Chapter 13
An eerie appearance drifted across the ocean at breakneck speed. Beneath Vega an icy path froze as it flew above the waters… It wouldn’t be long now. Soon it would be there.
—
Narice looked around the island.
The island was full of life. The trees on the edge were coconut palms. They wouldn’t stay for more than a day, but it would be good to be able to rest on solid ground. Steady land under their feet on a beautiful island. It would be a shame not to make the most of it.
“Man, I’m sorry guys,” Nick’s stomach grumbled as he tried to hide it.
The fact that Romani had pretty much been taking of him and now his stomach was rumbling like he was a tractor probably made Nick feel inadequate.
“I’ll go and catch some stuff,” Johna spoke confident.
“We do need food…” Romani spoke in agreement. “I’ll help him look for some plants and such.”
Nick interjected, “I used to go with my father on tracking expeditions… I’m sure I could get something.”
Narice put some thought into it,
“And I can do fishing…” Narice thought about how to divide it, “Alright…how about we split up for the next couple hours and meet back here before sunset.”
“AAAND, whoever gets the most stuff gets first dibs on all the food.”
The team nodded in assent and went their separate ways.
Narice looked at the ocean. He was actually a good fisher, he and his dad used to fish a lot for their meals. He hadn’t really had a chance in a while and wondered if he was still good at it.
After the group left him to go into the woods for a bit, Narice went back to the boat and gathered the fishing gear that they had and started to set up his approach.
—
“So…” Romani spoke, “How do you really feel about the wizards?”
“Hmm?”
Romani continued his thoughts, “How can you condone your parents being captured and used as slaves, might making right?”
Johna replied with a smile, “My parents were foolhardy to take on Grageen. He was stronger and I was glad when I was able to be rid of them.”
“Interesting…”
Romani started scouting around the forest for different plants.
Romani and Johna looked through the forest. Romani was familiar with plants. He would look at different varieties. Seeing that he was an elf, and they were pretty much arborists- he found the landscape quite fascinating.
The edge of this beach was attached to edge of a dense jungle, and it could be hard to find your way out again.
Despite Johna’s respect of power and whatnot, it seemed it didn’t manifest into an ego. Rather than acting like a know-it-all about everything- Johna seemed to absorb all the information that Romani pointed out. In fact, one could say he was the perfect student.
As the travelled through the edges of the forest, Romani would explain about the different fruits and such they came across.
“This plant is good…” Romani picked out a spikey looking plant and putting it into his knapsack.
Johna kept looking around with open eyes for different fruits and such eventually finding a red juicy looking berry.
As he was about to pick it, “that one is dangerous.”
“Really?”
“Yeah… if you eat that, you’d probably feel quite unwell, even to the point of becoming incapacitated for a couple hours.”
It seems that looks could be deceiving.
–
Nick honestly didn’t think he’d catch much. He’d be happy to get a squirrel or something. However, he wanted to prove that he was worthy of being a member of the group, despite his upbringing.
Thankfully, he was skilled at keeping quiet due to his attunement to water. It made his motions fluid and swift.
Initially he heard only the insects, but more intently he heard a caw.
Upon looking closer to the direction of the sound he noticed different colorful fowl.
And then… he looked through the bushes and saw some sort of elk in a clearing carefully working on some leaves. He started inching towards it.
—
Alongside the coast, Narice made a makeshift spear and net from the supplies. He wanted get a bunch of fish if he could. He stood in the waters and ended up spearing a few and setting them aside.
The net worked after a little while and by the middle of his fishing experience he’d already caught a bit more afterwards. From there he intended to catch a few other critters and then call it a day.
Along the coast in the distance he could see the horizon come to a close and some sort of fog that kind of blurred up the landscape.
The fog became clearer as the appearance of a hooded figure flying over the waters raced towards the island. In fact, it scared even him a little. He picked up the spear from the waters and backed up towards the island.
He braced himself for the confrontation ahead as the hooded figure approached closer to the edge of the island. When it came upon him it spoke.
“Well. We can fight if you want to,” the hooded figure said as he noticed the spear in Narice’s hand. It snapped its fingers and the surrounding area suddenly became still- as if frozen in time.
Narice looked around- somehow relaxing.
“It’s beautiful…”
“Why, thank you,” the hooded figure said.
Narice looked at the figure as it stepped onto the land.
Narice backed up a bit to prepare for whatever this entity was planning as it stepped onto land.
He tried to pinpoint where he knew the figure from. Ah yes.
“You’re the wizard- Vega”
“Ah yes, let me introduce myself…” While it lifted up its hands, Narice prepared for the worst. He thought about all the counters he had to huge spell casters such as this. But instead of taking a fighting stance, Vega took its hands to its hood.
“Some call me Vega,” the hooded figure took off its cloak to reveal a beautiful dirty blonde blue=eyed girl around his own age.
Certainly not what he was expecting, and then he came to a realization. The whole conversation had been in his own language!
“But to you, I’m can actually be the ancient, Elera.”
—
JP NOVELS 