It was late afternoon by the time Mauri had gotten her affairs in order for the trip. I'd already been prepared, and after a quick lunch at one of the smaller restaurants in town square, we gathered our things and headed for the town's entrance.

Seeing at how late it was getting, I'd actually suggested staying one more day in town and heading out in the morning, but Mauri wasn't having any of it. Apparently she'd slept in earlier and was itching to 'go out and do something worthwhile'.

"I have grown sick of this town, Amethyst," Mauri explained as we headed north, passing the many citizens going about their business. A few walking close by frowned at the small woman, but Mauri ignored them and continued addressing me, her voice uncomfortably loud, "there is little to do for someone like me, and I have found it a rather dull experience."

"Why'd you come here in the first place?" I asked, in earnest curiosity, "if you were hanging out in the guild hall, I assume it had something to do with guild work?"

"Bah, hardly," Mauri snorted, kicking at a bit of rock that had loosed itself from the stone path, "I suppose you could call me a wanderer—traveling where I please and getting involved in whatever catches my interest," she glanced over in my direction and smiled, "in a way, I was not so different from you once."

"Really?" I asked, adjusting my bag and looking back at Mauri with a bemused frown, "how so?"

Rather than answer right away, Mauri turned a contemplative gaze up towards the sky above, humming in thought. I watched her curiously, but didn't say anything, figuring I'd let her gather her own thoughts first.

"My home country of Djävago lies far, far to the west," Mauri replied after a moment, "it is an isolated community, cut off from the rest of civilization by both the sea and thick forests full of trees that reach the very heavens themselves. My people have chosen to live with nature, and we make our homes amongst those trees."

Ah, so my guess was right after all.

"When most look upon me, they see a mere girl barely past her childhood," she said, turning to me with a small smirk, "there is reason for that. I told you I was older than I looked, yes?"

"Yeah," I replied carefully, "I was wondering about that. You look a lot younger than I do, and though I'm not really sure how old I am exactly, I'd say I was around my early to mid twenties if I had to guess by looks."

Mauri chuckled at that.

"In actuality, my young friend, I have quite a few more years on you than that," her smirk widened into a cheeky grin and her next words came in a playful whisper, "about four hundred years to be exact."

I nearly slowed to a stop as I tried to process that bit of information. Mauri simply laughed at my no doubt ridiculous expression, but I was too stunned to care. I could've been wrong, but I doubted even the Headhunter had been that old.

"Over four hundred years old," I muttered, shaking my head in disbelief, "people can really live that long?"

"Well, not normally, no," Mauri explained as I picked back up my pace, "the people of Djävago are special in that our sacred commune with nature over the course of thousands of years have given us vastly elongated lifespans. I would be about twenty-five years or so in the lifespan of the average human, so I'd be just about your age," she frowned down at herself, "though I actually am rather small for my age in general."

"Wow," I replied, my brows still raised in wonder, "I guess when it comes to experience, no one around here has you beat," my frowned returned a moment later, "but if that's the case, how does that make you like me? I'm pretty sure I haven't lived that long."

"Well, I made a show of saying I had more experience than Darmund," her grin fell slightly and her tone grew a little quieter, "but really, much of my long life has been spent among my people, who, as a whole, are very ignorant of the world beyond our vast forests. I only left my home a mere ten years ago."

"I see, so that's what you meant," I replied just as quietly, "you set out into the world with no idea what to expect then?"

"No idea whatsoever," Mauri confirmed with a sigh, "of my people, only a few have been as far as the shores beyond the forests, and even less have actually traveled out into the world," she grimaced, "those that have, have never come back."

I could tell by her look that there was more to the statement, but chose not to pry. She glanced at me as if expecting me to ask, and looked relieved when I didn't.

"There is only one family in my entire village that knows of sailing and boat making," she continued, "it was thanks to them that I was able to set off on my own journey."

She chuckled and turned her gaze towards the open fields full of rows upon rows of wheat, and I followed her gaze. I hadn't even realized we'd made it out into the farmlands just beyond the town's borders. Maybe it was because of my experiences, but I found I preferred the view of the countryside moreso than the mountain range behind me.

"I had never seen the ocean let alone ridden on a boat," Mauri continued, catching my attention once more, "I may have lived hundreds of years, but out there on the open sea, I may as well have been a mere child," she chuckled again, "I certainly acted the part."

"And you went out all alone?" I asked worriedly, "no one else came with you? Actually, why did you decide to leave in the first place?"

"The family I told you about, who knew of sailing?" she explained, "I was close friends with the daughter of the head of the family. She agreed to take me across the sea to Vale, but I could not convince her to join me any further, and she returned home to Djävago once we reached land."

"Oh... I'm sorry to hear that," I replied honestly, "it must've been hard to say goodbye like that."

"Yes well, it was some time ago and I have since gotten over it," she shrugged her shoulders absently, "to answer your other question, I simply grew tired of life in the forest and wanted to see the world with my own eyes. It sounds childish now, but back then, I was a child in mind if not in body."

I looked her over again and raised an eyebrow, my dubious look not going unnoticed by the woman with the clearly childlike frame. As if to add to the illusion of being a child, she frowned and stuck her tongue out at me.

"Say what you will, Sparkle, but know that I am proud of my small stature," she huffed, "it has helped me escape dangerous situations in ways you would have never expected."

"I'm sure it has," I muttered under my breath before speaking in a normal tone, "anyway, that doesn't explain how you ended up all the way out here in this small town out in the country, or how or why you joined the Unyielding Blade."

"Patience, my purple haired friend—"

"It's actually more of an indigo—"

"—I was just about to get to that very tale," she cleared her throat and continued, barreling right over me, "you see, like you, I was as naive as a newborn babe when I arrived in Vale for the first time, and had to learn many things the hard way. Ignorance, culture, language, prejudice... it was not easy to deal with all of these things, but I rose above it eventually and made a name for myself."

I listened to her every word, all the while wondering whether or not we were more alike than she realized. We were certainly far more different than she knew, I knew that much for sure.

I mean, I used to be a completely different species before all of this apparently. Doesn't really get much different than that.

Still, from what little I remembered of my own world, I got the sense that it was far less dangerous or gritty than this one. In a sense, I'd been thrown from my own presumably comfortable life by some mysterious force and dropped into a world I knew nothing about in a form that wasn't my own... all on top of having amnesia.

If anything, my situation was much, much worse. Still, I understood where she was coming from, and my situation did ring similarly to hers, even if my circumstances were a little more extreme.

"Mine was a family of warriors," Mauri continued, oblivious to my introspection, "there had not been any kind of war or in-fighting between my people in several millennia, but my own family had kept the way of the sword alive throughout many generations," she snorted, "relics of the past, they called us and our discipline, pah!"

"Well, I can't really blame them to be honest—not to say I agree or disagree," I added quickly at Mauri's sour expression, "I'm just saying, if there's no threats from within or without for a long period of time, it would make sense that people would get complacent, and after centuries of peace, it's no wonder they gave up the ways of war."

"A shame is what it is," Mauri replied, shaking her head in disapproval, "I know full well the need for peace. I was taught of the dangers of war, the horrors of wanton bloodshed, and that drawing your steel was only to be done as a final resort... but I was also told that a hawk without talons is no hawk at all."

I'm pretty sure a hawk is still a hawk even without talons, but I get what she means.

"It does not matter how long our peace has lasted," the green haired woman practically hissed, "it does not matter that there are no threats within our borders. We have only managed to live the way we do because the world has yet to bear its fangs against us," she turned to me, looking more serious than I'd ever seen her before, "I have seen and learned much since I left home, and I know now, more than ever, that the peace in my country will not last forever."

Her words were spoken with so much certainty that I would've thought it was some kind of premonition. With how ominous her words were and how grim her expression was, I found myself wondering if she knew whether or not something bad was actually going to happen to her home.

She let out a long sigh and the dark look on her face passed—her smile coming back, accompanied by a small shrug.

"My family had known this to be true for ages, and so kept the way of the warrior alive," she jerked a thumb behind her, pointing it back towards the town, "it is also one of the reasons why I chose to join the Unyielding Blade."

"Because you were afraid your home would be attacked?" I asked, not seeing the connection, "I'm not quite sure where that fits in."

"It's all about experience, my little Amethyst," Mauri replied, raising a pompous, lecturing finger, "I joined the Unyielding Blade to further hone my skills and learn new ways of fighting so that when the day came, I could better defend my home when I eventually return."

"If that was the case, why not just find another person to teach you a different style of fighting?"

"Because of the other reasons I joined the guild," Mauri replied with a wistful smile, "I told you that I would get involved in whatever caught my interest, and the many people I met in that guild interested me greatly. Darmund was actually the one who convinced me to join."

"He was?" I asked, my brows raising in surprise. I thought about it for a moment and nodded, "actually yeah, having met him myself, I could definitely see that happening."

I thought to ask Mauri about the debt she owed the large man, but she had already moved on.

"Indeed! He is an intriguing man, that one!" Mauri laughed. Her laughter died out a second later and her smile settled into a pensive look, "as for why I came to this little town all the way out here... well... I heard tale of a vicious monster that had terrorized the area for centuries. I was told it was a mere legend, but I wanted to see for myself whether or not the tale of the Headhunter was true."

My heart skipped a beat.

Of course that's what she came here for! I should've known it would be something like that! Why does it always come back to that horrible thing?!

"O-Oh, really?" I replied with a nervous smile, "and... I take it you didn't find anything?"

"Nothing," she answered bitterly. She gave me an oddly scrutinizing look, "from what I have heard, the beast is a shapeshifting nightmare that is nigh impossible to track down, and I hoped to challenge myself by being the one to finally slay it," she gave another long sigh and shifted her large leather satchel from one shoulder to the other, "I was, and am, confident in my tracking skills, but I have found nothing of the monster's whereabouts."

"I see," I replied somewhat quietly, "so you spent all your time trying to find out where the Headhunter was, but just ended up going around in circles?"

"More or less," Mauri crossed her arms and frowned, "perhaps it was just a legend after all, though I hesitate to admit it. Given how the townsfolk treated me when I first arrived, and their skittish behavior during the evening hours, I would think there was some grain of truth, but I have found nothing."

I looked away and towards the path ahead, biting my lip in indecision. We'd made it a good way into the farmlands, and I could see where they ended and the open plains began in the far distance. I looked up and saw that the sun was nearing ever closer to the horizon.

Should I just tell her? Would she even believe me if I did?

She'd already suspected I was hiding something, and had flat out commanded me to reveal what it was eventually. Would it really matter if I told her? I wasn't just making excuses when I'd told Darmund I hadn't wanted to talk about it. The memory of that night was still fresh in my mind, and it still made me shiver slightly whenever I thought too deeply about it all.

It had felt good to tell Rosalyn about it though...

I glanced over to Mauri, but quickly looked away when I saw that she was looking back at me suspiciously. There was always the possibility that if I told her about my magic and that I had an actual Spellblade, she'd attack me for it, but looking at her, that didn't seem likely.

Then again, it didn't seem likely that Rosalyn would try to poison me either.

"Something on your mind?" came Mauri's inquisitive voice, "am I boring you with my tale, Amethyst Sparkle?"

"What? No!" I exclaimed, waving a hand, "I'm sorry, I just... yeah, there is kind of something bothering me, but you don't need to worry about it," I coughed into my hand before giving the smaller woman my most convincing smile, "anyway, what were you saying?"

"I was going to ask how much you knew about Vale's war with Grynda," Mauri said after a moment, "if you are going to Ruvenbor, you will need to be both wary and knowledgeable of the subject."

"Oh... no, I don't really know all that much about it," I replied, relieved that she was moving on, "I read something about it awhile back, but the passage didn't really go into much detail. I do know that the king and the rest of Ruvenbor is on edge and worried about spies."

"On edge, yes that would describe the state of the city very well," Mauri replied with a nod, "the citizens are jumpy, the city is crawling with King Revnun's knights, and they are actively looking for spies," she spat to the side and grimaced in disgust, "many innocents have been thrown in jail or worse just by simply looking at a knight wrong."

"That's horrible!" I exclaimed, now much more unsure about going to the city, "isn't there some kind of due process involved when it comes to that sort of thing?"

"Not with the way the King has been acting lately," Mauri replied gravely, "until recently, Vale and Grynda have been locked in a stalemate where neither side has gained an advantage over the other, but the situation has since changed."

"How?" I asked, "what happened?"

"The country of Grynda lies far to the east of Vale, and sits on the opposite side of a mighty river that is much too wide and deep to forge," Mauri explained, "it stretches almost from one end of the continent to the other, and there are only two major bridges you can cross."

"Only two?" I asked, the gears turning in my head, "so... if Grynda and Vale are at war, then I'd imagine one or both nations would have some kind of blockade set up at both bridges."

"You are correct," Mauri replied, nodding in approval, "up until recently, Vale has had control over one bridge, and Grynda over the other, and each is blocked by heavily fortified gates on both sides, complete with battlements in case of a siege. The defense of all four gates are mighty, and neither army has managed to breach each other's gates. It's been that way ever since the war began in earnest a few years ago."

"And if you're implying that the stalemate's been broken, then that means one of the gates was finally taken down in a siege," I guessed, "if the king is this paranoid, I'm assuming it was Grynda's army that managed to break through?"

"Right again," the other woman replied grimly, "Grynda has gained a foothold in Vale's territory, and it is only a matter of time before they begin marching on Ruvenbor. They have already taken Flumaen, the largest port city in Vale, but for some reason they have not pressed forward with their invasion.

"I have heard from some of my friends in Ruvenbor that Grynda is content to hold the port city, and is bolstering its defenses against a counter siege by Vale," Mauri rubbed her chin thoughtfully, "the fact that the majority of the invading army hasn't made any attempt to continue their invasion beyond Flumaen is worrying, but the King has taken his suspicion and paranoia too far, I think."

It did sound strange that Grynda wouldn't press their advantage, and that they would put all their resources into one city, even if it was an important port city, but then again, I wasn't really big on military strategy, so I really couldn't say one way or the other about what this all meant for Vale and Ruvenbor in particular.

"How far is Flumaen from Ruvenbor?" I decided to ask, "how much time would they have before the other army arrived?"

"Flumaen is quite a distance from here, a little over a week and a half by foot if you keep to the road," Mauri replied after a moment's thought, "that's another reason why the king's behavior is so strange. I heard that his general has sent some of his best agents to scope out the situation in the port city, as well as to other towns and cities nearby, but other than that, there has been no move to retake the city."

"It sounds like the general is biding his time," I muttered, "waiting for Grynda to make another move maybe?"

"Who knows?" Mauri replied with a shrug, "some members of the guild have been hired to protect a few of the towns near Flumaen, and there have been Grynda soldiers spotted here and there, but they are few and far between."

"I heard from someone in town that Grynda was going to make some kind of big move soon," I said, remembering what Samson told me back in town hall, "do you know anything about that?"

"I have heard that there is to be a surprise attack on the capital. That is the big rumor making its way around Thatch," Mauri answered with a small frown, "but it is most likely just that—a rumor, and I would not put too much stock into it. There are all kinds of rumors like that popping up, but they have either been proven false, are highly unlikely to be true, or is most likely misinformation spread on purpose in order to cause panic amongst the populace."

"I guess that could be the case, but personally, I'd rather not rule out the possibility that some of those rumors could be true," I replied. Another thought came to me and I turned back to Mauri, "do you know if the Order is involved in any way? I know they primarily hunt monsters and demons and the like, but surely they have some kind of stake in all this?"

"You know, that is a good question," Mauri answered with a thoughtful hum, "honestly I am unsure as to what the Order of Nox Atra plans to do. The war has been going on for quite some time, but their members have not announced any plans to cooperate with the King's army. In fact, they have been largely silent on the subject of the war."

"Do you think they might remain a neutral party?" I asked, making a note to bring the matter up when, or if I reached the office in Ruvenbor, "is the organization even permitted to remain neutral in times of war?"

"The Order has gained enough power over the years to remain an autonomous organization," Mauri explained, "they have branches all over the world, so they don't fall under the liege of any one king or emperor," she smirked, "if every member of the Order here in Vale came together against Grynda, they would most likely rout the other country's entire army alone, without the aid of King Revnun's army."

I stared at the smaller woman in disbelief.

"Wow, that... that's insane," I muttered, "and that's just here in Vale."

"Ridiculous, is it not?" Mauri laughed, "but no, I doubt they will interfere in this war, and the Unyielding Blade is far too disorganized and its members too varied to be of any help as a whole.

"The King could certainly send someone to talk to Hrist and try to work out some kind of deal, but that woman would ask for nothing less than the King's entire fortune in return for the services of the entire guild, and I doubt he is that desperate yet."

"Hrist?" I asked, tilting my head in bemusement, "who's that? Another member of the guild?"

Though based on what she said about gathering the entire guild together...

"Oh, she is much more than that, my little Amethyst," Mauri replied, her grin widening, "Hrist Roedvin is the leader of the Unyielding Blade, and has been for many years. Not only is she one of the strongest warriors in the world right now, but she is also one of only two known wielders of an actual Spellblade."

"Is she really?" I asked, once more become all too aware of the weight of the sword on my back, "Rosalyn told me there were still some Spellblade users out there somewhere. I didn't think I'd hear about one so soon, though."

"Oh, yes. I may be a force to be reckoned with, but Hrist is in a world all her own," she sidled up next to me, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper, "and would you care to guess who the other Spellblade wielder is?"

The other wielder? Aside from me, I have no idea who else it could be except for maybe... wait... no, don't tell me...

"It wouldn't happen to be the current leader of the Order would it?" I guessed, already able to tell I was right by Mauri's widening grin, "it is, isn't it?"

"It is, indeed! Arx Daemal, the leader of the Order of Nox Atra and rumored descendant of Alrik the Hunter himself!" she danced away and skipped ahead slightly before turning to face me, "neither has faced one another in battle, but I have no doubt that he is the only one who could match Hrist in battle."

"Is that so?" I replied, somewhat less enthusiastic than the beaming woman in front of me, "it would certainly be something to see, that's for sure."

Though if he really is the descendant of Alrik, that might be something worth noting...

"It would!" she nearly squealed, "it would be a battle bards would sing about for ages to come!"

I raised an eyebrow at Mauri's exuberance.

I'm starting to wonder about her being four hundred years old. I'm not even fully convinced she isn't actually younger than me with how she's acting. Maybe she's just... has a thing for battles? I can't really see myself getting that excited about something, but to each their own I guess.

As we continued onward towards the plains, I spent the rest of our walk through the farmlands mulling over all the information I'd gained, all the while engaging in small talk with Mauri and leaning more about Vale and the people that lived here. In the end, I decided not to tell her about the Headhunter, at least not until I was ready.

I knew Darmund was right, and that she'd find out eventually, but for now I was content to leave things as they were. The whole situation regarding the war worried me, and somehow I knew I was going to get caught up in it in some way. The only thing I could do was hope I'd be ready to face whatever lie ahead by the time things took a turn for the worst.

For those of you who didn't catch it, this is basically the exposition chapter. Part two will hopefully be a bit more exciting.