The first rays of sunlight colored the beach a picturesque golden hue, and the morning tides made the ship bob pleasantly.

Erend got up with a stretch and awoke his friends. The three of them had a quick breakfast before saying their goodbyes to the others and heading into the woods once again.

It was nice to have company again. He'd been walking along the snaking paths alone since his excursion with Albert. The reassuring presence of friends at his side was a welcome one, especially in trying times like these. One of his best friends and his father had been taken captive by a gathering of savage orcs. Erend was confident that the two would last a long time in the mines, they were built sturdily after all. What did worry him was not knowing if they'd been hurt in the scuffle. Or worse, if they had been tortured by the orcs in an attempt to find out where the rest of the group was held up.

"What are you thinking about?" Charles asked from his side. He walked with his bow drawn. In the short time that he'd been learning from Johann, he seemed to have picked up a lot of habits, with the straying eyes being the most prevalent of them.

"Nothing really," Erend shrugged.

"Sure looks like that whole bunch of nothing is bothering you," Cordelia teased. She'd been given a dagger by Johann but she didn't really take to using it much. Instead, it hung in her belt and slapped against her thigh now and then.

"It really wasn't anything much. Just Dad and Albert."

"They're gonna be alright," Charles reassured him.

"Yeah. I think so too. They're both tough as nails," Cordelia added. Her teasing demeanor was seemingly gone.

"Yeah, I know. Just can't help thinking about it," Erend confessed.

"It would be way weirder if you didn't think of it at all," Charles turned and smiled at him. His eyes didn't rest on Erend longer than a few moments before they wandered to the surrounding foliage.

Erend knitted his brows, "Are you having trouble concentrating?" he blurted.

"Hey, what gives man?" Charles chuckled.

"You can't seem to hold your gaze in place."

"Oh. Just trying to see everything. Johann's always on me about missing things. I guess it's become a bad habit."

"I wouldn't say it's a bad habit," Cordelia interjected, "not if it keeps us safe."

"True," Erend agreed.

Charles turned his face away from them to look ahead again. Erend could see the back of his neck taking on a light shade of pink.

"We're getting close," Charles announced with a crack in his voice, then coughed in embarrassment.

Erend chuckled at the obvious discomfort of his friend and cracked up even more when Cordelia tilted her head in confusion.

"It wasn't that funny..." Charles muttered.

"Sorry. You're right, must this whole situation that's got me tense," Erend jeered and wiped a tear from his eye. "Let's set up here and then head out to the prison."

The other two nodded and went about their business. At times like these Erend saw the usefulness of his Pocket shine. While the other two had to carry packs with provisions and equipment, Erend could just stuff everything into his spell. He'd offer to carry his friend's things as well if he had room, but he'd been hoarding weapons to use with Force and it felt like a shame to leave them on the boat.

After digging a shallow hole for their things, and subsequently covering it up, the three got moving again. It didn't take long for them to spot the large prison compound. Erend led them to the hole he'd created the day before and then gently pried it open with one of his many hoarded daggers.

At first, Erend thought no one was nearby, but then he heard shuffling footsteps and the subsequent plopping sound as a familiar gray elf kneeled in front of the peeking hole.

"Oh, Lari," Erend started with a wave and clearly articulated, "Hello!"

Lari mimicked his movements and flashed a smile at him, "heelo!"

After a valiant attempt to communicate with the elf, they found out that the two humans had still not been let out of the building. It was more than worrying, but there was nothing apart from their death that they could achieve by simply storming the place. Erend shoved a provision of dried meat through the hole. Lari happily gobbled it down and offered his goodbyes when the three went to plug up the hole again, "heelo!" he said with a wave.

Erend chuckled and shook his head, "Goodbye."

Lari's eyes lit up as he corrected his choice of words, "goob eye!"

The three friends once again found themselves walking through the woods.

"He was a talkative one," Charles commented.

"Yeah, Lari. He seems clever. It's honestly more than impressive that he's managed to figure out so much of our language from just two meetings. Especially considering the nature of Elvish."

"You speak Elvish?" Cordelia asked with her brows raised.

"No, but my teacher does," Erend explained. It warranted a stiffening of Cordelia's body as she turned to eye Charles, looking for a reaction. "It's alright, he already knows."

Cordelia let out a long breath, "Thank the Gods."

"Would be weird if you knew and I didn't," Charles grumbled.

"She did know first, though," Erend smiled and poured more oil on the fire. It seemed to backfire though as Cordelia fell into an embarrassed silence and Charles didn't have the heart to jab back.

Thankfully they didn't have to bear the silence for long as they caught sight of the road they'd been looking for.

"There," Charles pointed. "Let's stay in the woods for now."

"Sounds good. Do you want to split up and look for a better vantage point?" Erend nodded along and asked.

"Sure. I'll be fine alone, you two stay together," Charles said with a wink. Erend felt his heart catch in his throat. He slowly looked to the side and saw that Cordelia had most definitely seen the not-so-subtle innuendo.

Erend swallowed hard, "Yeah. Okay. Scream if you run into trouble."

"Of course," Charles chuckled. It was obvious that he was aware of what he was doing.

That bastard, he'll pay for this...

As they watched his retreating, Erend spoke, "Alright. Let's get going."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Cordelia cleared her throat, "Yeah. Let's."

The day turned out to be one of awkward silences. The worst kind of silence. Erend didn't know what he could do or say to alleviate the weighty atmosphere.

"Have you tried out the glyph more?" Cordelia asked and twirled her hair around a finger.

Bless you!

"Yeah. I've used it a bunch. It's very handy but it seems to be more costly than I initially thought."

"How so?"

Erend had to think for a bit to find the words to explain it, but couldn't put it very eloquently, "It kind of... makes my head go all fuzzy if I use it to do something big."

The silence melted away like ice on a hot summer day. Cordelia visibly relaxed, "Source sickness. Our bodies may be strengthened to support the flow of Source, but there's a limit. Try to look at it like this. The spell is a lake, the vessel a river. If you try to fill the lake quickly, as your glyph does, then the water in the river will overflow into the surroundings."

"Makes sense."

Cordelia flashed a proud smile and crowed, "I know. What did you do to make it overflow?"

"The worst by far was when I used it to stop a large beast mid-movement."

"It can do that?" she muttered to herself, "No matter. Spatial spells tend to be more demanding, so it sounds reasonable that you'd feel the recoil. What was the recoil like?"

Erend took a shocked step away from her, his eyes darted around, looking for a way out, "Uhm... I bled..."

Her brows instantly knitted together, "You bled? How?"

"... My eyes and ears started bleeding..."

Cordelia let out the loudest groan he'd ever heard, "You just can't stop doing stupid things? How fucking large was the beast?!"

Erend felt shocked at her choice of words, she didn't usually curse. Could it be… was he a bad influence?

"Like a large bear."

"Yup. That'll do it."

"And I sped myself up just after," he added.

"And that's a death wish. You know, one day you might not be so lucky. I've heard tales of people going blind from Source sickness. Some even find themselves entirely cut off from the Source."

Erend shuddered, "Yeah, no. I don't want that. I'll be more careful."

"Somehow I doubt that," Cordelia complained with a shake of her head.

"Sorry..."

"It's alright. I'm pretty much used to it already anyway."

The sun made its way through the treetops and lit up her auburn hair now and then, making it look like it was ablaze.

Suddenly, Erend could hear the faint smattering of wood against stone.

"Hold up," he said and took hold of her shoulder. "You hear that?"

"No?"

"This way," he continued and led her back toward the road.

They hunkered down behind some cover and waited.

A carriage drawn by some sort of bull-like creatures drew the carriage forward. The creatures had six legs and multiple sets of horns. Their bodies were muscular to an extent that seemed completely unnecessary. Each step looked like it was made with effort.

The carriage skittered across the rocky roads. A hooded coachman sat atop its elevated seat with the reins held in one hand and a long whip in the other. Erend craned his neck to see the contents of the carriage. Much like he'd anticipated it was filled with food and supplies. A trail of six mounted riders followed the carriage with varying weaponry. Two bowmen, two shield warriors, and two axe-wielders. Erend immediately pinned them as orcs. The only one that left him uncertain was the coachman. He was much leaner than the others and had no visible tusks.

"Shit, we've got to find Charles," he whispered to Cordelia. She nodded at him with widened eyes.

Silently, they made their way back to where they'd separated from the lanky boy. He'd been a step ahead and was already there, examining the tracks that Erend and Cordelia had left behind.

"That saves me a trip," Charles commented.

"Glad we could help. You saw them I take it?"

"Yup. Kind of hard to miss. What do you want to do?"

"I don't think we should engage. For one we don't need the ore, we need food and we need the orcs to start starving."

"You sure that won't blow back on the prisoners?"

Cordelia hummed loudly, "Can't we feed them then? In secret. We could have Lari help us if we can't get in touch with Albert and Thomas."

"That's a good plan," Erend nodded at her, "We just need to find a way to inconspicuously give hundreds of prisoners food without the guards noticing."

"No need to be rude..." Cordelia pouted.

"No, I mean it. It could work. Besides, it's probably the only option unless we decide to let the prisoners starve," Erend hurriedly added, trying to make amends.

"We'll workshop it," Charles smiled at them.

"Yeah," Erend agreed, "You guys can go back and set up camp if you want. I'll stay here and time the drop-off."

"Why?" Cordelia asked in surprise.

"Huh? Why not...?"

"If we hit them before they reach the prison it doesn't matter, does it?"

"Well... no. But there could be some other use to it."

"Just leave him to it. It's just who he is."

When the two walked away from him, Erend could swear he heard Cordelia liken him to a hoarder. He didn't know what to make of it, but maybe she was right... in some ways. He did have a Pocket full of weapons he might need, and was currently busy timing the drop-off in case he might need to know in the future.

Whatever. I'll leave the introspection for later.

The carriage returned exactly thirty-nine minutes after it left his sight if his internal clock was to be trusted. It was a quick drop-off.

Surprisingly, the carriage wasn't only filled with ore. Prisoners sat alongside the product, chained together. Erend felt his heart begin to pound against his ribcage. The primal urge to right the wrong in front of him made his body heat up with flames of rage. Through gritted teeth, he suppressed himself and had a look at the prisoners. Most were elves with the same gray skin as Livune and Lari, but some were obviously human. Thankfully neither Thomas nor Albert sat with them.

This changes things.

When the carriage had left his sight he hurried back to the others. They were jovially joking around and were busy stoking a fire as he approached.

"Welcome back," Charles greeted him. "Learned anything useful?"

The question warranted a snicker from both Charles and Cordelia. It seemed like they'd shared a few jokes at his expense while they were off on their own.

"Yes. Actually," he boasted. Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Hey! I'm serious," Erend groaned.

"Go on then."

"They were inside for thirty-nine minutes and left with the ore as expected," Erend stopped theatrically before getting to the point, "but they left with prisoners."

"Shit. That makes things a bit tougher," Charles sighed.

"What, why?" Cordelia asked with her nose wrinkled.

"Because that forces us to make a choice. Manpower or food," Erend explained.

"Obviously we still get the food first. Even with more manpower, we wouldn't last without a surplus of food," Cordelia hypothesized.

"Each hit will probably be tougher than the last," Charles added.

"Yeah. I say we hit the food transport once first. Even if they increase their amount of guards we should be able to handle it with enough preparation."

"How long do you reckon it will take for the next transport to come?"

"Can't say for sure. But there are a lot of prisoners and guards inside the fort. I can't imagine a single carriage lasts them for long. A couple of days at most. Anyway, we stay here until the next transport to get a better grasp of their timings. In the meanwhile, we should explore the roads and see where the transport is coming from."

"Our rations won't last that long," Cordelia commented.

"I know, which is why Charles is here."

"You mean to say you didn't bring me along for my irresistible charm?" Charles jeered.

"That is precisely what I mean," Erend joked back, then turned serious, "Can you do it?"

"Yeah. Three people aren't that many mouths to feed for a couple of days. I'll go out right away to set up a few traps and alarms."

"Good," Erend nodded in satisfaction.

The evening soon turned to night, Charles took first watch while Erend and Cordelia did their best to get comfortable under the stars. At first, Erend felt doubtful that a noblewoman like Cordelia would be able to sleep under the stars. He'd been foolish to worry. She happily fell asleep. Erend could even see drool coloring the dirt beneath her dark.

As Erend fell asleep he found himself seated facing Livune.