Chapter 125: A Visible Journey

Jace listened to Grider talk about how he had been arranging the house for the past few days, how he had been packing, how he had been preparing what he was going to take on the trip, and after a while he said, “I always feel as if I’ve forgotten to bring something, and I always feel as if I might have left something here.”

Grid took a slice of cut toast and tore it in half, dipped it in pumpkin sauce and put it in his mouth and said, “I’ll tell you what, what you can’t think of right now isn’t important anymore, just forget it, don’t think about this and that all the time or you won’t be able to walk around comfortably.”

“Okay.” Jace said, “So, should we discuss how we’re going to organize our trip when we get to Southsea Town? I do have to go to Dalaran around the 10th, how long does it take to get from Southsea Town to Dalaran approximately?”

Jace remembered that the landscape of the Lordaeron continent wasn’t quite the same as in the game, and that the Outlander Mountain Range extended a much longer distance than in the game, blocking the middle of Lake Lordaemere and Southsea Town, and that the entire Hillsbreed Hills were, in fact, the sloping wilderness of the Outlander Mountain Range all the way to the coast of Southsea Town.

The game’s maps have been simplified a lot, with more flatness between key locations and not as much terrain in the way.

In the real world, in order to travel to Dalaran from Southsea Town one would have to go around a large garden, or even enter the border of the Kingdom of Gilneas, and to go directly in the direction of Dalaran to the north in the shortest straight line between two points like in the game, one would definitely have to walk into the mountains of Otterland. When Jace traveled from the King’s City to the town of Southsea, he was leaning against the coast on the westernmost side of the continent of Lordaeron over at Shadowtooth Castle, which of course was still called Silvaleon Castle at that time.

On the west side of the Silver Pine Forest, after following Gilneys Bay all the way over Silvaleon Castle, you then walk southwest into the Burning Wood Swamp, and after crossing the swamp and passing through yet another large area of forest, you come to the village of Ashenstone, which is surrounded by forest.

The village of Ashenstone departs eastward over the vast Hillsbrad farmlands in order to reach the coast and eventually the town of Southsea.

From start to finish, the shadow of the city of Dalaran to the east of the Silver Pine Forest could not be seen, and in the end, it was completely blocked by the Ottoman Mountains.

Grid drew a rough map of the directions with his finger, which also matched Jace’s memory, and with his large finger he drew an avenue of lines separating Southsea Town from Dalaran as the Outlander Mountains, and then nodded further north and said, “This is your home, the royal city of Lordaeron.”

Then the Dwarf nodded a little to the north of Mount Outram and said, “Dalaran.”

Then the southern coast, “Southsea Town.”

The Dwarf’s finger drew a circle around the line of the great mountain range that he had just seen, and said, “This road, which takes about 3 days to travel, is about the same distance as from Stormwind City to Sentinel Ridge, but the road isn’t as well traveled, it’s all hills and mountains, and in between, you have to pass through a couple of towns in the Kingdom of Gilneas.”

As Jace listened to Grid, he was actually a bit worried about the situation of Gilneas. Gilneas was one of the kingdoms that had reacted the most strongly to the “Union Reception Act”.

With the Kingdom of Lordaeron far superior to Gilneas, and having become the leader of the Alliance, Gilneas would have been wary of this powerful neighbor.

Combined with the financial constraints of having to pay to rebuild Stormwind and feed the asylums due to the losses from a series of naval battles, a series of pressures brought the Kingdom of Gilneas to the brink of collapse, and it was not long before he became the first human kingdom to withdraw from the alliance.

If the Kingdom of Gilneas has so much pent up resentment against the Alliance, I wonder if there will be trouble crossing that land.

Not only that, but he had even built a huge high wall to block his peninsula after quitting the alliance in order to prevent the other kingdoms from retaliating, a wall that might have started to be built by now, although Jace hadn’t heard any rumors about it yet, and at least he hadn’t seen a wall blocking the way on his way from the King’s City to Southsea Town.

If that wall gets built, I’m afraid that the safer path will be out of the way, and you’ll have to open up that path in the Silver Pine Forest, which is presumably the one shown to you in the game.

It would have actually been possible to go that way before the war started, but after that crossing the Silver Pine Forest would undoubtedly risk being hunted by orcs.

And, removing the political aspect, there is the werewolf issue.

According to Jace’s impression of Gilneas some years ago, there was now some werewolf lore in Gilneas, somewhat similar to the Raven Ridge side.

Jace knew, though, that the legend of Gilneas was not something like a werewolf, but a true werewolf.

It is safe to assume that Gilneas has had mages discover werewolves and has used dimension-spanning magic to probe the Emerald Dreams, the home of werewolves, the source of the werewolf legends, if any.

Grid, who of course knew nothing of this, continued, “Once you arrive in Dalaran, the boat ride to the royal city of Lordaeron is much smoother, and crossing Lake Lordaemir is probably less than a day away. I would suggest going from Dalaran to the city of Outlander on the way back, and then east to Cintron, the journey is at least three times shorter, and it’s also safer as you don’t have to cross the snowy mountains and forests where orcs have been spotted.”

“The city of Outlander?” Jace asked, “I’ve heard that Otterlake was just raided by black dragons and orcs, is there no problem going there now?”

“Don’t worry, it’s still the capital of an ancient kingdom no matter what.” Grid said, “I’ve already made some inquiries, and now the city of Ortlank is being held in trust by Torbayne’s army, and Torbayne still wants to take the city. If it’s already in ruins, what’s the need to risk angering the entire alliance by swallowing the whole place?”

Jace had also heard rumors that if Torbane’s Kingdom of Stormgarde was bent on eating the city of Outlander, then the complete demise of the city of Outlander might have occurred after the Celestial Calamity invasion, not as a result of the Orc War.

Of course, the annexation of Stormgarde could not be reached so easily, and if Torbayne took Otterdam, it would soon become a powerful country whose strength could rival that of the Kingdom of Lordaeron.

There was no way Terrenus II of Lordaeron was going to allow that to happen, and surely he was going to push out those children of the Pyrrhonid family of the royal house of Outlander and find one to inherit the crown.

“In that case, it’s fine.” Jace says, “So you’re saying that when I get to Lordaeron I’m going to see my parents in the King’s City before returning to Dalaran for the Orc Exchange on the 10th?”

Grid said, “Yeah, it takes about a day and a night to get from Dalaran to the city of Ortlak, and by the time you’re done with your errands and reach the city of Ortlak, it’ll probably be Winterfest, so think about how tight it’ll be.”

Jace frowned, thinking about the distance he had traveled from King City to Southsea Town when he left home, a long, long walk indeed. He did a little math on Grid’s plan to get home that way for perhaps only 34 days.

But what would be the point of staying a few more days, except to grieve my parents even more when I parted, and to be even more reluctant to part with myself.

As long as we can get our parents to the Stormwind Kingdom, we don’t need to think about these problems.

“How long does it take to get to Cintron from the city of Otterland?” Jace asked.

Gred drew a line all the way to the east and said, “It’s a very difficult road and there aren’t many caravans, but you can go with the patrolling troops, I’ve learned that there are a lot of patrols between the city of Otterland and Dunhold Castle, since it’s been quite chaotic over there lately, it’s about two days’ time.”

Jace took a deep breath, it had been a long journey, crossing Palatine Bay was just the beginning.

As long as they didn’t die halfway through the game that would be considered a complete victory.