Isarnfur

Chapter 10

Will had spent another three days trekking his way there, it was approximately going to take two months at this rate. The progress was a lot compared to others but there was just such a vast distance without using carriages. "Is there a new settlement up ahead?" Will asked me, stretching out his upper body as his morning routine was.

"No sir, not until we get another two day's worth of travel done." I told him, remembering the map's layout. He sighed, grabbing the little canteen he came with, wearing the "combat vest" that came with him. He took a swig of some water and started packing up his bedroll, in quick and simple actions.

Then we headed out, heading towards the Gorlund River, a river that was the main water source and trade route with Lurin. The forest was a pain for Will to travel through. The rocks that covered the ground were inconsistent and of the sizes of fists to heads. The dirt that made up the rest of the terrain was of sandy nature, having odd give places.

While Will went through this place, he and I debated whether or not, if we should try to hail a boat on the river, it was a long conversation mostly about the price of the travel. "I mean I'm sure it's not all barges on this Gorlund river, surely there are small canoes or something?" he asked. "No there aren't any canoes, not after the Gorlund Purge. Plus they wouldn't be able to take us as far as we would need them to" I told him. He sighed, resigning.

"Just what was the Gorlund Purge?" he asked shortly later, hopping down a small mound. "There was a species of a particular animal, called Kelpies, they were large fish that had a face resembling horses and odd arms, looking something caught between a hand and hoofs. There were males that had hard knife-like backs. These beasts hunted ships,ripping the wood and trying to eat the cargo or anything that couldn't swim." I recounted.

Will shivered, "so there was a purge? What exactly caused it?" He asked. "An entire ship that had armor sheathing it, the Kelpies ended up killing an entire class of politicians' kids." I told him grimly, he nodded his head in disapproval. "So even here, the are only here to benefit themselves" Will said tartly. "Well they do tend to acknowledge that sometimes their actions are in the interests of themselves. Also to be fair, all of the kids were hunting the Kelpies too. The council of Lurin set a reward for showing that you had killed a Kelpie. Something which already had a market in the regular public, their bones having abnormally high trace amounts of gold in them"

Will listened as he trekked through more of the forest, then asked, "So they, the kelpies, know how to take revenge?" he asked. "The little research done about their livelihood shows that it's a general want for revenge on any similar looking boat or person. Plus the kelpies only do this most consistently when it's a familial member." I told him.

"Would we have to worry about Kelpies on the river still?" Will asked, his hand going to the further modified blade. "Yes it could be a concern though, they are culled on the weekly last I heard" I told him, we could start smelling the river more distinctly. "And how long ago was this information?" Will asked. "Oh about 50 to 75 years old" I said, keeping an eye on the rocks, I could sense one with a lot of iron I could pull out nearby.

He looked at my bracer in shock, "Just how old are you!?" he asked. I was thinking that this was something I should probably try to understand why he thought it was such a wild idea. "I'm about 200-something years old" I said, Will stood there puzzled, thinking it over for a bit. "Just haven't really put it together that you could be so old, dunno why I didn't think about it before." he said.

I just let him get used to that a little bit, we were about another couple hours away from the river, all were in a majority of silence. The only exceptions were that when the rock was found that I was sensing and when he needed me to find which is why we needed to go.

We finally got to the river, a small stone road appeared aside it. The stone path was built alongside the majority of the river. We started walking on the road, our travels becoming far more smooth. The smell of the river this close was something that of algae and air misted with water.

A large barge was on the river, almost running down the river. Will waved at the sailors as they noticed him, they waved back. The rest of the day went uneventfully and so did the next. All that really happened was me teaching Will how to notice different clumps of certain elements with mana, something that was taking him some time to understand how to do.

Luckily this came in handy on the third morning, the same day that we were planning on getting to the next village.