Although their journey through the Rilodar countryside showed Cobal that there were a lot of people and places in the neighboring kingdom that were similar to Blueyerd, nothing prepared him for the shift in atmosphere that they encountered on their way to Marsolin. Cobal had heard stories in the palace as well as from Grac and Eliana about how it was a magical place, but seeing it for himself was a different experience. The pine forest surrounding the city started off fairly unassuming but as it got denser it started feeling more eerie. Cobal traveled through forests before, and although dense forests often had weird sounds from the animals and other creatures living in them, the forest surrounding Marsolin sounded different. Although the sounds of birds and frogs and boars were still there, there were also sounds that Cobal couldn’t quite place. As eerie as the sounds were – especially combined with the looming pine trees that rose high into the sky – the road seemed to be completely safe. It was a sturdy and well kept dirt road that was wide enough for a wagon to comfortably traverse. Along the road were several areas meant for camping that our travelers made use of. One night they sat around the campfire with three brothers that were on their way to the capital to join the army. They talked about valor and wanting to do something impactful with their lives. Cobal mostly kept to himself during the chat, not really knowing what to say. After three days of traversing the forest they finally made their way to Marsolin. With the city gates within vision, they stopped to part with Grac. Although the Irkan would undoubtedly be welcomed in the town, they’d decided on the road that leaving him out of sight would be the better choice. If someone involved with the strange cult caught wind of the fact that Grac was here, finding and freeing his wife would become a lot more difficult. So instead of joining them in town, Grac would camp nearby. Eliana put her hand on his arm, since his shoulder was too high up for her to reach. “While we’re going to do some boring research, I need you to keep an eye out on any interesting travelers and movement around town. We’ll keep you updated as much as possible.”
Grac nodded. He had a worried look on his face.
Cobal stepped up towards him and looked up at him. “It’s going to be okay, we’re going to work hard to figure out where your wife is being kept and we’ll save her in no time.”
The Irkan smiled. “Thanks Cobal, I appreciate that.” He looked around at the forest around him. “I’ll do my own scouting as well, I’m at home in the forest after all, so I’ll be fine. Keep me updated on your progress when you can,” He added.
“We will,” Cobal promised. With a wave goodbye, they got their wagon moving again and approached the town gate.
The wall surrounding Marsolin was an impressive one, dating back many generations to the time when the nearby lands were much more dangerous. The wall was about twice as high as Cobal was and was made entirely out of stone. There was a walkway at the top with wooden bannister on each side. Each of the three gates that allowed entry into the town were flanked by two watchtowers – one on each side – that held a couple of guards at any time. Although the defenses of the town were impressive, the guards themselves were not as intimidating. After asking Cobal a handful of questions about where he came from, where he was going and what he wanted to do in Marsolin they let them in without much issue. One of the guards took a peek in their wagon but after a quick glance seemed satisfied that nothing was out of the ordinary. Cobal expected much more scrutiny, so this was a pleasant surprise. Moments later the wagon was slowly hobbling over the cobblestone road inside the town.
Lining the cobblestone streets were stone houses with staircases leading to them. Many of the houses were decorated generously with plants and flowers, making for a view that rivaled any painting. As they moved through the town, the houses slowly started making way for stores and as the road widened, the stores made use of this extra space by stalling out their goods outside to entice customers in. Cobal saw all sorts of people working their stores, some smiling and nodding as they passed by. The different colored fabrics that made up the portico of many of the stores dotted the street, creating a rainbow road of sorts. As they passed by many of the stores, they soon got close to the center of town, where a large square opened up into different roads into the other districts of town. On the east side of town were the three libraries that Marsolin was most famous for. Eliana pointed at the tallest of the three buildings. “That is the Ruby Observatory. This is where those who research things like magic, the stars in the sky and any other unexplained phenomenon spend most of their time. The building behind it and to the left is the Sapphire Respite. This is less of a library than the other two and more of an art exhibit. There’s musicians that play there and famous sculptures and painters show off their work in the ground floor gallery. There’s also a large collection of fictional stories and poetry collected there.” Eliana pointed at the final and smallest of the three towers. “And finally we have the Topaz Slumber. This is the oldest of the three libraries. It houses all of the historical and scientific works that they have to offer in Marsolin. The three libraries have existed in this way for many centuries, although they were obviously much smaller when they started out.”

“You seem to know quite a lot about this place,” Cobal said to Eliana, who had been tattling off all of this information on their way towards one of the local inns.
“Well, I’ve been in Marsolin before – albeit a long time ago – and the Rilodar kingdom is kind of where I spent the majority of the last few decades. It would be irresponsible if I didn’t know my stuff.”
“And is there any chance you have some useful contacts in this town?” Mana asked.
Eliana smiled brightly. “Darling, of course I do.” She paused. “I think? It’s been a little while since I last talked to him, but I’m sure Kayzel is still around.” She didn’t seem completely certain. “First we should get settled, there’s an inn over there.”
Cobal looked at where Eliana pointed and saw the lovely three story building she was pointing at. Each floor was smaller than the one below it, with a balcony encircling the first and second floor where tables were set up.
Mana giggled. “I hate to break it to you, but I think I prefer this kingdom to your.”
Cobal scoffed. “Perhaps they’re willing to take you in and you can be their hero instead.” All three of them laughed.
Cobal spotted a sign above the door in the shape of a ghostly figure. The Phantom Homestead. “What an ominous name,” Cobal remarked. “Let’s see if they have any rooms available.”
Once inside the inn, the atmosphere was pleasant. Where a lot of inns Cobal had stayed in during his time – which admittedly wasn’t a high number – were either seedy and smelled of alcohol and tobacco or were very homely and run by families, this inn felt much more clean, for a lack of a better description. There were several booths set up where people could sit in relative privacy. A painter was sitting in a corner, working on something on their easel. Two people in simple robes, presumably students or librarians, were sitting at one of the tables out in the open, discussing something with enthusiasm. A small pile of books was in between them. Although the building was completely round, the inside of this ground floor was more like a half circle. Cobal guessed that behind the bar were the kitchen and the living quarters of the owner. The owner in question was a middle aged elven woman with dark skin and hair dyed a light gray. She wore a low cut shirt and a simple looking skirt that reached all the way to her ankles. She smiled at Cobal when he approached the bar. “Good morning handsome, looking for a room or just here to eat?”
“We’ve actually just arrived in town, the three of us,” Cobal gestured to Eliana and Mana. “We’re looking for a place to stay for at least a while, do you have any rooms available?”
She looked from Mana to Eliana, lingering on the fiery pirate captain for a moment longer before returning her attention to Cobal. “I certainly have rooms available, if you want a shared room I can rent you one of the second floor rooms, there’s four beds per room and they’re fairly spacious. Of course you also have access to the shared balcony, which you must have seen upon your approach.”
Cobal nodded. “It looked quite impressive, why is there such a big balcony?”
“You’re new here right?”
Cobal nodded.
“Marsolin is a town of learning, culture and most importantly art. Many people perform here. From painters to musicians to dancers to storytellers. Many do so on the different squares in town. Our inn looks out over a square that regularly sees performers and our guests can sit on the balcony to view them from a nice angle. Some people even pay for a room just to get a balcony seat.”
“I see, that’s pretty clever.”
“So how long will you be staying for?”
“At least a week or two,” Cobal said, looking at Mana for confirmation. She nodded. “Probably a bit longer, we’ve got some research to do.”
“Well you’re in the right town for that, if knowledge exists of something, you’ll probably find it here.” She thumbed through a thick book and scribbled something down. “Two weeks for three people, in a room on the second floor. Breakfast included, dinner excluded.” She looked up at Cobal. “That’ll run you a little over twelve gold, but for you, I’ll round it down to five gold a week.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Eliana said with a smile, opening her coin pouch and putting down ten gold pieces. “The name’s Eliana, what’s yours beautiful?”
The woman grabbed Eliana’s hand for a moment, before removing it and scooping up the ten gold pieces. “My name is Clara, a pleasure to meet you.”
Cobal and Mana introduced themselves as well before Clara handed them their key. “Go up the stairs, repeat, and then it’s room number nineteen. Numbers are above the door, and shouldn’t be hard to find. If there’s anything else I can do for you fine folk, just let me know.”
“Actually,” Eliana said, “we have a wagon and horse just outside that we need to leave somewhere during our stay, do you have any place for that?”
“Of course, there’s a stable a few streets from here that provides that service. I’ll walk with you.”
Eliana looked at Cobal. “You kids get settled, I’ll make sure the wagon is taken care of.”
They removed their bags from the back of the wagon before Eliana set off with Clara to the nearby stables.
Mana and Cobal made their way up the stairs. They did a quick walk around the first floor to see what it looked like. It was an interesting setup. There was a central area that connected the two staircases. Then on the outer edges were doors to the different rooms. In the back there was also an open door that led to the balcony directly. They took the stairs up to the second floor and quickly found their room. Cobal put the key in the lock and turned, and with a creak the door opened, revealing their room.

When I started writing the Hesitant Hero way back in the day, it was a pretty boring concept. I just really liked the concept of writing about an Isekai story where the character that went to the other world was relatable. I like the genre a lot, but I’m so exhausted of having characters that I can’t relate to. Admittedly, as I was developing the early plans for this story, there were some anime that I watched that had similar ideas already and the need for a story like the one I was planning started to kind of go away. So I shelved the idea for a while until it was late 2021. I wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo – as I’ve talked about before – but the sci-fi story I’d been working on for years still wasn’t quite what I liked. So on a whim I decided to give the story that would become The Hesitant Hero another shot. What would I do if I were sent to another world and the people there expected me to become a hero? I’d probably freak out and have a panic attack. I wanted to write about that. To keep it interesting, I added a lot of fantastical elements to the first volume and kept the anxiety that Mana experienced relatively low. To be fair to her, as scary as her life has become, things have mostly gone well for our little gang, relatively speaking.

In volume 2, there is a bit of a shift. People get hurt, allies disappear and the stakes feel higher than before. This in turn results in more anxiety. I wanted to portray Mana as more subdued in this volume, but also confident in other moments. Anxiety isn’t something that’s always with you. Well, let me explain what I mean by that. I am a very anxious person. It absolutely sucks and I would trade it away immediately if I could. But that doesn’t mean I’m always on the verge of a panic attack. I’m a teacher now, and I have good days where I feel like I can take on life confidently. Then something goes wrong – maybe even something small – and the worry starts to seep into the cracks again. That’s the kind of anxiety I wanted to portray in Mana. I’ve taken situations from my own life and made them fit Mana’s life. The story about the casino and the club afterwards is based on a real experience. In reality, when this happened to me, it wasn’t as bad as it was for Mana and I was far too scared to ruin things to actually leave the group and run away. But I’ve also had experiences where my anxiety got so bad that I had to run away from everything at full speed without regard for anything around me. So I combined those experiences to turn them into a different narrative. Mana is a lot like me in some aspects, but she’s also much more brave than I am. I would crumble into pieces if I were in her shoes, but she’s strong. She’s smart and she’s incredibly kind. For a character that shares some of my flaws, I’ve gotten quite fond of her.

Volume 2 is definitely less structured as volume 1. That’s partially because I think I had a better view of what I wanted for volume 1 and partially because it’s not supposed to be incredibly structured. Their journey is chaotic and sometimes not even sensible. Wouldn’t the prince be much better off with the army and the hero on the front line for moral support? Teaming up with a pirate, traveling through foreign lands and helping out strangers along the way? All while the looming threat of a war is happening just off screen? None of this is very sensible. But I think that’s part of the charm. Mana and Cobal both have a long way to go and I’m happy they have Eliana there to help them out.
Speaking of Eliana, I had a lot of fun working out her characteristics. I know it’s kind of arrogant but I really quite like the idea of Mana calling her a theater kid. It’s so accurate to what I think her character is. She’s gone through quite the traumatic life herself and it’s a long life as well. 

I’m going to spend the next month preparing ideas for volume 3, although quite a few plot points for that have already been set in stone. We’ll see some unexpected familiar faces in Marsolin and we’ll learn quite a bit more about the strange cult that’s been messing with Blueyerd and Cobal and friends. I also hope to develop Cobal as a character a lot more. He’s been a pretty stable center for the group to gather around, but he’s his own person as well. He’s not the biggest thinker, but Mana is slowly changing that about him. And since the story is told from his perspective we learn quite a lot about him as time goes on. Speaking of which, I once spent an entire afternoon writing a bit about Mana and Kimi sharing a conversation in volume 1, only to realize it doesn’t work since Cobal isn’t present for the conversation. Oops. Maybe I’ll eventually tell stories from other characters’ perspectives. I already have a spin-off series in mind that is crucial for some of the later parts of this story I want to tell. I have big plans. If they’re good enough is a different story, but they’re definitely plentiful.

What can you expect on this blog for the foreseeable future? Unfortunately, the amount of stories will go down quite a bit. I’ll continue uploading monthly chapters of The Necromancer’s Daughter. I’m still not perfectly happy with chapters 6-10, but they’re better than they were. At the very least they cover everything that’s important for the story to continue, and I can move back to Liari and Charlotte’s perspective without worrying. So that should be good. I’m really hoping to get some progress on a short story I’m writing called The Fae in the tree. It’s much more whimsical than my other stories, but I think it’s pretty good. I wrote like 4000 words in the middle of the night once and when I read it back the next day some of it still made sense.
But until January of 2024 there will likely not be any new chapters for The Hesitant Hero. I am also working on finalizing volume 1 and sending it to a publisher. If things go well, I’ll send the first version out before the year is over. I have no idea what I’m doing though, so be patient. If you’ve made it this far and you’ve read every chapter I want to once again make clear how much I appreciate you! I still cannot believe that people come back weekly to read the stories I write. I’ve been writing to only myself for so long that I thought I’d never write something that someone else enjoyed, but knowing that people enjoy my stories makes me so happy and gives me so much motivation to continue writing. Thank you so much and I promise I’ll keep writing stories for many more years!

PS. Knowing myself, I’ll probably do one or two more afterwords in the future just to put my thoughts on paper 😛

After a good night’s rest, the party made their way back to town. The walk back from the hot springs was pleasant with the morning air being cold in a good way. With renewed energy and having somewhat recovered from the violence of the previous day they entered the streets of Tormir. The morning was filled with the bustling of a city waking up and people were traveling to their work and setting up their stalls and businesses. The sounds of hammering and sawing filled the backstreets of the small city and Cobal could even hear a fish peddler off in the distance trying to bring in her first customers of the day. The cart hit one of the pebbles and everyone shook awake as they entered the street where their inn was located. The innkeeper was outside, sweeping the street. “Ah, you all made it back. I was about to clean up your rooms and open them up for new folk.” He laughed. “Not that we expect more visitors with those bandits around.”
“Well, we have some good news for you.” Eliana said with a big smile on her face.
“Oh?”
“We took care of the bandits. They shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
“Really? And the monster in the forest?”
“Wasn’t really a monster after all, just a giant being abused by the bandits.”
“A giant?”
“Well, not quite a giant, but a giantkin of sorts, they’re a peaceful folk that live further east, but after we dealt with the bandits he agreed to go back home.”
“Well, I am hesitant to believe all of that, but I hope to be proven wrong in the coming days. Breakfast?”
“Breakfast sounds lovely right now, thank you.” They hitched the horses to a post out front before going inside. “You’re leaving then, I presume?” the innkeeper asked as he served up some fresh bacon and eggs.
Cobal nodded. “We’re moving further east, as we planned to.”
“Business in Marsolin?”
“You can say that.”
“It’s a nice city, the wife’s family is from there.”
“Can you tell us about it, we’re not from around this area,” Mana asked.
The innkeeper thought for a little. “Well, it’s a strange place for one. I liked it while I stayed there, but there was always a feeling in the air of strangeness. Sometimes people would walk in the streets and they felt like they weren’t quite what they seemed. Like there was more going on behind closed doors. But the libraries were mighty impressive and the people were always kind while I was there, so I suppose maybe I was just judging them based on my own preconceptions.”
“Anything we need to keep in mind if we want to make a good impression?” Eliana asked.
“Not really, folk are folk. No matter where you go, people will differ yet be the same.” The innkeeper chuckled. “There’s some life lessons for you, as different as people get, they still share similarities even if they don’t want to admit it. We all want the same things in life after all.”
“And that is?” Eliana asked.
“A comfortable bed, good food and better company.”
Eliana smiled. “Now that’s something I can get behind.”
The innkeeper went to a different table to help out some of the locals while the party finished up their breakfast. After all the food was gone Cobal stood up. “Well then, we’re close to our destination, might as well get there swiftly.”
The other two followed and they made their way outside.

They removed the horses from the post they were tied to and got to driving. The sun was getting higher in the sky but there was enough daytime left to get some distance in. After about an hour they met up with Grac who had been hiding outside of town. Eliana gave him some of the extra food they brought and after quickly catching up with him they made their way towards Marsolin. The road was pleasant and after they came back to the main road again from their detour of avoiding the capital city the rest went by without a hitch. Grac stayed close to the road throughout the day and sat with them in their small camp at night. When Marsolin was finally visible on the horizon he split off once more. He told them about an old cave he saw once before. He would wait there while the party would help him find out more about his wife.
“I’m actually kind of excited to get there,” Mana said.
“Because of the books?” Eliana asked.
“Honestly, yes. I’ve always been a fan of reading even in my old world. And I feel like there’s some things about magic and this world that I’m close to understanding, but I’m not quite there yet. I still have a bunch of questions about what is possible and although Dionil has a very good understanding of magic, I think there might be more to it. I hope to find this out while we find a way to help our friends.”
“Well, if there’s any place to do it, this is a pretty good one. That or the lost library of Owlana, but that’s a legend.”
Mana smiled. “Who knows which legends end up being true.” The sun peeked from behind the clouds and shone in Cobal’s eyes, making it hard to see. When his eyes adjusted again, the large wooden gate surrounding Marsolin was visible. They made it to their destination.

“I’ve already told you about the differences in our education systems, but to recap it quickly for Eliana let me go through it again. We actually go to school from a young age where we learn basic things, then we study subjects and then we choose something to specialize in. Where in your world someone would just work under a craftsman in most cases or in case of nobles and rich folks get some lessons, we would all be required to learn. It has its upsides, it has its downsides. Depending on how the system is executed, it gives more opportunities to different people, but there’s also a lot of problems with the quality of what is taught, the value of theory versus practice and the costs that come with it. That’s too long and far too boring of a story to tell right now, but I wanted to give you some background for this story.” The three of them were still laying there on the porch of their small house out in the forest. “I spent my youth fairly content. I felt different from a young age, but not so different that I had no feeling of belonging at all. I had friends and although I was slow to make connections and quick to tire, I was a clever girl and made up for a lot of it by pretending to know what I was doing.” Mana chuckled. “When you’re young it seems like such a good idea to pretend you’re fine. You don’t want to be different from everyone else.” She hummed a tune to the words of stand out fit in. Cobal didn’t recognize it but he assumed it was music from her old world. “Anyway, as you get older you learn that fitting in isn’t what is most important. But when you’re 11 or 12 years old and you first start secondary school it seems like the most important thing in the world.” She sat up. “I’m too old to lay down like this, I need proper posture.”
“You just need to work out more,” Cobal countered. She gave him a mean glare before smiling. “Perhaps you’re right, but I’m getting much more exercise here than I ever did in my old world, so cut me some slack please.”
“I’ll drop it.” Cobal said with a smile.
“Now then, this story takes place when I was in secondary school. I was 17 years old at this time. I was seeing a therapist at this time. A therapist is like a doctor for your mental health.” She looked at each of them to make sure they understood. “I wasn’t really feeling like my therapist and I were on the same page and felt like there was no benefit, but what did I know. One of my friends celebrated her birthday and we all went to a casino and then to a club afterwards. A casino is a place for gambling and a club is like a bar with loud music. I was hesitantly excited to go. I hadn’t fully come to terms with my mental health problems and my anxiety at this point in time but I was painfully aware that there was something not quite right. Pushing aside these negative thoughts I got in the car with the rest of my friends and set off to have a fun night. Casinos are very fun places. As someone who is very much opposed to gambling, I’m afraid to say it was a lot of fun to do. But you have to be aware that you’re not trying to make money, but you just have a certain amount of money to gamble with and by the end of the evening you’ll be broke. My friends’ parents paid for all of our chips, so we didn’t even have to pay. We didn’t get a ton of them, but more than enough to have fun for a few hours. This all went well but by the time we left the building I was already incredibly tired. Of course the rest of my friends wanted to go to a club and I wasn’t going to be the one to ruin the fun. Besides, they were my ride home so it’s not like I could easily leave.” She crossed her legs and leaned forward on her hands, staring off into the distance. Cobal could see in her eyes that she’d traveled back to that point in her life and knew that she would need a moment. After a minute she continued. “We went to the club and I tried one of the alcoholic drinks. It wasn’t terrible, but my tiredness got much worse and it also increased my anxiety. Not to mention that I started getting a headache at this point. I don’t know if it was the alcohol or the exhaustion or a combination of the two, but about thirty minutes after we entered this club I felt miserable. So I found myself in the middle of a crowd of people, music blasting from the speakers, and nowhere to really go.” She looked at Eliana. “I know that panic attacks can be very different for different people but for me it feels like an intense desire to be elsewhere. To be somewhere safe and quiet. So I ran. I ran through the crowd, bumping into several people and eventually making my way outside. We were close to the beach so I ran down the stairs and sat on the beach, staring off into the night’s sky.” She looked up. “Kind of like we are right now. Even back then the night sky had a calming effect on me. After a few moments, one of my friends’ parents came over to check if I was okay. I told them I was better, I just needed some quiet. My friend’s father then sat with me, quietly, and I slowly regained my composure. We waited on the beach until the rest of them were also done partying. Some of them were worried about me so they left earlier than they probably wanted to. I felt so guilty for days after that, like I ruined the party. I don’t think my friends ever blamed me, and I learned a valuable lesson that day, but whenever I think back to it, I do start to feel anxious.” She let out a deep breath. “Even now I can feel my heart beating far too fast and I’m sweaty. I might jump back into the water to clean up,” she said with a chuckle. “So yeah, not a dangerous adventure in a strange jungle but I’m afraid my stories from my old world aren’t nearly as intense as yours.”

Quiet filled the space before Eliana spoke up. “I’m not going to lie, there were quite a few words in there that I didn’t really understand. But there’s a feeling you described that resonated with me and I think that’s what is important. There’s many people out there that are broken, and we are all different in a sense, but we can learn from each other and make each other stronger.”
Mana smiled. “That’s a good outlook to have.”
“So how did that all get resolved?” Cobal asked.
“Well, you know, there wasn’t any actual problem of course, anxiety can come from things that shouldn’t be scary. The whole idea is that our fight or flight kicks in at the wrong moment. When you see a big fiery beast that’s about to attack you, you don’t need your thinking skills, you need to either fight back or flee. When it comes to anxiety, people will get that feeling and want to flee for things that don’t threaten their life. So your body has the same reaction to standing in a club as it has to finding a dangerous beast. When the moment passes, you realize that there was nothing to be scared about and you can get a feeling of shame wash over you. That’s what happened to me, at least. I felt really bad for all my friends who had to cut their fun evening short for me. They didn’t complain and we stayed friends for a while after that so clearly they didn’t blame me for it, but these things gnaw at you when you can’t sleep at night and will only make the anxiety worse in the long run.”
Cobal listened intently to Mana’s story. It wasn’t something he could relate to at all. Setting aside the crazy things that happened in her world, he just didn’t have these anxiety attacks. He had his own worries of course. He was worried for his brother, and adding to that was his worry that there was something strange going on. It was easier when he just thought his brother was being held ransom. That was easy enough to understand. But not knowing why his brother seemingly left out of his own was scarier. He was worried about the threat of war. His father had luckily listened to them and hadn’t started an aggressive campaign yet but he felt like the clock was ticking and if he took too long in finding his brother, fighting would start to break out at the border. Having walked through part of this country, Cobal knew that the people themselves had nothing to do with any of this. They were no longer strange folks across a border, they were just normal people. It was weird to him that just being here for a short time gave him such a different perspective already. His worries seemed more tangible than Mana’s worries, but he had smaller worries. He worried the hero would hate him for summoning her from her own world, he worried that she’d get up and leave one day, and he would be lost. He worried that they wouldn’t find his brother or even worse, that they would find his brother. The more he thought about it, the more he started to realize that his ideas about anxiety and stress were changing. He chuckled.
“What’s funny?” Eliana asked.
“Oh, nothing, I was just thinking how much has changed in such a short time.”
Eliana stood up and stretched her arms and back. “That’s how it always is. We stagnate for years until suddenly years worth of events happen in a few days. Life comes at you in waves and the best we can do is let the waves take us. Fighting against the tide is a lost cause. You know what they say about getting stuck in a riptide, you don’t swim against the waves, you swim alongside the waves until you find a moment in time where the waves have calmed down and you are back in control.”
“So what you’re saying is that living your life is kind of like swimming in the ocean?”
Mana started laughing loudly.
“Did I say something funny?” Cobal asked.
“No, but you reminded me of something I heard a long time ago that’s funny.” She wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye. “Life is like a box of pastries.”
“Why is that?”
“You never know what you’ll get.” They all laughed. With the night calm and cool, they continued to talk for hours until they ran out of things to talk about. Eliana was the first to go to bed but Mana and Cobal followed shortly after. As Cobal put the covers over himself he let out a deep sigh. He felt at ease for the first time in a while, comfortable in a strange place. His worries for the future may not be fully gone, but sharing in the worries and anxieties of others strangely put him at ease. He wondered if this was something that should be more common in his kingdom. Perhaps teach doctors that the mind is just as important as the body. He would have to ask Mana about her opinion in the morning. But for now he could already feel the warm embrace of sleep and he was not about to say no to some rest. His mind may be at ease but his body was exhausted. Before he fully finished that thought he was asleep.

“After we decided which six of us would go and explore the ship, we left camp and went back. There was a small distance between our camp and the ship, maybe a ten minute walk. Now when I say there was a ship made out of bone, let me clarify a little bit what I mean. I’m sure you’ve both seen a human ribcage before right?”
Cobal nodded and he could only assume that Mana did the same, since Eliana continued. “Well, imagine a human ribcage, but very, very large. Like the size of a ship large. Put a massive bone at the center of it and a tattered sail hanging from it and you more or less have the right picture in your mind. Strangely enough, whatever the main cabin was made out of was a strange, dark black wood that none of us recognized. We think there might have been more to it, but truth be told we could never really figure out how this thing was supposed to work. Keep in mind that we were all naive about our surroundings at the time, but we weren’t stupid. We were well prepared, even though we didn’t fully understand what we were getting ourselves into. Our leader, Marvek, was probably the most experienced out of all of us. Even he had never seen anything like this. The wood was definitely wood, he used a chisel to confirm that. It acted like wood would but none of us had ever seen a tree that was that color, so we didn’t know where it hailed from. Some speculated that these trees might grow deeper into the Wildlands but Marvek disagreed. His theory was that this ship came from elsewhere. Either a different continent or even a different world. We weren’t sure which of those two was scarier. Either way, we continued exploring. Marvek found what looked to be a treasure chest made out of the same material as the cabin was. The lock and the hinges were made from a metal, presumably just iron or something, it didn’t look particularly strange. The wood was surprisingly tough but not tough enough that we couldn’t get through it. Inside the chest was a book in a language we didn’t understand, a sealed scroll with no text on it and a necklace with a beautiful blue gemstone. After we were certain that there was nothing else there, we left the eerie shipwreck behind us and went back to camp. There we found the most horrifying sight I’ve ever seen. Everyone who stayed behind at the camp was dead. Scratch marks and bitemarks were all over their bodies and some were even missing. After we got over the initial shock, which admittedly took a while, we realized that the missing people were probably dragged off by whatever creature did this, since there were some blood trails. We tried finding them, but the trails ended eventually. Terrified of whatever this was, we made the decision to turn around. The journey back to Sakrijan felt like a fever dream. We were scared out of our minds that whatever killed our friends was coming to get us next and every strange sound made us even more scared. We eventually made our way back there safely, despite all the dangers. We stayed the night in a local inn and agreed to talk about where to go next in the morning. When the next morning came, Marvek was gone. He brought all of his belongings with him, but he left the ship which we still had in the harbor. The five of us spent two days looking for him, but eventually we gave up and accepted that he had left the area. After talking it over for a bit, we ended up splitting up. We sold the ship to the harbormaster and split the money five ways. That was the last time I saw any of them. I heard that Timor became a librarian many years later, but the others I didn’t even hear any news about. To this day I sometimes wonder where Marvek went, and if he’s still alive. He’d be pretty old by now, but, you know, so am I.” Eliana smiled. “Let’s get out of this water, I’m turning into a shriveled old lady.”

There were small houses next to the inn where you could stay the night. It worked on a sort of honor system where you would stay the night and put the money for it in the offering box. When Cobal looked down into the box he was happy to see that it seemed to be working, since there were quite a few coins down there. He paid for their stay and joined the other two on the porch of their house. Mana sat there with her feet dangling over the edge while Eliana was inside. Cobal sat next to Mana. “This reminds me of the place we stayed at in Ravadier.”
Mana smiled. “I can see that. Different view, but I like the quiet.”
“You’ve preferred the quiet since the day I met you.”
“And long before that.” She let out a sigh. “I hope we find out something more about your brother in Marsolin, we haven’t really made a lot of progress.”
“I wouldn’t say that. We know that he’s involved with these cultists and we know that they might be hiding out near Marsolin. That’s a pretty big jump compared to suspecting the Rilodar King to have kidnapped him.”
“I suppose you’re right. I just hope this doesn’t turn out to be a dead end.”
“I’m sure it’ll be okay. And even if it isn’t, I think there’s a good chance we might be able to find out something from the libraries there. It’s not the worst place to have to start over.”
“That’s true.”
“I know I said I prefer the open seas, but this place isn’t too bad either.” Eliana came walking out the front door and sat down next to Mana, on the opposite side from Cobal. “You can still see the stars from here.”
“Not as well as from the open seas, admittedly,” Cobal replied.
“I’ll have to make do.”
“Eliana?” Mana asked.
“Hmm?”
“Can you tell us a little bit more about your youth? I’ve never heard of sea elves before, and I’m curious to hear about where you grew up and what that was like. It sounds like it was probably very different from my upbringing.”
“Well, you did grow up in a different world, so that makes sense.”
“It’s strange to think about, from my perspective,” Mana continued. “You’ve been alive for such a long time. There’s so much that has changed in my world in even the last hundred years. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live through many times that.”
“Well, a lot of the normal things don’t change. People are still people, everyone’s still trying to live their lives and the sun comes up in the morning and goes down in the evening.”
“Sure, but magic and things like that must have advanced a lot in the time you’ve been alive.”
“You get used to it. Even though a lot can change in a hundred years, it doesn’t change all at once. More often than not, it’s a gradual process. One day someone might come up with a strange new idea, then some others take the idea and run with it until years later it’s a common occurrence.”
Mana thought for a while. “That makes sense I guess.”
“As to my youth, it’s really not that interesting of a story. I was born to a small family, spent my youth in our island village. We lived from what we grew on the island and the fish we caught. We were a small community, even back then. Nowadays I doubt there’s many of us left, I know the village is no longer there.” Eliana fell quiet.
“Maybe we’ll come across some as we continue to travel,” Cobal suggested, realizing the mood was souring.
“I doubt it, but I appreciate the optimism.” Eliana stretched out her legs and laid down on the porch. “I’m tired, I might call it a night early.” She looked at Mana. “What was your youth like?”
Mana looked off into the distance. As Eliana was telling her story before, a tiredness had washed over her face. Cobal saw that she was reaching her limit. He was more aware than most about the way she felt, since she was so kind as to share some of her thoughts with him. But even he didn’t know everything. Mana had talked quite a lot about things that happened in her world that didn’t happen here. What she hadn’t really talked about all that much was her own past. Cobal had thought about this before, and he wasn’t one to push someone else to overshare, so the topic hadn’t really come up in their conversations. He wondered if her youth was something she didn’t want to think back to or if it was something that had become very personal to her now that there was no one here who shared that experience. Cobal could only guess.
“I don’t really like to talk much about my own past. There’s a saying in my world that you should learn from your past so you can avoid repeating past mistakes. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my past. They’re often small mistakes that don’t feel severe enough to really worry about, but add them all up and you get a pretty miserable picture. There were times that I can look back on and learn a lot from, but there are also many times that I simply do not want to recall. At least not actively.”
A quiet filled the space once more. Mana seemed to be thinking something of importance over and neither Eliana nor Cobal wanted to be the one to pull her out of it. While he waited, Cobal absentmindedly traced his fingers over the planks that made up the little balcony they were sitting on. The air was chilled but not uncomfortably cold. They were once again far away from the bustling capital city of Saphestan, but the quiet was different. It wasn’t different in an uncomfortable way, but it was less familiar. Even though they didn’t spend much time at Dionil’s place, it felt like home. This place wasn’t home. Cobal chuckled to himself. Why was he thinking about home at a time like this, it’s not like they were staying here for more than a day or two. He looked at Eliana who had just shared something very personal with them. Until today, Cobal did have his doubts about traveling with her. Despite being recommended to them by Dionil, she didn’t seem like she would be much help. Now that he knew a little bit more about her, he understood why Dionil sent them to her. Or rather, why he sent her to them. Eliana may be of great use to their cause with her vast knowledge of the region and her previous run-ins with strange magics, but this meeting wasn’t meant for Cobal and Mana. It was meant for Eliana. Cobal’s smile widened. Dionil wasn’t called the woodland sage for nothing. His ways may be unclear at first, but when push comes to shove, he truly was wise beyond his years. Eliana was laying on her back, staring at the stars. Cobal leaned back as well, leaving Mana to be the last one to stay sitting. The stars were pleasant and lit up the sky just enough that the darkness of the forest didn’t scare them. He looked at Eliana who smiled at him. “What are you grinning about?”
“Nothing special, just thinking about old friends.”
Mana laid back in between them. “I think I have a story that I wouldn’t mind sharing with the two of you. But you have to promise not to talk about it to anyone else.” She looked at Eliana.
“I promise.”
She looked at Cobal. “Not even to Kimi or Mirgia,” she said.
“I promise.”
Mana smiled. “Then let me tell you about my youth.”

If the transition from last chapter to this chapter feels a little bit odd, that’s because I decided to change it after I already uploaded last week’s chapter. I debated going back and editing last week’s chapter on the website but ultimately decided to leave it up as is. In the final version, Eliana won’t offer up to tell her story until the gang is out of the immediate danger of the forest. Thanks for your understanding and enjoy this week’s chapter!

Cobal was about to get up to make tea before Eliana waved him back. “It’s too long of a story to tell here, if I promise to tell you everything when we get back to town, can you wait a day?”
Cobal nodded. “That might be best.” He looked at Mana. “Besides, you still need to rest.”
Mana chuckled. She was visibly still shaken up from everything that had happened. “I suppose you’re right.”
Eliana smiled. “There you have it, let the ladies sleep and properly keep watch over us,” she said to Cobal.
“I’ll protect you both with my life,” Cobal replied somewhat jokingly.
Eliana let out a long sigh. “My prince,” she joked before laying down while laughing. “Good night.”
Both Eliana and Mana were asleep pretty quickly after and the night’s watch went by without a hitch. In the morning they made their way back to town. Grac would stay in a small camp they set up for him near town. Walking him into Tormir in the middle of the day would probably cause a commotion, with all the rumors of strange creatures in the forest. An eastern town like Marsolin would be more accepting of his people, so he would stay out of sight for now. Grac assured them that it was okay, since he was used to sleeping in the woods. He was perfectly comfortable here, now that he was no longer being held captive. He did urge the party to not wait too long with continuing their journey as he was worried about his wife. After Cobal promised him they’d leave the next day, they separated and the trio walked back into town.
After checking in at the inn, they were informed about the nearby hot springs. It turns out that the closest one was an hour walk away, a little bit in the direction they just came from, but further west than they had been. They avoided that area initially because the elevation was much faster there. At the base of the steep mountain was a small hot spring that was frequently used by travelers. While getting food to get some extra energy for the short trek to the hot springs, Cobal informed the innkeeper about their run-in with the bandits. He told them that they probably wouldn’t have to worry anymore. When the innkeeper asked about the strange creature Cobal lied and said it was a trick that the bandits were playing with shadows and sticks holding up fabric. There were no creatures there, just creative bandits. The innkeeper didn’t seem to fully believe everything, but he thanked Cobal either way. After getting something to eat, the trio made their way out there, finding it with ease. There was a pretty well traveled trail that led there, even though it seemed like it had been a few days at least since someone last walked the trail. And indeed, when they came to the hot springs it was abandoned. The steaming water was very welcoming and there was a nice area where they could all sit in the water, while still having some privacy due to rocks and plants separating them.

“Well then, I suppose it’s time for me to share my story,” Eliana said once everyone was properly relaxed. Cobal sat on a rock with everything below his shoulders submerged in the pleasant warm water. Mana and Eliana were behind him, but close enough that he could still hear them well. “It’s a long story and it’s best if we start at the beginning, so let’s do just that.
I was born over 700 years ago. I spent my youth in a seaside town to the far north. We were a peaceful city and that bored me. So I went out to see at a young age. I traveled aboard a ship for a few years, then stayed in town for a few. Then I would get on a different ship and work there for a while. The reason I was always drawn to the ocean was that my people are sea folk. We belong to an ancient species of sea elves.” Eliana paused for a moment. “Now, we don’t really have much in common with your common elves, and I don’t even think our species are related, at least not more than elves and humans are related. But when humans found us and learned about our long lifespan and seafaring abilities they assumed we were related to elves since we were too tall to be dwarves. Humans can often be simple folk.” She laughed. “On one of my journeys, I had a group of strange people on my ship. Among this group were two names that’ll be familiar to you. One was the previous hero, Might. The other was Dionil. He was already an old fart back then and when you all told me you met him I was surprised. I assumed he died years ago. We traveled as a group for a while, but after Might was killed we kind of grew apart. I stayed in contact with both Dionil and Sarjan for a while, but never really talked to the rest of the group after that. I regret that now, both Milin and Savrina are likely long dead, they weren’t blessed with mine, Dionil’s and Sarjan’s lifespans. Maybe forty or fifty years after we all split, I went on an adventure. I joined a ship captained by a then friend of mine. We sailed up the river all the way to Sakrijan, a city on the edge of the Feral Wildlands. I believe it’s gone now, but that has nothing to do with the story I’m telling right now. We docked our ship there and continued on land. All in all there were seventeen of us, and we prepared well for the trip. There was supposed to be a temple to Aquana that was a nine day travel from where we entered the uncharted territory. That was our goal. Rumors said it held a blueprint of a very powerful ship. The first three days went fine, we traveled for most of the day and set up camp at night. We had enough people to rotate watches efficiently and spirits were high. On day four we had our first casualty. A very poisonous plant with sharp thorns was hidden among the regular shrubbery and within minutes, Kaisir was no longer breathing. I can still see his face in my nightmares. The blood all pooling under his skin, eventually causing his skin to tear and blood to start almost boiling out of his face as he cried in pain. Our captain stabbed him in the heart to stop his suffering.” Eliana fell silent once more. Cobal couldn’t blame her. He heard soldiers talk about war before, and seeing someone die was apparently very traumatic. He had killed people now, and although it was probably a different feeling, he still knew things he didn’t know in the past. After what was maybe a minute of silence, Eliana continued. “Several of us said we should turn around and rethink this mission, but the majority of us wanted to press on, myself included. We held a vote and the result was clear. So after laying Kaisir to rest we continued on. Two days later we managed to reach Tas’Irkan, the Irkan village that Grac is from. We were hesitantly welcomed in and stayed for a day to get our bearings. They even helped us restock on food and drink and although we were still shook from the loss of one of our own, we regained our composure and continued on. We gave the village elder some of our treasure as a thanks for helping us out, and we knew we were closing in on our goal. The village elder said that he knew of a strange temple deeper in the forest but he was a little bit confused about our map since the temple he knew wasn’t to Aquana and didn’t match up with the location we knew. We assumed that maybe his information was wrong, or he was thinking of a different temple. We should have rethought our plans there, as this was our second warning to abandon this mission. But we were young and reckless and we ignored the obvious signs. We’d made it this far, after all, so we were almost there. Turning back now would just feel like a waste.”

The sound of the water was the only sound that filled the area for a while. Cobal realized he was holding his breath listening to this story. He grew up hearing about the Feral Wildlands and how dangerous they were. They encountered strange creatures and cultists on their way to and from Milinia and he figured it was just a place that people didn’t go to. Now he met someone who lived there and he heard Eliana talk about several days worth of travel into the dangerous region. It was really changing the way he saw the Wildlands. They were still a dangerous region, and he could hear from the way Eliana was telling the story that this wasn’t going to end well, but the fact that she managed to travel several days through the area and return was definitely something Cobal would have deemed impossible a year ago. Perhaps there was more to it. There were entire villages after all. While Cobal was thinking about all this, Eliana continued her story. “The jungle got denser after we left Tas’Irkan. We had three people who were stung by strange looking insects and although things were looking scary for a while, they seemed to recover from their illness after two days. They definitely lost some weight in the process and the entire mission felt more grim than ever. We traveled through a part of the jungle that was almost completely enveloped in fungi and after debating it for a while we decided that our only real option was to go around it. The fumes from strange fungi would likely be dangerous and there were so many that we’d never seen before or even heard of that it simply wouldn’t be worth the risk. So we diverted from our original path. The stars in the sky were still visible through the canopy but none of us were very experienced with traveling through unfamiliar jungles. On sea we were experts, but here we could only hope we knew enough to not lose our way. By the time we got to the eleventh day, we came across the strangest sight so far. There, sitting on the forest floor, was the remains of a ship made out of bone. We were completely baffled by the sight of it and set up our camp a little ways back the way we came to discuss what we should do. There was no sign of life anywhere around the ship, besides normal things like bugs and birds. What I mean to say is, although there seemed to be no people or strange creatures around, it also wasn’t eerily abandoned to the point that it was something to be completely avoided. Curiosity got the better of us and we sent out a party of six to go and explore the ship.” Eliana got up and out of the water. She sat down on the stone ledge, only dangling her legs in the water. “It’s too hot for me to stay in the water constantly, I’m getting a bit lightheaded. She looked at Cobal. “Is this the first time you’re hearing a story about someone going to the Feral Wildlands?”
Cobal looked up at her. He expected her to cut a more imposing figure sitting there, but after listening to her voice slowly getting more shaky throughout the story, he was starting to see her for who she really was. Mana had called her a theater kid and Cobal hadn’t fully understood how deeply accurate that description was. Eliana was just a regular woman doing her best to convince everyone she was much more ruthless and powerful than she actually was. There was a fear in her eyes that she couldn’t hide even by pretending to be nonchalant and taking a physically higher position. Cobal wondered what Mana was thinking right now, but she was still on the other side of the rock dividing the two hot springs and he couldn’t see her face.
“To answer your question, I’ve heard stories of people going to the Feral Wildlands, but I haven’t heard any stories of people coming back okay.”
“Well, none of us came back okay either, so that does fit with the rest of what you know. Eliana looked down at Mana. “What are you thinking, you have such a difficult look on your eyes.”
“I was just thinking how brave it is of you to speak so openly about such trauma.”
Such a simple sentence to leave Mana’s mouth, but Cobal saw the tears immediately shoot into Eliana’s eyes. Cobal respectfully looked away as Eliana recovered. “Well, let’s continue the story,” she said. 

“What in the hell is going on here?” a voice yelled out.
Cobal and Mana were hiding in one of the tents, but with Grac being out of his cage and still nearby, they wouldn’t be able to hide for long. They held their breath, quietly waiting for a moment.
“I think there’s some rats hiding among us.” A sizzling sound appeared followed by a high pitched whine and then all of a sudden the tent they were hiding in was ablaze. Without missing a beat Cobal cut open the back and pushed Mana out, before going after her.
“There you are.” A wild grin was on the face of the man standing on the other side of the collapsing tent. He was a very strong looking man. Wearing an eyepatch that covered his left eye, his face was focused on our duo. “So you killed my men and stole my little pet, what do you want from me?”
Mana stood up next to Cobal. “Your pet?” She looked at him with anger in her eyes. “That kind soul is a person.”
The man laughed. “That’s a monster at best, little girl.” He slowly unsheathed his sword, “but it’s mine.”
Cobal did the same but before he knew it, one of the bandits was upon him and pinned him to the ground. “You’re not interfering in the boss’s fun.”
“Mana, get to safety, quickly.” Where was Eliana, where was Grac.
Cobal looked around, panic starting to take hold of him. He spotted Grac who was cowering behind his cage. He then spotted Eliana on the edge of camp. She seemed to be looking for an opening. She met his eyes and nodded. Good, there was still an option.
“I know who you are,” the man said. “You should feel honored that Jonus the great has heard of you, you’re that wizard that the kingdom has been parading around, aren’t you?”
“How do you know about that?” Cobal yelled.
Jonus grinned at him. “I’m a well-informed man, I know what’s going on in my country.”
“You’re just a third-rate bandit.”
“I may be just a bandit, but I’ve been chosen by the gods to be a powerful bandit.” He extended his hand and a ball of fire slammed into Cobal’s leg, exploding on impact. Cobal yelled out in pain. “Look at the gifts I’ve been given by the boss.”
Cobal was too focused on the pain in his leg to notice that Mana unsheathed her dagger, the one that Jerasi had personally made for her. A ripple of light went over the weapon as the anger on Mana’s face washed away. “Alright, let’s see if your god has forsaken you,” Cobal heard her say. Not expecting this intensity from her, he shifted his focus away from the wound to instead look at Mana. Even from seeing her back he could feel how intense her calmness was. As if she took all her emotions and pushed them elsewhere. The dagger started turning a bright white as she held it in front of her. “You know, there are a lot of things in my old world that I didn’t like, but I never had the power to change them. When I first came to this world I worried the same would be true here.”
“What are you talking about, lass? Come at me.”
Mana ignored the man, continuing, “but in the past few months I learned something. I may not be the legendary hero that people think I am, but I’m not powerless either.” She stepped forward and her blade almost sang as it cut through the air, leaving a vacuum behind. She took another step, the blade singing out once more before she suddenly let go of the blade. Instead of falling to the ground, it shot forward, slicing through the shoulder of the bandit.
“You’ll pay for that,” Jonus yelled, charging at her. Mana pushed out a gust of air to try and push him off balance. He faltered, but only for a moment, before continuing his charge. This did give Mana enough time to dive out of the way and roll into some stacked up boxes. As she did so, Cobal heard the sound of the blade singing through the air intensify before he saw the point of it sticking out of the neck of the bandit that had him pinned down. Blood started trickling down as Cobal pushed him off. Mana got up and watched as the bandit came charging at her, hurling fire at the crates around her. Unfazed, she stood there as fire missed her by a hair’s breadth. With incredible speed, the dagger shot back towards her, striking Jonus in his back and knocking him off balance. After stumbling and rolling into the pile of crates that Mana was standing in as well, he looked up at her. “Well I’ll be,” was all he could get out before the dagger impaled his good eye and went deep into his skull.
Silence filled the clearing before Cobal asked. “Are you alright?” at Mana.
Mana smiled at him. “No.” And she collapsed.

The next two hours were very stressful for Cobal. After making sure all of the bandits were dead and going through their stuff, he made sure that Grac was alright and wouldn’t suddenly turn on them. On top of that, Mana didn’t seem to wake up. Once they were finally done with everything in the camp, they had Grac carefully carry Mana over his shoulder as they traveled further back into the forest to find their own place to camp. They talked very little throughout everything. Eliana seemed to have other things on her mind and Cobal didn’t mind the quiet. He was still reeling from the violence. This was the second time since they left home that things had taken a violent turn and he was not nearly as prepared for it as he thought. It was a terrible feeling to take someone’s life and watching Mana – who he considered to be an incredibly kind soul – kill a man, a powerful man at that, was not a pleasant experience.
It took two more hours for Mana to wake up. Eliana had assured him that she was just asleep from the shock and she would be fine, and she luckily turned out to be correct. Grac watched over her as Cobal and Eliana set up the camp and when everything was set up, Cobal told Grac to get some rest. They didn’t have a bedroll or a tent his size, but he said that he would sleep against a nearby tree and that would be more comfortable than the cage he had been held in.
“At least take this extra blanket we have,” Cobal insisted. Grac happily accepted and went to sleep. Before he dozed off he looked at Cobal once more. “Thank you for helping me,” he said.
Cobal smiled. “That goes both ways.”
Grac had gone to sleep by the time Mana woke up again.
“Morning darling,” Eliana said when she noticed Mana sitting upright.
“Are you okay?” Cobal asked.
“I think so, what happened?”
“Well, you went and passed out,” Eliana said. “After you stabbed the crap out of that bandit.”
“Great, I was hoping that I didn’t actually stab a man to death.” She leaned forward and Cobal and Eliana watched as she threw up. Eliana rubbed her back. “Get it all out, that’s best for you.”
Mana nodded weakly. “Where are we right now?”
Cobal stood up. “We made a little ways away from the bandit camp, Grac is sleeping over there.” He pointed at the sleeping Irkan.
“Well, after being in such a bad place for a while, he needs the rest.” Mana sank back onto the bedroll. “So do I, apparently. Can we continue this conversation in the morning?”
Cobal nodded. “Get some rest, we’ll keep watch for now.”
Within minutes, Mana was asleep again.

Eliana took the first watch and after Cobal made sure that both Mana and Grac were fast asleep, he went to bed himself. He slept surprisingly well. He was worried he would not be able to sleep at all but the moment his head touched his bedroll the exhaustion that he’d shoved away all day washed over him all at once and he felt his body relax. It did only feel like a few minutes had passed when Eliana woke him up, but looking at the pitch black darkness it was definitely several hours later and deep into the night.
“You slept well I reckon?” She asked, handing him a cup of water.
Cobal nodded. “Surprisingly so, must have been the exhaustion catching up with me.”
Eliana chuckled. “I hope I can sleep well too.” She looked around. “Forests at night creep me out, I much prefer being on the open seas. No enemies in the treeline there and anyone that would approach us would be spotted long before they’re breathing down my neck.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” Cobal admitted. “Are you not scared of dangerous creatures coming from underneath the waves?”
There was a pause before Eliana answered. “Not that much. If a dweller of the deep were to set their eyes on our ship we would die in mere moments. Are you scared of a storm or getting hit by lightning? It’s the same. It’s so far beyond anything we can deal with that there’s no point in worrying about it.”
“So you’d consider dangerous sea creatures a natural disaster?”
Eliana nodded. “Anything small, we can deal with pretty easily, but dangerous creatures from legends might as well be a natural disaster.”
“But you won’t find any of those in a forest, right?”
Eliana’s face went so white that even in the dimly lit forest Cobal couldn’t miss the change in demeanor. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Eliana replied. She stood up and stretched her arms. “Just some bad memories.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine, but Mana taught me that sometimes it helps to share these sorts of things with friends.”
Eliana paused. She had her back turned to him and was staring off in the distance. “It’s probably not a very interesting story, but if you’re willing to listen then I suppose I can share with you.”
“I’ve got time,” Cobal joked.
Eliana chuckled. She turned back around and sat down before reaching over to her satchel. She rummaged through it for a moment before taking out a beautiful golden necklace. The necklace had large golden beads with finely cut gemstones interspersed between the gold. Cobal saw diamonds, rubies, emeralds and even stones he didn’t recognize. “That’s a beautiful necklace. I have a friend who makes jewelry and she’s taught me a lot about the craft. I can tell from even a glance that whoever made that was extremely talented.”
Eliana blushed. “I appreciate you saying that. This necklace was made by my husband.”
Cobal was about to ask a question when they heard the sound of someone moving. In a flash, the necklace was gone, back into the satchel, and a weapon was where the necklace was a moment ago. “Who goes there?” Eliana called out.
“It’s just me,” a familiar voice spoke. Cobal looked up to see that Mana was awake and had gotten up from her bedroll. “Mind if I listen in on this story?” she asked.
Eliana let out a deep sigh of relief. “Don’t scare me like that.” She put her weapon away.
Cobal relaxed the tension in his muscles as well. “I might as well make some tea then.”

The camp was fairly well hidden from the road, but Cobal was approaching from the opposite side and it was a lot easier to spot from there. Cobal and Mana were currently hiding the shrubbery while Eliana went ahead to scope out the camp from closer. She was fairly good at sneaking around and the other two didn’t object. After waiting for her for what felt like eternity, she finally returned.
“Okay, so I got a pretty good look at the camp. It looks like bandits, I don’t see any signs that they’re cultists, but they could be hiding that of course. If I were in a cult I wouldn’t walk around with a giant sign above my head saying I’m in a cult.”
Cobal nodded. “How many?”
“Looks like seven people. And I think we found our creature as well.”
“Oh?” Mana asked.
“There was a hulking creature in a cage, probably the side of two men. It looked kind of sad in its cage. I wonder if it’s working for the bandits or if they only recently caught it.”
“Maybe we can set it on the bandits?” Cobal asked.
Eliana thought about that for a while. “That could work, but it heavily depends on why the creature is there.”
As they were talking, they heard voices from the camp.
Cobal listened carefully. “We’ll go get some supplies in Jarsian,” one of the voices said.
“Make sure you’re back before nightfall, we’ve got a tip about someone we need to attack.”
“Why does it matter who we steal from?”
“Orders from above.” The person who said this sounded like a gruff man, probably a little bit older, but not old yet. “You know what, I don’t trust the two of you enough, I’m going to Jarsian too.”
“You can trust us boss, we won’t stray.”
“Shut up, Phel, I’m coming with.”
Cobal looked carefully through the forest to see movement. Eventually he saw that some of the people at the camp were leaving.
“That should be slightly less of them,” Eliana said. A grin formed on her face. “If it’s only a handful we can overpower them no problem.”
Cobal sighed. Her confidence in battle was a point of worry for him, but so far she also hadn’t let them down. “So what do you suggest?”
“I say that I sneak close to the camp and circle around a little bit, to the west side of their camp. Then the two of you approach from where we are right now, maybe five minutes after I’ve left you two. As soon as a commotion starts I’ll attack them from behind.” She looked at both of them. “Sound good?”
Cobal nodded. Mana looked a bit more hesitant, but didn’t argue.
“Great, wait five minutes and then head into camp. Try to get between the creature and the bandits so they can’t free it and make it attack us. If you can talk to it and get to agree to help us, that would be even better, but you’d have to be quick about it.”
And with that she vanished in the shrubbery. About five minutes passed before Cobal and Mana snuck closer to the camp.

Cobal and Mana made their way to the caged creature, which was a little bit away from the rest of the camp. It spotted them pretty quickly but Mana put a finger to her lips as she approached. “Are you okay, big fella?” she asked. Cobal nervously looked around but none of the bandits seemed to be directly within sight. There was a tent between them and the little camp where they were sitting, seemingly playing dice from the sounds.
“Who are you?” a deep voice replied.
“I’m Mana, I’m here to help you.”
“Help me? Why?”
“You look like you need help. Are they keeping you captive?”
The creature nodded. Now that Cobal and Mana managed to get a closer look, it was a tall, hulking creature, humanoid but with very rough, leathery skin.
“If we free you, will you help us fight the bandits?” Mana asked.
“They said they will hurt my wife if I disobey.” the creature said.
Cobal saw a dangerous look flash on Mana’s face for a moment but when he blinked it was gone again.
“And do you know where your wife is?”
He shook his head. “Humans took us both, then the humans sold me to these other humans. My wife is probably still in the big human city.”
“Will you help us fight these bandits if we promise to help you save your wife?”
The creature thought for a bit. It seemed scared to disobey.
“Have you been attacking people on the road?” Cobal asked.
The creature nodded. “Sometimes, but when they weren’t looking I let them go.” The creature spoke in simple terms and Cobal had to think for a moment to understand what he was saying exactly.
“What is your name?” Mana asked.
“Grac.” He replied.
“Let’s get you out of this place, shall we?”
Grac nodded.
Mana looked at Cobal. “Is there anything you can do about this lock? It looks sturdy.”
Grac was locked in a big cage with a bolt lock on it. Cobal inspected the lock for a bit. “I can get it open, but it’ll be loud.”
“Do it, I’ll be ready to defend us while you get the cage open.” She pulled out the book that Dionil gave her and turned her back to Cobal.
Cobal looked at Grac once more and he hesitated. Mana seemed so certain about freeing the creature but Cobal still saw it as a big scary creature. It looked like the ogres from children’s stories that they would tell them so they wouldn’t go wandering too far from home. But upon looking at Grac and seeing the sadness in his eyes, Cobal sighed and pulled out his weapon. With a mighty swing he released it on the lock and with a satisfying ringing sound it sprung loose and the door creaked open ever so slightly.
“Hey, what in the hells is going on back there?” A voice said, and Cobal heard the sound of weapons being drawn. He looked as Grac stepped out of the cage carefully. “Show us what you’re made of,” Cobal said, before turning away and running towards the approaching bandits.
Grac stayed true to his word and the first bandit that came running, sword drawn, found a fist in the center of his stomach. The man went flying into a nearby tree and collapsed with a sickening thud. Before Cobal could even get to any of them, Eliana popped up from a nearby tent she was hiding in and drove a dagger into the back of the neck of one of the bandits. Cobal clashed with one of them, exchanging blows as their swords pushed against each other. One of the bandits ran up to Mana to attack her, as she appeared completely unarmed. Mana traced something on the page of her book and then from it appeared what looked to be a ball of rapidly spinning air. She seemed to almost grab onto it with her hands and in a smooth motion she reached back before throwing it at the rapidly approaching bandit. The ball of air stayed in one piece without dispersing into the rest of the air as a bead of sweat dropped down Mana’s brow. The ball of air then slammed into the bandit’s stomach, sending him flying almost as fast as the one thrown by Grac. Now there were only two more bandits standing. One of them saw the tide turning and tried to run away from Grac, before being grabbed by his legs and slammed into the ground. The final bandit was focused on Cobal and was too late in noticing Eliana behind him.
As quickly as the fight started it ended. 

“Well I’ll be damned,” Eliana said after putting her weapons away, “I never thought I’d see an Irkan in this part of the world. How did you end up all the way here?”
“You know my people?” Grac asked.
“I’ve met one before, a long time ago.”
“There are others outside of my village?”
Eliana shook her head. “It’s a long story, but not as far as I know.”
The lack of explanation didn’t go unnoticed by Cobal, but it was neither the time nor place to worry about it. “Is everyone alright?”
It seemed like they caught the bandits by surprise enough so that they got out of the fight completely unscathed. Cobal let out a deep sigh. “We have to stop getting into these dangerous situations, more of us will get hurt if we continue.” He thought of Dylon, who was likely still paralyzed in Feaseral Cove. He also worried about his other friends, who were missing after their last big fight.
“A little scrap like this once in a while is not too bad,” Eliana said, “breaks up the monotony of traveling for all those days.”
Mana let out a deep sigh. “Different strokes for different folks I guess.” She sat down on a tree stump. “Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about who you are and why we can help you?” Mana asked Grac. She looked at Eliana. “And you know of his people?”
Eliana nodded. “It’s a long story, for some other time, but the short version is that he’s part of Irkanfolk, humans would probably know them as ogres. They live in the Feral Wildlands,” she looked at Grac, “am I correct in what I’m saying?”
Crac nodded. “I lived in Tas’Irkan, the Irkan town to the east of here. One day when we were out foraging, my wife and I were attacked by some strange humans. They then sold us off to these bandits, who split us up.” Grac got a sad look over his face.
Cobal looked at Mana and he still saw the remnants of the anger he saw in her face earlier. “What should we do next?” he asked her.
“Obviously we’re going to find Grac’s wife.” She turned to the Irkan. “Where did you last see her?”
“Next to the human town surrounded by the forest.”
“That must be Marsolin,” Eliana said.
Cobal smiled. “We were already headed that way, would you join us there?” Cobal reached out his hand to Grac.
Grac nodded and shook Cobal’s hand, bruising it in the process.
“You’re a strong one, aren’t you?” Cobal said, nursing his sore hand.
For the first time since they met, Grac smiled, albeit awkwardly. “I’m not super strong compared to some of our soldiers back home, but I like to think I’m fairly strong.”
“Well, you’re stronger than me at least. I’m Cobal.”
“My name is Mana, and this here is our friend Eliana.”
“Nice to meet you all, humans and.” Before he could finish his sentence, Eliana replied loudly, “nice to meet you too, Grac.”
As they were waiting, they heard the sound of someone new approaching.
“Shit, the two that we heard leave earlier might have heard the commotion. Let’s hide and get the jump on them.” He looked at Grac. “Can you hide in the trees?”
Grac nodded, and the four of them quickly scattered, waiting for the voices in the distance to come closer.