Dragon Sighting

While Elin had been skeptical at Jonas' insistence and when the supplies would arrive, she had to admit that there were a few MP potions among the supplies when they did arrive around the middle of the day. Though, she wasn't that surprised at the king having been the one to have sent them. Though, she hadn't expected so many to fill a wagon alone.

Yet, it did at least allow her to finish treating the rest of Kim's army for the parasites. Then she used her magic to see if her Assess spell would pick up anything like the 'eggs' Jonas had speculated about earlier.

Then when she was satisfied that it didn't pick up anything on her, she started having the entire camp come through so she could make sure that everyone was checked. Then when she was done with them, she would then use her Resotre Drain spell on them, to hopefully restore any intelligence that had been 'devoured' by the parasites, if they had been a host. Which she couldn't remember who had or hadn't.

She hadn't expected to find anything, and so was surprised to find that ten of the people who she was pretty sure had been the most affected by the devourers came up as 'infected hosts' when Elin used Assess on them.

Yet, while when she first saw it, she felt a surge of panic, but a simple extra does of her Treat spell removed that condition. Letting her breath a sigh of relief.

When that was taken care of, she then let Jonas and Kim know about the results. Which she was happy to know that she wasn't going to be spending her every waking moment regenerating her MP just so she could use it to continue to use her magic on people waiting in quarantine just for her to remove a parasite that they couldn't be sure wouldn't spread if left alone.

Plus, now she could spend more time with Kim when they went to bed, since she didn't need to wear her MP restoring dress when she slept as well. Which she was certainly looking forward to doing that night.

"Well, if that's all taken care of, we should be able to leave in the morning then," Jonas said, when Elin finished reporting that she'd finished treating everyone who had been infected by the parasites as well as checking everyone to see if they'd had 'eggs' laid in them.

"Why wait until morning?" Elin asked, ready to start moving again, which she was pretty sure that Elmo and Kim were itching to continue moving as well.

"Because I'm sure it would be good for morale of Kim's Army to wait until everyone had finished recovering from the parasites," Jonas explained.

"I wish you'd stop calling it 'my' army," Kim complained, looking rather annoyed, though Elin was at least glad her annoyance wasn't directed at her.

"If you'd rather have it called something else, I'm open to suggestions," Jonas replied. "I just call it that because that's what those in your army are calling it."

"Ugh," Kim said, though Elin wasn't sure what the problem was.

She herself wouldn't mind having an army of her own. Even a small one like this would be nice. Aside from an added complication about the challenges being made a little trickier due to them not allowed to get direct help from the people of this world on the challenges, which wasn't exactly clear as to Elin about how that worked, not that she thought Kim, Jonas, or Elmo understood any more than she did about the issue.

Elin waited, but neither Kim nor Jonas said anything more, and Elin couldn't help but wonder if maybe Kim was trying to think of what other name to give her army. Although, she wasn't sure what name she might give it herself if it was hers.

"Well, if you're not going to give a suggestion about it, then should we move on?" Jonas asked.

"Whatever," Kim merely replied, sounding to Elin like she wasn't happy, though she suspected that Kim wasn't happy simply because of the issue about her army was brought up.

"So, was there anything else-" Jonas started to ask when a ground shaking roar was heard.

Elin turned to look at the entrance to the tent, unsure if she should leave the tent or if it was somehow safer in there. It was a loud roar, but somehow it didn't sound threatening. More like a warning or something.

"If it's not one thing, it's another," Jonas grumbled, stalking towards the entrance to the tent.

"Stick with me, my gem," Kim said a step behind Jonas. "Whatever it is, I'll make sure you stay safe."

Elin nodded, suddenly feeling safer already, even though she could still feel her heart pounding from the fright she'd gotten from the roar.

As they left the tent, Elin wasn't surprised to see so much activity in the camp. Many were running around, though Elin couldn't really tell if they were doing so with a purpose or if they were panicking themselves. For herself, if she didn't have Kim here and was running around, she knew that she'd be in a state of panic right then.

Jonas grabbed a hold of someone as they started to run past him. "What's going on? What was that roar about?" he asked, though Elin suspected the guy didn't know anything about that.

The man merely shook his head. "I have no idea," he said, his tone shaking almost as bad as his hands. "I was merely told to get those resting ready to move in case we need to evacuate."

Jonas nodded as he let go of the man and looked around, this time a little more slowly. The man ran off, though Elin wasn't sure if there was a place that people would be gathering, at least other than where the man said he had been heading. As she hadn't been able to identify a direction the roar came from. It had felt like it was coming from every direction, so she couldn't say where the danger might actually be.

"Let's try that way," Jonas said, indicating the west, which Elin had to admit was the closest side of the camp that they were on, so it might give them a better view of things, although she also couldn't help but note that the west side of their camp was also where the largest amount of trees were.

"Any idea where Elmo is?" Kim asked as they started moving again.

"Not a clue," Jonas replied, not slowing down. "I'm sure he's around the camp somewhere though."

"Will he be alright?" Elin couldn't help but ask.

"He'll be fine," Jonas replied dismissively.

Elin wished that she was as sure as Jonas, but she didn't feel like arguing. Or even expressing her doubts. She merely hoped that Jonas was right and that Elmo would either turn out to be fine or would meet up with them as they tried to figure out what the roar had been about.

When they reached the edge of the camp, Elin couldn't help but notice how deserted that part had been. While she hadn't expected there to be many people there, she still at least expected some. Even though she didn't know what they might have been doing in this part of the camp.

"You sure the sound came from here?" Kim asked when there wasn't anything to be seen.

"Yes, it came from over here," Jonas replied. "I don't think whatever it is wants to attack, but I can't tell if it's approaching because it's scared or if it's telling us to leave its territory."

"If it wants us to leave, think it'll give us some time to do that?" Kim asked. "Like until tomorrow morning?"

"Hard to say," Jonas replied. "We'll need to first see if it can communicate with us. If not, then we're probably going to have to fight whatever it is, since I doubt it'll be able to let us know what the problem is in the first place."

Elin didn't like the sound of that. Especially with how the roar was so loud that whatever it was had to be massive.

Then as silence settled on the area, aside from the noise coming from the camp as Kim's army took care of things in there, Elin almost felt like the place they were at was peaceful, almost like the nights she'd seen as a young girl when the snow would come down, blanketing the land in a layer of white down, making everything feel like there wasn't a problem at all in the world.

However, that feeling was ruined when Elmo rant into her from the side as he rounded a tent, completely knocking Elin over.

"Owww," Elin complained as she gathered her bearings from the ground, needing a minute to even realize that it had indeed been Elmo who knocked her over.

"Sorry," Elmo said quietly as she slowly and carefully picked herself up off the ground. "I just saw the trees moving and thought I'd come see if that had anything to do with the roar that sounded a few minutes ago."

"It did come from this direction," Jonas merely replied, looking around himself.

"Other than the trees moving, what else did you see?" Kim asked.

Elmo shook his head. "I couldn't make anything out. I got the feeling that whatever it was wasn't coming in this direction, but rather going past it, but I couldn't really be sure."

Jonas nodded. "Lets hope that's the case. If it is, then we won't need to worry about fighting whatever it is at all."

"Question then is, how long do we wait for it?" Kim asked. "Not to mention, should we try to figure out the reason it roared?"

Jonas shook his head. "If it's not coming here and is just passing by, eventually the birds and other animals and insects will start making noise again. When that happens, we can go see if we can find any tracks of whatever it was that it left behind," Jonas replied. "However, unless we find whatever it was, we're not going to know what the roar was about."

As Jonas finished his sentence, Lance and a few of the 'soldiers' in Kim's army showed up, coming from behind the same tent that Elmo had come around.

"Where is it?" Lance asked, an eager look in his eyes.

"We're not sure it's coming this way," Jonas replied. "We're waiting to see if it will or not. If not, then we can relax."

"Do you know what it might be?" Kim asked.

"A dragon of course," Lance replied, his voice taking on an excited tone. "I've heard those roars since I was young. The way the ground trembled meant it was within a couple miles of here when it roared. If it's the dragon you're looking for, then we might be able to head back to the city without having to go any further.

Elin glance at Lance for a moment. While it would certainly be nice to have the challenge completed like that, she doubted it would be so simple.

Not to mention that Lance had mentioned that the dragon had a body of fire. If that was the case and this was the fire dragon, Elin would have expected the trees to be burning and at least a column of smoke rising to the sky from where the dragon was by the trees it would be torching, but that certainly wasn't the case here, so she really doubted it was the fire dragon.

Not that she felt like mentioning it to Lance. She had a feeling he wouldn't care about details like that. She imagined that he was more worried about the comforts he missed from the city. She knew that she did, although she missed her father's house more than anything right then.

There didn't seem to be anything more comforting than the familiar feeling that comes from the house where she grew up.