Onto the City of Veland

The next day Draven woke up to the scene of roasting meat. The nightmare he was having kept his mind from resting. At least his body got the rest it desperately needed. He opened his eyes to see Margoth's ethereal figure drooling. Draven had seen the sight way too many times than he liked. But Draven wondered why he was making this face now as they had no one to kill and absorb their soul unless Margoth was drooling at Sarah's soul. That didn't seem like the case as he was inhaling the sweet smell of roasting meat.

"What's going on?" he rose up from the flat stone lab he called bed and saw Sarah roasting a huge chunk of meat over the campfire.

She bent over, sprinkling salt and some herbs onto the roasting meat,

"That looks juicy," Margoth commented. For a moment Draven was confused as if he was making a comment about the meat or Sarah's butt.

Soon she even started to hum some tunes while roasting the meat

"Breakfast ready"

"LET'S GO, MOVE YOUR BUTT!" Margoth shouted at him with his demonic voice,

His body jolted up without his control. Margoth took over his legs for a brief moment. Since Margoth and he shared a special bond, Margoth could momentarily take control of Draven's body but the control wouldn't last longer than several seconds.

He walked toward the fireplace. He had to give it to her whatever she was doing, it smelled really good.

"Take a seat near the fire. I'll stoke it a bit"

The Sarah he saw yesterday was the exact opposite of the Sarah in front of his eyes. She was lively, cheery, and didn't seem like the one who got kidnapped.

"You're awfully cheery," Draven remarked. His voice was neither friendly nor too cold; rather it was emotionless. He sat beside the fire and looked at the morning sun rays coming through the waterfall.

Using an arrow Draven took from the triplets yesterday, Sarah cut the meat into long thin slices. She took a large leaf in the shape of a circle and handed it over to Draven before placing the hot slices of meat on the leaf.

"Well if you are kidnapped and don't see a way out, make yourself at home and ride it out. What else can I do?"

"Hmm" Draven nodded.

"After you finish eating, we should move out of the cave" Sarah talked while eating her piece of the meat,

A frown emerged on Draven's face,

"Why?"

"For one, we are in the middle of nowhere. Second, there are no UFH substations in the near vicinity. If you want me to hijack their server crystals, I need to be relatively closer to them" explained Sarah,

"Server crystals? What are those?"

Margoth had little to no knowledge about Etheria. Although he was one of the ancient gods who created the worlds, his memories had deteriorated due to the long slumber.

Sarah still looked afraid of Margoth's freaky ethereal form, still she managed to speak without stuttering.

"Give him the short version please," Draven said before she commenced a lecture on how the crystal servers work in detail. Margoth wouldn't get that anyway and not because he was dumb, but because Margoth was too lazy to care about the details of the crystal servers.

"The short version hmm" Sarah took a moment to boil down her knowledge into short version,

"The UFH stores their information in a secured crystal mountain. If someone on the other side of the world wants to access the information, it'd be impossible for them to establish a connection with the source. That's where the substations come into the picture. They have what we call substation crystals in them which take information from the source and distribute it to anyone who requests it. Of course, there are so many things at work"

"Yeah yeah, we need to be closer to the substation to hijack information. Got it" Marogoth looked already bored by her simple explanation. Imagine if she started to give him the longer version, he would have been entered into eternal slumber once again.

"Also I need equipment, you can't expect me to hijack the most secured crystals in the world using sticks and stones. Those jerks seized all of my state of the art equipment"

"Is there anywhere we can get them for free because in case you haven't noticed, we are broke"

The old Draven would have said 'Dude you are embarrassing me in front of a chick'

The current Draven however had an expressionless face. It was extremely hard for anyone to read what he was thinking.

"I should take on quests in the adventurer's guild" Sarah was taken aback by surprise. In Etheria, those who received the blessings of powers were called 'Gifted Ones' in general. In day-to-day life, people faced several threats that weren't directly caused by a supervillain. These threats were handled by trained people who did not have any superpowers. These people were called 'The adventurers' and the place they would take on quests was called 'The adventurers guild'

"You look surprised," Margoth asked Sarah after seeing the sudden change in her facial expression.

"You're a gifted one. If you take on a quest in adventures guild…" Sarah's voice trailed away,

"There is no rule against gifted ones taking quests. We need etherials and this is the quickest way to earn them"

The meat slices floated towards Draven's mouth. Since Draven and Margoth shared a symbiotic relationship, Draven had to eat for both him and Margoth. Even though Margoth lacked a physical body, he still had a hunger for souls and tasty foods.

"If the superheroes knew…" Sarah's voice turned into a whisper,

"I don't give a damn about them. Finish your breakfast, we are going to Veland's capital"

Margoth burped after Draven finished all the slices of meat on his leaf. Since they might spend the night in the city, Draven took a sack and put all the weapons he got from the triplets into it.

He planned to sell them in the thieves guild to get some etherials. Meanwhile, Sarah put out the campfire and grabbed a dirty cloth to cover her face.

"Make note, we have to buy her clothes" Margoth whispered into Draven's ears,

"Aside from the blood stench coming from her clothes, she's standing out too much. You know the drill Draven, there will be always an asshole who wants to put-"

"I get it"

Draven knew staying anonymous and hidden wouldn't work for so long as they would eventually end up on UFH's radar. However, Draven wanted to prolong that until he locates those who murdered his family and absorbs the souls of the supervillains on his list.

Draven put the sack on his back before spreading open his wings. The sharp pain when the wings emerge from his back cutting open the muscles was somewhat eased a bit.

Sarah awkwardly stood at the cave mouth with a tinge of redness on her cheeks. When he approached her, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him.

"AH!"

Draven dashed out of the cave through the waterfall as Sarah squealed.

Meanwhile, in another cave similar to Draven's, a tall figure armored in black armor and cape stood before a gigantic mirror. He wore a mask that covered half of his face leaving only the mouth and chin exposed,

The images of Pigeon's dead body could be seen in the mirror,

"We have a new threat in Veland" the figure spoke in a raspy voice that wasn't as demonic and unearthly as Margoth's but didn't sound like a human either.