60 Alone together (1/2)
Part 1
”I should have gone with her...”
”Evlin...”
Inside of the further right path, Evlin in her golden-winged form and Gustav in his winged-centaur form were proceeding deeper into the tunnel.
”W- What if she gets lost? Or hungry? What if she encounters a monster?”
”Evlin...”
The leader of the group was starting to panic a little bit worried about leaving her older sister by herself in such uncharted territory.
”She's never been by herself before!! And she's never been a dryad before!! She's never been a dryad by herself before!!!”
”... Evlin...”
Gustav was trying really hard to calm her down but the griffin girl couldn't stop thinking of what could possibly happen to Ashley without her by her side.
”We need to go back! I'll go back and look for her!!”
”EVLIN!!!”
”What!!??”
Gustav at that moment pointed at his own head.
”Telepathy.”
”... Oh... Oooooohhh!!! That's riiiight!!! Call her!! Call her right now!!!”
”Evlin relax, Ashley is not a vase made of glass, she won't break just because you left her side for two seconds...”
”R- Right... You're right... She's probably fine...”
”Good, now, calm down a bit, I'll connect all of us to see how we are progressing.”
”Ok... Thanks Gustav!”
Gustav closed his eyes to try and focus to reach everyone and connect them inside his telepathic link.
[Everyone, this is Gustav and Evlin... How are you all progressing?]
[Hey Gustav, Auren here... Me and Ria are entering the nest of spiders right now. They don't seem to realize our presence so far but in case anything happens we have our shields ready.]
[Spiders... So many spiders...]
[Huh... Auren, is Ria ok...?]
[She will be fine once we leave this place, don't worry.]
[If you say so... Daren, Lilith, you two together?]
[W- W- What do you mean together??? Why would we be together??? We- We-]
[Lilith calm down... He's just asking if we didn't separate ourselves in the maze by accident...]
[Oh... R- Right...]
[Did... Did something happened with you two...?]
[Everything is fine Gustav, we are just a little stressed out due to the maze being so long... We will keep going and let you know once we are out...]
[Understood Daren, good luck!]
”Everyone seems to be ok so far Evlin...”
”I see... What about Ashley?”
[Ashley, this is Gustav... Can you hear me...?]
[...]
[Ashley...? Ashley!!]
[Huh...? Oh! Hey Gustav! Something wrong...?]
[We are trying to update each other on our situations. Are you ok?]
[I'm fine... Just still trying to look into the memories of the dryad... Is everyone out of the tunnels yet?]
[The others seem to already have reached the most dangerous parts of their tunnels... They should be reaching the exit soon.. Have you found the garden yet?]
[Almost, Drya is teaching me how to be a proper dryad so we got a little distracted. We should be out soon.]
[Drya...? Ashley who is Drya??]
[The dryad... She's helping me traverse the tunnel faster by sharing shortcuts and telling me how to use her body.]
[The dryad is talking to you??]
[Yeah... She's honestly kinda nice once you get to know her... Say hi Drya.]
[Stop wasting time and keep moving!! We don't have all day!]
[... Ok maybe she's not that nice...]
[Ashley!! You can't befriend a demon! These things are dangerous!]
[Don't worry, she won't let me get hurt me as long as I have her body. Everything is fine.]
[But, Ashley!]
[Gustav I need to focus right now, talk to you later.]
[Ashley!!]
[...]
”...”
”Gustav...? What's wrong? Did something happen to Ashley!!!???”
”... I think... She became friends with the dryad...”
”... Ahem... Wha...?”
”Your sister... It seems that the plant girl is talking to her... I could hear her voice in the telepathic conversation... The dryad is inside her mind.”
”What!!??? Wha... What does this mean???”
”She said that the dryad is helping her to deal with the tunnel with more ease by teaching how to use her dryad body.”
”She... She's teaching my sister how to be a demon???”
”I... Think so...?”
”I need to find her... I need to find her right now and change her back to normal!!”
”Evlin wait! Ashley said the dryad won't harm her since they share a body right now. She is probably not in danger.”
”'Probably'?”
”Well... I can't say for sure... I have never been in a situation like this before...”
”Ugh... Let's just get out of this tunnel... I want to see my sister soon...”
”Let's...”
The two continued to run across their path and finally reached the bottomless pit that Ashley mentioned. It was an extremely wide area engulfed in darkness. Evlin picked a small piece of rock and threw it into the hole to see how far it would go.
Her and Gustav tried to stay quiet to hear the noise of the rock but nothing came out even after several minutes.
”Seems like it would be quite the fall...”
”I can't even see the other side... Can your earth magic make a bridge all the way there?”
”No problem... Thanks to Sphinx, I have more magic energy to channel than I could possibly need.”
Evlin aimed her crossbow towards the ground and started to focus an enormous amount of modeling magic on its tip. She then released it all in one go and a wide bridge was created that extended itself halfway across the pit.
”Impressive!”
”Eh... Not really... I was trying to reach all the way to the end... This pit is bigger than I imagined...”
”Can you reach the end with your magic?”
”Probably, but I need to reach the end of the bridge to extend it.”
”Very well, let's move on then.”
The two stepped inside the unfinished bridge very carefully to confirm if it was stable. After entering with their full bodies and trying to make some more risky movements they realized that there was nothing to fear.
”It seems like the bridge is safe. Nice work Evlin!”
”Thank you poney-man!”
Part 2
They began to walk across the bridge and every time they would reach the end Evlin would channel more modeling magic to increase its size. She assumed she would need to do this two or three times but this pit just seemed to never end.
Even with Sphinx's extra magic supply Evlin was starting to get tired from using so much magic to create a stable bridge for her and Gustav.
She finally could not take it anymore and fell on her knees.
”Arf... Arf... Gustav... Stop...”
”Evlin? What's wrong?”
”Arf... Arf... I think me and Sphinx are out of magic... We need time to recharge...”
”Recharge...? Doesn't that usually take the whole day?”
”Only if we are separated... But if we are fused together we can double the rate at which our magic recovers...”
”That's... Still twelve hours...”
”Don't worry, I don't need all of my magic back... Just enough to finish the bridge... Just... Just give me some time...”
”Maybe you should try to sleep a little...”
”NO!!!”
”...??”
”I- I can't go to sleep...”
”W- What...? Why not...?”
”...”
”Evlin?”
”Because... If I do... Xadi will contact me again... Him and his boyband of idiots...”
”But, you said he can't hurt you there, right...?”