The convoy left port early in the morning; you were with Anastasia, Ehrenfried, and a few others on the ship you loaded with your loot and souvenirs. Raymond was chained in the storeroom at the bottom. It would prove to be a calm route, as you safely went south out of the straits and onto the open sea.
You had never been to Ortreska before, but its people were part of a broader group of cultures who, according to myth, all descended from a group of brothers who went their different way in hunting different animals. Some went east, others west, and the last group south. You spend the days reading and napping and most of the nights with your new wife. You didn't know what the future had in store for you, but you would be certain you could face it. Whatever it would be, you would go home, one way or the other.
<span class="mu-i"> In the years that would follow, Albrecht von Adlershorst would not be remembered too fondly in Mithras. A foreigner who briefly took the throne only to step down from it again. In the new Palakroatic period, he would be but a footnote in their history, though the account of the famed historian Eleftherios had a different account of the events. In this version, the young man would be portrayed as an eager and loyal friend to Mithras, as accounted by the writer himself, who, through prowess and shrewdness, cleverly put an empire in decline back on track. It is this version that modern historians would use in their assessment of this figure, as other histories made by contemporary authors line up with it. In Mithras, his brief reign would be labelled as the Tautenokratia, or the rule of the Tautens, in spite of the fact that there was but one Tauten in the administration. But this would not be the last time history would hear of him, for there would be even more tales of glory and conflict in the years to come. </span>
It had taken a few days for the cargo to be unloaded from the ships in the harbour. You had to buy in extra carts and carriages for it all. You would've hired a river barge, but that wasn't an option. Still, for now you had free space to roam; the Tsar had been made aware you weren't here to invade and had thus agreed to leave you alone. The only problem for you now was that you needed to choose a way forward.
Ortreska itself was a warm land, in many ways reminiscent of both Mithras and Castana. It was very hilly as you marched further north. Your main destination would be the river that marked the traditional border between Ortreska, the kingdom of Istvary, and Corbilia. Of the routes to be taken, the one through Corbillia would be the shortest but also the most dangerous. Corbilia was a dark, craggy, and troubled land. Renowned for its dark forests, not as pleasant as the forests back home, but dark of both leaves and character, that would rise as you came closer to the border with Istvary. The flat, plain lands near the great river were fine. But it was the denizens of the mountains that were the most dangerous.
