Ch. 38 Bickering

three days have passed since they left their camp and ventured forward with no supplies. Everyone was starting to get on edge from sleeping on hard ground and eating fish and berries every day. They were still about four days from the nearest town when Perish decided to continue her ranting to Windson and Peter about their incompetence that led them to this situation.

"If it weren't for you two disregarding my warnings we would still be sleeping in tents and eating more than just fish every day." Perish scolded them for the 100th time since they left the camp.

"We already said we were sorry what more do you want from us?" Windson said with a little irritation in his voice. He was getting tired of the berating from her. "I know we messed up already but complaining about it isn't going to fix things."

"Oh, yea? then what will smart guy?" Kaz was getting annoyed as well with their bickering and decided to step in finally.

"We need to just focus on getting through this. I know it's tough but we have to stick in there and just get to town." Kaz looked at both of them with a stern expression and they both grumbled a little before turning away from each other. Kaz looked back at the stream they were following and sighed. "I'm glad the stream leads directly to town or we might be lost without our map."

"The map that they lost." Perish mentioned casually with a hint of venom."

"What did I say Perish?" Kaz barked at her. Perish rolled her eyes and they continued forward. The next few days were the same as the last with only a little bickering with each other and complaining of the bland food. Even Sarah was starting to feel the fatigue of sleeping on the hard ground and complained a little. Though she quickly stopped when she realized what she was doing. For her, this was just another test to be reliable. She knew that in order to keep the group together the less bickering and complaining the better.

Peter was quiet and thinking to himself most of the time while traveling with them. He knew that it was mostly his fault that this happened and he quietly beat himself up for it while he took the insults from Perish. His curiosity cost them comfort and security and that was something he did not want to take away from Sarah. Sarah did notice that he was taking it kind of hard and tried his best to make him feel better but every word she said to him seemed to make him feel worse so she eventually stopped talking to him.

Avoiding eye contact with Perish, Windson kept to himself mostly. Occasionally talking with Peter to vent his frustrations about the situation. He saw Peter was not doing alright but did not prod too much. Knowing the kid probably blamed himself even though Windson was the one who actually pushed him to do it but he was not going to bring that up since he was already getting the brunt of Perish's words. His navigational skills served them well as they traveled the path towards town. He had the camps memorized and they were able to dodge them without the map pretty easily.

The lack of comfort and the irritation caused by their fumble made Perish furious with them. She could not stop thinking about it and the lack of decent sleep did not help matters. She knew Peter was not planning on killing the creature or at least he said so but it still did not matter. They completely disregarded her warning and now they paid the price. The only comfort she had was knowing they were about halfway to town and then she could have Peter work hard to buy all the materials they lost.

There was only one thing on Kaz's mind and that was the time limit to complete his mission. The lack of supplies meant they would have to spend even more time in town rebuilding what they lost and that meant less time in the monster's territory to start his tribe. He was already getting close to cutting it short and if these kinds of things kept happening then there would be no way for him to complete it. The cost for failure was a big one that he could survive from but it would cost him just about every point he had to do it and he would end up much weaker in the end.

The next few days were the roughest before the town. They were ragged and worn from the lack of sleep and the ability to properly wash their clothes. They looked like a bunch of street urchins when they arrived by the town. Perish, Windson and Kaz waited outside of town since they would only cause a ruckus if they entered and let Peter and Sarah go. Arriving at the gates the guards looked them over and saw the adventurer badges, if not for those they would probably of not even let them in due to their poor condition.

Getting into town was the hard part but finding work was going to be even harder for them. They needed to resupply as soon as possible and with their lack of skill in trades, it would mean they would probably be forced into basic labor jobs that paid small sums. Going from store to store they found that their appearance was holding them back from getting anything except a few coins here and there from people who mistook them for beggars.

Sarah thought of a good idea and decided to go to the local adventurer's pub to find work there. When they arrived they saw there was a poster seeking bodyguards for a caravan headed for the border. Thinking this was a perfect opportunity they quickly rushed over to where the Caravan was located outside of town and began their persuasion to join up.