He was right, the room was covered in blood, I was covered in blood, and it smelt foul and arcid, the knocking transitioned into frantic banging as the door creaked and was broken off its hinges, clattering against the floor loudly.
When the man entered the room his mouth went agape, of course, it would, the last thing he'd expect to see tonight would be this a child leering over the corpse of some unknown man, repeatedly stabbing its head mangled head, draped in dripping blood and viscera.
He looked at me pensively asking "stop, you should stop. He's already dead. Please just stop?" putting on the act of a traumatized child I turned to him dropping to blood-soaked knife stuttering, a single tear lurching down "sir can you help me this man he. He. He. He tried to hurt me." I pointed shakily at the sword, that after falling from the ceiling, embedded itself next to the helpless cadaver. "He swung that sword around, shouting." I forced myself to cry, if this situation escalated to the point of more people getting involved, I might be forced to fight an entire town, so I continued the act no matter how mortifying this was to me, "shouting that he was going to, to" I started sniffling, wailing.
The security officer seemed convinced by my act as he came up to me, to console me I played along and was eventually escorted to an empty room, sadly my dagger was left behind, but I still had my bag with the wooden sword strapped to it.
It surprises me, how adaptable people can be, despite rumors of murder spreading, life in the inn continued, as usual, the officer reported it to the law enforces as, a crime of deranged passion', where the victim, killed the aggressor in self-defense, driving them into a frenzy. When morning came, I left the inn buying a new knife, refilling my flask, and restocking my supply of dried meat, prior to getting some new clothes and meeting the others at the carriage, setting off southward at eight-twenty.
The six others avoided me like the plague, either avoiding digging up bad memories or just scared the kid that just killed a man last night.
The married couple wisped something among themselves, I found it unnecessary to eavesdrop, they know nothing anyway. The carriage just continued into the woods on the other side of the town, the horses trotting comfortably.
I fell back into my old routine, practicing swordsmanship, eating, drinking, sleeping, and checking on chips progress, the scan had reached one percent and was rising stably, that was all.
Days passed like this before, on the third day the chip picked up on something interesting just by the side of the road, it was the plant I was looking for, the energy signature it was giving off was like nothing id sensed before, resembling the silver mirror or the petrified lily, only it was weaker.
Decisively I jumped off the back of the carriage, approaching it in a run, I knelt on the floor digging with the blade of the wooden sword franticly. What I unearthed was a small truffle, it was trapped in a layer of dirt, so I used some water to clean it, the water was from a canister the owner bought after the situation on the last trip turned dire, I was water in my flask, but the others ran out.
The truffle was small, about the size of a fingernail, and a deep purple, its size indicated that it was young for its species only 10 or so years, the ones over a thousand years old, reaching the end of their growth can be up to a foot long. The purple haze truffle, from the same section in my botany book as the lily, it was a miracle thing capable of empowering people spiritually, one this size could grant someone an incredibly weak infinity for the earth, the change would be negligible, using its excess energy to enhance peoples' arcane power.
Despite its minor effects it still holds incredible value, if brewed into a potion, it would have its essence extracted, after that if mixed with supplementary ingredients and some pure water, water that's gone through various stages of purification, it can be used to gain a weak earth affinity.
The reason it was in the same sequence as the stary-eyed lily was because if mixed with the stary-eyed lily and one other ingredient you can create a relatively powerful potion, sadly this purple haze truffle is too young, and the lily is frozen in amber only two of the five seeds are still attached to the petals, so brewing that potion is an impossibility.
Putting the truffle into my bag I ran chasing after the carriage jumping onto the back, Paulson looked at me oddly before ignoring me the rest doing the same, the remainder of that day was the same as yesterday, the next day was much the same.
On the fifth day just after setting off something else happened to break the routine, we were attacked, the assailant was a small white fox.
The small fox was covered in soft white fur, resembling the arctic fox, unlike the artic fox, however, this creature lived in the sunlight bathing in its soft rays, other than that there was a more glaring difference, embedded in its forehead was a small spherical gemstone, the gemstone-like its eyes were a sky blue.
When it first attacked no one recognised it me included, however, after it flicked its pristine tail, a small icicle shot out embedding itself into the carriage's wooden frame, "it's a glacial snow fox." Gavon called out.
The glacial snow fox was an illusory beast never seen in the same place twice, for this reason, they were known by a legend, it was called the legend of the shifting moon, in this legend it was said that after the snow fox shows its bewitching beauty for one day and night, the place it visited will be blessed by the silver moon, being bestowed with prosperity and joy.
Our meeting with the fox was less fortunate, as it attacked us on-site. No one was strong enough to withstand one of its fiendish icicles, if we tried to, we would be more likely to be impaled and pinned against a tree than block an attack, even a glancing scrape was able to tear my clothes leaving a trail of blood, and this was on my body enhanced with years of training.