“I apologize for what I said.” Edwin told Salissa, unwilling to draw it out. It was evening, the common room was partially filled with villagers and the group was seated around their table, waiting for their food. They had gathered here as they had agreed, but the atmosphere had immediately been almost unbearably awkward.

“As Bordan kindly pointed out to me, I was willing to forgive everyone else’s mistakes except yours. You’re new to this, just like we are. In fact, you’ve only been an adventurer for a week or so, while we’ve trained for this for months. Therefore, I was wrong, and I apologize.”

“Uhm…” Salissa mumbled; eyes downcast in embarrassment. It was the first time Edwin had seen her show any behavior except self-absorption and superiority, and it made him feel even worse. “I also apologize for calling you…things.”

“Great!” Bordan clapped, a wide grin on his face. “Now that that’s behind us, let’s talk about our next assignment.”

At that moment, the door opened and a group of men walked in. They wore triumphant smiles and called for ale and food. The head of the hunters detached from the group, approaching the seated party. “There you are. How’s the leg?”

“Just fine.” Edwin answered, patting it. “Will be right as rain in a few days.”

“Glad to hear it. You really had us worried.” He turned to Bordan. “We just got back from dressing the wolves. I didn’t know when you were going to leave, so I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Right!” Bordan slapped his head. “I completely forgot about the carcasses.”

“Well, now I wish I hadn’t said anything!” The hunter laughed. “Anyway, we took the wolves apart, saving what we could. One of them was in impressive condition, so we got a lot from that one. The other one though… What did you do to it?”

The adventurers shared looks, then Salissa turned towards the man. “I’m a mage.”

The hunter was taken aback, whistling. “That explains a lot. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a mage adventurer.” He looked her up and down, his stare quickly making her uncomfortable.

“So, how much for the two?” Bordan asked after a moment.

“Right, so with the full pelt and the larger size of the first one, we put that at eight bronze. The other one was smaller and partially burnt. Also, the head was smashed in, so that one’s only five.”

“Thirteen bronze?” Bordan said, taken aback. “That’s a lot of money. How do you expect to make a profit off of this?”

The hunter laughed, tapping his nose conspiratorially. “Because we sell a lot of rare stuff from the Woods, we’ve got enchanted boxes. That means we don’t need to salt or smoke the meat. If we sell fresh direwolf meat in the city, we’ll make out like bandits. Mages, alchemists, craftsmen, but mostly nobles with more money than sense love nothing more than getting their hands on direbeast remains.”

Edwin was impressed. Stasis boxes were a fairly common item, mostly used to transport food and other perishables. They were generally being utilized by merchant companies and noble households, as they weren’t exactly cheap. More expensive than their purchase price, though, was their maintenance. The stasis spell was fairly low-powered, causing little damage to the ritual circle itself. As with all rituals however, the mana crystal that provided the energy it needed required regular recharging. While the process was quick and easy, a mage could only fill a handful of crystals per day before running low on mana, which made the service more costly than it otherwise should have been. If the people of Henkerton owned even just a few small stasis boxes, it meant they ran a more profitable operation than Edwin had given them credit for.

The hunter left the party in good cheer. Thirteen bronze divided by four wasn’t a fortune, but considering they were being paid by the Guild anyway, it was a welcome bit of cash.

“Well, that was a nice surprise.” Bordan said. “But it brings me back to what I was saying. The next request. Edwin, how’s the leg?”

Edwin’s leg was almost entirely healed, but he didn’t want them to know that. Instead, he stomped his foot a few times, then smiled. “It’ll slow me down a little, but I’m still faster than you lot. I’ll see if I can buy a proper walking stick from someone in the village and I should be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Bordan asked with a worried look. “We may be short on time, but we can wait and give you another day to heal. You don’t need to push yourself too hard, if you make it worse, we’ll lose more than just a day of waiting.”

“Thank you, but that really isn’t necessary. I can walk fine, I could probably even fight. I’ll use a stick for a few days to give it time to heal, but it’s really not that bad.”

Bordan opened his mouth to argue, clearly not convinced, then thought better of it.

“Fine. But if it gets worse, you tell us immediately.” With that he looked at the other two. “If Edwin can travel, we’ll move on bright and early tomorrow. I bought medical supplies from the villagers, we can share those after dinner. Get a good rest. We won our first fight today, but this was just the beginning.”

By first light the next morning, the party got on the road again. Faking a limp was annoying, but at least it gave Edwin something to concentrate on during the long hours of walking.

“I’ve got the payment for the wolves, and I also had the headman sign off on the request.” Bordan told them as they left the village. “Usually, we would’ve searched the area to check if there are more monsters around, but that’s more of a courtesy than a requirement. With Edwin’s injury, and after we killed more direwolves than were listed in the request, nobody will begrudge us skipping that part.”

“What’s the next target?” Leodin asked.

“A mammoth beetle.” Bordan answered. “Looks like you’ll get to put your club to use, Edwin.”

“It’s a mace, not a club.” The large man shot back with a smirk. He considered asking what Salissa intended to do against the monster, as an armored beetle would be less susceptible to fire than a direbeast but decided against it. So soon after the argument, it would probably seem confrontational. More than the girl, Edwin didn’t want to make Bordan angry. So, he kept his thoughts to himself.

We’ll see what she does. Maybe she already learned something from yesterday.

--- ----- ---

Edwin stepped into a puddle, concealed under shrubs and fallen leaves, and water splashed everywhere. He pulled his foot out of the mud with a muttered curse.

While the weather had been mostly great the last few weeks, it had taken a turn for the worse shortly before the party had reached their second stop, the village of Rellick’s Field. It had rained heavily all throughout the night, and now the forest had turned into a boggy mess. The going was slow, as the adventurers had to spend a lot of time and attention on where to step. The slick mud could easily make one slip and fall. Edwin was thankful for his walking stick, as he could use it to more easily traverse puddles and slippery ground, and even more so for his boots. Tightly laced, they had kept his feet dry for hours. Only now, with noon coming and going, did the water slowly invade his footwear.

Bordan and Leodin, both much more used to being out in any weather than Edwin was, were equally as prepared. Salissa was not. She had been trudging along with water and mud in her shoes since morning, which had turned her mood even more foul than it was ordinarily. Since Edwin wasn’t exactly dry himself with the rain still going strong, he didn’t manage to feel bad for the girl.

It didn’t help that they were basically wandering aimlessly through the forest and hadn’t even seen the slightest trace of the monster so far. During the first few hours they had argued, reasoned, and tried to come up with better ways to search. After a while they had stopped entirely, and now they just trudged after Leodin, who was putting his experience as a hunter to use, in grim silence.

By mid-afternoon, the group stopped, as they had reached the edge of the forest and would need to backtrack. Bordan looked around his drenched and sullen companions. The rain had slowed to a drizzle too late to afford any of them the luxury of dry skin.

“We could turn back for now and come back tomorrow.” he suggested hesitantly. “We’re much less effective as we are now. We can spare one day, and tomorrow might be less soggy.”

At first, Edwin wanted to jump at the offer. He was wet and cold, and the thought of a warm fire under a dry roof was enticing. Then he realized that turning back empty-handed would mean returning the next day.

“Let’s keep going.” He finally said. “If we find it today, we don’t have to come out here again tomorrow.”

Bordan looked to the other two. Leodin shrugged, the rain not seeming to bother the boy overly much. Salissa looked angry, her face scrunched to a deep frown, and refused to meet his eyes.

“Alright.” Bordan said after a few seconds. “Let’s keep going until it gets too dark. We don’t want to be surprised by it because we didn’t see it coming.”

Leodin took the lead again, the rest of the party filing in behind him. Hours came and went torturously slowly, and Edwin’s mind wandered. His body kept walking, eyes finding spots to place his feet without thought, as his consciousness left the flooded forest behind. He thought of the changes Walter would need to make to the Immortalizer to fix the issues with Edwin’s body, picturing the parts that were responsible and imagining how he might change them. Soon, while Edwin mindlessly followed the back of Salissa under a slowly sinking sun, Walter was in his ritual chamber again, walking the massive stone edifice that was the pinnacle of his work, mumbling under his breath about ideas and designs.