sleepless night two, and first town

This sentiment was one of the things that motivated me day in and day out, I thought over it, hundreds of times after my instructor died last year at eighty-eight years old, I thought about the glory he told me of, the power we once held, now lost.

It's a miracle the book and artifact I stole were still in our possession, after all our failures, I decided to grow powerful and reinstate our Legendary title, rather than decay under my father's thumb, and the first step towards this goal will be to restore this technique.

So, I tasked the chip with it, according to its analysis it would take a year at least, so much for under a month.

There were no other options however by practicing the swordsmanship I could speed up the process, so I stayed up all night using my strength and the dagger to carve a wooden sword from the core of a fallen great silver pine tree.

I returned at the break of dawn stowing the cloak back into the tent, it helped keep me warm despite its smell and grime, so I didn't leave it in the forest to rot.

After toiling away throughout the night, I waited for our group to pack up and move on, sleeping in the back of the jittering carriage.

The sleep failed to go uninterrupted as the occasional large stone, rocked the carriage wakening me up however, all things considered, it did the job.

When we stopped for lunch, I asked the owner how much longer there is until Birch town, when I did, he laughed lightly smiling he consoled, 'don't worry yourself you'll see it the day after tomorrow' then he laughed fully 'I'm surprised you didn't ask sooner, when my son was your age, he would constantly pester me.

I hate being treated like a child, it's demeaning, in my life as Cole I was twenty and a well-educated, well-respected man and as Alexander, I was treated with reverence, groomed to be the cream of the crop, either way I was respected, however, I won't tell that to the owner, I won't risk offending him, it's his carriage after all.

After that episode I ate the last of my jerky before I returned to the carriage to get some more rest, I decided to look around the forest, test my luck, and see If I could find a specific one of the many beneficial plants abundant in the forest.

The search would look somewhat ill-advised as I was searching too close to the established path however, what I was looking for was incredibly rare and equally hard to find, only with the help of an artifact, something only the powerful could afford, or something like chip could it be found, all occasions otherwise were just sheer luck, most who find it doesn't even know what it is, leaving the precious ingredient to rot.

The search yielded no results, so I returned vowing to forage for it later. Luckily, on the way, I managed to find some edible plants as well as a fast-flowing stream to refill my flask.

Upon returning, the rest of them had packed up ready to set off, only waiting for me, I joined them sitting on the back dangling my legs off the end, charging the chip to set a part of its processing power, towards scanning the local forest, about ten meters around the carriage, the limits of its current ability, whilst concentrating on the swordsmanship technique which had consolidated at one year and a half.

Night came and I had failed to find the illusive plant, dinner passed the same as yesterday, except I joined in cooking my foraged treasures. Tonight, I find myself unwilling to go another sleepless, so I hail to the tent falling deep into slumber before Gavon even entered.

Waking up I stretch, feeling rested and refreshed. The day passed peacefully, having fallen into a routine I languished through, having made little to no progress in the vein search for the plant, in which I'm starting to suspect the existence of the book I found it in was called the compendium of archaic vegetation, it being an ancient book itself made five hundred years ago might leave its information unreliable.

As for the swordsmanship, its counter was ticking slowly. The next day was more progressive as I mustered my courage and started practicing swordsmanship, the reason I hadn't yesterday was out of fear, the fear of recognition, if one of the others recognised it and reported it to the count I would be in immediate danger, however, today I decided to take the dive risking it all, so what if father sent people after me, I could just kill them, the only people out here, near the edge of his territory, would be inexperience squires anyway.

A few hours after we stopped for lunch, we left the forest, still, no sign of the plant, the pathway we traveled on converged into a wider cobbled road, this road unlike the one through the forest had more carriages and wagons with the occasional coach, as we traveled further down more roads converged into it bringing more traffic, at one time there would always be at least three others.

An hour after joining the cobbled road I could see a wooden fortress peaking over the horizon, after getting closer it was revealed to be a gate, wide enough for two carriages to pass simultaneously.

The carriage came to a halt just before the gate the horses rearing. Just as we stopped outside the gate a soldier came up to us asking to search for any contraband, thinking of the consequences if he found me, I hid behind Gavon, it didn't work, of course, it wouldn't work, there was no other choice, so I just yearned to not to be recognised, it wasn't enough.

The soldier who at this point was ordering us to vacate the carriage and line up noticed me behind Gavon, barking at me to 'leave that man's shadow, encase your hiding something' knowing I had no choice, I walked around to face the soldier.

He recognised me, it was clear the moment he saw me, a glint of cunning passed his eye, my father, he had most likely placed a reward on my capture, and he knew, it was clear by the greed in the soldiers' avaricious smile, he wanted it all. This greed would be his downfall.

After the inspection was over, he allowed us passage into the town, whispering something to a man beside him before returning to duty, the chip picked up on his faint whispered words 'those people are suspicious follow them and report directly to me if any changes occur, if they split up to follow the boy, I suspect he's kidnapped, you see I know his father.' the whole thing was muddled in false truth's; his speech was unusually eloquent and as he also recognised me when his apparent subordinates didn't, this means he's most likely the leader of this towns defense force or at least this gates.