It took another camp the following night and then most of the day to eventually get to Auriluire which is the city on route to Undam, the capital down the south. Having lost my energy to run around looking for my homeland which might not even be possible to reach currently, I decide it might do well if I set up shop near Undam after exploring for the year I've hired these people for. If I have funds then I can gain more power and contacts which should give me some chance of getting back home.
While I'm still confused on how we got here, I know being depressed in front of Elyn doesn't help things. The second night camping it looked like she was crying in her sleep so she must be unable to cope right now with the change of environment. She always did try to stay strong so she could help me but little moments like that remind me how she is still a kid. I swear I'll find a way to make her some sweets and to keep her comfortable, she might need a few friends but none of the children I saw on the streets seem like they would know how to play nicely.
When I think of large groups of kids, I'd assume places like school or daycare. According to Gavin he hasn't ever heard of anything of the sort and apparently school is limited to the heirs of companies normally by private tutors with long lists of pupils. The only other place I could think that has kids is orphanages but I also got told that most of them get taken over by gangs to 'develop the next generation'.
After a while travelling we arrive at the town, Auriluire. I'm told it gets its name off the person who first travelled here as they were heading north for a frost flower, although no one knows the true name of the herb.
According to the story the woman trekked up really far north just for a single herb, she made a camp here to settle down in for the winter before trying to head out. She spent ages out in the snow learning the land, setting traps for food and trying to find any glimpse of the herb she was looking for, even after falling off hills and cutting her hands open numerous times, only made worse by the biting cold. One time once she got back and was sat around a fire rethinking her approach, a group of travellers turned up. They brought a letter about her mother dying before she could get the herb to rescue her and a gift from her mother of the blanket she grew up with. In her grief she went into the mountains that day with the blanket and never came back. The story says that later on someone found the herb in a swamp nearby the ladies hometown where her mother was and that while the woman rushed away to help, if she had stayed with her family things could have still worked out. Neither the woman or the blanket were seen again, but it is said that some herbs that were seen by the woman started gaining the properties of others, as if to make them more useful to everyone.
So there is a second meaning to the story, look at what is close to you as it can solve a lot more if you let it. Elyn seems happy though as I kept giving her hugs while listening to the story, as it reminded me how much I'd freak out and go to run to the shop if Elyn got hurt but we always had first aid in the house, it would just slip my mind as I panicked. at one point she started locking the door so I didn't have to run around before she could remind me and only then did I start remembering.