Elise was very excited. She had slept too long and thus missed half of Aschen. That had been quite a heartbreaking realisation. But what she saw now was absolutely amazing. The houses were all beautiful. They were so clean, there was no dirt on the walls and no ivy growing on them. Some walls were painted, others were bare and just serving their purpose.

But what really amazed her was that the houses had windows made of a transparent material. The material was called glass, if she remembered correctly. The young girl had thought that glass was only for nobles. One of her books had claimed that, but it seemed that was not the case.

In Wolfsteyn, however, the windows had been made of a white line covered with something that smelled rather bad. Only the monastery had glass windows, but these were made of smaller pieces of glass in different colours. All these colours made beautiful pictures of knights, heroes, saints or kings.

Elise felt the cold glass of the carriage window under her cheek. But that was nothing that could stop her. She didn't want to miss a single detail, she wanted to see everything. The city was so interesting.

She did not regret leaving Wolfsteyn. But she already missed grandpa and grandma. She missed Heinz's laughter and Heidi's food, Fritz's almost nonsensical stories and also Augustus's explanations about blacksmithing and why it was something everyone should learn.

"Elise," her mother said, "please behave. You don't want anyone to think you're a naughty child, do you?"

Elise reluctantly stopped gluing her cheek to the window. But her nose hovered barely millimetres from it. She continued to look out of the window. She saw many people who looked very different from her mother or others she had seen in Wolfsteyn.

There was a tall man who smelled of danger. He was dressed in pitch black armour and armed with a red war axe. But the angry voice in her head did not fear this man, no, the voice liked the man. Elise didn't know why. He was simply a berserker. This was one of the many paths one could choose to walk. There were far too many paths to walk and she only remembered the two most familiar ones. The path of the mage or the knight were something everyone wanted to follow. But unfortunately not everyone could do that. But that was no reason to get upset.

She had seen Heinz and he was not a knight or a mage. He was a juggernaut, a term he had given her without explanation, but he was probably as powerful as most knights or mages.

Elise lifted her gaze from the man in armour and let it wander to another person. This person wore a dark red robe with a red sun and an eye on the back of the robe. Under the robe was some kind of leather armour, Elise had seen that the woman was at least wearing leather gauntlets and boots. She was armed with a short staff that looked like a very long wand.

Heidi had shown her a wand once, and Elise had learned that wands were something one could use to cast spells faster. Wands were sadly not that useful for wild magic and quite expensive. That was unfortunate for those who were learning wild magic. But Elise did not want to depend on wild magic. She wanted to learn true magic, perhaps divine magic. It didn't matter to her. As long as she could become a mage, she would accept whatever element the nodes would offer her.

Elise turned her head slightly and noticed a man with scaled legs that looked like they were bent the wrong way. He wasn't wearing boots, which was odd. His feet had scales and very sharp nails, or perhaps claws, at their ends. She wasn't quite sure what the correct term would be.

"Mummy, he isn't human?" she whispered and pointed at the man. Fortunately, he hadn't noticed. Heidi had told her that it was rude to point the finger at people. Elise didn't want to be rude.

Her mother looked out the window before saying, "He's a young Dragen."

"Dragen?" she asked, a little puzzled. Did they really exist here in a human settlement?

They had been a rarity in Wolfsteyn. She had talked to two Dragen and they had told her many interesting things about their race. The older they got, the more of their body they could control. So they could change parts of their body into that of a dragon, which was as painful as it sounded.

One Dragen had claimed that dragons were really Dragen, which Elise strongly doubted. Dragons were big, Dragen were really tiny in comparison. But it could also be that the Dragen had been telling the truth. Elise didn't know. She had never seen a Dragen turn into a dragon or a dragon turn into a Dragen.

"And we are Monia, aren't we? Are we human?" Elise asked.

Her mother sighed. "Christopher was a human. I am a Monia. You are ... I suppose, Monia. It is unusual that our blood does not prevail."

She paused, "But we are equal to humans, not that others want to tell you that. But we are."

Fiona forced herself to smile. She knew that humans feared the unknown. That had been the case in Wolfsteyn too. She herself did not know much about her race either. According to her parents, there were many different kinds of Monia. The only thing they all had in common was that they were descendants of devils. Many people thought that devils and demons were the same thing, but that was not the case.

Sadly, no human seemed to know that. They treated her as if she was something that would eat their children, newborn, unborn and then everyone else. But Fiona would never do that. That was just barbaric and something no sane creature would do.

Unless one had status, wealth or power, people treated others as if they didn't deserve to live. She had learned over the years, however, that this was not uncommon and certainly not limited to those who were not human. Humans, too, sometimes treated others of their kind quite badly. Sadly, Fiona was not rich. She also had no status or power, she was not a mage or a knight. She was just a simple maid.

Fiona wondered if she wasn't too old to become a mage. Most mages learned at a young age. She wasn't that young, she was in her prime. However, one of the requirements of her new job had been to be able to use magic. But what if she couldn't? Would she and Elise then be kicked out?

She didn't want that to happen and vowed to at least try to learn. It would do her no harm. If all else failed, she could become a clerk for the Association. There were far too many mercenaries for the Association to manage.