It had long become apparent that this edge of the world had become overrun by all manner of insidious and desperate entities. For who really could maintain hold of a world that seemed hell-bent on diving straight into the void of depravity and death? I had seen no presence of the Crown Guard, who were meant to watch over the state - and any adventurers we had encountered were either short-sighted or short-lived. There was the rumble of something terrible, the death rattle of a nation that we all were unlucky enough to live through and witness.

To say that the fight with the werewolf had put a cloud over our spirits would perhaps be an understatement. There was something about it that left a bad taste in our mouths. Did we make the right decision? It hardly seemed like there was one to be made at all. The werewolf was likely to have found us even if we had ignored him, and he made his intent clear in our encounter.

There was perhaps part of us that had hoped it would have been more of a battle. Something equal, a struggle for a winner. But it felt more like we had just put an animal out of its misery. Even less likely, there was the hope that we could have helped him, found out what happened to his mate, and maybe assisted him in enacting some kind of revenge if it was due to outside influence. Heroics never seemed to be that black and white, though. And much like the moral grey that now loomed over the mood of the camp, it was a reflection of the sky above. Even the forest itself seemed to be drained of any vibrance as we headed into the later hours of the day.

Eventually, silence as our main focus, we found an area that looked reasonably secure for camping, slightly off the road in a clearing. The trees were sparse enough for us to have a good line of sight to both the road and any potential lurkers amongst tonight's darkness. The humans gathered some wood while myself and Angelos arranged the bedrolls in a rough circle around the space we had designated for the fire. Thankfully, this area had enough tree cover that the canopy prevented too much rainfall from meeting us. Although the firewood gathered was damp, we would at least stay dry enough through our sleeping.

After a good couple of minutes of watching the Guardian attempt and fail to light the fire, Florence eventually sent out sparks of flame herself to light it, much to his chagrin.

"Sometimes I like to do things the old-fashioned way," he grinned but shook his head. "Ruins the sodding experience if you're not roughing it as much as possible when camping."

"Don't worry," I assured him. "There'll be plenty of roughness ahead in our future."

"Yeah, sure as shit," he replied, "I'm sure you'll make sure of that, Victor."

I shrugged and shook my head. Of course, if it were up to me, we wouldn't be doing anything too dire. But much like the clouds over the evening sky, gloom seems to follow along with me. It would be nice to just have a peaceful break, to absorb the niceties of the world. But the path we had chosen didn't align with that.

"What's the plan for tomorrow, then?" Jakob asked, seated against the tree.

"Tomorrow, we have a few more hours in the wagon before we should reach a village, Leafield. We can stable the horse and wagon there and then make the journey to the Warren on foot. It should take us a few hours of walking."

"Hopefully, it will stop raining by then," Florence said glumly.

"No fuckin' chance of that," grinned the Guardian.

"What do we know about the village?" The Ranger lifted up his hood to meet my eye.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Not much, to be honest. It's a sleepy little place out in the middle of some farmland. Relatively small population. My expectation would be pleasant country folk."

"Well, you know what they say about assumptions, don't you?" Angelus closed his eyes. "Uh, perhaps nothing I should repeat in front of these younglings."

I rubbed at my eyes. "Maybe let's pick watch for tonight, myself and Florence, and then you Jakob?" They nodded their agreements, and the Guardian and the Ranger settled down. Florence sat, staring into the fire, and I turned my back away to face into the darkness. Not just so that I didn't ruin my dark vision, but also partly to help me think.

There was something uncomfortable sitting within me, and it wasn't entirely related to the werewolf. A pensive knot inside my stomach, as if I was anticipating something. It wasn't like me to be nervous. I felt the further along our journey we went, the more I had to lose. The higher we raised, the greater we'd fall - and with the promise of our next rank on the near horizon, I didn't want to make any mistakes and ruin what we'd already accomplished.

For part of the watch, I could feel the Mage's eyes boring into the back of my head. Perhaps there was something she wanted to talk about, but she remained on the opposite side of the fire, perhaps not wanting to wake the other two or just not make any noise that might alter the odd serenity we had fallen into.

The hours passed relatively quickly, with not so much as a sound from any local wildlife to alert me of any untoward presence. And soon enough, it was time to wake the other two up for their turn to watch, and I took the time to sleep. It came surprisingly quickly, and just as soon as I had fallen into slumber, it seemed I was woken by the daylight, with no chance to dream, or brief respite to allow my brain to process the past few days and what lay ahead.

I sat up at the sound of a whistling kettle, as the Guardian had arranged some makeshift stand to hold the kettle above the waning campfire. They had replenished the wood from the stockpile near the end of the watch so that we'd wake up to the warmth.

It was nice, as much as our dour mood seemed to have lingered; it would have been twice as bad to wake up cold and damp. So, I appreciated the effort, and once the mugs of steaming tea were passed around, the ingested heat made everything seem okay - or at least the darkness rescinded from our hearts briefly. After eating from our supply of dried meats, we packed up the wagon, fed Petal, and then began our journey down to the village.

After about an hour of travel, we exited the forest and were greeted with the sight of a wide-open plain of various farmlands. Some overgrown, and some in use. The road led down into this valley, and we could see on the horizon where the land once again rose into a hill; the small glimmer of smoke pointed to this being the village.

"Doesn't feel like it'll be a couple of hours' travel since we can see it already," Florence sighed as she looked around the surrounding hills.

"I'm sure it'll go by quickly," I nodded. "If there had been a few more hours of daylight left in the previous day, we might have been able to make it there before dark."

"They could have accommodated us in the early hours of the morning." Angelos rubbed at his chin.

"Perhaps, although sometimes it's best to make yourself known in broad daylight rather than under the cover of darkness."

"You know all about that," Angelus murmured.

Eager to remove ourselves from the forested area, we slowly approached the looming village, our hearts hopeful for some proper chairs and a chance to feel a slight connection to civilization. Even if it was just a small, out-of-the-way village. It was good to remember that we were part of something bigger - I suppose the human connection of it. It pained me to consider that I had perhaps missed that, given my decades spent alone or in the company of the treacherous butler. And while I still didn't feel like I was on the same level as these people, there was enough of a familiarity that I felt comfort in their presence.

So indeed, after several hours of winding paths through the soft greens and amber browns of the fields and pastures, we eventually made it to the village outskirts.

Immediately, we caught the eyes of a handful of people who were in the midst of some conversation about something. They looked at us warily, which wasn't so much of a surprise to me, given that we were an odd bunch and adventurers and the like weren't always well-received in some parts of the continent. Some groups had the ego to be a nuisance and cause trouble during their journeys, which painted the rest of us, especially Rankers, in a bad light.

"Good morning," I nodded politely as we passed a group before finding a space to stop.

"Is it?" one of them replied, his stubbled face contorting as he raised an eyebrow.

I sunk back into my seat on the wagon as the Guardian shot me a smirk.

"Tough crowd."