You ride down from the hillside, your mounts carefully picking their way through the long, dense grasses. Despite the late hour, the moon is shining brightly and the going is surprisingly easy. There are no other travellers to be seen as you approach the dusty, rutted road that leads east from Astangard through rolling farm country.
After you have ridden for several hours at a gentle trot, the sky to the east begins to grow light. The road passes between two wheat fields, and you can see farm workers on either side threshing the golden grain with long scythes and loading up oxen-drawn carts with bushel baskets of the staple crop. The workers closest to the road stop and eye you warily as you ride by; it occurs to you that the only armed bands these farmers generally see are soldiers, tax-collectors, and bandits.
By mid-morning, the fields are buzzing with farmhands working to secure the early harvest. You start to see an occasional house among the rolling farmland, and the road becomes wider and more heavily traveled. You pass by a farmer with a donkey and wagon, slowly pulling a load of cackling chickens to market; the gaunt-looking man unconsciously reaches for his beltpouch as he sees the heavily armored Wyngard.
As the sun reaches its apex in the sky, you crest a hill and see the road slope downward into the riverside village of Sen's Mill. The mill itself is situated on the Tsennet, using the force of the moving water to power the millstones. A line of wagons, each full of wheat baskets, extends along the road from the mill towards the center of town. The small town square is alive with people, with dozens of farmstands selling produce and livestock, a blacksmith offering farm implements and horse shoes, and a few esoteric traveling merchants displaying wares from other parts of Astan.
The half-timbered homes that line the streets are well-kept, with glazed-glass windows and white-washed doors bedecked with wreathes. The streets, too, are clean and free of stones. Many children are playing in the road, laughing and shouting as they kick around a lumpy leather ball. They are perhaps the only people not to give you a suspicious look or two as you ride into town.
