“Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer. That way when you need to stab one you won’t have to go too far to do the deed. The friend or the enemy, you ask? Yes.” - Saying attributed to Xaliburnus the Conqueror, First Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

After a week of staying in Anlef and the elven village of Hrinsfjord, Aideen and her charges bid their farewells and departed towards the south.

From Anlef, they took a southern route and visited a couple other villages and small towns further south, before they took a turn to the south-west and headed for one of the mountain passes that connected Vinjaun to its neighboring Jarldoms. The mountain pass they chose would lead them straight to the north-west of the Jarldom of Beruslav.

That area was sparsely populated and equally sparsely patrolled, so from there, it was simplicity itself for the group to simply walk over towards the border with Vitalica to the west and cross it. It was not like the Vitalicans neglected their border, but they didn’t have that much manpower with how much troops they needlessly devoted on their border with Ptolodecca, which left their border with Beruslav undermanned.

As such, they had only set up checkpoints and small forts near or on the main roads that connected Vitalica to the Jarldom. They had nowhere near enough manpower to watch the uninhabited lands or forests by the border as well. Aideen abused this fact by simply leading her group through one such forest and easily entering Vitalica discreetly in that manner.

Once inside Vitalica, they changed their clothes a little bit. Aideen and Kino put on cloaks and hoods to keep their oddly pale skin – one of the most telltale signs of an Unliving – hidden, whereas the siblings simply displayed their long, pointed ears openly, the three pretending to be traveling elves from the neighboring Jarldom, while Aideen and Kino playing the role of local guides.

Fortunately the Vitalicans still spoke the same tongue they had as when Aideen’s family was still in charge, and what language drift took place over the centuries wasn’t much. She could easily pass for a local with her fluency in the local tongue, while Kino would play the interpreter between her and the elves instead, as she too had some knowledge of the language but wasn’t as fluent as Aideen.

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It would make people think that she was a foreigner hired by the elves to interpret for them, which was what they wanted.

Like so, they traveled on the main road after they thought it was far enough away from the border checkpoint so as not to draw suspicion on themselves. Elves weren’t that common in the land that now called itself Vitalica, so the three siblings drew attention no matter what they did, but that was fine, because that helped direct the attention away from Aideen and Kino.

People had a habit of neglecting the minor, less memorable characters when there were other, more interesting characters present after all, and the sight of three elves who were clearly family to each other traveling together was plenty to divert most people's attention. For those who were more circumspect, the way Aideen talked fluently in the local tongue washed away their suspicion quickly.

Given the circumstances that led to its rebellion back then, the present Vitalica had a strong prejudice against anything related to the undead, which in their misguided thoughts included the Unliving. As such, keeping Aideen and Kino’s identity as unliving a secret was necessary for them to walk the land untroubled. The siblings on the other hand had a much easier time bluffing the locals by pretending to be foreigners. They were fluent in several languages – though not Vitalica’s – and simply chatted with each other in the tongue common to the Jarldom to further sell the disguise.

Their disguise held up well, partly since they were not dealing with skilled investigators who might have noticed minor flaws in them, but partly also because everyone in the group had gone through training or worked with the Death’s Hand for some time. None of them were strangers on how to avoid unwanted attention while in disguise inside hostile territory.

To be honest, Aideen worried more about the Vitalican locals compared to her small group. She had expected certain things, but what she witnessed was beyond her expectations. The standard of living of the villages they ran across were so poor that they were barely better than when the land was still under Junoran rule, where the villagers were merely considered as livestock that could be transformed into thralls and puppets at will.

Instead of thralls, they were now serfs. The Vitalicans had clearly adopted a nobility system that was far from uncommon in the world, albeit one that focused on the benefits of the people at the top at the expense of those below them more than usual. The serfs of a village had little to themselves. Not even the land they lived and worked on was theirs, and even their homes were considered property of the landed noble that ‘ruled’ over the area.

Those that worked the land and toiled all their lives had most of their harvest taken away as taxes by their lords, with only barely enough left for them to sustain their lives with. In years where harvests were poor, people – more often than not children, the old, or the weak – died of starvation. Yet even in years with abundant harvest, the excess was still taken away and the serfs were left with just enough to keep themselves alive.

Perhaps to quell the dissatisfaction and unrest that was bound to build up due to the heavy taxation, priests from the local temples often preached to the serfs that to suffer in life was worthwhile, as they would be rewarded for their hard work in the afterlife. That left a bad taste in Aideen’s mouth as she recalled how similar it was to the cultist her group ran into back in the north.