A Brewing Storm

 The group got through the night in peace, though Rethis, Villum, and Gellum got a little rowdy with their drinking. The sky was still pitch-black when Reanill heard her father groan in his sleep. She was keeping watch tonight, as she often did. Given that her Gift granted her night vision as well as requiring less sleep to function, Reanill volunteered to stay on night watch rather frequently. At first, her father was quite adamant in his opposition, but with enough time, he came to trust and rely on her.

Though this night’s conditions were not ideal—with how any light from the stars or moon was blocked off by a curtain of clouds—Reanill could make out enough of the scenery around her to tell whether anything was approaching. She ran the tip of her thumb along her bowstring, humming no louder than a whisper as she eyed the stranger her group had run into earlier.

Kai. An unusual name, but Reanill found its simplicity to be somewhat charming. She was not quite sure what to make of him, however. He came off as a naive traveler, both unprepared and inexperienced for the treacherous journey alone. Though Reanill could sense that Kai was hiding something, he did not seem to harbor malicious intent, and that was good enough for Reanill.

The fire had dwindled into smolders by that point, so the dark campsite made the pale glow of dawn even more noticeable. It was about time for the rest of the hunters to wake, so Reanill got up to survey their surroundings again. Since they had made camp in an open field, it was easy to gauge with a single glance whether something was approaching. Reanill squinted at some movement in a patch of tall grass by the forest’s edge, but it was only the scurrying of a small rodent.

Hearing Kai stir in his tent, Reanill turned her head to confirm he was awake. The two exchanged pleasantries before Kai crawled out from beneath the canvas and sat himself upright. Rubbing his eyes and letting out a big yawn, Kai took a moment to recompose himself. He sighed as he got up, taking a sip from his waterskin before performing some light stretches to wake himself up.

“You sleep okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Could’ve been better, could’ve been worse.”

Kai started packing his stuff, stifling another yawn. The other three hunters also got up around this time and gathered by the campfire’s remnants before strolling over to the riverside.

“No luck today, eh? Would’ve been real nice to nab another waterleaper.”

Rethis mumbled, scanning the water. He shrugged and dipped a pot into the river to collect some water.

“What’s the weather looking like, bossman?”

Villum asked after washing his face.

“Hm… Looks like it won’t change much. I’ll keep you updated on the way.”

Reanill glanced at her father. His Gift allowed him to get a forecast of the weather near him about an hour into the future. It was rather useful when out on a hunt.

“Uh, how would you know that?”

Kai interjected, curious to how Rethis could state the upcoming weather with such confidence.

“Oh, that’s just his Gift. It sure helps against getting caught out in the rain.”

Gellum chuckled, drying himself with a handcloth.

Reanill watched Kai’s expression. He blinked a few times, popping his mouth open and close for a moment before pursing his lips as if he had come to a decision.

“So… what are Gifts?”

The rest of the group turned to Kai, unsure what to make of his question. Each one of them wondered whether his village was indeed so remote that knowledge of Gifts was absent or whether there was a deeper reason for his ignorance. They all exchanged glances at each other, and after a few seconds of silence, Rethis spoke up.

“Gifts are, as their name implies, gifts bestowed upon the five kin. They’re basically a magical ability that differs from person to person, though they’re not exactly magic like real magic is. For some reason, the mankin tend to receive Gifts far more often than the other four kin though.”

Kai nodded before asking how one would ascertain whether they had a Gift or not.

“Hm, I suppose that’s a good question if you’re just learning about Gifts. One of the bigwigs at the Sork Institution created a magic item that tells you what your Gift is, if you have one, of course. Before then, I guess people just had to figure out if they had a Gift and how to use it.”

Reanill’s fingers hung loose on her bow. It was an subconscious movement, void of hostility. She found it quite odd that someone wouldn’t know about Gifts. Even if Kai truly was from a remote settlement, and even if he was the only mankin there, Reanill thought it would be odd that nobody taught him about Gifts, even if only in passing. She found that Kai came off more like a child learning about the world.

“Hah… Guess there’s a lot I don’t know about yet, huh?”

“No worries, friend. The Purveyor’s Guild is a great place to ask all the questions you have. Ah, you wouldn’t know about that either, huh?”

The group returned to their campsite and prepared a simple stew with wild edible plants nearby and some of the salted waterleaper meat from yesterday. Kai shared his hardtacks with the group, and they all enjoyed a filling breakfast together.

Once the group polished off the stew, the group got ready to break camp.

“Well, I guess you’re off to Lindroot then?”

“That’s the plan!”

Rethis nodded and told Kai to look for a building with a pickaxe and shovel engraved above its front doors if he wanted to find the Purveyor’s Guild.

“We’ll be going back to our village. It’s called Thistlewood. Come and visit if you have the time!”

“For sure!”

With a firm pat on Kai’s shoulder, Rethis led the rest of the hunters back to their village. Reanill turned back to look at Kai for a second before regrouping with the others. Once the hunters had slipped behind the cover of the trees and vanished from sight, Kai heaved his rucksack over his shoulder and continued to follow the river upstream.

The hunters strode along at a comfortable pace, keeping their eyes peeled and ears honed on the forest around them. This hunt was successful enough with the waterleaper, but they would certainly welcome any additional meat they could secure. However, with less than a league’s distance away from the village, that prospect seemed unlikely.

“Still, that Kai fella’s an oddball, huh?”

Gellum sparked a conversation as Villum handed him the sack of processed waterleaper to take a break.

“That’s for sure. Kid doesn’t know a darn thing, huh?”

The topic went to the lone traveler, Kai. After spending a night with the young man, none of them felt that he bore any ill will, though they all agreed that he was without a doubt hiding something.

Reanill felt that Kai was underprepared for travel, as not only were his belongings barebones, it seemed that he did not really know how to use them either. To her, it made more sense if Kai had been forced out on his journey for whatever reason.

“Now, now. I’m sure he has his reasons. For the time being, let’s try to pick up the pace a little. It’s gonna get stormy later, so I want to let the village know ahead of time.”

The beastkin twins could not smell the oncoming rain, but given it was Rethis saying it, they took his word for it. And so, the four hastened their steps.

By the time the group caught sight of Thistlewood, the faint hint of petrichor filled the air alongside rumbling gray clouds in the distance. There was still a fair amount of leeway before the storm fully set in, so Rethis went to check in with the village chief while Villum and Gellum went to store the waterleaper parts away.

“Chief, as you can tell by now, a storm’s gonna hit the village soon. It looks like it’ll be pretty bad, but nothing we haven’t seen before.”

“Rethis. Glad to see you’re back safe and sound. I’ve made the village get ready for the storm already, so no need to concern yourself about it. More importantly…”

The aged village chief fiddled with her white braided hair as she pulled up a hand drawn map of the village onto the table in front of her. Rethis stepped closer to inspect the map when the village chief tapped her finger onto a spot near the village border. That spot had nothing of note, unless you were looking for more trees or grass.

Before Rethis could ask what was wrong, the village chief answered his question.

“A labyrinth has formed.”