We moved on away from the location where we were ambushed by bandits for a while before stopping for dinner. Well, dinner for everyone else. I had already “eaten”, after all. After we had stopped and light a fire, Aurora pulled out a number of cooking tools and raw ingredients from her inventory, and began to prep a meal for everyone else for the first time.
“Well then, while you all eat, I’ll be patrolling around nearby to keep an eye out for enemies. Let me know when you’re done, and I’ll rejoin you.”
As I spread my wings to take off into the air, I heard a disappointed voice behind me.
“... Does that mean you won’t eat with us?”
Turning around, I saw Aurora looking at me with a melancholy expression on her face.
“Well, I don’t really need to eat, and I already fed off one of the bandits so my satiety is already full. So I might… might as well…” I couldn’t continue. Aurora’s face went from melancholy to teary, and I just couldn’t bring myself to refuse anymore.
“Alright, I’ll have a little, okay?” Immediately, the girl’s face brightened again.
I decided to ignore the snickering golem and questioning looks from the other two in the corner of my vision. So they just started talking among themselves instead.
“What just happened? What’s so funny?” Lucelan asked, tilting his head to one side.
“Well, you may have already noticed this, but Lilith is the type to usually just do whatever she wants, no matter what anyone else says. It looks like Aurora just naturally stumbled upon what may be one of the few ways to stop her. Lilith absolutely can’t stand seeing a girl crying for some reason. Never could. It’s a trick his sister used all the time when they were growing up to manipulate him. He’s gotten to where he can ignore it when it’s being done intentionally, but Aurora was genuinely upset so he practically had no choice but to give in.”
Celeste nodded. “Ah, that makes sense. Her teary face is particularly effective, too. Even offline. She’s hit me with it a few times, and there’s really no going against her at that point.”
“Who would have thought she would probably be the most suited to restraining Lilith. It’s a shame we probably won’t be able to get her to cry on cue when we need it.”
---
Sitting down around the smouldering fire, Aurora passed around bowls of the simple stew she had prepared.
“... Sorry it’s nothing fancy. I can’t make anything but simple meals because my skill is too low.”
I shook my head. “Although as someone who doesn’t need to eat my opinion may not mean much, I don’t think you need to worry too much about that. You’ll be able to make more things later. There’s no need to rush.”
“Lilith’s right, you don’t need to worry. Besides, even if it’s not at the level you cook at offline, this is still way better than the stuff we could buy in town.”
I looked over at Celeste. “Really, was the ready made food that bad?”
“Oh, that’s right. This is the first actual food you’ve eaten, isn’t it. The stuff we could buy wasn’t bad necessarily, but it was really bland.”
Horvath nodded. “Yeah, it’s better than rocks, but not by much.”
“You… ate rocks?”
“Yeah, racial ability. Eating a material like that is one way to absorb it so I can make my body out of it. It has the advantage of counting toward the evolution and filling satiety at the same time, but I don’t think I’ll be using that method again anytime soon. They’re really not very appetizing.”
“And you say I do strange things, I can’t think of any time I’ve eaten rocks before.”
“Oh trust me, your track record is full of things far stranger than eating a rock or two.”
Thinking about Horvath’s ability to make himself out of whatever material he ate, a thought occurred to me. “Ohh, I just had a great idea!”
Horvath looked at me, his expression clearly showing that he didn’t believe my sudden idea would be great. “I get the feeling I’m going to regret asking, but what now?”
“Well, if you ate a whole lot of meat, could you become a flesh golem? They show up occasionally in other games, a golem made up of flesh. Could you become something like that? We could start feeding you monsters and bandits and such!”
“Ah, that. I actually thought about that as well, but it doesn’t seem to be an option. I can sort of sense when I’ve absorbed a material I can make my body out of, and how much more I would need. When eating meat I don’t get that feeling, so I’m pretty sure it won’t work. So I’ll leave eating the bandits we come across to you.”
I shrugged. “Your loss. That just means more of these delicious bandits for me.”
Celeste looked at me somewhat surprised. “Delicious? Really? Can you actually taste the person you’re feeding from?”
“No, not really. I can clearly feel the energy flowing into me from them and get a full feeling when my satiety is full, but there’s no taste or anything. Which is actually probably for the best. These bandits look pretty dirty, so I doubt they’d taste much better than the rocks.”
Celeste grinned. “Lucky for me, all I need is Aurora’s cooking. Just like in reality.”
“... No, you should learn to cook for yourself. I might not be around to feed you one day.”
---
After our meal, we continued to travel through the night. At night I l took my scouting trips into the air more frequently since bandits were more likely to try to sneak up on us in the dark, but I kept my altitude lower and kept the flights shorter. This was mostly because I was the only member of our group who could actually see well. The others had lamps and other light sources, and Aurora had learned a convenient spell to provide some light, but my vision was still able to see much farther than theirs could.
Throughout the night and into the next morning, we ran into several more bandit ambushes in the forest. These were all spotted ahead of time, and with the element of surprise lost the bandits didn’t really stand much chance against us in a fight. I made a point to regularly mind control one bandit and feed off of them before we continued our trip. Because I was continuously flying around my satiety was draining considerably faster than usual, so frequent feeding was necessary to keep me going.
Around mid morning, the road we were on exited the forest into a wide grassland. Without the trees to hide in, the bandit ambushes stopped after that and we were able to travel in peace aside from the occasional attack from some weak monsters. I still took periodic flights to look around, but it was more just to see what was there than to watch for dangers to us. From the air, I could vaguely see the desert in the distance.
Now that there was less risk of being attacked, we also took turns signing out for a short break in the back of the wagon, while the others continued the trip. Since there was still some danger, we only signed out one at a time, and tried to keep it short just in case. With the large time dilation of the game, even a short break in the real world ended up being a couple hours in game.
When Horvath’s turn came, everyone but Lucelan, who was driving the wagon, had to get out so he could fit. After he had signed out, I looked at Aurora.
“I suppose we’ll have to walk until he gets back. I don’t want to be stuck under him when he gets back. He looks pretty heavy.”
“... That’s fine. I can walk for a while.”
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Deciding it was about time for another scouting flight, I stretched out my wings, then had an idea.
“Hey, Aurora. Want to come with me while I take a look around? I should be able to carry you while I fly.”
Aurora looked at me a moment. “... I would like that, but are you sure I’m not too heavy?”
“Yeah, it should be fine. I’ll cast Inspire just to be safe, but I could probably carry you without it.”
“No fair! I want to see the place from the sky too!” Celeste pouted.
“I’ve carried you before, remember.”
“Yeah, but that was in a fight, not just seeing the sights. I want to go too!”
“Fine, how about you can come up with me on my next trip.”
“Yay! I get to fly!” She began hopping up and down excitedly.
“Lucelan, you want a turn too?” I didn’t want to leave the merman out.
“Na, I’m… not good with heights. I’ll stay with the wagon.”
“Alright then, for now Aurora and I will be heading up. Celeste, guard duties all on you, so don’t slack off.”
“I won’t. Besides, there’s nothing to worry about here. We would see anything already if it were going to attack us while you were gone.”
“Alright. Just send a message if something comes up and we’ll come right back.” Saying that, I cast Inspire on myself, scooped Aurora up in a typical princess style carry, and shot off into the sky.
As we reached around the altitude I had been using for my observation trips, I slowed my ascent and looked down at Aurora, and saw her eyes were shut tight.
“Oh, sorry. I usually move pretty fast. I guess that could be nerve wracking if you aren’t expecting it. You can open your eyes now, though. We’ll stay here for a bit then head back.”
Slowly, Aurora opened her eyes and looked around. Initially she was startled by the height and clung to my neck, but she soon relaxed and began to look around.
“... wow.”
“Yep, it’s quite a view. Hang on, I’ll turn around so you can see where we came from.”
I slowly rotated us in the air, turning to face the forest we had come out of.
“It give a good indication of how far we’ve come. You can just barely see the grasslands on the other side of the forest, where Eridell was.”
Aurora just silently stared at the distant scenery as I rotated us back.
“And off in the distance that way, you can just see the desert that we’re heading for. While I’m not certain, I think that’s the city we’re going to over there.” I nodded toward a small shape near the edge of the desert.
“... Is this what you see every time you fly up here?”
“For the most part. While we were in the forest I stayed closer to the tree tops, since it was hard to spot people in the trees, but in the open I usually come up about this high.”
“How much longer do you think it will be before we get there?”
“I would guess we’ll arrive tomorrow morning or afternoon, given our current speed. It doesn’t look like there will be any major obstacles to slow us down anymore.” I looked toward the empty road ahead of the wagon for a bit. “Yep, looks like nothing is coming up that we need to be wary of. Shall we head back.”
Aurora nodded, and I slowly began to descend back to the ground.
---
Later that evening, I was once again flying and taking a look around. As had been true all day, there was nothing of note on the road. I was about to land back into the wagon, when I noticed something odd.
There appeared to be some ruins tucked into a small valley a short way away from the road. Because of this, it wouldn’t actually be visible from the ground. Had I not been in the air, we would have passed it without even noticing.
Lilith: Hey, the road looks clear for a while, but there are some ruins a little away from the road. I’m going to go investigate them.
Horvath: Alright, just don’t get yourself killed.
Landing near the edge of the ruins, I took a quick look around. The ruins weren’t very large, probably just a few rooms inside at the most. There didn’t appear to be anyone here, but just in case I extended my claws and prepared my whip. Fully prepared, I slowly moved toward the interior of the ruins.
The dust swirled in the air as I moved into the interior. Clearly, no one had been here for some time. It was dark, but that wasn’t an issue. Quietly making my way to the first room, I pushed the rotten door open slowly, and stepped into the room.
It was a small room, and looked like someone had lived in it at some point. There was an ancient bed pushed against one wall, and bookshelves against the walls. While there may have been a legible book or two on the shelves still, most seemed to have long since decayed to the point of uselessness. I decided to save checking for any good books there for later, and moved on to the next room.
Next there were two doors, one on either side of the small hallway connecting them all to the front entrance. I picked one at random, and gently opened the door with a loud creak. In this room there was only a staircase leading downward, with a door barring the bottom of the stairs.
I took a step toward the stairs to investigate further, but then I heard a sound from behind me. I spun around, to find several skeletons quickly charging out of the door toward me. Behind them were lumbering a couple fleshy undead that I assume were a type of zombie.
I tried to cast Frenzy on a couple of them but as one would expect, mindless undead monsters cannot be mind controlled. Funny how that works, but definitely a major disadvantage for me. I was now basically limited to my whip and claws to fight my way through. Even my usual tactic of interrupting heavy attacks with migraine wouldn’t work this time. Given I was at a major disadvantage, I decided rather than continuing, my goal now was to escape the ruins and get back with the others. We could come back later as a group and explore this place properly.
Activating the flame spell on my whip, I lashed it out at the nearest skeleton. The impact clearly damaged it, and several bones actually went flying off of it’s body, including an entire arm. It didn’t die, but still backed off a bit. I lashed at another with my claws, but they didn’t do much of anything, only scratching the bones a bit. Even my claws were going to be ineffective here. On the other hand, the skeletons bony fingers were doing a good bit of damage to me when they hit.
“Hmm, this could be bad.” I flicked my whip toward a second skeleton, sending it’s skull flying into a wall. This skeleton didn’t die either, but the body did turn and walk toward the skull. It seems when I knock parts off of them, the skeletons were trying to reclaim their lost members before resuming the fight. It would actually be kind of adorable if they weren’t trying to kill me when whole.
At any rate, I was able to clear enough room to slip out the door and back into the hallway. Thankfully, the zombies were slow, so they hadn’t gotten to a position where they could block my path yet. I don’t know if my claws would have been more effective on them, but it seemed like it would be gross to scratch at them, either way.
Once in the clear, I pumped my wings and quickly dashed back to the exit and out of the ruins. I took to the sky again, and turned to watch for a short while. The undead didn’t come out of their crypt, though, so before long I returned to the group as the sun set in the distance. I would be coming back here. My instincts as a gamer tell me it would be valuable to explore what was under those ruins. But for now, I needed to get Aurora to patch me up after this.
I was thoroughly chastised for my risky behavior while getting healed up, and forbidden from any such solo adventures for a while. Not that being banned from things has ever stopped me before, but for now I supposed I could be obedient.
---
The next morning, our wagon was still rolling along the road, but the city was now clearly visible even from the ground. Overnight the grasslands we had been travelling through had gradually given way to desert, and now vegetation was quite scarce on the side of the road. The city ahead of us was not as big as Eridell, but was still quite a large city. Most of the buildings seemed to be made of an adobe like material, including the walls that surrounded the large castle where I assumed the governor of the city resided. This city was a part of the kingdom of Astoenn so they were still under the King who lived in Eridell, but the governor’s castle here was just as grand as the castle there had been.
I was actually surprised there wasn’t a wall around the entire city like there had been in Eridell. This city is on the border, and as such could come under attack if there was ever a war. I suppose since the border it lies on is with the unowned Grand Central Desert, there wasn’t any real danger of invasion like that. At most, they would have monsters roaming in from the desert.
By this point, I had returned to my disguised appearance, looking once again like the twins. We passed a few people on the road, both those going out to hunt and those beginning a trip of their own. With the latter, we would stop and talk a bit about the city, and tell them of the dangers on the road ahead.
As we reached the city, a middle aged guard at the side of the road stopped us a moment.
“Welcome to Al Omand. Please state your business here.”
Lucelan nodded. “I am a merchant, and these are my hired guards. We have heard the Desert Nomad Caravan will be arriving here soon, and wish to deal with them.”
“Ah, you’ve heard correctly. We expect them to arrive in a few days. Is this your first time here?”
“Yes, we’re all newcomers who have only recently started travelling.”
“I see, that explains why you have no wares in your wagon. Well then, take my advice. The day after tomorrow, be at the road on the western side of the city. There will be an interesting spectacle there you may be interested in seeing. You all are free to enter the city, but please do not try to enter the castle.”
“Thank you. By the way, is there a place we can get basic information about the city. We need to find lodging and directions.”
The guard nodded. “Ah, right. If you head to that building over there,” he pointed toward a large, two story adobe building, “you’ll be able to find information and jobs around town. There’s room to park the wagon around the back. It’s all freelance work, so you don’t need to be in any organization to take it, and they’ll help just about anyone aside from criminals.”
“I see, we’ll head there. Thank you very much.”
With that, we took our first steps into Al Omand.