Luna was quickly deciding that being in a group was awesome. Between her luck and Azura's, something was always bound to go wrong, but with all of them there that inevitable problem was handled swiftly and efficiently. After Siara had alerted them all about the threat, she activated her clairvoyance to find the creature, and pick the best path to avoid crossing it.
Azura’s copy ran off to distract the monster, and the rest of them ran a little faster with her directing them down the path of least resistance. Although a small part of her was a little disappointed they wouldn’t even see the creature Siara had panicked about.
“Copy is dead, that thing would have creamed us.” Suddenly she wasn’t quite so disappointed.
“Already? Yikes, what was it?!” Roran’s eyes shone with curiosity.
“It was a chimera.” They all winced. Yeah that would do it. An adult chimera’s could be anywhere from rank 6 to rank x. She was now very relieved to have dodged that bullet, although that explained why her clairvoyance could only get a distorted image. Chimera’s emit some serious miasma.
“What rank?” She was already pretty sure it was on the lower end, but she had to be sure.
“I don’t think it was fully grown, but even so it was already pretty close to rank 6. If I had to guess by how quickly my copy was pulverized anyway. The death was painless if nothing else.” How Azura could so casually mention an experience where he genuinely remembers dying she would never know.
“I feel like it’s not a good thing that you are so used to experiencing your own death.” That was a little out of character for Lily. Then again she had been really quiet so far which is just as out of character.
He shrugged. “I mean probably not, but the copies are a power of mine. I should use them to the fullest extent, it’s essentially like I have a revival power, with super specific requirements.”
She guessed by the way his brow was furrowing that Cynthia was saying something to him, but let it be. “How far do we want to go before making camp?” She could run for a while longer, but they were running out of light.”
Katy was the first to respond. “We need to put some distance between us and the chimera before setting up camp.” Yeah that was fair. Luckily it looked like Azura was almost fully recovered from whatever seemed to be ailing him earlier, but Cynthia looked like she only just now started to recover.
“Siara, are there any other big life presences in the area?” It was always impressive just how imperious Azura could make his voice. She had no doubt he would make an excellent field commander.
Siara responded quickly. “Of course there are! We are in the wildlands, there are alway powerful monsters around, but most of the actually strong ones are smart enough to avoid causing too much trouble. Otherwise they would get hunted down.”
Huh she had never really considered that before, but it made sense. Of course they would have to have survived long enough to gain that strength, so it makes sense that they would be smarter.
“Really? That’s interesting, I hadn’t realized higher rank monsters were so common that the default answer to their presence is yes.” Apparently Roran wasn’t the only one that could show some enthusiasm when learning new things.
“You were probably better off not knowing. I hate being in the wildlands without a big transport, the bigger monsters are much less likely to attack large groups than they are small ones. For the most part caravans only have to deal with lower tier monsters.” Well it seemed like adding Siara to the team was a good call.
“Makes sense, they would normally be able to handle it, between the transport weapons and the guards, but shadow panthers are more annoying than they are strong.” That made sense, those weapons didn’t do much good when their target could just slip into the shadows.
***
They finally decided to set up camp. Azura was grateful to have help setting one up this time. Roran was much better at earth magic than he was, and made a very nice house out of rock like it was nothing. He was also much more prepared this time, having brought multiple pairs of clothes and supplies for cleaning said clothes.
Frankly he thought Roran did the most work, but everyone was in awe about the rock beds he had made. He understood to an extent, they still looked like normal rock, but they were soft and squishy. He had also had Roran make a room with a basin, so people could fill it with water to take a bath.
Honestly between him and Roran they had basically made a luxury home out in the middle of the wild lands. That would normally be pretty dangerous, but he and Katy used a combo spell to hide the house from almost all outside detection. Luna and Cynthia had actually helped out quite a bit with that, vastly improving on the original spell.
Lily turned out to be an excellent cook, and made the various foods that Siara was able to gather into a surprisingly good dinner. Which was why they all currently sat down at a smooth marble table, courtesy of Roran, and comfy seats that he had made just like the beds.
“Wow you can really tell we are in the wild lands, we’re totally roughing it.” Katy rolled her eyes good naturedly at his sarcasm. The rest of them chuckled lightly.
“You know, I had never even considered doing something like this before! Something this big would definitely attract attention!” Roran’s voice was a little loud considering they were all sitting at the same table, but it wasn’t as bad as it could be.
“Yeah it’s not something I could do on my own either, it was an awesome group effort.” They all nodded along. “Still kind of feels a little wrong that we are in better conditions out here than we actually had at the academy.”
After a short laugh Luna sighed. “We probably shouldn’t get too used to it though, I know you put up security wards, but if anything really big stumbles into us we might not be able to easily escape.”
Roran’s eyes lit up. “You see, though Azura and I planned for that! He set enchantments into the wards, so certain things will happen if the ward is breached! We’ll all be sucked into the ground and dumped into a subterranean cavern we found when setting everything up. After that we can make our daring escape!”
He sighed, Roran was a great teammate and study partner for sure, but he was so loud sometimes. “Hey my head still hurts a little from that unexpected resonance, is yours still hurting?”
He zoned out of the conversation; the rest of them were having to focus on the link Cynthia had opened. “No, I feel fine. Maybe you should turn in early tonight. We definitely can’t have our healer out of commission.”
He had never had Cynthia laugh a little while they were linked. It was interesting to say the least. It was like it was there but it wasn’t, a tinkling of bells that he knew was there but couldn’t quite hear. But he felt her mirth in his head. It was an interesting experience if nothing else. “Somehow I think you guys would manage, but I think I’ll take your advice.”
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He assumed she connected to everyone else to let them know she was going to bed, because everyone else nodded as she left for her room. “I think I’m going to head in a little early too” Lily said softly as she headed to her room.
“You know I was regretting joining this team for a bit when the chimera got close, but this is awesome. I’ve never felt safer sleeping in the wild lands… Although admittedly that’s a pretty low bar.” Siara seemed to be in a much better mood than she was during their trek.
“I think I’ve just grown used to expecting ridiculous things with this crew.” Luna gave a serene smile, and put her hand over her heart. He winced, he hadn’t actually thought about her curse. This trip would definitely be a risk for her, but she has managed to maintain a fairly good mood so far, so her curse hasn’t acted up yet. All he could do was hope that trend continued.
“I mean with luck like ours, we need a team at least this ridiculous or we would be doomed.” Him and Luna smiled at each other.
Roran interrupted the moment of solidarity with a loud laugh. “Yeah that’s probably true, I genuinely can’t tell which of you two has it worse. Azura has had to deal with an elemental, and a true dragon, but being cursed may be enough to be worse than both of those combined!” Wow, that was surprisingly morbid. He didn’t even know Roran could do morbid.
“I think she wins there, the worst that could have happened to me is death, with curses you can’t always be so sure.” Although he supposed Roran probably knew that better than anyone, but his curse didn’t seem to weigh on him too heavily.
“What would have happened if you hadn’t locked my curse?” She didn’t look worried, just curious. She was definitely braver than he was.
He didn’t want to tell her though. If her curse finished its course she would have a fate much worse than death. Frankly if he had been hit with a curse like that, part of him felt like he would just immediately kill himself to avoid the risk. “I’m not too sure, but it doesn’t look nice.” The lie was harmless, in fact it was better she didn’t know. It would only stress her out.
***
Thankfully when Cynthia woke up she felt completely recovered from the splitting headache the resonance had caused her. She was the last one to use the basin in their improvised washroom, but it was pretty cool to have all these amenities in the wildlands. Oddly enough though she felt it was a little sad how quickly they demolished it.
It had taken them hours and several team efforts to get it all set up, but Roran and Azura had it cleared in barely a minute. As if they were never here. “Well… that was a little anticlimactic.” Lily looked better than she had yesterday, Cynthia was definitely glad about that. Quiet Lily was a little disconcerting if she was being honest.
Azura shrugged. “Destruction is always easier than creation, just how the world works.” She understood that, but it was still a little sad. It takes a lot of time and effort to create something beautiful, but almost no time at all to destroy it.
“We should probably get a move on, we have lots of ground to cover.” Luna’s eyes glowed briefly, to check the area she presumed.
Azura nodded. “Good call, let’s head out.” So they did. Azura set a pretty fast pace, but he was conscious of the abilities of the weaker members in the team so his pace wasn’t something she couldn’t keep up with.
She felt now was a good time for them to talk about that resonance a little more. “Hey Azura, do you have any ideas what caused that resonance?” She could feel his thinking, but he was keeping it properly shielded until he had his words carefully chosen.
“My copies are still a part of me, but they’re also separate. Perhaps you connected to me as a being, but as long as I have active copies I’m one being with multiple brains. My guess is that your words went to both me and my copy, but we also heard the one that went to the other. That might lead to an echo effect that would go back at you from both sides.”
She nodded, she genuinely wasn’t sure who knew more about magic between Roran and Azura. She would never let this slip to Roran, but she was leaning towards Azura. Roran had been alive longer, but Azura had copies and a lot more study materials.
Roran definitely couldn’t read minds, but he always seemed to know when she was thinking something about him that could even vaguely be called not good. He looked back at her from his position a little ahead and stuck out his tongue at her.
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t bother linking to him for now. She just wanted to mull over Azura’s theory for their resonance. If they found a way to immunize themselves to it, they could make it a pretty devastating mental attack. She linked up to Azura again. “Do you think we could immunize ourselves to our resonance?”
“You thinking about using it offensively?” She shouldn’t be, but she was a little surprised he caught onto her line of thought so quickly. Apparently he correctly took her lack of response as an answer. “It’s a good idea, but frankly I’m not looking forward to the practice that is going to entail.”
She winced, and then giggled silently. He had a point, it wasn’t the most severe pain she had ever been in, but she had also cut it off immediately and only did it once. “Even if we can’t make it into an attack, it’s still a good idea to get a handle on it. Otherwise we can’t communicate when you have your copies manifested.” She felt it as his thoughts whirled around his head.
“We could always pick up sign language.” She giggled a little, she could tell he meant it as a joke, but it had some merit.
“Actually I already know sign language… I could teach you if you want.” Azura was a teacher through and through. He had helped everyone else in the party at least once with some pretty tough questions, but she was a little shy when offering to teach him something. She didn’t think she would be very good at teaching.
She felt his surprise, but didn’t know if he was surprised about the offer, or the fact she knew sign language. “In hindsight I should have known that having only your telepathy as a means of communication wouldn’t have been a very good idea” He paused for a second to think on her offer. “Actually another means of silent communication is a pretty good idea, do you think you could teach the whole party?”
She wasn’t sure about the whole party. She had tried to teach Roran once, but it didn’t hold his interest and he constantly forgot the signs. “I don’t know, I’m not really a great teacher.” She was actually really impressed when she saw Azura casually chatting with Roran and Luna even while they were having their own conversation.
“I can play teacher’s aid if you want. You can show me everything first, and I’ll help you teach it to the other’s.” That would probably work. “If that works for you we can start lessons tonight after we make camp again.”
“Sounds good.” She broke the connection after sending her affirmative. She was going to spend the rest of the day psyching herself up.
***
Azura was a little surprised at how complex sign language was. They had managed to get their camp set up much faster this time since they had some extra practice. He had quickly come to the conclusion that the issue wasn’t that Cynthia was a bad teacher, well she was, but only because she didn’t realize how difficult sign language actually was. It was second nature to her, so she expected people to get it after only a couple of tries.
He didn’t mind though, that meant this was a trade. He was teaching her how to teach and she was teaching him how to sign. He helped her turn it into a bit of a game, he learned the letters first, and then he would sign the letters for a word and she would show him the sign for that word. That gave him plenty of practice using the letters, and taught him words at the same time.
It also kind of helped that the words were literally implanted directly into his head via her telepathy. So the lessons stuck better than verbal ones. He was actually rather enjoying the lessons. “Hey Cynthia where did you run off to?!” They both turned to see Roran peak his head through the door with a huge smile on his face.
“Oh I see! That’s cool of you to try and learn sign!” Roran then proceeded to pout like a child. “Fair warning though, it’s like super hard! There’s so many to remember, and way less opportunities to practice!” Roran was great, but they really needed to teach him about having an inside voice.
He noticed that Cynthia hadn’t broken the link yet. You think if we hit him with our resonance it would teach him the value of an inside voice?” He didn’t react to the mirth he felt through the link. “Yeah it’s a lot, but I figure it would be a good idea to have a method of talking to each other that would be a bit more private in public.”
Roran groaned. “That means the rest of us are going to have to learn it too doesn’t it?” His head drooped at each word out of his mouth.
Azura laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “‘Fraid so.”