Azura was thrilled, after what felt like forever Katy and him had finally finished all the paperwork required for them to leave the kingdom of Delford. The grand walls were a sight to see standing well over 50 yards tall. It’s especially impressive when he thinks about how this wall surrounds the entirety of the kingdom. But with the wall at their backs and vast plains ahead they were finally ready to get started. “Ready to go?”
Katy looked towards him; she looked perfectly calm, if not for the small twitch of her lips upward.” I may not look it, but I’m as excited as you are. Come on, let's go.” She began walking forward, he quickly followed suit and began walking beside her.
“Just remember there will be beasts and monsters so be ready to fight at all times.” His smile dropped as his expression became serious. Her’s followed suit and she nodded. Her tunic was white and had the sleeves ripped off so she could move her arms easier. Her trousers were black, and to finish it off she wore a pair of boots suited for difficult terrain. She had 2 daggers facing opposite directions held to the small of her back by her belt.
His clothing looked less practical, but looks could be deceiving. He simply wore a royal blue tunic with matching trousers and a white surcoat, along with boots not much different from Katy’s. He had had these prepared for when he got to leave. The lack of silver actually had a purpose, that purpose being if he had shiny patterns on all his clothes he would attract too much monster attention.
Many would probably think it strange that he wore armor, but not enough to be considered armored. All he had was a chestplate and 2 vambraces. Those people of course wouldn’t know that these were not merely simple pieces of armor. A black case was attached to the back of his waist with his bow attached to the top. On his left hip his leather journal rested. He had left his ancestors' journal back in the secret study, even added a few tips of his own.
“At least we can see really far in every direction so they can’t catch us by surprise.” As if not trusting her own words she was tensing up as she looked around.
“Unfortunately the plains don’t last very long. Only a few miles. And monsters aren't going to be this close to the wall, we won’t have to worry about it until we get to the man-eating woods.” She looked at him in terror. He immediately tried to placate her “Which aren’t as scary as they sound. They are called that because The trees can absorb nutrients from dead things to make them decompose, and if you sleep right next to them they will try to absorb nutrients from you. Not to worry though, their roots are relatively fragile and they would definitely wake you up in the attempt, so breaking free is relatively easy.” She calmed down but was still a little stiff.
“Suddenly I feel like we should have just taken the airship. I know you don’t want to use your father’s money and that would have been a cop out, but even trees are enemies out here. That’s pretty horrifying.” If nothing else it looked like complaining was helping her calm down.
“Relax, we’ll be fine. The trees aren’t dangerous so long as we’re careful and even if we mess up all we stand to lose is sleep. Actual monsters can be dangerous but most of them aren’t particularly mobile so escape shouldn’t be too difficult.” He placed his hand on his journal “And, worse case scenario, I have a trump card to insure our safety. Though I really hope I don’t have to use it.” She unstiffened a little with his reassurance.
“If I get eaten by a tree, I’ll haunt you till the day you die.” She was using humor to distract herself. Not a bad strategy, he used it often.
“Good. I’ll hold you to that.” He smiled at her. She huffed and looked away indignantly. He just laughed a little. The atmosphere was lighter now than it was earlier. He was glad she felt better now, if not maybe a little frustrated. Besides it wasn’t even a lie, even with all the people in the castle, he was always alone. The way his father wanted him to be, because to succeed you could only ever rely on yourself. That was his father’s view anyway.
“So how dangerous is this “Man-eating Forest” anyway?” She made air quotes around the name of the forest.
***
After chatting amicably for a while about the dangers of the forest, they had arrived at its entrance. There wasn’t much in the way of development outside of the kingdoms themselves, so there were no roads or even a dirt path. Just trees that while sparse now grew much denser right in front of them. The entrance way to the forest proper. Azura would never admit it, but even he was feeling a little nervous.
“Could we take a detour around it?” Katy was the first to break the silence. If he had to guess she was probably actually afraid. She never did do well with horror stories.
“We could, but it would waste a lot of time. I’m not sure we could make it to the academy in time if we did.” Her expression fell. He patted her back sympathetically. “If it helps, most of the monsters in this forest will attack us out right, not sneak around in the shadows.”
“You promise? If this forest is haunted, I will never forgive you.” She was such a strange girl. Deadly monsters attacking, who cares? But ghosts or creeping dangers like the trees, and she acted like a little girl afraid of her shadow. Then again he supposed his fear of ravens wasn’t much different.
“I promise, so just relax. We’ve got this.” He made sure to sound extra confident. She nodded agreement and they began to venture into the denser trees. He frowned, he had been so excited to go to the academy and be free of his father. However it had just occurred to him that they would have to sleep in the forest. “Hey Katy, did you by chance bring a tent?”
Her eyes snapped towards him. “Oh no, did you seriously not bring anything? You have been planning this for years!” She looked at him in disbelief.
“Hey I’ve never actually traveled anywhere before, the only reason I even know about tents is from a few books I’ve read.” He was admittedly a little frantic, but he felt that was fair given how dirty sleeping out in the woods must be. Not to mention all the bugs, animals, and monsters they might have to deal with. A magic tent was probably just short of a necessity and he hadn’t even considered it until now.
She sighed wearily. “Then I guess we will have to sleep out in the open, because in case you haven’t noticed I don’t exactly have a pack.”
He groaned. “I’ll think of something. There is no way I’m sleeping on the dirt.” He hated dirt, it made a mess of his pristine clothes. It even stubbornly refused to fall off his armor and weapons. He considered his options. It would cost some mana but a tent of ice would work, be kind of cold though.
Katy raised her eyebrow. “Really you’re freaked out about sleeping in the dirt? You don’t seem to mind getting dirty in our spars.”
“Well yeah, it's not a big deal if I can clean up immediately after, but I’m not going to be able to do that until we get to the academy.” If anything she just looked more confused.
“So? A little dirt never hurt anybody.” He didn’t even know how to respond to that.
“It won’t physically hurt but I will certainly not enjoy it.” Commoners were weird sometimes. How could they just act like being dirty for days on end was fine. He would start to feel disgusting after less than a day.
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“Don’t be so dramatic. You’ll live,”
***
They had made a decent amount of progress into the forest. The forest was too dense for the sun to be in view, but based on the amount of light filtering through the leaves It was almost night. They had luckily avoided any monsters so far, but even just the walking was starting to tire them out. He made a circle in front of him with his hand, a silver clock appearing.
“Alright, we should probably rest here for the night.” They could probably walk a little further, but he was tired, and more importantly he needed time to come up with some form of shelter. He could use ice, or rock but that wouldn’t be particularly comfortable. “Hmm any ideas for shelter?” Maybe she would have a good idea.
“I don’t see what the big deal is, use something to keep the trees from us and that's good enough for me.” Of course she wouldn’t have an idea, she doesn’t care. He sighed and extended his sword with glowing silver symbols all along the sides and through the center. A wave of ruddy orange from the gauntlet going through the symbols making them give off a matching glow.. He plunged it into the ground and rocks began growing 30 feet away in every direction, creating a dome of rock around them.
“What?! If you could just do that what have you even been complaining about?” Katy looked at him mildly annoyed.
“What do you mean? My issue has been sleeping in the dirt and I don't imagine a rock bed would be very comfortable.” She sure was strange sometimes. Her eyes were twitching for some reason, he wondered why.
“Then why were you asking about a tent? Wouldn't a sleeping bag have been fine?”
“A sleeping bag? That doesn’t make any sense, bags aren’t very comfortable either.” He sent her a confused glance. A bag for sleeping, what a weird concept. Her twitching intensified.
“You know what, I'm just going to sleep. Good night.” She plopped onto the ground right then and there and closed her eyes.
“Fine whatever I’ll figure something out.” He put his hand on his journal for a second before removing it. No even he could acknowledge that using that was beyond wasteful. He looked around their little dome while it should be pitch black a soft orange glow suffused the rocks. There was nothing here. He sighed, guess he would have to use a rock bed after all.
His eyes lit up with an idea as his sword once again extended. “Of course I can just enchant it to be softer.” His sword began to glow once more, this time he barely tapped the ground before a stone slab appeared. He put extra focus into making it flat. He detached his black case and took out what appeared to be a silver pen. He removed his armor and then began etching glowing blue symbols into the stone. They would turn silver once he finished the enchantment.
***
“You look awful. Did you sleep at all last night?” Katy gave him a concerned glance.
“It occurred to me that I’ve never enchanted anything to be softer before. It took me a lot of trial and error. So in answer to your question. No.” He was looking longingly at the soft rock it had taken him all night to make. After all that effort he wasn’t even going to be able to sleep on it.
“You.. are you an idiot? You spent all night trying to make a rock soft? The grass and dirt are already plenty soft. Look I didn’t even get all that dirty.” Her voice made her exasperation clear.
He looked at her. It was true for the most part but he could see some of the dirt that stuck to her back. “Look I’m tired and we have to get a move on. Can we drop it? You can make fun of me tonight when I have a soft bed and you sleep in the grass and dirt.” He stuck out his tongue petulantly.
She rolled her eyes at him. “At least I won’t be half dead from lack of sleep by then.” Her sarcasm was thick.
He decided that this wasn’t going anywhere and turned to the rock dome. His sword extended symbols glowing a deep blue, with electricity sparking around it this time. He thrust forward and a blue flash followed by loud thunder followed. The dome exploded outward raining small rocks no bigger than pebbles everywhere. He blinked once,.... twice “oops.” Several menacing roars began to sound from all around them.
“What was that?! Every monster in the forest had to have heard that?! Are you trying to get us killed?!” She was frantic. Her shouting was heard even over his ringing ears from being right next to the lightning he produced.
“It was an accident! I used more mana than I meant to.” While that had woken him up, he realized he must have been more tired than he thought. His control had slipped and he supplied far more mana than he meant to. His goal had been a small piercing attack so that he could weaken the foundation, not a magic lightning strike.
“Well accident or not we need to get moving, now!” She frantically started attaching her daggers to her belt.
He started grabbing his equipment as well. “Well at least this trip won’t be boring.” His voice was strained. Not even he believed what he was saying. He finished fastening his vambraces. He clicked his bow into place on the black case.
“Are you ready? Hurry up, we need to move, and fast.” She was frantically looking in every direction, trying to identify any threats.
“Ok I’m ready. Let’s get going.” As if they had a choice. They started running as fast as they could using mana to enhance their muscles so they could go faster than any normal person could. The forest was so dense a straight line just wasn’t feasible. They had to dodge past roots, rocks, animals, and even some lizard monsters as big as they were.
As they were running, ear splitting roars could be heard. While he was confident in their odds against any known monsters in this forest he had no idea how many the thunder clap from his spell attracted. “On the bright side, most of the smaller monsters are running away from us.” He was reaching for a silver lining but it wasn’t untrue.
“Great. Only the big dangerous ones are hunting us down.” He winced at her scathing response.
“Oops?” His unsure response seemed to only aggravate her further. She started moving faster, he was struggling to keep up. In terms of pure speed they were fairly even, but her agility and maneuverability far outstripped his. She was starting to get too far ahead of him, if they got separated this situation would only get more dangerous. She was probably stubborn enough to do it anyway.
“Ok fine, you win. I’m sorry, I should have just slept in the dirt. Now slow down! I can’t keep up like this.” She fell back matching his pace, a smug expression on her face.
“See, was that so hard?”
“You’re so petty.” He wasn't offset by it, he was used to it by now. That didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying, but it was easy enough to deal with. “Just wait one of these days that’s going to bite you when you aren’t with someone as easy going as I am.” She laughed.
“If I was with someone else they wouldn’t have gotten the chance to apologise for being stubborn. I would have just left them to distract the monsters for me.” He wasn’t quite sure if she was kidding or not but decided to respond like she was.
“I am truly blessed with your kindness.” One thing they had in common was their constant use of sarcasm. She just stuck her tongue out at him in response. His eyes widened. Glowing green symbols appeared on his right vambrace as a strong gust of wind launched out of the opening knocking Katy out of the way of a blast of fire coming from behind.
She caught herself on a tree branch and launched forward to catch up with him. “And so the monsters begin to catch up.” She looked behind them looking for the threat. He had already seen it. It was a salamander type monster. It was essentially a huge lizard that breathed fire. The fireball had impacted a tree causing a wildfire to start rapidly spreading.
“Technically it's not catching up but rather we passed it. If we keep this pace we should lose it quickly.” Suddenly a wave of water came rushing to him towards the fire chasing them from behind. He didn’t have time to dodge, he prepared to block it when a rope wrapped around his waist. He was then launched clear over the wave and through many branches, luckily he raised a mana shield in preparation for the wave so he was undamaged but he was now falling towards the ground at a rapid pace.
“We need to keep moving! We can’t afford to slow down!” Her voice brought him back to his senses and he managed a roll to soften his landing. The rope unwrapped and was pulled quickly back into Katy’s hand. They kept running both of their senses on high alert.
“What was that?! That water came out of nowhere!” He was looking around rapidly. He could barely see the salamander struggling against what looked like living water. “You have got to be kidding! Is that a corrupted water spirit!? The odds of that are so astronomically small, I should have known it would happen.” His bad luck was a known quantity at this point.
“All the more reason for us to get away from here as fast as possible, while it’s distracted.” He looked backwards, the salamander and the water was out of sight. They didn’t stop running.