Beginning of the forest.

2.                   Beginning of the forest.

“It is going to be dark soon and we need to secure an area to sleep in or we´re not going to be able to sleep tonight.” Luna starts off the conversation.

“First, we need to get off this mountain, is there any particular direction we should head to?”

“We should go straight, the book said that the area behind us is unexplored and it is colder there so probably not much food or people.”

“Let’s get down first, I think we can get down from here it’s not that steep”

We head down the cold mountain and when we reach the ground the sun has already started going down and it is getting darker.

“Alice smash one tree with your battle hammer so we can make a campfire and maybe someplace where we can sit.” Luna tells Alice.

“Clear away or it might fall on you.” Alice tells us.

After we take some distance Alice swings the hammer at the trunk, the trunk bursts open, and the tree falls on the ground.

“Gather the pieces into one place so I can light the fire. In the meantime, take someone with you and go explore the surroundings.” Luna orders us.

“Where did Ryan go?”

“He went to secure the area when we got down from the mountain”

“What, you don’t want to go with me? Already abandoned by my best

friend in a dangerous place, how will I ever manage..” Alice comes and hugs me from behind.

“Yeah, yeah let’s go already.”

“We go here, you guys go in the other direction” Martin points to the left and starts walking that way with Marie.

“All right be safe out there, if you see anything that moves don’t approach it without me” Luna tells us.

The forest we head to is calm and quiet, the white and brown trees have some distance apart from each other and there are no bushes, so it makes moving easy.

“The softness of the ground is marvelous.” Alice states from my left side.

“Yes, and the pressure you feel from time to time is quite refreshing also.”

“All these colors are nice too.”

“Yeah this is great, by the way do you think there is anything dangerous in this forest?”

“Yes, for sure there is.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked surprised by the confident answer.

“I am not but I have to at least think like this, so I won’t be careless”

“Look the ground goes downwards from there.”

“Let’s see go see what’s down there.”

We walk to the edge and see that there is nothing there but ground.

“Well that was disappointing.” Alice says sadly.

“Should we go left or right from here?”

“To the right there is the mountain so let’s go left.”

“Should we run again?”

“How are you not tired yet? We have been moving the entire day and the soft ground is even more tiresome to walk on, I for one am too tired to run and besides I have been carrying heavier things than you have.”

“That’s true and it would be unwise to run in an unknown place, who knows what dangers lie ahead.”

“Ooh, I think I see something up ahead.”

“What is it? I see it there are no trees there but why? There is something blue on the ground.”

“Is that water? So much water in one place, it’s beautiful.”

“You can even see the sky clearly from here, it is so vast and wonderful. Hey Alice, do you think we will be able to get up in the sky someday?”

“Why would you want to go there? Who knows how big it is and what happens when you go past it and what if you fall from there? That’s no small drop you know?” Alice says angrily.

“I still want to try it.”

“Well it’s not going to happen anytime soon so rethink it carefully.”

“Should we start heading back, we have been walking for a while now?”

“Yeah, imagine if we didn’t have the mountain on our back, how would we find back to the camp? It’s all trees here and they look the same.”

“Well we could backtrack the same route we came from or we would have to have a landmark to show us the way like the mountain. It is still easy to get lost here, we should think of a way to not get lost after we leave the mountain area.”

“Luna will probably think of something.”

“That’s true, ah I can’t wait until I can just sit and eat and go to sleep.”

“Finally getting tired, are we?” Alice says teasingly.

“A little but I could still keep going.”

We walk back to the camp and the others are back already.

“Good you’re here, Martin and Marie found something, and we were thinking of going there to kill it.” Luna says excitedly.

“Really? What did they find?” I ask her.

“It had brown fur and it was almost as tall as us, it walked on all fours, but it was slow.” Martin explains.

“I am super tired, if it becomes dangerous I can’t run away that easily.” Alice says from my right side.

“Don’t worry, it should be easy, you are just coming for backup and surveillance you don’t have to fight this time.” Luna explains to the tired Alice.

“How do we know that it doesn’t have any weird magic, or any dangerous things hidden?”

“I haven’t had the chance to tell you this yet but, in my book, it says that magic manifests in one point in the world and the further you go from it the less magic there is, and some magical beings can’t even survive going too far from it, well the point is that we are so far from it that there shouldn’t be anything magical here.”

“How are we able to use magic then?”

“The magic we have is ridiculously small it’s almost nonexistent and others can’t even use magic, that just tells us that the magic we have is so strong that we are able to use it even here.”

“So, we might be able to use magic if we go closer to that point?” Martin asks with an excited look.

“Yes, you probably can, well it will take a while until we get close enough for you to be able to use magic but in time for sure.”

“It’s getting late we should probably either go kill it or set up camp.” Martin says while smiling.

“You are right, let’s quickly go to slay the beast.”

The five of us leave as Martin shows us the way to the beast. We walk deeper into the already dark forest.

“Ah I Almost forgot, did you find anything in the direction you went?” Luna asks me and Alice.

“Nothing much, a place where the ground went downwards, and an area filled with water.” Alice responds before I have a chance to.

“That’s huge, a place to get water it might not seem that great now when we just left a place with as much water we want but after our supplies run out water is going to be essential.” Luna says happily.

“We still have full supplies so isn’t it quite pointless to find water now?” I ask her.

“To know that there is a place where we can get water is important, we don’t have to go forward hoping to find water at some point, we can just turn back to fill our water and go to a different direction.”

“We are close now, you see that big pile of rocks there? Behind that is a cave where we saw it.” Martin interrupts Luna.

“Now that we don’t have Alice fighting with us we will go with Martin and Marie in front, I will be behind them and Melissa will be in the back.

Alice, you go on top of the rocks, so you can see if anything else is coming and Melissa if we need help in front you need to be prepared to come help, I won’t use magic if we don’t need it because it could spoil the meat.”

“Let’s go, it is going to be our first real fight so it’s going to be different so don’t get shocked by it just do it like we practiced and improvise if necessary.” Martin says in a commanding tone.

I grab my sword and shield tightly as we move closer to the cave, we reach the entrance and all I can see is darkness.

“It is either inside the cave or it has gone somewhere else but if this is its home it will probably be inside the cave so let’s go in, I will provide the light with my fire magic.” Luna explains and raises her hand.

Small light forms on Lunas fingertip and we proceed inside the cave. The cave is dark, but it is deep and spacious, the further we go in the darker it becomes, soon our only light is Lunas magic. Suddenly we hear a growl in front of us, the beast is there, and we can see the end of the cave. Martin goes ahead slicing with his sword but the paw of the monster hits him in the shield and he loses his balance and falls to the ground.

Marie runs with her spear and stabs the beast in the eye, the beast growls and rises to two legs. Martin has already stood up and gone to the side of the bear and he stabs it with his sword, the sword goes in deep and blood flows from both wounds from the beast. The beast goes berserk and starts to run toward Marie.

“Watch out!” Luna screams.

Luna runs up to Marie and pushes Marie out of the way and then jumps out of the way herself. The beast is now running toward me, I freeze in terror when I see the ferocious beast run toward me for a moment but then   I grab my sword tightly, duck down and when the beast is close enough I pierce my sword through his neck. The beast falls on top of me with only the shield in between us, the blood is dripping on my face making it hard to see anything.

  

“Excellent work Melissa, the beast would have escaped if you wouldn’t have caught it. Martin why did you leave Marie’s side? If I wasn’t there it would have been dangerous.” Luna scolds Martin after complementing me.

“Sorry Marie, I lost myself in the fight after I got knocked down.” Martin says while holding Marie.

“Well for our first fight it was quite decent. Let’s free Melissa from the beasts’ corpse.”

Martin and Marie push the beast from on top of me and I wipe the blood away from my face.

“So, we need to drag this all the way to our camp now?” Martin asks while looking at the beasts’ corpse.

“Yes, well I can help when we get out from the cave but until then you’re on your own.” Luna says while waving around her finger that has the light.

“I can carry your weapons while you carry it.” I tell Martin and Marie.

We hear a distant shout from the entrance.

“There is a huge beast coming inside the cave and its twice our size when walking on all fours!” Alice screams from afar.

I can feel a chill creeping up my spine. If we fought one beast that wasn’t even our size and it was this difficult how can we fight a beast that’s twice our size.

“Melissa and Martin on front, Marie behind them and I will be in the back. I will use magic so be careful.” Luna says loudly and clearly.

That’s right there is no reason to think how strong it is or what could happen, I must focus on fighting it. I go ahead in the dark and Martin comes next to me.

“I will shield the first hit from the beast so try to hit it at that moment, when the other hit comes, shield it and Marie will hit it after that, I will be back up at that point and do the same again, we will keep doing that until it falls.”

A much louder growl comes from ahead, I get terrified by the intensity of the voice. The light behind us starts to grow and I understand that it is Luna preparing to throw a fireball, I realize that was able to calm myself thanks to the light and smile a bit thinking that she probably planned it that way. I start hearing a faint continuous sound ahead that seems familiar.

After a second, I realize it is the sound of the beast running.

“It is running this way!” I yell while grabbing my shield tightly.

“Guess the first hit is going to pack a punch, step back a bit.” Martin says with a shaking voice.

I step back and see the beast running toward us, I can’t even react when I see it smash Martin into the wall. I lift my shield to protect me and feel an immense force knocking me in to the air, I feel a shock go through my body as I hit the cave wall.

I see the beast bite the spear as Marie tries to stab it, the beast throws the spear away with its mouth and tries to hit Marie with its paw, but Martin jumps in front of the paw to block it and he flies away again.

I should be there already hitting it and blocking the next attack, but I am still on the ground, my body hurts all over but I must try to get there. I try to stand up, but it hurts so much, I can see the beast rising his paw to strike Marie and I use all my might to stand up, but I am too late.

A flash of light flies past me, it hits the beast and the beast growls and stands up. Our size difference is terrifying but if I don’t go we all might die. I run toward the beast and stab its belly, blood flows on my sword as I see the bear coming down.

It pushes me down with his paw and crushes me against the floor, thanks to my shield my injuries are not that serious, but the weight is too much, if someone doesn’t get him off me I will be crushed to death. I hear an impact and the beast shifts off me, I see Alice behind the beast with her battle hammer.

“The beasts foot is broken, get away from it!” Luna yells from behind me.

We back away from the growling beast as fast as we could with our injuries.

“I’ll throw another fireball and then both of you charge at it while Alice smashes it from behind.” Luna says with a loud voice.

Luna throws the fireball into the slowly moving beast, I run at it and stab my sword in its head. blood squirts out from both stab wounds blinding my vision, the beast stops moving.

“Is it dead?” I ask while on guard.

“Yes, it is.” Luna answers with a relieved voice.

I collapse on the ground from exhaustion, everything hurts around my body and I am covered in blood. I started using healing magic on myself, but it doesn’t help much.

“Carry the small one from the cave, we will just leave the big one here.” Luna instructs us.

I stand up with the help from my sword and take the weapons from Marie, Martin and Alice. when we reach the entrance, Luna hands me her sword and helps carry the beast back to our camp.

Chapter one.  Chapter three.