"…And furthermore, our passes clearly state that we are to be given safe and unimpeded passage along major roads, highways, and canals. Therefore, keeping us at this barricade is unlawful, unjust, and illegal, and, in doing, so you are in breach of international law, as shown here on page 72, paragraph 4, where it clearly shows the punishment for holding a diplomatic envoy. If you do not release my companions, you-"

"SHUT! UP!" The templar captain finally snapped. Lynn had been going on for almost an hour, and was holding over a hundred papers, all of which were legal documents. "Just shut up, take your… everyone… and leave!"

"Thank you!" Lynn said cheerfully, easily putting everything away. Karen, Raine and Sythe were released, and rejoined the group. There were a dozen other groups of people at the blockade, from merchants and travelers to Templar convoys. There were only about 30 soldiers, but they had moved several large logs across the main road to force everyone through a narrow gap, where they could investigate people. There was a cluster of tents to the side, where Lynn and Red (mostly Lynn) had been talking to the captain, and where several prisoners were being held.

As everyone put distance between them and the checkpoint, Red could barely contain his laughter. "I seriously underestimated you! When you pulled out the third folder, I thought he was going to faint!"

"Oh please, that was nothing." Lynn smiled. "If you want to see my real power, bring me an actual politician who can see through my jargon. A few years ago there was a judge who wanted to try a local governor for fraud, and no one else could get a confession out of him. But after only 17 hours of back and forth, he eventually snapped and confessed everything and then some!"

"I remember hearing about that!" Madelyn piped up. Somehow she had avoided being seen by the Templars entirely, and just reappeared at that moment. "Mom likes telling people that story, she says it's one of her proudest moments. She's the one who appointed you as a messenger."

"I'm just not sure why those soldiers were there." Maren said. "There's a war going on. Why are they putting blockades up on roads instead of moving to the front lines?"

"That wasn't a blockade." Madelyn held up a letter. "That's a conscription drive. They're looking for random travelers to send to the front lines under Captain Morvian. This was on his desk."

"How do you do that?" Sythe asked, scratching Mrs. Nibbly and giving her a bit of food. "Get in and out without ever being seen."

"It's just something I've always been able to do. I'm not like most Basitins. While a lot of us are good at fighting, I've never been much of a fighter. I've always been the smallest, always been the weakest. So, I make up for that in other ways! I might be small, but I'm fast, nimble, and agile! I can get into places a lot of other people can't, and that gives me opportunities to get away with things no one else could. It's gotten me in trouble a fair bit at home, but here no one knows me, and no one can see me coming!"

"I like it!" Karen said cheerfully. "Getting into trouble is fun, because then you can get out of trouble!"

"Indeed. Though back to the topic of the conscription drive, it does raise rather concerning questions." Lynn took the letter our of Madelyn's hand. "If they are conscripting soldiers from peasants and merchants, where are the Templar's trained legions? Morvian was to gather a 'small army' and take it to Edinmire, but why? The Templar's soldiers would have martial training and proper equipment. Peasants would only be used to bolster ranks with sheer volume of people, men meant to die, which is a rather horrifying prospect."

"Then they most likely would have recruited me!" Red said, shocked. "I would have been sent to fight! I like blowing things up, but I don't want to fight a war!"

"I don't want to even think about it. I just want to get as far away from the fighting as possible." Raine said. "I still haven't figured out my shapeshifting yet, and until I do, I'm at risk of getting killed, and so is Sythe. I think it would be a good idea to forgo the roads. If Templars are going to patrol them, then avoiding roads would mean avoiding more Templars. It would be slower, but I think it's worth it."

Sythe agreed. "It's not perfect, but we can make it work. We went without roads before, we can go without roads again."

Madelyn pulled out a map with a Templar insignia on the top corner. "We would only add a few days to our journey, but that would be reduced by about the same number of days since we would be taking a shorter, more direct path. If we went in a straight line, we would go past a few villages we could get supplies in. It's been only a week, and we're already running a bit low on food." Red looked over her shoulder at the map.

"Did you steal that?"