Inari wandered back to his small hideout at the edges of the caverns below Thëlos, still aching all over but overall, healed. ‘What to bring, what to bring’ he thought in a sing-song manner, while looking through his small stash of varying items. Before him was an odd assortment of trinkets and useful items, some more than others. There was a small dagger with a curved handle, and an even more curved blade, as well as the only true weapon Inari owned currently, his stiletto dagger that he’d spent a large amount of his money on, this was before the inheritance though, so not much to him now. There was a vial filled with a red liquid which was tainted by a brownish substance that made the fluid look far less appetizing, it was a concoction that was meant to spur his body into rapid healing by flooding it with nutrients and using magic to guide the body through the natural healing process at a massively increased speed, a helpful item to keep for an expedition. Finally, there was a white cloak that had been worn and covered in soot, to the point of becoming ashen grey, it was tattered at the edges and it was rough, but it was his best garment, and it always would be.

Standing at the entrance to his hideout, was Inari, decked out in all of his meager belongings, and a grin plastered on his face. He pulled the hood of his tattered cloak up over his head and began his slow walk to the edges of the city, a stiletto strapped the small of his back, and a curved ritualistic dagger latched onto his upper arm, visible to others, the remainders of his belongings were all stuffed into a small bag that was draped over his shoulder and being held onto by two small strands of string. After roughly 20 minutes of walking, Inari arrived near the meeting point. The reason he wasn’t directly on the meeting point was because two unfamiliar figures were already there, and he was watching them from the shadow of an alley.

After about an hour of waiting in the alleyway, Yera turned up and cheerfully greeted the two unfamiliar figures, this allowed Inari to relax enough to begin walking over as well. When he drew close, Yera turned and noticed him and waved, the other two unfamiliar people also turned and Inari got his first good look at them. Both men traveled light, one man, the older of the two, had a small scar on his cheek, he had brown eyes, grey hair and the wrinkles on his face that suggested he smiled a lot, it made Inari trust him ever so slightly more than before, which had been no trust at all. The other man, well a boy really, had longer hair, hazel, same colour as his eyes, his face was unmarred and he had a naive look to him that made him seem like he was in need of protecting, Inari brushed aside the odd feeling and glanced quickly at Yera who took it as a hint to explain the two undiscussed individuals with him.

“Ok so basically these two are last minute additions” Inari clarified with a marginally irritated tone. “Yep” Yera replied without a single hint of remorse, and a healthy dose of confusion after detecting Inari’s irritation, she knew of his wariness of strangers and yet decided to do this? That was out of character, it made Inari a little wary of the situation as a whole but he decided to squash the feeling for now and turned to the two new additions, “Heya, nice to meet you and all, hope we can have a good expedition, if I may ask, why are you out here doing this anyways?” Inari asked with more than a little skepticism evident in his questioning.

The older of the two answered, “We’re looking for scripts to sell, or more ideally, tomes to learn from and eventually sell afterwards” the grey haired man said with a cheerful smile. ‘Well that was… surprisingly forthcoming, honestly didn’t expect that’ Inari thought with a slight chuckle, barely making a noise, but Yera caught it and raised an eyebrow at him in response, he shrugged and turned back to the two he’d asked the question. “Well if that’s the case I’m sure we’ll get along just fine” Inari said before sticking out his hand offering them both a handshake, they both accepted, to Inari's continued surprise. He decided he’d be pleasantly disposed towards them from that point onwards. Trusting a fae enough to shake their hand was either very stupid, extremely naive, or simply that, trusting.

Yera watched the interaction with an expression that Inari failed to read and he raised an eyebrow at her in question, she simply shrugged and turned to leave the city “Come on boys, time to get some interesting bits and bobs” she said before marching off into the gloomy darkness outside the gate. Inari followed shortly after, hands in his pockets and a small smile playing at his lips, barely hidden by his cloak hood, the two unnamed were following just behind Inari. As they reached the edge of the Thëlos and looked over the titan’s edge, they all couldn’t help but look down toward the forest floor hundreds of metres below them, however, despite all looking, none of them saw the trees. At this time of night, the only thing they could see was the inky black that had encased the trees and everything below the titan as it moved inexorably across the terrain.

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Inari had already done this decent more than a few times, Yera even more times than him of course, but the two unnamed tagalongs were extremely slow, it still only took them 10 minutes to get down the titan’s leg, but that, undeniably, was ridiculously slow for a descent compared to the average time it took Wanderers. Inari encouraged them as they slipped off the rock faces and slid down the titan’s leg, trying to subtly hurry them up, Yera on the other hand was his opposite, scalding them for taking so long and trying to push them into being quicker. This attitude Yera was displaying was not how she usually acted and it made Inari worry for her, he did so silently and promised himself to ask her about it later.

Once they’d all dropped down to the damp forest floor, they crouched silently and waited, unmoving, being patient and listening to see if anything was nearby that would interrupt their immediate movement towards their target. It was ideal that Yera and Inari didn’t need to bother telling them about the basics of Wandering, it would appear they’d listened in the classes set up to teach these things to common folk. As the group navigated the shrubs, vines, roots, and minor arcane creatures of the night, they felt themselves relax slightly and begin to open up to one another about various things.

Inari learned that the two that had joined them were named Marke, and Marce, father and son, named after one another. The two of them were searching for a method to allow the son to learn magic, specifically concept manipulation, by the time he turned 20, when his bloodline would awaken and he’d be granted more free access to magic, the arcane, and the mystic arts as a whole. They wanted a head start for him and he was all but vibrating at the possibility that he might be able to interact with the magic of this world, Inari could relate to the feeling and was secretly hoping to find something similar.

By the position of the moon, Inari had concluded that it was roughly 10pm by the time the four of them stood at the edge of the ancient ruins that housed the lost treasures of civilisations that existed hundreds of cycles before the sapient races were brought back into existence again. ‘Wow, that is… amazing, but terrifying’ Inari thought while staring at a rough depiction of what he could only assume was one of the city titans, bound and shackled, depicted as being held in a prison far beneath the earth, he had no idea why they had imprisoned the creature but the fact that the previous civilisation was even capable of that feat made Inari’s head swim. Yera stares blankly at the murals and depictions before making a short quip “Basically what we do now, just extra steps”, Inari gapes at her before laughing when she turns around with a smirk on her face.

As Inari and Yera converse cheerfully, the four of them walk into the crypt, unaware of the eyes that watch them from the forest they walked through minutes ago. They continue down a dimly lit hallway, encroached upon on all sides by partially deteriorated depictions of sacrifices, ‘gods’ and ‘demons’, even various creatures that look so immaterial they could barely be called creatures at all, the hallway was lit by an eerie blue glow that emanated from a thin line that ran down both sides of the hallway, illuminated the ground and our shoes, but leaving most else silhouetted in an sickly light. While Inari and Yera chatted, speaking about what they were hoping to find in this crypt, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck slowly stand on end, it made him stop dead in his tracks and turn to look down the hallway, behind Marke and Marce, back directly the way they came from. There was nowhere to hide from site in this long hallway, entirely illuminated by a dim blue glow in the lower half of the hallway, and as such, when Inari turned and looked down the hallway he saw it.

There was a smokey creature slowly padding towards us in a casual manner, as if it was in no hurry at all, this fact put Inari even more on edge and he quickly notified the others “There’s a creature down the hallway, the same way we came, it is making its way towards us at a slow run and looks partially incorporeal, we need to move, now” Inari stated while his heart hammered in his chest and his ears could only hear his own heartbeat, he didn’t know if they responded at all until eventually what Yera said made his heart seem to stop and his blood run cold.

“That’s not a funny joke Ina, I can’t see anything, don’t fuck with us like that” Yera said with a chuckle.