With all of their affairs in order, on a misty morning in chilly autumn weather, the party departed from Isanthyr and moved east. The point on the map that Callipho gave them as their goal. Without Murabi with them, they initially had to worry about coming across monsters and other predators. Even if they could likely deal with most of them or simply run, they didn’t want to fight their way through even more than they had to while simply traversing the overgrown and untamed wilderness. Soon enough, however, they found a solution in Dahlia, whose presence naturally pacified wild beasts and deterred other creatures from coming close. She only helped to keep things away, and not with hunting, but she helped to keep the speedy pace that all of them could maintain by traveling overland with aura enhanced speed and endurance.
In a little over a week of traveling they managed a few hundred miles, their aura allowing them to move fast over long days without becoming exhausted, and Dahlia keeping things from attacking them allowed them to devote all of their aura to the travel rather than using any to defend themselves. Even Meti, with the lowest aura pool out of the group, managed to keep up by using something she made for herself while the group made their preparations in Isanthyr, an enhanced bangle to help with her aura efficiency.
She went into a frenzy of activity when she managed to figure out how to make them, using the bangle that Tahir got from the sponsorship as a reference, and worked without sleep to make a stronger version for herself. She also made Tahir a new sword, incorporating a mithral-iron alloy into the blade that should stand up to some of his stronger slashes, as well as the core of the maligno, giving the edge a hint of the same dark power that it used during their fight.
Along with that, she created two daggers for Hasio. Both of which used the same alloy used to make Tahir’s sword, but one of them incorporated the seed he received from the unicorn, while the other used the ‘core’ from the cairn lord. Understandably, making all of these magical items depleted their funds almost entirely from the material cost. Each of them only had a couple hundred gold to their names, with Hasio still having around a thousand due to his deal with Esharia’s mage collective. Theo spent most of her funds on alchemical materials before they left. Tahir also had the materials for another tier two spirit, which he didn’t have to spend to summon Dahlia due to the seed. After they figured out if they could access the unmarked ley line crossing, they planned to take some requests in Osni if they could make it there before the delve into the larger ruin started.
For now, they had no immediate financial concerns. They didn’t have any materials to work with. Meti used all of the void shards she’d gotten from the tree in the creation of all of the weapons, and Theo paused occasionally to pick up some flower, herb, or mushroom that she recognized as a rare alchemical reagent that she could only find out in the deep wild that they traversed. While she didn’t have a full lab with her to work, she found that she could work with Meti and Tahir and work her aura in a variety of ways to get the desired reactions and temperatures for her to continue making some of the more complicated potions and mixtures. Along with training the sword style of fighting that Murabi taught them, they experimented with the potions to see which ones they could continue to make.
This made Theo ecstatic, she could only experiment lightly with this kind of work before, since trying too much might have made her elements unbalanced, but with being able to manipulate multiple elements just fine, and with Tahir and Meti helping, she made a great amount of progress. Being able to store many things from her lab in a storage bag and make everything less cumbersome also helped immensely in that regard. She had to force herself to not slow down during their overland travel, only going after reagents that she spotted rather than going at a slow pace to intentionally look for them, managing to placate herself by spending some of her training time taking a wider look at the areas that they would settle down in.
Finally, after a week and a half of training, they reached the general area marked on the map, and they could confirm a leyline crossing nearby thanks to Dahlia. “These ‘crossings’, you call them, I’m aware of how they affect the natural energies of the area, and I can say for certain that one of them is nearby. I’ve never tried to pinpoint one before, I’m afraid.” She told them, but just the knowledge that they were on the right track helped immensely. They moved through the morning with a spring in their step, discussing how they would try to hone in on the leyline crossing.
“I’d imagine the area where the crossing is would look different compared to its surroundings.” Tahir offered. “I don’t think any of us have worked out flight quite yet, but I can teleport us pretty high with the Traveler’s help and have us float down while we look.”
“That’s an idea,” Hasio replied, and glanced to Meti. “but maybe we can leave it to the people who can actually control their descent, we’ll be fine down here.”
“I suppose I’ll be taking my leave for the time being.” Dahlia said. “One of these days you’ll have to have me meet this ‘Traveler’ of yours.”
“When I can do it safely, I will.” Tahir said. While he could summon a tier two, he didn’t know if two tier ones at the same time would take more or less strain on his energies. With a nod, he exchanged Dahlia for the Traveler, bringing them out in their tier two form. It didn’t change their appearance overall, their outfit had more complicated silver designs, and their eyes had a more intense silver glow to them. While using aura to summon them, The silver coloration to his skin traveled down Tahir’s arms, and the silver in his hair took up much more than just the tips. Since summoning spirits at tier two, he hadn’t found any extreme or long-lasting effects, but the initial changes to his body seemed to increase.
“It’s nice to get some fresh air like this.” They said, with a short bow. Tahir made sure to summon all of his spirits at tier two to get a feel for them and how their powers changed. The traveler’s powers of teleportation increased immensely, as did Tahir’s affinity for transposition magic.
“It shouldn’t be for very long I’m afraid.” Tahir said, they didn’t know how long they could push it in the woods before a predator noticed them, without Dahlia’s pacifying presence keeping them away. “Up we go.” Glancing at the tallest tree, Tahir looked to Theo and began to climb. Theo followed shortly after, and the Traveler settled for teleporting up to each branch with a stable foothold, balancing for seconds before moving up to the next. The tree reached up to about 60 feet, but with many other trees full of leaves turning orange, it made things hard to distinguish or make out anything. Tahir thought he heard a rumble from something nearby, and paused to take a listen.
“Did you hear that too?” Theo asked, a couple of feet below him. “We should probably move quick. Are you ready?”
Tahir nodded, having summoned the spirit of air during their climb. “We’re good to go. Take us up, Traveler.”
“Very well. Have fun in the air.” Theo grabbed Tahir’s ankle, while the traveler, a bit higher up, placed their hand on his shoulder. Tahir felt a rush of magic, and in the space of a blink he found himself falling in the air. Several hundred feet up, with the Traveler giving a little wave. Tahir waved back, and unsummoned the spirit’s corporeal form, channeling wind magic at the same time as Theo to quickly slow down their fall. Air swirled around them, and the two of them worked together to keep them from free falling.
With the slow descent, they looked around and tried to find anything out of the ordinary to the space, a sprawling mass of red and orange trees broken up briefly by rivers and the bare peak of a short mountain. In the distance, though, something stuck out to Tahir, an array of bright colors that stood out from a sea of red and orange. A collection of trees and other foliage in full bloom with flowers, and leaves of summer green underneath.
He pointed it out, noting the direction and distance, but noticed that something else had caught Theo’s attention, and he honed in on the direction, spotting something much closer to the group than the potential location of the leyline crossing. He spotted a massive shape, looming in a clearing and kicking up dust wherever its large feet hit the ground. From the distance, they looked like ants, but Tahir could see people moving around and across the creature’s body, and it chased after them where it could. After a while, he could even see a plume of fire burst and crash harmlessly against the creature’s hide, it seemed like some kind of fight.
Tahir tapped on Theo’s shoulder, nodding to her to confirm he’d seen the same thing, and pointing out what he saw to her so that she could confirm it as well. Keeping both things in mind, they made their descent back down into the trees, lightly crashing through branches and leaves during the fall. They came down to a waiting Meti and Theo and quickly explained what they found while they dusted themselves off. “I wasn’t aware there were people around here.” Hasio said in response.
“It might be the nomads Merenthyl told us about.” Tahir said, and resummoned Dahlia nearby.
“Either that, or the source of the map that showed the leyline crossing.” Meti said. Confirming the distance, they started making their way toward the source of the conflict, using the occasional tremors in the ground from the beast’s stomping to guide them. “Callipho didn’t ever tell us where he got it from.”
“Well it sure looks like we’re going to join the fight. Shouldn’t we just let whoever’s swarming over it handle it themselves?” Hasio asked.
“I don’t plan for us to just jump in.” Tahir replied. “But we ought to see just who we’re dealing with, and maybe help them out if possible. No matter who it is, we don’t want to run afoul of them while we’re trying to reach the leyline crossing.”
“True.” Hasio agreed. “Well, knowing you, I can see you wanting to jump in anyway, so I’ll just get ready.” As he spoke, Tahir watched him disappear as he camouflaged himself. He knew that Hasio would remain nearby, so he continued on toward the fight they spotted while high in the air. Within minutes of them all but sprinting using their aura, they reached the edges of the clearing and came to a stop before bursting in to get a look at the situation.
