When dawn broke on a new day Alexei felt as if he were a new man. Gone were the troubles of the past and finally he was going to set out beyond the bounds of Alandria.It made him happy enough that he wanted to dance a jig.He imagined that when he told Neave the news she would probably follow suit. His original plan had been to leave Neave behind, but after thinking about it further he had realised that was unfair of him. The world was a dangerous place, and he wouldn't be able to keep Neave safe from it forever. If anything he'd already failed at that numerous times over. In any case, if the girl wanted to come with him he'd let her. He was also planning on asking Risa if she wanted to join him on his journey. He thought that she was likely to say no, after all she'd been pretty adamant at not getting involved in things that surrounded the Assassins of Delsi so far. But you never got if you never asked, and he did want her to join him on the journey. Alexei stretched and cra

Alexei didn’t have to wait very long for Risa to show up at the main doors of the Mage Temple, and if the smile on her face was anything to go by she was coming with good news. “You look happy,” Alexei remarked from his seat on one of the benches.“Well, the Grand Mages have decided to okay my inclusion in your adventure as a diplomatic mission to help strengthen our relationship with the Assassins Guild,” Risa said, “They thought it would be a good move to help counter the likely upcoming instability in the region if you do manage to depose of the Grand Administrator and reveal his plot to the world.” “Yeah, there will definitely be a little bit of that,” Alexei agreed, “If people believe me, anyway. I’m not really sure how to get them to do that.” “Does it really matter if they believe you?” Risa asked. “What do you mean? If they don’t believe me they’ll just think I’m a murderer, that won’t exactly look good for my or Neave’s future prospects,” Alexei replied.“Well, if it’s th

After a few hours of travelling, some of which Alexei spent napping, Risa brought the caravan to a halt. The sudden stop jerked Alexei awake with a yelp. “What’s wrong, why we stopped?” Alexei stumbled over his words as he pulled himself from his sleep. “We’ve arrived at the first place that it’d make sense to stop,” Risa said, “A town some ways south of Alandria. I don’t know much about it, but while you were sleeping the Dragonhorse and I have been working hard and we both need rest.” Alexei smiled at Risa sheepishly, “Sorry about that, it’s been a pretty intense couple of weeks.” Risa rolled her eyes, “I’m not having a go at you dummy, I’m just saying that you were probably asleep for a little while longer than you thought.” Alexei poked his head out of the front flap of the caravan and was shocked to see that the day had already given way to night. “That’s not going to do my sleep schedule any favours,” He remarked, “Does this town have a stable or are we going to need to f

“Okay Neave, since I don’t want to wake you up when I get back later, you’re going to be sharing a room with Risa tonight, okay?” Alexei said as the three walked up the stairs to the overnight rooms of the tavern. She nodded her agreement and grabbed Risa’s hand with a grin, and not for the first time Alexei found himself glad that the girl and the mage got along so well. “You promise me you’re going to be careful, right?” Risa said, “It’d be really annoying to wake up in the morning just to find out that you’d been turned into a shade or ripped apart by a bear.” “I wouldn’t get ripped apart by a bear,” Alexei snorted, “But yeah, I promise I’ll be careful. Recon only, and if anything tries to attack me I’ll run right back here.” She stared him down for a few moments, hoping that he’d change his mind about going out to hunt the thing… whatever the thing was. Then, seeing that he clearly wasn’t going to change his mind, she tugged on Neave’s hand. “Come on then, let’s get you in be

Alexei stumbled through the back doors of the tavern. As he closed the door he glanced at the outdoors one last time to see if he had been followed by the thing he had been fighting. Fortunately, the outside was empty. He shut the door and leaned on it for a moment to catch his breath. Alexei allowed his enchantments to fade. He’d never fought anything like that before, and he never wanted to fight anything like that again. Unfortunately for him, the universe rarely cared about his wishes and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he came face to face with the horror of the night once more. He considered telling Risa about what he’d seen, but the whole reason he’d told Risa and Neave to share a room in the first place was so that he didn’t wake the young beastkin girl up. It’d wait til the morning. He sighed, walked into his room, got undressed and slipped into bed. The mattress was hard and lumpy, not like what he was used to at either the Trout’s Gills nor the Mage