"Yeah-yeah-yeah, I hear that sort of stuff a lot out here, now," The man suddenly murmured, loudly enough for Felix to hear, "Guy who tossed my cart said the same thing! Dashed through and knocked it right off its wheels. Killed ole' Whimsly too.."

Felix paused for a moment as the man muttered about his predicament. Felix wanted to help the man in some way, but he didn't know how to do so. He didn't know how to fix a cart, he had no idea how to even begin getting a new horse for the man, and the man was clearly too distrustful to accept any help Felix offered anyway. And so Felix simply moved on.

The man watched Felix closely, moving from one side of his wreck to the other. Using his dead horse as cover, he got himself a pretty close look, and recognized Felix's garb immediately. But he didn't say anything. The horse he peered over had a series of holes carved out of its neck, like something had shot it, or rather, bit into it. The man didn't seem too bothered by the fact. He didn't speak again. Not a word. He let Felix continue down the road, eyeing him cautiously as he disappeared towards his destination.

An hour passed, and his path was unimpeded. No rogues, no monsters, and not a single shift in atmosphere. He wasn't lost. Ulon was only about a day away on foot, so an hour wasn't long, relatively speaking. But didn't Durwith mention how the south was currently, how did he put it.. Warring? Something along those lines. Where was the bloodshed? Where were the people? Perhaps the villages were far more scattered than Felix had thought.

Not ten minutes later though, something peered over the horizon. A silhouette of hills, grey and ragged like stone, that looked far closer than the giant mountain-line in the far east that lined the edge of Jorgon. The closer he came, the more detail revealed itself. There were figures, smaller than humans, littered throughout the exterior of the rock-like hills. It was too difficult to discern what they were from so far away, but they were definitely alive.

Felix was glad the man didn't attack him. But now he was worried about other things. Felix had noticed the wounds on the horse's neck, and Felix tended to know bites when he saw them. Felix knew not what manner of creature left those bites, if any. But even so, he wasn't keen on meeting it after all that had happened that day.

About an hour or so later, Felix realised something. He was traveling through lands that were supposed to be at war, but there was not a single sign that such a war was taking place. 'Are the front lines elsewhere?' Felix thought to himself 'Maybe it's over...Probably not. But who knows'.

After another 10 minutes of walking, some stone covered hills peered over the horizon. As he drew closer, Arron caught sight of several figures that were too small to by human. Judging by the diminutive stature of the distant figures, Felix was fairly certain that they were dwarves. And so with the hope that the dwarves that he was about to pass were friendlier than the man he'd just met, Felix continued onward.

As Felix neared the collection of small humanoids, it became clear that the little creatures weren't Dwarves at all. They were too thin, hunched over, and shared a variety of pale, earthen skin shades. Gremlins? Imps? What were they? Felix had been told tales of some creatures that his Dwarven comrades had faced in their travels, but actually seeing anything in the expanse of the continent was certainly different from hearing about them. One of the small creatures spun towards Felix, cradling was looked to be a small glob of pulverized meat between its clawed little hands. Blood was smeared across its bony face, but it didn't seem too aggressive. Rather than attacking, or even bearing its teeth at Felix, it turned its head and shrieked, alerting its nearby brethren, and forcing them all to run into the nearest hill-like encampment. They retreated underground, leaving whatever they'd been holding behind.

Unfortunately, the entire landscape surrounding their little burrow had been littered with not only indiscernible meat, but mangled Dwarven corpses.

This was not a friendly place.

---

Felix had found himself off his path. How could that have been? The road was clear, and didn't seem to fork at any point. Was it altered? Were these little freaks responsible? Whatever the reason, he was now face to face with the mounds of Lilithal. He didn't know it yet, but this was a dangerous place to be. But, without a path to follow, turning around was not an option, lest he find himself lost in the wilds, or worse, face to face with the warring rogues. He was forced to either make his way through the devilish mounds, or test himself against the untold furies of nature and man with little to no direction.

Felix stopped and looked out over the mounds as he considered his options. There was continuing down the road he had been walking on. Such a course would possibly lead him off course and would most certainly lead him through the territory of creatures capable of reducing dwarves to piles of indiscernible meat. There was also traveling off the road to avoid the mounds. But that meant braving the wilderness with no way of telling which way to go. Eventually, Felix decided that even if the road was dangerous, he would much rather know where he was going. And so Felix started walking again, continuing down the road and leading to the mounds.

Further into the city, and the mounds were getting larger. Larger and larger, almost to the point where they overtook the building's he was so used to in him home town. Guttural noises sounded from the mounds, but nothing jumped out to face Felix, not for a while. It seemed a lot safer than it looked. That was until..

"GRAAHH!" A low pitched cry sounded out from Felix's left, "GET OFFA' ME YOU FILTHY LITTLE GREMS!"

Felix turned to face where the noise was coming from. Had he not been so surprised by the sudden exclamation, Felix would have wondered why his sword was in his hand despite the fact that he had only thought of drawing it and had yet to actually do so. Felix's view of the deep voiced individual was obscured by a collection of rocks. Felix remedied this by quickly moving over the rocks to find and hopefully aid the person who was being attacked.

Felix was quick enough to see a horrific sight. The top half of a dwarf was poking out of a small mound just around the corner. He struggled and clawed his way up as something tugged at him from behind. When he saw Felix, the dwarf paused in shock. Before he could say anything else though, his body sunk into the hole, leaving behind nothing more than an echoed scream as he disappeared into the abyss.

When he saw what state the dwarf was in, Felix scrambled forward to help the dwarf. Felix leaped forward as the dwarf was pulled into the mound, their hands mere inches from each other. But as close as they were, Felix simply wasn't close enough to catch the dwarf before he was pulled in all the way. Felix punched the ground in frustration with his free before rising to his feet, the dwarf's scream echoing through his mind. After a moment, Felix looked down at his sword. 'I don't remember drawing you' Felix thought to himself 'So how come you're in my hand?'.