The horse’s back thumped against his thighs, flaring up the dull ache. He and Kora had sold their old horses and bought these for the journey, although he now regretted that decision. After they had collected the foreigner, they had bought what supplies they could and rented their last night at The Fat Munch. In the morning, they had come to the Seeker’s building, where Maya had briefed them on their journey.

She gave them maps and Smith’s letter of approval. She had teased Orion but only slightly, her aura much calmer than before, maybe due to the broken arm she had gained since the last time they had seen her. When asked whether he could bring along the foreigner, she had looked at him with a raised brow, before saying sure.

Joining Lilith and Cyae, they had spent an hour riding away from Visgimar, towards the south of the Empire, towards Kajan.

Orion nudged his horse towards the foreigner’s, soon beside the dark man staring into the horizon. Despite Orion rolling up next to him, the foreigner didn’t turn so Orion poked him. The man was still thin but his skin was no longer shrivelled. And while it was hard to spot his scars due to his skin colour, once you spotted one, the whole range of burns and scars became clear.

“Hello,” Orion said, waving his hand exaggeratedly.

The man watched the hand, then looked at him with the same blank expression as always.

“Hello,” Orion repeated.

Although the man didn’t respond, the smallest of glints flashed through his eyes. The foreigner rolled his red eyes up as if in thought, then mimicked the wave.

“Hell-o,” he said.

The pale Seeker felt his lips curl up as he heard the man speak the common tongue, breaking out into a grin. “Jax,” he said, this time pointing at himself.

It didn’t long for the man to understand what was happening. “Joiroa,” After saying his name, the foreigner seemed to fall out of the moment, his eyes glazing over and his body shivering.

Thinking hard, Orion figured he was reliving memories, most likely the torture from the ship considering how tense he had become. Glancing around, Orion saw Lilith looking back with a strange expression on her face. Cyae watched him passively, perhaps with a small amount of disdain as she turned away from him with cold eyes.

When Orion caught Kora’s eyes, she stared back, before shaking her head. She led her horse towards his and pulled up next to him.

“Hello, Teacher Jax. Is your student alright?”

“Yeah, I think he’s just having an episode. You know he’s smart, he picked what I was saying pretty quickly,” he replied.

She nodded excessively with wide eyes. “Yes, he said hello and his name - I’ve never been more impressed in my life,”

He rolled his eyes, not falling for her provocation. “Come on, you’ve got to admit you thought he was a dimwit before, like brainless,”

She nodded more honestly this time. “I don’t think the ability to say hello invalidates my judgement though,”

“Come on then, you try to teach him. You’ll see he’s bright,”

“Ok, I will,” she said.

****

Now that a few hours had passed since leaving Visgamar, Orion regretted challenging Kora. She had swiftly discovered what he had and proceeded to slowly take control from Orion, eventually kicking him out of the conversation. Even now, he could see them talking – in simple sentences, sure, but still holding a conversation.

Lilith had pulled up by him some hours before and they had chatted for a while. He had discovered she was charming and playful as she had teased him for a while, eventually leaving with a wink. He concluded she didn’t flirt for fun like Maya did, instead, using it as a tool. As for Cyae, the short-haired woman hadn’t displayed any interest in Orion at all, instead, opting to stay at the front of the group, scanning their surroundings like a hawk.

They had passed several plains, all lush or at least living, but now to their sides were the corpses of fields, crop parts littered all over. Cyae slowed down and hopped off her horse, inspecting the ground and soon searching it.

“There’s a monster den somewhere near here, been eating all the food here,” she said, her face tightening into a scowl. She was as tall as Orion and similarly lean, in contrast to Kora and Lilith. She had dark brown hair and a sculpted face, her features sharp and pointed, especially her eyes which seemed to dig into his soul as they passed over him.

“What type?” Kora called.

“Grub drenites from the look of the damage,” Lilith answered.

“Yeah, Grubbers,” Cyae said. “I’m going to destroy their lair, anyone come with?”

The other Seekers nodded. Grub drenites were cancer to crops despite only being 3-star monsters. In fact, their danger was inflated due to their numbers - they were 1-starish by themselves.

“Right,” Cyae said. She leapt back onto her horse and trekked over the fields, wandering randomly.

However, Orion didn’t stop nor interrupt her, instead, watching until he realised she was looking for areas with the least amount of plant waste. Although confused, he followed her, and it only took him a few minutes to acknowledge her skill as they came upon barren land littered with monster shit.

In the middle of this area was a large bump, akin to a molehill but man-sized. Climbing off his horse, he stepped over the hole and gazed into the darkness.

“They’re nocturnal; they aren’t going to see you,” Cyae called out from far behind. She had opened her bag and was filling a bottle with some liquid, then with another. She put a few ingredients in, the last being a clump of Grubber shit.

“Hold your noses, this will stink,” she said as she lit a fire next to the bottle.

“Wait, isn’t it best if you add Throllberry as well?” Kora said.

Cyae smirked. “If you find some, tell me,”

“I’m sure there was some in the forest we went through,”

Cyae simply shook her head as she dipped a burning stick into the bottle, the liquid quickly fizzling. Holding her nose, she walked towards the hole and dropped the bottle in. It didn’t take long for the Grubbers to come screaming out, their screeching almost as unbearable as the smell spreading from the hole.

There were many forms of Drenites due to how well they adapted to environments, some mammoth sized, some venomous, the highest even a 5-star monster, the boneless drenite. The Grub drenites the Seekers faced were yellow knee-sized frogs with mouths that took up half their bodies. Their molar teeth were their only weapons, meaning they were relatively simple to deal with as long as you watched their numbers.

Lilith and Orion took a backward position, both using bows to kill the monsters from a distance. She was faster than him, although he guessed that was more because he hadn’t used a bow in a long while, but what was more surprising was her battle-sense. She somehow stayed aware of the whole battlefield at once, sniping down runaway Grubbers before he even noticed them.

Kora and Cyae took the front, Kora using her greatsword to slash through the monsters to great and bloody effect, while Cyae took a more traditional route with a longsword and shield. She wasn’t as fast as Orion, and she wasn’t even close to as powerful as Kora, and yet as the minutes passed by and the stink of Grubber’s intestines filled the air, it became obvious she was the most vicious. Her cuts were clean, her defence was tight, and her attacks were always aimed at vitals.

But as strong as the Seekers were, they soon discovered the problem with Grubber’s first hand as the tide of monsters leaving the tunnel increased instead of decreasing. Orion was forced to switch to his sword and dance around the field as time passed, quickly covered with putrid gore.

The night passed by painfully slowly.