Your caravan crosses the border and you witness a strange event.

The cargo inspection procedure, which was carried out by border guards and officials of the Sacred Kingdom of Orlania, took quite a long time (about 3 hours).

Then you, like all the other caravan guards and merchant servants, loaded the barrels and crates of goods back onto the carts.

You barely refrained from swearing dirty at the human officials of the Kingdom of Orlania. But this would only cause more problems and so you restrained your anger.

So, your caravan has crossed the border between the Sacred Kingdom of Orlann and the dwarven state called the Despotate of Yalann. Now your caravan moved through the land, which is under the rule of these strange northern dwarves from the state of Despotate of Yalann.

Immediately after crossing the border, your caravan was surrounded on all sides by troops of dwarven warriors with halberds and crossbows. The number of these dwarven warriors was almost three times the number of guards in your caravan.

You thought irritably: “Fucking crap! Obviously, now all the guards of our caravan, including me, will have to unload all these fucking boxes again! Now the fucking dwarven bureaucrats will want to do the same thing that the fucking human bureaucrats from the Kingdom of Orlania did!”

Unfortunately, you were right in this disappointing assumption.

Your large caravan moved under an armed escort of dwarven warriors.

While you were walking along with other caravan guards, you felt an unpleasant cold wind. You tried to cover yourself with your fur cloak, but your cloak did not provide complete protection from the cold.

You tried to look around a little while walking. You looked at the dwarven warriors escorting your caravan.

You will notice that these dwarven warriors were clad in uniform chain mail of a grayish metal.

Soon your caravan approached a large stone structure, which was surrounded by several defensive towers.

One of the dwarven warriors said in an irritated and hoarse voice: “Now we will begin the customs inspection procedure. Your carts, one by one, enter this stone structure. You unload each of the carts. Our guys will check every box and every barrel. After the inspection is completed, you are loading all your fucking junk back into your carts. The owner of your caravan will now come with me. He must pay customs duties and present all the necessary documents to the commander of our border post."

Having said these words, this dwarf warrior left with the merchant Jodaz towards one of the stone towers.

You and all the other caravan guards were **** to begin unloading your caravan's wagons again.

You thought at that moment: “Fucking, fucking, damn crap!!! This is not at all how I imagined adventures and travel as a caravan guard!”

While you were unloading the carts, you noticed that among the yalannian dwarves who were inspecting the goods of your caravan, there was a group of dwarves whose appearance was different from the appearance of the usual dwarven warriors who were escorting the caravan to the inspection site.

Each of this particular group of dwarves was dressed in a strange, dark-colored robe, and each of them held a staff that emitted a strange grayish-bluish light. If you look more closely, you could notice that this strange light was emitted by some kind of whitish crystal inlaid into the top of each of these staves. These dwarves ran their staffs along every barrel and every crate. You didn't understand what this meant. You simply decided to carry out your duties and not pay attention to all sorts of incomprehensible things.

When you were almost finished unloading the carts, you heard loud screams from one of the dwarves, who was wearing a dark-colored robe. This dwarf shouted something in a dwarven language that you did not understand.

You noticed that the screaming dwarf was near the cart in which the things of the elf merchant Traeliorn were stored.

A group of dwarven warriors quickly approached this cart. The dwarves began to energetically discuss something using a language you did not understand.

Ten minutes later, you were surprised to see a group of dwarf warriors and one dwarf in a robe surround the elf merchant Traeliorn and escort him. They lead the elf Traeliorn out of the customs inspection facility, and they escort the elf towards one of the stone towers.

You didn’t know how to react to this strange event and so you simply continued to unload the carts.

After some time, the laborious procedures of checking the goods of the caravan were completed. All this took a lot of time (about 4 hours).

You felt very tired. Your body is sweating a lot. Your muscles felt discomfort and pain.

Soon, the merchant Jodaz returned. You saw that his face looked worried and frightened.

Jodaz was clearly in a hurry to leave this place and wanted the caravan to continue its journey in a northerly direction as soon as possible.

So, your caravan was able to pass all customs inspection procedures. Your caravan continued north along the well-paved trade route.

The carts drove along the road and you tried to at least rest a little and restore your strength.

As you walked along with the other caravan guards, you looked around. You saw the sullen expression on dwarf Belknab's face.

You asked: Do you know what problems the elf merchant Traeliorn had? I saw him being taken somewhere by those dwarven warriors."

The dwarf Belknab said rudely: "Don't meddle in other people's business, Ulkin! I don't know much about this shit myself. And I don't advise you to stick your nose into this shit unless you want to get yourself in big trouble for your stupid, greenish, half-orc ass! As far as I could understand, Traeliorn tried to smuggle some dangerous item across the border, which is included in the list of prohibited items in accordance with local laws. Jodaz had great difficulty in proving to the commander of the dwarven border guards that the rest of the caravan members were not involved in this crime. Therefore, our caravan continues on its way. Jodaz got off easy, he simply paid a fine for negligently allowing the presence of a violator of local law in his caravan. But this idiot elf Traeliorn received the most unpleasant consequences for himself. His cart, his goods, all his property were confiscated The elf Traeliorn is under investigation and will spend many days or even weeks in solitary confinement for criminals. And after the investigation is completed, in the best case scenario, he will be punished in the form of many years of hard labor in some deep mine."

You are shocked by this information. Your mouth dropped open in surprise. You can't say anything.

A frightening thought appeared in your mind: “Did all this really happen because of the ring!?”

Dwarf Belknab looks at you and says with a grin: “You now have such a stupid expression on your face as if you took a shit and got hit in your balls at the same time! Ha! Ha! Why did you open your mouth as if you were waiting for a fly to fly in? Better get busy doing yours duties and vigilantly look around in time to notice a potential threat. Our caravan has almost reached the destination of our journey. The fortress city of Dreygrul is close. Our caravan will arrive there tomorrow."

Soon evening came and it began to get dark.

Your caravan has stopped for a rest. You ate and went to bed.