Now alone in his room Jason is planning what to do next. The forest was nice but likely the animals will lie low for a few more days. The big ruckus from the kidnaping attempt would have sent everything into hiding.

“I want to leave sometime around noon. My pack is all ready as I didn’t have time to use any of my supplies and I replaced the used rations. Now I need a direction to head in. The way the others are going isn’t any good. While they keep some hunting grounds the deeper into the kingdom, it is all controlled. They wouldn’t let someone at my level anywhere near the challenge I want. Sigh, where should I go?”

After a bit more of chasing his tail there is a knock on the door. This gets his attention as the only ones who know where he was staying were the other two and they left at dawn. Answering the door he is greeted by Penny.

“Hello Penny, what brings you here? Specifically, here as I don’t remember telling you I was staying here. Oh, and come on in.”, and Jason steps to the side and gestures her into the room.

Penny accepts his invitation and enters the room. Once Jason closes the door she explains, “Well I had to rush around this morning. Your friends both wanted to leave at dawn so I had to catch them. The three of you forgot to finish handing in your chain quest about that wolfkin. While I was handing out the rewards, I ferreted out where you were staying. Anyway, congratulations on digging out another bit of corruption from my town.” and she hands him a few silver coins. With that the quest complete screen popped up, and it gave him enough xp to hit level 5.

Seeing his surprised look Penny smirks before explaining, “The others in your group were level capped. Now that doesn’t change how rewards are handed out however I gave them the option to trade their share of the xp for a proportionate amount of your money reward. Normally I would ask you first but we all know your situation. So yeah, you just got 3 people's worth of a chain quest completion.”

Jason is silent for a moment then responds, “Okay, fair enough. It isn’t like I will have a lot more chances to earn money before level 10. Plus, most people would pay out the nose to buy xp. Though since you did this without even asking I have a favor to ask of you.”

Penny scowls but Jason raises his hand to stop her, “I want nothing from you except some wisdom. At the moment the usefulness of staying in this town has ended. Sure you and Andrew are here but my choices for a fight are the turtles, normal animals, or goblins. None of them are very conducive to what I need. As it is, I have always hit above my level. With my xp reduction the only way I can see to reach the bottleneck in a reasonable time frame is to take advantage of that. Now I can’t just take the same route they did as the farther into the kingdom the more controlled any entry into danger zones is. They wouldn’t let me touch anything too above my level with a ten-foot pole. Can you suggest a destination with some higher level threats for me to test myself against?”

Penny’s face lightens after hearing his request. “Well, I guess I could give you trip advice and that first bit is correct. For the other two it is perfect as several dungeons that way have been groomed into perfect places for Travellers to break through the second bottleneck. You, however, need a different challenge. With that in mind it is sad that you got mixed up with that wolfkin pup. While they aren’t exactly friendly to new Travellers your personal power would have earned you respect there. That and the land is more primal. If I had to compare them with this kingdom, it would be the difference between an old growth forest and a tree farm. Now the actual people with power over there like you. They have been trying to find someone to make an example of for a while. Sadly, the petty local tyrants are who you would meet and you snubbed one of them. Planning your trip is actually hard.”

Rubbing her head Penny sits down on the bed, “This is a tough one. If it was a few years ago, then I would send you down the river. However, we had a navy detachment pass through and they culled most of the serious threats to ease trade. Let me take out my map real quick.” and she reaches into a belt pouch and rummages around. Then with a flourish she pulls out a giant map that takes up an entire bear skin. After spreading it out on the bed she shows Jason how it works. Though he quickly catches on as while magical, the map acts similar to a map app on a phone.

After Penny is sure he understands what is going on and mutters to herself how Travellers never get surprised enough at it she zooms in on their current location. “Okay, now this map only shows the kingdom we are in but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for the moment. Here we are on this river. The source is that big mountain next to those plains. Going that way is useless as that is our kingdoms main farming area. Most of the farmers there don’t even bother breaking through the second bottleneck. The biggest threat there are horned rabbits. I don’t know how they did it but they’ve even routed out almost all the feral goblins.”

Then Penny gestures upriver, tracing it with her finger, “This way isn’t too helpful either. While the river bends around the mountain, it isn’t enough to stop it from just going straight into the kingdom you want to avoid. That’s why we had the ambassador posted here in the first place. Though I suspect that from now on the kingdom will avoid having foreign officials in any of our starter towns. Besides that, as I mentioned the navy came through so the river itself is peaceful and should stay that way for at least a few more years.”

Next she points at the mountain which Jason can see is actually a part of a chain. Penny then zooms in on a few, “These mountains here contain dwarven outposts. While technically the mountain chain is in our territory, the Emperor brokered a deal with the closest Mountainhome. In exchange for favorable trade deals the land belongs to the dwarves in all but name and they don’t like people just tromping about their land. The only reason we still even own them on paper is we allow anything produced there to be exempt from tariffs as it is still technically ours. We also look the other way when things made of stuff that can’t be found there somehow pop up in the market. Though that is more so we can have more of the dwarven specialty products. A good set of dwarven style full plate is worth more to the empire than a few gold in tariffs.”

Penny adjusts the map once again, “This leaves going away from the mountains as your best bet. Still that leaves about 2 routes for you.”