<div class="floatright">(https://i.imgur.com/yOOBdOQ.jpg?1)</div><br/>The travel through the hilly terrain took time but was relatively easy for Izusa.  Following the riverbed, walking along the rounded stone beach shore at times and the soft grasses that lead to the nearby treeline at other times, it seemed hard to justify this tranquil land as being any different from the mortal controlled lands across the river.  In fact she caught herself looking across the wide river to the opposite shoreline several hundred feet away and seeing no difference.  Still she walked up stream, towards the mountains in the distance that had, on her side of the river, held her convent home.  After an hour the ground began to get slightly more rocky and uneven, necessitating several side trips around rocky outcroppings and a few bits of scrabbling up rocky escarpments.  But eventually as the sun began it's afternoon journey down towards the horizon she found a small river tributary, no more than twenty feet across, that fed into the great River Erusrin that she'd been following all morning and the early afternoon.  While she'd come across small creeks and trickles previously, there could be no doubt that this was what the boatwoman had mentioned.<br/><br/>Feeling good about the progress she turned westward and began following this new river tributary up it's stream.  As the forest closed in around her, she felt a slight sense of foreboding and her ears twitched at every noise ready for danger.  But a short while later the trees thinned out and she found herself looking at several fields with a small hamlet beyond.  The rocky uneven ground was cleared to make irregular farming plots where they could fit in between the forest and the small river, and the sounds of life in the village reached her ears even at a distance.  The sight of a single plume of black smoke rising from a chimney showed that there was life there.  Over all it seemed perfectly normal, and not what she might have feared from a 'corrupted' village.  Unsure about her misgivings or actions however, she was taken somewhat by surprise by the sound of being called out too.<br/><br/><strong>"Hail traveler,"</strong>she heard.  Turning her head she saw a woman, a human farmer, head wrapped in a kercheif and sweat staining her brow and roughspun work clothing.  The woman leaned against a farming implement, a shovel or a hoe, what it was remained unclear as the head was in the dirt.<strong> "You're a strange looking one, ain'tcha?  Well, we don't judge on looks.  What brings you to Tesszeik?" </strong>The nod of the woman's head towards the village made it clear that was the name of the village.  "<strong>We're a peaceful sort, and won't stand for troublemakers."</strong><br/><br/>This was all wrong, wasn't this pandora controlled lands?  Where were the corrupted monsters ready to leap out and eat or rape her?  This woman looked perfectly normal, nothing about this meshed with all of the stories that Izusa had heard!