"It's not that far anymore, right?" I asked almost slipping on a pebble on the rocky path we were walking on.
"Are you exhausted?" Eta asked.
"Maybe, I'm carrying most of the equipment after all," I said adjusting the bags I was carrying.
I didn't feel tired but she didn't have to know that.
"Just bear with it and stop asking. Every hour for a whole day, for once just shut up, okay?" She pleaded.
"I just can't stop myself, it doesn't help that none of you are talking."
"I can talk with you," Walsh said reaching out a hand and helping me up a small dirt mound.
"Great, what do you want to talk about?"
"I don't know," he shrugged
"Great..." I thought about it, "...how about... Why did you join the guild? Actually I want to hear from Eta first."
I heard her sigh.
"Even with your freakish stature, you're still a young dame."
"What is that supposed to mean?" she said insulted at my remark, stopping, turning around, and holding her hands on her hips.
"I just mean you're a delicate flower and lilies are not supposed to grow that tall."
"I truly don't know how to respond to that," she went on again.
"Anyway, should I start first? Then you guys can open up to me."
"Fine, fine. If you'll shut up then whatever," I saw her throwing up her arms.
"Here I go then. Well, it all started with my mother-"
"Of course it did," Eta muttered.
"She was a... big woman if you know what I mean, and tragedy struck through her living choices she saw an early grave. I never was as close to my father as a boy should be, he seemed to love other boys much more than me. And one night when he came back drunk he beat me bloody, so I fled and joined the guild, to get away from bad circumstances at home."
Both of them were silent.
Walsh was the first to speak up, "I'm sorry to hear that."
Eta didn't say anything.
"I just wanted to see what is or could be out there," Walsh said.
"That's not the first time I heard that," I responded offhandedly, "now you go Eta."
"It's something like family business, they were mercenaries, most of them are dead now. I choose something similar but better, I personally think it was a smarter choice being in the guild instead of a mercenary," she looked around strangely, "they would berate me if they could hear that."
"You don't have to prove anything to the dead and isn't it better being a mercenary? Don't have to fight monsters," I raised a point.
"Are you kidding? Being an adventurer is great and so much more lucrative. If I'm lucky with a request I could earn what a mercenary makes in a week in just a couple of days," she raised another.
"I actually don't know much about an adventurer's pay. What would you say is the average for a month's work? hundred maybe hundred fifty Iz a month?" I said almost slipping again.
"Are you kidding? You can easily make up to three hundred a month. There is much work to go around and not many to take it. Our profession is dangerous, if this wasn't just a trial we each would get pay twenty Iz and this is piss easy."
"I guess money's nice," I heard Walsh said falling behind.
At night we set up camp in the middle of nowhere.
"Are there no villages in-between us and Cheles?" I asked after putting up the first tent.
"No, in the instruction it said that it's a barren walk between Prore and Cheles," Eta said crawling into it.
She got the first tent all to her self and Walsh and I had to share the second one.
"Have we got any money?" I asked another question.
"Yes as emergency fund but not much."
"Not even any money to buy a refreshing drink? What do you think of that Walsh?" I elbowed him after he set up the second tent.
"I'm not a drinker, fresh water or milk is much more to my liking," he crawled into the other tent.
I did so too even if I didn't want to sleep.
If I had to describe Walsh as a flower then he would be grass.
-
By the gods.
This sucks much more than I would have imagined, three days wandering, it was raining as hard as it could ever have and it would be turning dark soon, and my companions were no help.
"Do you guys see a village around? Is a forest even mentioned in the instructions?" I complained.
"No but keep your head down and be silent, if there is something dangerous here then you do not want to be talking that loud," Eta lectured me.
"That's curious," I heard Walsh say.
"What?" I pounced on his remark like a wild cat.
He pointed with his hand at a stone wall, "is that a cave?"
"Where?" I said squinting my eyes, it was hard to see through the rain.
I walked to where he pointed, "a cave? This reminds me of a burrow but it's really big. It's big enough for me to go in."
I even did a little.
"Careful, careful! You idiot," Eta said alarmed pulling me out from the cave.
She grabbed a pebble from the wet ground then carefully threw it into the cave opening to see if we would get any reaction.
When after a good amount of nothing happened, she looked over to me and gave a small nod of approval, "light a torch first. It's pitch black in there."
So I did.
"What do you see in there?" Walsh asked still outside.
"Not much, it gets bigger the further you go in. Maybe these are some kind of opening to caverns? A bear could live here, but I see no sight of one. I can see no tracks or anything and believe me, I know my tracks."
No bear tracks but there were deeper marking in the dirt like someone pressed a stick hard into the ground and there were a lot of them in patterns.
I didn't recognize them.
But no on-the-spot danger.
"I think it's safe enough to come in but to be sure to arm yourselves," I called out to them.
Walsh pulled out the bow and quiver of arrows from the bag he was carrying.
Eta pulled out her sword and I did so with mine.
We huddled close together and made our way deeper into the cave and it opened up the deeper we got, at one point Eta lit up another torch for her to carry because one did not provide enough light.
The cave was at least a few dozen feet deep but we did not find anything except some cobwebs and dust.
Now and then I looked at the ground and the markings did not stop appearing, what or who made them?
The cave split into two paths, one lead nowhere, it was a dead-end and the other path suddenly stopped to a big hole with a long drop down below.
There was some water at the bottom but I didn't know how much it was exactly, didn't really looked jump down-able though.
I wouldn't even try, if the water was really shallow the drop would be leg shattering.
We backed off and returned to the dead end.
"We can stay here for the night," Eta said, "we will not find anything in the rain and dark."
I started a little fire with a lot of kindling and wood-shaving and the tinderbox we brought, it was easier than I thought but it took a lot of time.
It was already extremely dark when it finally started burning.
And so I lay down with some warmth.
I did not find much rest before I was woken up by a sort of rumble.
I stood up and yelled at Eta and Walsh who already fell asleep, "GET UP AND RUN."
But it was too late.
I prepared myself for rubble to come down but instead, the ground under me gave away.
It was quite the drop.
I fell much further down than both of them, they fell onto a ledge and I completely dropped down the new hole.
I was knocked out for a second.