To miss a night’s sleep is to gain a dark day.

  - Attributed to Lady Aeyah of House Sahaem.

  The night was uneventful, much to my relief. Our patrols around the camp encountered no hidden enemies. No bandits or monsters y in wait for us out on the quiet pins. Alone, with a simple torch for company, I practiced what magic I could and tried to make some inroads in growing my arcane might. Taking stock of my progress, something I had neglected to do for quite some time, I noted that my experience points had surpassed the three thousand mark, but beyond that, there were no significant developments of note.

  My Identify spell, however, gave me a glimmer of an idea. Maybe, with a focused effort of will, I could manage to either reorganize or, at the very least, remove some of the redundant skills cluttering my interface. The sibint voices that had been with me for so long fell into an uneasy silence at the thought. I mentally tinkered with my least-desired skill, Mining, attempting to banish it from view.

  Suddenly, a sharp, piercing pain tore through my head. Just as abruptly as it had arrived, it disappeared. Had I deleted the skill? No, that was not my intention. All I had wanted to do was push it from view. Panicking a little, I quickly willed it back. Sharp pain returned, but through tear-filled eyes and gritted teeth, I saw that the skill had come back into view with it. Despite the discomfort, my experiment had been successful. Now, if I so chose, I could edit what my user interface dispyed.

  The powers that be did not appreciate me pying with their gifts, but I had finally attained a degree of control over my user interface, an achievement that had long eluded me. A measure of independence. Nonetheless, it was not an experience I was eager to revisit anytime in the near future.

  This uneventful state of affairs persisted into the following day, and also the day after that, making for an unbearably tedious existence. With nothing to do, I even endured another splitting headache to hide the Mining skill again. This time I would not be bringing it back!

  Later in the evening, I ambled over to Ankhset's wagon, only to be rebuffed by her children. They informed me that she was engaged in deep meditation and would not be receiving visitors. I wondered if there was a particur task I needed to complete to gain access to this elusive NPC, or if perhaps I needed to bring along the more-intimidating Kidu or the more-charismatic Larynda to finally talk with the mage.

  The only respite from the tedium came in the form of the evening meals, where I could finally unwind. However, even in these moments of respite, Larynda would pester me incessantly, eager to hear more stories from my world. More often than not, I would give in to Larynda's persistent requests. Kidu would pretend to be uninterested, but I could see his genuine curiosity as he leaned forward, captivated by the tales. There was something enticing about performing for an audience, so eager and enthusiastic. I couldn't help but wonder how high Larynda's Charisma attribute must have been to affect me so strongly before I refocused on my own storytelling.

  During the nights, once I was certain that Kidu and Larynda were both sound asleep, I would cast Drain on Larynda to replenish my magical reserves. This in turn enabled me to cast a Greater Heal spell to repair the minor damage caused by the Drain spell. I convinced myself that this was both a productive way to train my magic and at the same time contribute to developing Larynda's Constitution.

  One day, much to Larynda’s delight, someone had even found the girl child some horse tack. A faded blue cloth and a worn leather saddle were attached to an uncompining Patches, along with a soft hackamore. What the girl cked in experience and skill she made up for in bance, following the instructions of a group of children who ughingly called her their ‘Great Sage.’ Children pyed childish games.

  Then we saw them. Under the serene expanse of a cloud-speckled blue sky, we observed distant moving dots on the horizon. Likam, one of the guards, specuted that it could be another trading party, like us, endeavoring to traverse the Green Road earlier in the season. According to the veteran, such an occurrence was a rarity, but not an entirely unprecedented one.

  Now, able to at least not embarrass myself in the saddle, I was assigned to the rear guard of the caravan.

  My borrowed mount, named Mouse, was thankfully an obedient and pcid horse. Mouse was about fourteen hands high, and had gentle eyes that looked at me with a mother’s patience. She had a uniform dull brown coat, with a barrel chest and an ambling gait that forgave my poor seat. I was given strict instructions, by Arik, not to fight on horseback in the unlikely event that trouble should find us. To my relief, trouble did not find us that day, but I felt that it was drawing closer. Something was not quite right. This tedious peace was merely the quiet before the coming storm.

  The next day, a small group of dots could be seen moving in our direction, and Kham hissed that they may be an overly-enthusiastic party of the Tides, fresh young blood looking to harass and extort the merchant trains that passed these ways. They would prove their pce in the world with violence, or at least the threat of violence. It was the way of the Grass Sea, and the caravan was prepared to act accordingly. Jasper, Kham’s second, estimated they would catch up to us on the morrow. Although the caravan for the most part was almost indolently cavalier in their attitude about the whole thing, they would not find Kidu and me unprepared.

  The next morning, instead of moving out as usual, the caravan remained in its nightly defensive formation. The fast-moving dots from the day before had transformed into a group of horsemen moving steadily closer. At that pace, they would be upon us in a few hours. My group prepared for the potential confrontation, and even Larynda had picked up on the cues and begun sharpening a small steel knife. We had told her to stay back and leave the fighting to those more capable, to which she sullenly agreed.

  The caravan was prepared to meet the riders.