Really slow messages,

After they spent the night in the village they left promptly in the morning. Word of visitors from the capital had spread through the small villages. They started making treks to the larger villages in hopes of airing our grievances against neighbors, war-lords, and anyone else that was bullying them.

It wasn't often that the capital made its way out into the countryside. It was even rarer for the knights to make the trip on their own. This guaranteed a certain amount of excitement. For'Ten hadn't been prepared by how much. He was the knight's commander, and he very rarely got to leave the capital building.

This chance to be out and among the people was exciting to him but it was also becoming eye-opening. It appeared to him that the knights needed to be spending less time training and more time doing. The thought occurred to him that if they were out roaming, the fight would come to them and they would be able to work up the skills that a knight really needed.

Deep down his only real fear was that the knights would become the police force. Which is exactly what they were not. They were a reactionary force. Meant to be used as the end-all do-all of the force replies. They were like a weapon you were only supposed to unleash when you really needed to. A force deterrent.

Currently, Ed and For'Ten were stuck in town hall settling a dispute between two local towns over water rights. One town had dug a whole new tributary and was diverting water around the other town. The first town swore they dug it just to share and that beavers were the culprits. The water-starved town stated that as soon as they would destroy the damn it would be back with rocks.

The argument became heated as soon as the two started to debate whether beavers would build dams with rocks or without.

For'Ten had asked for information about the location of the towns. Getting anywhere in the debate became harder the more For'Ten tried to calm everyone down.

Ed was sitting in a chair against a back wall pretending to be a good trainee knight. With his hood up, he looked like he was studiously watching his master. If anyone had noticed they would have seen the map in his lap.

Those that had noticed the map assumed the man was just marking off locations that needed further attention.

Ed was furiously writing notes back and forth to Loran trying to understand how everything escalated from, find two souls, to I found a dragon and he wants to help.

He had originally remove the map for the exact reason everyone assumed. The map wasn't super detailed but he was able to tell that the small stretch of water was bout 20 miles south of the current town and seemed to be fed by a stream further inland.

Ed was asking questions, "Who is this dragon? Where has he been? Why does he want to help. Why is Cai-Pel helping you? Yes I know who Cai-Pel is, I will explain it later."

The odd part of the map was that it took a while for a message to appear and reply. Once the map was opened and Ed wrote a note in the section the rules worked like this. First, he must write his reply on the map. It had a few seconds delay while the magical ink dried onto the page. Once the ink had dried it would appear on the other map.

From the other map, Loran would slowly see words start to form out in ink. They would start as blotches and then form into words and lines. When she was done with them she could rub them with her hand and they would disappear.

Now on Ed's copy of the map, this appeared as if the words had dried out and slowly faded away. Having a conversation like this took about a minute each way for a reply. And they only had a section of the map about the size of a man's hand that you could send this kind of message in. The rest of the map would only send small blots of ink. Not lines, or strokes of ink.

Ed's mind was taken away from the map by the sounds of words becoming dangerously close to a full-blown fight.

"If your wife wasn't friends with my wife I'd leave her a widow right here and now!" One man in brightly colored farmers' clothing said. He had his finger in the other man's face.

The other man was smiling brightly, completely not disturbed by the threats or accusations. "Well, it's just too bad your wife has such horrible taste in men or she could live in our town. Who would be stupid enough to blame a whole town over one damn varmint"

Both men were of mixed heritage. This far out in the country your towns were either pure-line to one race of demi-human. Or they were of mixed heritage. This town was obviously mixed heritage. One man had smooth skin and the face of a pig but his body had bristles like a boar or some other wild game beast. The calmer man had a long face like a weasel with very human general features. His skin was dark black like fur had meant to be there.

The screaming resumed and for a minute For'Ten looked like he was about to give up. Ed quickly scrawled a note on the page. "Ask Cai-Pel if we can trust him and if he will do us more harm than good. If he trusts him Cai-Pel can help you get him to us. Or get you to me. I may need you to head north."

He rolled up the map and tucked it back into his bag.

For'Ten stood up and with a bang stomped his right hoof onto the floor. The impact shook the house so much that small bits of dust fell from the ceiling.

"Enough of the bickering! The problem is that you both need water and this new aqueduct that you have built is getting all the water correct?"

For"ten looked at the weasely man. The man couldn't miss the vein in For'Ten's head. The centaur race was known for their graceful looks. They knew that it took a lot to make one of their race look this angry.

The man backed down and smiled nodding furiously. "Yes, it all comes down to the aqueduct. If we could just get rid of the beaver I am sure we could all get along."

For'Ten looked to the man with the slightly porcine features. "Do you agree with this? Share the water correctly?"

The man gulped and nodded. Suddenly he understood that the knight was losing his patience. Several other people with issues to argue had taken off. This fight had turned ugly and they expected to see two men beheaded when he had stood up like that.

"Then get lost, go camp and come back tomorrow! I don't want to see either of you while I come up with a solution!" He pointed at the door and gave them both a look of pure distaste.

They nodded and backed out. They didn't even care that they bumped into each other on the way out. They both feared for their lives for just a moment there and wanted to escape.

For'Ten turned to look at Ed and shook his head vigorously. "To think this is what they fight about here in the rural areas. Damned water dispute. If I had the civil engineers from the dwarves or even the goblin people they could dig the damn thing out in an hour. Free of charge at that. Where is the damn magistrate for this region? When I find him I'm going to violate his internal peace."

Ed wasn't sure what he meant by violating his internal peace but it sounded unpleasant. And given the state of For'Ten's muscles and veins it probably wasn't going to be good.

"Why don't we go for a walk. I have an idea." Ed said quietly pointing at the door. For'Ten snorted once and walked out the door. He didn't want to walk, for the first time in a while For'Ten wanted to punch things.

Ed followed him out the door and behind the house into the yard. This down had now walls. It was a city center and the town hall/city manager's home was south of the central plaza. The back yard housed a small barn and garden.

"So Loran found her two souls. She had a forest spirit helping her this whole damn time." Ed said trying to break the mood.

For'Ten raised an eyebrow and looked off into the distance. Ed could see the stress slowly melting away from his face. "That explains why she wanted to go off on her own. Also how she found them so fast. Are we anywhere near our first soul?"

Ed shook his head. "At least one more day's run before we get to the outskirts of the coastlands. Two dots have disappeared. This confirms what Loran told us. Several dots are moving north along the coast. From the looks of it we have four more souls between us and the coast. One is traveling up to the north, one is still in the north. Two more are either very far south or very far north."

"What do you mean very far south or very far north?" For'Ten was confused by this.

"Well," Ed sighed and tried to think of a way to describe it. "When we were at Ko'Loss house I didn't have as much practice with this as I do now. When I looked south, I can see the dots of light. But when I looked to the north, I can see them also, just very faintly. At first, I thought it was two new souls. But then I realized they are exactly the same distance apart. So I am guessing it is the same two people."

"But the back of the world is all ocean. How are you seeing around it?" For'Ten looked confused.

Ed Shrugged. "I don't know. I am telling you what I see. The oracle gave me this power so who knows what rules it is bending."

For'Ten rubbed his temples. "Okay then let's just hope it stays this way." He walked towards a wall and leaned on it. "What do I do about these two?" He pointed back at the house.

Ed sat and thought. "It's only twenty miles. I could remove the rodent for good...." Ed smiled.

For'Ten laughed. "I am sure you could. But should we?"

"Why not tell them we are going to inspect it and report back to the engineers. If I can fix it without drawing undue attention I will make it so they can't complain about beavers ever again. If not when we make it back to the capital you send the engineers over."

"Deal," For'Ten said. "In the meantime, I have to find this damn magistrate and give him a piece of my mind. Excuse me I am going to go ask some questions now that I feel better."

Ed nodded and walked back towards the house. He had seen this face before. It usually was followed by a trainee walking around with a limp from intense retraining. Ed didn't want to see it.