"This is more frustrating than I want to admit; almost everyone seems guarded."
Atheline nodded.
"We’ll find a way."
The Goddess hadn’t shown them a detailed map; all she had left behind were vague coordinates and an indistinct direction.
Even after comparing them with King Seragus’s military maps, the marked location covered an enormous stretch of untamed wilderness.
If they simply marched toward those coordinates, they could spend weeks searching mountains, forests, and valleys with nothing to show for it.
They would have to narrow the search themselves. Which meant gathering every fragment of local knowledge they could find.
Rather than returning to the Guild, they split up. Not far enough to lose sight of one another, but enough that people would treat them as separate travelers rather than a pair asking identical questions.
Lilith wandered toward the market district. The frontier market lacked the elegance of cities farther inland.
She stopped beside an elderly woman selling woven baskets.
The woman looked old enough to have lived in the settlement for decades. Lilith examined one of the baskets.
"Fine craftsmanship."
The old woman smiled proudly.
"My family has been weaving them for three generations."
"You must have seen this town change considerably."
"I’ve seen it grow." She chuckled. "And I’ve buried more neighbors than I’d have liked."
Lilith purchased a small basket before continuing the conversation naturally.
"I was told this region has many beautiful places."
"It does."
"The eastern forests bloom beautifully every spring."
"What about beyond them?"
The old woman paused.
"There are plenty of hills and streams. You’ll find abandoned farms here and there." She hesitated. "Though... not many people travel farther than necessary."
Lilith tilted her head.
"Because of beasts?"
"Mostly."
The answer came too quickly, then, after another moment, the woman quietly added, "And because some places simply aren’t worth visiting."
Lilith didn’t ask which places; instead, she smiled politely and thanked her before moving on.
Elsewhere, Atheline had found himself speaking with a caravan master supervising the loading of several wagons. The man barked orders while workers secured crates filled with monster hides.
After helping lift one particularly heavy crate onto a wagon, Atheline earned the man’s appreciation.
"You’re stronger than you look."
"I’ve had practice."
The caravan master laughed.
"I imagine so."
As the workers continued loading supplies, Atheline asked casually,
"You’ve probably traveled most of the surrounding roads."
"Nearly all of them."
"Any routes you’d recommend?"
"For scenery?"
"For a quiet journey."
The man scratched his beard thoughtfully.
"If you want quiet... The southern trade road isn’t bad, not much traffic outside harvest season."
"What about farther east?"
The man’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.
"We don’t send caravans that way."
"No roads?"
"There are, but they aren’t worth maintaining."
"Because of corruption?"
"Sometimes."
He folded his arms.
"Other times..." he looked toward the distant mountains. "...the cost outweighs the profit."
By midday they met again beneath the shade of a large oak growing near the town square. The little fox lay comfortably between them, chewing happily on a strip of dried meat purchased from one of the market stalls.
Atheline summarized his conversations.
"No one gives the same answer, but they all avoid certain directions."
Lilith nodded.
"I noticed the same."
She removed a folded map from her pack. Together they marked every place people had indirectly mentioned. When they finished... Five separate areas had been marked.
Atheline frowned.
"So much for narrowing things down."
Lilith studied the map carefully.
"Not necessarily." She pointed toward the eastern forests. "Three different people referred to this area without realizing they were talking about the same place."
He looked more closely. The descriptions differed; one called it the Silent Woods, another mentioned an abandoned road, and a third spoke only of hunters avoiding a particular valley. Yet all three pointed toward roughly the same region.
Their next stop was the town archives. It wasn’t an official government building; rather, it consisted of several rooms attached to the mayor’s residence where maps, tax records, and settlement histories were stored.
The elderly clerk welcomed them politely.
"We don’t receive many visitors interested in old records."
Lilith smiled.
"I enjoy local history."
The clerk’s face brightened.
"So do I."
He happily retrieved several faded maps. Most were disappointingly ordinary, but one older map caught Atheline’s attention. Unlike the newer editions, this one showed several settlements that no longer existed.
"What happened here?"
The clerk adjusted his spectacles.
"Those villages?"
"Abandoned."
"All of them?"
"Over many generations."
"Wars?"
"Some. Disease and poor harvests." He shrugged. "Frontier settlements rarely last forever."
Atheline’s finger rested on one village located surprisingly close to the vague coordinates left by the Goddess.
"This one?"
The clerk leaned closer.
"I... don’t remember." He frowned. "That’s strange, I’ve read these records many times but..."
He searched his memory.
"I can’t recall why that village disappeared."
Lilith exchanged a subtle glance with Atheline. The clerk wasn’t lying; he genuinely couldn’t remember despite remembering the fate of every other abandoned settlement.
After leaving the archives, they spent the afternoon speaking with hunters preparing to leave the town. One group had recently returned from a week-long expedition and another planned to head toward the mountains.
Instead of asking about unusual places, Atheline simply asked,
"If you had to choose one direction where you wouldn’t camp alone... What would it be?"
One hunter answered immediately.
"The northern marsh, too many corrupted beasts."
Another shook his head.
"No. The cliffs and rockslides."
A third frowned thoughtfully.
"I’d avoid the eastern forest."
"Because of beasts?"
The hunter hesitated.
"There aren’t many."
"Then why?"
"I don’t know." He looked slightly embarrassed. "My grandfather always told me not to stay there after sunset."
"Did he say why?"
"No."
"I never asked." He laughed awkwardly. "I suppose I simply listened."
Later that afternoon, Lilith found herself watching a group of children playing near the edge of town. They were pretending to be adventurers exploring dangerous lands. One child pointed a wooden stick toward the hills.
"I’m going there!"
Another immediately shook his head.
"You can’t."
"Why not?"
"My grandmother says nobody goes there."
"That’s not true."
"My uncle does."
"He only cuts wood near the edge."
"He never goes inside."
The children quickly moved on to another game. Lilith remained where she stood. Children repeated what adults said without questioning it, sometimes... They preserved old truths better than written history.