Chapter 18: Chapter 18

When I woke up in the morning, I was feeling far better. Don’t get me wrong, I was still tired, but now I felt like I had gotten three hours of sleep last night, instead of feeling like I had pulled all-nighters every night for a week. This was reflected when, after a bit more effort than usual, I was able to finish growing the strawberry plant I had attempted last night. I wasn’t ready for any more fighting, but I could function.

Before long, Syl had woken up, and we were wrapping up our meager breakfast. I briefly considered growing another round of strawberries, but I wanted to conserve my energy. It seems that using too much magic can burn through your reserves of magical energy, and eat away at your physical energy. Thankfully, it wasn’t consuming my life force or anything, but I still need to be careful. I have no way of knowing what to expect these coming days.

The next few days settled into a pattern. We would wake up in the morning, I would grow us a small breakfast, and we would set off. Sometime during the day, we would take a break to eat another quick meal, before setting off again. We would walk until the forest started to darken, before settling down at the next area we deemed suitable, eating a quick meal, and going to bed. It was tiring and monotonous, but at least we were making good progress.

As we walked, we did whatever we could to entertain ourselves. I practiced with my magic, though I was hesitant to release too much magic, as I was still suffering due to my lack of energy. 

In addition, we talked. We had no idea where we were headed, and no idea how long it would take us to get there, which gave us plenty of time for random, drawn out stories. We recounted random bits of our time on earth, as well as stories from the last few days, as I was practicing my magic and Syl was starting our house.

Finally, ten days into our journey, something of interest happened. I was practicing using my ability to detect magical energy, when I noticed something. There was a presence not far off, bigger than anything I had seen before. I had to assume it was a group of things, because about one third of the signature felt similar to the slavers. It was still different, almost less… hostile… but it felt like part of the group approaching was human. The other two thirds felt animalistic in nature, and there was a path of disrupted nature energy behind them, as if something had surprised the forest. 

It took me a few minutes, but eventually I realized what I was looking at. A wagon! The animals must be horses, and the confused nature energy behind them was the trail the wagon wheels had left behind! I knew I should be cautious, but still! People! I was bored out of my mind, and this would give us something to do. Worse case scenario, we run off again, following the wagon tracks. At least now, we had a way to find civilization.

I explained my findings to Syl. She, like me, was excited, but we agreed to proceed with caution. If possible, we both wanted to avoid a repeat of our last interaction with the people of this world.

We followed the wagon into the evening, making sure not to get close enough to be seen. With my magic, I was able to keep an eye on them from afar, so we would know if they stopped, and the wagon was leaving tracks in the ground, so it wasn’t hard to follow. We could have headed in the opposite direction of the wagon, but we had no way of knowing how far that would be. The same was true for this way, but it was more exciting following a wagon than following wagon tracks.

Before long, the sky was starting to darken, and I noticed that the wagon had stopped, probably setting up camp before it got too dark to see. Me and Syl looked around for a bit, before deciding to just climb up a tree for the night. There was one we had passed with a nook in the trunk, big enough for us to fit in. It wouldn’t be overly comfortable, but it was unlikely that we would fall out, and we also would be harder to notice. 

We spent the evening on the forest floor, sharing our excitement over this turn of fate. We finally had a direction, something more than just walking in one direction and hoping we get lucky. When we finally went to bed, it took us ages to fall asleep, crammed into the nook in the tree, and more than a little enthusiastic about our fate. When I finally fell asleep, it was with a grin on my face, and I’m sure Syl had the biggest smile in the world as well.

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