“Did you hear the howling earlier?” Adra asked, as she was walking back onto the clearing we had made our camp on. She and Rai had been hunting while Sigmir and I had discussed Sigmir’s displeasure with the way Leneira had acted towards , giving us the privacy to have a deep and stimulating discussion. By the ti they ca back, we had exhausted all avenues of inquiry and were cuddled up together, listening to the quiet song of the wind, rustling through the leaves above us.
Opening my eyes and looking over, I noticed the amused smirk on Adra’s face, giving a good idea what she was referring to, the discussion between Sigmir and had caused both of us to get quite heated and announce the climax of each avenue of inquiry to the world. It seed that, in the quiet forest, the sound had carried far enough to reach our courageous hunters, to Adra’s amusent.
“I’m not sure what kind of beast made those noises, or if it was in pain. But we might want to go and find out, don’t you think?” she prodded, causing to grumble in displeasure when Sigmir shifted her position to get a better look.
“I’m sure that’s not necessary, especially as the noise doesn’t seem to have stopped you from getting so ga.” Sigmir said, her voice languid as the arm she still had around tightened just a little.
“It was quite loud, maybe it was important.” Lenore added from her perch on one of the trees, with Ylva resting on the ground below her.
“Yes, yes, you jokers are all so very amusing. But there’s a lesson you should learn, before it’s too late. Never mock the cook, especially not before als.” I grumbled, as I got up, checking the small boar they had brought back. “Who knows what I might drop into the pot, out of sheer embarrassnt at being heard by you, it would be a true tragedy.” I added and enjoyed the way Adra’s face went a little pale at the idea. I realised, we even had sothing I could add to the food, we had stumbled over a small patch of horseradish during the day and I had harvested a few roots. I had a feeling that those would add more than enough spice to any prank I wanted to play on them. Not that they had deserved it, yet, but if they continued, I might consider sothing.
Luckily, or maybe sadly, they kept their jokes to themselves as I quickly drained the remaining blood from the carcass while the others removed skin and bones from it, butchering the boar in a quick and efficient manner, working together in a routine we had practiced plenty of tis.
“Why don’t you and Rai wash up, while I roast so of those nice cuts of at? That way, we can eat as soon as it’s ready.” I suggested. The two of them happily agreed while I rubbed a nice chunk of at with ramson before putting it to roast over the fire. It would take so ti, but that was par for the course. In addition, we had bought so potatoes that went near the fire to roast, to be served with so beebread-leaves later. It was quite the feast, for cooking with limited resources over an open fire.
Apparently, even the system itself agreed, giving another point for my cooking-skill, raising it to thirty-five. The growth of that skill was a curiosity to , it had grown rapidly while we had been in Neyto and I had been able to use an actual kitchen but since then, the growth had dramatically slowed down, even if I had been cooking quite frequently, albeit only simple als over a campfire. But when I had tried to teach the others how to cook, I had gained more points than by cooking myself, which made wonder even more. But, unless Pantheon was willing to share or soone did a massive survey, I doubted I would ever get the specifics how different skills assigned value to different tasks.
“Say, what is our plan now?” Adra asked, once we had eaten dinner and were sitting around the flickering remains of our fire, crunching on so nuts we had acquired from the centaurs. At that point, I wasn’t quite sure if we had looted them at so point of if Adra had bought them, not that it mattered. They were tasty and a nice after-al snack, so I was content, especially with Sigmir’s arms around .
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Lay low for a few days before we continue further west. You know I want to go to Arbortoma, if only to see what the world has to offer.” I answered, causing Adra to chuckle a little.
“Just laying low? That doesn’t sound like you. Ever since we t, we have been travelling or doing sothing. You really want to just lay low for a few days?” she prodded. Apparently, she knew quite well, or I was just a little predictable.
“Hrm, we will see. Lenore and I noticed that there is a little sothing getting carried by the stream over there. Sothing upstream is, for lack of a better word, ‘leaking’ Death Astral Power into the water and both of us are quite interested what that might be, if only to take a look.” I admitted, not even trying to hide my grin.
“So, we are traipsing through the wilderness, looking for sothing that seems to ‘leak’ the magical embodint of death into the wild? Part of wants to call you an idiot, turn around and run as far as I can. But, a far greater part, is just as curious.” Adra admitted, with a wry grin on her own. I could understand her sentint, in a way, I even admired her. They, the natives of this world, bravely stepped into the unknown, risking their lives on adventures, to gain more power and simply satisfy that itch to see what was hidden behind the horizon.
Maybe that was the biggest draw of Road to Purgatory, the feeling of the unknown and adventure, sothing that had a powerful draw for those who had grown up in western civilisation. The feeling of adventure, of discovering new frontiers and striking out into the unknown, the sentint that made the various genres of fiction into the mainstays that they were. That feeling, only without the risk of injury, disease and death, where the worst that could happen was so pain and a loss of character-advancent, all packaged into a world so real that you could fall in love with its inhabitants and you had Road to Purgatory,
“Ah, but if you shy away from this adventure, would you really be the woman who left her grove, travelling on her own, heading into the wild north to look for adventure?” I asked, causing her to let out a wry chuckle, one echoed by Sigmir and even Rai.
“I guess that was just as reckless, wasn’t it? But rember in what situation I was in when we t, I’d rather not have a repeat of that.” Adra said and I noticed that Rai had placed an arm around her, almost protectively. A curious developnt, especially given that, just a few days before, he had been ready to strike Adra down for defying .
“That’s why we are working in a group. To watch the others back, no matter what.” Sigmir said when I didn’t reply, due to pondering what to do about Rai.
“Well, and to have soone to talk to on the journey. Otherwise, it would be far too boring to trudge through the endless forests, all alone.” I added, giving the arm Sigmir had wrapped around a little squeeze.
“But you are right about the risk, Adra. We’ll have to make sure that we don’t just run into the unknown. Lenore, we could try to scry for danger up ahead.” I suggested, looking at the bird who was resting next to Ylva.
“That might help, but rember, our scrying is not perfect, no scrying is. Just two days ago, you managed to co up with a way to defeat scrying and all this ti, you’ve been keeping a block active, with holding it while you slept.” Lenore reminded , before hopping over to .
She was right but the limited information gleaned by scrying was better than to know nothing, so I re-positioned Sigmir’s arm and helped Lenore onto my shoulder. The magical formation we used to scry was reasonably simple, the main part was done with Darkness Magic, not the runes, and soon, we had a shadowy sensor flickering upstream, looking for the thing that might be the source of the problem.
Yet, despite our efforts, we ca back with nothing of interest, not in the hour we took, letting our focus travel almost half a day worth of normal walking upstream. With a disappointed grumble, I let the magic go, feeling quite drained by the effort.
“Nothing.” I admitted, before letting out a yawn. “Love, why don’t we head to bed? I’m afraid I’ll need so extra ti tomorrow morning, there are a few things I need to do in the other world.” I said, rembering that I had a lesson with Mrs. Wu on the next day.
User Comments
0 comments from readers