“Alright, so from here it should take about three weeks to make it to Ara if everything goes as planned,” Richard said, as he followed his finger along the route he was planning to take, showing the entire party.
Everyone shook their heads in understanding at his words.
We were currently making our way through the woods and Richard was giving details as we walked.
The formation he and I made placed him in the front of the group so that he could explain things and give orders, yes, but for plenty of other reasons as well. Apparently, he was physically strong enough to hold his own with Chark, who was the team's tank.
Following behind them was Lizzy. Her being a martial mage mixed with her hyperactive personality Richard and I both figured this would be the best position for her.
Directly behind her was Carrollton, Melian, and Hannah, all standing side by side with Melian in the middle. They were all casters and were best at mid to long-range.
In the back was me. I was behind Melian. The reason for this was that Richard wanted Melian to be firmly protected. She was now this party’s lifeline and she could make or break our odds of survival now that we were out of the outpost.
I agreed with this. Her healing magic was important, and I didn’t mind being in the back either, I was actually going to make the suggestion to Richard anyway so it worked out. From here I would be able to see how all of the party members fought and acted in battle, so If I needed to switch anything around or act accordingly, I could.
The day went by as we journeyed. It wasn't until about an hour in that we ran into beasts, and from then on, they kept coming like moths to a flame.
Five monkey-like beasts swung in the trees above us. They maneuvered around shooting balls of fire out their mouth at a rapid pace.
“Carrollton! Hannah!” Richard called.
Due to the monkey's range, we needed the casters to keep them at bay.
Carrollton upped his wand and began shooting darts of wind at the shaking trees, aiming at the monkeys. Hannah did the same, aiming her large staff and shooting spears of water, sizzling every fireball in her sight out of existence. She even managed to hit one, piercing it straight through its head. Its body fell from the tall tree and hit the dirt with a loud impact.
The monkeys seemed to pause seeing one of their brethren dead.
“Now Chark!” Richard yelled, noticing this.
Instantly Chark grabbed his giant hammer and swung it toward the ground. The collision caused the very earth to rumble and tear, making the ground level uneven. The trees where the monkey were began to shake and tip over causing the monkeys to fly out and toward us.
When they were on us, our martial mages all clapped into action.
Wind swirled around Lizzy, Shards of earth began floating and morphing around Richard, and Ice began layering my dagger.
The monkeys were taken out rather quickly at this point, and it was just a matter of waiting for our next fight.
“Great work guys!" Richard said, "Let's keep moving until sundown, Then we'll find a place to rest.”
“Will we even be able to?” Hannah asked, as she disbursed her mana and kicked one of the monkey's dead corpses out of her way. “It's been a non-stop fight since we ran into our first beasts, what if it’s like this all night too, or maybe worse.”
Hannah was right, it had been a non-stop fight. Due to this, I’ve been using as little mana as possible just in case something happened, but I couldn't say the same for other people.
Looking at the party, they already seemed tuckered out and tired. Melian, Richard, and I were the lone exceptions.
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Pondering for a moment, I doubted I could make it through this place on my own, so I decided to speak up. “If that ends up being the case, we’ll find a place and I’ll keep watch during the party’s rest.”
Hannah turned to me, her eyes narrowed, “I don’t even fully trust you, so no, I’ll be fine. And if it came down to it, there's no way you could handle this amount of beast by yourself anyway.”
“Hannah enough.” Richard said, “If that becomes the case, then I’ll keep guard with him, is that fine with everyone?”
No one seemed to disagree with this and Richard spoke again, “It’s settled then. Now let's keep moving.”
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As we continue, the number of beasts never decreased and they came in a steady pattern as usual.
We did our best to keep the battles short and sweet, and short and sweet they were. Melian and I barely had to intervene due to the party’s already-established teamwork. It was truly impressive.
Luckily, no one got injured. The only hurtful thing was the mean glares Hannah would send me after each battle.
Seriously, what is her problem? Not trusting me was understandable, but she didn’t have to make her hostility so obvious.
Besides that, only fatigue seemed to do the party damage and we eventually did have to end up finding a resting spot.
We were situated in a semi-deep cave that was edged into the ground. We put a pile of leaves and sticks along with other things in front of the entrance so we could somewhat block out our scent and keep beasts from finding us.
Everyone in the party was already in the back of the cave in their sleeping bags resting away, leaving Richard and me to keep watch.
“I’m sorry about Hannah earlier.” He whispered, glancing back at the sleeping party behind us, “We all have sort of a bad past, and her’s is with trusting people.”
“Oh?” I said, now glancing at him with curiosity, “Enlighten me.”
He smiled, “I’d rather not say anything without her permission, but just know she does this to everyone, so don’t take it to heart.”
“Understood.” The air was silent for a moment after I replied, but after thinking for a moment I decided to ask. “When you said, ‘We all have sort of a bad past’ you meant yourself as well, correct?”
He shook his head, understanding what I was getting at, “So you wanna’ know more about me aye? Alright.” He adjusted his sitting position so he was facing me, “It's nothing too special really. I grew up in a small town on the western coast. My mother left when I was younger, so I never really knew her. My whole life, it was just me and my pops. He worked as a merchant, and being a merchant on the western coast is much different from here. Throughout my childhood, I would travel with him from boat to boat, island to island around the archipelago, a fun childhood really, I got to see things and places many children could only dream of.”
“My life stayed like this up until I was sixteen. It was around the time of my birthday and the tournament that's held in the archipelago every year, and my father would go there to do business. He always loved that time of year because there was so much money to be made and he could find new and loyal customers. When we made it to Liona, the capital of the archipelago, He began selling and calling customers over. It was like any other day and I remember it so vividly, mostly because he had handed me my own supplies and told me to go sell myself. He would always tell me that once I turned sixteen he would let me sell with him, to train me to take over for him when he gets old, and at the time, I didn’t want anything else but to make my father proud. So I carried on with my day and went to sell for the first time ever, using every skill my father taught me, and it worked. Even if my batch of goods was much smaller than his, I managed to sell everything before nightfall. On the way back all I could think about was how proud he would be of me.”
Richard's voice began to shake slightly as he continued, “But when I got back, there was a huge crowd of people where my father's stand once was. I pushed my way through, afraid something had happened.” His voice straightened out and he looked me in the eye, “The first thing I saw when I made it to the front of that crowd was my father, on his knees, being stabbed in the heart by an elven noble. I was a child, scared and horrified, so I ran. I ran as far as I could. I learned later that the whole incident was swept under the rug as if nothing happen. I don't know the name of the one who killed my father, but I will forever remember his face.
“After that, I trained to become an adventure to grow my strength and I eventually met the people behind us. They all come from similar circumstances and we somewhat made a family. They're the only people I trust with my life and I feel they can trust me with theirs.”
I didn’t know what to say and just shook my head. I guess everyone goes through something.
“I can only tell you this, of course, because I’ve come to accept it. I don’t seek revenge, but it's in front of me I won’t hesitate no matter what the consequences are.” He said.
I shook my head, “I see.”
“What about you, Walker? I won't push you to share, but I would like to know more about you, and why you hide your face.”
“It's complicated,” I said.
He smiled, “Well, maybe some other time then.”
We continued going back and forth on various topics, switching out on resting so we too had energy for tomorrow's travel.
Soon enough the sun rose, and the rest of the party along with it.