Sy was not wrong, the road ahead was long and arduous, we had been navigating the forest for a good few hours and still we felt like we were no closer to getting to Ruby's camp. Thanks to Sy though I felt more capable than I had ever had done and with Raven by my side I felt like we may just be crazy enough to pull this off. The layout of the forest had changed, we were still surrounded by all manner of trees and plant life, the trees had changed though, they were not as tall and slim as near the oasis, these trees were a lot bigger and the shrubs and vegetation around use were a lot bigger.

I would have been forgiven for thinking that I was in a honey I shrunk the kid movie or something, everything seemed ginormous. Flowers larger than cars, covering all the colours of the rainbow, even one that looked like a Venus fly trap that we decided to stay clear of, it just was not worth the risk.

The worst thing was the humidity, it was warmer here than any other part of the forest, in fact we would have been forgiven for thinking we had now stepped into a jungle. We had not come across any wildlife or terror's for that matter and for the time being there had not been any flashes of red on my mini-map which was a good thing, the less critters or enemies we came across the better. I still had not gotten over my encounter with the minotaur and I would be kidding myself if I thought it was my skill and not a but ton of luck that had gotten me out of that situation alive.

We stopped sporadically for rest, I noticed that while resting my stamina bar naturally returned to full, depending on how much I had spent would depend how long of a rest we needed to take. Sometimes it was for five minutes, sometimes it was longer. It was hard to judge given that my watch didn't work and I had no way of telling the time accurately.

"I wonder how long this will take us," I said to raven who was stretching her back out silently.

She shrugged, and sighed something that I didn't understand, go figure.

"It is a good job that Sy gave us that mini-map or we would be screwed,"

Raven ushered me to follow her and set of walking, clearly wanting to get to Ruby's camp at any moment. She was faster than me, that I knew but I had a better amount of stamina than her.

"I've been wanting to ask you about that bracelet of yours.”

Raven had no intention of answering me, she waved me away and continued walking forward, telling me that there was more to it than she was letting on, either that or she just knew that signing everything too me would prove too difficult for me to figure out. Perhaps when I have learnt to understand her better.

She pulled the cuff of her sleeve over her wrist to cover the bracelet, I wasn't sure wether this was intentional or subconscious but all that did was lean me closer towards she was hiding something from me.

As we continued to push through the trees and plantlife, the hairs on my arms stood on end and I quickly spun around, checking if anything was following. I had no idea why but it felt like fore some reason we were not alone, my senses felt heightened.

I swear for a brief moment I could hear a strange noise, like a whisper but mixed with chattering of some sort, I could not quite put my fingers on it but it passed like a gentle breeze before disappearing.

"Did you hear that?" I asked. "I think we are not alone."

Raven stopped and shook her head before raising an eyebrow at me with an accusatory look.

"I heard something I swear, just keep your wits about you."

I reached for my sword that was strapped to my back, just in case and gripped the hilt tightly, my palms were sweaty and the metal hilt made it uncomfortable to hold. When we got to Ruby's I would be sure to see if there was anything I could bind around the hilt to make it more durable. The black serrated blade was about three to four feet long and had a finely polished shine to its surface, I didn't know if it was a reflection or magic that gave it a shimmer but it was as if it had a thin layer of water coating there surface.

Raven turned to set off again but as she did there was another whisper that I could hear, this time it was louder. Raven stopped in her tracks and instantly reached for her two sythes. Clearly I was not imagining the whispers.

"What do you think it is?" I said, holding my blade in front of me with both of my hands. As I reached Raven I turned so that we were back to back so we could create the best defensive formation for us. "Do you think it's worth us hopping into one of your little shadow portal things?

The whispering was getting louder and louder, it came from every direction, meaning whatever it was there was more than one and they had us surrounded, I could have activated my berserker tree but decided to at least wait to see what it was. A large bush ahead of me that was covered in triangular, fluffy, turquoise flowers started to rustle and I braced my self for the fight that was about to come.

"Come on Dave, it shouldn't be too much further."

I recognised the voice immediately, the higher pitched raspiness in Vera's voice unmistakable. She stepped out through the bushes, looking over her shoulder and not in our direction as she started to use a little machete to hack away at the bush to form a clearing.

"Oh Bilow petals," she said excitedly, looking down at the triangular petals that had fallen at her feet. She knelt down straight away and started foraging them, placing them in a little fanny pack that sat on her waste.

"Don't let us interrupt you," I said.

"Oh," Vera's head snapped up, she was startled at our presence. "What are you two doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you two, I hope you were not planning o robbing us while we rested again."

Vera scoffed, "No, we promised we wouldn't do that anymore, you told us not to." She looked back at the clearing behind here and shouted, "DAVE! You will never guess who is here."

"What is it woman," Dave's deeper voice grumbled from behind her, along with the sound of squeaking wheels, rumbling against the uneven earth. "Honestly you will be the death of me, do you know how difficult this thing is to pull on my own." Dave was dripping with sweat, his green skin glistening, his cheeks were reddened as he dragged a small cart behind him. It was a rickety old thing that sat on two wheels, the cart had raised sides and two handles at the front. The wood was broken in places, having seen better days, one of the wheels was slightly slanted as if it was ready to fall of at any moment. "Blasted cart," he said through cursed breath. "We are going to need to stop to fix this wheel love, other wise we are never going to make it to town." When he looked up and saw us he looked just as shocked as Vera his goblin eyes widening. "Vera, why didn't you tell us Silas was here. Honestly."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"It's nice to see you again Dave, I was just saying to Vera, I hope you are not here to rob us again."

"Nah, we have left those ays behind us," He eyes my sword nervously, "Please could you lower your weapon, it is triggering my flight mode and I have simply not got the energy to run."

I kind of understood what he meant and presumed flight mode was a class ability that he had so I lowered my weapon and strapped it back to my back. It was surprisingly light for its size.

There was something different about Dave as I looked at him, something that I could not quite put my finger on.

"Oh you have noticed it haven't you." Dave said with a proud smile, he turned his head and leaned his ear towards me. "What do you think? They are all the rage in Avendria apparently."

He was wearing a gold chain around his neck with a pale blue almost turquoise gem in the centre of it. The thing was hideous to look at and I found it near impossible to keep a straight face, clearly the people of Avendria were completely tone deaf when it came to jewellery.

“That looks, lovely.” I lied, as I examined the chain, it had thick links that were interlocked with one another. It was completely disproportionate to his short body. Like a child who was wearing their parents jewellery or something like that. It hang right down to his stomach.

Lucky Amulet

Grants +1 to luck

“A Lucky amulet?” I said, “how did you happen on that?”

“I know how this looks, but you told us to stop taking what wasn’t ours so we have, got this chain through good honest graft.”

Vera was beaming next to him with a proud smile, she bobbed her head into a short nod over and over as Dave continued to explain.

“We were out and about when we happened to come across a trader. He offered us all sorts and all we had was that rusted cleaver to our name. He offered to take it from me in exchange for some magic beans.”

My eyes rolled, “Magic beans, really?”

“He was a really nice man, smartly dressed and well spoken, he said it was all we could afford from his stock.”

I looked at the cart that sat behind Dave, it had a large piece of tarp made from a thick leather looking material and judging by the bulge underneath it was pretty full. “So how did you manage to come across all of this?”

“Well our plan was to continue to one of the towns north of here, see what we could sell the magic beans for. You know try and make a profit so we can start upselling.”

“But there was a mistake,” Vera interrupted. “You see I had a look at the beans and they were strange, they did not look like beans you can plant to grow vegetables, they were bright coloured, one was red, one was orange and one was green. I told Dave something seemed wrong with them and he insisted it was because they are magic. Anyway I took took a lick of one of them and it was like nothing I had ever tasted, it was so sweet it nearly made my cheeks implode. I thought they must have been spoiled.”

“Sounds like you were given jelly beans.” I said, shaking my head.

Vera looked at me blankly, her large eyes unblinking, “You have come across these before?”

“I hate to break it to you, but I think they are sweets. I think you guys were conned by the trader.”

“Conned?” Dave said in defiance, “No, no, no. I told Vera that this must have been a honest mistake. The trader must have given us the wrong beans by mistake.”

It was kind of endearing how naive the two of them were, perhaps there was a lesson to be learnt from this for them, if there was it was clear they had got the wrong message.

“So we followed his tracks, well the tracks of the cart anyway, just so we could let him know about his mistake,”

Vera’s colour changed from light grey to a pale blue as the colour seemingly drained from her. She looked nervous, her body language shifting, crossing her arms in front of her.

“What happened?” I asked, my concern rising at the situation.

“Well when we caught up with him, his cart was just sat half tipped over like his wheel had got stuck in a hole and it had become overbalanced,”

“Dave,” I startled the imp, his story dragging on longer than not needed to. “What happened to the merchant and how did you end up with his cart.”

“We didn’t kill him,” Vera said defensively, “It’s not in our nature to do such a thing.”

“I didn’t cause you of anything,” I said, a feeling of dread washing over me, just what had happened between them and the merchant?

“Vera is right, we may traditionally be thieves but we would never kill anyone.”

They must have a short memory as the ice trap that Dave had set in their cave had nearly killed Raven not that long ago.

“The merchant was already dead when we found him.” Dave finished, he was very matter of fact in his approach. His body language shifted slightly too, mirroring Vera’s he looked over his shoulder as if they were being followed or watched from deeper within the forest.

“The merchant is dead?” I recoiled, “And you took his stuff?”

“That’s the laws of the land,” Dave said defensively, “it’s better we use his wares than they get ransacked by others in the forest. We haven’t broken any laws taking anything. Finders keepers.”

“Any ideas what happened to the merchant?” I asked. I didn’t have any reason to question how things are done here and Dave seemed honest in his appraisal of the situation.

Dave glanced over his shoulder again as if he heard something, he started visibly shaking and there was a tremor in his voice. Vera stepped closer to Dave pressing against the side of him for a hug, he wrapped his long spindly arm around her.

“It was horrible Silas,” he said. “His face was as red as an apple, his eyes were bloodshot and bulging like they were ready to pop right out of his head.”

Vera started wailing, burying her head into Dave’s chest. He patted her on the back tenderly. ‘there, there dear.” he said, “It’s ok.”

“Do you think Terror’s did this?” I asked, it was the only logical option I could offer, I didn’t know this world or its lands well enough to suggest anything else.

“No, no” Dave shook his head, his earrings jingled like a wind chime. “Terrors are feral, they would have sliced the merchant into a gazillion pieces and flayed his skin before stealing the cart and everything else on it. No it was something else that did this.”

“Tell Silas around the marks on the merchants neck,” Vera said, talking as if I wasn’t only a meter away from them.

“What was up with the merchants neck?” I asked.

“It was bruised, like he had been strangled.” Dave said.

That would make sense, given the reddened face and bulging eyes.

“There were multiple lines across his neck and face, with cuts too and he strangely smelt really strongly of honey. We saw there was nothing we could do so we grabbed the cart and set off, we didn’t want to wait around incase whatever it was that had done this came back for us. That’s when I found this amulet, in the back of the cart. We made the best out of a bad situation.”

“but now we are worried that whatever killed the merchant may be following us.” Vera added, her impish face was wet with tears, forming slimy streaks down her face. “Perhaps you can help us Silas.”

“Me? What do you want me to do?”

“Perhaps you could help us get to Willowshire, you know escort us, keep us safe in case what ever killed the merchant is following us.” Vera said, she was devoid of any confidence, shuffling her feet in the dirt as she looked down at the ground as she spoke.

“That is a great idea,” Dave said, his voice raising in delight. “You are full of them my dear. We can pay you for your time and efforts,” He looked over at their newly acquired cart. “Once we have managed to shift everything on that is tradable, I reckon there is a good bit of profit to be had. What do you say, escort us to Willowshire and in return we will give you coin a plenty to see you on in your own quest.”

I looked down at Raven who was stood arms folded, unimpressed beside me. She looked up and shook her head.

Dave was right, we had our own quest to be getting on with, we needed to find Ruby so she could teach me more about chaos powder but also she seemingly knew where one of the chaos blade fragments were. At the same time Vera and Dave looked genuinely spooked and I didn’t want anything to happen to them.

“How far away is Willowshire?” I asked.

Vera’s eyes grew wide and softened, giving me a warming smile. “it’s about half a days walk from here.” she said.

I looked down at Raven who continued to shake her head at me before giving me the double bunny sign.

“We can’t leave them on their own,” I said, “Come on, we will take a slight detour help them get to Willowshire safely and be on our way, with a few coins in our pockets too. What is the worst that can happen?”