Raymond walked with Mittens, softly whispering to his glow. The glow was still in pain as he walked, so his skin shimmered slightly as it struggled to maintain control. Mittens broke the pattern of falling rain when he almost yelled

”That is not an animals scent!” Raymond jumped, shining slightly more. He was steaming(almost literally) after realizing that his power could warm him up. It was nice and warm compared to the freezing constant of the rain.

Mittens, the Catboy he is, hissed in... the direction they were going. Raymond asked him

”Is it dangerous? We should keep going, we need a camp to survive while we look for help.” Mittens looked back at Raymond and gave him a thoughtful look, before nodding and moving forward. Raymond looked from side to side, he didn’t see anything in the forest’s shadows.

Mittens and him walked for what felt like half an hour, Nighttime had almost fallen before Mittens yelled

”WE’RE HERE! I can hear flowing water Nya!” Raymond smiled, he squinted but couldn’t see it. He turned to Mittens and asked

”How far away can you hear? Even with those earplugs!” Mittens smugly looked at him and said

”I can hear at least 472 steps!” Raymond nodded, as if it were reasonable to measure distance that way. Before motioning to keep going.

Approximately 128 steps later Raymond could hear the moving water as well. He hoped that the river had fish, as the party could move along it until they reached a city or the ocean, and then they could move along the shore. They had gotten lucky.

Then he heard the grunts. He turned towards Mittens and said ”Is there an animal there? Are they fighting or something?” Mittens looked a bit confused before saying

”No, it’s the same scent I smelled earlier. It has to be some sort of creature I’ve never smelled.”

Raymond nodded ”I say we sneak up and take a look.” Mittens stretched, contemplating.

"We do need to reach the river don't we? This is the easiest way to find civilization. We also need to find out if there's something dangerous so we can react carefully." said Raymond. Mittens groaned but motioned forward.

They had seen light as they got closer, firelight. They were tempted to run and yell that they needed help but they need to be careful and instead slowly snuck up to the fire and saw... Tiny green men.

Raymond muttered ”Goblins. They’re Goblins” Mittens eyes widened. This was a big deal. This was a major deal.

...

Nearly an hour later, they returned to the area where everybody had woken up. The rain still ceaseless.

As they approached Travis walked up and said

”Good news, I want good news!”

Raymond frowned, his brows creasing.

”We have good news and bad news Travis. The good news is that we found the river, but the bad news is we literally saw goblins in a camp by the river. Like, actual goblins.”

Travis just stared. Mittens nodded

“He’s not lying, Nya!, there’s tiny green men!”

Travis turned to the group who had gathered nearby and said

”These two came back with some news, anybody have some sort of empath or lie detector quirk?”

Raymond snapped at Travis

”Don’t call them quirks! That is an insult made by people who don’t have them out of jealousy!” Travis replied with his eyes wide open.

”Oh crap I didn’t know that, that’s just what my parents told me they were called! I’m sorry if I insulted you guys. They didn’t like that they didn’t have superpowers out of the 72% that did.” Raymond nodded, before looking to the 61 assembled teens.

”There were goblins by the river, straight out of a fantasy book.” People started laughing, some swore, some cried, and others nodded. One however, said

”He’s not lying.” A short Indian? girl walked out of the crowd and said

”I’m an Empath and not a single one of his bones is singing his falsehoods.” Raymond turned and thanked her, empaths commonly spoke in flowery language.

Travis just sat there thinking, he needed to get them to the river for water. The goblins were likely equipped with weapons, and spoke a different language. He needed to think. Instead Travis called out

”We can approach the river diagonally! That way we won’t run directly into the goblin encampment!” People nodded, and whispered among themselves. Travis cried out again, his voice sounding hoarse to Raymond.

”We move out! Everybody grab everything you can and let’s move!” People looked at what there was to grab, one boy was knocked unconscious by his power being uncontrollable as they woke up, and the wet firewood they had all gathered. There wasn’t much.

With that, everybody started walking northwest. They were going to get home eventually.

Wherever home was.