Isaac and Lenna arrived at Ben's End without any issues after the first drow ambush. Something in the back of Isaac's mind kept him on high alert the rest of the trip though. He continued subconsciously rubbing the side of his neck until it started to feel a bit tender. "How long until you are ready to leave again?" Isaac questioned the lead merchant.

"It should only take an hour or two but everyone would prefer to rest at least until tomorrow morning. We have been on the road for quite some time." The lead merchant replied.

Isaac nodded in understanding. "Tell them that they have two options, either we leave in two hours to get a head start on where any drow ambushes expect us to be, or we don't stop in Ben's End at all on our way back." Isaac instructed the man.

"You think we have a mole." Lenna surmised.

"I do." Isaac agreed. "There is something about the ambushes that just isn't making sense to me. I felt the soldiers moving around us and setting up along the path that we were going to take but they never got close enough to actually confirm our numbers or heading. There are three different routes to get here that we could have taken and they even cross each other at multiple points, I never felt any other group moving around which means that it was just one group operating in the area and they just happened to know which route we were taking and exactly when we were going to be at their chosen ambush point. They were waiting for us for barely half an hour. There are just too many coincidences lining up for there to not be a mole of some kind. Maybe it is a tracking spell or item that got snuck onto the caravan, or maybe there is someone talking with the drow military directly, either way, we need to start moving in irregular ways. If we still get ambushed on our way back, then I am going to be personally interrogating every single person in the caravan when we get back to Safeharbor."

The lead merchant gulped. He and everyone else had felt Isaac's power go wild while he was fighting only a few days prior and that feeling was not one that any of them would soon forget. "I understand. I will let them know that we are heading out again in two hours." The lead merchant confirmed. He did not want to run the caravan for sixteen days straight without resting, the risk to the horses was just too great. It was safer to push them for thirteen days and then give them some time to rest in Outpost Charles and then again in Ben's End on their way back rather than skip rests after they had already been pushed so hard.

The caravan was moving again in exactly two hours. Not a single soul looked happy about it but the complaining was kept to a minimum. Everyone knew that the longer they were away from Safeharbor, the more danger they were in. That thought alone kept many of the wagon drivers, co-drivers, and guards quiet. It didn't keep everyone quiet though.

"Why are we pushing so damned hard?" Teddy complained. Everyone was now forced to take turns walking in order to help lessen the load on the horses and he was struggling to pick his boots up off of the ground with every weary step.

"What if, instead of a handful of soldiers, Contantis decides to pit half of their standing forces against my husband and I?" Lenna questioned him pointedly. She had a general dislike for complaining after the third time. The first time someone complained was easily forgotten, the second time she wished that they would leave it at that, the third time was just annoying. Teddy was on his fifth, it had only been two hours.

"I've got faith that the two of you could handle it, m'lady." Teddy replied.

"Oh we would be fine." Lenna agreed. "I cannot say the same for any of you, the wagons, or the horses."

Teddy paled. "I understand, m'lady." He said and promptly shut up for almost the entire remainder of the day.

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Two days into their trip from Ben's End to Outpost Charles, Lenna's Bottomless Backpack was nearly full of snake skin and fangs, wolf hides, spider poison glands and eyes, falling shadows hide and magical organs, pecurke hide, and even various parts of a basilisk. Granted, around half of it had been in there from their ten day trip to get to Ben's End, but the fact that they had killed so many other creatures during the first two and half of their three days between Ben's End and Outpost Charles was concerning to say the least.

"Something is either pushing or pulling them into this territory." Lenna commented after one of the guards, not the annoying Teddy but a reasonable one, had asked how many giant snakes they had killed so far. "It's not just the snakes, the fauna density is at least triple what it should be."

"I have a theory." Isaac said from beside her as he appeared both visually and into the conversation. "I think that there are some drow scouts and rangers herding them into our potential paths. It is a good tactic to wear us down over time and maybe even claim a life here or there. It is netting us more money but money isn't going to fix our raiders problem, at least not a few hundred gold from selling monster parts anyway."

"That is starting to seem more and more likely." Lenna agreed. "There aren't very many rangers or scouts in Contantis, but there are plenty in Lothantis and that is only less than a week away on foot."

"Whoever is in charge over there right now is getting a bit overly aggressive. If they aren't careful, Altia might send half of its military down here and raze the city." Isaac commented.

"They would fail." Lenna replied simply. "The city's magical defenses are enough to hold off a hundred thousand soldiers, ten thousand knights, one thousand mages, and one hundred catapults for ten weeks without even losing one man."

"That sounds made up." Isaac said with a questioning look.

"It both is and isn't. That was the design prompt for the magical defenses array. The greatest wizards of the time put their heads together and created a work of magical impregnability that was so efficient that it could stay active for ten weeks straight on just the quartz crystals embedded in the walls." Lenna explained. "Granted, it is about a ton of crystal for every thirty feet of wall, but the fact remains that it is untouchable for two and a half months at a time."

"How long would it take to recharge?" Isaac wondered.

"Years." Lenna replied. "My guess would be about three, but I was never told exactly how long it would take."

Isaac nodded in thought. It was something to remember when they finally had everything that they needed in order to raze Contantis. But that was not now.

It was noontime when they arrived at Outpost Charles, the days had blended so heavily together that Isaac had no idea what number day they were on by then, it was their thirteenth, they had only saved half a day as the caravan's general exhaustion had slowed everyone down. Even so, they hadn't been ambushed by anything that could speak.

The doors were swung wide and a pair of familiar faces met them with tired but hopeful smiles. Gregory Windwalker and one of the guards, who had been on duty the last time the duo were there, were working at the same time. That simple fact meant that there had been a sharp increase in problems in the local area.

Isaac and Lenna approached Gregory whose smile positively beamed as soon as he saw that it was them. "Lord Wexler, Lady V'Nova, it is an honor to see you again." He greeted them with a bow and then held up an amulet of the moon. "We finally got some of these!" He exclaimed and held it out towards them, there was obviously no special effect.

"It's about time." Isaac commented. "How have you been, kid?"

"Busy, tired, a little hungry, but mostly busy." He replied honestly and without hesitation.

"Well, we have food. I don't think we can do very much about everything else, but at least you'll have a full belly to deal with the rest of your problems." Isaac told him with a smile.

Gregory sighed in relief. "Oh thank the gods." He breathed. "Let's get you all checked out and unloaded!" He called down the caravan as his partner waited patiently directly in the path of the lead wagon. "I should get to work." He spoke towards Isaac and Lenna.

"Go on." Lenna said with a nod. "Does your mom still have open space for us?"

"Yeah." Gregory confirmed as he hurried to check every person with the amulet.

It only took a few minutes for him to check everyone and prove that none of them were shapeshifters, and then another few minutes to get all of the wagons inside and lined up at the storehouses. While all of that was going on, Isaac and Lenna were watching the outpost intently.

"It looks like someone has been wringing the life out of these people." Lenna commented just loud enough for Isaac to hear.

"It's the rationed food stores and being stuck on high alert." Isaac surmised. "I wonder how long this has been going on."

"A few weeks at least." Lenna theorized.

Isaac nodded in agreement with her assessment. "Let's check in with the Adventurers' Guild branch, sell some of the monster parts that are useful here, and then check in with Jennie. We have a lot to tell her, and her us." Isaac was silent for a moment but Lenna could tell that he was just gathering his next thought so she let him be until he was ready to continue. She was wrong, he was not gathering his next thought but rather the resolve and courage to say it: "And grab everything that Aria and Claus left behind."

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