Chapter 16: Enter The Valley Between Lands?

The members of the Shin’Ya guild exit Isla’s shack and begin their walk northwards back towards the site of the Merchant Guild, a path walked many times now and secure in the parties memory, reaching the site of the guild the group pass by and continue north towards the edge of the forest and for the first time in a half a week they leave the forest back out onto the plains. Trying to remain a path as straight as they possibly can isn’t all to difficult now the party are clear of the forest and constant trees blocking their desired path over and over again, but the broad nature of the plain does make progress seem slower due to the fact that the distance covered doesn’t seem to be going as fast even though the pace of the party hasn’t slowed since they left the forest at all. After a couple more hours of seemingly aimless walking through unchanging scenery the horizon changed, now ahead of the party the land turned to a dull yellow colour with it also beginning to slope upward, creating a narrow channel between the twin hills. Ilev takes the note out from his pocket and gives It a quick look over, turns to the group and points towards the valley entrance that’s emerging in the distance and tells the rest that the next instruction is for them to enter the valley where it begins which they assume is that point just appearing on the horizon as they stand on this small hill. With their next goal in sight while they’re on higher ground they continue walking towards the valleys entrance, as they walk they come across a few monsters that leave the group alone while going about their own existences they even stop to observe some rabbit-like monsters roaming around for a short while as they took a break from their journey to catch up to Isla. After they finish up their short break it wasn’t long before they came across some not so friendly monsters in the form of a group of Lizardmen, these lizards noticed the group immediately and began charging at them with their weapons raised, Lexa floated forward and cast a single spell with the Void element attribute and each lizard turned into a crystalline formation and shattered into millions of tiny pieces. The rest of the Shin’ya guild stood with stunned and slightly fearful expressions glued to their faces as Lexa turned back to face her friends, they all tried to look less stunned by her ability, but no one could manage, seeing their faces Lexa’s face began to burn in embarrassment because of her strength.

“It’s not that impressive I swear to you, it’s just the normal magic of this world.”
“Yeah, I bet anyone can defeat an entire group of Lizardmen.”
“Arano, not helping. But I do have to agree with him Lexa, not anyone could do what you just did. But that also makes us super lucky that you’re with us because it’ll make getting Suieol back much easier with both you and Isla.”
“I mean, sure I guess. But please get those shocked expressions off your faces, it’s embarrassing for me.”
“Oh? Now I’m gonna compliment every small thing you do.”
“No, please don’t Arano.”
“But like what’s that black goopy looking thing on your leg Lexa?”
“Oh probably void corruption after I used that spell. Nothing to worry about Lekly.”
“If you say so.”

To signal they’ve had enough of the rest of the group gawking at her Lexa begins to float off towards the valley so that the rest of the group have to shut up and follow her lest they get left behind. With the sun starting to fall in the sky the group pick up their pace as they want to get as close to the valley as possible before nightfall so that they can catch up to Isla first thing in the morning, as they enter the beginning of the valley where the grass turned from the green of the plains to a sandy dull yellow because of the old river valley having begun a howl could be heard echoing off the walls of the valley. Everyone looked at each other as they recognised that howl as belonging to the alpha void wolf that took Suieol a week ago, they also scanned the area for signs of a fight or even just that Isla was around here but they found nothing and so with a seeming second wind coming from hearing their friend might be nearby the party pushed onwards to get as close to the source of the sound as they could before they lost the light of day and couldn’t set up the camping supplies that they had been given by the people in Daphnie before they left on this journey.

“Lights fading fast guys, wanna set up camp here. I for one don’t particularly want to be moving though this valley in the dark.”
“I will second that, we tried fighting in the dark in the forest and it nearly got one of us killed.”
“Alright let’s set camp here and we’ll continue on tomorrow. I will suggest we take turns keeping watch again though in case anything does want to attack us.”
“Same pairs as last time with Lekly and Ami making up a third pair. Ilev and Aromi you’re taking first shift this time, and Lekly and Ami you’re having the second. Me and Lexa had the first shift in the forest and Lekly and Ami haven’t been on watch before so don’t you dare complain.”
“We won’t about that, but I will complain about your current lack of doing anything to help set the tents up.”
“Or any other part of the camp for that matter.”
“If you’re gonna be like that then you and Ilev can have the first shift.”
“Sure, I don’t mind being with Ilev on watch duty.”
“Wait no, I take that back. I want to be with Lexa, she’s the strongest here after all.”
“Fine, I’ll go back with Arano. But make yourself useful and organise this wood into a campfire would you.”
“Sure thing, partner.”

The group set up their three-tent camp with a moderately sized campfire in the middle to give some light during the night watch but more importantly a fire to cook dinner over. Once they had all eaten Ilev and Aromi got ready to take the first three-hour watch shift, they let the fire dim down so the other four could sleep but made sure there was still enough light being emitted so that the pair could see any danger approaching the camp if that were to happen.