Frustrating Delay

Richard stared at Adam with a look of amazement and scepticism. He refused to believe that the man who had scarred him for life would be willing to help him. "Sir, I'm confused. You are saying that you will help me and yet you went through all this trouble to hurt me this way." Richard spoke with suppressed anger in his voice, but all Adam could do was apologize.

"Richard, I scarred you for life and that is something unforgivable, but I want to help you and I will, just give me the chance and you will see. If I can't help you then I shall compensate you tenfold. Just trust me." Richard stared at Adam before resigning. "I shall be in your care sir." Adam smiled before saying, "Welcome to the team Richard, and please just call me Adam." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carmilla, Richard and I made our way through the forest at a quick pace. Despite having taken three years to reach Carmilla's hut, that was only because I had to take my time getting used to the miasma. If the miasma was not present, I would have made it there in a week. 

Night eventually fell on the 5th night of our journey. It has been 4 days since Richard joined us. While the magic had restored the skin on his face a bit, it still looked disfigured so I gave him a crude mask I conjured as a temporary means of hiding his face. I planned on teaching him a masking spell that would blur out his facial features and make it hard to perceive him.

We set up camp in a cave we found along the way for the night. It was Richard's turn to keep watch first tonight for the first few hours then I would take over. Me and Carmilla had already confirmed our feelings for each other at this point, but we hadn't done anything about it yet.

I took our alone time as a sign to make a move on her. As she was in her sleeping bag with Zephyr in her embrace, I spread our blanket on a surface I made of ice to prevent dirtying it. Due to my improved control with my ice, I was able to reduce the temperature and change the texture, so we don't slide around on it. When I finished, I called her over and gestured for her to join me.

"How did you do this without me noticing" I chuckled before saying, "I have my ways, now, care to join me my lady. Despite us having fallen asleep in each other's embrace in the hut, it had no significant meaning as we hadn't fallen for each other, but now we have confirmed our feelings for each other, so this was going to be our first time 'sleeping' together. As she nervously made her way to me with Zephyr in tow, wagging her tail cutely, Richard called out. "We have some company!"

When I heard him, I got frustrated and exited the blanket with an angry look on my face. I left the cave and came to Richard's side. "What is the problem?" "We have a large wolf making its way towards us. I sighed in exasperation at his report. I made my way forward not caring about the fact that I was half naked due to the heat and dampness in this forest. When I caught sight of it, I felt that it looked familiar. I paid no mind to it though, and quickly attacked it. I didn't bring out my sword and bested unarmed but during my attack, I realized that its movements were mechanical as though it was a puppet. It was then that I remembered that this mutant looked familiar to the gorilla that attacked me and Carmilla a few months after we met. {Chapter 5}

I felt that something was amiss and decided to investigate further. I cut up the wolf carefully unlike the time with the gorilla. After a bit more investigation, I found a yellow stone with a familiar engraving. I felt my heart stop from seeing the emblem, it belonged to a well-known group in the underground. An assassination group with an unknown name. It is run by a paragon slightly weaker than my father and despite my background, I know nothing about him. 

I made my way back to Carmilla and Richard and told them about my findings which led them to suspect that we were being hunted by this group, but I felt that there was something deeper going on. Because of the wolf's carcass, multiple animals made their way to us causing us to fall behind on sleep, so we decided to sleep during the day when monsters are less active and continue with our journey the day after.