Looking ahead at the entrance further into the woods, Rethys could see a gathering of blue-mantled mages arguing loudly, with their assistants trying to smooth discussions. All the while knights patrolled the perimeter and tended to large reptilian pack animals that seemed to be Kred lizards, a magical beast favored over horses for their maneuverability when young and for their ability to haul extreme loads when older.
Kreds had none of the litheness of regular lizards, not that Rethys saw many of those in cold Aldeno, but instead possessed massive torsos and limbs with bulging muscles, allowing them to be used as beasts of burden.
Two oddities stood out in this sight. The first was one of the mages wearing a bright red mantle instead of the usual blue, designating him as a High Mage. Rethys thought him to be their employer Veritin Zeritel.
The second oddity he noticed was an utterly immense kred lizard that stood at a height of what seemed to be well over four meters at the withers and carried a frankly obscene amount of baggage. If he ever doubted the difference between horses and kreds, then this absolute unit of a specimen doing the work of more than a dozen horses put all his questions to rest.
Feeling his nausea dissipate, Rethys tried standing up. He was still hit with some dizziness and almost tripped, but his mentor was there to catch him.
"Easy now, are you sure you can endure this going forward? Seeing everything they've packed; this expedition might delve too deep for you to keep up." Fulgrith asked, his eyes full of concern.
"Yeah, but I can't leave you alone with them now can I master?" Leaving his sometimes-oblivious mentor alone with a caravan full of nobles was something Rethys could never bring himself to do. "Plus, it'll be good training for me, can't become a mage if I can't take this much can I?" He added with self-deprecating laughter.
Fulgrith fixed him with a stern expression and was about to reprimand him for his recklessness but decided against it.
"Okay then, just tell me if you ever feel out of it again." He said, deciding to respect his disciple's resolve, against his better judgement.
It was time for them to join up with the rest of the expedition and get briefed on the task ahead, since they didn't know much apart from the fact that they would be heading into uncharted wildlands in search for exotic natural treasures, anomalies to study and the usual troves of general knowledge and materials.
As the trio of knight, mage and apprentice walked toward the rest of the expedition, the mages' arguing got louder and louder until it broke into yelling. The mage in red robes, however, stood on the sidelines, not participating in the very heated discussion and only sometimes mediating it and easing tensions. He seemed to have noticed the recent arrivals though, as he broke off the group to greet them.
"Don't forget his name and title, he's High Mage Veritin Zeritel, a Count from northeastern Aldeno." Rethys whispered to his mentor in the most inconspicuous way possible.
"Relax Reth, I got this." Despite his mentor's words however, Reth did not believe that he had it.
"Greetings Mage Fulgrith, I'm glad you could join us, your expertise shall prove invaluable on our expedition." Said the handsome blond mage clad in red.
"Greetings High Mage Zeritel, I'm honored to hear such words of compliment, and I appreciate the opportunity to be allowed to partake in this pioneering expedition." Said the giant mage while slightly bowing with uncharacteristic decorum, leaving Rethys dumbfounded. Looking at his apprentice, he gave him a knowing wink that seemed to say 'See? I can do it if I try.'
"Not at all Sir Fulgrith, we are the ones honored to have such an expert amidst us, though the others may not share my opinion. I ask of you to have patience if ever they overstep their bounds." Said the high mage, displaying humility and concern rare among nobles. The high mage appeared to be barely thirty yet seemed much more wizened than his much older peers.
"You need not worry Lord Zeritel, I understand. No task worth doing ever came easy. I am thankful for your consideration however." Fulgrith reassured the younger mage.
"And I am thankful for your understanding, Sir Fulgrith. Come now, it's time we joined the others and set off. This promises to be a very fruitful expedition."
As the two followed the expedition leader back to the group, Rethys couldn't help but stare at his mentor who, in all the years he'd been with him, never displayed such eloquence and etiquette.
"What?" Fulgrith himself grew tired of being gawked at like some sort of exotic beast.
"If you could actually manage courtesy with nobles like this, what of all my suffering all these years old man?" Said Rethys, exasperated and shaking his head.
"Uh... C-consider it... training! Yes, training to develop the patience needed to be a true mage." Seeing that his apprentice was both unconvinced in his explanation and uninterested in humoring him, he sighed deeply, his expression growing grave and cold.
"The difference between nobles is like day and night Reth, some value every mage as a unique addition to our kingdom and mankind's strength and see the grander picture. While some nobles simply aren't worth even talking about, you'll know to tell them apart at a glance one day." He could see a bitter expression on his mentor's face.
Deciding to take his mentor's heartfelt words, the apprentice stayed silent for the remainder of the walk toward the expedition group. Noticing everyone preoccupied, he took the time to leer at the expedition leader's red form leading them ahead until a word formed in mind.
'Sinner' It said, reverberating in his mind.
The ominous message unsettled Rethys for a moment before he decided to disregard it, judging it as fruitless to keep pondering meaning where there wasn't any.
As they joined the main group, apprentice and master went around greeting the noble mages. And while some did throw the usual veiled insult, some greeted Fulgrith as a friend, reassuring his apprentice of their standing within the caravan. And as the mages continued their discussions and time passed, it wasn't long until it was time to set out.
"Now that everyone is assembled and our caravan is ready, it's time to proceed with our expedition. We mages will move ahead on foot as we catalogue and record our findings, while the knights will be split in two groups. One will keep a perimeter around us on kredback for safety and scouting, while the second group will stay behind with the pack-bearing kred to protect it and guide it through more hospitable trails.
"We will move northward until the Twin Spires, at which point we'll take a turn east toward the Blue Plateau and continue east until we reach the canyons that mark its end. It is that region that will mark the proper beginning of our exploration. The knights will maintain camp upon the Plateau while we explore and chart the canyon in groups, we will be setting out during the day and returning at dark to consolidate our findings. Let us be on our way now, for time is of the essence!"
*****
As Rethys looked behind him, he could see two shapes in the distance, growing smaller by the minute as the caravan marched in their opposite direction.
They were the Twin Spires, two strange, almost perfectly identical spires of stone in the middle of flatlands that looked less like actual mountains and more like the result of a heavenly hand reaching out from the sky and pulling the earth upward.
According to what one of the mages of the expedition said when they passed between the spires yesterday, it was very unlikely that the stone shapes were a natural formation and were apparently theorized to be the work of an extremely powerful Earth mage of old. Though with what method and for what reason one would yank out tons of rock smack in the middle of thick wildlands, no one knew.
It was the third day now of the expedition and they were currently in the region with the most uninspired name in perhaps the whole of the continent of Inverra, the Blue Plateau. Aptly named so for being a very large, elevated plateau completely covered in unique blue grass that glowed softly in the dark of night, much to the dismay of every mage in the caravan who each could come up with a much better name for it.
As they were nearing the planned camping site, Rethys reflected on these few days of travelling. They were safe, productive, and... strangely boring.
It was his first time delving so deeply into the northern wildlands. He expected something to come up during their travels or for them to find a strange anomaly, or to be assaulted by magical animals in frenzy, but nothing of the sort happened.
The only thing that truly surprised him was the slow movement of the caravan, as it moved at a snail's pace. This was due to the mages, his master included, taking far too comprehensive notes every two steps about every single thing they could get their magically-starved hands on. They consumed writing paper at a rate only rivaled by that of a raging inferno, and as the mages shared their findings among one another and compared notes, this only got more and more absurd.
Rethys wondered if half the baggage they were carrying was full of writing material, but later found out that one of the mages was synthesizing paper through her mastery of the Creation element and by using the already ether rich branches of trees all around them.
As for his worries for himself, they turned out pointless. For while the dense ether was always an annoyance in the back of his mind and weighed him down somewhat, it only became more tolerable the more time passed, probably aided by the expedition's slow speed.
His worries for his master also proved pointless, for as the expedition continued to advance, and the mages' progress only intensified, they all began talking to each other not as stuck-up nobles, but as research-crazed mages concerned only with proving their theories.
He even got to see his mentor a few times explaining some obscure phenomena or effect to the other mages as they forgot any class differences between them and gazed at him as if he held all the answers in the world.
If there was one thing Rethys was sure of now, it was that they would have no shortage of customers in the next few weeks following this expedition.