Chapter 110: 111: Weary March

The forest is dangerous this deep inside the heart of it, at least according to Jubilee who Fresh sticks next to. Despite that, they haven’t seen much of anything during their travels. The forest stretches on and on. It’s not entirely featureless, but it’s as good as so, in a sense. Every part of the forest looks like any other part of the forest. The same few species of tall, leafy trees fill the entire area for as far as she can see. Occasionally, there is a hollow log or a few stumps where woodcutters had set up camp some time ago and the forest seemingly had simply never healed those scars shut.

Fresh sighs, staring at her friends who are all a little bit ahead of her. Her feet and legs ache with a dull throb and sweat drips down her forehead, despite the gentle calmness of the forest air that seems to temper the edge of summer significantly. Panting, she stares up at the three backs ahead of herself. Fresh blinks her eyes as a bead of sweat drips down from her brows, falling into her pupil. It stings a little. Pursing her lips, she wraps her fingers under the straps of her bags and leans forward, holding her head down as she tries to march a little faster to keep up with them. She doesn’t want to be more of a burden.

They march the rest of the day like that, mostly quietly, all of them just focused on walking through the forest that never seems to end. Every tree really does look like the last, every clearing like the one before it. The river is now far behind them and there hasn’t been any source of water to find anywhere during the rest of the day. None of them had any flasks or canteens. Fresh realizes that she should have made a few bottles while they were at the river. She could kick herself in frustration, but her legs are too sore. Why didn’t she think of that while they were there?

As the sun sets and the forest quickly falls into darkness, the four of them make camp again. But now, they assign shifts to hold watch during the night. It’s too dangerous out here for all of them to be asleep at the same time. Fresh offers to take the midnight watch, but the three of them politely decline, saying that she could take the morning one. At first she thinks that they are all trying to be nice and all of them want to let her sleep, having perhaps seen how hard she has been trying all day to keep up with them. But then she thinks that she realizes that they just don’t trust her to do it on her own.

Fresh sighs and plops down where she stands, falling asleep with her bag still on her back as she lays down sidewards in the grass.

The next time she opens her eyes, it is bright outside again and Jubilee is standing in front of her, yelling at her to get up. She yawns, rubbing her eyes. Her entire body is sore. Is it really morning already? Groggily, she looks around at her friends who are already gathering together, the camp is already cleared and cleaned of any of their tracks. Standing up onto her wobbling legs, she hoists her bag into the air and runs after her friends, apologizing for not having helped with anything. None of them seem to mind that much though.

The four of them continue their journey. Soon the morning ends, much like the day before. Then the afternoon comes and goes as well. All they do is walk, stopping only for an occasional, short break. The girl feels her stomach growling with some force several times, but never opens her mouth to complain. She knows that none of them have had anything to eat since the fish. But there are no fish around here to be seen and any small animals that they were able to catch have long since run away, scared off by the noise of their approaching.

Evening comes, signaling the closing of another full day in which they did absolutely nothing but walk. Fresh still sags behind her friends, but they seemed to be slowing down as well. All of them are hungry, sweaty and exhausted. Thankfully there is shelter from the bright sun beneath the heavy canopy, but there is little else of relief. There is no water, just about as good as no food. As they walk, Fresh looks at every single plant that she can without slowing down. None of them seemed suitable for eating, for the most part. Occasionally, she or Basil would find one of the bitter herbs that the priestess had found the other day. But those did little to satiate them when split four ways.

Fresh supposes that this forest is great to be an animal or a monster in, but as an untrained human, it isn’t the best place in the world. At least they were having luck in avoiding any trouble on the way. They break to make camp once again as the day crawls to an end and Fresh falls down, not sure if she’s going to have the strength to get up again tomorrow, at least with the bag on her back. The thought of leaving it behind is very tempting. Or at least the heavy coins that she has to lug around. But they need this money to start over. She can’t just leave it here. They…

Fresh looks around the clearing, realizing that she hates herself a little more right now than she just did a minute ago.

Taking the bag off of her shoulders, she turns to the side and opens her inventory window. She supposes that at this point, there’s nothing left to hide from her friends anyways. Grabbing fistfuls of the coins, she begins throwing them haphazardly into the water of the inventory with clear frustration present in her movements.

“What the hell is that?” asks Jubilee, staring at her.

“Uh…” Fresh scratches her cheek with a wet finger. “It’s a witch thing. I can put stuff in it and take it out later.”

Jubilee stares at her along with the rest of them. “The fuck?” asks Jubilee, staring at the hole in the window that leaks with a black-fluid, the ooze drips down onto the grass, staining it like ink. “How long have you had this?”

“Uh…” says Fresh again, hoping that Jubilee isn’t going to get mad at her. “…Always?”

“Always?”

“Always,” nods Fresh, throwing another fistful of coins into the window, but doing her best not to stick her hand inside out of fear of what else might be in there.

Jubilee takes a deep breath to calm themselves, placing their hands together in front of their body as the exhale. “I’m going to yell at you now.”

Fresh laughs nervously. “Please don’t.”

“You have no idea how badly I want to,” says Jubilee, pointing at her. “But I’m too tired.” They flop down onto their back, laying down in the grass. Jubilee places their hands behind their head as they stare up towards the sky. “Is that good to drink?”

“I wouldn’t,” says Fresh. “It’s like moonwater, but worse.”

“Moonwater?” asks Basil.

“Don’t ask,” sighs Jubilee, lifting their forearm and dropping it over their mask to cover their eyes. “Fucking moonwater.” Jubilee lifts their head again. “You know?”

“What?” asks Fresh, throwing the last handful of coins into her inventory.

“Why didn’t you just hide all of your creepy, witch bullshit in there this entire time, dumb-ass?”

Fresh looks at Jubilee and then back to the window and then back to Jubilee. “Because it’s scary.”

“…It’s scary?” asks Jubilee incredulously. “It’s a hole. How is it scary?”

“You don’t get it, Jubilee!” exclaims Fresh, clenching a fist as she points with her other hand to the dripping window. “There’s something in the water! I’m sure of it! It’s super weird!” Having said that, she quickly closes the window again, not feeling comfortable with it being open behind her. “It might be demons.”

She looks back into her bag, which now only has the grimoire and her knives in it. “The grimoire?” she mutters, bending over to pick the damp book up. Water drips down from it, striking against the grass. Fresh looks at the book in her hands suspiciously, is this good to drink? Or is this creepy-water, like from the window?

“What’s that?” asks Basil, looking at her.

“Huh? This?” asks Fresh, holding out the grimoire. “It’s my grimoire! I got it when I got my class!”

Basil looks at the strange book fairly uneasily. “Why… why is it wet?”

“It’s always wet,” says Fresh, shrugging as she opens the pages in the hopes that there’s something about water. She’s a witch of the black-fountain, maybe that means she can use water magic? Is that even a thing? She flips through the pages. “I wouldn’t drink the water either though. I think it’ll make you sick.”

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“Can I see it?”

“Huh?” Fresh looks up to Basil, somewhat surprised that she’s asking and then looks back down at the book. “No. I think it’s cursed,” she says, matter of factly, opening the first page to show Basil the line about not reading any further.

“What’s a black-fountain?” asks Basil nervously, looking at Fresh. “That sounds really evil…”

“Right?!” shouts Jubilee from the side.

“Uh…” Fresh claps the book shut, putting it back into her bag. “It’s nothing. The fountain is my patron and, uh…” she looks around, noticing something. “Where’s Shamrock?”

The three of them look around, searching for the missing giant. Somehow nobody had noticed that he disappeared, which is a feat in and of itself, given his stature.

“Ah, fuck me. Did he get eaten by the goblins?” asks Jubilee.

“Goblins?” asks Fresh, looking around the forest warily.

“Hmm… maybe the giant spiders grabbed him?” suggests Basil.

“Giant spiders…?” asks Fresh, leaning in to her friends with a deeply worried expression.

Jubilee nods. “It might have been… no…” they look away, as they finish their sentence with a quiet clenching of their fists. “Ghosts…”

“Ghosts?!” shouts Fresh. “Come on! We have to go lo -”

Basil and Jubilee start laughing, not able to hold it in any longer. Fresh stares at the two of them. Basil does her best to hold it in and remain dignified, but Jubilee leans back and for the first time that Fresh can remember, laughs. She purses her lips, not sure if she should feel happy or terrified. “What’s so funny?”

“There aren’t any ghosts, goo-brain! He’s probably taking a leak.”

Basil nods, wiping her eyes. “Mhm.”

Fresh sighs, flopping down to the ground. The three of them sit there in a circle, waiting for their companion to return. A minute passes, then two, then three. Soon it is five and then, not much longer after that, it has been ten minutes. The longer they sit, the more restless the three of them become however. Basil is fidgeting with her sleeves, staring out into the forest occasionally out of the corner of her eyes and Jubilee is tapping with their fingers against the dirt.

The sun begins to set and the light of the day begins to vanish.

“We should make a fire,” suggests Jubilee, getting up.

“Hey… uh…” asks Basil quietly. “There uh… hmm… there aren’t really any ghosts here, right?”

Fresh’s eyes widen in horror and she also looks up at Jubilee with expectant eyes. Jubilee rubs the back of their head. “Jubileeee~” cries Fresh quietly in a nervous tone.

The forest behind them cracks. Fresh and Basil yelp, grabbing onto each other. All three of them turn with sharp jolts, as they eye the shadowy disturbance coming through the tree-line. The man from the sect stands there, appearing rather emotionless. He points back over his shoulder. “Water,” is all that he says as he gestures to follow him.

Razmatazz

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