The rider stopped at several intervals until he finally came into view as he talked to the closest soldier. It was a different messenger than before, but that in itself didn’t tell us much for there were plenty of them handling communications. When he got to us next, we were finally made aware of the reasons behind the delay.

His words made me chuckle, especially the part where he said that General Valtheril had deemed it unsafe to continue from this point forward without proper scouting, so that was being taken care of right at this moment. More information would be delivered later, and in the meantime, we’d just have to wait.

I sighed when he left, and Seralyn was with me in that regard.

“Well, Crap,” I said. “But he’s probably right.”

“He always is,” Velariah added. She shook her head and chuckled. “It’s impossible to argue with him, you can trust me on that, but then again, if you’re always right, what gives? Especially when it comes to life-or-death situations.”

“It seems our concerns were not misplaced, after all,” Draco commented.

“If there are scouts out,” Eric said. “Won’t they find whatever was ahead of us all day yesterday?”

“Elania?” Velariah said my name, and without any more words necessary, I knew what she meant.

“No idea. I haven’t felt anything except for the messenger. Didn’t feel anything last night either. Whatever it was has either not moved for hours, started tiptoeing, or it disappeared.” I sighed. “But yeah, hopefully, we learn what it was soon.”

“Question is, what do we do in the meantime?” Seralyn’s impatience was evident in her voice once more.

“Clean our weapons,” Draco spoke, walking to my saddlebags to retrieve some water. “And I suppose some sharpening wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.”

Seralyn sighed, deeply.

“I suppose we might as well,” She said, her voice resigned as Draco opened a cloth package containing two whetstones, one of which he gave to the archer.

I hadn’t seen her do it before, but in my mind, it just clicked. As good as the arrowheads were, they’d need sharpening every now and then, and I was certain she’d already shot all of them multiple times at this point.

“Is that something you have to do as well?” I asked Velariah as I watched Seralyn clean and then sharpen an arrow.

“You mean because of my inherity? The answer is yes, but also no.”

I frowned at her as I watched her think, and then explain.

“You see, my inherity prevents wear, and damage to my weapon that results from combat, or better put, when I have the weapon in my hands. It won’t stop anything that can happen to it from happening outside of battle, and that includes corrosion among other things. This means I’ll have to sharpen it at some point, but that likely won’t be for a good while.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” I heard Seralyn say with slight jealousy.

“At least you have something to do now to kill time,” Velariah fired back.

“We can talk some more,” Eric suggested. “I mean, what you just said about your inherity is quite interesting. I’d love to hear more if you want to talk about that.”

“There’s little to it,” Velariah said as she unsheathed her blade. “There is what I just said, and then,” Her sword started emitting faint white light. “There’s this, but it’s not much, yet, I’m very happy with it. My magic seems to be closely related to my father’s.”

“That’s great, isn’t it?”

“It is, but what about you? I don’t think any of us know what your inherity is yet.”

“Heh,” Eric let out, chuckling. “It’s, well, it could be interesting, but not so much for me right now.”

“Now I’m curious,” I said.

“You see, my inherity states that any enchantments that I apply to weapons are more effective. There are two issues here. One, I don't have the money for any enchantments that are worth it, and two, I don’t know how to evolve it. I mean, my guess is to use enchanted weapons, but I have yet to confirm it.”

“And you don’t have an enchanted weapon, do you?” Velariah asked.

Eric shook his head.

“Unfortunately not.”

“When we get back to Dawnleaf, allow me to introduce you to Coldanus. Maybe we can arrange something. My father had this talk with him a while ago, and since then, he’s been nice to us. Well, as nice as he can be, anyway.”

“I’d be in your debt.”

“And how about the rest of you?” I questioned the adventurers that joined us for the time being. “Anything worthy of note?” I asked with a hint of mischief.

“Melsa probably has the most interesting one,” Krelion replied. “Mine and Katus’ are, or well, could be interesting, but they just aren’t as straightforward.”

“And what might that be?” Velariah asked.

“Spear expertise,” Melsa said, still sitting down next to the campfire which she’d kept going. “When I attack with spears, I do more damage. Can’t wait until it evolves.”

“Very useful,” The white-haired elf said. “Especially on this mission.”

“Yup,” Krelion continued. “She’s the lucky one. As for me, anything I ‘brew’ will be of higher quality.”

“Brew?” Seralyn let out, confused. “As in, potions and the like?”

“That’s what I assume. As I said, it’s not very straightforward.”

“What about you, Katus?” Velariah asked.

“You know what Krelion has with brewing? I basically have the same, except that it has to do with cooking.”

“That doesn’t sound like the best kind of inherity to have if you want to be an adventurer,” Velariah said softly.

“Unless you find a way to manipulate it,” Draco added, a finger raised in the air.

“I mean, that’s the idea, right?” Krelion continued. “For me, I’m trying to learn alchemy. There are plenty of useful concoctions, and I imagine a good way to evolve is to use them in dungeons in the form of weapon oils. Katus has received the short end of the stick in that regard. We’re still trying to figure out how to evolve his, but we haven’t found anyone with a similar inherity that we could learn from.”

That sounded like an extremely inconvenient inherity to have, unless one were a cook, in which case, one could earn quite some cash, especially when schooled in the culinary arts. However, every inherity could be evolved, and cooking would ensure one method would remain in the absence of Corium.

One would have to use one’s inherity to kill dungeon creatures to obtain said Corium, but how would that work in this case?

“Tell me once that head of yours finds a solution,” Velariah interrupted my thoughts. I hadn’t even noticed her standing before me, and as soon as I reacted to her words with slight shock, her lips curled into a devilish smile.

“Are you good with solutions, Elania?” Krelion asked after I ignored the elf. I felt like I was close to having a breakthrough idea. I had a habit of having those, after all.

“Shhh,” Velariah shushed with a grin. “She’s thinking. Don’t disturb her.”

Cooking…

Killing…

Killing with cooking… but how? Poison? Bait? Would that work?

“Say, Vel. Do creatures in dungeons ever eat?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“If Katus cooks up something that is straight-up toxic, and it kills a Corium-bearing creature, would that work?”

“If they eat it, I supposed it would, but that’s also where the problem lies. It’s a big if.”

“Then, I guess the only solution is to make something and then force them to eat it. A bit of a workaround but I don’t see any other ways.”

“A hassle,” Katus said. “But one that could work. I’ll be honest, I’ve thought of the idea, but hearing it from someone else does make it sound less ridiculous.” He chuckled as he shook his head. “And how about the rest of you?”

“Well, Nira is the one blessed with healing magic,” Velariah explained. “Seralyn’s accuracy is unmatched for a reason, and Draco, well, why don’t you tell them?”

“My inherity increases my damage with axes and reduces the damage I take,” The lizardman said proudly. He left out the part where he had a second inherity. None of us decided to bring it up, either. Velariah had told me earlier that some people choose to keep their abilities a secret, and even though we talked about it in a casual setting right now, it would not be a bad idea to keep some things hidden. There was no way I could just go out here and say I had four inherities, for example. There was no doubt that was going to come back to haunt me someday.

“And what about you, Elania?” Krelion asked politely.

I thought for a moment and decided to settle on the obvious. The first time I’d met Eric I didn’t possess the extra eyes I now had, so if I mentioned I had an inherity that had nothing to do with it, it would cause suspicion, or at least, he would know that I didn’t possess just a single one. If I then didn’t mention I had two, it would draw even more suspicion, and that was something I couldn’t deal with.

“I only found out recently,” I admitted. “It’s called adaptive body, and it enhances my body whenever I evolve. We shared this story just recently with Eric, but on one of our earlier missions to deal with trolls, I had one of my legs severed. After an evolution, it had grown back completely.”

“Just like that?” He asked, to which I shook my head.

“Nope. When I evolve, I can feel it. I get itchy all over and start to become drowsy. From there, it doesn’t take long until I pass out, and stay out for a few days.”

“That sounds incredibly inconvenient.”

“Hm, perhaps, but I’d gladly take it if it had been offered to me. I’m more than happy to have my leg back.”

The party leader chuckled and nodded. In the meantime, Draco finished his work and offered his whetstone to Eric, who hesitated briefly but accepted the gesture anyway.

“Velariah,” Melsa suddenly spoke. “Last night, you mentioned all this is the end of an era. When we are done, what will you do?”

“What I will do?” Velariah replied, before sighing. “I’ll go wherever my friends go. Dawnleaf will be in good hands, and while it’s my home and I love the village, like you we will have to travel around.”

“Any idea where to?”

“Not sure yet. We were thinking of heading north, but we’ll need to do a bit of research on where we can find dungeons appropriate for our level of skill.”

“Smart,” The raven-haired elf replied. “Why don’t we do that, Krelion?”

“We could, but we’re focused on money first. Though, if you want, we could try to tackle the dungeon here.”

“You might want more than three people for that,” I said. “We didn’t struggle much, but it can be challenging to deal with the obstacles it presents you as a smaller party.”

“We’ll remember that,” The elven male said. “Thank you for the advice.”

I nodded and continued to watch Eric sharpen his blade, using the additional light of the campfire to check the edges. He seemed to be careful and precise with his movements, much more than I would have thought necessary for this. Perhaps that was another thing I’d underestimated. Knife ads did make things seem so simple. Then again, modern whetstones were probably far more advanced, and knives weren’t really the same as medieval swords now, were they?

Time passed but eventually the same messenger showed up again, notifying us that we’d move out soon. He told us to be aware of possible traps, especially the hidden pitfall kind, and advised us to stab the ground in front of our feet with our weapons to check.

“Well,” Velariah said when he left. “There you go. I told you my father knows what he’s doing.”

“I just love how we all seem to think alike. I’m pretty sure you got that from him,” I said with a grin.

“Perhaps I did,” She replied with a grin that rivaled mine.

Eric and Seralyn finished up and handed the whetstones back to Draco, who put them in my saddlebags while the others put out the fire.

“Glad we didn’t sharpen the spears,” Krelion said, noting the irony of the situation. “We’ll take the front. Our spears will ensure we won’t break our backs trying to stab the soil.”

“I’ll join,” I suggested. “I can cover a good amount of ground on my own, and well,” I giggled slightly. “I have eight spears to help out.” I rose a few of my legs and brought them down onto the ground, earning a chuckle from Velariah.

“Well then,” She replied. “Seems we got it all sorted out. Let’s get ready. I want to rid the world of some more goblins today.”

“Now there’s an idea!” Seralyn said in a much too happy manner. Honestly, it bordered creepy.

I looked at Draco who shook his head after the interactions, showing his calmness about the situation.

A few minutes later, the horns sounded and our journey, after a few hours of delay, continued.

The new party and I formed the vanguard, trying to spot and feel for any traps as we moved. About an hour of travel followed until the horns sounded again, forcing us to come to a halt as there was probably combat going on somewhere.

“Nothing nearby,” I said while we waited. “Also lost track and haven’t picked it up again of whatever was ahead of us yesterday. I’m a bit frustrated that we never figured out what it was.”

“Eh, whatever,” Velariah said, simply shrugging it off.

After a few minutes, the next signal to move was given, but we soon came to a halt again.

“This is gonna go on for a while, isn’t it?” Seralyn asked.

“Probably,” The white-haired elf replied. “We can’t always be the lucky ones to face enemies.”

“If only we could,” Seralyn said calmly.

This went on for a good part of the day. Intermittent pauses for other groups to get to work, all while steadily advancing our army through the forest. Then, after a few hours of that, it was finally our turn as we came across an immense clearing.

Our party, and the soldiers to our left and right, all came to a halt and a messenger was called somewhere down the line. WIthin a minute, the sound of horns reverberated through the woods, and excitement rose within Seralyn as she readied an arrow while looking at the same thing we were all looking at.

Within the open area, the goblins had built some sort of fortification, with stakes and a makeshift palisade surrounding an encampment. The whole thing looked like it had been set up in a very short time, days at most, but it would still serve its intended purpose; we couldn’t just rush the place, as much as some of us may have wanted to.

A few platforms had been built, on which we could see goblin and hobgoblin archers from afar. Luckily for us, we were out of their range for their low-quality bows which couldn’t shoot nearly as far as Seralyn’s recurve.

“Neat,” The archer called as she nocked an arrow, and empowered it with her inherity, setting the tip aflame. “Finally, something to shoot.”

Before anyone could react, she’d already fired her shot, aiming for the palisade and hitting it, causing the dry wood to catch fire, but unfortunately, it didn’t spread fast enough. The goblins inside quickly doused it with a bucket of… was that pee?

Yuck.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Seralyn said.

“Ok, but for real now,” Seralyn called out to everyone present. “What’s our plan?”

“I don’t see any trolls. How about you, Elania?”

I used my legs like jacks to raise myself, allowing me a better view of the goblins inside the encampment.

“I don’t see any. There seem to be two exits, one here, and one in the back.”

“We’ll abuse those,” Velariah finished my sentence. “We have three spears and your long polearm. We should have an easy time holding a chokepoint and kill them one by one. Alternatively, we can harass them from afar, and we definitely should. We should stay back until Seralyn’s taken out the archers.”

“Neat,” The archer called, nocking another arrow and empowering it before taking aim.

“The others will hold the chokepoint, Miss Elania,” Draco called out. “You and Miss Velariah should make sure we can’t get flanked from the other exit.”

“And you’re staying to protect Nira?” I asked

The lizardman nodded.

“And my role?” Eric asked.

“I’d say help Draco or the others if they need assistance,” Velariah said. “Though, I doubt that’s going to be the case, so just do whatever you think works best.”

He nodded. “Understood.”

After he said that, Seralyn loosed her arrow, hitting a goblin archer right in the chest before quickly firing another, taking down a hobgoblin. The rest of us were watching the prodigy that was our party’s archer take down our enemies one by one, until they figured out they were not going to win the ranged battle and started hiding behind their flimsy wooden walls.

She chucked and aimed for the wood once more, trying to get it to burn. If we could burn their encampment down, this would be a breeze.

She tried, but to her dismay, our enemies seemed to have enough waste liquid to put out the flames.

“At least they can’t throw that at us anymore,” I noted.

“I know,” Velariah said. “We should be thankful to Seralyn. I can smell the stench from here, ugh.”

“Aight, that’s it for me,” Seralyn said after firing a few more arrows. “I’ll keep the rest of my ammunition in case it’s needed. The rest is up to you for the time being.”

Velariah nodded and unsheathed her sword, pointing it forward.

“Let’s go.”