As the kilometers passed, Anastacia grew more and more unhappy with the situation. She had reached her limit after only twenty kilometers of traveling, and more than half of it while simultaneously complaining relentlessly. “By the time we get there, my feet will be nothing but mush in my boots!” She wailed dramatically.

The necromancer had tried to bargain with everyone present for them to carry her, even just for a little while, but the old adventurer attempting to mentor her had remained adamant that no one should accept her offers. Eventually, however, even Xamiliere was starting to reach her limit for endless complaining.

“Come on Gil… Just let me carry her to end this.” The spriggan pleaded.

Gilbert scoffed at the idea. “No. She needs to learn how to walk. As an adventurer, there’s a lot of time on the road in her future.”

If it weren’t for the constant complaining, it would have been a perfect day for walking. The weather was warm but an occasional cooling breeze washed over the riverside occasionally, not a single cloud was in sight anywhere, and the nature was in full bloom around them – even without the help of the nature spirit. This led to a good mood for everyone able to ignore the noise, namely the three other members of the party, who were engaged in a telling of some other quests Xamiliere, Dammar and Maximillian had been involved in. Though they all seemed exaggerated, even the relatively strait-laced elf vouched for their accuracy.

“I still find it… improbable, that you guys just went and dropped a huge rock on the drake living around Snow Top. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that the local duke had lost entire armies trying to get at that thing.” Emilia pondered, still skeptical about the whole story.

Dammar chortled. “Wasn’t anything ‘just’ about it! Days of baiting the damned thing, almost having Max get eaten three separate times and we only barely avoided getting crushed with it.” He pointed out. “It was great!”

“Still… Just the three of you, huh?” The priestess smirked.

The general merriness of their party despite her agony annoyed Anastacia even further, to a point where she started tossing rocks and sticks into the river by them just to blow off some steam.

“And then there’s this bitch of a river that just flows in the wrong direction just to spite me!” She cursed the natural formation that most certainly did not intentionally mess with her, and had flowed exactly the same way for far longer than the necromancer had been alive.

Hoping to at least partly improve Anastacia’s mood, Xamiliere tried her best to get her to consider the positive side of things. “That does mean we can just use a raft to get back though, did you think about that? Trust me, that’s easily the worst part of the trip.” She said.

Not having any of it, the necromancer continued her childish tirade. “That also means you can go fuck yourself!”

“I’d much prefer if you-“ The spriggan managed to say before Gilbert interrupted her with a glare that was easy to read as a threat of her being the next thing to find themselves in the river if she continued.

Running about ten meters wide and half of that in depth, the fairly slowly flowing river appeared harmless at a glance, but in fact had very steep banks that would easily crumble if one was to stray too near to the edge. Gilbert knew of this and used it as a subject for a lecture to distract Anastacia by explaining why getting her gear wet on day one of a quest was quite possibly the worst idea easily available. He also knew of a spot only a few of kilometers ahead, where the river curved sharply enough to have a shallower inner bank that was ideal for a camp.

The problem was that getting a few more kilometers out of the necromancer was starting to become a rather tall order, and during the lecture she had simply given up and laid down on the grass as a protest until everyone agreed to take a break.

“Anna, it’s already well past noon. If we start taking breaks now, we’ll never make it before dark. I’d rather not have to start looking for firewood when it’s already dark, would you?” Gilbert tried his best to explain why he was pushing the necromancer to move. “I get that you’re tired and that your feet hurt, but sometimes you just need to deal with a bit of pain, that’s life.”

“Well, I guess this is where I die then. It was nice knowing you all, don’t forget me!” Anastacia said without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

The old adventurer sighed and caved in. He grabbed Anastacia by the waist and tossed her onto his shoulder like a sack of grain.

Wigging triumphantly, the necromancer tried to move into a better position. “Could you at least turn me around so I can see where we’re going.”

“No.” Gilbert answered gruffly while the others clearly found his defeat humorous.

And so, with the apprentice adventurer no longer dragging them down, the party’s pace improved quite a bit for the rest of the day’s journey.

For the last couple of kilometers, the river entered a thick forest, and the roots of the massive old trees grew above ground, occasionally creating obstacles to the path they followed. Everyone aside from the nimble elf and the spriggan found them cumbersome at the end of the day’s journey – especially Dammar, who could barely get over the larger roots. Gilbert also noted that the older forest, like the one they were in, were far more dangerous in the dark, exemplifying why sticking to your travel plans was important – after all, both the worst beasts and worst people roads and wilderness had to offer came out after dark.

“We have a literal nature spirit with us, why do we need to worry about woodland critters?” Anastacia wondered out loud.

“My word doesn’t exactly carry the weight it did back when I was actually guarding nature. Plants are one thing but my relations with the bulk of my kind is complicated, and the beasts know it.” Xamiliere explained and made a flower bloom on the tip of her wooden finger. “Not despising people is an unpopular choice when it comes to spriggans.”

“So, you’re like exiled or something?” Inquired the necromancer.

“Yes and no, it’s more like a mutual shunning. There’s no one to actually tell us what to do, so even if most of us feel like guarding the nature is what we’re ‘meant to do’, others prefer freedom – and the two don’t mix.” The nature spirit shrugged. She clearly didn’t lose sleep over the matter.

Not having to walk allowed Anastacia to focus more on her surroundings, and she found the forest rather pleasant. The ancient grand trees grew tall and far enough apart to let some light in and the aroma of the underbrush was the complete polar opposite of the stench of decay and rot she grew up in. Perhaps, one day, when she had adventured enough for the time being, she could build a small hut in such a place.

Her dreams of being a forest hermit were interrupted by the party finally reaching their desired camping site – just in time before the sun set. Maximillian, Xamiliere and Dammar immediately scattered to prepare the site, having done it hundreds of times before, they all knew their jobs. While Maximillian went to get a deer he had been tracking for a while now, Dammar checked the perimeter for anything that felt off and Xamiliere gathered enough firewood for the night. Gilbert and Emilia were left with the task of starting a fire. Anastacia was put in charge of getting some water from the river for cooking, so she grabbed the pot graciously loaned to them by the innkeeper and kneeled by the stream. To her surprise, the water was incredibly clear, which allowed her to see all the way to the bottom a couple of meters from the bank.

A couple of larger fish were laying in wait for a suitable prey to swim by, which gave her an idea for something she could impress her party with. She pointed her hand towards one of them and started moving it closer to her. Though it seemed to be working, suddenly the fish violently exploded into a mess of blood, scales and fish bones. Getting caught in the edge of the blast radius was enough to make the necromancer throw up on the spot.

A slightly wooden, muffled giggle echoed from among the trees as the spriggan escaped from the scene, having witnessed the ordeal.

After moving a bit upstream to get water without fish mush and vomit in it, Anastacia returned to the camp, having somehow been defeated by the task of filling a pot with water. Luckily, Maximillian’s hunt had ended a lot more successfully, and he brought with him some freshly butchered meat. Though the elf hated wasteful hunting for cultural reasons, he knew his friends would surely appreciate any and all variety in the relatively bland selection of jerky, potatoes, carrots and stale bread they could carry with them. He also made it a point to teach the new adventurers about leaving the parts of the carcass he couldn’t take with him or wouldn’t have been pleasant to eat without aging well away from the camp, to make sure the predator that would end up scavenging them wouldn’t find its way there.

While cooking and during the subsequent feast, the adventurers planned for the night.

“For now, things have been peaceful, but don’t take it for granted. Since I knew about this place, other people do too, and some of those people might be of a nastier sort.” Gilbert lectured the two fresh adventurers in his party. “That’s something to keep in mind. We’re still fairly close to Valor, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see any highwaymen or the like, thieves maybe, but they might have people check on this place every now and then.”

“I should also mention that there were some wolf tracks in the woods.” Maximillian pointed out. “They know we’re here, but there’s a lot of us, so a normal-sized pack wouldn’t bother us, especially if we keep the fire burning throughout the night.”

Gilbert pondered the situation for a while. “We’ll stay up in pairs. I’ll start with Anna for now.” He decided.

“I can take the second shift.” Emilia offered.

“I’ll join you!” Xamiliere quickly exclaimed and raised her hand. “We have much to discuss.”

Dammar glanced at Maximillian and they nodded in unison. “Works for us. We tend to wake up early anyway, so just wake us up when you need to.”

Well after the darkness had already fallen on the forest, the party went to sleep by a large tree that grew a bit closer to the river than others. It didn’t take long for a quiet snoring to begin after a long day of walking, and the only ones left awake were the necromancer and her mentor. They began their watch by brewing some coffee on the fire.

“Say, Anna, I’ve been thinking.” Gilbert suddenly said.

“You do that a lot, so I’d expect as much.” Quipped Anastacia before the old adventurer had the chance to continue.

Ignoring the remark, Gilbert continued. “Can’t you just ‘sense’ anything that comes near the camp, even if it’s completely dark? As long as they’re flesh and blood that is.”

The necromancer shrugged. “For fifty to seventy meters maybe, if I focus. Right now, there’s like birds or bats or whatever in the trees, nothing bigger than that.”

“That’s still much further than where I can see in the dark, especially into the forest. Can you keep checking it every once in a while? I don’t want to be surprised by another ogre.” Suggested Gilbert. He was starting to realize that necromancers had several convenient traits and abilities for adventures. It was a shame they were all huddled up in their own grim nook of the world.

As they passed the night by drinking coffee and chatting about this and that, something a bit larger came to check on the camp just on the very edge of Anastacia’s range. It stirred the Adventurers slightly and woke them up properly before retreating back into the forest.

To calm things once more, Gilbert figured that he should tell Anastacia about the machine fortresses, since they were heading to one. “Not that much is known about them, but a long time ago, there was a powerful kingdom that had a peculiar way of building their cities, or fortresses underground for some reason. Though the kingdom itself is long gone, their creations still churn on around the world. The general consensus on the machine fortresses is that each one had the capability to create simulacra and that the active ones are still somehow doing it. No one knows why, or how, but that’s how it seems to be.”

“So why haven’t all of them been looted by now? I’m sure all that old stuff is worth something to someone.” The necromancer wondered.

“No one can seem to find a way in. The entrances are always hidden and fortified beyond belief, so even getting into an inactive one is a heck of a task.” The old adventurer explained. “Then there’s the traps that some of them have, or all of them for all we know, and the active ones are just a no go since they tend to have simulacra guarding them. The one we’re heading to is supposed to be an inactive one though, so we shouldn’t have much issues getting to it – but it does make the goblins gathering around it even more interesting.”