Drip-Fed Pt. 09

Something there was also an ample amount of were humanoid settlements. To be specific, the main population of this Leaf, or at least this segment of it, seemed to be elves. They were usually tanned, tall and somewhat Amazonian in appearance, with lean muscles and dark eyes. Wood elves, albeit of the lighter skinned variety. They were quick and had keen senses, particularly sight and hearing. They were inferior to humans, the most well-rounded race of the Omniverse, in terms of raw strength and endurance, however. Their racial traits limited them a bit in their choice of occupation, they made much better archers and were among the races better suited to pick up druidism, while not performing all that well in the front lines, particularly those roles that had to bear the brunt of enemy aggressions.

They got together in villages of fifty to a thousand people, with very few cities with even higher population counts than that scattered throughout the forest. After about two weeks of skulking around in the wilderness and the edge of civilization, the trio felt comfortable enough in this new environment to try a few new things.

At that moment, the trio had a very basic problem, being that they needed to earn money to buy clothes and enter the villages for contact but needed to enter the villages to find ways to earn money. There was the stealing option, but Aclysia was vehemently against utilizing that unless absolutely necessary. Apexus agreed for moral and pragmatic reasons. They didn't want to risk anything. Reysha didn't have anything to add to the discussion, only mumbling something about her track record being awful in moral decisions. It was decided, then, that they would try to make contact with civilization.

Aclysia, having clothes that still looked just barely acceptable and being the member of the group least likely to say or do something that would garner unwanted attention, entered one of the villages with a high population and looked around for some task they could fulfil.

She brought back good news; many parts of the wildlife were in steady demand. Teeth, horns, furs, and the like found their usage in crafts or rituals around here. While they lacked the equipment or technical know-how to skin things, it was very much possible for Apexus to spare the bones of what he was eating. It would take a great bit of holding back, marrow was tasty, but possible regardless.

They killed another bear, basically bleached the skeleton, and Aclysia was able to sell horns, teeth and other select bones in prime condition for a good price. It did garner her some questioning looks about how they had gotten it so clean, but no questions were asked. Mostly because the metal fairy only stayed for as long as it took to get business done.

First thing she bought were new clothes for herself. Against her protest, it had to be said, Apexus and Reysha were just able to convince her that it would be best for them if she was the one who looked representable. She was the one who sold things. That aside, their clothes would just get bloody in the melee.

For another two weeks, they continued to move about. They went from one village to the next, sold what was valuable from their meals, learned about a few herbs that also fetched some coin, gathered those as well, and slowly managed to build up their wealth. They got an adventurer's bag, a basic one, to better transport their wares. Then a second one for Reysha. Then they started acquiring clothes.

They were only basic things, the stuff one could expect to be found in villages. The light cloth, leather reinforced armour Reysha got was decent and served her purposes, but it was inferior to the old bodysuit and the city guard armour. Most importantly for the moment, it was presentable and relatively cheap.

Apexus got a long robe, gloves, shoes and a plain wooden mask. The combination of all those things made him look more than a bit suspicious, but it was better than the alternative. By the end of all of those acquisitions, they were broke again. They couldn't afford a third bag nor a knife for Reysha. Clothes weren't cheap, after all.

Once all of those things were in order, Reysha, in a night they all spent huddled together under Apexus' wings, repeated the question she had presented a month ago. "What now?"

It was less monumental now. They knew their surroundings relatively well, knew that they could feed themselves and that they could visit villages for limited supplies. Regardless, they knew too little and that was exactly what Apexus based his next words on. "We should go into a city and gather information."

Reysha tensed under his wings. Aside from Aclysia, none of them had entered any form of civilization since Ctania. The clothes they had gotten were in preparation of it though and the slime saw no reason to push it off any further.

"I agree," the metal fairy nodded hesitantly. "I have prioritized laying low over asking questions so far. I don't want to take any unnecessary risks and any conversation had is another chance someone remembers us. If I could see another way forward, I would much prefer to take it. However, If we are to make intelligent decisions, we need to know what surrounds us. A map, the lay of the land, an explanation where what is and what we can achieve there." Aclysia took a pause and lowered her gaze. "And I want to rest. We are safer right now than we have been in months but... I want to stay somewhere safe and sit for a while."

Apexus didn't quite share that wish, he was used to changing environments often. His entire being was designed to be migratory and seek out new, challenging biomes to munch through. "If that's what my melody wants," he said, regardless and hugged her tighter. Hugged both of them tighter, as Reysha seemed miserable and close to tears again.

"I don't know if I can," the tiger girl mumbled.

"Stay somewhere safe?" Apexus asked, perhaps tactlessly. He genuinely didn't understand.

"Be helpful," Reysha answered, wrapping her arms around her legs under the cover of the slime's wings. "I still feel... so slow. It's been a month, I have been staving of Noir all this time and yet... all about me feels paralyzed. I move in combat, I do what I can but none of it feels like I am close to what I used to be able to do. All I can do is kill some low-level wildlife." She shook her head. "I can't even do that on my own anymore."

She remembered an incident a week back. They had been hunting a boar. Nothing too difficult, it must have been the seventh boar they had gone to kill in two weeks. She had successfully sneaked up close, jumped, and scratched an eye out of the animal's face. The retaliation should have been obvious. It had been obvious. Regardless, her body had reacted slowly and a tusk had rammed into her stomach and created a giant hole.

By sheer luck, the boar then tried to flee into Apexus' direction. They had gotten the kill, but Reysha had failed to outmanoeuvre a boar. If it hadn't been for Aclysia's healing, she would have bled out right there. That would have been an embarrassing end.

It wasn't the only incident of that kind, only the most pronounced one. Whenever Reysha tried to do more than be a supportive role in combat, she got hit. Her body moved so slowly, if it moved at all. Sometimes she just froze up in the middle of combat. The merest hint of adrenaline could set off memories. The way her fists had reduced the Inquisitor's face to a bloody pulp. Her insides getting cooked by devilish magic. The screams of horror.

Even during the very first hunt on that bear, her only real contribution had been getting hit by a lightning bolt and smashing an antler. Not a strong showing for someone that had once taken out three adventurers, each stronger than that bear, on her own.

"It might be better for you if you leave me behind," Reysha mumbled and blinked away the tears.

"Don't be ridiculous," Apexus' tone was sharper than he wanted to be.

"I'm not being ridiculous," Reysha turned her head and stared back. "I'm the whole reason we're in this mess. I'm the reason why we're sitting in some forest in buttfuck nowhere, ill-equipped, mentally damaged and unsure what to do next! I can't even help you in any way! I'm not even able to satisfy you in any fashion! I'm weak, helpless and should just be left to die."

"You're not the sole reason any of this happened," Apexus answered, feeling oddly aggressive about Reysha talking about herself this way. "You made the wrong call at the end of a chain of events, yes. Nothing more, nothing less! Don't beat yourself up over everything that happened!" He grabbed her shoulders with his arms and shook her a bit as he pulled the redhead towards his chest. "And just because I can't non-procreate with you doesn't mean I stop loving you, alright?"

Reysha would have laughed at that in the past. The non-procreate part just sounded completely out of place. Instead, she only let her head hang. "I'm still weak."

Aclysia leaned over and rested her forehead against that of the Rogue. "Weak women can still atone."

"How can a girl that can't even kill a boar possibly atone for unsealing a semi-immortal warlock and his posse of fucking nightmare monsters?" Reysha wanted to know. "I want to, but seriously, how do you expect me to do that?!"

"One day at a time," Aclysia whispered, while gently caressing the other woman's face.

Reysha swallowed hard and just fell silent.

'We need to arrive somewhere,' Apexus realized once more and saw that Reysha needed what Aclysia wanted even more than the metal fairy herself did. They needed a better, safer environment. With any luck, they could find one somewhere on this island.

It took them a bit of discussion to decide which city they would seek out. The argument boiled down to whether they should go to a smaller city or the largest one possible. Apexus, wanting to have a semblance of knowing what was going on, insisted on the former. He had found Heralry confusing and he had merely looked at that city from a distance. Learning that the ones around were even larger only convinced him that they could get ambushed from just about everywhere if things went wrong.

Aclysia, on the other hand, argued that they were much safer in large, shifting crowds. The more people there were, the less they would stand out. Since the biggest city on the Leaf, of those they had seen so far anyway, had been the one at the Stem, chances were that it was a hodgepodge of different races.

In the end, Reysha had weighed in and said she would be much more comfortable in a smaller city. That was the end of that discussion, Aclysia accepting she was outvoted. Not that she was particularly happy about it, but the guardian angel wasn't one to dwell on these things.

Apexus went up into the air and looked for the closest city. He didn't have to search for long. The local elves were in the habit of marking their cities through large, turquoise spires. Sitting atop the building at the city's centre, they usually marked where the local outpost of the Trader's Guild went about their business. Alternatively, they were on top of the mayor's house. Either way, a landmark was a landmark and the trio got moving.

It took them a day to arrive in the city, but they had it timed well enough that they got there during the busiest hours of the day. People from the surrounding villages rolled their carts, often by hand, sometimes drawn by oxen or horses, down the roads. It was a market day, happening twice a week around these parts, and so the group was surrounded on all sides by people.

They were predominantly wood elves, with a fair dash of humans and people that had the features of deer. In a particularly unique showing, there was a group of people that had elven torsos sticking out of the lower bodies of deer. The dryads partook without anyone minding. It was to little surprise, then, that the trio also didn't get a lot of attention.

Not that this put Apexus at any more ease. The slime felt like he was prey that had jumped face first into an acid bath and was now trying to take a casual swim in it. Every step he took was accompanied with at least two turns of his head. The squeaking of the wheels, the laughing of groups, mumbled words and gestures in their general direction, they were all noises that had his feathers puff up and his wings spread slightly, ready to take off at a moment's notice.

Gently, Aclysia put a hand on his shoulder. "You need to calm down, darling," she whispered. "The more agitated you look, the more we stand out."

"I'll try," the chimeric creature answered and consciously pulled his wings back. He stopped looking at everything that caught his attention, forcefully kept his neck stiff. Murmured words, spoken from unknown lips in accents and sometimes tongues he didn't know, continued to keep him on his toes, however. No matter how much he tried to relax, he just couldn't.

He heard a sharp sound, metal on metal, and jumped. In the middle of the street, he assumed a fighting pose, arms raised and knees bent, the wings raised in a shield-like fashion. People hastily stepped back from him, unsure what was going on.

The smith looked up from his work with two raised eyebrows. "Something the matter?" the human asked with two raised eyebrows.

"No... no... I apologize," Apexus said and slowly backed away. Largely because Aclysia was pulling on his sleeve. The trio moved into an alleyway to have a quick talk in relative privacy.

"We don't need the attention!" she berated him in a hissed whisper, a tone much misplaced from her usual calm demeanour. "That smith could remember us, whoever tracks us could happen to ask him and then they have a lead."

"I'm sorry," Apexus answered, looking twice over his shoulder before continuing. "There's so much that could hunt us here, it puts me on edge."

"Those people mean no harm, we just need to pass them by."

"Do you know that?" Apexus asked and tilted his head. He was genuinely curious. "We have been wrong before."

That shut Aclysia up for the moment and a desperate expression crossed. A loud caw echoed in the hallways and Apexus felt his wings grind against the stone of the nearby walls. The alley was much too narrow to encompass the sheer span of his wings. Before he managed to pull himself together again, he saw the source of his worries. A crow, simply sitting on top of a nearby roof, cawing at some of its kin.

Apexus felt the magic from his core pulse through his liquid body. Intense beats that ate away at his energy reserves but kept him sharp at a moments notice. Every second in this city was like he was fighting a large, invisible beast. Aclysia was about to berate him again, when they looked at each other and both realized that their behaviour had gotten more damaged by the events than living in the wild and only with each other could have possibly shown.

Rather than continue to fight over these things, they turned to Reysha. "Are you doing fine?" Apexus asked. The tiger girl looked anything but fine. Her caramel skin was half a shade lighter than usual, causing her stripes, particularly those that covered her eyes, to stand out even more.

"I'll manage," she assured with a weak smile. "Just a lot of noise..."

After a minute of recuperation, the group got back onto the streets. Primarily, they were looking for someone that sold maps. Not necessarily to buy one, although they would if they could afford it. On the way here, they had earned a little bit extra money, but their total funds barely exceeded two silver coins. They could have barely rented a room for three people with that money, with some reheated grub if they were willing to sleep on straw.

Anyway, even if they couldn't buy a map, they hoped to at least get some information about the Leaf.

It took them over thirty excruciatingly long minutes, full of barely maintained composure and making themselves as small as possible, to find what they were searching for. A wooden stand, clearly an extension to the blue-painted building behind it, displayed scrolls covered in simple, black ink. It was a shop on the main road. Most of the pieces laying in reach of the customer were simple artwork, lines drawn by a skilled hand depicting basic things that would look good on a wall while being relatively cheap to produce. Among them were a few maps, as detailed as black and white went, of the surrounding areas.

Behind the counter and the owner, a white-haired old gnome with a big, wart covered nose that looked more like a pickle than an actual nose, hung more artistic pieces, completely coloured. They were held at the back so scattered dust didn't settled on the more valuable pieces. Dust or water, a very real fear even on dry, hot days like this one was, as a public well, complete with metal handle to lower or raise the bucket, was right next to the stand. An added bonus was that any daring thieves, as few as there were in this area, could only grab the basic pieces before running off.

A particular piece at the back caught Apexus' attention immediately. A map, coloured and pretty detailed, and definitely far out of their price range. It had the name of the Leaf of it, along with several marked locations that Apexus assumed to be dungeons.

"Hello!" the enthusiastic greeting caused Apexus to jump -- again. The slime began to hate how everything in this environment set him off. Even more he hated that there was seemingly nothing he could do about it. "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to startle y'all," the gnome raised both ink-stained hands, oddly large for his otherwise tiny body. Even sitting on his extra high stool, which he had needed a small ladder to get on, he only reached up to Apexus' midriff. "Just saw that you were looking at my work. You like it?"

Apexus stared at the shopkeeper, unable to read the old man properly. 'Is he after our money? Maybe wants me to take off the mask?' the slime tilted his head, while more paranoid thoughts ran through his head.

The gnome, in the meanwhile, felt it difficult to keep up the smile and thought, 'I think I may have been better off ignoring this one.'

A thought that was scattered when Aclysia cleared her throat to get his attention. "Yes, your artistic talent had caught our eye," the metal fairy put it diplomatically. "Albeit, we are unlikely able to afford any of it." Barely unable to keep himself from berating her for a change, Apexus focused on standing still. "We are in need of a map of the entire Leaf, if you could show us something cheap, we would be much obliged."

"Ah, adventurers, I should have known!" the gnome exclaimed and put his hands on the table to get up and vanish underneath the stand. "That explains the intense glare your friend has there. Really intimidating. Is he a Warrior? A Brawler? I would guess Silent Breaker, but if you were that advanced in your Classes, I would guess you wouldn't hang around some place like this. Is the redhead also with you? She is a looker, tell me if either of you are looking for a husband, my grandsons just can't seem to find anyone. I'm just joking, of course. Not about the 'can't find anyone' part, they are hopelessly in love with their work. Not that I was any different at their age." Repeatedly, the rustling of paper underlined his voice, then he suddenly came back up, having already forgotten about his own question. "Here we go, a basic black and white map of Azenia-Ra, five silver."

"...Any chances we can barter you down to two?" Aclysia asked, only mildly hopeful. It may have been black and white, but the details were all finely drawn and the icons very easy to understand, with roads and landmarks standing out well. The parchment was of good quality, as it had to be to survive repeated folding.

The gnome shook his head. "At that point, I don't even break even on the materials and time invested," he stroked his chin. "Down on your luck? It's rare to meet adventurer's that don't even have five silver. I don't want to inquire too much bu-"