A quiet walk through town

Ivar cringed as he left sight of the group and waited for the barrage of thoughts from Mal to batter him but it did not come. There was an eerie silence between them for most of the walk to the gate.

Ivar was first to break the silence, "I'm sorry Mal. I had to assert myself in front of that group. None of them are magic users and so they don't know what I am truly capable of and doubted that I should be leading or even could lead. I had to show them I could and I needed to get rid of any that were not truly dedicated. That last thing I want to do is go out there and get them killed because they did not listen to me when it mattered or did not really want to be there."

Mal was still sitting on Ivar's shoulder and he brought his head up and yawned. His thoughts were powerful and alarmingly dangerous, "You told me you would only do that if lives were on the line. Otherwise I never would have shown you the spell to do it. Cast in the wrong place or cast with to much magic put into the spell and you could have killed yourself or me or half this city. However, you believed lives were at risk, maybe not at the immediate present but somewhere in the future and I suppose I will let that count."

Mal went back to his silence as Ivar walked through courtyard and arrived at the gate. The man had given him a small piece of paper when he had been made a group leader for permission for the rest of the group to leave.

Ivar waited for the others to arrive. They were later than he had told them to be and when he looked over the weapons and armor he growled even further. She must have been out of supplies. The other groups must have known about this mission longer than I.

He presented the paper to the guards at the gate and motioned for the others to follow him. Ivar did not know exactly where to head so he decided he would let the group decide that night when they made camp.

Only nine decided to join them, he was torn as he noticed Zaria among them. He had been a good friend to her husband, secretly of course, and Ivar could not help but feel somewhat responsible for what had happened. Not because Ivar had been there but because he hadn't been.

Ivar had wondered many times if he would have been able to stop that explosion from killing the children at the very least. Mal had repeatedly told him that it would have been blind luck if he had. That area was exceptionally mana scarred and Ivar had surveyed the wreckage but found only destruction.

A voice brought him back to the present. One of the men who was pulling the cart had stumbled and cursed quite loudly.

Ivar had been inside his own thoughts so far he had not noticed that they had forgotten to get animals to pull the carts. "Speak for me."

Ivar walked back to the man as Mal began to speak in his normal high pitched voice, "You did not think to get animals for the carts? I suppose you probably did not have the time nor the skill to find animals that would be appropriate for this. I apologize that I just barely noticed this. My thoughts were elsewhere."

It was two small carts needing two people each to pull them. They had traveled only a few minutes outside the city. The grassland here stretched for miles as far as the eye could see.

Ivar turned and poured the smallest amount of magic into a whistle that seemed to echo across the grassland. A few minutes later two beautiful mustangs galloped to a stop in front of Ivar. He stroked each in turn and they moved to take the place of the men pulling the carts.

That seemed to impress most of the group and they continued on until dark in a northern direction. They setup camp and Ivar got out his map of the area.

The map showed areas that were circled of where Ivar thought there might be resources but had never investigated because they were deep inside the territory of these other species, many of which disliked his species. Each was named with the mineral Ivar thought was present based on descriptions he had gathered from villagers who had been willing to talk with him about it.

"I don't want to make this decision alone," Mal spoke as the group began looking over the map. "All of these sites are dangerous in there own ways. We can go for one of these or try to find a new one. Your choice."