Tetsukichi and Salt follow Bo-Jing

Tetsukichi and Salt, with their followers in tow, traveled overland toward the monastery on the northern ridge, the lonely outpost that marked the edge of the Naran horde. The monks there confirmed that Bo-Jing had passed through some weeks earlier. They showed Salt and Tetsukichi the same worn maps they had shared with him, detailing a proposed route into Hunza in search of Narantsetseg. After a night of rest and study, the party pressed on.

They crossed the borderlands without incident. After several days of hard riding, they passed through the stone choke-point of the mountain pass and descended into Hunza. The country felt merciful after the barren ridge: water ran freely, grass was abundant for their horses, and the forest thinned into open land where game could be hunted. With their rations of dried beef and hard bread supplemented by fresh forage, morale remained high.

One night they found shelter in a deserted farmstead. The next morning they struck a main road and soon encountered a column of soldiers—most on foot, marching slowly in the same direction. Tetsukichi and Salt’s Hunzan-born henchmen hailed them. The soldiers, gaunt and exhausted, explained they were returning from the front. They gratefully accepted the party’s food and use of spare horses. Before long, the two groups agreed to travel together to Magden, the nearest town.

On the road the soldiers shared their story. The Master’s attempt to spread the Knowledge across the world had failed; the Ignorant were simply too many. The war had collapsed. Their retreat had been costly, but to their own surprise, they were alive—and returning home to find that the Master’s warnings had not come true. Their villages were not being overrun. No Ignorant hordes hunted them. They were simply… home again, alive in a war that no longer seemed to exist.

Their arrival in Magden caused a stir. After separating from the soldiers, the party took rooms at an inn—also paying for a couple of destitute men who had marched with the column. Over the next days they began quietly gathering information.

Tetsukichi befriended a talkative, silver-tongued merchant who had traveled widely across the Northern and Southern empires and spoke excellent Zhou-Yi. Though uneasy about accepting the man’s hospitality, Tetsukichi welcomed the information. The merchant reported that several foreigners had indeed passed through Magden recently. They were bound for a place called the Dark Wall, a dangerous region in western Hunza.

As he spoke, Tetsukichi overheard a loud dispute in the street: three factions of robed men and women arguing fiercely. The merchant, flushing with embarrassment, explained the turmoil. There had been “controversy about the Master.” A visitor had come months earlier—“a man with a face like the morning sun”—and rumors claimed he had been chosen as the Master’s successor. But the question remained unsettled. Some said the Guardians of Knowledge had mishandled the crisis. Order was slipping, and even commerce was suffering. And no one seemed entirely certain whether the war against the Ignorant was truly over… or merely paused.

Meanwhile Salt noticed a darker development: returning soldiers were being accused of spreading enemy propaganda. Red-robed Guardians entered the inn and arrested the two soldiers the party had sponsored.

Salt and Tetsukichi exchanged a single look. They would not be spending the night in Magden.

The party slipped out of the city in twos and threes, riding different roads until they regrouped on the western route toward Gilgat.

Their journey continued through farmland. Now and then they glimpsed wary residents at a distance, but no one approached them, and they did not linger to ask questions.

They entered Gilgat before dawn. Using Mustapha’s magic, they disguised themselves as native Hunzans—a patrol of red-robed Guardians. While they oriented themselves in the shadowed streets, a squad of white-robed soldiers hailed them.

“Oh reasoned ones,” the soldiers pleaded, “will you give us some words of encouragement?”

The white-robes explained their assignment: they had been ordered to locate and arrest a band of ignorant foreigners who had passed through Gilgat days earlier and were now believed to be spreading ignorance toward the Great Wall. The group included a finely dressed woman—almost certainly Narantsetseg.

Hearing this, the party—still cloaked in their magical disguises—offered to accompany the soldiers and assist in the hunt.

Their path was now clear:

Narantsetseg and her entourage, and likely Bo-Jing as well, were ahead of them, heading toward the Dark Wall.