“Cirran, the Twin City as I knew it in my youth, is truly one of the last places in this world that are older than myself.

For ages it grew, never to be conquered. Deep beneath the metropolis lies the secret of its power – legions of sentient automatons, ready to rise against what they perceive a threat to the city’s continued existence…and to destroy those trying to uncover their secrets. I saw both the brightest and the most despicable smashed by their uncaring hands…mortals never seem to change.

And yet, there still live those who proudly call themselves ‘Masters of the City’ – like children claiming the power over rising sun.”

- Traveller’s Endless Journeys

Soon Ion was able to discern voices of approaching people.

“Couldn’t I for once get lost in the mountains?” someone angrily spoke, “But no, we are always travelling through the forests!”

“Calm down, we should be close to Windhelm by now,” another voice answered.

“And not even by roads, as she imagined some old forgotten ruins…”

“And it was you who cheerfully agreed, hoping to find something precious there!”

“It’s Sae’s fault that her map was defective! Shouldn’t you trust a rogue when it comes to finding places with treasures? Speaking of which, where is she?”

“I see you, so maybe you would stop trying to hide…?” Ion heard a feminine voice coming from behind him. There was a cloaked figure he failed to notice up until now, pointing with one of her shortswords in his direction and another towards where he presumed Ryan was.

Ion decided to quietly chant Hold Person spell, thinking that immobilising the threatening figure would be the only chance to get away unnoticed by her companions. Yet…

“Whoa…get easy there!” she shouted as soon as he began the incantation. Now, even if his spell works, her companions would know that something occurred over there, “I mean no harm, just wanted to talk, if I’d planned to attack you I would stab you right away!” the figure said hurriedly and started to wave her hands in panic.

“So, what are you doing here?” asked Ryan, yet Ion was still unable to see his location. He held his spell, just a minuscule hand gesture from releasing it.

“To be honest we kind of get lost…” she began.

“Oh, here you are Sae, to whom are you talking?” the rest of the group entered Ion’s sight.

From what he could see in a dim light, there were three other people; a dwarf and a human, both clad in metal armours and someone wielding a bow and wearing a lighter armour behind them, an elf perhaps?

“To us; it appears that you stumbled upon our campsite,” Ion answered, projecting his voice with Minor Illusion to a bush far to the left.

It got attention from warriors, yet the rogue was still staring where he really was. Ion gave up on trying to avoid this group.

“So why don’t you join us for our meal, an owlbear we hunted is too big for just us two to eat after all,” despite everything, he could not help, but smirk seeing dumb-folded expressions of warriors when they finally noticed him standing not far away from them.

“I am Ion, one over there is Ryan,” he waved with a hand, trying to act as if being approached by armed strangers in the middle of a forest was perfectly normal to him.

“I’m Sae, that grumpy one is Thaleus, there is also Dorian and Crios,” said the girl hiding her swords and revealing long crimson hair as she removed her hood. At least her behaviour suggested that such a meeting was completely normal…was it her confidence in the numbers or was it really a normal occurrence when people meet others in the wilds? Maybe Vision-he was too paranoid and it influenced him?

“Who do you call grumpy, girl?” the dwarf said, shaking his hand angrily.

“Oh… are you a ranger? I’m training to become one too,” Ryan suddenly approached Crios; now Ion noticed that he had both pointy ears and a beard; apparently a half-elf than.

‘Maybe I am really the only one with trust issues…’ he thought.

In but a moment they arrived at the clearing with their half-done campsite.

“You managed to take them all by yourselves?” Dorian sounded impressed when he saw a pile of skinned remains of owlbears and large chunks of meat lying a little bit further.

“Not that hard, the worst part was tracking their cave,” Ion said, willing the logs gathered earlier by Ryan to burn as he moved past them, “Here, feel free to prepare it in the way you like.”

He Mage Handed a piece of meat and held it above the fire to let it roast.

“Well, that sure is convenient,” said Thaleus with hints of jealousy as he put his helmet, shield and hammer next to him. The dwarf stuffed some meat on the stick and also put it into the fire.

Ryan followed their suit.

Contrary to them, Crios with Sae’s help began to set up a makeshift kitchen, then they started to stuff some vegetables they must have collected earlier into the pot, adding chopped meat later.

Dorian’s full attention was currently on removing his armour. Without a helmet, his black hair, slightly longer than Ion’s own and pointy ears were clearly visible in the fading light. He lacked that agelessness Ion so often saw in the elves from his visions, so the wizard deemed the man was also a half-blood.

“So, what brings you there?” Ion asked, “I bet you are not very familiar with the forests of Windhelm?”

“Quite the opposite, we became very familiar with them during the past three weeks…” Sae cheerfully answered.

“…because someone’s treasure map was surely fake,” Dorian interrupted.

“It was not! We just had a bad luck to stumble upon the trolls' lair on the way.”

“Maybe it was just nature’s way of saying that some secrets should not be uncovered,” Crios said.

“Sounds like a lame tracker’s excuse,” Thaleus said, taking a sip of something that smelled like a strong alcohol, “And stop that druidic rambling, if we’d like to hear one we would have still travelled with this guy from Phenyth.”

“Have you been travelling together for long?” Ryan asked, eating some roasted ribs.

“With Sae, I already worked for… maybe three years by now?” the ranger said, “With the rest of our group, we met for the first time working as caravan guards on the way past the Haunted Battlefield. We got along and decided to keep travelling together for some time.”

Ion turned his gaze towards the young woman, doubtful. “That would mean that you started travelling at fourteen? Fifteen? I find it hard to believe.”

“Didn’t you heard that it’s rude to ask a lady about her age?” she rebuked, “But if you must know I’m older than I look, in Vrolan having some elven blood is not that rare as in Rikse.”

“The Haunted Battlefield? Is this true that undead armies still continue their fight here?” Ryan was more concerned about different matters.

They listened to a story how the party travelled through the area that was a place of many battles around twenty years ago when the Kingdoms of Phenyth and Rikse fought.

Boasting about their recent adventure, surely exaggerating, seemed to greatly improve everyone's mood. Or maybe it was just food and the alcohol Thaleus shared with everyone. Feeling a little dizzy after a few sips Ion decided that he had enough of the dwarven liquor.

From what he gathered, it seemed that Dorian, who was now eating with them after finally removing his heavy armour, was in fact not a mere warrior but a paladin coming from the country north of Halflings Plains.

‘Interesting, it’s not as if I ever imaged a paladin willing to be hired as a simple mercenary; they always seemed to me like types willing to protect poor villagers from monsters just to get their thanks in return,’ Ion noted to himself.

He also took a few more careful glances at Sae; Ion still doubted her explanation. Of course, he was by no means an expert in a topic of elven-human crossbreeding, but having two other half-elves to compare right before his eyes, he could find hardly any elven traits in her.

The easiest explanation would be that she was just lying and was really quite young for a mercenary; if not for his family objections he would also try to leave Windhelm much earlier. Maybe she was some orphan trying to survive in the world on her own? Yet his guts were telling him that something was off with her.

Were those Vision-he memories or was he really turning paranoid?

After a few hours their conversations started to be rarer and more sleepy. Ion decided it’s finally time to finish setting up Alarm spell around the camp. Soon later they have decided on two people shifts during the night and went to sleep. Ion put another Alarm around himself, just in case.

****

He stood up from his seat and spoke: “We can’t wait any longer in hopes that they would finally react against those transgressions; we can’t afford to wait or that contamination spreads too far!”

“Yes, how many cities must fall before we mobilise our forces?” someone voiced his concern.

“Then you can be the one running blindly trying to predict from where they strike… its a temporary problem, it will come to an end soon,” someone opposed.

“Short-sighted fool, you said the same year ago and if there is any change at all, it’s the increase in frequency, our Diviners…”

Ion heard the sound of an alarm ringing in his head, waking him instantly. He immediately covered himself in Arcane Armour and looked around.

“Easy sleeping princess, it’s high time for you to finally wake up,” said Ryan, who apparently triggered his spell.

Ion looked around and saw the adventurers finishing their meal, Dorian putting on last pieces of his armour. He looked up, seeing the sun quite high in the sky already.

“You know I’m a late sleeper, you should have woken me up long ago,” Ion stood up, cleaned his yesterday clothes with Prestidigitation before donning them.

“I envy you this spell,” Ryan commented.

Ion was just about to grab something to eat when he heard a loud screech. Suddenly, a shadow passed above him and a winged beast grabbed a pile of owlbear meat still laying near the camp.

“Wyverns here?” surprised Sae screamed then quickly rolled to her left as another beast tried to grapple her. Arrows flew towards it.

“Spread out, if they breathe with fire we will be doomed!” the dwarf shouted.

“They can’t, ignorant!” Ciros said, releasing another arrow, “Move towards trees, they will have it harder to attack us from above.”

As they ran, weapons ready in hands, Ion looked up – two wyverns were flying away, content with the food they took, but three more were circling above his group; one of them started to dive towards them.

“Look out!” Dorian tried to shove Ion out of the wyvern way, when suddenly Web covered its wings, causing it to drop on the ground. He decided to charge at the immobilised creature instead, the rest of the melee fighters followed. They were using Ion’s spell as an opportunity, trying to wound the beast before it could get into the air again. Two more wyverns joined the fray on the ground, screeches and sounds of stings and claws hitting metal armours everywhere.

Ion, along with Ciros and Ryan were attacking from between the trees, having a good view on the battlefield.

Thaleus stood between two wyverns, catching beasts' attacks with his tower shield, from time to time trying to answer with his hammer, mostly to keep monsters’ attention on himself.

On the side, Dorian was fighting alone with the third wyvern, a radiant aura pulsing from him, covering everyone's weapons. His two-handed sword sometimes burst with even stronger light just before hitting his enemy.

Attacking the monsters from behind was Sae, stabbing and slashing the creatures with her swords and nimbly avoiding their stingers and claws whenever they tried to attack the annoying target behind them.

Ion casted another Web when one of the wyverns tried to soar up, accidentally covering not only the monsters but also the dwarf.

Thaleus received a nasty hit being unable to block a claw as he struggled with a sticky material.

“Thrice damned drunken spellcasters who can’t even aim properly! What’s next, an arrow to the knee?” while he mumbled angrily Dorian took a moment to channel some divine energy to heal him.

Soon later a painful screech sounded as one of the arrows hit a wyvern right into an eye. It started to thrash viciously around itself but was quickly taken down by Dorian’s sword.

Ion altered between his spells slowly wearing down the remaining monsters with the rest of the team.

Suddenly, he heard Sae’s scream as a wyvern's stinger pierced her leather armour.

“Sae!” Ciros shouted as the creature sent her flying with its tail; the girl hit one of the trees. The half-elf ran towards her unmoving body, immediately beginning to heal her.

Seeing fighters distracted by their companion’s fate as well as everyone being battered and tired from the prolonged fight, Ion decided to use his spell to induce fear in the monsters. He managed to scare off one of the beasts, second followed soon later as it got another wound inflicted by Dorian.

“What’s with her?” being out of combat Thaleus immediately limped towards Ciros and Sae.

Ion saw that a pale girl was still breathing, but remained unconscious. Even if no wounds were visible on her body anymore, judging by the amount of blood on her clothes and grass, she lost quite a lot of it.

“With help of Dorian’s spells she should be fine,” exhausted Ciros answered, “Fortunately she wasn’t infected by wyvern's poison, she sure got lucky with this.”

In the next few minutes, the paladin was taking care of Sae, while Ryan helped with healing the dwarf.

“We must leave the area soon, all this blood might attract more monsters,” Ciros said, “But not trying to at least salvage wyvern's poison sac would be a waste.”

“We also have to inform Windhelm about the wyvern threat as soon as possible," Ion added, “I never heard about them being spotted so far away from the Draconian Peaks.”

“Their appearance is probably a reason why owlbears started to hunt closer to the human settlements,” Ryan said.

“They might have formed a nest on that lone mountain nearby. Probably this forest isn’t able to nourish all predators living here now,” Ciros agreed, still working on wyvern's carcass,. “And they might be just some runaway beasts from Phenyth, I heard their military recently started to experiment with training them as mounts. Not much success so far.”

“Is this even possible to train them or it’s just another human fantasy?” Thaleus asked.

“I once saw Isvaarheim’s flying cavalry in a combat from afar, a sight to behold. Yet, elves used some arctic subtype they bred for millennia, no idea how it compares to those,” Dorian answered.

“…I remember seeing their emissary on one of those, I think” to Ion’s surprise it was Sae’s weak voice. Apparently, she awoke while he was splitting owlbear’s trophy into smaller packages so that they could take it more easily, “It was smaller and white, almost beautiful in its own way…”

“How do you feel?” he asked. She seemed still pale, but maybe it was her natural complexion.

“Were better, were worse,” She slowly stood up, supporting herself on a tree, “But I should be able to manage on my own.”

****

It was a late evening before they arrived at the closest village. Ion and Ryan took their reward for slaying an owlbear, while the rest of the group informed elder about wyverns. They spent the night in the inn and left on the early morning, hoping to arrive at Windhelm before nightfall, yet due to bad weather they didn’t make it to the city before it closed gates for a night.

Early in the morning, the party went straight to the city magistrate to inform about a possible wyvern threat and show them a proof that they had actually killed one.

Doing so was important for mercenaries, as Ion learned from the group during their short acquaintance. Various institutions, from town authorities to merchant associations or even wizards' guilds and churches were often providing people who successfully completed their requests with some sort of credentials.

Their form varied depending on the organisation; from a simple parchment stamped by an official handed commonly by merchants or town authorities to more rarely seen runed cards given sometimes by guilds, churches or a state to more exceptional sellswords. In their group, Dorian was the only one having such an item, yet it was inert by now, as he opted to not use it anymore.

Ion’s was led to believe by his companions that the paladin had some underlying grudge against the Lorastil Theocracy, as his country, that issued the card was called. Maybe it had something to do with him being a half-elf? The only thing he knew about this country was their ages-long conflict with the elves of Isvaarheim.

Having good referrals was vital to all mercenaries not willing to join a well-known company; it allowed them to get a better salary when they were hired as well as gave potential contractors some information about abilities such mercenaries possessed.

Of course referrals of certain organisations held more credibility in the eyes of others, leading to better payments or requests that would not be given if one was just an ordinary outsider. In other cases, showing recommendation from the opposing group would be an easy way to screw up one's eventual contract, if not something worse. Most organisations also had their own internal records on which they tracked which mercenaries they deemed trustworthy...

Thanks to the recent events, Ion’s papers informed that he was a 2nd circle wizard (as being written as a 3rd circle necromancer would put him in worse light for basically anyone not having a decent knowledge about magic so he skipped that on purpose when he firstly made his papers), capable of slaying an owlbear and three cubs being in a group of two people (which held little credibility on its own as that paper was signed by an official from a village that most people never heard of) and, as documents of Windhelm's magistrate said, was “able to kill an adult wyvern in a group of six people, possibly driving away two more.”

Which, as it came with official Windhelm's seals was something decent even with an official's careful wording concerning their claims, for which they had no actual proof. He would probably not include it at all if not for quite a few referrals from trading companies and Vrolan’s officials shown by the rest of the group that convinced him they were not exaggerating.

Earlier, Ion was not paying too much attention to such formalities as he believed that his status of a wizard would be enough, but from his recent talks with Ciros he understood that even if spellcasters would have it easier, having a proof of actual combat experience would be very useful, especially at the beginning of his travels.

After selling trophies and alchemical reagents on the market, they split coins earned and waved goodbye to each other.

Ion returned uncles’ house and told everyone about his recent adventure during a dinner, skipping the part about Sae being injured by a wyvern; Ion decided it was for the best.

“So, are you still sure with your idea of travels?” Mariana asked when he finished.

“Yes, tomorrow I plan to apply as a guard for the merchant’s caravan leaving next week” due to the war not only amount of monsters increased – there were also bandits who used the opportunity given by the decreased amount of patrolling soldiers. Some trade corporations decided to organise a joint expedition to Leisha’s Crossroads and then split to Grasshaven or Fallpoint and were now hiring guards. They opted to form one bigger group as recently many smaller caravans suffered losses on the way.

“I bet that they won’t be hiring children…”

“You know that some are joining army being even younger than me,” Ion interrupted her. They had this argument many times already.

“Well honey, it looks like he made his mind already,” Steven, as always tried to calm them down, “Your father seemed to expect it as well; a courier brought you a letter from him along with a package from the duke's castle two days ago. It’s waiting upstairs”

“And you hadn’t told me earlier?” he immediately went to his room.

Ion couldn’t wait any longer to see what his father sent him.