Investigating the camp took less than an hour. There was no sign that Michael and Amy had any additional party members, nor that anyone else had passed through here recently. Jade surmised that the camp had been a lure designed to trick unsuspecting wayfarers into investigating. A few similar runic traps had been scattered around the perimeter of the encampment and, though Jade didn't know exactly what they did, she doubted it was anything pleasant.
She wondered who these people had been that they would so quickly turn to violence against their own. Were other people doing the same elsewhere in the Labyrinth? It was an unsettling thought.
"They were probably using this fire as a signal." Jade guessed, smothering the campfire. "To get people like us to investigate the smoke."
"That is a perverted use of nature's bounty." Siora said sourly. "The Oak Mother does not seed the forests with life for those sullied purposes."
"The Oak Mother?"
"The patron deity of my people." Siora explained. "The bringer of life and light. The priestesses say she watches over our homeland, Myrthrin. It is my brother's greatest wish to travel there one day and see what has become of it since our departure."
"You don't know?" Jade asked, surprised. She was also curious about the elf's religion. From the name, it sounded like their beliefs centered around a nature deity.
"The gateways to Myrthrin are far from here. My ancestors had to travel a great distance to find a safe place to settle in the Labyrinth. A few of my people have sought answers in the centuries since, but none have yet returned."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Siora smiled. "Seldrin will find answers for us. Maybe I'll even go with him, if he wants me along."
"He'd be foolish to leave you behind. You may not be a warrior, but your other skills are just as valuable on the road."
"On the road?" Siora cocked her head. Jade noticed that the elf did that a lot.
"Ahh… It means 'while travelling'." She explained, mentally kicking herself for forgetting to avoid using idioms when speaking to Siora.
"Oh." The elf's expression brightened. "Thank you."
After that, it was time to go through the equipment they'd found in the camp. Luis had volunteered to search the two bodies, for which Jade was grateful. She was trying not to think about the fact that she had just killed two people in nearly as many moments. The fact that it had been necessary helped a little but, unlike when fighting the goblins in the factory, this time Jade had technically been the aggressor.
That wasn't the only thing that was bothering her, either. The wonderful feeling that had accompanied drinking Michael's life force lingered in her memory. She couldn't deny that she wanted to feel it again. Jade couldn't even blame the temptation on her demonic instincts, for those had been somewhat subdued after her feeding. At least now she knew that those urges could be sated.
By draining the life from someone. she thought bitterly, picking through the pile of gear with her companions. For now, she pushed those thoughts from her mind, compartmentalizing away her pain and doubt.
Naomi had started separating out equipment that Harish had mentioned they'd lost, setting it aside to be returned to them. Their starting gear was pretty similar to what their own party had received, mostly simple weapons, armor, and a few restorative potions.
That wasn't all that Michael and Amy had collected, however. They had amassed a surprising amount of basic healing potions and various weapon and armor sets. Jade had no idea how they'd transported it all, or even why they had felt it would be useful, but maybe one of them had possessed a spell or talent that eased the logistics of travel.
"Some of this armor is bloodied and torn." Naomi said, inspecting a piece of leather armor. "Do you think…?"
"Probably." Luis said. "Good riddance."
They couldn't take it all, not even close, but all of them were able to at least replace some of their own damaged gear. Luis took Michael's breastplate, which was practically undamaged. Jade and Naomi both found sets of leather armor that were in better condition than their own and appropriately sized, so they swapped those out too. They gave Siora Naomi's old armor, which fit her well enough and was still in decent shape. The pair hadn't had a great deal of crescent coins for some reason, but they also took a few pouches of them, adding to their growing total.
Before they left, Jade also swiped the shortsword the man had been using, glad to finally have a weapon with more reach than a dagger. As she was already used to fighting with daggers she wasn't planning on making the switch to the longer blade right away, but having another weapon to practice with would be helpful. She strapped it to her back, mimicking how Luis carried his larger weapon.
"Won't that get in the way of your wings?" he asked, watching her adjust the buckles.
"…Damn it."
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They elected not to drag back the gear that belonged to Harish, Erik, and Marie, there was simply too much of it to easily carry. They left it in a pile in the former camp, intending to escort the group of wayfarers to it as soon as possible. Since the trail that they had followed to Amy and Michael's trap had been far from a straight line, Siora offered to lead them on a more direct route back to the river. They kept an eye out for monsters as they travelled, but there didn't seem to be many of them in this part of the quadrant. Jade, Luis, and Naomi followed their elven companion as she led them through the jungle with hardly a pause.
"Hey, Siora?" Luis asked, passing Jade as he jogged up alongside the alchemist. "Are you sure this is your first time here?"
The elf blinked at him.
"Of course it is."
"Then how do you know which way to go so easily?"
"It's easy. I just listen to the trees." She explained, as if that made perfect sense.
Getting away from the scene of her most recent battle helped Jade's mood, and she was able to shove down the worst of her worries. It only took them about a half hour to reach the river, although they had travelled far enough upstream that the bridge wasn't in sight. As they turned to head back down river, though, Jade noticed something glinting in the waterway.
"What's that?" she asked, shielding her eyes against the sun and pointing.
"An island?" Naomi asked, following her gaze. It was the first thing she'd said to her since they left the camp, and Jade was starting to worry that the day's events would leave a rift between them.
"Yeah, but something is on it." She replied, doing her best to act normal and knowing that it was coming off as awkward. Jade hated managing relationships, she wasn't any good at it.
"I think that's this quadrant's node!" Siora said excitedly.
Jade perked up, they had been keeping an eye out for that. Adding another node to their directory would give them more options to travel to in the future, not to mention how useful it would be to have the quadrant revealed on their maps.
"We should activate it." She said, moving in that direction.
"Wait." Luis stopped her with a raised hand. "Let's get Harish and the others first. They have that quest to find a node. If they complete it, maybe the Labyrinth will give them a break."
"Good idea." Jade said. "We'll swing by here on the way back to the camp."
"That'll give us time to figure out how to get to it." Naomi said. "It doesn't look like an easy swim."
It took them another quarter of an hour to get back to the bridge. Jade kept to the shade of the trees as often as she could, but the humid jungle heat was impossible to escape. By the time they were back at the riverside hut, all four of them were sweating profusely.
"Maybe we can cool off in the shallows later." Naomi said, looking longingly at the water. "I'm sure we smell horrid again."
"I wouldn’t recommend it." Harish said. He was sitting on a log in the shade of the hut, fashioning a long stick into a crude spear. Beside him lay the mangled corpse of one of the jungle serpents that inhabited the quadrant. "I saw a shadow of something big swimming around the bridge yesterday."
"Of course there's a river monster." Naomi sighed. "I should have known."
"Well?" Harish asked, looking over the group. His gaze lingered on Luis's new, undamaged breastplate. "Were you successful?"
"Yes. We found the two you told us about." Jade said, grimacing as images of the brutal kills flashed in her mind's eye. She continued in a cold, emotionless voice. "They won't be bothering anyone again."
"You were right." Luis added. "They had a lot of stuff, you weren't the first group they robbed."
"And if the state of some of the gear they had was anything to go by, not all of their victims walked away from the encounter."
Harish closed his eyes and bowed his head.
"That can't have been easy. I am sorry that you suffered on our account."
Jade didn't know what to say to that. He was wrong, it had been easy. That was the problem.
Who am I becoming?
"Are you ready to go?" Naomi asked, eager to move on from the subject. "We can take you there."
"But first." Luis raised a finger. "We have a stop to make."
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The trek back to the node was uneventful, and mostly consisted of Marie asking Siora dozens of questions about her home and people. Now that she was at least partially healed, the woman was much livelier. She was clearly fascinated by the elf, which seemed to puzzle Siora. Jade also noted that, upon learning that whole societies lived in the Labyrinth, their new travelling companions seemed to grow a little less fearful of their circumstances.
"That's a node?" Erik said, when they arrived at the closest point on the riverbank to the small island that held the large crystal orb. "It doesn't look like much."
Luis took a moment to explain the utility of activating nodes, including the 'fast travel' capabilities they possessed. Meanwhile, Naomi turned to Jade.
"So, how are we going to get across?"
The other woman wouldn't meet her gaze. Jade was starting to get annoyed with how she was being treated, but did her best to push those feelings aside for the moment.
The gap between the bank they stood on and the small island that held the node was only about eighty feet wide, but the fast-flowing water and numerous protruding rocks made Jade hesitate at the prospect of swimming the gap.
"I could use 'Mirage Step' to get part way across, and try to swim the rest of the way." Jade suggested unenthusiastically.
She recalled that Marie had a water related class and was about to ask her if she had anything that could help, when Siora spoke up first.
"Oh, can I try and pull something from your new bag, Jade?" The elf asked excitedly. "Maybe we'll get something that can help us!"
Jade had nearly forgotten about the bag of mystery. She removed it from her belt, handing it over.
"Go ahead." She watched with trepidation, unsure of what to expect from the strange magic pouch.
The elf wasted no time, taking the item and plunging her arm into the extradimensional space with surprising enthusiasm.
"Oh, I think I have something!" She said, struggling to pull her arm free of the container. "It's heavy…!"
* Bag of Mystery
* Roll One (Value): 98/1000 (Dubious)
* Roll Two (Appropriateness): 738/1000 (Useful)
To everyone's astonishment, Siora pulled forth an entire wooden raft from the bag's small opening. Jade watched the whole process and still wasn't sure how it happened. The raft thumped to the ground with heavy thud, apparently gaining weight only after it had fully emerged, and she had to hop back to avoid it landing on top of her. It was a simple construction, just a series of logs tied together in a square.
For a moment, they all just gaped at it.
"Where the hell did that come from?" Erik asked, incredulous.
"My magic lottery bag." Jade said, recovering from her surprise and placing a foot on the rather rickety looking raft. "So, who wants to pilot this thing with me?"
The log Jade's foot was resting on broke free of the rest of the raft with a snap. They all watched it roll down the bank and splash into the river. It drifted a short distance before smashing into a rock, splintering into tiny pieces. Slowly, everyone turned back to look at Jade. She wasn’t an expert at reading expressions, but they didn’t look very confident.
"…I’m sure it doesn't need that piece." She added helpfully.