After two more days of travel, we got to the halfway point. We found a small way-station built in the ruins of an old abandoned village at an intersection of the road, one continuing on to maidens' rest the other heading north. According to info Missy and Sissy had the expedition that went on to build maidens rest built the waystation as a resting stop for travelers going up and down the road. To the north was an area of plains and rolling hills that had a few orchards. The waystation itself was maintained by the guild periodically posting a quest to send some adventurers once every few months.
Feeling like this would be a good place to take a couple of days' rest before going on, Aura fully unpacked her tinkers workshop to do some tinkering getting some more work in on building Geri. She had also leveled up while on the road so with some new insights she got from one of her paths she upgraded Freki with an internal crossbow. He could now fire one big bolt out of his mouth before needing to be opened up and reloaded.
Grim having leveled up from all the cooking that he did, asked Missy and Sissy if they could do some hunting and get him more meat and food, and gave them one of the bottomless bags. He used the hides he gathered to make me and Sissy some basic leather armor. As her lower half was snake Sissy only needed a breastplate, but he made me a full set of boots chest, and greaves. He joked about not making me a helmet to have a clear shot at my head if I needed to get punched, but after we both had a laugh about it he explained that he just didn't have enough materials for that.
I using my longbow and borrowed Aura’s crossbow I got some ranged practice in. Having not much luck with the crossbow, I leveled up the longbow pretty quickly and by the second day was helping Missy and Sissy on the hunts.
Finding an option on the hud to condense some of the new info I had a look at what that unlocked for me.
My hair was now noticeably growing back, but where it used to be Jet black it was now bleached white. I was debating between letting it grow out or just having Grim shave my head. Finally deciding to just let it grow out at least once before deciding on a look.
Ivy and Tobias both not being of much use on stealthy hunts just spent the day baking in the sun while Ethel played with the cubs who were growing fast now that they were getting plenty of fresh food. Ethel probably wanting to spend as much time with them before we had to split up after Maidens rest.
In the evenings I had some long talks with the gang trying to figure out a hobby or a craft for myself having narrowed it down to two. One was architecture, thinking of asking the twins' dad to give me some training, figuring that it would help when I was ready to build my domain. Or maybe going into weapon-making and blacksmithing to help arm my forces. As it was hard to make up my mind and part of it relies on what Missy and Sissy’s dad said I decided to wait until we got to Maidens Rest.
We started planning the next couple of days of the journey. From here it would be about another week of travel. But day three and four were going to be hell as we had to cross a marshy river delta that was notorious for its swarms of mosquitoes Because of the terrain the road had tons of bends in it to follow the drier patches of ground as much as it could. We came up with a plan that would hopefully get us through in a single day. We would travel as far as we could during the first day with Grim and Ethel sleeping on the cart, and there being just enough space on Aura’s cart for me to get in some sleep. We would switch off at night with the girls sleeping on the cart. And then me and Grim riding alongside. Ivy being a huge boa would be able to catch up to us pretty quickly the next day, being able to go in a straight line.
So the next morning we got an early start, between us and the river delta would be a thick wooded area. Knowing that the swamp wouldn't have much in the way of dry firewood we stockpiled some on the cart as we went, so we could have something to cook lunch and dinner with. The path through the wood seemed to be well-traveled. We saw some signs of a large group passing through recently. Just before lunch, we came to a large clearing in the wood where it seemed that only a few hours ago probably a hundred plus individuals had camped. We found the remains of over twenty campfires some of which were still a bit warm and lots of remains of half-eaten animal bones. It also seemed that they didn't care about hygiene much as instead of digging a latrine a bit of a way beyond the camp, it seems that they just used the closest trees and bushes.
It smelled pretty ripe so not wanting to stay for long we moved down the road about another hour before camping for lunch ourselves. It didn't seem like the group made its way down the road as this side was a lot cleaner. Grim asked “Who or what do you think camped there. It didn't look like adventurers or a trade caravan. For adventurers, the group was way too large, for a trade caravan they would have set the camp up better.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Missy chimed in “Yeah I agree. Unless it was an adventurer with a lord class like Drakon here.” Pointing to me “Most adventure parties are a max of ten people. As one of the main ways is to make money from dungeons, Most dungeons cap party size to five, with rare high-level ones styling themselves as raid dungeons and allowing up to ten. Sis did you see anything out of the ordinary.”
“Well the tracks were small for humanoids and they didn't wear any shoes. Also, the fires seemed to be mostly for warmth at night instead of cooking fires, the bones and small bits of meat leftover that I saw before we moved on didn’t seem to be cooked much.” Sissy replied.
“I think we should push on as far as we can and get out of this wood. Camp the night without making any fire and then go with the plan to rush through the swamp. Moira can you keep an eye behind us, be our eye in the sky, and see if that group shows up.” With that, we broke camp and tried to hurry down the road as much as we could.
We saw Moira heading back towards us at a breakneck speed. Landing out of breath, she told us what she saw. “Wererats, hundreds of them. I flew all the way back towards where the camp was and just as I got there I started to see them coming out of the woods dragging a few humanoid bodies and started to butcher them. I know they are were-rats because I could see them shift between humanoid and rat form. They looked like they were forming up for a march along the road for now in their humanoid form, but when they catch a scent of us they will switch to rat from and will be able to outrun us. What's the plan?”
“Moira do you think you can get close enough in your wolf-form to get us some more intel? If they do see you lead them on a bit of a wild goose chase and change into your Valkyrie form to get away.” Moira gave the fist to the chest salute. “The rest of us will try and make as much speed as we can, have the pups join us off the cart to lighten it as much as we can. Have both Tobias and Ethel drag it. If we can stay in front of them we might find a way to stop them in the marsh.”
At that Moira changes into her wolf form. In her wolf form, her fur was the same greenish color that her dress had and she was slightly smaller than Ethel. She also seemed to have some sort of telepathy.
“Ok but no heroics. I'll need you if we do need to make a stand.” I replied. Moira then turned around and vanished into the underbrush at the side of the road, her color blending in really well.
“The rest of us let's go, let's try and stay ahead of them for as long as we can.” And at that, we double-teamed it even faster down the road. Just as it got to sunset Moira dropped out of the sky. She had a few scrapes and bruises, and as she gave her report Missy started to heal her.
“I was able to make a few distractions. Picking off some of their scout on the side of the road. It delayed them for about an hour while they gave chase. Their vanguard spotted signs of our passing. Were-rats having very good noses. Once they stopped chasing me I went into Valkyrie form. They made camp about fifteen minutes ago. At the speed they are going, even if we push through the night while those who need rest take it on the cart it will be touch and go to make it to the swamp.”
“Ok, I have an idea. How many arrows do we have left for the bows?” Turning to the twins. Sissy answered “We have about sixty arrows, most were used upon the hunts and training at the way station. I was going to try and make some more on the way.”
“Aura I'm assuming that your toolkit comes with some kind of flammable oil or lubricant right?” When she nodded I continued. “If we stop for like thirty minutes to take a break, how many of these can you turn into flaming arrows.”
“Probably only twenty or so. I have some grease that can be used for that. Most of the oils aren’t suitable to stay on an arrow. But you could dump it and set it on fire.”
“Perfect, Grim can you make a bandoleer or something for Moira’s Valkyrie for that lets her carry one of the lanterns I saw on Aura’s cart from her belt?”
Grim only replied with a thumbs up and started work fast.
“Ok, then this is the plan. Moira, you take the flaming arrows, dump the extra oil that we have on top of them then set it alight with the fire arrows. Just keep firing until you have exhausted both then come back here. That will hopefully give us enough time to get to the swamp and maybe to one of the bridges over one of the rivers. After that, I have another idea that I’m working on, but let's get to that point first.” The rest all nodded and after thirty minutes we mounted up again. Aura with the help from Sissy who was a fletcher was able to get us twenty-six arrows in that time frame.
At that Moira got her new bandoleer and hooded lantern set up. She wasn't that proficient with the bow. But firing directly downward shouldn't be too hard. Worst case she just drops them. As soon as she flew off we mounted up again with the girls taking a nap on the cart while me and grim hang in the back a bit to cover if needed.
Tugging on Grim to drop back out of earshot. “I have a plan for tomorrow, but if worse comes to worst. I want you to run with the girls. If I die I will just respawn back at the guildhall, you guys won’t.” Grim started to protest, but I grabbed his arm to stop him and to spin him around. “I know you want nothing more than to stand next to me and kick ass. But I need to know that you will do this. Not a hair scale or snake harmed on those girls, do you hear me.”
“I hear you. Not a hair, you have my word.” And with that, we grabbed our forearms together. We hurried to catch back up to the cart. Not too long after we started to see flashes and hear a few explosions behind us. “Aura and Sissy loaded a select few of the arrows with something special.” Said Grim with a huge grin.
We made it out of the woods just as the sun started to rise. In the valley below us, we saw the road snake back and forth through the march. There were three bridge crossings to get past. Moira was waiting for us on the road there ready to give her report.