Netherkin

Chapter Three

After convincing the commander to let us go, we were on our way! We exited the main gates a few minutes ago and we're now walking through the nearby forest.

For how close it was to Frostbourne, it was surprisingly peaceful, with only their footsteps and bird song feeling the silence until Rain decides to speak up.

" So Stella, how do you go about doing this 'magic' thing? I've been looking into it a little bit lately. While sword fighting will always be my thing, I've seen the stuff you can do if I need a little magic support it would be nice to have."

" It's a bit more complicated than you might think, but for the over simplified version you usually only need the spell, the knowledge, inner magical power and sometimes material components. While nearly everyone can do magic, it comes way more naturally to some than others."

" That's rather interesting actually. Although, I might just stick with swords for now and leave the magic to you."

We walk for a while and contrary to what one would expect, nothing happens.

" This silence is unnerving." Rain whispers, walking around.

Stella looks around but all she sees is underbrush, trees, rocks, you know, the usual forest stuff.

"You think we'd have been attacked by now." Rain comments, clearly on edge.

" It is definitely odd."

We keep walking around in unnerving silence for a while longer until a groaning sound is heard and a lone zombie appears from deep within the forest. It is easily cut down by Rain even though his wither disease is clearly taking a toll on him.

"Just one huh? Strange..."

Nothing else disturbs the silence until the Sun starts setting and we decide to set up camp for the night. Stella gather some firewood and starts a fire.

" Sorry I couldn't help." Rain apologizes.

"It's ok." Stella says truthfully.

"The forest is usually teeming with undead or other enemy forces, but today it was unusually quiet. Makes me wonder why?"

As if on cue, they share a large cacophony of throaty groans, moans and gurgles slowly get louder from the distance.

" There it is. I knew it would happen at some point."

Stella summons her magical arcane blades, this was going to be a long night.

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"That was the longest night ever." Stella wheezes, clearly exhausted as the sun begins to rise.

The fire is burnt out, Rain is passed out and there are zombie corpses everywhere.

Honestly, She feels like passing out as well, she is so drained. She finally dissipates her blood-splattered arcane blades and then stumbles off to go check on Rain. his skin is paler than it was yesterday, but other than that, he appears to be fine.

She wants to keep going, especially since her friend is essentially living on borrowed time, but she is running on fumes here. She knows if anything else were to happen, she wouldn't have the energy to stop it and / or deal with it. So with a heavy heart she uses the very last of her energy to pick up her friend and she's him up into a tree then climbs up herself and passes out.

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"Wake up Stella." She hears a voice wheeze out. "We need to go."

Her eyes slowly open to the face of Rain pulling on her shoulder.

"Wha-What?" she sleepily mumbles.  "We need to go. I don't know how we ended up in this tree but we've lost a lot of time. We need to go." His voice sounds weaker than usual.

" Okay, let's go." she plucks her hat off a nearby limb and seats it back on top of her purple hair.

She makes sure her spellbook is still levitating next to her and then hops out of the tree. She then helps Rain out of the tree and they keep going.

She doesn't necessarily feel refreshed, but she feels a lot better than before she took a nap. They keep walking for some time until they reach a clearing.

"Look! There it is!" Stella points at a collection of small buildings and tents just barely sticking out of the forest at the end of the clearing not too far away.

" That's the Coven!"

Rain on the other hand doesn't look so excited.

He heaves a hacking cough then weakly whispers so quietly that Stella can barely hear him. " I can't go any further." Then he collapses onto the ground.

"Oh no! Rain!"