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Chapter 54 by Wulfblade Wulfblade

What's next?

You head towards the forest

Your horse trots after hers, and together you head out of the town through one of the gates, your mounts filing effortlessly through the foot traffic of merchants, townsfolk and peasantry congesting the access to the gate. City guards randomly check whoever they deem suspicious, but they let Evellyn through without issue. Anyone wealthy enough to own a horse is likely to be of repute anyway, but you get the feeling the guards are aware of who she is. You also catch one of the guards stiffle a mischievous giggle as she passes. That.. might be your fault.

Evellyn either doesn't notice it, or if she did she ignored it. She moves ahead of you, crossing the stone bridge on the other side of the gatehouse, and breaks into a gallop once she's clear of the mass of people. You try to nudge your own horse with your heels, and then the reins, until he follows suit. You catch up to Evellyn a little ways further, on the sandy road in between the fields of wheat.

As you gaze around, you spot peasants toiling away here and there among the crops, busily gathering the harvest. The edge of the forest looms in the far distance. It's not the typical scene of wild, unkept woodland stretching from across the horizon though. You can clearly see its outline, which you estimate to be a few miles from west to east, and the forest's edges abruptly cut off to be replaced by agricultural fields. From the looks of it, there's crops on either side of the forest, and behind it no doubt too - an island of trees a couple miles across, slowly being gobbled up by the demand for more land to sow. Maybe this piece of forest remains so local nobles can go there to enjoy themselves with a leisurely hunt.

You glance over at Evellyn. She looks eager - her mood has flipped completely since this morning. You hazard a guess:

"You don't get to go out much, do you?"

"Uhm.. no that's not- I wouldn't quite say... okay you're right, I don't really." She offers a halfhearted defence.

"Most of my time is spent at the duchess' court, or at the mansion. I mean, I have a fief in the countryside of course, but I don't get to visit it much so it's locally administered in absentia. I just.. don't get to go out on adventures often! Get to use my sword, for real instead of a training dummy!"

'Adventures', that sounds awfully romanticized, like some kind of novel. Best to do some expectations-control. "Well, don't get your hopes up too much. This is more a mission than an adventure. And we're not here to brutally stab them to ****, necessarily, we're just here for that amulet."

She shrugs, cheerfully. "I could at least use it to intimidate them."

It takes a few minutes, but you eventually reach the edge of the forest. The boughs rear up above you, all the more intimidating because of the sudden transition from wheat to tree. The road looms ahead, darkened by shadow. Although you could see the circumference of the forest, it's still a pretty sizeable area, so finding the elves might take a while - assuming they're even here.

How do you proceed?

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