Mages of the North: The Adventure Begins

Chapter 7

Back in his room, Floris started emptying his backpack of all the herbs and other plants he had collected on his journey to Arrowhead Loch. He carefully placed each and every herb where they belonged in the desired chest and started writing down notes of how many he had collected. Unfortunately, he hadn't collected anywhere near enough herbs to completely restock his chests; judging by his calculations, he would need to make another twelve trips to Arrowhead Loch to completely restock on resources.

"Great! The village is out of food and I'm out of alchemy supplies! This is not good timing; I don't have the time for this!" Floris frustratedly thought. With a heavy sigh, he grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulders, "I might as well make another trip out there. Maybe I can catch a break this time and actually bring something of use back to the village."

He restocked his arrows, grabbed his bow and his walking stick, and made his way out the front door of his house. But before he could make it very far, he heard a familiar voice calling his name.

"Floris! Floris, wait up!"

Floris turned around to see the only other boy in the village running towards him.

"Alvis? What do you want? I'm busy right now." Said Floris.

Alvis was the only other child in the village and Floris' one and only friend. He was a little taller than Floris with short messy blonde hair, green eyes, but had a more muscular build and the armor he wore had thicker padding. But unlike Floris, he didn't hide his identity by wearing something around his face.

Alvis bent over his knees as he tried to catch his breath. He had been running for quite a while by the looks of things, but whatever he was needing to tell Floris must've been pretty important. He took some time to catch his breath, then looked up at Floris with an excited grin, "I just spotted that buck we've been trying to track down for the past several days. I think I found where he's living."

The thought of going back to Arrowhead Loch suddenly vanished from Floris' mind and he gave Alvis his undivided attention, "You sure it's the same one?"

Alvis nodded, "Without a doubt. Are you still too busy, or do you want another shot at this deer?"

Floris narrowed his eyes, "Take me to him."

Alvis smiled and nodded and started leading the way to where he last saw the deer.

After traveling through the swamp for a while, Alvis led Floris to a place the villagers called Sunlit Shore. It was an area similar to Arrowhead Loch in that it was a large clearing from the swamp and a good area for animals to graze. Its name came from the millions of tiny glittering rocks that littered the shore. During certain times of the year, the light the rocks emitted was almost blinding yet beautiful at the same time. Floris, however, rarely ever came here. There was a distinct lack of herbs he could use, making the area next to useless for him. However, Sunlit Shore was not as dangerous as Arrowhead Loch. The glittering stones made it an unattractive place for some animals during warmer times.

The two hunters ducked down into some tall grass behind the hanging vines of the towering swamp trees and Alvis pointed to a bunch of bushes next to a hollowed-out fallen tree trunk, "That's where I saw him. He's hiding inside the log." Alvis whispered to Floris.

Floris nodded and started thinking of a plan. First, he needed to know if the buck was still in there. He signaled for Alvis to wait where he was so he could move through the brush more quietly without alerting the buck. He crawled on his belly to an area where he could see inside the log and could see that the buck was sleeping inside. Normally, this would have been an easy shot, but the buck had chosen his home well. The log had collapsed to a point that it would be next to impossible to hit him from behind with an arrow and one hitting the log would make a loud enough noise he'd run out in a flash. However, Floris had had enough of this animal getting away from him; it was time for this buck to die one way or another.