The waves below her passed by in a steady stream, pulling up a frothy white foam as the front of the boat punched through the ocean waves. She wore no armor at the moment, short brown hair free in the pressing wind of their speedy travel. Perhaps it was the thin opal shard dangling from her neck that kept the sailors away, although it could have been the scowl she shot towards everyone who came near her. Everyone until the person approaching her now at least.
“Laura. I didn't take you for the sightseeing type.” A voice called out from behind her.
Major Connely turned around halfway to face the man as she put her back to the railing she had been looking over.
“And I'm just as surprised I ever see you below deck when the sun is out Trevor.”
“A man’s gotta eat sometime don't you know?”
The man grinned back at her, green eyes shining in the daylight under wispy strands of blonde hair. He was smaller than Connely, but that only made him just about average by a normal person's standards. Even at a height disadvantage as he was, the man met her gaze easily as he walked up to lean on the opposite railing across from her.
“But why spend time indoors when we can enjoy the sun for just a couple of days?” He asked.
Connely took in the man as she looked over the well tanned muscles of his shirtless chest with only a hint of a red sun-kissed look on his shoulders and cheeks. It was fairly self-evident just by looking at the man that he had often spent his days out in the sun, even before they had started on this journey.
“I guess I just haven't had much time to take in the weather recently, Trev.”
He shrugged, turning away from her slightly to look out on the waves.
“Sure, and how much good has that work been treating you Laura?”
“It's had its ups and downs, you know that. But as long as I serve the crown..” She trailed off.
“The crown huh? Not everything you thought it would be?”
Connely whirled on Trevor but he continued on. “I don't mean it like that, but what are we really doing out here? Supporting some specter of death? Just what is he thinking?”
“The Monarch is said to think beyond that which-”
“I’ve listened to the scriptures already Laura.” He turned to face her again. “We both know that the Monarch started out as just a man. Just like this girl seems like a a bit of a ditz until she goes on a killing rampage. What happens when she gets powerful enough that the Golden Kingdom can't stop her?”
“He won't let it get that far.” Connely said.
Green eyes looked up at her as Trevor searched for something in her face. Perhaps he saw the set in her jaw or the angle of her shoulders cutting into the wind, because he raised his hands in defeat after a few moments.
“You know I'll follow you anywhere Laura. We all will. I just hope we're fighting for the right side.”
Connely had nothing to say to that. The two of them turned to face the front of the ship, staring out into the oncoming waves.
—
Clink, clink, clink, clink!
A heavy ratcheting sound echoed throughout the hull as something audibly moved from below the deck of the ship. A soft thud could be felt more than heard throughout the ship, then all the boards of wood seemed to groan as the ship sounded like it was resisting some great force upon it.
From within the small cabin Dei's squad had taken up residence in it was hard to tell exactly what was happening until John went out above deck for a few quick seconds to check. When he returned with wet spray across his head and shoulders, he had a smile from ear to ear across his face.
“We've hit land! Time for us to get off this thing.”
The group started gathering their bags, stuffing anything they had left out over the last couple days into place. Dei rolled out of her hammock lazily, at least having gotten a little bit more talented getting in and out of it over the last couple days. A small purple flame skittered across the floor from a small hole that Fei had found connecting their room to the main cabin area shortly after she started using the new form. When Fei leapt handily into one of the side pockets of their travel bag and the familiar essence rejoined Dei in the main body it felt like a long lost limb had come back to the girl.
‘You know you don't always have to be here, right?’ Dei asked.
‘Well I'll take that under consideration the next time you're being so boring.’
Dei smiled to herself, and Fei responded like she could feel the emotions between their link.
“You just prefer letting someone else do the piloting.’
Dei thought that was ironic since they had taken to using verbal commands with their own body shortly after Xei had started experimenting with it on his. No point in controlling every single footstep when you could automate it with a decent command, but having Fei around was certainly still useful. Between the two of them it made awkward movements easy, like when they pulled up their sack to swing it onto their back with a single fluid motion. Both arms slipped into place and Dei pulled her customary mask out of a pocket to put it back on before they went up deck.
The short walk up to the deck was an interesting experience as many of the other passengers on the boat double-taked at the girl whenever she came by. She hadn't really left the room at the back of the boat during the entire trip, content to merely play with the wide variety of automatons she kept in her bag as she finally had a chance to spend several days unmasked. Still, whispers seemed to follow her everywhere she went, flanked by Xei and Matthew as they made their way upstairs.
She opened the trap door leading to the deck, letting the sounds of the rainwater wash away the voices that followed her through the wooden halls. It was peaceful out here, despite the concerned look on the sailors faces as they looked to the sky.
The ship’s captain walked over to their group soon after they left the undercroft, motioning towards a nearby railing.
“Right over here please, I want to get you lot back on dry land before the rain starts making this process any harder.”
As Dei approached the railing she started to notice a rope ladder hanging over the edge leading to a small row boat below. Two of the sailors were sitting at the oars already while a third man dipped down with a bucket to bail out water every couple of seconds.
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Armed with only the single bag she kept on her back, Dei easily leapt over the ledge onto the rope ladder and started climbing down. It wasn't that she hadn't enjoyed getting a free ride across the ocean, it's just that whatever came next was going to be so much more interesting.
The rest of her companions quickly joined her before the sailors began rowing their way to the lands of the Princedom.
—
The ground felt unstable beneath her feet now that Dei was walking about on the gravel breach in the rain. It had taken them a total of six more trips back and forth on the small row boat before the entire unit was safely back on solid land again. Dei saw a shock of red hair aboard the boat wave to his men and the soft ratcheting of the heavy anchor could barely be heard across the waves as the ‘Stingray’ left the expedition behind.
The short rocky beach led up to a slope that gradually increased in pitch until it was practically a cliff of hard packed dirt. Shortly down from where they landed it looked like there was a cutout in the cliffside where a small stream of water from the day's rainfall was opening out into the ocean on their left.
Major Connely barked a couple of commands as the group shifted into a vaguely diamond shaped formation as they started walking forward. Two or three arcanists gathered at each of the corners while the more heavy set soldiers manned the lines after they took the time to don their armor. All in all, Dei thought they looked like a rather professional looking group of soldiers as Dei's own group of companions naturally fell into the center of the formation with the Major.
They followed the shallow cutout from the cliff sides, slowly getting a look at the area around them as they made it to higher ground. Rolling hills spread off into the distance as the horizon was tinged with the gray color of rain clouds moving across the landscape. A few patches of woods could be seen here and there, but the overwhelming majority of the landscape was tall green grass, laid down in the wind and the rain.
No one slowed as the rock and dirt of the beach opened up into shin high vegetation, and the group started cutting across the open expanse that lay before them, heading north east. Connely spoke to the group as they continued walking.
“Aaron should have dropped us off about twenty miles away from the Capital city of Midton so we'll be heading towards the nearby forest to make camp before continuing further. It should be about five hours walk from here before we stop for the night.”
“Five hours walk in full kit?” John asked.
Connely nodded, “We do what we must.”
—
The journey passed in near silence as the formation around them watched with attentive eyes in all directions. After the first couple of miles they started seeing a couple scattered farms, which the group gave a wide berth. They cut across muddy paths through the hills that looked like they were worn down with the travel of the local farmers, skirting the more obvious routes to stay out of sight.
Night had already fallen as they hit an outcropping of trees that revealed itself to be much larger than it appeared from far away. There was hardly any light from above as the cloud covered sky obscured the woods in almost complete darkness. The team moved onward regardless, trusting in the faint echoes of light that gave them just barely something to see with. The trees were strange here, consisting of white bark that was easily visible even in the darkness and looked like it was practically peeling away from the grayer inside of the tree's surface.
The soldiers were starting to make quite a lot of noise, dry leaves crunching underfoot as they weaved in and out of the thin trees trying to stay in formation. So when the Major finally called for them to halt, the sudden soundless pause allowed Dei to finally hear the calls of nature around them. A soft wind shook the multicolored leaves above them, covering the unit in a soft rustle of noise punctuated by an occasional hoot of an owl in the distance.
When nothing stirred in the area for a good thirty seconds and several men came in to report that their lines couldn't see any movement, the Major finally allowed the group to settle down for the night. The soldiers paired up immediately as one man got to work setting out a meager sleeping roll while the other remained on watch from a kneeling position.
For her own group it was a rather awkward transition, much less jovial than they normally were at the end of a day of travel; her companions remained silent as they followed the cue from the soldiers around them and kept their mouths shut. Major Connely shot Matthew a shake of her head when he pulled out a set of flint and steel, and the old man's shoulders slumped visibly as they all settled in for a long dark night in their sleeping bags.
—
Staying up as she typically did, Dei watched as the soldiers around them remained in paired groups for the rest of the night, one man out of every two always on watch out into the dark silhouettes of white trees. She decided to look out into the night at the small white outlines of animal skeletons that lay sleeping in the distance, scattered throughout the forest. As she looked further out, Dei noticed a group of perhaps thirty human skeletons that looked like they were half a mile away from the formation. Most of them were lying in place, while a certain few walked about aimlessly or sat in place, hovering in the air from Dei's perspective in a small circle facing each other.
She started to walk away from the center of the formation before Connely stopped her.
“And where are you going?”
Dei turned to look at the woman and shrugged. The Major merely continued to look at the girl, slowly getting up from her seat where she had been resting against one of the nearby trees.
“Well you’re not going alone.”
Dei hardly waited before she turned to continue walking out of the formation, Xei and Connely in tow as several soldiers on guard watched them walk out into the forest. The ground slowly led them uphill as the trio made their way through the eerily dark night punctuated by the constant crunching of leaves underfoot.
‘Don't suppose we'll end up surprising them will we?’ Xei said.
‘Well, maybe it won't even matter. Not everyone we meet has to turn into a fight.’ Fei replied.
‘Yep, cause we're definitely walking up to a random group of strangers in the middle of the night to make friends.’
After a couple minutes of walking they approached the first couple of bodies visible to her spectral sight. She saw them look around, shuffling in anxiety despite the fact she couldn't see them with her physical sight.
‘They must be able to hear us.’ Dei thought. Most of the skeletons she saw were slightly underneath the ground, making Dei assume that there must be a cave entrance somewhere in the area. She decided to search in the direction the guards were facing, scanning the ground with her eyes as she walked around the area. Instead of searching too hard at the open tracts of land, Dei felt herself getting drawn to one particularly large tree as a massive brown oak stood out from the rest of the forest.
After walking around the tree a single time Dei couldn't seem to find anything interesting in the area until Connely stopped following her. The large Major got into a squatting position as she pulled on a couple of thick roots to reveal a hole that extended diagonally into the ground. She let go of one of the roots, letting it snap back into place as the tension on the wood was released, quickly explaining how the hole was so well hidden considering the flexible wood.
Connely pulled the roots back once again before a soft gray glow emanated from the insides of her armored neckline. A dull black gray sheen passed over the roots, extending first from the Major's hands, and spreading out to leave the rest of the roots in a similar state. When she finally released them, the roots no longer swung back into place immediately, instead drooping down and outward like the gray tinted portion of the root was being weighed down to the ground.
Dei slipped into the open hole as the Major ushered her forward with her hands, and the slim skeleton fit easily through the small opening in the ground. Half crouched, Dei had to shimmy herself down the shaft, bending around larger rocks and meandering roots that broke up the well made tunnel downward. Flashes of blue and purple light coming from the cracks in her clothing lit the shaft in strange ways as she shifted down the dirt enclosure, a similar orange light shining from behind her as Xei followed her down.
Near the end of the shaft it opened up into a clean cut hole in the ground. Looking below the hole, Dei could see that a ladder had been pulled to the side and set on the ground as a ten to twelve foot drop separated her from the floor of the room below. A faint light emanated from the side of the room, out of sight and flickering like a small campfire in the direction of the twin skeletal guards that held up their arms wardingly toward the hole in Dei's spectral sight.
Dei hardly cared about the lack of a ladder as she dropped down into the room beyond and landed with a sharp crack as her weary bones protested the fact she chose to stick the landing instead of rolling through it. Fei reknit some of the more fragile joints that had suffered more damage from the fall as someone charged at her from the side of the room.