The morning came as fast as always with the bells chiming six rings. Axel completed his normal morning tasks, including getting Aria out of bed, and went down to meet everyone for breakfast in the common room. The only ones in the common room when Axel arrived were Lyra and Jareth, who were both eating porridge with slabs of cooked meat on the side. As more food was being served to Axel, the rest of the group arrived and sat at the table.

As the food disappeared almost as if by magic, Axel decided to bring up what happened the night before to Jareth.

“So, Jareth, something came up last night,” Axel started, then explained what happened with Roran and amending the contract that took from his, Lyra, Sky, and Aria’s shares. Aria tiredly put a new contract on the table while drinking some tea.

Jareth frowned during Axel’s explanation and read through the contract quickly. After making a couple of corrections, Jareth slid the contract back to Aria and looked Axel over.

“So why are we taking in someone who we know nothing about in the middle of an expedition when you are already worried about people hunting you?” Jareth asked while putting his elbow on the table and leaning into his hands.

“Because I have a good feeling about him, and the Goddess gave me a quest that involved him,” Axel explained while hiding the fact that the Goddess appeared and cleared this young man.

“Axel, you do know that quests are only suggestions by the Goddess and not mandates, right?” Pearl butted in while putting down her food. “Please don’t take everything she says as you must do. That has led to very terrible ends for Tidewalkers I have known.”

“Axel,” Larimar started but was then stopped when she was cut off by Aria.

“Aria has also voted to bring him on and spent hours last night making this contract,” Aria stared Larimar down until the woman stopped talking. “That work will not be in vain.”

“Alright… anyway, if you feel that way, we just want to be careful about strangers joining,” Larimar said after looking away from Aria.

“I am fine with a Storm Drake rider joining,” Lyra added after cleaning her plate.

“You do realize it will be a lot more food for the beast?” Pearl argued. “That will cut a lot out of your share.”

‘This is fine with us, and we talked about it last night,’ Sky sent while still eating.

“Alright, if your group is set on this, it is all within the contract, so it’s on you, but why?” Jareth asked, seeming to be trying to understand why they would go out on this limb.

“Why did you help me and Aria,” Axel turned the question back on Jareth, “or take the risk with this whole expedition when there is danger involved? Look at what happened with the bandits; we don’t even know if they were not bounty hunters.”

Jareth sighed and looked Axel in the eyes and said, “I am helping you for my own reasons and because your group seemed like a good investment. I can guess you would have worries since your life has turned upside down with everything, but I am trying to help you.”

“I believe you, but as you gave me a chance,” Axel kept eye contact with Jareth and stated, “I want to give him a chance to save the last thing of his parents and grow how he wants.”

Everyone stopped talking after that and finished their meals. Bags were then gathered, and Jareth brought the wagon out of the storage area and hitched the Pollox. As everyone waited, an armored Vortan figure ran up to the wagon. He wore armor, but it was damaged with several energy circuits that were exposed but seemed to have been repaired with care.

Right as he arrived, the seven bells began to ring in the background while he looked up at Axel as he sat in the wagon.

“Did I make it in time?” Roran asked.

Axel said nothing but held out a hand, which Roran grasped, being pulled up into the wagon as it started. As Roran put his pack on the floor, Axel introduced everyone to him and looked at him for a second.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Where is Star?” Axel asked. “I thought your whole reason for leaving was to save them?”

“Star is right here,” Roran pointed at his chest. “I told you I have summoning, right?”

“Yes?” Axel asked, still confused.

“Well, Star is in stasis right now, and while it uses my energy to hold her, I can bring her with me anywhere,” Roran replied and put a hand on his chest next to one of his two hearts.

“Interesting,” Axel said and leaned forward. “I never got to the sections in the library about those powers.”

“It is very uncommon for anyone not a rider to get the power, but it is the same one that many of these storage boxes use,” Roran explained happily. “Well, a variant, but that is more that you need to be able to store living instead of nonliving.”

Pearl and Larimar then explained the watch shifts but threw Axel under the bus as they realized that Roran did not know that Axel was being hunted and had a bounty on his head. When the awkward explanation was finished by a slightly embarrassed Axel, everyone settled down.

When it hit noon, Aria was tasked as a pathfinder while Axel, Pearl, and Roran got out of the wagon to walk ahead through the dense jungle. As they got deeper into the brush, Roran released Star when a clearing was reached that held a water source. This scared away several beasts in the brush as Star roared in dominance.

Roran turned a shade of blue over his pale skin and started to hush Star, calming the excited drake down. Pearl was giving Axel a scornful look but held her comments as even she could see that it was mostly from excitement rather than lack of control on Roran's part.

“Sorry,” Roran said a little later while Star was drinking from the small river. “Star has spent much of her life in the training grounds. This is all new to her and me.”

“You were never trained to go out and hunt?” Axel asked, as not having that training never occurred to him.

“I was trained to take prey from the sky,” Roran told Axel, and this caused Axel to rearrange all of his plans. “So this may be harder than I originally thought.”

Pearl, still not saying anything, just smirked at Axel from the trees off to the side. As the wagon slowly made its way to the water, while the Pollox rested and drank, completely ignoring the Storm Drake as if it was not a threat, Axel pulled Lyra and Aria to the side, bringing up what he learned. The lack of hunting training did not seem to occur to them either, and plans were rearranged on the fly.

When the shift switched, Axel started to go over all the training that Roran had completed and what capabilities he and Star had. Axel learned a lot as Star was being trained to become bulky and more armored than the more easily airborne of her kind. Roran had electro and beast summoning as skills for his current power set. Both were the basic skills needed to be a rider as they could be electrocuted by their mount, and the other was needed for when they were in locations without stabling for their mount.

For weapon skills, the lance, bow, and curved blade were what he was most proficient in. Axel talked with Aria as she rested and came up with battle plans that revolved around using the Storm Drake as a battering ram or ambush attacker during hunts. It should also keep other things away from camp, being one of the more feared predators in the mountains and light jungle.

The first night in the jungle was uneventful besides a blast of lightning from Star to capture a night snack of a pack of smoking and twitching Snar. Axel also learned that if Roran used no other powers, he could hold Star for most of the day, but it meant that he would not generate power from his core, with it slowly draining. This did cut down the needed food to about a fourth of what it normally would be.

The thickness of the jungle fluctuated a lot over the next few days of travel, but Star earned her keep by clearing the way for the wagon through the rougher jungle with her powerful frame. Aria kept the group going until they arrived outside a large valley that held a water source fed by two nearby mountains. In the valley were dozens of herds of Quakes, each with two large horns on the adults and a large hammer tail.

The ground moved under their massive armored weight as they moved around. Packs of Quakes moved in and around the valley, with the older, stronger packs living near the middle of the valley. Axel started to do a quick count and estimated they could hunt about eight adults without hurting the breeding population. There were also Gar and other beasts slipping in to get the water in the area that could be hunted if they needed more.

The trick would be to lead away a singleton or find one of the ones that went to forage in the mountains so as not to spook the larger herd and die. The camp for this hunt was set up a few miles north of the valley in what looked like a camp from another expedition, though it did not look to be used for several seasons based on the scattered debris around the area.

Jareth then started to take out boxes that held tents, gear, and even a small forge to repair equipment. While this was set up, Axel and Aria did more scouting of the area around the camp but found no tracks of large beasts. Roran helped with putting special wind chimes in the trees that many flying predators were taught to avoid over the years to deter any flying attacks.

The night watch for that night was split evenly between everyone, but it was always two-person shifts. It started with Axel and Aria, then Pearl and Lyra, followed by Jareth and Sky, and then the last shift had Roran and Larimar. Besides Axel and Aria, each shift had an Adept to watch for threats and let Axel and Aria get the most sleep as they would be doing the most during the hunting part of the trip. As the first night shift settled, Axel updated his journal and started to plan out the locations that would be good spots to set up attacks on the mountain.