Expedition I

Running away from a certain woman who does not respect personal boundaries, my mind trailed to the village trio…. My friends.

Patrick, Leo and Lester.

These three are quite different in almost all aspects, but it seems their unique differences were the ingredients necessary for their friendship to flourish.

Leo was headstrong, brave and strong willed. He was not too short, nor tall for his age, he was just right in that matter. He had fiery red hair and a fair complexion, enhancing his sea blue eyes and sword like eyebrows racked above his eyes.

Patrick however, was almost the complete opposite. The kid was tall and chubby, fat filling every corner of his body densely. While Patrick was shy in general and quite soft spoken, he was surprisingly adamant about being the front shield bearer; the tank. Ever since that night in the forest, he seemed to have a burning desire to protect. Protect Leo, protect Lester and even a desire to protect me and Eset.

Finally, Lester. That guy had quite the change over the months.

He wasn't the weakest link of the bunch anymore. Arguably, if we compare efficiency in group battle, then Lester would be on par with Leo. He was still a tad bit on the short side having a generally thin figure, but he hid incredible power behind those compact muscles.

Breaking me out of my thoughts was the commotion of clattering weapons in the distance.

As I got closer, I could feel my smile widen as it grasped the edges of my face. The boys could hear the boulder inch closer to them from across the meadow, their visages cracked excited smiles almost matching mine as they raised their weapons in the air.

Suddenly, without even the thinnest of smoky wisps, or the faintest of sound, an owl whose body was a canvas of stars, and temple a crown of antlers, appeared on my right shoulder.

Were it not for the threads of inconceivable Aeter floating around her position, then I would not have sensed her arrival.

'You still need more practice little birdie'

To encourage her to improve even more, and to mess with her of course,

I refused let her get one over me and gloat any stealthiness on her behalf, so before she could even speak into my mind, I turned my face to her still donning the manic smile, and turned it into a mocking grin, a grin meant only to tease her.

[DAMN IT! I thought I had you this time. Stupid Aeter sense…]

[No swearing Eset.] I teased, flicking her beak lightly.

[H-Hey! No DON'T touch my beak… besides you do it all the time]

Eset said the last part in a hushed manner, covering her face with her wings only peeking her eyes a tad bit.

[Well I'm different. You're a lady! You should be prim and proper] I spoke like a strict and upright sophisticated British noble.

Eset looked at me with an expressionless face- again not sure how that is possible, but I'm going to get over it someday- and stared.

We locked eyes in an awkward stare before we broke out in laughter

[HAHAAHAHAHAHAH]

[AHAHAHAHAHAHAH]

###

In front of a cave looking structure, I stood atop a rock and held my staff into the air as I screamed at the top of my lungs.

"Alright boys, this is it! This is what we've been training for.

BURN THE BOATS!"

My eyes bulged and my chest burned in excitement. This thrill, I've missed it. I've missed it so much!

And it seems I was not the only one brimming with adrenaline, my thirst for battle must have been contagious because these boys, these ten year old kids were looking at me with just as much craze as I was exuding.

"""BURN THE BOATS!""" They yelled all together.

At the time I did not realize, but maybe yelling in front of our enemies' cave was not the brightest of ideas?

'what's the worst that can happen?'

Having enough of the theatrics we got into formation and stepped into the cave, our heart beats seemingly echoing in the hollow structure.

We were in a tight four-man formation, navigating a den of wolves we tracked. These wolves were not only terrorizing the lumberjacks from the village, but also eating too many of old man Clarence's flock. There was something weird about their behavior, and we were going to get to the bottom of it.

'I mean who wouldn't? It's a fantasy world for gods' sake!!'

Leading our formation was Patrick with his heavy wooden war door. On his rear flanks were me and Leo, while Lester hung back with his bow and arrow at the ready.

Eset was, well you guessed it on my shoulder. And while it was not the best strategy per say, I couldn't convince her otherwise. What can you do, nothing beats a little sister's puppy eyes.

Patrick's shield was large, to say the least. It was a rectangular wooden shield with one powerful Sowilo {ϟ} rune etched in its center surrounded by three long and sharp iron spikes-curtsy of yours truly.

They were not easy to attach to the shield. I had to remake his old war door and mix the iron spikes with the process of manipulating wood from plant magic.

'Quite tedious, but oh well.'

Finally, a last accessory was an assortment of Uruz {П} runes etched around the shield to provide more security.

Although none of the boys could use their magic properly, I was able to teach them how to infuse Aeter into the rune, which was not the hardest thing I tried teaching them.

Taking my eyes off Patrick's back my thoughts trailed to Leo, the boy whose head caught fire.

Leo was holding his father's short steel sword, a cross blade, and a hectare shield. The hectare shield was enhanced with many runes I painstakingly etched. A mixture of Uruz {П} and Sowilo {ϟ} runes; five Sowilo runes on the shield's five edges and one Uruz on its center. The wooden shield could only withstand so many runes- although extremely rudimentary- was because I enhanced it with my plant magic, as wood is part of plants and all. It was similar to augmentation, but permanent, seeing as my magic was directly tied to the nature of this shield, and intent played a big part in that.

For armor, he was wearing some rough leather armor I put together for him and the two other boys. Although rough looking, it gets the job done.

Finally, there was Lester.

He did not have any fancy equipment, yet he was arguably the deadliest out of the bunch. For this expedition I added on Sowilo {ϟ} rune to his bow in order to enhance visibility, but other than that he did not have any complicated gear on.

With that, we started what would be our parties first adventure.

To many more