There were a count of small shops in Cottbus that could supply Aiolos with all this. A gunstore would no doubt have the rope, bag and bullets, while a general store would hold the canned rations and medical supplies. With his current budget however... It was hard to tell if he had enough for all that and a spell from the magic store aside.

Rope = 7 euro
9 mm bullets = 0.25 euro
Canned rations = 1 euro per can
Backpack = 75 euro
Medkit = 150 euro

Spells were about 100 euro per level.

Aiolos definitely didn't have enough money for all.

After some time, Aiolos was 38,75 euro's poorer. Now the proud owner of 25 metres of rope, a new magazine for his makarov, and two cans of chef boyardee. Excellent.

The sight of a city from outside it's walls was truly fascinating. As Aiolos passed through Cottbus' immense concrete walls, he was giving this very perspective. For a good kilometre past the walls, everything was barren. Trees were chopped down to allow the SRT soldiers patrolling the walls from above to have a clear view. At each 10km or so that the walls spanned, there would be a tower in the wall. Inside these towers, set two things. A machine gun, and a rune. The machine gun would be there to get rid of larger creatures, while the rune was there to ward animals off naturally. In reality, it was the rune that did most of the work. Unless a beast grew rabid and charged the city in disarray - in which case the soldiers above finally got to use their weapons - it was mostly just there to make sure there was a clear perimeter.

That didn't discredit the fact that these walls were tall and sturdy however. They rose a good 25 metres tall, making them unassailable even to the tallest of Bywarks, who stand at equal length.

In this stretch of plain lifelessness that Aiolos traversed, there really wasn't any life. Not even insects dared go past the magical line of defence that shamans put up for their cities. But eventually, Aiolos came to the treeline. A last view of civilisation over his back was all he was afforded before going into the thick of it. Now that he was still close to civilisation, the thought came into Aiolos' high INT mind that he should probably take this last bar of cell service to download a map before going any further into this dense oak and pine forest.

The gyrfalcon's left, and took a good hour searching around while Aiolos continued further in. Cottbus was at the top of a hill and as Aiolos left it's range, he went down one. It'd been a long time since he'd seen the wilds and would likely be the first time he'd be seeing it for so long.

As he roamed through he came across a number of creatures. Does and deer, rushing around the moment they got a sight on him. Smaller mammals like rabbits rushing to cover, watching Aiolos with anxious eyes at every moment.

After a few hours, one of the gyrflacon's returned. Circling overhead before taking off to the north, leading the way for Aiolos. His map told him that a few kilometres in that direction, there was a tiny lake.

This was as true an observation about the nature of the wilds as one could make. Beautiful and dreamy in its evergreen stretches, with innocent, cute animals hopping about that all make one lower their guard. In truth, he was in a hostile environment, ripe with beasts that are known to rip both the cute animals and travellers like Aiolos with relative ease.

But Aiolos didn't have the best eyes, nor the best nose or ears. Thusly, whether he had his eyes and ears open or not, it really didn't matter. The beasts of the wild would be much more able to sneak up on him than he had ability to perceive them.

It was by pure luck that Aiolos had not interactions with the beasts of the wilds, until the light on the horizon started to come down. That was when he saw his Gyrfalcon circling in the not-so-distant air to his north. Accommodating it... A groan, sort of. A loud sound, deep, primal, and VERY big.