"Wake up, Stri." Ish woke me up.
She was lying right next to me since we were sharing a chamber.
"Okay, okay, Ish. Just what's the time?" I asked.
"The sun's already risen up."
"Heard that." I got myself up. "Where did you want us to go?"
"Hunting. Let's go?"
"Well, I owe you. I'm coming."
And so we had a quick breakfast with the others and then left the cave. The view was quite nice, the entrance overlooking the lake.
"Where do we go?" I asked Ish.
She looked at the area and then pointed somewhat far away at the lake coast. I could recognize the silhouettes of several small animals, a bit similar to Hurders.
"Those are Okons. Quite tasty." she said.
"I'd like to try them then." I started walking to the lake.
"Nah." Ish caught my hand "Better catch some when they're sunbathing. Follow me."
"You know what to do." I said.
We didn't go to the bottom of the valley, where the lake was, instead staying higher up. Eventually we saw a small rocky formation with four Okons. They were about seventy centimeters long, scaly creatures with beak mouth. We killed them easily and started to skin them. Ish cut the tail of the biggest one and gave me some meat. I tasted it. Really nice, a bit fatty.
"Wow, that's nice!" I said.
"Told you. After we are ready we can return early." Ish said.
"Can't we also visit the lake?" I asked for what I wanted.
"Well... okay." she said.
"Let us go, then! We could rest there..."
Soon we got to the coast and then I realized something...
"Hey, Ish! Are there any dangerous animals in the water?" I asked.
"You finally thought of that! Well done!" she laughed and put her backpack on the ground "Don't worry, the biggest things here are some bony fish."
"Well, maybe I am not that bright... Thanks for saying, though."
"Careless, I'd say. But we are here, so... " she started to undress herself "shall we go for a swim?"
"That doesn't sound half-bad." I said and took my gambeson off and then my pants.
Meanwhile Ish had entered the water. The view of her body, the bottom half covered by the water, was quite nice.
"Are you coming?" she asked.
"Yeah!" I quickly ran to catch up with her.
The initial sensation of my body touching the (relatively) cool water initially worried me, but I got used to it in matter of seconds.
"How do you like it? " Ish asked.
"Not bad at all." I said and dived backwards.
It was a bit annoying that I couldn't keep my eyes open underwater. I kept my breath for several seconds and swam to behind her.
"Oh, you scared me!" Ish said as us I rose up.
"Seriously?"
"Well, not. You're quite visible, but still.. I'll have a compensation." she jumped at me.
"Auch!" I said as I fell on the lake floor, there was some weird stone touching my right arm.
I grabbed it and got up. It was a skull, not a goblin skull, mind you. The flesh was still there, to an extent. The skin was white in colour, a few pieces of hair were still there.
"What's that!?" I shouted.
"Calm down... " Ish said "Just calm... It's a skull, yeah it's an undead, but incomplete it's not dangerous now, only if connected to the rest it can hurt us. Still, better break it now... What's it doing here?"
"I don't know and I don't want to. Let's just destroy it."
"Correct."
We got out of the water and broke the skull.
"I wonder what these things are like while... moving." I said.
"Trust me, you don't need to know." Ish replied.
"Okay."
"Better go now. We've had our fun."
She took her clothes on. To be honest, Ish was kinda... beautiful looking. I wasn't that used to looking at people this way, especially Ish. Even though not in a relationship with Lorthax anymore, even though they were friendly to each other (as in for several months, a period of time that was even more notable for a creature my age) I did not desire to change my status.
"What're you looking at?" Ish asked.
"Ugh, sorry. You look beautiful."
"And you're sorry, because? Compliments are a nice thing. As you say this, though... Wanna do it?" she made a quite specific gesture.
What?! Do I look like I'd be interested in... That!? Or maybe I do? But I want to appear only being interested in improving myself and the others. If I had lived more maybe... For example when ants had delt so much damage to everything I knew I had a desire to go and deal with something else, resulting to me getting here
"Well, not. I'd prefer not." I told her "Maybe some other time, but not now."
"Well, it's you who says that. Maybe some other time." Ish sounded almost disappointed "Let's hurry then!"
She was mumbling a bit, but we got ready and set off. Ish didn't talk, neither did I. And so we were walking until we heard the noise of something falling.
I turned to see an undead creature standing before us. It probably used to be a human, the skeleton was towering over me. I might call it a skeleton, but that was actually untrue. There was some flesh, especially at the joints. It had a weapon: a seventy centimeters-long iron-tip spear that was fused to its right arm.
That was not all, skeleton (although having much more flesh in compassion) of a horse was right behind it. Well, I don't thing I'd like to see this horse even in its alive state. The teeth were those of an carnivore.
"Ish, I do believe we're in trouble."
"Stating the obvious is not needed." Ish said "I'm attacking the horse."
She took her short sword.
"Okay."
I charged first. The horse was about to crush me, but Ish hit its spine. Meanwhile the human moved forward almost stabbing me. I swung the scythe two times fast and cut the head off. That was not disturbing the being's moves though. I mean, it had no eyes anyway. It moved like falling towards me and stabbed me, a bit below the shoulder.
I cursed. I kicked the skeleton, thusky grounding it and then used my scythe to tear the limbs one by one. I then helped Ish demobilise the horse. Unlike me she was unwounded.
"Are you fine?" I was asked.
"Yeah. Thank you."
Ish did her best to bandage me.
"I'm sorry, I should have helped more." Ish said
"No, you did more than enough. Let's go back." I replied.
"Yeah, let's go back." Ish agreed.