Enmiota was a sprawling town behind its walls, its buildings a mix of stone and slate, packed together by a primitive sort of cement. The streets were wide, with deep trenches running alongside for the melting snow to flow through. As Sivelle and I wandered through the town, we drew curious eyes from the mixture of races that seemed to live here, and had to dodge the occasional cart transporting goods throughout the village.
I managed to spot a hanging sign for a tavern called The Wheel with Two Spokes, so Sivelle and I ducked inside and sat down at a table. There, I ordered the two of us some food, which was nothing to write home about. What looked vaguely like potatoes, but purple, roasted with a side cutting of some form of meat. My Automatic Appraisal told me that the meat was actually a cut of Cockatrice, which didn't make me overjoyed to eat it, but Sivelle seemed to have a hard time keeping her posture while eating with the knives and forks provided. It seemed like her time in that bandit camp was not time that she had been fed well in.
Once the food was finished, I sat back and created a compass in my hand, just to complete my daily quest. Then I placed the compass into my Storage and leaned on the table with both elbows, resting my head on one fist and turning to look at Sivelle, who was finishing off the last of her food with almost impeccable grace. Clearly she was born a noble or something, because I hadn't seen anyone else in this world eat so reserved, cutting off a small piece of meat, eating it, then waiting to finish her mouthful before even preparing her next bite.
I waited patiently for her to finish her food before stating, "I've got a few questions for you if we're going to be travelling together."
She looked over, one eyebrow cocked up in surprise. "You may ask," she said as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.
"First off, you mentioned that you were a divine gift to Garland, what exactly does that mean?"
I could tell this was either a question she had been asked a lot, or one that she enjoyed answering, because a small smile crept onto her lips.
"Before I was born," she began, and I realised that this was definitely a story she enjoyed telling, "a high priest of Dewior prayed to his goddess for health and prosperity for Garland. The nation was currently engaged in a war with Xarthos over the rich ore reserves in our mountains. It did not seem like a war we could win."
She paused for effect, letting the implication settle in before she spoke the conclusion out loud. "Dewior took pity on our nation and gifted Garland with her half-divine daughter." She gestured to herself. "A daughter gifted with a unique skill that let her see into the future. The war raged for the next ten years, and it seemed like all was lost. That was until the tenth year, when the generals of Garland seemed to know exactly where the enemy moved their supplies and where they would next strike, where there scouts were patrolling and how they would move in a battle."
Sivelle looked pleased with herself, and waited for my reply, it looked like she wanted the obvious answer stated to her.
"You were the turn of the war?" I guessed.
She nodded, "That's right, they trained me for warfare from birth, gave me a noble upbringing and a station that I deserved, in return, I used my individual skill to turn the tide."
"So how come you were capture by bandits? Shouldn't you have a royal escort?" There came my second question, if she'd seen the future, how come she'd managed to be captured, especially if she was so important to the Garland government.
At this, her face dropped, and she took a swig of her drink, but I saw it for what it was, an attempt to hide her embarrassment. From behind her drink, she murmered something, but I managed to catch it.
"You ran away?" I asked, incredulous.
She nodded and placed her drink back down on the table, seemingly having regained her poise.
"Gaholt was too small, they restricted my movements too much, so I took it upon myself."
I was dumbstruck, she felt cloistered, so ran away, when she knew that she was one of the military's most important assets. It was shortsighted, and naive at best.
"I knew I'd be safe." She assured me, having seen the shocked look on my face. "I can see the future afterall, I knew nothing would happen to me with the bandits and that I would gain the company of a powerful mage."
Oh great, I thought, she'd seen me before I even arrived, I bet she knows where we're going next as well.
"Okay, so you knew I'd come save you."
She nodded.
"I assume you know what my next question is then?" I leaned forward.
"It doesn't work exactly like that." Sivelle shrugged, "Specifics like conversation aren't significant enough for my skill to see, so I don't know everything."
"Alright." That made me feel a lot better, the idea that she knew everything before it happened was starting to grate on me, but knowing that it wasn't the way it worked. That made me relax a bit, and I sat back.
The tavern around us was rowdy and loud, with humans, elves and gnomes bustling about. They brought flagons of ale to eachothers tables, roared with laughter at eachothers jokes and played games amongst themselves. As our meal progressed, the patrons became louder and louder, clearly having drank more ale than they should've. Thanks to my stats, I didn't find it difficult to filter out the sounds and listen to what Sivelle was saying, but it was obvious that she was starting to struggle to hear me.
Before asking my last question, I pulled some mana from the air and with a small burst of grey light, the sounds from the tavern were dampened as if someone had stuffed a pillow in everyone's mouths.
Sivelle blinked in surprise and stared around, then her eyes settled on me.
"Did you just cast a spell?" She asked.
I nodded, "Just makes it a bit easier for us to hear eachother."
She nodded, but still looked around at the near-silent tavern that hadn't seemed to notice that they'd been turned down by several octaves.
"My final question," I began, "Your mana, what do you know about it?"
Sivelle raised an eyebrow, "My mana?"
"Yes, do you know how it works?"
She shrugged, "Dewior gives it to me and every other Cleric that follows her. We use the Holy Magic skill to cast our spells." Sivelle tilted an eyebrow, "Do you not have a casting skill? You look like an arcane mage, so you should have your own, with sub-levels and spells?"
There was too much I was missing about the Jobs in this world, maybe I should've chosen a job that was usually available, not a special offer. I nodded, and smiled. "Of course."
After we had both finished our drinks, I went up to the Innskeeper and asked for two adjacent rooms, he said that he only had one available, so I booked the one for the night and told Sivelle of the unfortunate arrangement. She merely agreed that it was awkward, but trusted me not to do anything, I knew that nothing would come of the night, but she'd clearly had a look into the future.
The room itself was actually a couple's suite, though whether it could be called that in comparison to what had existed in my previous world, I didn't think so. The bed had a mattress, which was surprising, but the only other furnishings in the room were a wash basin, a bedside cabinet with a lamp and a wardrobe that was literally just a wooden cuboid. I stepped in and knew that it needed to be changed, so I told Sivelle to stand outside while I rearranged the room.
Once I was done, the bed was made from memory foam and was now two separate beds, there was a carpet and two identical bedside cabinets. There was also an enchanted chandelier on the ceiling that would turn on or off with blue, heatless flame when you snapped your fingers. I made sure to write a note to explain the changes and how they would be better than the previous room.
There was also a curtain that could be drawn across the centre of the room, effectively making it into two separate single rooms instead. I took the bed on the left side, and drew the curtains almost immediately.
In the morning, I woke and strode down to the tavern's main chamber where we'd eaten the previous night, it didn't take Sivelle long to appear in the common room, but she looked much like she had the previous night. That was to say, she looked immaculate, completely unblemished and beautiful. Some of the patrons up early enough to see her come down, stopped whatever they were doing and stared, even the Innskeeper stared slackjawed and gave me a jealous glare.
"Good morning, Yolen," She said, seating herself on the wooden stool opposite, brushing her dress out from underneath her before she sat.
"Morning," I said between mouthfuls of food, the breakfast here was certainly better than the latenight meal. A plate was brought over for Sivelle without either of us paying or asking for it, but Sivelle ate it like it was a common occurrence.
Once we were both done with out food, talk naturally turned to my plan for the coming days.
"You mentioned that Gaholt was too small, but that's where I need to go, could you point it out on this map?" I said, pulling out a map I'd enchanted to look like the surrounding mountains, with contour lines denoting the altitude gain or loss.
Sivelle pointed a slender finger down at a peak many miles north of our current location, and a dot with the name Garland blossomed in black ink across the map. Of course, that was another enchantment I'd placed on the map. Unlike my other map, of Helios, this one didn't display dungeons, as I knew that if I saw a dungeon, there wasn't really anything that could stop me from clearing it.
For the sake of focus, I had chosen to omit that information, only including the vital information, like my current location and any geographical information that I could feed the map with. As it turned out, I couldn't include constructed settlements in the map unless I knew their location or had been to them, but natural formations, like mountains, the map could have.
It also absorbed the geographical knowledge from others as well, so as the information on where Gaholt was appeared, so did routes of several roads and other paths that Sivelle knew of. Even the Blizzard Bandit's cave appeared on it, though I hadn't thought it important enough to include.
"Thanks," I said, pulling the map up to have a look at it, but Sivelle placed her hand over the top of it, pinning the parchment to the table.
"Why do you need the Capitol's location?" She asked, a somewhat threatening aura flowing through her words.
I grinned up at her, in comparison to me, it was like a kitten hissing at a fully grown Tiger, "I'm going to kidnap the Governor."