[center][h1]Chapter 1 - On the way to Exodus[/h1][/center]

On the edge of the western highlands and the mountains in the north, a group gathered, it was mainly folk who lived off the lands or traded, but they had heard from several travelers that there was a way to see a better world. A better world was what most of the poor, desperate, or weak could hear, a life away from a monotonous lifestyle of repeating the same actions every day to live. These people did not work that much, the foraged and lead their herds of various animals through the land protecting them. Simple lives on the outskirts of a civilized world. 

This society wanted more; they had come back from the mountains to their ancestral homelands when the river returned life and streams to the region. Their leader Hulius was asked to read a map to the exodus and to lead them there. And so he had set off weeks before, leaving the cliffs of the coastline, and heading inland. Ninety-seven people in total, most of them younger folk, the oldest being the elderly Hulius in his late fifties. There were only humans in this close society.

Several days into their journey, they had left their ancestral homeland and entered a territory unknown to most of them. Here, raiders had come to their camp, they took several people, and some were killed when resisting. Their flock of animals had been cut into almost half as well. Hulius had to lead them to a small trading town in which he had used many times before and bought back the people who were taken. Those that were lost to the sword, not much could be done at that time. 

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Hulius sat on a blanket next to the footpath towards the city, just off the side with his people, they had collected some new members to join them, but he was looking for warriors or just people to help protect the group. The men could always use their slings, as he had done previously, but it was not much help against numbers, or when an opponent came close. To which, not a lot of them knew how to fight in a melee. Several had offered for coin, but he was unable to give that, he only had his people, and the way to get across the continent. 

But he would sit, and continue to rest himself there, he had several baskets with him, along with a sling with a pouch of rocks, a skin full of water, and a crooked staff to help him guide the flock of sheep that was spread across the hill which his followers rested upon. Near him, a fire was started as the night was slowly coming over the rolling hills, a beautiful orange sky spread out above them.