Solo Shapes in the Fog, Part II

[Erick Barnett]

23rd of Fall, 516AV Syliras Region, The Bronze Woods Morning ”Ser Erick?” Once again the voice from behind him drew Erick out from the recesses of his mind and back firmly into the seat of the saddle. The smells and sensations of the forest came flooding back to his consciousness all at once. Heavy ichor-drenched scent that clung to the dense fog, like fresh rain. Distant hum of insects. Aggravating moisture between his rear end and the saddle, rubbing just so with each awkward bump and turn. It was just as well. When guiding the horse in a relatively straight direction Erick didn’t really need to focus all that much, and that left far too much room for unpleasant memories to claw their way out from his subconscious. Voices of the dead. Sometimes they whispered delicately, sometimes they were Wailers. The squire rubbed his eyes a moment. He momentarily considered correcting the farmgirl in regards to his title for what had to be the eighteenth time since he had picked her up, but decided to save the energy. ”Aye, lass?” With a gentle tug on the reins, Erick guided the horse around a small rocky slope. ”Erm…” She paused a moment, shifting behind him. ”It’s just, I don’t mean to seem ungrateful or nothing, but…” Erick groaned. ”Out with it.” ”H… How much longer, d’you think it’ll take?” A reasonable question, given that they had already spent one night in the Bronze Woods. Erick had stayed up to keep watch on their makeshift camp, and although he was glad the horse had gotten some rest, he worried about his own mental opacity. Winds blew in from the north, shaking branches and swirling the mists around. From the corner of one’s eyes a trembling tree limb might have been the encroaching form of a predator closing in from behind the grey veil. Like so many ghostly fingers clinging lazily against the trunks of the trees as they wandered past, the shifting haze could play tricks on the sharpest mind. As another yawn pushed its way out of Erick’s throat, the knight-aspirant pulled on the reins to slow the horse down. ”Slow up there, girl. Steady now.” Once they had fully stopped, Erick pulled a single boot from it’s stirrup and swung off the mare, before offering Julie a hand in dismounting. The farmgirl accepted, grunting softly as Erick placed her on the ground, her eyebrows pulled tightly down on the ridge of her forehead, which was caked with mud, much like the rest of her. ”...Ser Erick?” Erick gently ran a hand through the horse's mane, leading her to a nearby tree and tying the reins to it. ”I wish I could say, lass. I-” ”Julie!” He froze a moment, craning his neck around to peer quizzically at her. ”...Hm?” The girl had her arms folded over her chest, her lips pursed tightly. ”You keep calling me ‘lass’. I already told you my name!”

[Erick Barnett]

”I suppose you have.” Erick shrugged, walking the forest floor around the tree he had tethered his mount to, combing the ground for stones as he spoke. Each time a decent sized one caught his eye, he bent over to grab it. ”But then again, I’ve told you numerous times that it’s just Erick, not Ser Erick. Hasn’t stopped you yet.” ”What are you doing?” She continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. ”Gathering stones.” It was the kind of answer Erick’s patron would have given, now coming out of his mouth without his even meaning too. He resisted the urge to smirk. ”I can see that.” Judging by the tone in her voice, she was not as amused by this response as Erick was. ”I meant, why?” ”Well, as it happens, we’re probably going to have to stay another night out here.” Picking up one final stone, the knight-aspirant carefully came to kneel by the farmgirl, and set the pile of rocks down by here. ”Toward that end, I need you to assemble a fire pit for me. Alright?” Nodding slowly, and wrapping herself tighter in the cloak Erick had lended her, she knelt down by the rocks. ”Uhm...How d’you s’pose I go about doing that?” Erick folded his arms over his chest, eyeing her warily.. ”Weren’t you watching me last night?” The farmgirl shook her head softly. ”...Begging your pardon, Ser. I was… Thinking.” Julie quickly had tucked her chin down against her collarbone and pulled Erick’s cloak up around her even tighter, shortly shielding her face from sight. But he had caught the look in her eyes just before. The same look she had in her eyes when he found her. He knew it all too well. Thinking is it? Hmph. Remembering, more likely... Poor girl. He had no way of communicating his understanding to her even if he had desired too, but he understood. Perhaps better than most. He hastily began speaking again, eager to change the subject. ”Well, while you get to making that firepit, I’m going to have a look around.” Erick retrieved his Longbow from the Saddlebags, and begun to string it. First the top loop, then, gently bracing the bottom of the bow against the heel of his boot to hold it steady, pulled the string down to loop the second. Standing up straight again he deftly plucked at the string a few times, giving a satisfied nod. ”I’ll find some kindling while I’m out, too. Might even bag us some dinner if I’m lucky.” ”Are we out of rations?” He shook his head. ”Not yet, but I’d rather save them for when, and if, we need them. If I can’t find anything to eat, we’ll dip into them further.” He pulled his waterskin off his pack and knelt by Julie, who had already picked a decently edged rock and begun to diligently dig through the dirt with it, and offered it to her. ”I’m also going to try and find a place to refill this. We’d last longer without food than we would without water.”

[Erick Barnett]

She took it, eagerly draining the last of its meager contents into her mouth, and letting out a sharp gasp as the contents cleared her tonsils. As she handed him the waterskin, a weak smile crept across her face. ”Bein’ surrounded by all this fog, reminds me of that old Zeltivan saying.” Erick carefully secured the waterskin to his pack. ”What’s that?” ”Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” ”Huh.” He chuckled as he stood back up. ”Well, let's just hope you and I get our sea legs soon.” As he began to walk away, he left foot caught and he narrowly avoided faceplanting against the cold dampness of the forest floor. Erick jerked his head back to see Julie had grabbed him by the leg of his trousers. ”...You’ll come back soon right?” The irritation that had started to cloud up his face as he nearly tripped, rapidly melted. He wished he had a spare weapon to leave her with while he was gone, but he needed his bow to hunt, and parting with his longsword wasn’t something he’d consider. Not like she would have known how to use it anyways. She hesitantly reached over, and softly took his hand. His gnosis had begun to light up, a lone point of color against the grey backdrop of the fog, growing rapidly darker as night began to encroach. She turned her gaze down to it, staring at it with large, enraptured eyes. ”It’s so pretty.” She breathed. The squire grinned. ”It is.” He pulled his hand away from her, but the glow persisted, brightening the girl's face, casting long shadows on the tree trunks behind her . ”I’ll be back before you know it. “ She nodded slowly, staring at the radiant mark on his hand a moment longer, before locking eyes with him. Large, crystalline blue things, both beautiful and innately pitiable. ”Promise?” Securing his bow on his back, Erick nodded shortly. ”Squire’s honor. You just focus on getting that firepit ready.” Retrieving his eating knife from his pack, he leaned over to secure it firmly inside his left boot, and then began to walk into the fog - in the same direction they had been heading before they stopped. He walked slowly and deliberately, taking care to place his steps as evenly as he could manage, counting out each one. After twenty some odd paces, he stopped and drew the knife from his boot, turning to a nearby tree and diligently carving a symbol into it - a simple curved line, nothing most would notice, but distinct enough that it would in theory give him a guide on his way back. He continued this way for some time, though the exact amount eluded him. Something about the mist had eroded his sense of time, like waves lapping against the shores of his mind. He could only measure the length of his walk by the number of trees he had marked. Count twenty paces, stop, and mark. He tried to move quietly - it was easy enough to do, as keeping his paces even already required each step to be slow and exact. Each time he lowered his boot he made a point to feel if anything were beneath it before dedicating his full weight to the step. The snap of a stray twig or an errant leaf might be enough to spook away any prey he would be lucky enough to encounter.

[Erick Barnett]

I’m not a hunter. How am I going to find game in these conditions? Between stopping to carve his puzzling little runes into the occasional tree trunk, he used his mark to cast a light against the mists, although it did little to help him see. Tracks on the ground, Dung, perhaps. He kicked himself for not having already made the initiative to seek out someone to truly teach him these sorts of things. It seemed silly, given how much time he seemed fated to spend out in these woods, that he would be so inept at surviving within them. Just one skill to pursue, assuming he made it out of here alive. He wasn’t just looking for fauna to slay, of course. Occasionally, after stopping to carve a mark, he would hop up, deftly snatching a low hanging tree branch and breaking it off with his bodyweight on the way back down, before shoving it into his pack. The mist, as Julie had pointed out, was essentially just floating water. It coated most everything in a thin layer of slickness, like beads of sweat, but the soil on the forest floor was where much of the moisture ended up settling. Any tinder taken from the ground would almost assuredly be too wet to burn - but Erick hoped that wood gathered from above would fare better. Still, most of the tree branches he saw were far too girthy for him to have a chance at easily breaking it off, but he kept his eyes open all the same. Even more importantly, however, he was looking for one very crucial thing: water. He still had five days worth of his rations left - less than three when being split between two people. But water was even more crucial.The lack of it, mixed with how long it’d been since he slept, made everything seem distant and surreal, like he wandered through a dream. He found himself nearly tripping on more than one occasion as he failed to notice a particularly exposed root gnur or jutting stone before it caught on his boots. Eventually one of these spiteful crooks did catch him totally unawares, and whipping around with a hysterical flail of his arms, his back slammed into the trunk of a nearby tree. ”Oof!” He paused a moment, eventually sliding down it and resting into a sitting position. He retrieved his waterskin again, staring at it for a moment before bringing it up to his lips and squeezing. Nothing. Not even a single drop. He groaned, letting his arms drop limply to his sides and closing his eyes, resting his head against the trunk of the tree. He knew it was futile, but he had still tried it. He was so very dry. He was thankful he wasn’t wearing any armor, as otherwise he likely would have passed out some time ago. He slowly forced his eyes open, his head listing lazily to one side to allow him to stare down at his right hand, laying limply against the ground. As the light from his gnosis caught his eyes, he took a deep breath, and held it a moment.

[Erick Barnett]

With a sharp exhale, he slowly pushed himself off the tree. He then turned around to it, now kneeling, and whipped the knife back up from his boot. Leaning in, he began to etch another long, arching curved line, similar to the others he had left before. This time, though, he didn’t stop there. Flipping the blade around he dug it into the bark again, connecting the arch at the bottom with a straight line. Hmm. He turned the blade up now, cutting a new line straight through the center of the shape he had made. Finally, he carefully etched two smaller circles on either side of the line - and then pulled the knife away, studying the engraving. A crude, basic door. Beneath it, he began to carve again. There was no conscious thought process to it - words came to him, and immediately his hand moved. After a tick or two, he tucked the eating knife back into his boot. Just below the door, the words read thusly: True strength lies in continuing to walk the path, even when you cannot see where it ends. Erick bowed his head deeply. I know that wherever you slumber, Lord Aquiras, you watch over us as we brave these woods. Thank you. He remained there a moment longer, before thoughts of Julie, her bright blue eyes wide with terror, brought him back to his feet. He glanced down at his right hand again - the mark on the back of his palm notably more luminous than it had been. It hit his face, and washed across his body like a warm tide, cleansing the fatigue from his mind as it receded once more. With a curt nod, Erick turned, angling himself in the direction he had been walking, and pressing forward. As he finished carving a quick mark into another tree, he paused. There was something special about dense fogs like the one that had fallen across Syliras that seemed to distort sounds that passed through it, choking distant ones nearly into oblivion just as it did the light from the sky. But he was certain he could pick it up, ever so faintly, in the distance. Just to be certain, Erick held his breath, so that nothing but the sounds of the forest and his own beating heart would be in his ears. Sounds like water. It was too faint to pick out a direction easily. Little more than a distant murmur. Erick peered around himself a tick, before his eyes fell upon an exposed cluster of roots poking up from the cold dirt behind him. He carefully put one boot up on the widest part of it he could see, bracing against the tree with his hands as he pulled himself up onto it. There was a branch thick enough to support his weight, but it was just a little too high to jump too from the ground. So, balancing with deep trepidation on the edge of the roots, he bent at the knees just a moment, and then sprang up and forward, throwing his hands up for the branch.

[Erick Barnett]

He felt his fingertips brush against the bottom just a moment. Then, came the explosion of pain as he collided with the ground, his forehead bouncing off another large, gnarled root that jutted from the damp ground, creating a small ridge in the dirt. Just the right spot for Erick to have rammed his head into. He squire groaned, resting his hand on forehead as he lay there a moment. He could almost hear Eliza’s mocking laughter in the back of his mind. Such grace. Using the roots as a handhold, he pulled himself first back to a sitting position, from which he rose to a single knee. He pulled his hand off his head, inspecting it for blood. Nope. It’ll leave one hell of a bump though. With a sharp grunt he was back to his feet. Diligently he stepped back over to the lifted cluster of roots, pulling himself back up onto them and carefully balancing himself as he stared up at the branch a moment. He quickly went through the motion in his head again. He was a little too big be very aerodynamic, so it helped to picture exactly what he needed his body to do. Bend at the knees, coil the body back, and launch forward. One quick motion - the moment he started it, if he didn’t release immediately, his balance would falter and down he would go again. And as much as Erick enjoyed a challenge, this situation was difficult enough, sans a serious head injury. Alright tree. Prepare to be climbed. He launched himself from the roots again, hands sprawled out overhead, desperately searching for something to grasp onto. This time, he just barely managed to wrap a lone hand around the branch. He grunted as he caught himself, his entire weight momentarily suspended by just his left arm. Gritting his teeth and beginning to growl under his breath, he forced himself up, a centimeter at a time - desperately pushing to get his other hand up over the branch. Just one more push. Don’t give out on me now body. With another long groan that eventually crescendoed into a roar as he made it up the last inch. With both hands gripping the branch, Erick swung a leg up and over, and finally pulled himself all the way up. He immediately leaned back against the truck, closing his eyes as the world began to spin and tilt around him in nauseatingly disparate directions. His breath came in rough, uneven puffs. I need a vacation. The gentle babble of the nearby water source still pricked at his ears ever so softly, and once his vision had stopped tumbling and his heartbeat wasn’t quite as thunderous, he carefully began to make his way up the tree. The concentration of thick branches near the top was more than adequate, so that the task wasn’t terribly difficult, but given how tired he was, Erick made each step up very slowly and methodically. He wanted to get down on his own terms, when he was ready - not take the short way.

[Erick Barnett]

Panting softly, he pushed through the bottom of the canopy and poked his head up, now at the tallest branch he could safely support his weight on. Letting out a contented sigh, he began to peer around. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting to see. Water generally only made noise when it was flowing, and a large enough flowing body of water would naturally require a break in the canopy - one that hopefully would be noticeable even in this dense fog, from this height at the very least. Perhaps he had come across the Avitar River. It would mean they had been going very much in the wrong direction, but at the very least, could follow it to the Eastern road. The thought made his heart swell with determination. It was a feeling that was crushed almost immediately. Looming overhead in the distance was the oppressive outlines of the Cobalt Mountains. A hiding ground for bandits and feral Zith, among other things. More importantly, a sign that they had been riding North the entire time. Erick had originally been headed North when he had broke from the road to rescue Julie from… Whatever it was that had happened to her before, but had assumed that he had gotten turned away from that direction while speeding through the woods. Apparently not all that much. Erick held his face in his hands, slowly shaking his head. Okay. Think positive. What’s the silver lining here? Once he returned to ‘camp’, they would only need to reverse direction to find their way home, since they had been going north all this time. But still, Erick had a more immediate concern. It was likely that the faint flowing he could still hear was just a creek, not something big enough that he would be able to spot it from up here. The logistics of one more day without water - which is what it would take to get back to the Eastern road, at least - were less than appealing. He considered a moment. If they had been going north this whole time, it would be easier to get back on the Kabrin then to double back and head south to road that ran to Zeltiva. He glanced around. That would require heading west, which was hard to discern, but if he could manage it, they might find out of the safehouses along the road. It would be a welcome boone.

[Erick Barnett]

Slowly, Erick began to make his way back down, the same way he had ascended the tree - branch by branch. By the time he reached the branch he had first used as an entry point to climbing the rest of them, he sat down on it, legs hanging off the side as he stared down at the forest floor, motionless. No safe, easy route back down was readily obvious to him as he studied the area around the base of the tree. Logic would seem to dictate he should jump back to the root cluster he had used as a stepping point to jump up here. But a trained acrobat, he was not. And landing on so meager a target was likely just as foolish an idea as trying to just jump straight down. Straight down from this height was unlikely to kill him, but it could sprain or break something - which could kill him out here. Not like he could expect Julie to come find him and drag him back to the castle. There was another branch beneath him he could attempt to climb too. But he hesitated, for the same reason he had been reluctant to try and use it to try and get to the top of the tree; A rowboat was as likely to support the weight of a Jamoura as that tiny thing was to support Erick. The Squire sighed. I can probably do it. I just need to be gentle. He nodded, and slowly slid himself forward in his seated position, hanging with his feet dangling just over the thinner branch a moment. Just need… To lower my weight… Slowly… With a yelp, his fingers gave out, and his feet both at once collided with the branch. Predictably, there was a loud, dull snap as it gave out, doing very little to slow his descent. As he hit the ground he lurched forward, a sharp gasp being emitted from his lips as he rolled along the ground, the impact knocking the wind out of him. Rolling a few more meters, eventually he came to a rest, face down on the forest floor. The roll had been more on instinct than anything else, but it had saved his legs from the brunt of the fall. It still hurt though. Shakily his arms pressed against the ground and he carefully pushed himself back to his feet, nearly collapsing. His legs could both take weight still, so there was that. He carefully brushed some of the dirt and leaves that his clothes had picked up upon landing away, wincing as he became keenly aware of the bruise that was now likely forming up the entire right side of his body on which he had landed. Perfect. Eliza had told him in his early years that pain was the best teacher. Suppose I ought to leave tree climbing to the cats. He still was determined to find wherever the sound of water was coming from. Since he couldn’t see it, he would have to play it by ear. He took ten paces north - toward where he had seen the jagged form of the mountains in the distance - and with each step, listened. The sound grew fainter, and so he reversed. Another ten paces back to where he started, then the opposite direction, ten more paces. The sound grew steadily louder.

[Erick Barnett]

”Aha!” The moment he spotted it, he broke into a jog, and fell to his knees as he reached it. It was a pathetic thing, really. A meager brook, barely still able to flow so clogged with leaves and debris as it was. Likely an offshoot of something larger somewhere else, running down from the mountains. Erick didn’t care though. The sight of it made his mouth almost ache. He eagerly scooped several handfuls up into his mouth, before leaning over to place his entire face right up against the stream, letting it run straight into his mouth. The squire yanked his head back up, his face twisting as he began to cough and spit, a leaf having found its way into his mouth. Pulling it from between his teeth, he briefly contemplated it, before tossing it aside. Pulling his waterskin from his pack, he filled it to brim, and then, taking one more mouthful for himself, he stood back up, and counted ten paces back the way he had came. From there, it was a simple task of following his own trail. The marks were twenty paces each apart, and so he kept counting. If he were to go twenty paces and then not be able to spot the mark he had left, he would know he had veered off course. He kept looking up for more tinder, and the occasionally snapped tree branch overhead also was an indicator that he was on the right track. As he came across the Door sigil he had carved, the squire paused a moment. Lord Aquiras. He glanced down at the waterskin still in his hand, and smiled. Thank you. Then, Erick froze. There it was again. A scream, cutting through the blankets of grey haze like a dagger. Echoing between the trees and ringing in the ears. When he had heard it the first time along the Kabrin, he had doubted momentarily if he had actually heard it. But this time, after just one tick of stillness, he flew into action. He waterskin tucked back into his pack, he took off at a sprint. A thousand possibilities for what could be going wrong rushed through his head. Bear attack. Bandits. Slavers. Zith. He needn’t have pondered very long, as another sound began to rise to a crescendo. It wasn’t too common a noise, but one he had heard before. ”YUUK! YUUUUUUUUUUUK!” High pitched shrills, from multiple directions. Like sardonic laughter of the insane. Some rose in pitch, some fell, but each seemed to have an echo from another source somewhere within the distant mists. As he ran, Erick pulled his shield from his back, and drew his sword, his face twisted into a permanent scowl. Yukmen. And by the sound of it, plenty of them.