Ingeri. What was new, however, was having an icicle stabbed directly into her brain. When Ungelica had called it a “brain-freeze”, whatever that was, she couldn’t have been more correct. It felt like any and all brain matter that Ingeri possessed had been frozen solid. And then, that foul presence entered her mind. She received it unwillingly.

The conversation itself had been curt, quick, and ended as quickly as she could have wanted it to be. This was before Adam had developed any form of fluency, but even so, his voice was simply… bad. Wrong. Inhuman. Ingeri had only had to hear it on a few occasions, and she wanted no more part in it than that. He was no more human than she was black-eyed. Better he stays outside.

Weeks later, this would all come to an end.