Moving past the fact that Oriana now had one of the heroes after her, her talk with Simon soon concluded.
After telling her about all the ways the Peacekeepers were trying to deal with her, he generally told her to stay safe and that he would let her know if anything changed.
From there, they said their goodbyes, and Oriana headed to the meetup with Bethany.
---
"Okay, we need to get some things."
Following her lead, Bethany brought Oriana to the marketplace, and specifically to the store selling camping supplies.
"Camping gear. I guess it makes sense."
It wasn't hard to figure out. All they knew was that the carriage would be turning up in a couple of days. Before then, they needed to get the drop on it. So, they would need to stay outside the city for a while, ensuring they find a good place to ambush it, making sure they don't just miss it and let it into the city.
Heading around, they found themselves a couple of tents, a magic crystal-powered firelighter, a cooking pot, rations, some herbs and spices to add some taste to whatever they managed to cook, and bedrolls.
Some of it, she could keep in her obsidian ring, but for the bulky items, that would not be happening.
Thankfully, as an adventurer, it would be natural for her to leave the city with camping gear. If anything, she could easily use it as a cover, picking up a request from the Guild as the reason for her overnight stay.
Not that anyone was tracking her and would be wondering why she was leaving with camping gear. But it was always good to have a cover, a backup plan or something similar.
With all of that picked up, they had one final stop at the apothecary to pick up something that would help in dealing with the guards. After that, they were done and ready to go. So, they headed out of the city.
---
"We're going to head up the road and see if we can find a good spot to ambush the caravan."
"Makes sense."
Outside the city, they headed down the dirt-and-gravel road, travelling south.
They passed by lush fields with various vegetables growing, with a soon-to-be bountiful harvest. The colours as they passed shifted between a golden yellow, to a deep green, and even a royal purple, the crops coming in all sorts of hues.
In one field, the crop was so tall that not even a giant would be able to see over it. Farmers had to slowly and methodically hack at the base of the crop, bringing the whole thing down in order to harvest it.
Past the rolling fields, they reached the plains. Verdant green grass rolled across the hills in a picturesque view. A beautiful view, had they been sightseeing and not planning a heist.
Not long after they traversed the hilly plains, they reached the forest. The name was unoriginally called the Khalbren Forest. From it, the odd monster grew and roamed about, becoming bold enough to venture into the plains and attack the city. But other than that, it was mostly a dense wooded area that the road passed through.
Before the age of peace, bandit and monster attacks had been terribly common, to the point that travel and trade through this route had stopped indefinitely. But the heroes in all their glory helped put a stop to it.
They routed out bandits from their dens and culled the monster population. The odd few monsters survived and now breed in isolated areas, but every so often adventures make the journey into the forest to adjust the growth of their numbers.
The removal of the bandits only stopped the symptoms, not the cause. This was solved, however, mainly by the age of peace coming to fruition. Trade resumed, and smaller villages from where these bandits came were able to make a better living.
With the lack of war, monster attacks, or corrupt nobles causing them problems, the villages were able to stand on their own feet and improve their quality of life. Since then, bandits are hardly ever seen.
From what Oriana could recall, there had been some attacks over the last five years. At most, she heard of two.
The odd down-on-their-luck group forming a band, or maybe the ones who preferred not to work and would rather steal from others to amass wealth. Whatever the case, after only one attack on a carriage, they were soon routed out and brought to jail.
Which meant that taking a break and even a full night's rest in the forest should be no problem at all.
"This is probably the best location to do it."
Oriana looked around. They were just off the side of the road, standing by the numerous trees that plagued the area. They were far from the city, and under the cover of darkness, they would not be seen. The trees would help hide their position and the ambush from any other people travelling.
They had a look at a few spots in this area, trying to find ones with good cover, but also a place nearby they could stay and watch the road. And before long, they found a place to set up.
---
"Well, that wasn't so hard."
"Never been camping before?" Bethany asked just as she finished putting up her tent.
Oriana tried to recall if she had ever gone camping before, but even though she lived in a forest, they had actual houses, so she never ended up doing anything like that.
Even her trip to the city had been by carriage, stopping off at Inns along the way.
"Never had any need to."
"Well, all I can say is, if you don't need to camp, then don't. I can't stand it."
Oriana could not see the appeal either. A thin piece of fabric separates you from the outside world. Even with the lacking number of monsters, it still didn't make you feel any better.
Then there was the temperature. Sure, they had magical devices to try and regulate it, but even they had their limitations.
And lastly was the wind. She hadn't even entered the tent yet, but from the wind that was pounding away at it, causing it to fly all over the place…she did not seem hopeful about managing to get a good night's sleep.
"I think I get your point."
From where they were, they had a few trees around them. It kept them out of sight from the road, but they still had a good enough vantage point in order to see it from their side.
All in all, should they hear the clopping of horseshoes or see something passing by, they should have an easy enough time to check it out before it gets too far away from them.
"How do we know which carriage we are targeting?" Oriana asked. She didn't want to attack a carriage that had nothing to do with their job.
"Oh, James mentioned the company they are using to transport them. We just need to watch out for a carriage with a symbol that looks like a lightning bolt going through a horse, with a circle around it."
"Let's hope they only have one carriage coming this way." Oriana brought up. If they didn't and ended up going after one that had nothing to do with the jewellery, then that could lead to problems if they get caught.
But with the plan known, they sat down and got to cooking their dinner.
---
The menu in the forest was…limited. Nothing like the Topaz Pavilion.
Hardtack and jerky with the odd herbs and spices that Oriana had brought. They did have some game meat, which they added alongside some vegetables. All of which came together to give an odd-looking meal of stew with some tasteless sides.
As they ate, a few carriages had passed by, but none had the symbol they were looking for.
With the sun starting to set, they talked into the night about all manner of things. Oriana spoke about what she did before coming to the city. She left out the fact that she lived in a Forest Fae village, still not confident enough to just provide such information.
Bethany also spoke about how she ended up in the city. She spoke about the coin troubles she had in her village and how she had, rather successfully, stolen coins from the shops where she lived.
But, as she continued, and the coin within the village dwindled, she realised she needed a new location to make her mark and earn some coin using her five-fingered discount.
The city also provided her with a challenge. She preferred the idea of just stealing coins, but the challenge was a welcome addition to it. She had worked her way up, starting with stealing from random passerbys, to stealing from market stalls, and then to shops. But even then, she wanted more and so moved to the main hub of coin within the city, the Merchants Guild.
They laughed and joked, talked a little about illusion magic and its intricacies. If anything, Oriana felt that she might at some point be able to create something similar to the one-way illusion that Bethany had.
They even got onto talking about how the last heist had gone.
"Your nature magic is something special. Being able to make a key with just a branch. I mean, you were made for stealing."
Oriana could see what she was talking about, but her passion was chaos. Breaking into places was only a means to an end.
"It's not perfect. With how locks are designed, there are all sorts of pitfalls when trying to create the key from inside it."
"Saves carrying a bag of lockpicks, though. Would be handy to have magic like that myself."
Bethany sat back and thought about all the magic she wished she had to make the acquisition of coin that much easier.
"Well, thankfully, it all went smoothly. Without your quick thinking and the illusion you created, that guard probably would have found us. Things would have gotten messy if he had."
"But even if he had caught us, we could easily have fled using more illusions and my nature magic. It wouldn't have gotten…messy."
"Flee?... Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"You know, not everything can be solved with illusions," Bethany said as she yawned.
"They have solved a lot for me."
"Sure, until they don't"
Oriana was a little struck by what she had said. Sure, not everything can be solved by illusions, she obviously knew that. But surely they could have fled from the guard using their magic. What was the alternative? Fight. From what she said, had Bethany seen that as the…better alternative?
"Back in a bit. Just going to pick some flowers."
Bethany was up and heading into the forest to 'pick some flowers', away from the camp, before Oriana could get back to the conversation. She felt she needed to ask a little more about what she had meant by all that.
But night had fallen over their location, and by the time she returned, things had moved onto sleeping arrangements and the decision on how they would take turns resting, pushing that conversation from before out of Oriana's head. Bethany stayed awake, watching the road, while Oriana crawled into her tent to get some shut-eye. Hopefully.
With carriages not being the most efficient transportation and sometimes being unreliable, there was every possibility that it would turn up in the middle of the night. The likelihood was that it would take a break somewhere and camp till morning, but depending on where they were, they might just continue till they reach the city.
But that was future Oriana's problem. For now, she lay inside her tent. Her flimsy, cold, uneven, hard ground, shaking tent.
Bliss…is not what came to mind.
She struggled to fall asleep, the wind hitting it with both physical and audible force. It wasn't until an hour or so later that she was able to actually drift off.