Being in the forest again was a kind of bittersweet reunion for Spud. He had grown up in a forest not too far from here, but he hadn't returned since his arrival in Arnoth seven years ago. Travelling like this again...It felt like home, but it also felt uncomfortably alien to him. He found himself noticing every little thing, acutely aware of every sound and broken twig, regardless of whether it could mean danger or not.
Spud noticed in particular that, while she was completely silent in the city, Cada was very loud in the woods. With every other step, she crushed a twig or a dry leaf lying on the path, and Spud found himself wishing they could travel a bit more quietly. Or, he thought with a twinge of slight bitterness, that he could stop feeling so on edge.
Cada, at the very least, seemed to be enjoying herself. Every few minutes she would run up ahead to check out a tree or a bush that had caught her attention, or she would stop and stare straight up at the leaves and branches that hung over their heads. Occasionally, she would get so distracted that he would actually have to remind her that they had some famous people to rescue in order to get her moving again.
Eventually, after Cada went to climb a fallen log that creaked and groaned with every step she took, Spud spoke up about his discomfort. "Cada, maybe we should travel a bit more quietly?"
She hopped down from the log and landed lightly in the moss and fall leaves beneath. "Why? It's not like we're trying to hide from anyone."
"Yes, but with all the noise you're making, we could attract something dangerous."
"Wolves or Wargs?" she asked. It was a common saying that most everyone knew of. It was a way of asking if the danger was something natural, like wolves, or something more dangerous and mythical, like Wargs.
He hesitated. "Wolves most likely, but there's always a chance it could be something more."
She smiled gently. "I think we'll be fine, Spud. And besides, this is my first time in a forest! I want to have fun for a little bit before we revert back to being cautious."
He blinked in surprise. "This is your. . . ?"
"Yup!" She continued along the path, and after Spud shook away his disbelief, he quickly followed.
After that conversation, Spud found himself relaxing a bit more. Occasionally, he would point to some odd colored moss or a cluster of mushrooms on the forest floor, and he would tell Cada about its importance to the area around it, or what would happen if you ate it (He had to stop her from reaching for a lot of plants after that). He found that he was enjoying Cada's curiosity about everything that surrounded her. She wasn't like this in Arnoth, mostly because she had explored the city so much that she now knew it like the back of her hand.
They traveled until they could see the sun starting to set through the branches, the soft golden light painting the forest in shadow and intermittent rays of sunlight. Spud started looking for a place to make camp for the night, and soon they reached a small clearing between two massive, intertwining oak trees. He started making a campfire while Cada laid out their bedrolls, and soon they had the perfect camping setup.
They stayed awake for a little while in silence, eating some of the food they had packed and staring out at the woods beyond. The stars began to peek out in the empty spaces between the tree branches, glimmering faintly and far away.
Eventually, Cada broke the silence. "We really don't know what the hell we're doing, do we?"
He looked up at her from across the fire. "Do we ever?"
She poked the fire with a stick for a few moments, seeming to be lost in thought. Sparks flared up and cascaded into the dark above, then she sighed, brushed the hair out of her face, and tossed the stick into the fire.
"I'll take first watch. I'll wake you when I need you to take over."
"You sure?"
She raised an eyebrow at him in a half-joking glare. "Get some rest, Nature Boy."
He gave her a little half smile before getting comfortable in his bedroll. He stared up at the branches of the oak trees overhead, and for a moment, he couldn't tell which branches belonged to which tree. They intertwined so closely it was near impossible to tell them apart, and he thought that, perhaps, they had grown like that, separate, but still supporting each other through all of the various hardships a tree might endure.
He closed his eyes, thoughts of branches and deep, twisting roots still in his mind. Cada would wake him when it was time.
. . . . .
Danni leaned away from the pool as the vision faded, her brow furrowed. The pair she had hired were on the right track so far, but something didn't feel right. She just couldn't place what it was...
She placed her hand in the pool once more and concentrated, this time on her missing companions. The pool clouded, and she closed her eyes as her mind shot out over the countryside towards Rinsmark. The town was quaint and quiet, with no sign of danger anywhere. And again, no sign of her friends. Her mind raced over the town, tracing a path around the outskirts where it met the forest, a path that was annoyingly too well worn and familiar to her sights. She didn't know, at this point, how many times she had wandered this way, searching for a glimpse of something familiar, something out of place-
A gentle hand on her shoulder jolted her out of her fruitless search. Evanz had been going through paperwork on a desk to the side of her room while she sat by the pool and went over scenery she had gone over many times before. He held a steaming cup of tea in his hand, and he set it down on the pools edge before sitting next to her, staring down at the water.
"Any luck?" he asked, folding his hands in his lap.
"No..." she sighed, frustrated. "I've looked over everything I can in that area, they're nowhere!" She took a tentative sip of the tea she had been given and sighed again.
"Have you tried locating them? With your scrying?" He had heard her explain the spell before, but it was clear that he still didn't quite understand how it worked.
"I've tried many times, and everytime I cast the spell I get nothing. Which means they're either in another plane or-" She didn't finish the sentence. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to consider that possibility, that she would never get them back.
Evanz put a comforting hand on her shoulder once more. "Those mercenaries you hired... They'll find them."
Her brow furrowed. "I thought you didn't trust them."
He shrugged. "Honestly, I still don't. But I've been looking into their history and...Well, they're the nicest mercenaries I've ever heard about." He brought out a sheaf of papers from an inside pocket of his robe and began flipping through the portfolio. "When they first started making a name fore themselves, they donated a rather large sum of money to an orphanage that was struggling to feed its occupants over on the east side of the city. They bought a house for a man and his three children, who had previously been living on the street, at no cost to him or his family. And after all this time, and after all the jobs they've taken, they're still in no real position of wealth or power because they donate at least half of their income to others."
"And why is the Palace concerned with them?" she asked, gesturing toward the papers he was holding.
"That's the thing; there is no real concern. The only reason they have a file in the first place is because they nearly started an in-city war by refusing a contract from the underground mob known as the Serpentine. I still don't know the details of what the contract entailed, but I do know that it involved hurting quite a lot of innocent people."
"Interesting..." She gazed off into the distance for a few minutes before coming to a decision. "Could I borrow those papers, Evanz?"
"Of course." He handed them to her with a curious look, as if slightly aware that she really had no idea who she had hired. She had known they were good people of course, but she wanted to know more about them and what they had done.
She wanted to know what she could expect them to achieve on this job she had hired them for.
