This day seemed to be uneventful for Calista, the half-elf mage who traversed the countryside of Meldiniar without citizenship papers. Usually, her days were never dull, but this day felt strangely… desolate. She had awoke early this morning, rising gracefully from the tattered sheets of the rickety bed that was provided to her by the portly innkeeper of this small town establishment. With enough upfront gold, she was rarely asked for proof of citizenship, at least, in the small villages that she frequented on the outside edge of the country. She met little trouble in places such as this. Currently, she was in the southwest, close enough to the Elven Forest that local folklore made her existence more acceptable. That, plus the fact that small communities such as these, so isolated from the main hubs of human activity, relished visitors, made her easily accepted. Small communities enjoyed visitors because they brought stories and news from places far away, and because a visitor such as Calista not only brought her personal revenue, but the revenue of increased patronage from her presence. The fact that she was a half-elf, and many of her stories somehow ended on the mysterious subject of the Earth Mother goddess her people venerated or some of the feats of magic her father told her about, made people interested in what she had to say. 

The day was warm, and so she dressed lightly in a thigh length leather tunic, simple trousers, and simple fingerless gloves. She had lived in this room for just under a week now, but that was long enough for Calista. In her three years on the road, she learned that inevitably, because of her own carelessness or naivety, people found out she had magical capabilities They never hesitated to report her to the closest Paladin sect. Even though people were kind and helpful to her as a traveler, they did not trust mages or their craft. Calista ran her hands through her long black hair as she gathered her things from around the room. She stopped and tied her long tresses into a bun, and then proceeded to force her many trinkets and sentimentals into her traveling pack. She also placed the traveling supplies she had purchased from the innkeeper in her pack, and at last tied her bedroll to the top. She took one last glance, was satisfied she had gotten everything, and exited the room with a light step. 

Outside the inn she made her goodbyes to the few friends she had made, and told she was to leave that morning, with open arms and many sad smiles. As she meandered up the path in the opposite direction she had come, she whistled a tune to herself. She turned and waved, and received several waves back. And then, she kept walking, until the last the villagers saw of her was a tiny speck in the distance. They knew she was heading to the next community on the path, the one they knew as the village with the water wheel. 

After that, her time consisted of boring traveling. For much of the morning, there was no one else on the path. The farther she got from bigger cities, the less people she saw when she was traveling. On roads such as these, there were always a few local, and maybe so not so local, caravans and the like traveling this time of year. But that was less common here. She wondered if it was because they were close to the Elven Forest here, and saw the roads as less safe because of it. In places such as this, there were almost never any Paladin convoys, roving for one reason or another, that liked to ask travelers for citizenship papers. Closer toward the heart of the land, she had to take care not to be caught by one. The resulting chase was exhausting, as she had learned. 

The sun was past its zenith before Calista had heard the call to the Black Forest. She had been stopped, gnawing on rations and thinking about what she had learned about the path ahead, when the reverberating voice had sounded in her skull. Her one hand clutched the small bag of nuts she had been picking from, and the other flew to her temple and pressed against the throbbing divet. She did not know who had planted the message in her mind, or why or how, and she struggled with herself for a moment. She was not far from the Black Forest, and she had known where it was before, but now a clear path to it was ingrained in her mind. Her eyes narrowed at the ground between her feet. 

On one hand, Calista was suspicious. Who held the power to project a message into the minds of select people? That message had not just been sent to her, she knew that much had to be true, and was most likely not projected to Paladins and the like. What was their motive? Are we gathering for safety, as the message had claimed, or slaughter? She thought and shuddered. But the opposite prospect was very tempting, and the message stayed with the half-elf as she packed up her rations and got back on the trail. The next junction she came to, she didn’t take the path to the village with the water wheel.