GPS devices had not yet been invented in this world, I did not even have a compass at my disposal and could only rely on my sense of direction. Therefore, I turned around again and again to memorize the surroundings of the cave well, so that I could find it again. The boulder I threw rocks at earlier provided a good landmark.
It made little sense to go into the mountains, so I chose the opposite direction. The next group of trees served as an intermediate goal, there I hoped to find a water source. In view of my unpleasant experiences on the second day, I didn’t dare to use Magic Gaze permanently, but I activated it every hundred steps or so to check the path for possible magic hazards, of which Orthok warned me so insistently.
I couldn’t find anything threatening, though, and reached the trees without encountering any people or animals. The ground in the small grove was quite damp, but unfortunately I could not find a water source there. I probably wouldn’t have to dig deep to create a well, but I put that option aside for now. If I couldn’t find it somewhere else, I would still be able to return.
Attentively, I searched the ground for animal tracks and actually found two single large paw prints that had to be from our cave wolf. There were no other tracks, presumably the monster had already eaten all the animals in the immediate vicinity or driven them off. I climbed a tree at the edge of the grove and looked at the surroundings.
The hills obscured the far view in many places, yet I could make out some clumps of trees and bushes that seemed to follow a reasonably straight line. There had to be a watercourse there, I was pretty sure of that. When I climbed back down, I made a notch in the tree trunk with my sword to mark the spot. It was probably an unforgivable sacrilege to use a sword for such a thing, but I didn’t have an axe with me. Where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge.
I made my way to another group of trees, next to which I suspected the stream. The monotonous surroundings, whose silence was disturbed only by my footsteps and occasional wind and insect noises, caused me to sink into thought and let my guard down. I no longer even thought about regularly activating Magic Gaze and just looked scattered left and right without really registering what I was seeing. Suddenly, something unusual caught my attention.
About ten meters off my route, several stones were slowly spinning in the air. Curious, I stopped and took a closer look at the phenomenon. Six fist-sized stones were floating in the air at different heights between half a meter and two meters for no apparent reason and were rotating leisurely around a common axis. The vertical distances between the stones were about the same, except for the gap between the second and the third stone, the distance there was twice as big, as if there was a stone missing.
The whole thing looked totally strange, but not dangerous. I took a step towards it, nothing changed. Then I activated the Magic Gaze and took another step closer. In the center of the circle formed by the stones with their orbits, a dirty yellow dot glowed in the ground, about ten centimeters in diameter. From it emanated a magic column of the same color, which became paler toward the top and stopped a meter above the topmost stone.
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Fascinated, I took another step towards the apparition, not taking my eyes off the pillar and therefore not noticing the hole in the ground under my right foot that made me bend over. Even though it was painful, it probably saved my life, because at the same moment the second highest stone broke free from its orbit and flew past me as fast as an arrow, right through the place where my head had been a moment ago. It missed me so narrowly that I felt the breeze it caused as it flew by.
I ducked and moved away from the stones as fast as my aching foot would allow, constantly changing my direction of travel. Ten paces away, I stopped and turned around, ready to leap to the side at any time. The stones continued to levitate in circles, looking just as harmless as before, except that now there were two larger gaps. I shook my head in disbelief. I wonder what the target of the first missing stone had been? I would probably never know.
Impressively admonished to be careful in this way, I continued walking, trying to take it easy on the strained foot. Fortunately, the pain soon subsided and I was able to move normally again. Another reason to be careful, a broken leg or dislocated foot would be my death sentence. From now on, I moved more slowly as I paid attention to the ground in front of me and kept checking the surroundings for magical and other dangers, but at least, I reached the targeted group of trees without further incident.
The bushes and the low-hanging branches of the trees made the grove impossible to see. I took an arrow out of my quiver and held it in my right hand as I cautiously approached the trees. It remained quiet, no one rushed at me from the undergrowth, and even the Magic Gaze showed nothing unusual. Behind the first rows of trees, I actually found a small river with clean water flowing quietly past me. The watercourse was about three meters wide and did not seem to be particularly deep in most places.
I knelt down on the bank, washed my hands and face, quenched my thirst extensively, and filled my water bag. Routinely, I then looked at the river in magical vision and noticed a faint blue fish moving comfortably with the current. I briefly considered trying to catch the fish with a magic assisted arrow throw, but discarded the thought. The fish was only the size of my hand and would not have filled me up if I hit it at all. Besides, it would have been difficult to get it out of the water, so I decided I’d better not waste the arrow. But it was good to know there were fish around. I also remembered the hint about a magic source in the water.
I looked again for a suitable tree at the edge of the grove and climbed it. The first group of trees was still well recognizable, so I should find the way back without problems. Then I looked along the river and saw a bit downstream a place, where the watercourse widened strongly and formed a small lake, whose banks were lined by reeds. On this lake I discovered several water birds, which I wanted to hunt.
The goal before eyes, I wanted to descend already again, looked then however for the sake of completeness still upstream. Here I could not follow the water course far, because the river made a bend and disappeared behind a hill. But I saw something that made my heart beat faster: almost on the horizon, but still clearly visible, was a building on another hill! From a distance, the details were not recognizable, but it was clearly a two- to three-story house.