The few restless hours that they got of sleep left the two feeling exhausted, even when they were asleep the thoughts that they were being watched overrode so many of their more basic instincts, when Davin was on watch, he preoccupied himself with continued processing of all of the provisions that they'd collected, while when Hugh was on watch, he spent his time looking over his spells, preparing some for the next day, and practicing with a few rituals that he had at access that he'd never put into practice. Getting ready for the day was a chore for both of them, tempers short from the restless night, but they wanted to make it to 'The place where the rivers meet'.

"So, on one hand, that was some of the least effective sleep of my afterlife," Davin stated with no preamble and without finishing the statement.

"Why do I have this awful feeling that you have been waiting to say that? And what's on the other hand?" Hugh asked dryly.

Davin let out a small chuckle. "I have, and on the other hand, I think that’s the first night I haven't had at least some small exchange with Compass." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Too bad I didn't get to enjoy it."

Shaking his head in response. "The fey aren't nearly as involved, but we're just at the distance where most lose contact, could also have not been a deep enough sleep, but you still have your book."

"Oh yeah! I should take a look." Pulling out his Log book.

Fifth entry:

Making good progress, Target getting larger, still not sure how big it is though, be on your toes.

The short clean entry made Davin chuckle, he assumed that Compass was either playing it safe or had figured out what the threshold for the magic. Feeling that he should respond, Davin pulled out the stylus that came with the book, tapping it a few times on the page to see if it was working.

Sixth entry:

Thanks for the heads up, can you find any news on anything going on with the west road? Seems way too open and empty.

Something dangerous likely close by, will handle if able. Will keep you up to date on the first. -D.

Davin finished writing and showed it to Hugh.

"How do you know that it won't get cut off like the others?" Hugh asked with a skeptical tone in his voice.

"This is going to sound weird, but the messages that he sent cut off at exactly two hundred and twenty-five characters." Davin looked sheepish as he said that.

"Characters? He didn’t mention anyone in the messages? What are you talking about?" Hugh sounded a bit annoyed.

"Every letter, punctuation, and space each count as a single character, and his messages cut off at what would be the two hundred and twenty-fifth one." Davin pulled out the pen, adding that information to the logbook.

Seventh entry:

225 letters, spaces, or punctuation, otherwise it will be cut off. -D.

"That should help keep things straight, and him less annoyed."

"Characters? Why is that characters?"

"You know, I have no idea, was a term that they used for computers and such."

"Com puter?"

"Basically, a magic knowledge box. And that’s really the best way to describe it to non-technological worlds… and that’s assuming that they have magic, otherwise, I sound crazy."

"Are you suggesting that you don't sound crazy?"

"Less crazy?"

"Nope."

"Hmm, fair enough, but in the grand scheme of things, my world is a hot mess."

"Hot mess?"

"Turn of phrase."

"Ah, something tells me I don't really want to know."

"Likely for the best."

With that, they finished packing up their belongings, Davin pulled out some of the berries and nuts that he'd been roasting and drying all night, handing Hugh a bag of the mix. Davin when to check the traps that he'd made the night before while Hugh cast the spell that carried their trunk. He'd only set a few traps, hoping to catch something small for them to have something more protein. The dangling tatters that were his traps left him feeling concerned because there was something big enough to set them off but dangerous enough to free itself. Salvaging what he could of his traps gave him an idea of just what they might have on their hands, course fur and large wolf-like paw prints, pressed deep into the ground around his traps. Matching paw prints in both places… it was too significant to be a coincidence. Making his way back to camp Davin kept his eyes open for anything that stood out as dog or wolf tracks.

The 'trail mix' Davin had mixed up from the odds and ends were pretty good, Hugh was pretty surprised that Davin had found that many different things while he was just off the edges of the road. Now that he was thinking about it, 'trail mix' was a very appropriate name for the snack. The floating chest that was made up of all of their belongings was set and ready, Hugh had made several surveys while he was on his turn for watch, seeing little to no change made the whole thing feel more tedious than he was originally hoping, but they still had a day till they would reach the location in question.

The branch snapping broke Hugh's idle train of thought, looking to the noise, Hugh had expected to see Davin, but only the empty path leading further off the road lay before him.

"Daaaviiin!? You out there?!" Hugh yelled out into the woods.

"You don’t have to yell I'm right here," Davin said as he walked out of the trees to the side of where Hugh was looking.

"Shit!" Hugh jumped back as he looked towards Davin. "I really want to get on the road, I hate this place… It feels like it's getting creepier and creepier by the moment."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"And there's a wolf or something out there, tore up my traps." Davin held up the scraps of his traps for Hugh to look at.

Hugh examined the scraps and the dark clumps of hair. "Hmm, well at least we have something to keep our eyes out for, knowing what we're being stalked by is better than nothing."

Davin shrugged, gripping the hilt of one of his daggers. "That was my thought exactly, I'm not super familiar with the critters around here, but I don’t remember there being any warnings to watch out for them while we were on our way."

"You know, now that you mention it, no one said anything about there being any problems, but at the same time I think anyone that would have been in Edges Rest would have been there mostly for the wedding, and I think that we were the only ones motivated enough to head out, but it's still weird to not come across anyone headed in." Hugh started walking towards the road with Davin close on his heels.

"Whatever it is that’s out there might have been caught off guard by the influx of people, and that likely prevented anyone from noticing that the forest this far out is practically empty of any other wildlife."

"Fair point, the ranger enclave tends to skirt the edge rather than heading down the road." Hugh pointed back down the road towards Edges Rest.

"So let's stay on our toes and try not to get caught off guard? I have enough random snacks that I shouldn’t need to gather anything for another day or two." Davin patted the bulging bags on his back. "We should just try and get to where the river is as fast as we can."

"I still can't fathom how you found so much food," Hugh said as he put some more of the trail mix into his mouth.

"Right? But I don't think that most of the people that travel the roads are thinking about what foods there are to eat since they likely do this trip fairly regularly. On that note, why haven't we come across any rest stops or anything like that?"

"Rest stops? We have come across several, most of the open spaces just off the road are just for that, so that they don’t block the road and so that the animals can eat and drink."

"Drink? Drink what? We aren't close enough to the rivers." Davin asked as he started to look for a well or creek that he'd missed along the road.

"There wouldn’t be, most bring water with them, you can get a bottomless barrel of water relatively easily, and a regular route would almost guarantee that they have one."

"Handy."

The pace that they had set for the day was what Davin would call a hike, but it was closer to the pace that he used when he was walking across town rather than when he was out at the parks or woods. The road was smooth, but not perfect, having many places where the encroaching trees had started to cause the cobbles to push up and out of the ground. It was all beautiful, some of the largest trees that he'd been this close to in almost his entire life, remembering some of the redwood forests that he'd visited as a kid. There had been some sounds outside of what should have been there, but there had been bird sounds finally, most of them far above in the trees where no land dweller would ever reach them. The feelings of nostalgia and calm were broken when they heard the howl. The tree cover had gotten so dense that he'd not noticed how dark it had gotten until Hugh brought forth several glowing orbs of light that floated around his hands.

"And that sounds like our wolf," Hugh said as he sent the spell over to the chest, granting them a bubble of light.

"When did it get so dark? I didn't even notice." Davin looked around as the echoes of the howl faded.

"I don't think it's just the trees, it got too dark too fast. There has to be something else here causing it, I can practically see in the dark and I'm even having trouble with this." Hugh said as he stepped closer to Davin.

"Wait here and see if it comes for us? Back to back?" Davin asked as he pulled out a dagger and readied it to throw.

"Sounds like as much a plan as anything that I could come up with." Magic crackled along Hugh's fingers.

The beast that ran out from the woods was grotesque, with ragged fur, burning eyes, and a second head that seemed almost as if it was glued on like a twisted experiment. Davin was almost too distracted but the dagger he'd had in his offhand flew towards the beast before he could think about it, his aim was off, so the blow struck, but didn't sink very deep, and the cloud of air that Hugh had tossed washed over it as if nothing had happened. The two-headed beast rushed Hugh one of the vicious maws biting down onto his outstretched arm, Hugh screamed in pain, throwing his head back as the second head nearly bit his face. Davin rushed in, swinging his dagger wide missing the beast by a hair. A scorching beam of glowing orange light ran down the side of the beast as Hugh cast another spell, the smell of burnt hair filling the air as Hugh pulled his arm free as the beast now yelped in pain. The growl that rang out from the twin throats as they snapped at Hugh again, hitting Hugh in the leg as he tried to jump back out of the way. Davin closed in stabbing his dagger in deep, drawing the beast's ire. Hugh's cloud of frost ran down the creature's back, the monster moving slower to where Davin could dodge both of the wild bites that lunged at his face. Having lurched back to avoid the bites, He had been out of position and as he swung he hit nothing but air, not being able to reach. Another blast of fridged air washes over the monster, it roaring in pain, rushing Davin catching his leg as he'd jumped back in an attempt to dodge. Davin's blade sunk in deep, catching the beast in the side while it was still latched onto his leg.

And that is the last thing that Davin could remember happening other than the drop to the ground as his consciousness faded.

Being shaken awake in what he last remembered to be mid-combat Davin threw an arm and hit nothing.

"Davin, wake up, my spell won't last long and we need to finish this thing before it wakes up," Hugh said as he was again shaking Davin.

Shaking the drowsiness from his mind he quickly stood up, grabbed his dagger, and positioned himself above the beast. Driving his dagger into one of the heads causing the other to wake and let out a howl of pain as it thrashed and bled out. Davin quickly put the creature out of its misery, stabbing it in the neck as it thrashed.

"That sucked…" Davin stated as he laid back on the ground, breathing heavily.

Letting out a long groan as he moved over to where Davin was and lay next to him. "Yeah, and what the name of the patrons was a beast like that doing so close to the roads?"

"Kicking our asses." Davin coughed and let out a groan.

"Besides that… Normally the roads are protected by spells."

"Could be from the damaged road? Either that or something brought it here?"

"Damaged road? What would that have to do with it?"

"Broken road broken spell? How the heck would I know? You're the caster…"

Hugh held up his hand, index finger extended. "That is a good point, I'll send a message as soon as we rest and bandage our wounds, pretty sure they are infected, that creature was nasty."

"I don't have enough experience with random wildlife bites to know if they would be or not, but damn those hurt, but I think a healer would be a good thing to check as soon as we can."

"Anomaly then back to Edges Rest?"

"Yuuup." Davin let the word linger after he said it. "I didn't even think to pack any first aid."

"I have a few bandages, but that’s about it."

Davin pulled himself up and went to the trunk that had sunk to the ground while they were busy with the monster, pulling out the easily recognizable rolls of cloth.

"Should rinse them with clean water too, pull up your robes, you took the brunt of that beating."

Hugh did as he was told, exposing his leg and arm that had bitten, the bites already starting to swell. "Eesh, I didn't think that was that bad."

"Might want to invest in some armor for you…" Davin started treating the wounds on Hugh.

"I can look into a spell, but I can't wear armor sadly." Wincing against the pain as Davin cleaned the wounds.

"Damn, I kind of thought as much, but wasn't sure about the rules here."

"Rule? No, I just don't know how to use it."

"There's no rule that you can't wear armor?"

"Nope, I just don’t have the skill to support its use."

"Multiclass?"

"Multiwhat?"

"Never mind… it’s a thing, I can explain it later."

Their wounds wrapped, their chest afloat, they got back on the road, the feeling of being watched long gone.