“It’s soggy,” Scarlett sighed, patting down on the sponge cake with the back of her fork. She was sitting on the balcony of the highest tower in Farrador castle, in her bedroom. The castle was built on a treacherous mountain, and from the extremely high tower vantage point, a person could see the jagged edges of the mountain, soft grasslands, and a fast flowing mountainous river cutting through the steep path. A massive iron drawbridge was all that connected the castle with the world below. Farrador castle was designed to be impenetrable, and that certainly was the case.

It was overcast today, and gray clouds hung over the tower balcony. “My lady, that’s what sponge cake is supposed to be like, and that is what you requested,” her butler replied.

“It’s gross. Please send this back to the kitchen.” Scarlett pushed away the cake plate with a slight hint of annoyance. “And please tell the chef to send something nicer upstairs or I will tell father that we need a new head chef.”

“Yes, my lady.” The butler bowed and then disappeared to relay the order to the kitchen.

As the butler left, Scarlett twisted her fingers and whispered something inaudibly into the air. A moment later, a well worn black leather-bound book zoomed out from underneath her dresser and onto her desk. It was a book of questionable material that she borrowed from her friend, as her father and her retainers would never let her buy something so inappropriate for someone of her stature. She reading where she had left off, and before long a faint blush appeared on her cheeks.

----

The incessant rainstorms and heavy winds taking their toll on Forte. He had been traveling for nearly three weeks now, and was beginning to resort to eating half raw foods because he could not maintain a fire for longer than a few minutes at a time, no matter how much magic and stamina he poured into maintaining the flame with Infernus. Using blood to fuel his magic was not an option when he was already delirious from malnutrition. A two week long journey was quickly turning into something much more treacherous.

The landscape seemed to be shifting as well, as violent tremors in the earth were occurring with alarming frequency the further south he traveled. The effects on terrain were both physical and magical in property, as entire small mountain passes had formed in places that were only hills before.

The beasts and wildlife were restless, sensing the changes even more vicariously than any human could. Forte could no longer count how many mauled remains of slogs, wolves, deer, sheep, and even a wyvern that he had come across. He was fortunate to have not come across anything more dangerous than a wolf so far, but he knew that his luck would have to run out some time. He was mentally prepared—his plan to deal with anything the size of a wyvern or larger was to cast a powerful illusory Infernus spell of a fiery dragon or something similar and retreat as the animal was distracted. He was not defenseless by himself, but he would very much prefer if Nightmare was by his side, as he always was before.

Nightmare still couldn’t be contacted telepathically. Forte was worrying now, because it clearly wasn’t an issue of distance—he was less than a week away by foot if the weather cleared and the terrain stopped shifting.

As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, Forte also noticed numerous traces of orcs moving in force across the countryside. That must have been what Frank was talking about in the letter—he had already seen several abandoned cooking pots scattered with deer bone, makeshift tents and camps that could fit twenty human adults, and the tell-tale bone tooth necklaces that orcs used as ornamentation.

Orcs were known to sometimes raid small outpost towns, but generally they had no reason to encroach human territory. According to A Modern History of the World, orcs were seasonally nomadic. They grew crops during the summer months, and would migrate with herds of buffolaur mammoths during the winter months when food was scarce and crops weren’t enough to sustain their entire population. However, they would generally return to their settled lands once the harsh winter months were over.

And that was why this behavior was alarmingly different. For some reason, the orcs were now migrating en masse, and as far as Forte could tell, they were bringing everything with them, even their camps.