To Rhial

13

Desmond

Ringing. Constant ringing like extreme tinnitus, except it wasn't the result of bad hearing. It was the collection of every little sound within God knows how far. All of them overlapping and amplifying in my ears was nothing short of piercing. And sure, those screeching bugs made me think my brain was going to explode, but Adam's insistence on leading us through the woods made me want my brain to explode. Following the cliff's edge wasn't that hard, but Adam kept somehow getting lost, needing help reorienting himself at every turn. It was a miracle how unfathomably bad his sense of direction was. After long enough, though, I just walked out in front of all of us and they followed me while I followed the scent of roses and pine trees. It was odd, but the awful sulfur smell wasn't left behind on Vetia's trail, it was just from being near her that I noticed it.

We silently tracked until the road became visible. Our worse-for-wear band broke through the treeline and caught sight of Tells inspecting flowers outside some random person's house. What was strange, though, was how tiny the houses of this town were.

Tells quickly reached us and slid under Adam's arm to help him walk. "Does it still hurt?" She aggressively pressed her finger against Adam's scarred stomach.

Adam yelped in shock as his body lurched, which would have sent him on his face if Tells wasn't holding him up. "YEEOOWCH! Yeah it hurts! It just got healed, what were you expecting?!"

"Just checking." Tells smirked and leaned her bloody half into him for support, rubbing even more grime on him.

That was something I hadn't really noticed until I realized we were walking into a town. All of their clothes were torn to shit and bloody beyond comparison after the bugs. They looked like shit. I didn't. I looked great, only having some dried blood on my knees and hands from scooping Adam's entrails back into his body.

"What's the sitrep?" I asked Tells.

She looked up in thought for a second. "We've gotta go hunt a thing called a scouriad fireblood."

"Bless you," Brenden said.

"Yeah, I dunno, I guess their bones can fix people, so we gotta get some. And there's a guy who can help."

Exasperation drenched Brenden's face. "Really went all out on the research with that one."

Tells elaborated, filling us in on the details of her conversation with an old lady. Well, elaborated was a way of putting it. We basically had to interrogate it out of her because she would answer every question vaguely and without any useful details.

Brenden plopped down on a bench in the grassy hilltop field in the center of the village. The bench was tiny and the almost fluorescent green grass shimmered a warm pink in the sunlight. Seeing it closer, the grass was green on the outside, but frayed close to the top and opened up, revealing a warm pink inside. The contrast from dark forest to bright field was a bit jarring, almost like this was a sacred spot. However, the tiny people were walking around up here, so we took that as a sign that it was a public space.

"I know we wanna help her," Brenden started, "but how are we supposed to help her when we're like this? Adam can barely move, we can't fight, and Vetia's the only reason we're still alive."

"Speak for yourself," I said. "I can fight just fine."

"You and that quiver of duds?"

Why'd he have to be such a cock about it?

"Guys," Adam groaned and sat down in the grass. "Not now. Brenden's got a point though. We won't be able to go out today if we wanna actually be successful."