We Were Right About Magic

Battle Axe of Navask

She couldn't run any more. The mouth of the cave opened into a giant drop into a ravine below. The enemies were hot on her heels.

"Why did I take this stupid mission? I thought Shira would protect me!" she cursed. She stared at the water below. There was only one option. Jump.

"Is this worth one thousand gold pieces?" She asked herself. But, the answer was yes. Of course it was. She was a first year adventurer with nothing to her name. She cursed again. She could hear the howling of the cave banshees.

"Here goes nothing!" she shouted. She jumped off the edge of the cliff just as the cave banshees arrived behind her. Her dagger clanked against her breastplate as she crossed her arms across herself, bracing for the water's inevitable impact.

"I better live! I'll be so pissed if I die!" she shouted to herself.

The river rushed up at her; it felt like being shoved in a sack. She heard the sound of her own flesh tearing and then the cool water came rushing past her. She felt weightless, floating. She looked down to see that she had floated over to the side of a river.

"Well, that wasn't too bad," she grunted. When she reached up, she found that her hair had been pulled free from her ponytail. She crawled into the bank to assess the damage.

Her left leg got the brunt of the impact. It had a long gash. Blood spilled and mixed with river water. No broken bones though, as far as she could tell. Her coin purse was still securely tucked inside her armor. However, she did lose her five gold-piece dagger. Her sword was still clinging to her back, though.

"Are you crazy?!" Shira's voice rang from above. Axo glanced up to see her fellow raider shaking the decapitated head of a cave banshees furiously. "Do you have a death wish?"

Axo grimaced. "Well, where the hell were you? I thought maybe you got killed! You abandoned me!"

Shira swung the banshee by its neck around. "You didn't think I'd let you face those things alone, did you?" he said. He pointed toward the other side of the river. "There's an island over there that we can use."

"It's probably crawling with monsters," she replied.

Shira grinned. "We won't need to worry about that. We'll go through the middle. That's where the temple is!" Axo squinted at him, unsure what he meant. "We'll swim across the river. It should be safe enough."

"Are you sure this is okay? I'm kind of bleeding out."

"And who's fault is that?"

"Yours, you no good mage!"

"You're lucky I came along when I did or else you'd be dead."

Axo sighed. She was not going to win an argument with a spoiled aristocrat.

"What are you waiting for?" Axo shouted impatiently.

Shira huffed and floated across the river to the rocky shore. Before Axo knew it, Shira had healed her banged up body and they were making their way through the forest. They crouched and stuck to the overgrown bank just in case. Banshees were slow swimmers.

As they moved through the forest, Axo couldn't help but feel grateful for Shira's healing magic. Her body still ached from the fall and the swim, but the pain was manageable now.

They moved cautiously through the trees, listening for any signs of danger. The forest was eerily quiet, except for the occasional rustling of leaves as small animals scurried by.

After what felt like hours of walking, they finally saw a clearing up ahead. Shira signaled for Axo to stop, and they crouched down behind a bush to observe.