Kamilis dealt with the campfire while the others packed up their gear. Kamilis stood over the fire pit, put his hands above the fire and closed his eyes. The crackling fire quickly dissipated, leaving behind cold coals. He opened his eyes and walked over to his own bedroll. He rolled it up, tied the cord and shoved it down into his bag. Kamilis was ready to go.
Klavis and Xecran were still packing up. They didn’t have the luxury of a bag with room sized storage. Kamilis watched them for a moment, they had their bedrolls rolled, they were now reassembling and securing their backpacks.
Kamilis sighed and turn away from the packing up. The wind had picked up slightly, the invisible threads were moving through the trees, rustling the leaves. Now that their fire was extinguished it was much easier for him to smell the cooking fire on the wind. It was coming from the south, assuming the sun still rose in the East. It was a tricky thing, tracking something on the wind. He wondered if the location potion he drank could help. It did take some familiarity for it to work…if he could make out what the smells were there was a chance it could lock on and finding the fire would be no trouble.
He turned into the wind and walked a good 30 feet away from the dormant fire to the edge of their camp. He closed his eyes and stood there for a few moments, taking in slow deep breaths through his noise. He focused on the smell of the smoke “Hmm… I think that might be cherry wood, or maybe walnut? No, that’s certainly cherry wood. Now if he could just make out the food lacing the smoke… After a moment a small smile broke across his face as he realized what he was smelling, “Bacon!”. And at that moment the potion locked onto the source of the fire, providing him with a direction and a sense of how far away it was.
He opened his eyes and went back to their camp. Xecran and Klavis were just finishing up and were putting on their packs. “Well, it looks like the fire isn’t too far away. Unless there are some unforeseen obstacles to overcome, I would say it’s only a fifteen- or twenty-minute walk.
Xecran smiled “Great, let’s get going!”
The trek to the bacon took a bit longer than Kamilis thought it would. The ground quickly became rockier and uneven. After twenty minutes or so they stumbled upon a creek that cut through the earth, impeding them in their journey. The water didn’t look very deep, but it cut several feet deep into the earth, making it difficult to cross. They walked a little downstream, looking for a better place to cross. It wasn’t long till they found another section where it did not cut so deep into the land, allowing them to easily cross the water. Despite the slow-moving water, it looked like clean water, and they decided to stop for the moment and refill their waterskins.
They easily refilled their and continued. The ground become more even and Kamilis picked up his pace. He tried not to think about all they had just lost, but it was a struggle. The feeling of losing everything he had known was had a strong grip on his mind. He redoubled his efforts to focus on where the potion was tugging on his psyche, drawing him forward. They were nearly there.
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Kamilis stopped as they broke through the trees and stood on the edge of a meadow. He pointed at a natural cliff face on the side of a hill on the other side of open area, covered in grass and littered with blooming wildflowers. The hill looked like it had cracked in half, with half of it being washed away over the years, leaving the twenty-foot-high cliff face behind.
On top of the hill was a layer of dirt and vegetation, but the most unique feature was an ancient oak tree that crowned the hill. The base of the trees was on the very edge of the cliff and the roots were growing down the rockface. The smoke they had been following was emanating from the rocks beneath the oak tree’s roots.
They looked at each other and it was Klavis who spoke. “Well, that’s odd. Is the oak tree cooking bacon?” Klavis glanced around at the trees where they stood. “Are the trees carnivores here?”
Kamils slapped him softly on the back of the head “No, don’t be ridiculous, there must be a cave entrance somewhere around there.”
Klavis rubbed his head where he’d been hit. “Geez, I was just joking…but then again, if the world was overtaken by some big evil…Well you never know, right? Meat eating trees sound evil.”
Kamilis rolled his eyes.
While his cousins were talking Xecran kept an eye on the odd hill in front of them. Then he saw it, a glint of something reflective from beneath the roots. “Hey guys, look, I think those roots are covering something.”
His cousins stopped bickering and focused, looking across the way. It took a few moments, it was some distance away, but they caught the glint of glass coming from underneath the roots. They looked at each other and then they all started to walk across the meadow towards the hill.
As they got closer they could make out an outline of a window what looked like a window into the side of the hill. If it wasn’t for the suns rays and a break in the roots, they may not have even noticed. They were almost to the hill when they noticed a hidden door, that was set into one of the crevasses of the rockface.
Xecran nodded as he realized there was a whole house underneath the hill, “Whoever made that is pretty clever.” There was a whole house that was built into the hillside or rather it looked like the hillside had grown around the house. If you looked at it from the wrong angle it just looked like a hill but from where they stood now you could see a door and a few windows.
Klavis feruled his eyebrows “That door looks a bit small; I’d have to duck to get in there.” He smiled “You know what that means, right? Whoever livers there probably isn’t an elf!”
Xecran returned his smile, even Kamilis smiled faintly. This might be the first time they had the chance to see a race other than their own. Sure, they had some descriptions and some sketches…but there wasn’t that many and what they had were hundreds of years old.
Klavis brushed off his clothes, trying to make himself a bit more presentable. “Well, no need to skulk around, let’s go say hi.”
They followed Klavis as he walked up to the door. It was made of graying aged wood that blended into the rockface seamlessly. He knocked on the door and waited, but there wasn’t an answer. He glanced back at Xecran and Kamilis and shrugged. They responded in kind.
Klavis knocked again and said in a raised voice, “Hello.” But there was no answer. He tried knocking one more time. This time with more force. He stood there a few moments, his early enthusiasm weakening as there weas still no response. He walked over to one of the windows, intending to look in, to see if anyone was home when the window burst open.
Hanging out of the window was a child sized man with a pointy, dark purple hat and, for his size, a good length of gray beard on his face. They could make out his lips underneath the bushy beard as the little man said in a gruff, high-pitched voice. “Stop that racket and keep moving on!”