Spectre was really starting to regret getting high.
After what seemed like an eternity of running, they finally took a break so he could cough his lungs out.
They were now in the basement of an abandoned house to hide out from the forest knights. Spectre was sitting on the torn up couch, the springs underneath the thin cloth poking his ass. Samsara was next to him on the arm rest, messing with his hair.
Man he was lucky.
Sometimes he genuinely wondered why Samsara was still with him in times like these.
He can still remember the times in freshman year when he was the lesser of the only two white guys in their friend group and Samsara was the hot girl out of his league.
It took him way too long to figure out she liked him and not Altair like every other girl he knew. It's crazy to think he's dating this girl he had such a big crush on back then.
"You sure you don't need something to throw up in?" She asked.
"Nope I'm not gonna throw up." Spectre said, trying is best to hold himself back from coughing.
"I mean it's not like anyone lives here. I'm pretty sure this whole village is abandoned." Samsara dusted off a little cobweb that caught onto her little blue hair strand.
"Well let's at least wait for Blair to finish searching the house. I don't wanna have to sleep here tonight with my puke in the corner of the room."
"Fair enough. Just want you to know I'm cool with it if you do throw up."
"Great. Just what I want in a girl." Spectre said, making her laugh.
"Oh my god." She rolled her eyes.
Samsara's sense of humor has to be his favorite thing about her. Spectre loved making jokes that would usually cross the line in normal conversations. He probably would've gone insane if he couldn't say dumb shit around her.
Man he was lucky.
Samsara was also pretty much the only reason he was in the Vying in the first place. He didn't really care about any sort of fame or recognition. Sure it would be nice, but he needed the money. There was no way he would be able to bring together enough money for a ring, much less a wedding.
The second he got the money, he was proposing.
After a few more minutes of him coughing up his lungs, Blair came down to talk to them about what to do.
About how they were gonna search the village, scavange stuff, travel at night so knights wouldn't find them, blah blah blah no one really cares.
What's important is what happened the day after that, after they slept all night in the dusty old home.
The group spent the next day scavenging the village.
Spectre actually found some good shit. There wasn't any sort of food or water anywhere, but there were bags of money sitting everywhere in these houses.
The town must've been abandoned not too long ago, cause most of the houses had modern models of weapons they could use.
For the most part Spectre found a bunch of little bandit knives and vintage swords hidden behind beds and in dressers. Although he ended up leaving most of them behind to make room for the cooler things he found.
Most of the things he ended up grabbing were little sacks of money. They were just small enough to fit in his already stuffed satchel and they could probably help if they found any sort of actual village on the way. Y'know, with actual living people.
For the most part from what he saw, they were mostly silver littered with some copper coins. Only occasionally did he find gold or any other coin. When he did find something else it felt like he had a heart attack every time.
In Alfheim the special coins are mostly made up of emerald and jade, the royal gems of the region. But because they shared such a similar shade to the insanely valuable mythrill coin, he had to have a double take every time he saw one.
Spectre's best find by far was a magic staff under the bed of the biggest house. The top was one giant circular sigil built out of compact light and forest element crystals. Half of the circle was a heavenly white and the other a bright green, fading into each other at the center.
There were runes inscribed all along the wooden shaft that looked like it could've been a walking stick at some point in its life. One line of runes placed at the center was specifically bigger than the rest. The line was also very faintly glowing green with elemental power.
It must've been the name. He couldn't read runes at all but he knew enough about magical weapons to know what that rune was supposed to be telling him.
It was dusty and seemed pretty old but he decided to keep it, any elemental weapon no matter the power was worth a lot.
"Yeah I think that sums up what I got." Spectre told the two girls, putting most of the stuff back in his bag.
"Wait, can I see the staff?" Blair asked. She was sitting across from Spectre and Samsara at the small worn down table, a soft midday light shining down on her from the hole in the roof.
"Sure I guess." Spectre slid it over, the sharp crystal edges scratching against the wood of the table.
As the magic item hit the light, the white part of the Sigurd started to glow like it was being activated.
"Oh that's cool." Samsara said as Blair inspected it.
"Yeah, I might be able to use this to help with my healing. If it's forest and light I can't imagine it was made for much else other than healing."
"You don't have to be the healer of the group just because you're the only one with an element that can heal. You can fight too if you want." Samsara told her.
"No, it's fine. I don't really want to fight. I never really liked combat, It stresses me out. I would be way more happy filling in as a support role." Blair held the staff above her arm and poured some of her element into it, the runes of the shaft lighting up white.
A tiny scar she had gotten on her arm started to mend itself, completely disappearing after only a few seconds.
"Well what did you guys find?" Spectre honestly didn't really care about Blair's role in the team, he just wanted to know what these girls had gathered.
"I actually got a lot." Samsara perked up with a cute enthusiastic smirk. She unzipped the middle pocket of her backpack and started pulling shit out.
"First, money. Obviously." She laid out a few pouches of coins. From a quick glance the types of coins didn't seem to be much different than the ones Spectre had found.
"Second, I found these elemental fingerless gloves. Although I'm pretty sure it's for forest users so… never mind then." Samsara puts the gloves back into her back.
"And lastly, I got food. A lot of it."
Samsara dumps a bunch of fruit and packages of food onto the table.
Cups of noodles, boxes of crackers, bags of nuts, unpopped popcorn and bottles of clean water.
"Nice." Spectre snatched up a pack of almonds while Samsara was putting back everything.
"I got some cool stuff as well." Blair had already pulled out a jar of pink magical dust, a map, animal skin water cantines and most importantly…
"Bro, is that a whole jar of honey?" Samsara stopped packing to stare at the jar.
"Yeah… I don't think it's gone bad yet." Blair said, slowing bringing the jar into a hug like she was in a have to protect it from her.
"Honey don't go bad dumbass."
"Hey don't call my girl a dumbass, bitchass." Samsara completely stopped to scold Spectre.
"Okay, fight me then… NONONO!"
Spectre immediately regretted saying that and was now dodging a giant water gun.
"Guysguysguysguysguys…" Blair said quietly, shushing them.
"Wut?"
"Listen…"
Spectre stopped running for a second to hear something outside of the house.
Talking.
"Oh shit, oh shit." Spectre started panicking big time.
"Spec, get over here and make some shadows. Blair get over here too."
"Okay." Spectre said, running over to the corner Samsara was in.
He backed up in front of Samsara, pushing her and Blair into the already dark corner. The light girl was clutching her bottle of honey for life.
As quickly as he could, Spectre started creating a veil of shadows for them, covering them from sight and covering their sight as well. Or at least that's what he hoped would happen. His shadows were powerful, but any other slightly more powerful dark user would probably be able to see right through it.
He was hoping with everything that he had that none of the knights were hybrids.
The veil was finished as soon as the door creaked open.
Silence echoed throughout the house, only the sounds of the forest and very quiet footsteps were present.
"…"
"Yeah I don't see them." A fun female voice said blunty, without any sense of being quiet.
"Well don't stop looking for them just cause you don't see them. This is basic knight stuff, come on." The voice of Demetrius sounded extremely frustrated.
"Okay jeez…." She didn't sound offended, but just surprised.
"What's it look like?"
"Just an old rickety house like the rest. Nothing special. I can see the whole house from here, I really don't see anyone."
"I was sure I heard something…" Demetrius said.
"Just cause you're blind doesn't mean you can hear better silly…" Her voice faded away as she walked out of the house.
Spectre waited a moment before taking down his shadow.
Once he did, it felt like he was getting blinded by the lights coming into the room.
"We gotta get out of here. Here, the window." Samsara whispered and immediately started creeping towards the broken window in the back of the house.
"Come on man." Blair whispered as she walked by him.
"Yeah, yeah, I got that." Spectre wiped his eyes as he followed them.
"Okay guys, see that river? That's our ride." Samsara was already out of the window, pulling on Blair's arm.
"Wait what?" Blair said as Spectre started climbing through.
"Just trust her. It sounds crazy but we've done it before."
"What, she's controlled a river before?"
"No but I've done it on like water slides. Come on Spec hurry!" Samsara tugged on his arm after he fell down from the window.
"Okay okay, I get it." He started following her in a swift jog.
"How is this even gonna work?" Blair questioned as she ran up to the side of the river, nearly tripping over a tree stump on the way.
"Just jump in the same time I do. I can't stop the river but I can hold us up in it. I'll count down from 3, don't worry about it. Are you ready?" Samsara was leaning over the violently fast stream.
"I don't wanna do this anymore, this is too much for me… but, yes. I'm pretty sure I'm ready."
'SPLASH'
"Jump in! NOW!" Samsara yelled at the two of them.
"Oh shit I hate… don't even think about it." Spectre cut off his thoughts and jumped purely off his impulse.
Water swarmed his senses.
He immediately started to panic back to the surface, flailing everywhere to try and gain altitude.
The fact that he didn't touch the bottom of the river was terrifying.
All of the sudden the water around him started pushing and pulling him up to the surface.
His head splashed back above water followed by massive relief and noises crashing back into his ears. The water underneath him was holding him up, he didn't even need to swim.
Samsara's eyes were shining dark blue, the entire river being bent by her.
Blair's head popped up near him, her hair was completely ruined. The wet strands were matted all over her face.
They were all being pushed violently forward through the river, Spectre wouldn't be able to move even if he wanted to.
The forest was flying by, they weren't even near the broken town anymore.
"Yeah there's no way they're gonna be able to catch us." Spectre thought, trying to keep his balance in the water.
If the two knights hadn't noticed them getting into the water, there was no way they were gonna find them now.
The trees ahead started to clear themselves out.
The river was leading straight towards the opening in the trees, and it wasn't slowing down.
It didn't take Spectre too long to figure out the river was leading to a cliff side.
"Samsara! What are you doing?!" Spectre shouted back to her.
"Trust me I got this!" She yelled back.
The river continued to shove them relentlessly towards the edge of the cliff. Spectre trusted his girlfriend with most things, but this was really pushing it.
"Just stop it! We can get off, I don't even think they're chasing us!" Blair yelled next to Spectre.
"Nope they definitely are!" Samsara said with panic in her voice.
"What?!"
It was hard for Spectre to see anything right now, but he was pretty sure they lost the knights.
But that was the moment he fell.
All of the sudden the river was no longer beneath him, and instead a giant elevation drop of the ground. He was way above a gaint crater-like part of the forest that stretched out for miles, plummeting towards a lake below.
Then a stream of water wrapped around him, squeezing his lower body tight. The water felt really compressed and weird, like he was being held up by jelly or something.
The stream was connected to Samsara who was still in the waterfall, holding onto Blair with a similar wrap of water.
Spectre hit the water below him again, but instead the jell-o water stopped his fall and kept him from getting slapped to death by the lake.
With his head still above water, he looked around for the two girls and found Blair next to him, trying to get out of her own jelly bubble.
Soon after, Samsara popped out of the water. Her eyes were still shining a dark blue.
The water around Spectre fell back into the lake as Samsara waded over to him and Blair.
"I guess you were right." Spectre told his girlfriend.
"I know."
"Hey guys." Blair said, looking out into the forest.
"Wut?"
"Just look." She pointed.
In front of them was the biggest turtle Spectre had ever seen. It was trotting through the forest right in front of them.
And on top of its back was a town.