Saeko adjusted the strap of her travel pack as she followed the caravan's steady pace. The merchant—a shrewd but kindly man named Barin—preferred slow roads and lively marketplaces to instant travel through portals.
"Only big cities have them," he had said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "And besides, there's profit to be made along the way. A wise merchant never skips a good deal."
That meant five days on the road. Five days through villages, hamlets, and scattered waystations before reaching Velria. For Saeko, the job was simple: keep the merchant alive, keep the goods intact, and deal with whatever crawled out of the wilderness.
