"Good afternoon lady" the young man greets Alice and stands beside the woman under the orange tree, his expression showing suspicion.
"Hello" Alice doesn't care about the young man, she just wants the lady to keep talking about the bridge. "Ma'am, please finish telling about the bridge" Alice wants the woman to continue, but that's all that lady knows.
"Lady, if you're going to Zackar's Red Mountain, why are you wondering about the bridge?" Alice realizes that, she is even straying from her secondary objective, she thinks for a second and responds.
"It's true, it doesn't really matter, I think I was curious, the bridge would only make crossing the river easier, I want to go to that forest to get some medicinal herbs" the lady and the young man laugh a little.
"You can hardly find it there anymore, and it's very dangerous, a few nights ago we even heard some very strange noises coming from there, and it's not normal for the animals there to make such loud noises" the young man realized that there was no reason to worry after he responds and alerts Alice promptly.
"Okay, I can take care of myself, but it's going to be more difficult, I think it would be risky to jump between the foundation pillars, I'll have to make a canoe apparently" Alice replies casually which leaves the youngman perplexed, the lady for having heard that girl talking about going to Zackar is nothing to Alice's weird behavior.
"Young lady, it's very…" the young man feels the lady's hand on his chest and he gets silent. "Leave her son, she mustn't have much sense, she told me she wants to go to Zackar's mountain just now" the woman's explanation quiets, but it doesn't calm the young man, he is very surprised after seeing Alice's beautiful face, so that the smile of a young man in love grows on his face little by little without him realizing it.
The lady pokes the young man's abdomen for him to come to his senses, she is embarrassed by her son's attitude, she gets annoyed because he makes a fool of himself.
The young man isn't handsome or ugly, but he doesn't catch Alice's eye at all.
"Lady it's late, there's no tavern here or inn, but if you have some money, I promise you'll feel better spending the night with us, actually just me, my son already has his own house to sleep in" the young man does a sad face to see that he won't be able to be around Alice for very long.
"I have some items, but they are very valuable, I don't want to offend you, but I don't think you would be able to pay for them even if I paid a good sum for your hosting service" the woman is dismayed and curious.
"First girl, show me what you've got" the woman is confident to negotiate, the young man is silent beside her, watching once again his mother do one of her adventures, Alice gives a weak smile.
"Ma'am, the last time I did this I almost got knocked on the head, aren't you going to do this?" the woman laughs with a look of understanding, the young man also got the situation well, his face becomes more serious, but he remains silent, respecting his mother.
"There is! It must have been my idiot husband, it was in a potato cart, wasn't it?" Alice nods in the affirmative and the woman continues.
"He has this habit of judging strangers, it's a miracle of the saint he still manages to go into town to sell our potatoes" the woman is more comfortable and speaking very openly, the young man is a little uncomfortable hearing what his mother is talking and even so, he doesn't interrupt his silence.
"Okay" Alice carefully opens the bag with her findings, the gold and precious stones sparkle in the woman's eyes, the young man is stunned, he had never witnessed such wealth.
"Lady where did you get this?" the young man asks with concern and a little angry as he has a bad feeling now about Alice, he trusts in his father's judgemnet.
"I found it in Riverin" the woman and the young man make an emphatic suspicious face looking at Alice. "You found??" both ask skeptically at the same time by coincidence.
"It was lying on the street and you caught it?" only the woman asks this time.
"Yeah, some in the street, some in the houses, some in the rubble" as Alice spoke they made a more and more stern face, until she said "rubble", at this point their faces locked, still grim.
"Rubble?" the young man steps forward and speaks before the mother.
"Riverin was attacked, almost everyone died" Alice speaks again casually, but her expression is more focused than before, still too subtle for her interlocutors.
The sun has already set when Alice finishes telling her story amid several interruptions from the woman and the young man, they are very suspicious of her, especially for having done what she claims, but they think she is just another harmless freeloader.
The other residents have already returned to their homes while they were talking, the woman cannot let this opportunity pass, she puts her needs first, but really any gem of that is worth more than all the villages put together.
"Girl, enough talking, I'll offer you the boat to cross the river and the accommodation, it could be for the silver ring itself, it's worth more than my house, but considering that it's theft product, it won't be easy for you to sell" the woman looks resolute, the young man starts to say something and he gets a stomp on his foot hard enough to hear his bones crack, the young man gives up and walks home with a limp.
He limps, he whimpers and he mumbles over and over as he goes to his house. "Leave it be, when father comes back, I'll tell you everything you did to him" the woman seems not to be concerned about the young man's speech.
"Alright, at least I won't be late with this anymore" Alice agrees a little sadly, if she had taken some coins in Riverin, she would have avoided all these inconveniences and misunderstandings.
Alice comes in with the lady, the food is simple, but it doesn't compare to what she had gotten from the hunter's wife, maybe she can do it better herself, the accommodations are a little better, especially the bed, which is softer.
Alice wakes up early and sees that the woman is already finishing baking fresh bread for them to eat, she has tea and honey on the table, Alice is surprised at the woman's commitment to really serving her as well as she can.
After they eat, the woman accompanies Alice to a bush near the river where she has a half-old boat hidden, without looking for it, Alice would never have seen on her own, when Alice is pushing the boat into the water, a man with gray hair and muscled shirtless appears, well tanned skin.
"Hey you, this is my boat" the man snarls from a few yards away, striding and grim-faced, the woman looks at him annoyed, she snaps back before he can continue.
"She bought it, and by the way girl you haven't paid me yet" Alice looks for the ring she promised to the woman in her purse without revealing the contents to the man now beside them, he remains angry.
"You're crazy, how come you bought this boat, it's mine, nobody asked me for anything, hurry up and get out of there before you get hurt, girl" the woman looks at him angrily.
"Couldn't I have a dumber older brother?" the woman retaliates with equal kindness to her brother.
Alice pulls out her ring and they both shut up, they continue arguing as Alice starts her river crossing, she is doubly happy to be able to cross the river reasonably safely and to get away from those two troubled simblings quickly.
Alice feels the force of the current as she paddles, her boat is dragged more than she thought by the current. She stopped well away from where the bridge is, and when she has to cross again, she'll have to do more than a day's travel again, as the river runs in the opposite direction from the path to Zakcar's red mountain.
What bothers the most is that she's going to have to go through that village again, and if that wasn't a very convenient place the first time, she doesn't want to think about what it's going to be like next time.
Alice wanders through the forest looking for the herbs she saw in the book, for over three days she collects with great effort the herbs she sought, far less than what she wanted, but what really disturbs her.
It's just that many of the tracks there look like the bigger creatures she saw in Riverin, it's no longer possible to be sure, but they're the same approximate size and shape, maybe that silly young man really heard something.
The tracks are confused, seem lost, stray perhaps, or they were looking for something, Alice doubts that those kind of creatures had come in search of healing herbs, that forest must house something more important, something very powerful, something worth a detour and such great effort.
On the night of the fourth day Alice wakes up with a dim light shining on her face, a bright neon blue, at first she thinks it's a fairy, but she's just a firefly, it's hard to find fairies with that kind of magic touch today, a firefly should not be possible unless there is a magic pocket or very powerful item nearby.