Chapter 27: Void Hunting?

As the morning sun rises inside the Lake void the entire place is shrouded in morning mist coming off the lake the party disassemble their camp, while Suieol and Lekly once again try to create the materials for a raft and oars out of the dirt on the lake shore. As the mist fades from the shores of the lake the alchemist girls successfully finish creating the needed materials to make a raft big enough to transport the entire party to the island in the center of the lake, which is where they suspect the daughter of the coachman will be located as that island seemed to be where the void ruler had made its home. The party moved the materials for their makeshift raft close to the water’s edge before attempting to construct the raft, after much trial and error they finally make something that stays together longer than three seconds and they clamber aboard using the oars to push them the last little bit onto the water before rowing to the center island, Lexa hovering off to the side to deal with any beasts that look like they might try and attack the raft. Making it to the center island the party split up and start searching the place which turned out to be significantly larger than they had first expected it to be, with the majority of the party searching the ground Lexa levitated up to the treetops to look down from above and scan the trees for any sign of a nest as the party have no clue whether the beast lived in the trees or on the ground primarily. After a half day of searching the party had so far come up empty but as they reached the far shore of the island, they found an odd-looking structure with what looked like food scraps scattered around the entrance to the structure. Approaching with caution the party entered the structure which Aromi illuminated with one of his new light spells that he picked up, within the structure they found evidence that this was in fact the void rulers’ home but even within this structure they found no trace of the daughter that was taken. Leaving the structure the party began the trek back to their raft only to find that it was halfway out into the lake despite it being fairly well grounded when they arrived at the island. Having the ability to float above the water Lexa started pursuing the raft to see how it had gotten so far away despite there being no evidence of any other people being inside the void, as she caught up to the raft, she was surprised to see a younger girl now clearly struggling to paddle with any strength.

“Um, hi there? You don’t happen to be the daughter of a coachman from Seolford do you?”
“Wha-what? How do you know that? Who are you?”

The girl clearly startled by Lexa’s sudden appearance takes the oar from the water and waves it around in front of themselves in Lexa’s direction trying to scare her off. But as Lexa doesn’t react and the girl quickly tiring because of the weight she drops the oar back into the water allowing Lexa to speak again.

“So, I’m going to assume you are the coachman’s daughter. I’m Lexa by the way, I’m a mage. But your father asked us to come save you from this place so could I row this raft back to that island over there so that my friends can use it to get back across as well?”

The girl looks at Lexa with confusion and doesn’t say anything, so Lexa grabs the oar from the girl and begins to paddle back to the island so that the rest of her party aren’t just stranded there and have to make another raft to get back across. The girl remains silent and doesn’t answer any of the questions the party ask her. Eventually just before sunset the party emerge from the Lake void close to where they entered from and make their way round to where the coachman was waiting on their arrival, when the girl sees the man, she takes off running towards him and the pair hug deeply.

“Thank you, brave adventurer’s you have brought my daughter back to me like you said. I cannot repay you for this deed, it would take all my money both current and future for me to possibly feel like I have settled the debt.”
“No need for that, if you wouldn’t mind dropping us near the void zone nearest the city. I think we passed by it on the way here, we’d be grateful for that. As we have the supplies and none of us are hurt so we’ll take that void out while we’re already outside the city walls. As well as giving us a free or at least heavily discounted ride from time to time when we need to travel a far distance.”
“I can certainly do that, if you ever need transport, I will arrange the best I can for you at no cost. If you are to tackle that other void once I have dropped you off, I will return my daughter home and come back to collect you from that void as well. Are you wanting to set off now or when dawn breaks?”
“We’ll go when dawn breaks, we can do an in-depth check of our gear tonight to make sure we can actually take that void on.”

With the two parties coming to an agreement over payment for the return of the coachman’s daughter and the party’s intent to take on another void while outside the city walls. The party set up their camp, Lexa floated off behind the cart away from the prying eyes of Ilev and took off her void energy pendant and saw that the crystal had gone from being completely clear to nearly completely coloured a blackish purple colour, upon seeing this she attempted to cast the complex set of spells Evie taught her to remove void corruption from herself and it worked but the gem was still about a third full once she finished the final spell. Satisfied with the results she put the pendant back on and joined the rest of the party in finishing setting up camp and beginning the prep work for the food for the now nine-person group to eat that night.