ALL NOVEL 46. Departure
After leaving the Inn, Astaria first walked around the stalls of the market which were still in the process of setting up at the early hour. She bought some of the basic provisions she needed such as an additional waterskin, some raw meat, bread, spices, as well as dried meat which she all stuck into her now much emptier inventory.
Following her purchases at the market, she returned to the tailors she visited yesterday where she bought additional sets of clothes, all in the same style of a blouse and leather trousers, as well as two extra hooded robes. She was limited on time so did not have the leisure to try on new clothes, and the style she was already wearing suited her just fine.
Leaving the store wearing a set of her new purchases, Astaria went to properly stock up on potions. Since she had a decent amount of money now, she could buy a substantial amount that would last her until she reached the Empire.
With her consumables all sorted, her next stop was to buy some cooking equipment for when she was travelling. She managed to find a general store that sold what she needed, picking up an iron pot and pan, as well as a metal tripod that she could use to hang the pot from. Since she would also be sleeping In the wilds due to the long distance the trip would take, she bought a basic tent and a comfortable bed roll, concluding her purchases.
With everything placed into her inventory, Astaria returned to the market square to go to the adventurer’s guild and officially upgrade her rank. Since she had hit level 20 and completed enough quests thanks to all the goblin slaying of the last two days, she was promoted to a Steel rank adventurer. After escaping the commotion caused by others who realised she was a player, she retrieved Sapphire from the stables behind the adventurers guild where she had left her horse the previous night and sent Ash a message.
[Are you ready or do you need more time?]
[Almost, I will be at the gate in 20 mins]
With a little time to spare, Astaria made her way towards the southern gate, leisurely enjoying the warmth of the morning sun as it warmed up her robes. She could see the streets filled with many more Immortal Warriors than yesterday now that people were awake, their curiosity showing as they investigated the city for the first time. She could see some of the locals looking on with slight amusement, but it was clear that they were starting to get used to the sight since yesterday.
To Astaria, the sight was also quite a novelty. Whenever she had been in Haligrad in the past, she might have seen one or two new players with starting equipment, but what she saw right now was different. There were some slight variations here and there, but for the most part, everyone was wearing the same attire, so it looked quite odd seeing a variety of people of varying races all wearing the same thing while walking through the city streets.
Somewhat amused by the sight she accessed the newly accessible image capture system and took a picture which she saved for later.
For whatever reason, they did not allow any images, videos, or streams to be created on the 2 days of early access, something she did not understand but had taken advantage of.
She also noticed many of the other immortal Warriors looking at her as she rode past, clearly curious about the suspicious looking hooded person riding through the streets.
This had caused one group of players to come up to her and ask if she had a quest for them, to which she waved them off with the short response of ‘I’m a player’.
As her musings came to an end, Astaria had reached the gate, so passed through and waited to one side. It was not long before Ash rode up next to her, and with a short, shared nod they set off first to the west to activate the teleportation shrine located an hour's ride from the city.
Teleportation shrines were the backbone of fast travel in Caelus online. They were old structures that according to history, the gods had built and placed across the world. The locals could not make use of them, however Immortal warriors could. They were restricted to one use every 12 hours, but in a world where travelling from one place to another took a long time, it was a blessing.
They were rarely found within a city, occasionally abandoned but usually within a village or town. If a player wanted to make use of the fast travel system, they would need to travel to one of these shrines and use the crystal inside to select another shrine they had been to before.
Where Ash and Astaria were heading was the location of the closest shrine to Haligrad, so before leaving the kingdom they needed to activate this shrine so they could easily return at a later time.
The trip took them about an hour, but they had reached the small marble structure that sat at the centre of a small farming village. It was a small pantheon style building made from pure white marble, with a lone crystal orb sitting upon a pedestal in its only room.
After they had placed their hands on the blue orb, they received a system notification that they had successfully activated the shrine. With the reason for their short trip now concluded they returned to Haligrad to take the southeastern road from the city that led directly to a pass in the mountain range that connected the Alennos Kingdom and the Calesian Empire.
Their trip was relatively uneventful, the most interesting thing for them being the reactions of the players who gawked at Ash and saw his particularly high level. Astaria could hear the comments coming out about his level or the rare mention of the fact that he was in the only guild currently established.
At first, true to his personality, he was quite shy receiving all the attention, giving an awkward smile or pretending not to notice when he heard the comments. However, after the first 100 players they had passed and reacted, Ash became noticeably used to it. Granted, the awkward expression never left his face, but the tension in his body had visibly reduced.
That was his biggest flaw, his clear lack of confidence. When he was focused on one of his interests, he was fine, however, when he was out of his social comfort zone, he retreated inwardly, becoming less vocal and moving to the edge of the group.
Astaria hoped that his role in the guild would help bring him some self-confidence, she knew it would be hard for him, but given enough time and effort he would be able to grow.
By midafternoon they had managed to reach the border fort on the Alennos Kingdom’s side of the mountain range. When the horses were not sprinting, Astaria had completed the rest of the main tasks she wanted to get done for the guild within the system. She had completed all the administrative ranks and roles for the guild’s leadership, some of them being already filled by people employed under Augurium Esports.
Money really did make her life easier, and she regretted that her past self when she first started playing Caelus that she did not use her money to get ahead. Well, hindsight always was 20:20.
The fort that sat in front of them on the road led directly between two mountains that spanned across the valley. The mountain peaks extended to each side of their vision creating a nearly impenetrable wall of stone, their peaks lightly dusted with snow. The barren valley held the last large areas of grass they would see until they came out of the other side of the mountain range, cut in half by the fort and the border wall.
The main section of the fort at the centre of the valley was a large stone building with turrets and crenellations surrounding its walls. It easily reached about 15 meters high, with the border wall spanning across the narrowest point of the valley for easily over 100 meters.
While the mountain path could be used to invade the Alennos Kingdom, it would require a massive undertaking to traverse with an army, and due to the narrow path through the mountains, only a few soldiers could pass through at a time. By the time an army made it to the other side, the Alennos Kingdom could have easily defended the inner path and whittled away any invading force.
From the history records, the empire had apparently tried multiple times in the past to invade, however, all the attempts were unsuccessful purely due to the mountains. It was part of the reason why such a small and secluded nation could survive so long without being invaded.
