How primitive.

And dull, quite frankly. How populated is the area?

Vendrien's Well has lots of farmsteads, though they're a little under-strength from the two rounds of war that have blown through recently.

Haven and the Bastard Tier look like they used to be more thinly populated, but weren't hit hard by the war so that may not still be true. Some farmsteads, but there are a lot more sheep than before; guess there are herders around.

Nothing even fun to look at while they travel so excruciatingly slowly.

Celes is going to verify with Kohl the path he intends to travel, and then she is going to split off from the ground to make her own fun.

"Can I keep up with you? I bet I'm just as bored."

"Depends on what your idea of entertainment entails."

"If it involves drawing blades, I'm probably in."

"Wasn't planning on it, but we can work that in."

"Don't have to change your plans too much for me, it'll still probably be more interesting than marching."

"We'll see."

And so they two can split off from the rest of the group. Celes's plan for entertainment, such as it is, is to seed some odd happenings amidst the farmsteads. Omens.

Huh, like what?

Rains of blood, blighted or mysterious bountiful crops, livestock behaving in unexpected ways, visions, prophecies...

Verse is making a lot of mental notes about what Celes can do. Will she pass them to anyone? Who knows. Not her, that's for sure.

She also adds a couple weird livestock mutilations to the assortment.

"You're sure you're not an Archon?", she'll mention along the way at some point, "Because this is a lot of magic you can do that I've never heard of. And all sigil-less."

"Who said anything about actually doing all of that? It's much easier to make people believe something happened than it is to cause something to happen."

She quirks an eyebrow. "Visions and prophecies, though? Even if they're not true visions. Also I'm fascinated how you are going to convince anyone of a rain of blood."

"A good story told well can be infectious."

"I may cramp your style but I think this will be fun to see."

Then the first step is to find some people to talk to. Ideally a gathering or a small group, not too busy.

Well, they're peasants, they're all busy. But here's a couple farmers, pausing at the edge of a field to talk before going back to planting.

Hello hardworking farmers, would you like to chat with the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life? Don't bother answering, she knows you would. And she has the most fascinating stories to tell.

They are happily distracted by the pretty foreigner!

Verse is not immune to extremely pretty foreigner but is managing to be a little disconcerted about it on the side.

That makes it more fun!

She won't spend much more than a half hour on this little gathering before moving on in search of her next victims.

They will be chattering about the stories for much longer than that! Also about the woman who told them.

A while further, there's some fishermen repairing nets and setting them in a stream.

They'll want to be careful with those. She's heard about some underwater monsters that might be moving in...

(Verse, if she's looking carefully, may notice faint silvery tattoos appearing on Celes's skin, shimmering and shifting in the light.)

Oh dear! Well, they do need the fish, but that seems worth being careful about, they'll... only cast them when there's someone behind them to pull them back if a monster tries to grab them? Thanks for the warning, stranger!