52 Reaching new heights, facing new lows (1/2)
”I'm betting we will find out that the whole place is underwater!”
A group of seven youngsters was traveling on a path in the middle of the mountains alongside a massive feline-like creature with a pair of wings on it's back and an eagle head.
”Mmm... Maybe... I'm betting that we will find out that it was actually relocated to space!”
The group was formed of four young ladies and three young lads, with ages that ranged from seventeen to twenty-two. They were heading towards their destination while being careful not to attract any unwanted attention.
”Space huh!? Let's see... I bet... We will find out that the place is surrounded by a giant snake and that we will need to make her let us pass by giving her something to eat!”
”Oh! That's a good one Evlin! Ok, ok... I bet... Mmmm... I bet we will find out that we need to be on fire to enter the place!”
”On fire...? Ria, how would that even work...?”
Among the women, two of them, a beautiful lady with long dazzling black hair and dark skin and a young girl with messy short hair and wearing wooden armor were having a small debate among themselves.
”Just imagine! The whole place is on top of a mountain right? So the inhabitants to survive the cold must use some kind of fire spell to warm their bodies! And if we don't want to attract attention we would need to be on fire as well!!”
”Oh!! I see!! That does make sense!! Nice one Ria!!”
”Thank you, thank you! I'm awesome, I know!”
”The heck are you two talking about...?”
Another one of the girls, one with short red hair approached the two trying to understand the root of their conversation.
”Oh, hey sis! Ria and I are playing a game! We are trying to guess what's going to go wrong this time! Wanna play?”
”Are you serious...?”
”Come on!! It's fun!! Just think of something that's going to get in our way and cause a lot of trouble for our plans! You know... Like it always happens to us!”
”That's not... That's not true, right?”
Evlin and Ria exchanged a look among themselves and returned their attention to the red-haired girl.
”No, I'm pretty sure it's true...”
”Yeah same here... When was the last time one of our plans went exactly as we wanted...?”
The red-haired girl started to recollect her memories to try and disprove that theory.
”Come on... You can't be serious... Do you want something bad to happen?”
”Of course not... But I know it will... We will probably find some crazy person who will try to capture me to obtain the secret location of Marcus...”
”Or maybe we will find some monster that will attack us to stop us from advancing unless we managed to fill him with food...”
”Or maybe we will be attacked by the citizens of some random hidden village who will try to steal our metal or my crossbow... You know... The usual...”
”Why are you two talking like this is normal...? Maybe things will work out peacefully just this once you know?”
”You mean like that time we almost got fried by Xadi while trying to reach Emerald Dawn? Or like that time we were assaulted by a crowd of desperate men while I was looking for Marceus's friends? Or that time we were literally standing still doing nothing and out of nowhere, a group of demon-slayers showed up to capture me? Or maybe that time our house got sliced in half while Ria was being proposed?”
”... Ok... So maybe things tend to go wrong with us every now and then... Doesn't mean things will go wrong this time...”
”Ash... My dear sister... Love of my heart... We are going to enter a kingdom ruled by demons... How can things not go wrong this time?”
”Because... Because... We have Daren and Lilith with us!!”
Daren, a young man with brown hair and thin arms and Lilith, a young lady wearing metal armor, heard their names being called while walking ahead and turned around to see what was going on.
”What's that?”
”Miss Ashley, you called?”
”Daren, you know the southern kingdom pretty well right? You can guide us with no trouble towards it right? And Ria, you can use your future sight to predict any incoming danger to keep us safe... Right?”
”Huh... Yeah... No... I haven't been there for the last two hundred years... For all we know the place might not even exist anymore...”
”And my future sight gets weaker the further away into the future I try to look, so we won't know for sure until we are very close to it...”
”Come on guys...”
Evlin came closer to Ashley and tried to calm her down.
”Sis, relax! Whatever happens we can handle it! After all... We have the blessed shield of the goddess of the west on our side now!”
Ria heard that and rushed towards the side of her fiance Auren, a young bald man with a muscular physique, and grabbed his arm.
”That's right Ashley! As long as we are together, we won't let any evil touch any of us!!”
Ashley was still not convinced.
”You guys sure have a lot of confidence...”
Evlin smiled at her and hugged her neck in a childish manner.
”How can we not? We managed to come so far now! We are so close to fulfilling our goal of defeating the goddess of the east! A few months ago I would have considered this some kind of crazy dream from a bunch of delusional people!”
”I heard that...”
Daren answered in frustration but Evlin didn't care.
”But look at where we are now!! All we need to do is enter this kingdom, defeat every single demon in it, find out how to curse a person, and make the south god indebted to us! We will probably end up in some kind of trap along the way of course, and many things will end up going wrong... But that will just make our victory in the end even more fulfilling!!”
”Ugh...”
”So...? Wanna join the game??”
”I don't want to think about ways in which we will end up failing long the way...”
”Come on Ria!! Being boring is Daren's job!!”
”Again... I can hear you... I'm very close to you, I can hear everything you say...”
Daren became grumpy for a little while and the group continued their travel while Ria and Evlin kept coming up with ways on how things could go wrong with their plan. While that was going on, Ashley noticed that there was one person on the team who was rather quiet for some reason.
Night time came and the group decided to give a break to the journey to perform some late training.
Lilith was engaging in battle with Auren and Ria clashing her sword with their shield and trying each to find out weakness and openings among themselves. Lilith seemed to have a small advantage since she was much more used to combat and Ria and Auren were still not used to coordinating their movements very well. However, the power of their shield was very strong and allowed the two to hold off pretty well against the silver swordswoman.