“To see distant brethren of yours after a long separation does not always mean a good thing.” - Old Folk saying.

After a week of rest at Ginnie’s little mansion, Aideen continued her journey northwards. She had once again used the disguise potion she had used when she first landed on Alcidea, which dyed her skin with a light, healthy tan. Given how her teachings had spread quite widely in eastern Posuin and the vicinity of the Holy Kingdom from there, she thought it was better to disguise herself a bit to remain incognito.

From Ginnie’s mansion to the north of Knallgant, it took her another three weeks of travel before she reached the northern border of Knallzog, which they shared with the former Regency and now the Holy Kingdom. Bærengant, the north-westernmost region of Knallzog, an area equivalent to a Duchy in Posuin, served as a barrier that guarded the border.

The mountainous region, with a mountain range that had neatly covered most of the border on the dwarven side, was a natural barrier, doubly so with how the dwarves built forts and reinforced bunkers all over the mountains themselves, with a single, large fort town that blocked the one valley that provided easy access through the mountains. Any traffic that wished to pass the mountain range either had to brave the guarded mountains or pass through said fort.

Aideen had a marquee letter from Ginnie with her and faced no difficulty passing through the bustling fort. Like most dwarven citadels, the fort was entirely military in nature, with a thriving city underneath the fortifications instead. She stayed there for another week as she collected more information and hearsay about the neighboring country from the locals.

Despite how surveillance on the other side of the border was rather lax - just several watchtowers and small outposts here and there - Aideen eventually opted to enter the holy Kingdom through the mountains, as to have walked through the fort would have rendered her a bit too conspicuous. She did just that as she crossed through the mountain on a more deserted side of the border, and snuck past the watch on the other side.

Unlike most nations which guarded their borders vigilantly, the Holy Kingdom seemed to have focused their military more towards the center, treating their further territories as expendables. Aideen was not sure whether it was because they lacked the manpower after the recent civil war, or for some other reasons. She spotted no large military structures until she was much closer to the center of the region either way, so the setup was likely a leftover from the Regency days.

As for the local populace, what caught her attention the most was how devout they were in their worship of the gods. To be fair, such a sight was not that strange to her, as the populace of Ptolodecca was no less worshipful, even if they worshiped different deities. That said, it still struck her as odd to see poor village folk who looked like they had barely anything to spare still donating alms freely to the churches, which seemed far too opulent for her liking.

Places of worship being grand was not something odd. Churches and chapels in Ptolodecca were grandly built by default, but they were also funded by a populace that lived in plenty and thus had a lot to spare freely. It felt odd to see the same grandness paired with a populace that seemed like they lived on the edge, but at least those villagers had not seemed to be forced to donate.

Most villagers she passed through were relatively small, poor farming villages, with a few cattles here and there. Maybe one in four villages had a larger ranch of sorts, and many of them also showed signs of leftover damage from the civil war decades ago. At some places it was the ruins of damaged or burnt buildings on the outskirts that were never rebuilt and simply left as it was, while in other cases, entire villages had been left in ruins that were not repopulated and rebuilt yet.

That said, the public order seemed to be pretty well kept all considered. Aideen saw patrols many times during her travels - nobody paid much attention to her, having taken her to be just another random traveler on the road - and banditry seemed nonexistent as far as she could tell. The villagers also seemed to genuinely respect the military patrols, which was a rare sight to see.

All too often such patrols in many nations she had been to abused their position to extort either money or other favors from villages they passed, so seeing ones that were respected was a good omen. For their own part the patrol members seemed polite enough to the villagers, and met them with honest smiles

When she reached one of the large cities in the Holy Kingdom, a large, walled city by the lakeside named Norouz, she saw a more bustling side to the economy. For a city a single generation past a devastating civil war, the place seemed prosperous enough, if on the poorer side for a city that size.

The presence of several large churches near the center of the city had not surprised her, given the religious bent she had seen of the populace. Aideen had not liked how some of the priests likely abused their positions for less priestly reasons - easy to notice given how some of them were plump or positively rotund compared to the mostly skinny populace - but she knew that most places had never managed to rid themselves of corruption within their ranks.

After all, not every nation could be like the Lichdom and simply execute anyone found guilty of such things.

That said, one thing disturbed Aideen in particular. The locals, even the priests who gave sermons, often touted ideologies that seemed to place humans like themselves at the top, and viewed other races as their lessers, only suitable to serve as sale labor or worse in their point of view.

Such human-centric views reminded her a bit too much on what her parents had told her when she was young, about why her uncle and many who followed him had left their nation to look for a new home beyond the seas, so she went and investigated further.