The Girl in the Cloak

Sharpening

Three nights had passed since the girl made her blade. They continued to walk every day towards their destination. The night she formed her blade Fa gave her a stone. It was the stone Fa used to sharpen her own weapons. Each night the girl would sit wrapped in her cloak and run the length of her blades across the stone. Each stroke of the blade ground off a bit more of the metal. It was starting to look like an actual blade. She would always start just after the group ate dinner and only stop when her eyes would barely stay open.

The nights that had passed felt short. This was done to the exhaustion from the day. The party had made a lot of progress on this front. They were now out of the desert. They had gone through a bit of a wooded area and found themselves now slowly getting through a swamp. None of them were happy about it either. Least of all storm. The svern's nose was so powerful that the noxious fumes affect him the absolute worse. The large svern whimpered like a pup the entire time. No one blamed him in the slightest. The cloak even requested to be used more like a scarf so none of its fabric came in contact with the noxious bog. The smell lingered wherever it touched. Nothing about it was pleasant. Something about the smell bothered the girl more than just how bad it was. She felt it was hiding something. She said nothing of her suspicion to her mother. She didn't want to worry either of them. It was a decision she would soon regret.

The group finally found a point of the swamp that was more than just a smelly muck. Rain took a log from a fallen tree and used it as her seat as she started to once again sharpen her blade. The thin blade had become completely white. Other than thanking both Luna and Fa-Lees the girl had not spoken about her blade with either of them. She was far to caught up in the magic of owning a blade she made herself. She knew it was beyond special. Something about it felt more unique than she expected. She relished every moment she could spend working on the blade. She loved that even though the hilt had been altered through magic it still felt and looked like the wood she originally carved. The weapon felt as if it had its very own life and soul. It was almost like each pass of the metal on the stone was the same as a breath she took. It fascinated her.

A sudden loud howl followed by three swift barks startled her out of her trance-like state. She grabbed her blade as the cloak swapped into its claw form.
"The svern is nervous little one. This is not a good sign." Rain agreed completely with her cloak. She quickly turned to look at storm only to see the svern itself looking off into the muck of the swamp.

"There! Do you see it?" Fas hand darted just past Rains cheek. The girl's eyes followed the finger in front of her face. It pointed to the center of the muck. It looked to be boiling. That couldn't have been the case though, there was no heat coming from anywhere in the area. Her thought was proven correct in only a matter of seconds when a gnarled skeleton exploded from the muck. Wet gunk fell from its bones. The eyeless sockets stared straight at the party. It slowly moved towards them all. As it did more skeletons repeated what the original had done. It wasn't long before an entire horde of them was only a few meters away from them. Luna was the first to react. She pulled her sword from her chest in the same ceremonial fashion she had done before.

"We must defend the camp," Luna spoke in a simple tone to the others. There was no excitement in her voice.

"We could just grab what's important and leave." Fa made a very valid point, but something in the way Luna stood ready told both Rain and Fa they would not be running from this fight.

The skeletons finally made contact with them. The clash of bones and blade rung uninterrupted through the entire swamp. Bones turned to dust with every swipe. The skeletons were surprisingly weak. Rain had always heard they were one of the hardest things to fight against, and yet these skeletons were almost laughable. The blade she had just made was slung over her back in the makeshift leather sheath she had made for it. She instead used the cloak claws and her dagger in this fight. She knew the sword was not ready to be wielded, no matter how easy the fight was. Her confidence was skyrocketing when it all came crashing down. A booming laugh was heard throughout the swamp. A laugh they all knew. Rain's father, Ordik.

"Wave one seemed easy girls, now try wave two." His voice echoed from every direction. Rain knew he was only toying with them. Just then, from the same spot, the skeletons were coming from, a gigantic mass started to rise from the muck. Before them was a Swamp golem.