Observing our house one last time, it was time to finally depart. This place was once what I called home, but with the damage done to the island, living here would be more work than not. I asked Lavanda if it was possible to reconstruct and purify the place from the poison, and she told me it was possible, but would take multiple years at the very least.
It goes without saying that the poison literally could not affect me, but Lavanda did not have a plague affinity as I do, so leaving was our only choice. I could have stayed here, but what was the point without her and Randal around.
We had already packed our thing for an emergency escape, so we needed little time to gather what was left of our belonging. With Randal, Lendwrek and Mendry as our mount, we had plenty of space to transport whatever we needed as long as it wasn’t something too big like a bed, oven or cauldron.
We also used our storage summoning ability for extra space. Caryly was surprised to see that my version used the dancing technique. It took me longer than I wanted to perform it with my injuries, but I was able to summon my one-and-a-half meter of storage without hurting myself more than I already was.
When they told me how I got revived, it took me a moment to realize the plants had used CR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) to reanimate me. I had no idea how this medical technique got into this world and how a plant was able to learn it, but I thought I should be grateful instead of curious, I almost died after all.
While it did bring me back to life, it also fractured a few of my ribs while doing so. With potions, I was already back to a functional level with little pain. I was relieved to see that the hole the tentacle made was fully healed after I had choked a few potions. With the scar on my back and the scorch on my left arm, I had my share of battle scars and appreciated my fully healed skin, just under my small chest.
Before taking off, I made sure to give Lavanda plenty of hugs. She was relieved to see me alive, but the condition of the island did take its toll on her morale. I told Randal to be as supportive of her as possible when we will be flying.
Since the flight was gonna take multiple weeks, longer than Caryly used to since, Lendwrek and Mendry were slower than Randal, we decided to take things slow. As long as we were comfortable, it didn’t matter that the flight would take a week or two longer than it should.
We each had our mount for the duration of the travel. Lavanda was on Randal since she was his master and they could scout ahead if needed. Caryly was on Lendwrek to handle any potential treat and I will be on Mendry with Tara and Hybry since I was not fully healed yet.
When everything was ready, we departed from this place to possibly never be back again. As I never saw a compass before, I didn’t know in which direction we were going but Caryly had one of her own, so she knew where to go.
Going under the sea of clouds, we flew past multiple forests, swamps, mountains, and valleys. Strangely, I didn’t see any village or settlement as far as I could my eyes could reach. This place was entirely left to its own. No village, city or road on the horizon.
At nighttime, we secured some clearing and make camp there. It took me a moment to realize that this was the first time, ever, that I was at ground level. I got used to living in the sky and on flying islands at that point, so I never thought about going at surface level.
Lighting the campfire, we started preparing our first meal of the journey. Since we still had access to what we brought with us, we decided to eat rather fancy for a night out. The grilled steak seasoned with heavy spice got along really well with the thick sauce they put on. Since my cooking knowledge doesn’t go further than hospital food, I wasn’t able to say what exactly I ate, but I enjoyed the meal without thinking about it.
Since cooking for three big carnivorous monsters was impossible for us, I thought that we would let them hunt whatever they wanted to eat, adding just a little sauce and salt on top of it to make it tastier. They were a bit jealous of Tara and Hybry with who I shared some very tasty grilled meat, their size made them easy to feed even if they ate more than us. To make their hunt shorter, I used my roots’ detection skill, to find them sizable prey to hunt. Whenever I found something that seem to be big enough, since I rely on weight and ground pressure to find things, I told them the direction and distance and off they were.
They all come back with prey for us to butcher. Randal killed a black snake as long as himself, while the dragon couple got themselves five elemental wolves for dinner. I didn’t mind since Lavanda taught me a while back how to butcher stuff, but it took us a while to prepare their meal. I was already surprised that they were civilized enough to want us to butcher their prey. Honestly, I initially thought that they were gonna eat their food as it is. It had me wondering how did they eat their food back on the island. Lavanda was generally busy near dinner time, always preparing my food first so that she could take her time with our familiars’ meals. I saw them eating cooked food before but didn’t think that it was their whole plate. So this time I handle the butchering of the monster while Lavanda was preparing their meat. My cooking skills were, as always, in the negative, so there wasn’t much more I could do.
When I was finally done butchering, I packed what I thought would be sellable or useful, like the snakeskin, wolf fur, and any other part that I recognize from my time back on Earth. I played plenty of video games back at the hospital, so although I never actually did any trading or money handling, I knew at least the basic of it with my gaming experience.
The meat wouldn’t last long if I simply stored it, but it wasn’t something we had to worry about. Cooking it and adding salt would make it last long enough to eat as a snack during our travel, and we had five big eaters with us.
Looking around, I noticed the plant tentacle controlled by nature approaching me. To make us aware of its presence, it made its way to us with its appendage out of the ground. It offered me a stack of leaves. With the connection given by my plant affinity, it knew why it had given them to me. They looked especially tasty, which would have been weird to say before, but my affinity allowed me to eat raw plants without a problem. It even encouraged me to do it, since I can get most of my nutrition and energy from them. It also makes them taste somewhat sweet, or spicy, if the plant was poisonous.
After munching his offering, the tentacle wiggled happily and retracted underground. I was still aware of it being around, but I knew that if it wanted to remain undetected, I could search for its presence all night without sensing it.
Lavanda told me that normally when camping out, we would need to have someone keep night watch to avoid any night attack or surprise. The difference this time was that we had two enormous dragons that could form a barrier with their body if they circle around us, so we were able to all sleep. I cuddled next to Lavanda using Randal's side as a pillow, while Hybry uses my lap as his personal bed. Tara was right next to me, as she kept her eyes open for the night. Not that she could close them anyway, she was a spider, and spiders don’t have eyelids. It was at least reassuring to have her keeping her guard up.
The next morning, we awoke to the sunrise and continued our flight. At some point, I stopped seeing flying islands and the sky was as empty as it could get.
After a week of travel, we had our first rain in a while. Since we had warm and waterproof cloaks with us, it wasn’t that uncomfortable, but I could have done it without the rain personally.
At some point, Lavanda started to knit a few things together, using the fur and skins we got from butchering animals every day. Having learned the art of the needles, I decided to join her whenever we had spare time, which was a lot by the way.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Caryly previously started to teach me a few things about elves, since I was one myself. The surprise on her face when she learned that I didn’t even know I was one, was priceless. After that, she turned into teacher mode and made me soak as much information as she could. I was a bit overloaded, but I rather know too much rather than too little.
At night nine, Caryly approached me with a proposition.
“Hey, Emery, want to learn how to use a bow?” I never really learned how to use any weapon before, so I accepted the offer. Lavanda did teach me the bare minimum of how to swing a sword, but no more than that. I learned to prefer to keep my distance, especially with all the magic I could use, so knowing how to use a bow and arrow would benefit me greatly if I needed to avoid using magic.
Going further than our base camp, she gave me a bow that she took out of Lavanda stock and a quiver full of arrows. She first taught me how to hang the quiver to my hips properly, so it didn’t hinder my movement or get stuck in stuff. I was surprised that I wasn’t supposed to have it on my back like they do in video games. Back on the island, I remember trying to use a sword sheeted on my back, but it was impossible to even pull it out, and putting it back in was an even greater nightmare. Truly, most weapons placed were on the hips.
“Now nick the arrow against the bow string and pull it.” Following her instruction, I pulled the string as much as I could, shot my arrow and completely miss the tree I was aiming at. About fifteen meters away from me.
“Good! Don’t bother about accuracy for now. Just get a feel for the bow and try to get used to it.” Not letting the missed wear me down, I continued to shoot more arrows. Although it was late, I could see pretty well in the dark, so training more wasn’t a problem.
“Yes!” It took me eight arrows to finally hit my target, and I almost jump on the spot from enjoyment.
I didn’t miss the smile on Caryly's face as I go on with more arrows. At some point, I was hitting more than missing, until I emptied the quiver she gave me. Out of the 25 arrows I shot, nine of them hit the target. Even if not all of them actually pierced and stuck to the tree, it was still a 36 percent accuracy, so not bad for a first time, considering I never used a bow before.
Retrieving the arrows, the grass tentacle helped me fetch them. I thought about how should I call it, and tentacle seems perfect, as far as my knowledge goes, it looked like one with just the provenance and colour as differences. It also lacked the suckers, but it looked less disgusting that way, so I won’t complain.
Caryly suggested that I practice every night before sleep, and agreed. I needed to train more, and using a bow was more fun than I expected, especially when the arrow hit and stuck to the tree. This feeling was amazing.
After asking Lavanda, since it was hers, she told me to keep the bow and quiver. Learning proper maintenance didn’t take long, but I had to make sure my new weapon was in top shape. Lavanda also wanted to train me more in the art of the sword, and I couldn’t refuse. A bow was enough in my opinion, but she thought I should learn how to handle close-quarter fights if needed.
With magic, a bow, and my familiars, there was little chance for me to be stuck in melee, but she insisted too much, so I didn’t have a choice. My only condition was that we stick to dagger and short sword. I wasn’t the type to carry a huge ass sword on my back to hunt monsters.
Now, my routine was set in stone for the rest of the travel. Sword training in the morning, knitting during flight and breaks, and butchering and archery before sleep.
I grow fond of knitting at this point. It helped keep my mind clear while doing something productive. Expanding my wardrobe was also nice since I was making my own clothes with some help from Lavanda. We had plenty of supplies before leaving, and our reserves continued to grow as our monsters hunt every night.
On the road, days passed quickly. Things were rather dull, but at some point during his hunt, Randal caught an impressive prey.
A big white lizard monster was laying dead in front of us. It vaguely resembles a Komodo dragon but with smooth skin instead of scales. After asking what it was, they told me it was a thunder salamander.
The wyvern looked proud of his hunt, standing a top of his prey with his head up. The meal for that night was a little extra. They told me salamanders were rare and that their meat was delicious, so they wanted to make the most of it. They put a lot of spice and salt on top of the meat and served it with bread and vegetables. Lavanda also added her special sauce on top as an extra.
It really tasted amazing. I even dip my leaves and plants in the sauce to see if it was better that way, and I did not regret it. I felt like I was in heaven, and wished to eat that every day.
When we finished the butchering, I was about to store the salamander skin, but Lavanda took it instead and told me she wanted to make something with it.
During the next few days, she took a lot of time knitting something and refuse to tell me what she was making. She seemed to put a lot of care into this one, making sure it was perfect and redoing any part she thought was imperfect.
After multiple days of work, she finally showed me the fruit of her labour. It was a white cloak with a hood, both made from the thunder salamander skin. Its skin was apparently a very desired material for armour and clothes since it offer good insulation against the thunder affinity and bad weather in general.
“Come on, put it on! I want to see how you look in it!” She expressed vigorously.
I couldn’t refuse, so I slide out of my usual black cloak and put the white cloak on my shoulder. It was a bit shorter but still, the perfect size for me as the cloak goes from my shoulder and stopped just above knee level. The hood also fitted nicely without being too loose or tightened.
I was surprised by how comfortable the salamander skin was, and Hybry seems to agree with me. Rubbing his heads against the tissue, he looked very happy as he jumped in my arms. After inspecting my appearance very carefully, Lavanda played fashion with me as her test subject. It didn’t take long for Caryly to join in, and I was stuck trying all sorts of shirts, skirts, pants, chest armour and other things Lavanda and I knitted during the travel. She made me wear the cloak from beginning to end, and seem to search for a look to complement it instead of the contrary.
At some point, she seems to have settled on me wearing a small metal breastplate on a leather reinforce shirt, with a rather long skirt going to my travel boots. With some black archery bracers and thin black gloves, she couldn’t stop looking at me.
“Pure noble maiden,” Was the word she used to describe me. Caryly also joined in on complimenting me, and it wasn’t long before I was blushing. Even the familiars looked as if they wanted to embarrass me more as they endorse my new look.
I was about to return the cloak to Lavanda, as I couldn’t stand the praise anymore, but she stopped me. “Keep it, I made it for you.” She said with a tender smile. “It was time you get a new look.”
“What's wrong with my usual black cloak? I look just fine in it!” They rolled their eyes at that comment. Even Tara rolled all eight of her eyes at me.
“There is no comparison possible. You look too lovely right now, I almost want to keep you to myself.” Lavanda said as she proceeded to hug me tightly.
“Also,” Caryly added. “You are going to meet a lot of people, so this more refines look will suit you better. People will think that you are a young adventurer from a noble house.”
“But what if I want to fight or train?! I can’t do it like this, it will ruin them!” Most of these clothes were brand new, so any combat or daily wear would damage them over time.
“You don’t have to worry about that.” Caryly replied. “We made sure to pick solid enough pieces of equipment, so they won’t be damaged that easily. These are actually way more protective and durable than your older set.” Looking at my old garb, she asked, “How often did you even repair them in the first place?”
“A lot.” Lavanda said before I could reply. “From now on, these are yours, and you don’t have a say in this! Understood?” True, my old cloak was worn down, but it still does its job decently. The patches only added more character to it as they were added!
“But,”
“Understood!?” Lavanda add before I could say anything.
There wasn’t a single chance I could win this argument, so I capitulated. “Yes.”
The next morning, we continue our travel, and they made sure that I was wearing the entire set they made for me. My old black cloak would from now on be collecting dust in the storage.
On day 24 I started to see villages on the horizon, but we never got to any of them, and instead, detour to avoid them. Supposedly because it wasn’t that common for people to ride dragons in the first place.
“This is where we are going,” Caryly said, pointing her finger at a large city on the horizon. “Welcome to the city of Dawnriver.”