"We're almost there!" The driver of the lead wagon called out across the caravan. "Two more hours!"

The rest of the trip after the undead incident went by without a single hungry thing interrupting them. There had only been one anecdote of note as the rest of the time had just been spent looking out over the rest of the Kingdom of Altia as more and more of it was able to be seen due to their higher elevation. The kingdom was nestled between the harsh winters of the north and the dry summers of the south which meant that it was prime territory for everything that wasn't mortal. Powerful beasts and monsters either hunted or migrated through the kingdom and the mortals living in it had to rely on adventurers' protection for almost everything for nearly half of the year.

From their vantage point, on the side of the mountains, they could see swamplands to their south where the drainage from the mountains pooled, the forests to the south west where Pleasentrees and a few other small logging towns were located, Mount Henhopsha to the west by south west and the 'almost rainforest' beneath it that hid the entrance to Safeharbor, as well as Vespera and the ocean to the west. That was only forty percent of the kingdom and they had skipped any small town that was off the main roads. The entire northwest region was more or less flat and consisted of large areas that had been deforested and turned into farmland as well as large pastures for dozens of meat animals per pen. To the north was the rest of the mountain range as it hooked westward. Everything that they could see from their vantage point was 'Old Altia'. Sapphirestone, which was hidden behind Mount Henhopsha, as well as Safeharbor and everything that the mountains were blocking line of sight of to the north by northwest were 'recent' additions to the kingdom.

Sapphirestone had been annexed as had the area that they could not see to the north by northwest. Safeharbor had been created after that by a very arrogant human king and that marked it as a frontier city and not an annexed one. The area to the north by northwest was Heidenburg territory. That was a beast that they would tackle when they got there. As for the anecdote of note, Isaac had gotten kicked in the face by a rather upset rabbit.

Isaac had commented at one point, while watching a rabbit hop around a dozen yards away, that he had never had fresh rabbit and one of the rangers offered to cook one for him if he could catch or kill one without damaging it too much. Isaac had decided to just vanish and walk up to the little creature. He grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and held it up as he let his shadows fade and he turned to start heading back at the caravan. The rabbit, incredibly surprised and frightened by the sudden abduction, flailed and lashed out in an attempt to escape.

Isaac barely managed to get his eye closed in time for the little creature's foot to impact his eyelid. Isaac stirred some of his death flames in his chest and turned his dark vision into soul vision and stared down at the prey animal. The animal froze in terror and Isaac could see that it truly was only around as strong as a human child, which, in hindsight, seemed a bit too strong for a rabbit for some reason. Isaac turned and started heading back to the rest of the caravan only to see Lenna's shoulders bouncing as she tried to suppress her laughter. The ranger that had offered to cook the rabbit was pointedly not looking at Isaac but was staring up at the clouds above them very intently. Other than some light teasing from Lenna, the incident wasn't spoken of further. That evening, Isaac, Lenna, and the ranger, Axel, enjoyed some freshly butchered and cooked rabbit on top of the travel rations that everyone had brought along.

In all, the trip from Alten to Altesia was normal, very pleasantly so. There was only one minor incident and nothing else of note, which was nice because Isaac and Lenna really didn't want to come across anything actually strong while they were both still recovering. As far as they knew, the only relatively strong hostile creatures in the region were the necromancer and whatever crazy monstrosities they had managed to cook up. The truly powerful and terrifying creatures in the area were not monsters but dragons and demigods, Judgment lived not far from the capital and the Guild Leader was apparently a dragon so nothing with any self preservation instincts would make too much noise for at least a few hundred miles.

"How old is Altesia anyway?" Isaac asked the driver of the wagon that they were hitching a ride on.

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"Twelve hundred and somethin'." The driver replied. "I don't know for certain, but it's been around since the dragon surge died down."

"Old stone." Isaac commented.

"Older blood buried under it so I hear." The driver added. "Some say the reason the city looks like it was built in a crater is because it was. According to legend, two whole flights of dragons went at it right where the city is. The fighting lasted for days until the three demigods showed up and ended it in an afternoon. Them endin' it is why there is a large crater instead of another mountain peak there."

"Which three demigods?" Isaac wondered.

"Space, Time, and Gravity." The driver happily explained. "The rest of the demigods are strong, sure, but none of them are as strong as those three." The driver then seemed to realize who he was talking to and tried to dig himself out of the hole he had just dug. "Well, save for maybe yourself, there just ain't a lot of stories floatin' around about you right now."

Isaac waved him off. "I'm not level twenty yet. When I reach their level, then we can see who is the strongest. For now, they just have more levels than me." Isaac told him. "I'll agree that, for now, they are definitely stronger than I am. Just keep a spot at the top of your list open for me."

The driver nodded. He looked far more relieved than Isaac thought was strictly necessary. He almost thought that the man was messing with him but then he remembered how normal people tended to react when in the presence of his death flames and it started to make sense.

An hour and a half later, they crested a ridge and were suddenly higher than the walls of Altesia. The city was as magnificent as it was ancient and as ancient as it was dangerous.

Altesia was truly set into a crater that was six miles across with another inner ring a mile across in the center where the impact point must've been from whatever had created it. The crater was a perfect circle which meant that whatever it had been either came straight down or was completely obliterated the instant it touched the ground.

The city walls were sloped outwards slightly to make them harder to climb. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the walls were enchanted with some other means of repelling enemies, who might've expected to find safe haven under the outermost edge of the walls. If they strained their eyes, they could even see some arrow slits half a dozen feet above the ground, angled towards where enemies would try to hide from the defenders on top. The thing was, nothing was likely to get that far in the first place.

The other reason that the walls were angled outwards was to give the five thousand ballistae extra clearance. The ballistae were arrayed along the inside of the walls on raised platforms that gave them good angles to hit anything not in the shade of the walls.

Between the top of the outer ring of the crater and the city walls there was a space of two and half thousand feet of no man's land. Any enemy trying to get to the city would have to cross that distance, under heavy magically enhanced ballista bolt fire, without cover, and then survive the countless archers and mages that would no doubt be stationed all across the top of the walls. If they managed to survive all of that, they would then have to find a way through magically built and reinforced walls that would be trying to kill them while more defenders fired attacks through the arrow slits. The V'Nova raiding party that had attacked Safeharbor would've been utterly annihilated if they had attempted something so bold against Altesia instead. It was truly the capital of the nation.

The defenses were not the only awe inspiring part of the city however, no, the brownery was almost as breathtaking. Almost every building had a flat roof and plants deep in winter hibernation on it. There were still some bits and small piles of snow piled up in shady areas from the most recent snowfall but even so, there were people on their roofs gardening. Isaac had no doubt that once spring and summer came, the city would look like the most heavily guarded forest in the world. Well, the most heavily openly guarded forest anyway. There was that one forest with a guardian that shot down dragons with arrows the size of oak trees or something, so Isaac supposed Altesia wouldn't be able to beat that. Even so, the defenses were impressive and the way of life was equally so. They had finally made it to the capital, well, just outside of the capital, and they would soon get to request an audience with the king and queen.

Once their audience was over, or scheduled so far out in advance that there was no reason for them to wait around in the city, the duo would use the teleportation circle to skip the entire way to Heidenburg territory and then head towards the elven kingdom in the north east to meet the Fatebreaker. Hopefully they wouldn't have to wait too long to meet with the royals, or the meeting would be scheduled for the far future, Isaac was honestly fine with either as long as it didn't slow them down too much. Lenna really wished it would be scheduled far into the future so they wouldn't have to spend more than a day or two in the city. It was an amazing city but it was one that they would definitely be coming back to multiple times in the future so properly seeing the sights could wait. The Fatebreaker's time was running out but no one really knew how long he had left. They probably should've been rushing straight there in the first place and then just took their time on the way back but Isaac had insisted on seeing everything both ways. Lenna just hoped that they would not arrive too late.

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