“Did you hear the howling earlier?” Adra asked, as she was walking back onto the clearing we had made our camp on. She and Rai had been hunting while Sigmir and I had discussed Sigmir’s displeasure with the way Leneira had acted towards me, giving us the privacy to have a deep and stimulating discussion. By the time they came back, we had exhausted all avenues of inquiry and were cuddled up together, listening to the quiet song of the wind, rustling through the leaves above us.

Opening my eyes and looking over, I noticed the amused smirk on Adra’s face, giving me a good idea what she was referring to, the discussion between Sigmir and me had caused both of us to get quite heated and announce the climax of each avenue of inquiry to the world. It seemed that, in the quiet forest, the sound had carried far enough to reach our courageous hunters, to Adra’s amusement.

“I’m not sure what kind of beast made those noises, or if it was in pain. But we might want to go and find out, don’t you think?” she prodded, causing me to grumble in displeasure when Sigmir shifted her position to get a better look.

“I’m sure that’s not necessary, especially as the noise doesn’t seem to have stopped you from getting some game.” Sigmir said, her voice languid as the arm she still had around me tightened just a little.

“It was quite loud, maybe it was important.” Lenore added from her perch on one of the trees, with Ylva resting on the ground below her.

“Yes, yes, you jokers are all so very amusing. But there’s a lesson you should learn, before it’s too late. Never mock the cook, especially not before meals.” I grumbled, as I got up, checking the small boar they had brought back. “Who knows what I might drop into the pot, out of sheer embarrassment at being heard by you, it would be a true tragedy.” I added and enjoyed the way Adra’s face went a little pale at the idea. I realised, we even had something I could add to the food, we had stumbled over a small patch of horseradish during the day and I had harvested a few roots. I had a feeling that those would add more than enough spice to any prank I wanted to play on them. Not that they had deserved it, yet, but if they continued, I might consider something.

Luckily, or maybe sadly, they kept their jokes to themselves as I quickly drained the remaining blood from the carcass while the others removed skin and bones from it, butchering the boar in a quick and efficient manner, working together in a routine we had practiced plenty of times.

“Why don’t you and Rai wash up, while I roast some of those nice cuts of meat? That way, we can eat as soon as it’s ready.” I suggested. The two of them happily agreed while I rubbed a nice chunk of meat with ramson before putting it to roast over the fire. It would take some time, but that was par for the course. In addition, we had bought some potatoes that went near the fire to roast, to be served with some beebread-leaves later. It was quite the feast, for cooking with limited resources over an open fire.

Apparently, even the system itself agreed, giving me another point for my cooking-skill, raising it to thirty-five. The growth of that skill was a curiosity to me, it had grown rapidly while we had been in Neyto and I had been able to use an actual kitchen but since then, the growth had dramatically slowed down, even if I had been cooking quite frequently, albeit only simple meals over a campfire. But when I had tried to teach the others how to cook, I had gained more points than by cooking myself, which made me wonder even more. But, unless Pantheon was willing to share or someone did a massive survey, I doubted I would ever get the specifics how different skills assigned value to different tasks.

“Say, what is our plan now?” Adra asked, once we had eaten dinner and were sitting around the flickering remains of our fire, crunching on some nuts we had acquired from the centaurs. At that point, I wasn’t quite sure if we had looted them at some point of if Adra had bought them, not that it mattered. They were tasty and a nice after-meal snack, so I was content, especially with Sigmir’s arms around me.

“Lay low for a few days before we continue further west. You know I want to go to Arbortoma, if only to see what the world has to offer.” I answered, causing Adra to chuckle a little.

“Just laying low? That doesn’t sound like you. Ever since we met, we have been travelling or doing something. You really want to just lay low for a few days?” she prodded. Apparently, she knew me quite well, or I was just a little predictable.

“Hrm, we will see. Lenore and I noticed that there is a little something getting carried by the stream over there. Something upstream is, for lack of a better word, ‘leaking’ Death Astral Power into the water and both of us are quite interested what that might be, if only to take a look.” I admitted, not even trying to hide my grin.

“So, we are traipsing through the wilderness, looking for something that seems to ‘leak’ the magical embodiment of death into the wild? Part of me wants to call you an idiot, turn around and run as far as I can. But, a far greater part, is just as curious.” Adra admitted, with a wry grin on her own. I could understand her sentiment, in a way, I even admired her. They, the natives of this world, bravely stepped into the unknown, risking their lives on adventures, to gain more power and simply satisfy that itch to see what was hidden behind the horizon.

Maybe that was the biggest draw of Road to Purgatory, the feeling of the unknown and adventure, something that had a powerful draw for those who had grown up in western civilisation. The feeling of adventure, of discovering new frontiers and striking out into the unknown, the sentiment that made the various genres of fiction into the mainstays that they were. That feeling, only without the risk of injury, disease and death, where the worst that could happen was some pain and a loss of character-advancement, all packaged into a world so real that you could fall in love with its inhabitants and you had Road to Purgatory,

“Ah, but if you shy away from this adventure, would you really be the woman who left her grove, travelling on her own, heading into the wild north to look for adventure?” I asked, causing her to let out a wry chuckle, one echoed by Sigmir and even Rai.

“I guess that was just as reckless, wasn’t it? But remember in what situation I was in when we met, I’d rather not have a repeat of that.” Adra said and I noticed that Rai had placed an arm around her, almost protectively. A curious development, especially given that, just a few days before, he had been ready to strike Adra down for defying me.

“That’s why we are working in a group. To watch the others back, no matter what.” Sigmir said when I didn’t reply, due to pondering what to do about Rai.

“Well, and to have someone to talk to on the journey. Otherwise, it would be far too boring to trudge through the endless forests, all alone.” I added, giving the arm Sigmir had wrapped around me a little squeeze.

“But you are right about the risk, Adra. We’ll have to make sure that we don’t just run into the unknown. Lenore, we could try to scry for danger up ahead.” I suggested, looking at the bird who was resting next to Ylva.

“That might help, but remember, our scrying is not perfect, no scrying is. Just two days ago, you managed to come up with a way to defeat scrying and all this time, you’ve been keeping a block active, with me holding it while you slept.” Lenore reminded me, before hopping over to me.

She was right but the limited information gleaned by scrying was better than to know nothing, so I re-positioned Sigmir’s arm and helped Lenore onto my shoulder. The magical formation we used to scry was reasonably simple, the main part was done with Darkness Magic, not the runes, and soon, we had a shadowy sensor flickering upstream, looking for the thing that might be the source of the problem.

Yet, despite our efforts, we came back with nothing of interest, not in the hour we took, letting our focus travel almost half a day worth of normal walking upstream. With a disappointed grumble, I let the magic go, feeling quite drained by the effort.

“Nothing.” I admitted, before letting out a yawn. “Love, why don’t we head to bed? I’m afraid I’ll need some extra time tomorrow morning, there are a few things I need to do in the other world.” I said, remembering that I had a lesson with Mrs. Wu on the next day.