Dinner

You continue the interrogation, now keenly interested in the world of casters.

Alexis : "How many casters are there?"

Tritera : "I think somewhere in the vacinity of 200,000 last I checked the guild roster. At least where the guild operates. No one knows what's beyond the outer wilderness or the seas."

They didn't teach you much about the world in your one tavern town but you had heard of the outer wilderness from fables meant to scare children into behaving. It was said to be a horrible place where monsters roamed freely and the hearts of men faltered. The kind of place that parents sent children who didn't finish their vegetables or talked back. Or at least that's what you'd been told.

Alexis : "the outer wilderness is real?"

You say incredulously, wondering what other fables might be based on reality.

Tritera : "oh, it's very real. And stranger than any fable you've heard. It forms three fourths of the parameter of the realm with the fourth being the infinite sea. When I said that it's rare for casters to die of old age it's the wilderness that claims most of us. Mirror walking doesn't work from inside and magic acts strangely."

You gulp again.

Alexis : "If it's so dangerous why do people go there?"

Tritera smiles as if this were the first naive question you'd asked in some time.

Tritera : "as I said, casters are natural explorers. The wilderness and it's mysteries calls to us. Some believe it's merely a border between this realm and others. That a new frontier of wonders and riches await anyone able to pierce it. People who have lost loved ones in the wilderness often claim that they haven't died but simply made it through and are living in luxory on the other side."

Her face makes clear she doesn't believe this to be the case.

Alexis : "have you ever been there? To the wilderness"

She looks distant, as if reliving the experience.

Tritera : "just once, and I stayed near the border. It's a truly strange place. It all has the vague unreality feeling of a dream that you cannot wake from. I watched a man swallowed up by the earth itself and another torn to pieces by a great flock of what might be insects. At the time it felt like a memory and now it feels more real than it did then. And yet it still calls to me."

Tritera's face is somber but you can see beneath it something not totally unlike lust. Another emotion able to overwhelm caution.

Tritera : "but enough of the wilderness, you'll have a long life to unravel that mystery. For now, let's eat."

With that she tapped the table once again with her staff and two plates with perfect steaks appeared surrounded by many platters of sides like mashed potatoes, garlic asparagus and peppers of all sorts.