The next week or so was quiet which was a nice change of pace. Ratface enjoyed spending time with her friends without some goal right in front of them. She’d been so focused on one task to the other later that just walking with the wagon was a nice change of pace.

  It was also boring, but Ratface figured it couldn’t all be positive. At least things were better with her and Albert. There was still a little sadness there knowing that their paths would eventually break apart, but Ratface had faith that they’d join up when they needed to. That was for a future her to worry about. The current her was instead engaged at looking at roads.

  A while ago they had come into the human lands properly, the way she could tell? All the roads were paved. Not just paved either but covered in runes. She recognised them as for maintenance and cleaning.

  “Welcome to the lands of The Lady, my old home,” said Abigail. She looked down at the roads fondly.

  “It’s nice of them to pave the main road,” said Tiffany.

  “Oh, this isn’t a main road, this level of quality makes it look like it might be a hunting trail?” said Abigail.

  The rest of the wagon stopped and looked at the knight.

  “Are you saying every path is like this?” asked Albert.

  “If it is a sanctioned path in The Lady’s lands, then yes it will be.”

  Ratface’s eyes widened. In terms of statements in power, this was a definitive one. A reminder to their neighbours that all of their land was accessible. The sheer amount of rune casters they must have.

  “How do they keep it all powered?” Ratface asked. She focused on the road itself but just saw a thick line of mana coming off of it. Abigail looked pleased at the question.

  “It’s quite clever, one of the first great projects. Most of our cities were built on or around places of great mana. The main roads have additional runes to direct the mana around the country which paths likes these can tap into.”

  “Wouldn’t the mana run out?” asked Albert. Ratface thought she heard Kryssa scoff, but the girl looked innocent when Ratface looked at her. Abigail gave the glamour a hard look.

  “Another good question. Mana can’t really run out. As a natural caster you have limits but that’s just what your body can take. Similarly, what I can draw and store from the world isn’t limitless either. The beauty of this set up is it is a perfect circuit. There’s always mana flowing through and the constant circulation means whenever it’s ‘used’ it’s pulled back into the current. In theory it could be stopped, but you’d have to do the equivalent of drinking an ocean in one gulp.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “That’s amazing,” said Ratface, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  “Yes, you have,” said Kryssa, her face grim. Ratface looked at her in confusion then blinked as she realised the glamour was right. It was from the memories the glamour had kept from her originally. She remembered the feeling of something in the air in the elven city. It had only stopped when she’d gone into goblin lands.

  “They kept us away from mana,” said Ratface. The glamour grimaced and pat her shoulder. Ratface sat reeling. She didn’t understand why the elves would even bother keeping them cut off from something like that.

  The others looked at her in concern, but Ratface waved it off.

  “Elves hurting goblins isn’t a new concept for me,” she said. If anything that made them look at her with more concern. A goblin would’ve laughed. Halmir jumped onto her shoulder in his rat form. She gave his nose a boop.

  “How far is the closest town?” Ratface asked in a desperate attempt to move the conversation forward.

  “About another week,” said Abigail, “hopefully they’ll have some warm clothes we can buy too. It gets cold in the central lands.

  A week later and they found themselves looking at not a town. Well, there might be one, Ratface mused, it was difficult to tell behind the checkpoint. It was a blue wall of mana. Abigail looked at it with a frown.

  “This is new,” she said.

  They got closer and the wall flashed. Abigail paused and a voice rang out.

  “State your name and business.”

  “Abigail, I’m just passing through. I have a group of new adventurers with me.”

  “Understood, scanning now.”

  “Wait,” said Abigail, but she was too late. A blue flash covered them all followed by part of the wall covering in runes and going red. Ratface edged behind the knight.

  “You have a goblin and a magical creature in your party,” said the voice. Ratface noticed as she started to glow red.

  “I’m no creature,” Kryssa hissed from behind her. Ratface looked back to see she was glowing too.

  “That’s why I told you to wait,” said Abigail. She’d stayed calm during all of this and Ratface suspected her presence was all that was keeping them from finding out what those runes did.

  “The goblin is a registered adventurer, and the creature is a sentient spirit. I vouch for both of them.” She pulled her sword from her back and stabbed it into the wall. The runes disappeared and the two of them stopped glowing. Kryssa still looked outraged, but Ratface tugged her behind the knight.

  “Authority acknowledged Rune Knight. Unfortunately, we can’t let you in.” Now that Abigail had vouched for them, the voice seemed more relaxed. They even seemed apologetic.

  “Why not?”

  “The area is currently under quarantine. A magical creature similar to yours is in the are and this border will remain closed until it’s found.”

  “What sort of creature?” asked Abigail.

  “A shifting spirit.”

  Abigail grimaced.

  “Well, that complicates things,” she said. She turned back to the group. “Well, how about we sort out this problem ourselves then shall we?” she asked.

  Ratface sighed, another horrible creature to deal with. She shouldn’t have called the journey boring.