NOT THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

26 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, CONTINUED

"We're off to see the Warlock! The wonderful warlock called Fount!" I sang as we continued our way through the forest. We did come to a hidden magic path, but I followed my lucky sense of direction and managed to avoid it. I didn't feel like this path was heading the way we wanted to go.

It turned out to be trickier to avoid a magic path than get onto it. It was a little like jumping rope, you just needed to find the right opening and step over quickly. We nearly lost River, but I had expected him to trip or something so I had looked back at just the right moment, and I managed to yell, "Grab him, Ki!"

And Ki was quick enough to grab River by his scuff and we all jumped over the hidden path without getting caught in it.

"Pardon, young prince." Ki smiled and set River back down on his feet.

The rest of us grinned as River righted himself. The mood had been pretty good since I've started "impersonating Wolfgang." It turned out to be pretty fun, I could scold the boys honestly for every annoyance that popped up in my head, and they would laugh. I didn't have all that much material to work with though. I'm not sure how Wolfgang managed to be himself all day, but after scolding them about being too useless to keep their horses and then making Ki and I have to come to their rescue, I pretty much stopped feeling annoyed.

The boys had to help by providing me more material to work on. This was easily done by them retelling me how they ended up from a pond to the inside of a nest of gyaara. This gave me another two minutes of material to fume over.

"Only fools would enter and explore strange caves without prior preparation!" I scolded.

"But my stone..." River tried to explain for the umpteenth time.

"And you're worse than a fool to blindly follow a stupid stone! Keep in mind that this stone belongs to the Warlock - it could be leading your astray for all you know." I didn't even let Wilhelm off, "And you! You're the adult! Why are you following these two dumb kids?"

"Wow..." River marveled, "How did you know Wolfgang always says that too?"

OMG. I was just speaking from something called common sense.

Anyway, I got tired of scolding them soon enough, and I had to pay attention to the forest around me. It sounded like a perfectly natural forest here, and besides the smell of warlock magic permeating the air, the rest of it smelled healthy and natural too.

Looking around, it was hard not to notice how beautiful the trees were here, their reds and yellows in the bright and golden afternoon sunlight. The leaves made soft rustling sounds as we walked on them. It wasn't exactly a yellow brick road, at this point it was more of a yellow leaf road. Anyway, I felt inspired enough to sing, "Follow the yellow leaf road..."

River groaned, "Sam... where do you get the energy?"

Hm? I turned around to check on the party behind me. They had been quiet for the last part of our trek. They looked pretty bushed.

"Do you guys need a break?" I suddenly remembered that I was travelling with humans again. I'm not sure why I kept forgetting.

"I need water!" Keanu said.

I sniffed the air. I had smelled water somewhere...

"There should be water nearby," Ki smelled it too, "Should I go check it out, goddess?"

I nodded, "Yes, please. We'll wait here."

The humans flopped on the ground. River leaned against a tree. Didn't he know he would leave his scent on the tree that way? Not that we were expecting to be tracked down really... I looked at the trail of stepped on leaves we had left behind us, forget it. It might be good if we left the trial - maybe one of our own would be able to find us.

At any rate, it didn't feel like there was anything predatory here in the Warlock Lands. I guess the Warlock was the Boss Monster here. The others were just small minions. Even the Rogue King turned out to be just Roy. Wow. Nothing about my adventure was going the way I had expected it to. I guess real life was unpredictable like that.

Ki came back with good news. There was a fresh water spring nearby. The water was good for drinking. Yay! Especially since our supplies had exploded with our motorbike. I should've at least tried to retrieve them - and here I was scolding River and Keanu for being dum dums! I wasn't much better myself.

Anyway, we followed Ki to the spring. Yay! Fresh water! The spring came out of a small mountain of rocks somehow connected to the cliff wall - I can't believe we walked all this way and were still just brushing past the side of the giant cliff!

It was quite a large spring, and the water pooled around it to form a pond of some sort. It even had lily pads and really strange fish.

"Its Koi." Ki informed me.

I watched fascinated at the golden and red fish swimming in the water. Around us were autumn trees, their leaves in the same colors.

"This is..." Wilhelm stopped in astonishment as he looked around, "This was where we had landed!"

"Ehhhh????" River and Keanu exclaimed.

"I did think it looked familiar." Keanu admitted.

"I can't believe we walked all this way to come back to square one!" River complained.

"I can't believe you had to lead Keanu and Wilhelm into that cave when the Warlock Tower was just here!" I scolded.

"Ehhhh???" The two boys exclaimed again.

I pointed past the trees to a white stone tower with a blue tiled roof sticking out from the trees on the other side.

"I was quite sure that wasn't there earlier." Wilhelm looked puzzled.

"Are you sure we were here?" Keanu asked.

"Maybe we were just at another pond that looked exactly like this one?" River asked weakly.

Yeah, like there were lots of ponds with a small rock waterfall and wild koi in colors perfectly matched to the autumn trees around it.

Ki had climbed over to the rocks with some leaves. He folded one into a cone to collect water from the mouth of the spring and came back to my side with it, "Please, goddess."

"Oh. Thanks Ki." I took the leaf cone of water and drank, "Wow, this is really good water."

Either that or I was really thirstier than I thought.

I looked longingly at the water. I was hot and sweaty. Maybe, just maybe, I could go shift into my wolf and splash and drink all I want!

Wilhelm checked one of the trees, "It's definitely the same pond. I remembered Prince River's horse had broken a branch when it bolted."

Yeah, it must have really wanted to get away.

Ki had gone to collect more leaf cones of water.

"Ah thanks!" River said when he received one.

"Cheers!" Ki smiled his beautiful smile as he handed one to Wilhelm. He drank from his own cone.

"Ah thank you, beta. Cheers." Wilhelm answered, breaking out from his initial frowning at the tree.

And then Ki returned to my side with another two cones of water.

"Thanks." I said and gulped down the first one.

I shook my head at the second one, "You drink it, Ki."

I wasn't thirsty anymore, but the water still tasted so good, almost sweet like... I suddenly remembered the water my wolf drank from Heller's fountain. There was magic in this water. Not warlock magic though... more like Mountain magic.

How did it get here?

"Sam, let's go." River said. He was clutching his stone and looking up at the cone shaped top of the Warlock's Tower. There was no mistaking it. The large knot of magic where it smelled like all the warlock magic was flowing from - it was just in front of us.

"We're off to see the Warlock..." I sang to myself.

"Hurry, guys!" River started towards the tower.

"Don't you think we should let Sam lead?" Keanu asked, "I really don't want to end up in that cave again, River."

"Fine. Hurry up, Sam!" River called.

Seriously? Who yelled at the alpha to hurry up? I flared, "You guys need a revise your manners!"

The guys laughed.

"Are we playing that again?" Keanu asked.

"Who's playing?" I stormed over.

"Wow, I wonder what it'll be like if you and Wolfgang talked to each other." River said.

"That might be interesting." Keanu agreed.

"They might end up fighting though..." River worried, "Wolfgang's temper is quite explosive."

Eh, I might get to fight a fire wolf?

"OK!" I punched my fist into the air, "Let's get this over with, go home, and I'll talk to Wolfgang!"

"Her energy..." Keanu shook his head, "It's really unfaltering."

"Must be nice being a wolf." River said somewhat wistfully.

"Apologies," Wilhelm said to Ki as they took our rear, "I hope you do not take offense, beta. My prince and Keanu are young and playful."

Ki smiled back like a flower to the sun, "Don't worry about it, Will. My goddess enjoys playing with them. There is no offense taken."

Who was playing? Me? I was just venting my general annoyance and... well, I wasn't not having fun. Okay, fine. I was having fun. For a mission that had been broken and scattered right from the onset, it had been pretty fun since we met up. How did Ben like it say it? At least it wasn't boring.