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Nabisisstra supped from a cup, and sank back in the chair in which she sat, allowing her tired limbs to finally rest. The sweet red wine was a welcome relief indeed to her dry throat and palette, which had been used to little more than travel rations and boiled water for the last ten days or so, moving at considerable pace along what sufficed for a transportation network in Rodoria. She mulled over the differences between Rodoria and her home of the Amethyst Empire, far to the east, as she savoured the taste of one thing that at least both cultures shared... their taste for alcohol. The sight of horses and carts transiting broken and pitted dirt roads was indeed a far cry from the rail tunnels - and the magical engines hauling citizens and cargo - that linked her homeland's cities underneath the ashlands of Jevog Denûm, travel across the ash-blasted wastes being far too hazardous for ordinary folk to risk beyond the most desperate of circumstances... but then so too was the environment through which said roads twisted and turned. The common colour in Jevog Denûm had always been some form of grey, whether that be the colour of the stony mountainsides, the ashlands, or the turbulent skies above. Even her own kind often exhibited skin tones of some form of grey, though Nabi's own skin had been described as 'coal-black' on more than one occasion. Only when one delved beneath the surface did one enter into a world of different colours, of the cities of the Erashyir, nestled within the earth's safe embrace beneath the volcanoes and windstorms of the surface, but even then, the prevailing colours could still be harsh - reds and blacks comprising most of the shades used by Great Houses.

In Rodoria, things were very different. As Nabi had journeyed towards Borstown, she had borne witness to many different sights, sounds and even smells in the Rodorian countryside. By far the most common - and the ones that stuck in her mind - were the sights and sounds of peasant farmers and their families out in the fields, hacking away at their crop with sickles for the harvest, with carts and sacks of crops hauled by oxen, horses or other heavy draft animals back to rickety barns made of wood, with thatched straw roofs. Occasionally, Nabi entertained ideas of stopping in villages along the way and offering to help gather the harvest as a way of making a little coin on the side, but she thought better of it, especially in these times of uncertainty... and disease.

Ah yes. [i]The disease.[/i] 

Nabi took another drink of wine.

The locals called it "The Withering". An apt description, by all accounts - she had heard tales of folk being fine the one day, and then these foul, ugly splotches would appear on them seemingly overnight, and they would turn black upon applying even gentle pressure to the area, supposedly throwing the poor victim into howls of agony. People would waste away in their beds, turned from fine, strapping folk into barely-recognisable bags of bones in less than a week. There was no known cure, no way of knowing who would catch it next... if it was even possible to [i]catch[/i] it in the first place. At least with a cold or cough, you knew that the bad air you breathed out could harm everyone else nearby, but with the Withering... it struck seemingly at random. A man in a household would be struck with the illness, but his wife and children, despite trying to care for him, would be spared... only for another person, perhaps half the street away who wasn't even aware of the first man's sickness to start with, to be struck down, without rhyme or reason. Outsiders were always the first suspicion in many villages - and Nabi could see the logic, even if she was often the target of such rumours, as often diseases tended to coincide with travellers arriving at some town or city. Nabi sometimes saw people looking at her with fear and distrust, whispering things behind hands or talking about her in hushed tones, thinking she couldn't hear them. The 'she-witch'. The 'foreigner'.

[i]The 'Dark One'.[/i]

That last moniker followed her wherever she went in Rodoria, but even in Zerul, nobody would tell her the reason why. The most she'd been able to figure out in libraries - and overhearing conversations - was that there were old tales that abounded, of evil people who long ago dwelled in the ashlands of Jevog Denûm... but nothing else. Did the Rodorians think she was one of those evil people? Were those evil people the 'Dark Ones', and because she, too, had come from the ash wastes, that they thought she was one of them returned? If so, why did they not simply attack her-

The harsh tone of a ringing bell from somewhere in Borstown brought Nabi out of her thoughts. Immediately, and without even thinking, she jumped to her feet, ignoring the pain from her weary limbs as she did so, and drew her blade with a single motion, looking around for the source of the alarm. The vintner, too, had been interrupted by the sound of the bells, and had turned to look at Nabisisstra at the sound of her sword leaving its scabbard, and half-yelled in a panicked voice, "Th-the baroness! She needs help! Quickly, uh, d-down the street, to your left!" He pointed down the road, where Nabi could see a rather large and well-built manorial residence - evidently the home of the local ruler, or "[i]baroness[/i]" as the vintner had said.

Nabi gave a single, wordless nod before vaulting over the table in front of her - knocking the half-empty cup of wine to the floor as she did so - and running outside, whereupon she saw two horsemen rushing down the street as quickly as they could, both wearing armour and carrying swords. Throwing back her hood, Nabi, too began running as quickly as she could in the direction of the manor house, sabre in one hand, and her other ready to draw her parrying dagger should she need to fight. Yet, almost as soon as she had started to run in the direction of the manor house, someone else - a woman with feathers where humans would have hair from a quick cursory glance - had conjured a ribbon of water and all but blocked Nabi's path. [b][color=#d31c0a]"Friend or foe?"[/color][/b] she commanded, in accented Rodorian.

Nabi halted, and raised her hands cautiously in a gesture of - she hoped - non-aggression. 
The woman had spoken in Rodorian, and so Nabi would respond in kind...[b][color=#000000]"Friend. I mean you or anyone here no harm."[/color][/b]