In the end, Cas doesn’t wake either of them up throughout the night. He rouses Emrys once the sky begins to brighten, and their movements wake Wesley.

Like in the first phase, Emrys wants to continue their journey immediately after each rest. Wesley halts the both of them and huffs, “Before that, we need to take note of our supplies.”

“Oh, right.”

Emrys and Cas follow Wesley to his hidden stash of food as he packs them up.

“I have a hidden dimensional space that I can store those in,” Emrys says. “It’s where all our supplies are stored.”

Wesley looks at Emrys in surprise but shakes his head. “I’ll carry these since there isn’t much of it. And with the three of us, I’m sure it’ll all be gone soon. How much food do you have in that space?”

Emrys says sheepishly, “Um, we don’t have any food, actually…but that’s because the food stuff was always gone first.”

Emrys glances at Cas who just shakes his head as well.

Wesley sighs, “Well then, restocking on food will be critical moving forward. Here.”

Wesley offers the two of them some crackers and water, but Emrys quickly pushes them back. “I’m not hungry, but thank you. You should keep those.”

Wesley raises an eyebrow, glances at Cas, then finally retracts his hand. “Alright.”

As the team of three continue to trek up the mountain, Wesley asks, “Aren’t you tired, Cas? You were on lookout the whole night, weren’t you?”

Cas shakes his head in response. “I don’t need much sleep.”

“That isn’t good for your health,” Wesley comments. “You’re the strongest in our team. You pulling an all-nighter puts all of us at risk if you wear yourself out.”

Cas doesn’t respond, so Wesley stops speaking. They move at a slow pace to accommodate Wesley’s injury and Emrys’s lack of stamina. Wesley’s injury wasn’t too bad and with Emrys’s first aid supplies, the new teammate does not bring their original pace down.

Cas deals with monsters of many types, using his sword of shadows to slash all of them down. Sometimes, Wesley conjures up rock shields to protect himself and Emrys when there are too many monsters for Cas to fight while protecting them.

At some point, Emrys asks Wesley out of curiosity, “Did the God of Earth speak to you when you received their grace?”

Wesley nods. “Kind of, I sort of just felt her presence the moment she blessed me. It was very overwhelming, feeling all that power pour into me, but she told me not to fear, and she introduced herself as Celyne, the Goddess of Earth.”

Wesley turns to Cas. “And you?”

Cas looks at Emrys.

Wesley continues as if he expected Cas to not respond, “If I remember the name correctly, you should have received grace from Umbrias, the God of Shadow, right? Did he speak to you?”

Cas shakes his head.

I must’ve been graced by an especially chatty god, Emrys thinks. They didn’t introduce themself, though.

“Do you know which god gives a dimensional storage ability like mine?”

Wesley thinks for a bit. “I’m not sure. Most of the gods are elemental and you gain an obvious ability, like fire, water, or earth manipulation. Outside of that, there is the God of Shadow, God of Light, Goddess of Force, and Goddess of the Moon.”

Wesley stops speaking as something in the sky catches his attention. He points into the distance. “Look, they’re dropping new supply crates.”

They look to where he’s pointing. They’ve made a good amount of progress up the mountain so they have a good vantage point of part of the island. They can see several helicopters flying in to drop off new crates at random points, but less and less are dropped farther up the mountain. For them to get to the nearest dropoff point, they will have to backtrack down the mountain.

“We’ve got no choice but to go back to restock, otherwise we’ll starve and become much easier prey,” Wesley says with a sigh. “Let’s hurry, before another group gets there first.”

Emrys and Cas nod and the trio start their descent, moving as quickly as they can down the rocky terrain. None of them speak, focusing on traversing downward carefully and quickly. Occasionally, they can hear the unsettling roar of monsters in the distance, but not far enough away. They are heading towards enemies as they go towards the nearest crate drop.

Emrys catches a glimpse of movement through the trees and his ears catch a faint sound. “Did you hear that?” he whispers, slowing his pace.

The other two nod.

“Stay alert. It must be a large group of monsters,” Wesley warns. “We might not be able to avoid a fight if we want to continue down this way.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“No, not that. It wasn’t the monsters I heard,” Emrys says.

Wesley frowns but has no choice but to follow Emrys and Cas continue closer to the roars. As they approach, they hear the sounds of battle. Wind slices through the foliage with a sharp hum alongside the sound of clashing metal and guttural roars.

Finally the trio break through the shrubbery and see two girls, clearly sisters, struggling to fend off a pack of snarling monsters encircling them. The monsters are grotesque, with elongated limbs and rows of sharp teeth, snapping and snarling at the sisters like wolves, but walking with an uncannily humanoid shape and skin.

The older sister stands in front of the younger, wielding a heavy lance, lit up in the dark woods with an ethereal glow, water flowing around it. She holds the lance defensively against monsters lunging at them with their claws outstretched. The younger sister, her face pale with fear, frantically summons gusts of wind to push the creatures back, but her efforts are sporadic and panicked.

Emrys turns to Cas and Wesley. “We have to help!”

Cas nods and charges in without hesitation, slashing away the nearest monsters with shadows. Wesley, who had wanted to suggest they leave while the pack was distracted, could only sigh in exasperation.

“We will help. You stay here.” Wesley summons a rock formation to surround and protect Emrys before running into the fray behind Cas.

The sisters notice their arrival, a mixture of relief and determination washing over their faces.

The older sister shouts, “Focus on the larger ones! I’ll handle the rest!” She thrusts her water lance into a monster, the water surrounding the weapon crackling off of it and crashing into another group of creatures, knocking them back.

Wesley nods and directs his attention to the biggest of the monsters, but Cas has beat him to it. He slashes the monster down in a wide arc, his shadows cutting through tough skin and bone like butter.

Wesley sticks to being support on the battlefield, helping block attacks with rock formations and entrapping a few monsters.

The younger sister, encouraged by their presence, manages to summon more stable gusts of wind. The winds whip around her, creating sharp blades of air that slice through the attackers with surprising force. Her hands tremble, but her resolve hardens as she sees them hold off the strongest of the creatures.

The older sister spins her lance, creating a protective barrier of water around herself and her sister. “Stay close to me!” she calls to the younger girl, who nods and moves closer, her wind gusts becoming more controlled.

Wesley notices a particularly large monster creeping up behind the sisters. “Look out!” he yells, dashing forward. The creature lunges at the sisters, its jaws snapping, but Wesley sends rocks down on it, stunning it long enough for the older sister to turn around and deliver a fatal blow with her lance.

The battle is intense but brief. Cas decapitates the last monster, and the clearing falls silent except for the heavy breathing of the group. Emrys jumps out his hiding place and runs over to them, medical supplies at the ready.

“Are you okay?” Emrys asks the sisters.

The older sister nods, looking at the three of them with gratitude. “Thank you. We thought we were done for.”

Wesley glances around. “We need to move quickly. These creatures could attract more of their kind. Let’s get to the crates and get out of here.”

The older sister nods, gripping her weapon tightly. “Follow us. We know a safe path.”

“Yeah, totally safe until we were ambushed,” the younger mutters sarcastically.

“Okay, maybe not safe in terms of monsters, but the terrain is steadier,” the older huffs.

The sisters take the lead as they continue towards the dropoff point. The group moves quickly, the adrenaline from the fight still pumping through their veins. As they move towards the dropoff point, the trees seem to close in around them, the shadows longer and the air thicker with the scent of damp earth and decay.

On the way, they introduce themselves along with the abilities they wield.

The older sister is Lily and she was graced by Veltha, the Goddess of Force, which allows her to summon a weapon made out of her spiritual force, and Nethune, the God of Water. The younger is Clara, graced by the Goddess of Wind, Tuphrans.

When they reach the clearing where the crates have been dropped, they see a few burly men, already rummaging through the supplies and making two smaller members carry them. The leader of the group, a large man with a sneer on his face, looks up as they approach.

“Looks like more competition for our goods,” he says. His gaze darts towards the sisters, his eyes gleaming with malice.

Wesley steps forward cautiously, his hands raised. “We don’t want any trouble. We just need supplies.”

The leader laughs. “You need supplies? But so do we. We’ve got a bigger crew waiting on us, and we don’t have any supplies to spare.”

The leader raises a finger and continues before Wesley can respond, “But, we might be able to make a trade.” He points to the sisters. “Leave the girls with us, then you can take…some supplies.”

Lily summons her lance immediately. Clara clutches onto her older sister tightly, her face pale with fear. Emrys walks up beside Wesley, interrupting the leader’s view of the sisters as well.

“Think carefully about what you’re doing,” Emrys says, his eyes locking onto the leader’s. “We can share the supplies without any conflict.”

The leader’s insincere grin fades, replaced by a hostile glare. “You don’t make the rules here. We do. Now you’ve got two choices. Hand them over and leave intact, or…” The leader smirks, “you’ll find there are fates worse than death.”

“We will not go with you,” Lily growls.

The leader motions the rest of his teammates and they surround the five of them, ropes at the ready. Cas moves to attack, but Emrys places a hand on his shoulder and shakes his head at him discreetly.

“Restrain them all,” the leader says.

The girls are taken separately. A brief skirmish ensues, but the outnumbered sisters are quickly overpowered. Emrys’s gaze remains steady even when their group is bound and led away, their fate uncertain.

“We’ll decide what to do with these three later. Maybe target practice?” The leader smirks at the trio. “After all, most of us have fire abilities. It’s pretty hard to aim with such an unwieldy element.”

As they are marched towards the captors' temporary camp, Emrys leans close to the other two and whispers, “We’ll get out of this. Just be ready.”

Wesley nods subtly, his expression grim. He knows that with Cas’s strength, they could easily defeat the group, take the supplies, and leave, but he doesn’t say anything. After all, Cas only really listens to Emrys, and Wesley needs to borrow Cas’s strength if he wants to survive. So whatever Emrys is planning, Wesley resigns himself to following along. Even if Cas and Emrys are killed, Wesley can find a way to break the sisters out and use their strengths to get to the mountain peak.

Meanwhile, the sisters still had some fight in them, but Lily stopped resisting when she saw the other three silently going along with the burly men. If they have a plan, so long as none of the men try to touch her or her sister, she’ll also play along. But if not, she’ll get herself and her sister out of there on her own.