Michael was walking along the main road in a kind of laid back daze when the border between Swandia and Broan came into view. There were small guard stations on either side of the wide road stopping merchants and travelers headed into their countries. The Swandians were dressed in the orange uniforms that had become very familiar to him. Their guardhouse had fewer guards than the Cantalian one they'd passed through only a few weeks earlier and those that we're manning it seemed either very old or very young. Michael presumed that all the most able bodied and experienced soldiers had been sent to deal with the rifts in the south or to bolster the border with Cantalia as a deterrent to Burndan.

On the Broan side, the guardhouse was much more heavily manned. There were soldiers in chainmail and blue surcoats wielding spears and large tower shields as well as knights on horseback in groups of two on either side of the road. A wall was being assembled on the Broan side as well, and Michael saw a number of men in shabby clothing hauling stone and mixing mortar for it. When he looked at them more closely he saw that they had burn scars on their arms. The burns were all in the same places, but the symbol varied with most of them having simple emblems or initials. They weren't control brands like what they'd received in Stent instead they were the kind that you'd give cattle.

"Are they all takers?"

Michael shook his head. "I think Broan has slaves even beyond just using takers. I was told that there are tribes in their Eastern mountains that aren't part of the kingdom, but regularly come down to sell men and women they'd captured from the other tribes."

Ollie grimaced, but said nothing. Michael wasn't happy to see it either, but he'd need to wait on ending slavery until after he stopped the world from being torn apart.

They got into the queue and waited behind a merchant cart. As they waited Michael scanned for any diviners, but saw none and whispered as much to Ollie. Eventually it was their turn.

"Business?" asked a blue clad guard.

"Travelling through to Old Hume."

The guard looked at them more closely. "Takers?"

"How dare you," said Ollie, shaking his head and spitting on the ground between them.

The guard raised an eyebrow and looked at the phlegmy glob between them before calling over another guard and whispering something to him. The other guard nodded at him and he looked at Ollie and Michael.

"Go ahead through. Next!"

They got back on the road and started heading south.

"That wasn't too bad," remarked Ollie, glancing back at the guardhouse.

"No. Makes me nervous that it was so easy."

Ollie shook his head. "Sometimes things are just easy, mate."

It was about an hour before a half-dozen men on horseback began bearing down on them. Michael and Ollie simply moved out of the road at first, thinking that they were just soldiers that needed to move quickly, but when they pivoted towards them they realized that wasn't the case.

"I think we can outrun them," said Ollie, jokingly.

"Oh, definitely," replied Michael, drawing his mace and changing it into a sword.

As the horsemen approached they realized they were wielding primarily staffs rather than bladed weapons and had large weighted nets at their sides. They wore black cloth masks over their faces, but were only lightly armored. As they reached them one of them threw his net with the momentum of a horse at full gallop.

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Michael went to cut at the net, but before he could hit it, Ollie grabbed it magically, keeping its momentum, and spun it around to hit a different oncoming horse in the legs, tangling them. The horse and its rider screamed in unison as they fell.

"You'll pay for that you fucks!" yelled one of the other men on horseback as he tried to strike Michael with the tip of his staff as if he was jousting. Michael layered a number of shield spells over his actual shield and managed to divert the blow with enough force that the man nearly fell off his saddle.

"They didn't mention that there was a mage!" yelled another of them as a bolt of lightning narrowly missed his masked face.

"Well just kill that one and we'll take the other in. He looks strong, and I want a bonus."

"Slavers?" asked Michael. "How did they know we were takers?"

"You're takers?" asked another of them who had begun circling them on his horse. He laughed a bit as he pulled his mask off revealing a plain faced man with dark hair. "Guess I don't need this then."

The others took off their masks as well.

"You were going to enslave us thinking we were just travelers?" asked Michael.

The man shrugged. "Gotta make a living somehow, and you two looked strong. Besides, your kit looked valuable too."

Ollie pointed his staff at one of them and the man's head was cut from his shoulders. "For the record, what you're doing is fucked either way."

Michael began to send divine flame down the length of his blade. "Agreed."

"What the fuck is tha-"

Michael launched himself forward and grabbed the man's staff with his shield arm, dragging him downward off his horse and stabbing him in the chest.

Ollie began gesturing in wide cutting motions with his staff, tearing through the men's chests, arms, and legs with rapidfire cutting spells. If he had time to channel they would've cut clean through them, but even when they were done so rapidfire they still cut deep enough to reach bone.

The slavers broke almost immediately. They hadn't been prepared for anywhere near that level of resistance from the two travelers.

"That cutting spell is scary," said Michael as he returned his weapon to his waist. "Just flick your staff and 'poof' no head."

"It uses a lot of magicka, but I gotta say I see the reason you and the others love your swords so much."

They looked at the small circle of carnage around them.

"I think we should divert toward the Lake of Beasts," said Michael.

Ollie sighed. "Yeah… I don't think we'll be able to talk or figure a way out of this while staying on the main road."

"Shame the horses ran off."

"We'd just get them killed anyway."

Michael nodded in agreement and they moved off the road and began to head West. Broan had a similar landscape to Swandia. There were lots of hills broken up by small pockets of brush, but Michael guessed that when they got closer to the Lake of Beasts it would be heavily forested as it had been to the northwest. That would make them harder to find, and along with the deterrent of rifts should make it so that Broan wouldn't be interested in chasing them down that far, if they were interested at all to begin with.

They travelled for nearly a full twenty four hours before Ollie needed to sleep. They found a rocky outcropping and laid down their bedrolls beneath it for the night. There hadn't been any signs that they were being followed, but they avoided lighting a fire anyway. Michael chose to keep watch for most of the night, as he wasn't tired, but Ollie insisted he take at least two hours to sleep after he woke up.

…

Sylas watched as another block of marble was carefully extracted and placed down to be worked. He felt a bit guilty about the extravagance of everything, but he'd learned early on that things in the Empire relied largely on appearances. If he wanted the kind of authority he needed, then he had to do everything he could to look and act the part. He raised a hand and channeled some magicka, feeling the intricate loops of channels that were spread throughout his body begin to cool slightly as he exerted his will.

He raised the large logs off of a cart and carefully arrayed all twenty of them over the waters of the lake. He held them there for a few minutes as he made minute adjustments, and then drove each of them deep into the water below, sinking them roughly ten feet down into the mud. The dock was one of the few things he was actually excited for. He missed fishing, missed… He gritted his teeth for a moment, but stopped when the architect approached him. Fantastic, another conversation about the importance of the grand stairway being visible from the atrium.

…

Michael awoke taking a moment to reorient himself and sitting up.

"I was about to wake you up. It's been three hours instead of two."

Michael grabbed his canteen and cleared his throat. It felt like he'd barely slept at all, but maybe that was just how visions from the gods went.

"We need to go all the way to the coast of the lake," said Michael.

Ollie sighed. "More god shit?"

Michael nodded. "More messages from the divine. Yes."

"You sure Nykas isn't just trying to fuck with you to get to me? I haven't been returning his calls after all."

Michael smiled. "I'm pretty sure he's satisfied after seeing you step in that horseshit yesterday."

Ollie shook his head. "I guess I'm better to him alive and suffering."

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