-The 8th Gospel: When the time came The Lord knew he could no longer live in this world. He put his body to rest and ascended to the heavens. When he did as a final gift he took 13 souls from the world and gave them each a role. They represented parts of The Lord that he wanted to not leave the world. He gave them each a mission and the chance to walk among the people as he had when the world was new.-
The nature sprites offered their help when Loran asked. The price for the help wasn't steep either. Cai-Pel promised to help with only a promise to help alleviate a problem with people chopping down trees where they shouldn't be.
The attack came 3 days after Rennish and Cai-Pel had their talk in the carriage.
The afternoon before the intrusion the forest started to change. The wind picked up and clouds formed in the western sky. Rennish watched the trees sway lazily at first. After a few hours, the wind picked up and the branches moaned and creaked their warnings to each other.
Later the sky turned an ominous shade of green. The light filtering through the clouds hinted at what waited for them inside. The promise of rain and worse gave Rennish all the reason he needed to be worried about the turn in the weather.
The two in the back were asleep while the weather turned. They had been up driving the carriage through the night again. According to the map, they should be nearing the edge of the forest by now. The scenery gave no hints as to how close they were though. The woods were still thick even now.
"Wake up you two!" He said slapping the panel behind his seat. "Time to wake up, we need to find cover fast!"
Erust rousted from his sleep first. He had been dreaming of odd things and his mind was still cloudy when he sat up, "What is it Rennish?"
Rennish pushed his hand up into the air. "The skies are telling me we are about to have a bad night if we keep riding on. And the animals need a rest. They are scared of the skies."
Ashra rubbed her eyes and looked up at the sky. "What time is it?" she said mistaking the dim light for having overslept.
Erust put his hand on her shoulder, "We have storms coming in. We have to stop for the night."
Ashra looked at Erust and then out the back of the tarp covering the cart. The wind was whipping at the flaps in the rear and the green light was filtering in. "It is the ominous sun. We should get out of the way soon. Preferably away from tree's but wherever is fine."
"Yeah cause we aren't getting out of the tree's any time soon!" Rennish piped up from the front. He was using both hands to hold onto the reins.
They began tucking things away into corners and under heavier items to keep the wind from dislodging their belongings. "Tuck everything away. Get our night gear out just in case. Put the valuables in the lockbox!" Erust said quickly as he and Ashra worked in the cramped confines of the back.
The wind picked up and rain started to hit the canvas tarp hard enough to sound like a little drum. Rennish was holding a hand over his eyes to keep the wind out and one on the reins when he spotting a clearing in the road. It was the first good spot to pull off they had found. If they had waited any longer they would have had to stop the cart and tie it off to a tree and wait out the storm.
This little clearing would give them a chance to get under the tree's and out of the wind. Space would hopefully help in keeping the trees from falling on them.
Rennish pulled the cart off the road and into the open space before he noticed a small cave in the back of the space. Barrels and buckets sat around the outside like it had been a mine once before. It was signs of some kind of habitation that meant it probably wasn't full of wild animals at this time.
They rushed to grab the bedrolls, food, firewood, and whatever else could fit into their arms and run into the cave. It was indeed an old mine, the walls were tall enough in the entrance for a full-sized horse to stand in. Thankfully this meant they had an area that let them bring things in and spread out.
They lit a fire with a few logs they kept dry in the carriage for just this kind of event. Rennish had unhooked the Lloras from the carriage and walked them into the cavern. He had laid some wet branches and spread out some food for them in a stall he found off the entrance. Apparently pack animals had been used in this cave before. The animals had been carrying a leisurely pace for a few days now and they could use the rest as well.
All the members of the party sat down together and had a meal. They ate rations and told stories. Rennish played songs to soothe them all while the wind whipped around outside. The storm carried on for several hours. Erust and Ashra snuck off to a quiet corner of the cavern with a lantern Ashra had grabbed.
Rennish sat near the front, guarding the entryway and watching the cart. It was going to need a good airing out tomorrow. The inside and seat would be covered in water. They hadn't had time to cover everything over. He worried about the warping of wood in such strong rains and damp humid air.
Eventually, he also drifted off to sleep. The sounds of the snoring pack animals soothed him as the fire crackled softly. Rennish had put an extra log in the fire for protection before he dozed off.
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Through the rain, a figure moved from tree to tree. She could have walked right up d to the carriage using forest walk but she wanted to sneak up and make sure she knew what she was walking into.
Loran Lovelass was a knight who loved the old romanticized tales of Knights roaming the countryside looking for crime and general injustice to fight. She had listened to the stories from her grandmother and wondered what it would be like. When her grandmother told her of the Knight of Clear-Glass in the capital it had almost immediately become her life goal.
She knew that part of the reason she chose this life was because she hated her last name. The other children teased her for it. Love Lass, they called her. They expected she would grow up to be someone who would marry off and bear children. Loran wasn't opposed to the idea of children but she wanted people to see her as a strong capable woman instead of some comical depiction they got from her last night.
Lovelass to her sounded like some kind of Lamia lady of the night. Or something equally as absurd. If she had known she would have registered for Knight training under a false name. The practice wasn't unheard of for bastard children of mixed clans where they were not allowed to use their given name. For now, she was stuck with it.
And how was she compensating for this? By taking every righteous mission she could, regardless of its position. If it was on the side of good, then she would do it. She wanted people to speak the name Loran Lovelass with pride, and tell tales of how she righted wrongs and saved the small people of the southern lands.
This wasn't her typical mission but the abundantly average young man's story moved her. He was forced into servitude by divines with questionable motives. He had had his friends and wife stolen from him. Now he needed his possessions back so that he could move forward with the plan.
Loran watched from the edge of the forest quietly under a tree limb. Her small frame sat up in a tree and her leathers gave her the appearance of tree bark. Her body was small but powerful. There were not true Fay bloodlines left. Her lineage gave her strength and agility bonuses where the old fay had none. They were weak physically but powerful when it came to magic. This was probably the saving grace for the remaining fay that when they married into the other forest clans they had become must stronger.
She laid across a tree branch to try and blend in and watch what happened. She saw the man and cat girl slink off into a cave. Disgusting, she thought to herself. She wasn't averse to species marrying between each other but she was like everyone else and had heard tales growing up of the perversions of humans.
The tall lanky man in the green leathers sat in the entrance. He was watching their cart intently,,. like he expected it to roll away at any time. She watched him and counted down the time until he started to seem to get restless.
He had played music from an instrument for a while before he finally rolled out a blanket and made himself comfortable. The fact that they laid out an extra log was even better. Most people would put the fire between them and danger. Most forest animals instinctively avoid the smell of a fire. The light from the fire would dim out his eyesight and make it harder for him to see her.
Slowly she dropped from the tree branch. Her leathers making no noise and her feet softly hitting the ground, making only a soft noise as she hit the water covered dirt.
She walked between trees and used her own innate ability to blend with the forest, a gift from her non-fay ancestors, and walked up to the edge of the clearing. As long as she stayed inside the tree's she was fine.
The tall lanky one that Ed had called Rennish had his eyes closed and eventually, his breathing slowed significantly. When she saw his chest start to move slowly up and down she began working in. She put the cart between her and the man asleep behind the fire. Her dark-colored clothing and the fire should render her nearly invisible to him she reasoned out.
Thankfully the lightning wasn't close so there were no large flashes of light. It was a damn slow rain now. She cursed the idea of asking for it just a little bit. All her clothes were soaked to her and she was going to need hours to dry out after this. But on the other hand, this had been the easiest way to force them off the roads.
She worked her way up to the covered part of the cart and snuck in through the back. Ed had said that everything was kept in a lockbox under the driver's seat. The front flap ended at the back of the driver's seat but there was space under it. She reached her hand underneath and found the lockbox exactly where it was described. Her belief in Ed's story increased once she found this.
She pulled it out and saw that it had an older style lock. A normal thief would make easy work of this as it was only the most basic of precautions. It was designed to ward off the unmotivated. Any real thief wouldn't stop at seeing this. They would steal the box and everything, with plans to open it later. Then you not only lost your valuables but a very expensive lock.
She used a pick to open the lock and looked inside. The inside of the cart had a small layer of water from the rain so she put the things she pulled out on her lap. Inside she found a large bag of gold, the satchel with an E on it, and several other items.
She looked through the items and realized there was no way to make it away quietly with the bag of gold so she left it. She opened the satchel and threw in a large book she found on the bottom, a smaller box she had seen on the edge, and a large package of rolled brown paper tied in string. If it was in here it had some value. She left other items in the hope it would take them longer to notice if she made it out quietly.
Loran had made one stop on the way out of town. She had purchased a cheap brown satchel and painted an E on the front flap. She had filled it with dummy items that bore no resemblance to the items Ed wanted but she hoped they would pass the pat-down test and convince them not to look any harder.
Outside, Loran heard shuffling. She stopped and listened. It was the sound of footsteps in the rain. The regular slosh slosh slosh of human feet working through water and mud.
Rennish had woken up to urinate. He had brought a bottle of liquor with him from the carriage and had two small glasses around the fire. He had just drifted off to sleep when his bladder demanded he get up. Normally he would have walked back into the cave but when he tried that he had found his master and wife celebrating their return to normalcy again. The two were still newlyweds after all and Ashra had promised for a grandchild to her mother.
He snuck off quietly and cursed his luck and decided to look at the water to figure out which was the rain was running so he didn't pee on his own feet. When he did he heard sounds coming from the carriage. He had assumed that some poor animal had crawled inside looking for food. The crate of supplies was locked under the cart and not easily removed by anything smaller than a bear.
Rennish stumbled off to the back of the cart and slapped the side. "Shoo, go shoo!" he said trying to scare whatever was inside. Nothing came running out into the darkness.
Rennish decided to go ahead and pee while the animal escaped quietly. Maybe it was shy, he thought.
Loran was disgusted to sit inside the cart and listen to the sound of this man just relieving himself in front of women. It didn't matter if he didn't know she was here. He should have waited until he was sure he was alone.
She looked through the space in the flaps at the rear and the rain was letting up just a little. It was no longer a downpour. It had turned into a soft soaking rain.
The sound of Rennish relieving himself died off and he walked around the caravan to avoid the puddle of his own juices. He slapped the carriage. "Come on, the forest is your home little creature."
Loran smiled and pushed the box up slowly under the seat. She tied the satchel off with a length of cord around her chest and curled her body up just a few feet back from the entrance. Rennish rounded the corner of the carriage and she saw the flap open up a little. The inside was dark, her fay eyes let her see in almost pure pitch black but the man outside would have a hard time seeing in.
"Shoo, come on let me go back to bed." He said losing his patience and fearing he was going to have to go in and chase whatever was in, out.
Loran used the moment his head entered view as her time to escape. She grabbed the wall edges and used them to shove her shoulder into the upper chest of the man. The attack bowled him over.
Loran jumped through the opening and put a small soft leather-clad foot onto his shoulder and used her weight to push him into the mud.
Rennish took the hit to his chest hard and had the air knocked out of him. He felt a paw, or a foot or something on his shoulder just before his whole body was shoved down. His head bounced off the back of the cart and his world spun. His eyes swam with lights and his ears were ringing. A small trail of blood was forming where his face had scraped the wood on the back gate.
Loran reached down and slipped something into his jacket pocket in the confusion. It had been a request from Ed. If she had the chance to slip it to him he had asked that she would. Rennish had no idea what was going on. He couldn't get a bead on what had just happened. All he could hear was the sloshing of something running away. As soon as his attacker made it to the tree line the footsteps stopped. It must have made it up into the trees, he guessed.
He stood up slowly and grabbed his head. When he pulled his hand down to check his head he saw the blood on his palm running in the rain. He grabbed the side of the cart and patted his pocket for his normal handkerchief. He kept it for show mostly, again divine spirits don't sneeze. He had been lately though, so he started keeping it close by.
He shook it open and found something written on the inside, "Do not trust your eyes."
Rennish blinked as the rain washed the ink of the cloth and smeared it around. With the mix of blood pouring off his head the message became a garbled unreadable mess. What was that supposed to mean? When did it get there? Rennish groaned and put the cloth to his head. Maybe he was seeing things and the hit to his head was worse than he thought.