"Ahhhhh, we finally got ourselves out of that cursed place!"
Raidha dropped to the ground and laid on her back on a prairie of green pastures that stretched as far as the eye could see.
"I feel like I've aged about a decade…"
It felt like we had spent months walking through that lush and wet jungle, but we had finally made it out of that seemingly endless place. Hadn't it been for Pyro and the kindness of some trees that moved aside "on their own" we'd probably still be stuck in there.
"You'd better not take me through another jungle ever again!" the princess roared.
"Trust me, I've learned my lesson…"
I didn't even have the strength to talk back. The only thing on my mind right now was finding a place that resembled civilization even if it was remotely.
"For now, let's try to find a town, village or at least some man-made structure… Pyro, could you check if there are any towns nearby?"
[Of course.]
Pyro flew into the distance while I sprawled next to Raidha in order to get some rest.
"I can feel the fissure nearby" Raidha said out of the blue
"How close is it?"
"Less than two days walking I'd wager."
"I see…"
We both fell silent, giving no signs of happiness nor sadness. After all, we had no idea of what awaited on the other side of the portal. That didn't bother me much, but I thought I had a faint understanding of what Raidha was feeling. On one hand, the hope of being reunited with her family; on the other, the fear of the unknown.
Even though this world had its fair share of dangers, it was mostly peaceful. The civilization here wasn't anywhere near as developed as what I was used to, but in spite of that, I wouldn't have minded living in this place. Maybe it was precisely because civilization was nearly non-existent that I felt at ease here.
"For the time being, let's get some rest until Pyro gets back."
Raidha silently nodded, and we both closed our eyes, letting the warmth of the wind gently caress us.
'Well, if there's one thing from this world that I will definitely miss, is this peacefulness.'
***
"Captain, we've arrived!"
Calitia headed for the porthole of the ship to evaluate the situation.
"Are you sure that's the right place?" She asked the soldier when she saw the planet he was pointing towards.
"Positive. The last trace we detected came from that planet."
"Understood. Great job." she nodded before looking once again through the glass.
Calitia seemed pleased, and a smile began drawing on her face as she observed the planet. Following the track of one specific silphen was extremely challenging. The fact that they had been able to do so was nothing short of a miracle.
"It would seem fate is smiling upon me" Calitia whispered faintly so no one was able to listen to her.
Never before had she been so far away from her area of control, let alone a planet such as this one. Hadn't it been for the hard work and persistence of her crew, she would have never known of its existence.
"Uhm, this place is amazing, no wonder they chose it as their hiding place. Unfortunately, it seems this isn't over just yet, still a long way before we find them." she added while letting out a barely noticeable sigh.
Calling it amazing was no overstatement. From the distance, you could only see a sphere dyed in different tones of green and blue, which seemed to indicate that the surface was mostly covered by vegetation.
"Whenever you look up nature in the dictionary, you should be shown a picture of this place. I wonder if there's any civilization here."
Calitia scratched her head as a disgusted grimace formed on her face.
'I'm not sure I understand why they'd choose to come to such a place. They shouldn't have been aware of the fact that we were chasing after them unless they have some way of detecting our presence. No, there's no way that's possible. Maybe someone else is after them as well… Although I don't think that makes much sense either.'
The fact that they had been able to easily track them down even though they were on such an isolated place left Calitia feeling restless.
'Could this be a trap?'
At that very moment, the vivid image of a set of eyes as red as blood, flashed before her eyes. Calitia shook her head, trying to make the nefarious image fade away.
'No, I'm just being paranoid.'
Even though she might have indeed been imagining things, it couldn't hurt to remain cautious. Whatever the case, coming up with useless theories was a waste of time, and time was very much of the essence here, so it was better to get ready to spring into action.
"Get ready everyone, we're going to land." Calitia yelled at the top of her lungs.
"Roger that Captain!" all the soldiers responded in unison.
The soldiers scattered to get their gear ready.
"Let us have a closer look at this place" Calitia muttered again, her tone more hopeful this time.
The Katryde started their descent towards the planet, and before long, they entered its atmosphere. The view from down there reflected what they'd seen from the distance: greenery and water covered everything as far as the eye could see. Rainforests so lush it was impossible to see past them and endless pastures covered in tall grass and beautiful flowers with different shapes and colours dominated the scenery.
They did a quick recon to survey their surroundings, during which they managed to locate a handful of settlements that showed signs of hosting intelligent life forms. However, they were few and far between. Most of the inhabitants of the planet gathered in small villages or towns forming something akin to tribes, and they did not seem to be on good terms with other tribes. There were some settlements where different races coexisted with each other, but those were even more scarce. There were no traces of larger consolidated countries.
"The technology in this planet is rather primitive."
"So is the magic."
"Its inhabitants look like simple beasts that somehow acquired intelligence."
"I'm surprised some of them even know how to handle basic materials."
The soldiers were busy discussing among themselves their impressions on the inhabitants of the planet. However, Calitia had no time for small talk like that. She was growing more restless by the minute. Something was definitely off.
"Aaaaahhhhh! Why can't we find them anywhere?" Calitia yelled out of frustration.
"Captain, please, calm down! We will find them sooner or later!" the soldiers tried to reassure her.
Calitia took a deep breath and fell silent for a moment while staring at the group of men before her.
'They're just a Silphen and a human… but if they really pose a threat to my subordinates…'
Calitia finally closed her eyes and exhaled deeply before regaining her composure.
"Let's head back to the ship and use it to track them down. And once we do find them… I will deal with them myself."
***
The goddess of fortune seemed to be smiling upon us this time. Pyro found what looked like a trail leading to our destination, so we wasted no time following it. After a couple of hours walking, we heard the sound of what seemed to be a pulling cart coming closer to us from behind.
It was a horse drawn carriage owned by two fox brothers, the older named Kan and the younger Fal. They were kind enough to let us ride with them, and since we were headed in the same direction, they would drop us in the closest town.
It wasn't a particularly comfortable ride. The carriage bounced with every stone and gap on the road, but it was still much more convenient than walking. Raidha and I sprawled on its floor and fully intended not to move an inch until we'd arrived at our destination.
"You seem to be exhausted" Fal made a casual remark when he saw us lying there a pair of corpses.
"Exhausted doesn't even begin to describe how tired we are" Raidha replied
As a response, we could hear Kan's muffled laughter.
"I guess you've come from a faraway place. We've been in the road for quite a while ourselves."
"You could say that where we come from is farther than faraway. The worst part is that we are not familiar with this area and we've been wandering around without a fixed destination" I said, not even bothering to move my body an inch.
"Don't worry, I know what you mean. That is just how most of us started. People do not usually leave their settlements behind unless they are either cast away or outright insane. In our case it was the latter. We paid no heed to our parents' complaints and left all the same, and we've been traveling the world ever since, simply seeing the sights. What about you?"
"What about us…" I muttered.
"I guess in our case it's a little bit of both. I left because I wanted to experience what the world had to offer, but we ended up lost and with no way of returning" Raidha explained.
"Yeah, that happens as well" Kan replied.
"Did you guys leave your settlement recently?" the younger brother asked.
"Yeah… not too long ago…" I answered.
Fal kept making small talk and asking about our "races" and the life in our settlements.
We kept giving him vague replies, and with each one he became more and more curious, until the older brother felt that was enough questioning and asked him to give us a rest.
It took us about an hour to reach our destination. We could see what seemed to be a rather large town in the distance. The brothers weren't planning to make a stop there, but we were starting to get sore from the ride and couldn't wait to get down from the carriage and stretch our bodies for a bit.
"This is where we part ways" Kan bid us farewell.
"I hope we see each other again!" Fal enthusiastically said
Raidha and I stared at the carriage until it faded from out sight.
"I finally found you"