Over the next week we made a lot of progress both in looking for that "black" mountain and learning more and more about magic. Something we noticed after a lot of practice, was that each of us had different talents. For example, Ares mastered telekinesis quickly and even wind and explosion based magic. I on the other hand had, naturally, an uncanny level of talent for ritualistic, mind based and soul magic. But otherwise the both of us were similar in talent regarding the different schools of magic we discovered.
However, our travels soon ended as we saw of in the distance, a gigantic mountain. Bigger than the one we were currently on. Much bigger. And it was pretty dark. "....almost black." said Ares. Which was all my mind needed to ring the alarm bells. We slowed down our travel speed to a regular human speed because from here on out there was a risk of being seen so we couldn't just Skysurf or Air-Jump. Which was another ability we picked up after realizing we could solidify the air into solid platforms. During the time we took to arrive at that black mountain, we discussed how we would proceed from here on out. Naturally that brought up the issue of names with Ares having the identity of a peasant named Cameron and my lack of a name. Should we continue with our own names here or stick to the names we had before? After all, there was no way for anyone here to know who we were. No one would even recognize "Cameron" because of the ritual he did. So we could just stick with our own names....
So of course I asked Ares how we should call ourselves from here on out. Ares then proceeded to inform me of the problems with their roman side because of the different names used. So we decided to stick to our own names.
Days of causal walking later we stood at the foot of the black mountain. A gigantic formation on top of an already elevated plateau surrounded by cliffs and ravines. And as we got closer and the sky grew darker, we saw off to the side of the mountain, another cliff and built into its side was a settlement lit by street lights. We knew without a doubt that it was the very city we were looking for. Caer Dour.
We took our sweet time coming closer and closer. But once we had reached close enough to be seen, we switched from our bright fiery tents to deeper and darker colors. Usually a dark grey flame, barely visible to the naked eye even from close up observation. It kept us warm at night but other than that we began to rely less and less on our inherent and absurd magic. And then, one day as we were ascending the mountain trail, we encountered a villager walking down.
"Greetings." he said with a slight nod towards us. We greeted back the same way. It took us another few hours of walking to reach the entrance but once there, we were welcomed by a city guard. He asked us about our intentions and the reason for our travels. There was no question about where we came from. I told him that we wished to stay in the city and inquired about the possibility to buy land or at least build a home here. The guard struck an overly dramatic thinking pose and then told us to just ask someone else seeing as he was unable to give a definite answer. The following days passed with Ares and me walking around the city looking for people either willing to sell, allow us to rent of just spend the night. A week later we luckily met the governing nobility by chance and spoke our piece. Of course being the naturally greedy suckers they were known to be they asked for a twenty five gold coins. An incredibly high price but it would allow us to pick an empty plot near the cities outskirts and build as we wished. So we procured the coins in less than legal ways....
Okay. We created about 100 gold coins using magic. They were indistinguishable from the real coins, seeing as we had snuck into the nobles residence and taken one to be inspected. Seeing as this world was still stuck in medieval times even with magic to make some things easier, their currency was still lacking the means to identify counterfeit money. Within a month after our arrival we owned a small plot of land just outside of the city but still enclosed inside its walls. From there on out we began our covered construction during the night and sometimes showed our faces during the day. Weirdly the noble had absolutely no issue with selling us some land to build on even after meantioning we seemed to be as old as his son, who was coincidentally actually our "age" being soon old enough to participate in the knigh-choosing ceremony which determined who would be allowed to serve her majesty after becoming a knight of Valentia. And better yet, we were informed of the time that ceremony would be conducted being in about one years time. That gave us the very same timeframe to prepare before cannon would start.
Now that we knew that our home would only need to suffice for about a years time, we saved some time in designing a truly complex building. Instead it would just be a two story high building with bricks made out of stone, giving it a smooth exterior, wooden reinforcement through a magically grown tree that was on the inside of the building in a courtyard. A small kitchen and rest/reading area, small blacksmith area and some other "necessities", a staircase to the first floor which had the bedrooms, a balcony and a small garden. And of course we used more magic to make a cellar hidden from sight so we could continue to practice small magics and their principles without having to leave the city.