As their enemy now lay dead in the dirt, Thozronnath and his minions did not dally any further in the area for risk of being found should anyone come looking for him.

“We’re leaving. Get up Kaggant” The devil commanded in a tense growl, dismissing his sword and with it the connection to Zildoxoxi. For a second Thoz could feel the slime trying to ask him something through [Telepathy] but a glance was all it took to let the amorphous creature know they would discuss it later.

He then proceeded to lead his gaggle of monsters north, keeping within the forest for cover yet close enough to the cleared road so as to not get lost. All the maps of Daskaora, and subsequently Krora, were of little detail here in their southern neighbor. So the best direction they had was ‘north’. Eventually, the plan was to find a landmark of some kind, or people to lie to, and get their bearings more completely. For now, though the most effective strategy was to put distance between them and the city that tried to hunt them.

They’d taken a single paladin. Their chances would drop dramatically if they started showing up in groups.

After a few brief minutes of walking onwards in dense silence, Thozronnath felt comfortable enough that they weren’t being immediately pursued. Thus he spoke up to his minions, or at his minions in the case of Uzdaax since he didn’t know where the ghost was exactly.

“Any skill ranks or class levels from the fight? Literally, any useful information I need?” he asked. Of course, he could just one by one inspect the monsters to see their growth, but giving them the opportunity to explain themselves might help further this friendship think lord Vazotz was talking about in his messages.

Each of the monsters that had something to report did.

“I leveled up once and got a rank in [Stealth]” Prisaela explained, gliding along behind the party with her wings. It was difficult to fly very nimbly in the forest, but she was making a point of getting used to the new appendages whenever possible.

From there Uzdaax chimed in. “I leveled up twice Master. Gaining a rank in both [Step Through Shadow] and [Cold of the Grave]” his disembodied voice echoed softly in the underbrush. There were still occasional rays of direct sunlight breaking through the trees, so Uz had to be careful about when and where he chose to take a corporeal form.

“I uh, I think I leveled up like three times?” Kaggant broke in, not caring for the pacing of the conversation and refusing to wait any longer. “[Axe Wielder] is three now, and [Natural Weapons] is two. I think those are the ones that ranked up” He continued, clearly not paying much attention to the specifics of his gains in the heat of battle.

“Good Job?” Thozronnath offered the group, his tone wavering and making the statement sound more like a question. He had given the monsters positive reinforcements before but trying to do so while actually meaning it was a whole different matter.

His attempted compliment was followed by a prolonged and awkward silence as no one in the present company knew how to address such an out-of-character display. So they, unfortunately, continued onwards in silence for another few hours. Eventually picking up some minor communications as they discussed their plan and where they needed to be.

Though, there was not much for them to discuss. Their ultimate destination was more than a week ahead of them on the road, and if they tried to fill every waking hour with idle small talk it was almost guaranteed that they would eventually get sick of everyone else.

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Sometimes silence is golden.

And some times, no one knows what is going on.

This was the case for the monster team. As was proven on their fourth day of traveling north, when they lost sight of the road.

“What do you mean you can’t find it?”

“Well, Master, I was watching the road like you told me too, and then when I made a loop back to where I thought it was, I didn’t find it.” Uzdaax admitted rather timidly, his corporeal form hovering a few feet away from the rest of the group.

“Okay. Okay. fine” Thoz grumbled

“When was the last time you saw the road?”

Uzdaax response was not what he wanted to hear, “Nearly an hour ago on my last rotation?”

“What!?!” The devilish master roared, not even requiring his [Battlecry] Skill in order for his voice to cut through the conversation and rattle the wilderness around them.

“So we’re completely lost then? No idea where we are?” He asked rhetorically, the incredulous tone of his words preventing all but Kaggant from speaking up.

“Yeah, sounds like it.” The giant responded, failing to grasp the tension of the conversation.

What immediately followed was a string of expletives from Thozronnath that I do not particularly care to repeat.

“Listen up losers, I’m not going to say this a second time” He began after finally composing himself

“Prisaela and I are going to fly upwards until we get a sense of where we need to go, the rest of you are going to stay right here and not move an inch. Once we have a heading, we’re going to come down and get you idiots so we can get back on track. Understand?”

This command was met with a tense murmur and confirmation from the eclectic group. Thoz then took to the air without a word, his experience with wings and flight clearly showing through as he outpaced Prisaela in those opening moments. Thankfully it did not take long for the succubus to get a handle on the rapid ascent, and she stayed close behind him the entire way.

The duo had no way of knowing exactly how high they were flying, but it was several seconds of nothing but vertical climbing. When Thoz finally felt that it would be enough, he signaled to Prisaela and they came to a halt. The angle of their wings quickly shifted into altitude maintenance.

The silence that followed as they both looked around was not nearly as awkward as the previous ones. They were both struck with a sudden understanding of just how massive the world they found themselves in was.

Thozronnath had lived the vast majority of his life in the hell's various layers, and the layers were finite. They had walls, most of them had ceilings, and if you went in a single direction far enough you could see the limits of the realm of the damned.

This was entirely different. There were no walls, no ceilings, Thoz couldn’t even see as much as a single wall or fence. It was boundless expanse in every direction, as far as the eye could see. The fields and forests are diced into uneven sections by rivers and streams.

It was breathtaking. It was overwhelming.

When Prisaela noticed the world actually curving along the horizon out in the distance, she felt her head swimming with the altitude and faltered for a moment. A moment being far too long.

Her wings beat out of sync once, and she failed to recover, unable to maintain altitude. She began falling to the ground in a rapid and wide corkscrew as gravity exerted its power once more. In her panic, she began to scream.

“Fucking useless, the lot of them” Thoz sighed to himself.

He made one quick note of the relative direction of the nearest main road, and then gently tucked his wings against his body.

It would be a shame if one of his minions died because they didn’t know how to use their own limbs, so he needed to save Prisaela before she hit the ground.

He hung in the air like that, with his wings against his body, for a stretched second. His inertia was ripped away as fast as he built it, and he began plummeting to the ground himself. The difference of course being, Thoz actually knew how to fly.