The night grew darker as I kept reading and my eyes could no longer follow the script in the loose papers the mute woman had given me. I found contradictions in the writing and some of the names written there where not as shitty as the ones I had previously heard. For example there was this guy named Cain, he didn’t seem that bad.

I couldn’t finish the story, I think it was set in a place called Genesis. But again I didn’t really understand any of it.

We woke up the next morning and resumed our trek through the snowy mountain, Drógar led the party following the footsteps of the adventurers that had come before us.

“Why are we even bothering to go look for the mountain, even if we get there at least a thousand others have been there before us?” I asked the group a little bit annoyed. Alfar took it upon himself to answer.

“We still don’t know if they’ve succeeded. We have to look for ourselves before we decided what course of action we’ll take next. You, on the other hand, should be thinking on how we will grow olive trees on the mountain, instead of nagging us with your questions.”

I felt a little angry at his depiction of my questions and looked for support from Cora.

“He’s right, you nag too much, you should be thinking about planting olive trees.”

I gave her a rude gesture with my hand and she responded in kind. I really liked the blonde.

Thinking about how I would be planting trees in a fake mountain, I kept on walking with the group. I remembered the papers I had read the night before and even though the north was mentioned a few times in the script, so was the south, the east and the west.

Clearly the south was all negative, and the west was considered dark, but the east was also a place of light. Apparently the Genesis place I’d been reading about faced east, I wasn’t much of a thinker but I thought it had something to do with the sun rising from the east.

I would ask Samuela later, she would probably be kneeling at night again.

We made camp that night at the top of the mountain, the trek had been an arduous one but tomorrow we would be descending making it easier on our stamina but harder on our knees. I decided to join Drógar and the other three men in our party, they were playing a card game.

“Fulmar, Usok, Alfar, we’ll be playing Heaven Stone tonight, you know the rules.” The rogue told the group of men gathered around him. I hated, and I repeat, I hated card games.

Everyone I’d met always told me, it has to do with ability Kami, it’s not all about luck. But I didn’t believe that bullshit. Every time you needed an answer to a card played by your opponent you never had it, and every time the opponent needed a card to trample your strategy he ALWAYS got it.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I had been banned from playing cards at the academy in my younger years, I always burned everything to the ground.

There weren’t many fire adepts those days, and I don’t believe there are many now, but I was either being cheated or luck wasn’t on my side. There was a saying at the academy while I studied there “Lucky in love, Unlucky at the game.” I hated that saying, because I hadn’t had any luck in love, and sure wasn’t having any luck in the game.

They all called me a sore loser, sore was how they felt after I burned them with my fire.

I wasn’t sure they were cheating but, god damn, how many times can you lose to the same bullshit and not chant foul play?

I stood far away from the game so as to not show my emotions to the rest of the party and I watched as Drógar always had the answer to everything. I liked the rogue but he was winning way too often.

“Don’t you think he is cheating you?” I asked the other three men in the circle.

“You don’t understand how the game is played farmer.” Fulmar answered my way with a sneer, I knew that sneer fairly well, it was the face you had when you were losing every time.

I shrugged his answer away and made my way to the fire, I would be reading a little longer, maybe I would find something useful in the scriptures about growing olive trees on a fake mountain.

The fire seeped into my bones as I sat next to the burning logs and I felt at ease as I read about Cain and Able, fairly reasonable names if you asked me. I was so entranced by the reading that I didn’t notice the two women in our party sit next to me.

“Having fun?” Cora asked me, I noticed she had blue eyes for the first time.

“I don’t know if you would call it fun, but I’m not bored.” She nodded.

“Samuela wanted me to ask you what you’ve thought of the writings.” The mute woman nodded vigorously next to her big friend.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet” I answered both of them as I shuffled the papers to find a specific passage I’d read yesterday.

“That same guy, Ezekiel talks about the saving presence of God, being to the East.” Samuela nodded in appreciation, she nudged Cora to explain.

“What you’ve found is true, farmer, there are two school of thoughts now of where to find Jesus, but the truth of the matter is no one is really sure. It is either to the North or to the East, but in both there will have to be a mountain and it will have to be filled with olives for Jesus’ appearance.”

I nodded towards both women, even though I didn’t hear one word of what they’d said. For some reason the fire next to us was dancing around making the shape of the flaming bush, so whatever they said went through one ear and out the other.

I called upon fire and the flames appeared in my hand.

“What are you doing?” Cora yelled at me. “You are scaring Samuela!” I saw the mute woman cower next to her friend and I gave her a small smile. “Don’t worry I thought I saw something in the fire. Are you afraid of fire?”

She nodded vigorously. I looked at Cora for an answer and she mouthed Later to me. I nodded and swept the fire away from my hands.

I stood up to leave and I told Cora I would find her later that night. Samuela looked at us disapprovingly, I shrugged it off and went to look at the men still playing their game of Haven Stone, Fulmar, Usok and Alfar had lost a lot of money and Drógar just smiled at their displeasure.

“So, having any luck winning boys?” I asked the angry trio.

“SHUT UP FARMER!” the three of them shouted in unison.

I smiled at Drógar. I should really burn those cards.