Chapter 1: A New City

Since leaving Realzahd to get away from my pursuers, we’d spent about a week on the road, stopping at six different towns and villages on the way to Oxstar. Now, finally, we’d arrived at our destination.

There’d been a lot ofexcitement, if you will, on our weeklong journey...but we’d managed to make it to Oxstar without anyone getting injured or sick, at least.

“So this is Oxstar? We got here much quicker than I expected to,” Hester said.

“Really? I feel like we ran into a lot more trouble than I thought we would. I thought we’d get here a lot sooner,” I said.

“Felt pretty fast to me too, actually,” Ralph chimed in. “That’s probably just ’cause I was having fun, though!”

“Yeah. Wedid have some good times on the way here, didn’t we? And time always flies when you’re having fun,” added Hester.

As Oxstar came into our sights, we made our way to the city, sharing our thoughts about our journey as we walked.

Just like most cities in the kingdom, Oxstar had a gate you had to pass through to enter, but it wasn’t much of one, to be honest—at least, not compared to the gates of Realzahd and the capital, Meldrake. There was no gate inspection either.

I’d managed to smuggle in a bunch of poisonous plants and medicinal herbs through Realzahd’s gate, but it was nice not to even have to worry about security in Oxstar. Since I planned to do a lot of plant foraging in the future, that was going to be a huge l