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C48: The Town of Granitehill

  As Leanna vanished into the endless expanse of grass, Daw a moment sidering her options. She was unsure how far the town was, as she couldn’t see any sign of it, but decided to keep traveling, at least for a while. She didn’t need much light to set up camp, after all, given that she could create her own.

  With a quiod to herself, she returned and hooked herself back to the cart, resumiravel along the road. As the sun began to set, she finally crested a hill, spotting the town in the distanbsp; Something about it felt wrong, but she couldn’t identify why exactly.

  sidering the distance for a moment, she figured it was too much more distao cover today, and began burning a se of grass down, as she had in the days prior. Once she had a clear area, she pulled her cart into it and begaing up her camp, setting Niphru down nearby the fire as she finished ving it to burn more slowly than natural.

  Once her tent was erected and had the furs pced inside, she grabbed the cooking supplies from the cart and began to cook some soup for the two of them to eat. As she used the magic tool to summon water, she noticed it was funing much slower than before, and decided to take another look at the town while waiting.

  After a moment of examining it, she realized why she felt it was wrong somehow. There was no sign of any walls around the town, just buildings with roads along the outside. She could uand why once she thought about it a bit, as there was almost no life out here, but it just felt wrong after having spent her whole life inside a walled vilge.

  Shaking her head at the absurdity of it, she returned back to the fire, waiting a while more for the pot to fill up enough before disabling and rec the magic stone. After returning it to the cart and adding food to the pot to simmer, she sat down beside Niphru. After pig him up and putting him in her p, she begaing him and scratg behind his ears.

  Today had been much more stressful than she had thought at first, and she found herself rexing finally as she spent time sitting with Niphru. With a sigh, she shook her head and tried to think of her pns for tomorrow instead of dwelling ohoughts of today. She knew she had to find the lord of the town and speak to him, but she was uain how to go about that.

  Likewise, she was uain how to go about entering the town. Her vilge had guarded gates, and surely the town wouldn’t just let aer, even if it didn’t have a wall like every settlement clearly should. In the end, she decided she would just see how things went tomorrow, then put Niphru back down and checked on the soup again.

  Finding it to be cooked well enough, she poured some of it into a bowl, waiting for it to cool enough to eat. O was suffitly cooled to be edible, she helped Niphru eat his fill, thehe rest. After ing the dishes with some more water from the magic stone, she put everything bato the cart and brought Niphru into the tent to sleep for the night.

  Upon waking up, Dawn peeked outside the tent, finding it was still dark out. She was uo fall back asleep however, and seeing that Niphru was awake as well, decided to pack up and start heading towards the town.

  Attempting to create a light orb was signifitly more difficult than she normally found it, almost all the energy ing from within herself rather than shaping the ambient mana. Thinking back to the time it took to produce water the night before, she recalled being told that mana was scarce within the inner se of the humaory. From what she had been told, the vilges were the bulwark against the wilds, standing at the boundary where mana was strong, while beyond them humanity kept life as rare as possible to cut down on mana geion, making it safer.

  While thinking about this, she swiftly packed up her camp, settling Niphru ba her hood in the process. As she finished up, she paced along the edge of the cleared area, searg in the dim light to make sure she had not fotten anything. Fortunately, it appeared she had gottehing packed on the first try, so she hooked herself up to the cart and headed back to the road.

  As she tiowards the town, she dimmed her light further to serve her mana a floating ahead of herself, keeping it just light enough to see the road ahead of her. About an hour and a half ter, she noticed the sky finally starting to lighten up along the horizon, though it was still too dark to dispel her light.

  Just as it began to be bright enough to see normally, she approached the town, spotting a few patrols of guards along the outer roads. Upon spotting them, she increased the brightness of her orb of light, and began heading towards the patrol. As she did so, she noticed one of them pointing her out to the others, and the patrol turned and began moving towards her at a rexed pace.

  Ohe guards had arrived, one of them stepped forward to greet her, giving a slight bow as they spoke, “Greetings, traveler, I must say I have never seen a mage so young. Had you not been using magelight, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.”

  Dawn chuckled slightly, responding, “I hought it was odd, myself, but this is the first time I’ve left my vilge. I was asked to take a message to our mutual lord along my way to the capital for more training. Is there anything I o do to have permission to ehe town?”

  The man shook his head as he expined, “Mages are always wele to enter, as long as you accept an escort and agree not to use yi a harmful or disruptive manner. Do you accept these ditions?”

  Seeing as how the restris were so light, and she had no iion to cause trouble to begin with, Dawn immediately nodded her assent. Seeing this, one of the guards in the back seemed to rex signifitly, while the leader o her.

  He waved one of the uards forward, a short woman wearing scale mail and carrying a spear. As she advanced from the group, she pced her fist over her heart and bowed towards Dawn.

  Straightening up, she excimed, “Greetings, honored mage. It is my duty to escort you while you remain within Granitehill. So long as you do not cause any trouble, I shall do what I to assist you in any manner I am capable of.”

  Seeing his subordinate’s respectful greeting, the leader of the guard patrol nodded and motioned for his group to follow him as he tinued onward.

  Meanwhile Dawn stood there for a moment, shocked at the treatment she was getting. As she recovered, she shook her head towards the guardswoman, telling her, “I am not fortable with being addressed so formally. While I do have magic, I’m still a beginner and young. Please just call me Dawn. What is your name?”

  She could see the woman was flicted as she deyed answering, and tinued, “Really, I mean it. If you are worried about others thinking you are disrespectful, maybe I could write down that I am fih it?”

  That seemed to calm her, and she nodded, handing over a small notepad and pencil from her pack as she replied, “That would help a great deal, I do not wish to lose my job for not addressing you properly. My name is Lara.”

  Dawn nodded as she wrote a short note and hahe supplies back, saying, “I think that is somewhat silly, but I don’t know how all this stuff works, you know? But I certainly don’t want to cause any problems for anyone.”

  After reading the he woman smiled, tug it into her pack again before speaking, “Thank you, Dawn. I wish others would be so thoughtful. You said you were needing to speak to Lord Jerald, correbsp; He generally doesn’t accept visitors until midday. Is there anything else you hat we take care of before then?”

  Dawn sidered for a moment before asking, “I am not sure what all to do, do you have any suggestions? Perhaps finding somewhere to stay for the night?”

  Immediately as she said that, she jerked in surprise, turning towards the cart and rummaging around in a panibsp; “Oh no, I fot t any money with me!” she excimed.

  A ugh from behind her caused her to stop in shod turn around, seeing Lara trying to keep in her ughter and failing. Lara choked out, “You hardly need money, you are a mage! If you must, you could always assist someone, but as long as you don’t ask for anything major, the costs will be covered for you. Even if no one is willing to pay for you, being able to say a mage desires yoods or services is a great way to attract others.”

  Dawn was baffled by this statement, staring at Lara with wide eyes. Seeing her expression, Lara couldn’t help but resume ughing.

  Once she finally calmed down, Lara shook her head at the young mage before prog, “Since you seem to care about paying for things, robably get you into the best inn we have here. Are you able to recharge mana stones?”

  Dawn nodded, stating, “My mother made sure I knew how and got a fair amount of practice, calling it a vital skill for any mage.”

  Lara smiled as she replied, “That is good. No one is supposed to bee a pre without that skill, but, as my captain said, you are incredibly young, so I didn’t want to assume anything without verification. Let's go get a pce to stay.”

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