Arriving at the city of Tenlor made Thariel's bones quake in relief, she didn't get much rest st night due to her feeling paranoid sleeping with so many soldiers around so the rest of the journey was more exhausting than she wanted it to be.

  She wasn't sure if the feeling of dread she felt all throughout the night had just been her imagination or something more grounded in reality but it kept her up and her eyes stared at the tent wall surrounding her, vigint for looming shadows.

  When dawn arrived, she heard everyone get up and their camp was already packed as the first light of the sun touched the skies. They moved again afterwards, with breakfast being the game the soldiers caught during their travels. That or extra rations.

  Both herself and Sylka weren't allowed to leave Virelith's side during this so they weren't able to hunt for themselves. Instead they settled for their leftovers st night, the dry deer meat and cooked roots didn't taste good but at least it filled her stomach enough that she managed to walk all the way to Tenlor without colpsing from hunger.

  The guards at the gate didn't bother to stop them from entering the city and once they passed, the walls that blocked their view became a safe barrier for them to stay in. Uniform houses simir in make to the ones during the dark ages stood in compact colums between streets, the gaps between them almost non-existent.

  The people here existed only to boost the popution count of the military during times of peace and should these well trained men die then it is up to their equally numerous wives and children to keep the city stable and fed when reinforcements arrive to hold the line.

  That is what's supposed to happen within this particur part of the frontier but the city is now a ghost town, seemingly abandoned for no reason. Before, Thariel had a feeling that the soldiers they were with are nothing more than mercenaries but now she is able to confirm it, and she didn't know how to feel about this realization.

  Things are worse than she thought, she expected Tenlor to hold out on their own during this time but they're shockingly in desperate times.

  No wonder Virelith wanted to use her to make pgues for the current war, this was probably a solution she wanted from the original Thariel too. What stopped her during canon? No pgue has been recorded in any part of her backstory nor is it in canon Thariel's fsh backs.

  The answer to her question didn't come to Thariel even as the army split to head towards the nearby houses- their familiarity with them implied they've been occupying the buildings for a long time now, - while Virelith, herself, Sylka, and the vilinness' personal guards kept going until they reached the ruling family's estate.

  Most of the guards stood by and waited outside the gate and the few that didn't opened the gate for them before taking station inside the guard towers.

  Thariel took a good look of the compound surrounding the mansion at the center of the gigantic plot, the decorative shrubbery looked to be abandoned and the paths felt like they haven't been cleaned in a long time. The air here didn't feel fresh, instead it reeked of nature, like a forest had suddenly grown across the nd.

  There are no tall trees to be seen obviously, but the small saplings, overgrown grass, and mossy growths indicated it won't be long before the ndscape becomes natural again.

  The mansion looked neat at least, and from what Thariel could see from the outside, she knew that servants still lingered inside of it. Keeping things clean and doing all the chores for the Tenlor family, none of which came out to greet them.

  "You're wondering where my family is, Damphir?" Virelith comments as she hopped down her horse, "they're gone off to the capital, we have nd there and after my brother's death, my father decided that it was better if most us left this pce and ruled over a piece of nd closer to safety."

  "Why didn't you come with them?" Sylka asked what Thariel had been wondering about.

  "Because I would have been married into the royal family if I did," Virelith replied with a slightly irritated tone, "my father agreed it was better for me to stay here once he learned that the crown willingly refused to not send their knights."

  "You refused to go because they didn't offer aid?" Sylka asked, "why didn't you just marry into them then? Wouldn't you have gotten the knights you needed?"

  In an instant, Virelith's calm demeanor shifted into one of anger and she gred at Sylka, "Don't talk to me like you know about what's going on with human politics kobold," she spat, one hand clutching the hilt of her silver sword, "stay at your station. Overstep and I'll make sure you regret it."

  Sylka nodded and went silent.

  Thariel gave her a comforting smile but Sylka didn't seem to catch it, she turned back to Virelith, "so, uhm, how do you pn to do this? I can get to working on a pgue right now if you give me a few dead rats,"

  She had an idea on just what kind of pgue she can make right now.

  Thariel paused, did recreating the bck pgue sound ideal, actually? It was practical, even viable as a weapon of war when paired with Virelith's own ideas of making a corpse stronger and controlling it, and if that's not avaible then necromancy can do what an alchemically modified bird corpse can and more.

  Visions of birds carrying pgue ridden rats swarmed Thariel's mind, undead cannot carry diseases due to the death magic overwhelming their forms but regur corpses can do it just fine. And living rats?.. Well, she didn't think anything can be alive after she injects them with a deadly pathogen.

  Thariel felt uneasy at how casually she's considering introducing this new type of weapon into the battlefield. Her morals took hold and she worried what would happen if she did that? Would it cause a series of weaponized pgues being thrown back and forth between the neighboring kingdoms?

  "No, you're not doing anything yet. Nothing important at least, not this early." Virelith assured, "and don't even think about releasing a pgue at this point in time,"

  "Right, I won't," Thariel backed down from the sheer cold she felt from the way Virelith looked at her.

  "I'll give you all the resources you need to work on things," Virelith gestured for the doors, the two of them nodded and tailed after her. They reached the top of the stairs and entered the house. Virelith took a turn into a hallway, they followed, "For now, I'll show you where you'll live."

  "Okay," Thariel felt excited- until they reached the end of the hallway and began descending below the ground, "uh, where is this?"

  "Your new home, a celr we once used to house criminals, don't worry, I'll modify it into a b and a bed for both of your convenience." The vilinness reassured.

  "That makes sense." Thariel didn't bother to mention her feelings on the matter, already knowing what the answer to her opinions would be. She looked around, the pce was a dungeon in all definitions, with grimey stone walls, metal bars, and a general ck of sunlight.

  She can see in the dark just fine, and so can Sylka so it wasn't going to be a problem but the smell... No matter how sensitive her nose is, she needed to get used to this otherwise she won't st long here.