Wait, did we accidentally head back east?

Luckily Livia did not quite speak the dumb words out loud, but she was not alone in having the thought. The Legume however, was on the north side of the city… They would obviously have noticed crossing all the way through the congested downtown.

But as it turns out, this really was uhm— a town called Dormat.

Apparently the founders of the town on the eastern side of the capital–where Livia and the [Guild] had first arrived–were all a bunch of thieves and fakes, and "couldn’t think of a an original name of their own to save their life, the stupid phonies!" Or some such. Which went some ways to explain things.

But it merely took another minute before they heard the other side of that story, as the local villagers went on and on until they were overheard, as a local [Merchant] came traveling through from behind them, with his cart full of ore. The man objected strongly to these claims: “You lot burned down! What, did you reckon you had rights to the name forever?”

The ensuing argument let them know how this town, which they were currently standing in, had apparently burned down fully; and had then not even started being rebuilt for close to two full years afterward... And yes, during that time, a new town had grown up on the other side of the lake... And well; they'd needed a name. A man who'd lost his home, and was missing his own hometown greatly had come up with the suggestion, and it was gladly accepted.

How were they to know this town was eventually gonna crawl its way back? And another thing, if…

The [Guild] had slowly backed away, doing their damnedest not to be noticed, so luckily they were spared the rest of how that argument went.

Livia palmed her hips and looked for a place where they could stash their gear for the night. But alright, so we’re really back, in Dormat, in a way... How is that a name worth calling original anyway, you just removed one letter from the nearby capital you're a suburb of, geez.

They stabled the animals at the local tavern and got settled in, and then proceeded to discuss some adjustments to how they would organize themselves tomorrow, since they’d all gotten a taste of marching today and could picture it more easily. Not just what order to walk in, but how to react in terms of wild animals or other dangers. Finally only their beds on the upstairs floor of the inn awaited.

Come the morrow the 2nd phase of the expedition got started for real.

The tan and green owl from the southern Doc Forrest spent a few hours following the road north, and then he scouted out the surroundings of a likely spot that had caught his eyes.

Algernon had not needed to look for long until he found what he wanted; this forest was quite similar to its southern counterpart, albeit with more of an ancient ambience. Rather than clear floors covered in leaves, boulders and ferns–here you found far more giant, fallen and now rotting logs, dark mosses, mushrooms & strange fungus that grew unchecked in the dank. Could use a good forest fire this place… Where about’s a black kite to spread some flames when you need it? Those little feathery bastards love to get a blaze going.

But up here above, things were very much the same: The same types of trees and the same level of foliage, nests and burrows.

It made him feel home again after the smelly horror of that complete shock to the senses that was Dormata… Never again, not until he could make his complaints loud and clear anyway. That Cloven fortress had been the one place that looked rather nice, even inviting.

Anyway; what he found was a pair of anthills just like the ones from his original set-up, maybe even a bit larger. And it took him hours, but eventually he coaxed their patrols into moving over to where he needed, and he even found another hive along the way to target for later. Before long, after just a few more manipulations had turned the ant armies towards each other in all out wars of aggression, Algernon observed them vying for supremacy between the two hives, who would have usually found each other after a few more seasons of growth and likely stayed clear to expand in different directions.

Instead they had now both been convinced that they had stumbled upon the same holy land located over the ridge; where the resources required to take their Queens to the next level would be found.

Algernon was fitting to live like a king again, while he waited for the others to catch up.

The days passed slowly, and Algernon grew bored. When he left the capital behind it had only been their second day there.

As he went out exploring he circled wider and wider from his chosen location. He had come face to face with a [Hunter] on the fourth day, but it seemed she mistook Algernon for someone’s pet or hunting companion because of his laurel crown–and impressive eyebrows. Almost correct, little Human, almost.

So apparently it was not safe for larger birds around here, so close to the roads; but all it meant was that the young owl had no other competitors in the area.

Late that evening was when he found a naturally occurring orchard of pear and apple trees in a big unkempt mix; but it was evident that the fruits had gotten too much sun this week, thousands of apples had fallen to the ground and looked to be spoiling all over.

But the place had a strange aura too, or was it just the smell? It smelled like fermenting. It smelled familiar.

Algernon decided to try it out, even if it could not match the kind of stuff he’d been given by the [Druid], it might at least be enough to get him buzzed. If I've gotten lucky with the glade's affinity?

Hours later, finding one small pear and apple shot to the dome after another, the bored owl was stumbling along when he detected familiar movement in the periphery. He didn’t even think; he just went at them: the mice who had dared to also come nibble at the hard-earned fruits of his exploration…

He broke their necks before they could hear him coming, then crunched them down in quicks gulps. It was the perfect snack after his several hours of slowly getting tipsier and tipsier, and now that he knew to look; he found three mice more in a jiffy.

And that obviously got him tuckered out, since it turned out the rodents hadn’t just been here to eat fruit, but to target the same stuff he was... These damn rodents were alcoholics…

That’s how the owl spent days five and six.

On that first day after leaving Dormat, the reformed expedition ventured out onto the forest road, and made for Glendale, the final Human bastion to be found in the direction of Cloven lands.

They were told there should be smaller villages even after that, closer to the border, but to check with the people that lived near there for specifics, since things change quickly and sometimes violently.

This was also apparently because of how people in the area tended to move around a lot, mostly to switch places as new areas grew increasingly dangerous–or if some village had found some new source of goods to turn to silver, causing somewhat of a silverrush from surrounding villages–even leading to full abandonment in some cases. Both sides of the border had their share of greedy folk to stay mindful of.

But the road up until Glendale was still a bit more civilized, in that it had one of the fissureducts–which Livia had learned since the early days–was what they called the aqueduct-like rails that you could hang your heavy packs on. Unfortunately they only had one of the ball bearing pulleys for it, having not thought to get more since they were only going by the mainroad for the first few days, and since they had the three horses and and two oxen to pull and carry stuff as well, all in addition to Oscar’s ostrich of course.

At least their [Carpenter] Joel had one of his own, which was probably a good thing considering what his full satchel of tools must weigh.

Things had been going well so far, with only Albert raising a few complaints at not having been at least offered the opportunity to stay behind and keep an eye on the markets with Ronia, he still had a long list of new bars and drinks to get to–since the new people he was always meeting and drinking with always ended up adding on more.

But once they reminded him of how he was a [Travelling Brewer] now, they began arguing how this was all about what he needed to do for levels, how he'd have an even better time at those bars once he was a supplier and someone who had contributed to the scene he was taking part in; and that helped to silence him eventually. But then just minutes later Albert started looking fearfully around, suddenly focused on every bit of difference in this forest compared to home; on learning if new dangers lurked behind every unfamiliar bush. At least he ended up pointing out every strange plant to Alfred, who would then often bring them along in his gathering-satchel.

Harold could only shake his head at the scaredy-cat. The [Druid] had been feeling trapped in Dormata for too long, with no teachers in sight, and was finally feeling like he could breathe freely again out here in his familiar affinity. he probably should have done more to find some other things to do while they were still in the capital, but hearing that you needed to head deep into the forests to find the highest levels [Druids] had just made him want to get the preparatory stage of their expedition over and done with, as soon as possible. Now it was time to keep an eye out for any potential familiars of hidden masters.

Harold had still gone to visit the [Druids] who primarily worked with gardening again, mostly to check on if they grew anything exciting for their clients that he might be allowed to purchase on the cheap. As it turned out, they had plenty.

But the air was truly different out here, with every glade and meadow having its own distinct feel and smell.

By the end of their day his [Bond of the Forest] felt almost like it had reawakened when he flared it, and Roldy decided he could take on the task of scouting ahead with Hyde to find them a good camping spot.

They settled their second day after having gone past a few villages, since they had all sort of started to blend together over the hours, each one not so different at all from the Dormat and the Solhems they’d been through already. The farms in between the villages was the first thing that got left behind, only showing up rarely after a certain point.

It was while most of them were in an argument over how many villages they had passed through–which turned out to start only because one group was simply forgetful, and the two others had counted and not counted a particularly large farm, which had outlying farms along the forest line as well, but all run by family members, meaning that: Not a village, apparently. Only to get interrupted mid-stride during the lecture on what constituted a village, and by the drunkest bird any of them had ever seen. Algernon made his return in real, stumbling style and for some reason he was walking rather than flying. He even made it all the way up to their fire before he collapsed and looked like he started suddenly dry heaving.

They all felt bad of course, and got Harold to heal him as soon as he was able to control his laughter enough to focus with his newly upgraded [Regenerating Boon], which ought to be far less reliant on the target's constitution, and instead lent them a strength akin to the [Druid] himself.

As soon as he managed it, Roldy returned to laughing uproariously, while Algernon seemed to be struggling to control his suddenly aquired hiccup, which prompted even the most sympathetic among the crew to allow a chuckle for a bit. He got up and stumbled around some more, but seemed more in control now, but hardly any less drunk. Did my healing reactivate the spent alcohol? Hm, because of it being a poison of nature affinity?

This seemed really over the top so it made them all end up looking at the funny owl in a big circle, but only Harold was laughing so hard he couldn't stay upright, while tears were streaming down his face. Especially Redd's honestly perplexed face set Roldy off even worse, but eventually he managed to squeeze out a few wheezing words of explanation: “I wish so much you could all hear his voice,”