— Keira —

After the ordeals of the weeks leading to their deaths and the stresses they’d found upon returning through the veil, it was clear most of the village was eager for a chance to unwind and set aside their many problems for a while.

Throughout the night the tavern common room rarely had more than a few seats empty. Not everyone stayed the whole night but new people trickled in as others left.

Keir occasionally spent a bit of time talking with random villagers or the other counselors but mostly she spent her time with some combination of Lovisa, Mesalin, and Alasdair.

It was only around the time the sun was peeking above the horizon that the common room mostly emptied out.

Keir was just about to excuse herself to go help prepare to leave for Stonesheild when Lovisa moved close to her and said “Well, I should probably go and get some guard patrols up and running. If I don’t see you before you leave tonight then we should make time to have a drink when you get back.”

The way she was fidgeting her fingers and suddenly very interested in something over Keir’s shoulder her nervousness was both very clear and rather endearing so Keir responded “Definitely, I will look forward to it.”

Lovisa smiled brightly and said “Really? I mean, that's great. Let’s do that. Alright, bye.” She was still smiling as she turned and hurried out of the tavern before Keir could respond.

Keir simply looked in the direction Lovisa had left with a small smile for a few seconds. She was only slightly surprised to hear the barely stifled chuckle of Mesalin behind her. The harpy had been settling the tab of a desiccated mummy like half orc while Keir had been speaking with Lovisa. Despite that as she was some sort of scout it wasn’t surprising she had still overheard their brief exchange.

As Keir turned to face her Mesalin said “I hope you come here for that drink. You two are so amusing to watch together that I probably wouldn’t even charge you.”

Keir smiled and set down a few gold and silver coins to pay for her drinks and said “I’ll be sure to take you up on that deal if we drink here. Now I need to go find your husband to see if he needs any help getting everyone together and ready for the trip to Stonesheild. Do you know where he went?”

After Mesalin went over what she knew of Alasdair’s plans for the day and gave her directions to the relevant areas Keir set off into the morning sunlight.

The day that followed was an odd mixture of busy and boring. A few wagons small enough to move easily without horses were gathered and filled with enchanted storage crates. Those without preservation runes that were only larger on the inside were filled with the majority of the wild crops that had been harvested. The rest were filled with skin, meat, blood, and bones from the Ancient Viper Matriarch. Keir also was taking her pack filled with viper fangs.

The people who either were chosen or had chosen to tag along were gathered along with what supplies that were needed.

Depending on the condition of the roads they expected the trip to take between three and four nights of travel. Well over half of those going along were either severely weakened by or even harmed by being exposed to open sunlight so they could only travel by night and most of the needed supplies were enough tents to comfortably hold them all.

The original plan had been to set off at sun set but that time was several hours gone by the time they actually were all gathered just outside of the gate on the road to the dwarven kingdom.

Lovisa hadn’t had time to stop and talk for long but she had dropped by to say goodbye around the original departure time.

As the last of the members of the group joined them Keir made one last check before they set off. Counting Alasdair, Antheia, and herself there were a total of fifteen people traveling in the group. Of those, both Antheia and a young female kobold were vampires. There were five dwarves. One of which was a spectral dwarven child traveling with her father who was the same partially petrified gray dwarf the others were, including Alasdair. The remaining seven were an eclectic mix ranging from a pair of simple skeletal wolfkin to a spectral goblin formed from roiling shadows.

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As they set off, it soon became clear from how overgrown the path was even within the area of Still-Leaf Village’s system their travel time would likely be on the longer end of the estimates. Fortunately the vampiric kobold had some limited nature magic that helped clear the worst of the overgrowth and the dwarven father was a retired member of the Stonesheild’s combat engineering corps. Between the two of them even though the journey there was slower their return as well as any future trips would be substantially quicker. All in all the first night of travel passed relatively quietly.

It was as they were in the process of setting up camp before the sun rose that they encountered the first indicators that peaceful travel would not be the norm. It all started with the approaching sounds of snapping branches and undergrowth being ripped apart. The group prepared and soon the form of a giant sloth pushed its way into the clearing they’d made camp in.

The beast’s size showed its designation as giant was not undeserved. It stood well over fifteen feet tall even leaning forward on its powerful forelegs. Like most giant sloths its thick shaggy brown fur was matted and laced with all manner of mosses. The heavy sharp claws tipping its fingers were longer than most daggers. It had a face that aside from a slightly longer muzzle somewhat resembled its smaller relatives making it look more sleepy than angry. Unfortunately from what Lovisa had said they were extremely aggressive and territorial at the best of times. This one had obvious patches of bloody fur on its legs and back showing it had likely been recently ejected from its territory. In the face of an angry giant sloth seeking to establish a new territory a fight was inevitable. Even if they were willing to leave and make camp elsewhere it would do everything it could to hunt them down.

With a weird deep clicking rumbling noise it charged forward and swung with its powerful right arm towards their impromptu battle line. Keir channeled mana into The Blinding Tide causing greenish blue venom to coat the blade as she met the sloth’s strike with one of her own.

Between the beast's thick bark like matted fur and its incredible strength blocking the blow felt like warding off a tree trunk swung by an ogre. Only her instinctive use of “Immovable Blade” from her “Tide Carver’s Stance” skill kept her from being pushed back as her sword cut deep into sloth’s forearm.

Before the sloth could pull back or strike again Alasdair swung down his cooking ax with a meaty thunk into the creature’s thigh. On the other side of the creature the dwarven father smashed his war pick into the sloth’s leg just above the knee. Lastly Antheia waved the heavily enchanted bladed staff she was suddenly holding unleashing a violet bolt of lightning. The purple bolt of lightning seemed to carry at least as much kinetic force as heat or electricity as the sloth was blasted black half a dozen feet, the fur on its chest burnt away and the skin beneath carbonized.

Keir knew the viper venom coating her blade was a powerful hemotoxin and anticoagulant so she wasn’t surprised to see the wound on its arm was gushing blood even as the wounds on its legs were starting to clot. Given some time for the venom to spread those wounds would also bleed profusely but she doubted the battle would last that long. Their purpose was still served, however, as the beast was only able to stay upright with the aid of its uninjured forelimb.

Many creatures would have fled at that point, including most giant sloths, but after being chased off once the sloth in front of them would fight to the death rather than retreat again. It charged as best as it could again but another violet bolt shattered its already damaged forelimb and as it fell Keir swung down activating “Serrated Strike”. Blood coalesced from her tide pool along the length of her blade just before it carved through the sloth’s neck with ease. A few members of the group moved to deal with the large corpse and the rest hurried to help the noncombatants finish setting up the camp. For most of the group the impending sunrise was an exponentially greater threat than the sloth had been even with the lingering effects of the Veil of Mortis.

There was some discussion over what to do with the body but as none of group needed to eat and the meat was not especially valuable they moved it a descent distance from the camp and used an enchanted tool Antheia produced to clean the blood trail to reduce the odds of scavengers finding their way to the camp.

Those who could do so would take watch through the day as the others were confined to their tents. Keir took first watch along with the dwarven father, whose name she finally learned was Eshtan Earthhammer.

While they were also one of the simple and relatively weak undead, the gray dwarves’ petrified flesh was unusually resistant to the sun so most of the guard shifts had one or more dwarves on them.

Halfway through her shift Keir heard the sounds of distant conflict in the direction of the sloth corpse but it was short and nothing approached the camp. After that the remainder of her shift was fairly uneventful if a bit boring and she soon returned to the wagons and settled in to wait for nightfall.