Micky nervously looked around. This is the first time he was taking the low roads and he was twitching at every little thing. Prin thought it was hilarious so she grabbed a mouse and threw the squeaky thing at him. Micky’s teen screech made everybody laugh.

Then Pepperoni figured it was a hunting competition. So she brought over a [Giant Mouse]. This got everyone but Micky shrieking. Prin glared at Pepperoni for ruining it. Micky laughed his ass off and gave Pepperoni all the loving pets she deserved… after the Rous was taken care of of course!

Micky gave out grey cloaks… and everybody looked at him strangely. Cloaks like this were good… if you were already doing something unseemly and didn’t want to be identified. Otherwise they drew more attention to you. Micky still put his on, but Prin, Maymay, and Mags abstained. Pepperoni took one though, she thought it made a great blanket for her to sleep on in the back!

Micky glared at them all again. He just wrapped himself tighter and put the hood up. Then back down because it was too hot. Prin rolled her eyes, the mouse she caught earlier was currently drowning in the wine. Not because she enjoyed torturing animals, she didn’t actually which is surprising… no, the wine was ordinary, if high quality. Maybe a bit too high quality. But that was the only thing suspicious about it. It was possible it was a slow acting poison, but prin doubted it.

No, the wine was fine. There was a play here, but Prin didn’t have enough pieces to fall into place. The only thing she was aware of was that there was fine wine, that one noble wanted to deliver to another. It could even be a red herring for all she could figure out, good wine wasn’t really suspicious aside from how suspicious it was…

Now that everybody was ready and dressed, leave alone that Micky was the only one that changed, they set off. The mule was a slow thing. It probably cost less than the actual cart itself, the pathetic thing. At least with Pepperoni around hunting Rous the mule was eager to keep up the pace.

Micky was not really feeling secure on the roads but he didn’t have much choice in the matter. It wasn’t really a security thing. It was the fact that the large caravans took up most of the road. This relegated him off to the side near the edge. He noticed a pattern in the other traffic. All of the small traffic was fast, and all of the large traffic was less maneuverable, but overbearing. The large traffic would force the smaller traffic out of the way as they barreled down the central parts.

Micky realized that this part wasn’t thought out by John. Since he was both slow and small there wasn’t much he could do about things. He really thought he was going to die when one of the merc fort wagons rolled down the street. It was a massive wagon, or a small castle. Complete with stone parapets and walls. Ballista were mounted up high and he could see the tips of catapults jutting out from behind the walls. The stone blocks had an interesting interlocking pattern that separated it from a normal stone castle however. This and the giant wheels that rumbled along were the only things though.

Micky was glad when it mad a turn and then started a fight with another moving castle… down the street and away from him. There were still stray arrows, and until the two castles collided, ballista fire rained down between them. As they clashed they forced out any and all other traffic between them. This actually forced several components of a large caravan off the road. That complicated things, because now the pissed off cavan owners got involved.

It all ended with a giant fireball that destroyed everything in the area… Or it should have, but people with glowing bird wings flew down from on high. These wings were clearly magic though, not angels or demons. It seemed that the incident was too much for the people above and they intervened. Not the way Micky thought it would go though, as they took away the caravan and pretty much left the two merc wagons to do as they pleased. Which was basically back to fighting the moment nobody, important, was looking.

Micky wondered how this was considered good security?... Then he remembered some snobish dwarf and elf competition that they dropped random passersby off the edge of the road above. Nobody did anything, and those that tried, or even spoke to them just become more ammunition. Apparently if your screaming victom landed on a low roads family it was worth ten points, but if it took them all out and nicked them off the roads it was worth 50 + an additional 10 for each person it knocked off.

Yeah, this was probably pretty safe. Micky could see those castle wagons costing a lot, so they probably weren’t as common as the dwarves and elves were.

Aside from the castle wagons, a group of bandits launched a two pronged assault on a medium caravan in front of Micky. Obviously he stopped and watched, maybe even backed up a little. The bandits were focused on their target, and didn’t bother with anybody that kept their nose out of it.

They launched the assault and were making headway with the caravan guards until they brought in their airship. It was a massive vessel, probably a frigate of a small ship o’ the line. She was beautiful, and Micky felt jealousy and wistfulness upon looking at her. She had several large ballast bags in two rows to keep her afloat. This is important....

So she launched harpoons in order to latch onto the caravan and started to haul it all up and away from the road. The caravan itself was larger than the ship, but it seemed to be handling if a bit of a struggle. That was until the caravan started popping holes into the ballast. Now she was off kilter, and sinking… Sinking with the caravan… Yeah… It was as bad as it sounded.

Now the pirates no longer had the initiative, and seeing their life fall down with the ship, if slowly, the caravan had gone berserk, if not [Berserk]. They started haking and slashing with abandon and pushed the bandits back. Not enough, they launched themselves onto the ship in order to take her as a prize, and hopefully rescue the caravan. This led to many of them simply falling into the abyss below. But it was doing the damage they wanted at least.

The last thing Micky saw was the ship slowly sinking with the caravan out of sight. He didn’t really want to linger so he pushed through the fighting. Other traffic saw what he was doing and started to push through on a side as well, the fighting didn’t really matter.

Now, the bandits and the caravan guards were stuck, they were still fighting each other. But now they were forced to a side or face the rest of traffic. They acquiesced a side of the road and continued their fight. It was and even pitched battle at that point, but one or the other side would wind up completely wiped out or bust.

After all that, Micky made it to the first of the designated shops…

“Hello, and good evening! And what can Markel’s Emporium do for you?! If you need a [Wondrous] item Merkel’s is the place to find it or else!” Stated the shopkeeper. He somehow kept an excited and expectant tone, body language, and expression all while emitting physical waves of just how bored and apathetic he was.

“Um, we’re actually here to sell. We have some wine you might be interested in.” Stated Micky.

“Oh no, you wouldn’t be interested in turning around would you? No? Please?” Stated the shopkeep. Micky just looked at him confusedly.

“Drats, well bring it in then. As you surely know, Markel has a bounty for wine and is willing to pay a premium. And Markel’s Mother the Marquise has heavy incentives to keep him away from wine, and the subsequent parties that he throws to celebrate with his ‘friends’. I think the last time he literally painted the right duke’s town red. It was actually tastefully done and had gold trim. From my understanding the duke kept it that way for some time afterward. This did not prevent him from taking the reparations however… Or securing an invite to Markel’s next party either...” Stated the shopkeep conversationally. Micky figured that the boy just wanted to vent a bit.

“Alright, I’ve checked the wine, it is of a moderate quality with no spiritual or magical properties. Neet trick you did with the mouse there, drunk off his furry ass, but otherwise fine. Though we have much better detection methods in house. In total I will give you 5986.77.42 and I have rounded up the Bits for you.” Stated the clerk.

“Ahh, and we’re selling the cart and the mule as well.” Stated Micky. A frown appeared on the face of the clerk.

“Hmm, well than how about 4257.63.31? If your selling us the mule and such I can’t give you as high of a price on the wine.” Stated the clerk.

“Then 5986.77.42 it is and you can take the mule and cart for free!” Micky said and started walking over to the counter.

“No wait, we can talk about this! Really, you can sell your mule and cart somewhere else? Please?” Pleaded the clerk.