They had only been traveling for a day, and Morgana was bombarding Adelaios with questions about anything and everything, whenever she saw something she wasn't used to like a bird or a stone. Her usual expression of unending anger also was replaced by a very neutral one, looking at the trees and sky with childlike wonder. Adelaios, who seemed to be a chatterbox, did not seem to mind that, but had a look of extreme concern as he was staring at a piece of paper most of the time he wasn't busy directing the horses to dodge obstacles. Eventually, Morgana asks:
- "What. This ?" as she points to the piece of paper.
- "Oh that's a map of the continent. Take a look, we're in Pan's Woods right now, and for info Pan's the god of nature." He makes space on the driver's seat for her to look at the map, which was fairly detailed.
Morgana just stares at the map, confused, before saying:
- "Pan's. Woods ? Where ?"
- "Huh ? You can't read or what ?" Adelaios jokingly says before realizing. "Oh. You actually can't read, right. It's right there." He places his finger on the map, right on the large forest in the south-east.
He quickly explains the concept of a map to Morgana, and tells her that in case she gets lost and happens to have one, the places with their name in white are city-states, which are massive, very advanced towns that will probably have people willing to help her. She should avoid the places in yellow, and absolutely run from the places with their names in red (by the way, to give a sense of scale to you, the reader, Pan's Woods are about the size of Russia).
- "So anyways, I was sent to retrieve a bunch of merchandise Helen got prepared here, and I didn't know that place would be so damn hard to navigate. She just loves working me to the bone…" he sighs.
- "Helen ?"
- "A friend of mine. Granted, calling her that is a stretch. You'll probably meet her in Eretria, if we get there. On that topic ! It's probably smooth sailing once we get out of there, since I'm a super experienced traveler and all, but I have no clue at all about the layout of this forest. It changes every day, so we might get caught in a scuffle or two. Can you fight ?"
- "I. Not. Know."
- "Yeah I figured. Had to ask, you know ? Guess I'll try to take care of whatever freakish monsters we run into. On an unrelated topic, I think it's time we ask the tough questions."
Morgana tilts her head to the side, an air of confusion on her face.
- "I'll start. I'm just a guy personally, not a demigod of any type or some spirit of nature. I learned Fire magic from my mentor, and I make my living as a merchant and occasional magic item collector." as he says that, he takes out his book to demonstrate. "I got that thing from Hermes, a god, after a certain event that I don't want to get into right now. It's possessed by an aspect of him, so it lets me use a few tricks like that invisibility spell I used back at your mother's laboratory. It also doubles as a great Fire magic focus."
- "Magic. Focus ?"
- "The witches in Eretria can explain it to you better than I can. Anyways, my point is: what are you actually ? You burst into flames whenever you're left unattended, and while it hurts you it never actually damages you or kills you. I've never seen that before, and I've been to a lot of different places."
There's a long moment of silence before Morgana answers, her voice trembling a bit.
- "I. Am. Mother's. Daughter." she pauses. "All. I. Know."
- "Hmm. Well no sense in prying too much I guess, especially since you look like you've been locked up for the better part of your life."
- "Sixteen years." Morgana cuts.
- "Oh yikes. Yeah that tracks. Don't worry, I'm sure Queen Circe will treat you well whenever we get to Eretria, but first we gotta get out of this damned forest !" Adelaios says, irritated while looking at his map.
Date: June 29th Location: Pan's Woods
- "Stay calm, Adelaios. You're a great navigator, Adelaios. You would definitely, DEFINITELY never get lost, Adelaios." Adelaios keeps telling himself, rocking back and forth while staring holes into his map and frantically looking around him, desperate for landmarks.
- "Adelaios ?" Morgana asks.
- "What ?"
- "Your food. Very bad. When better ?" They had been lost for two weeks by that point, and while Adelaios told him that his rations would normally be perfectly acceptable by most standards, and even considered good tasting by many, Morgana had been experiencing her mother's cooking haunting her dreams as of late.
- "Right ! Food ! Our biggest issue ! Thank you Morgana, I'll work on obtaining my rations straight from Mount Olympus from now on !"
- "Thank you. I appreciate."
- "You really need to learn how sarcasm works." Adelaios sighs.
- "What's sarcasm ?"
- "I don't have the patience to explain it right now."
- "I see. Too bad."
- "By the way, you're speaking a little more naturally now, you're making two word sentences and all. Congrats ! That's at least one positive thing in a bottomless abyss of nightmares and misery. Maybe things will start looking up from her-" he is interrupted by a very faint movement on his left. "Oh. I just had to say something huh ? Now I really regret throwing all of my emergency magic items at that door."
He sees the creature at the corner of his vision, slowly approaching by silently undulating through the stream right next to them in the valley. It was a massive, twenty meter long serpent covered in black scales, with a mouth full of sharp fangs and a hungry look in its blue eyes. Adelaios slows down his breathing, pretending not to have noticed the creature.
- "Morgana, hide between the bags inside the carriage when I say now." Adelaios whispers.
- "What for ?" Morgana asks, clueless.
- "There's a monster headed our way. Prepare yourself."
- "Alright." Morgana braces herself as Adelaios reaches inside his cape.
- "NOW !" Adelaios yells as he jumps off the carriage, and pulls out his magic book from his cape, immediately summoning small dancing flames around himself while putting some distance between him and the carriage.
The serpent emits a loud hiss as it realizes it's been discovered, and lunges towards Adelaios at a terrifying speed, attempting to swallow him whole. He orients his hand towards the ground right before the impact, and flames gather around it before being discharged downwards, the force propelling him 20 meters into the air and he dodges the attack. Adelaios immediately follows up by opening his book and conjuring a massive, 10 meter radius orb of flames below him, crashing down and completely engulfing the serpent in a fiery explosion ( 30 K Fire damage ). The serpent hisses in pain and rapidly reaches up with its tail, striking Adelaios while he's falling towards it, and while he manages to soften the impact by displacing himself a little bit to the right before the tail hit him, he's still sent flying into a tree ( 10 K Physical damage ).
- "Oh I'm really gonna feel that one tomorrow" Adelaios complains as he falls to the ground and immediately opens his book to a new page, and the flames floating around him turn into ten arrows made entirely of fire, each being about two meters in length, before they are all fired towards the serpent's head simultaneously. They all connect, and the serpent recoils from the repeated impacts ( 15 K Fire damage ).
It immediately counterattacks, lunging once more now that he was back to a tree. Unable to dodge, Adelaios orients his book directly in front of him and launches another giant orb of flames directly at the serpent's head before it hits him, sending it flying back after clashing with its teeth. As the serpent is still trying to recover from the hit, Adelaios immediately flips his book back to the page he used to cast his fire arrow spell, and manifests twenty this time. The arrows all pierce through the serpent, burning it from the inside, and when the spell ends, its smoking carcass falls to the ground ( 30 K Fire damage ). Adelaios puts one knee to the ground, attempting to catch his breath.
- "This here is exactly why I don't like fighting…" he hears a light sound of clapping as he says that, and sees Morgana get down from the carriage to walk towards him, seemingly impressed.
- "Congratulations. Snake dead. Fire effective."
- "Yeah thanks, can you help me up ?"
- "Why ? No walk ?"
- "Yeah, no walk. That's generally what happens when you strain yourself too much using magic. I've never been the greatest at fighting though, so I compensate by making my spells extra deadly. Let me see, what's the saying again ? Pretty sure it's: If your spell isn't powerful enough, throw magical energy at the problem !"
- "Ooh. I see." Morgana extends a hand to him and helps him get back on his feet.
- "Thanks. I'll be out of commission for a few hours though, and I'd rather us move instead of just staying put… Hey Morgana ?"
- "Yes ?"
- "Ever wanted to try driving a carriage ?"
Five minutes later, Morgana is screaming at the top of her lungs, attempting to control the horses while the carriage is blazing through the woods at breakneck speeds in a random direction. Despites being an excellent teacher in the driving department, Adelaios couldn't really compensate for her lack of theoretical knowledge, and was desperately trying to remain calm while giving her instructions.
- "Don't hold the reins that tightly, it stresses the horses out ! Also stop screaming, you'll attract more monst-" the carriage takes a sharp turn around a tree, almost sending Adelaios flying out. "AAAAAH !"
- "Horses ! Slow down !" Morgana yells.
The horses gradually decelerate until they're going at walking speeds.
- "Maybe death would be a better option…" Adelaios blurts as he drags himself to the back of the carriage to throw up on the grass.
- "Adelaios. Not nice." Morgana comments, looking offended.
- "Well considering what you just put me through, I more than earned my right not to be nice to you !"
- "Horses listened. I happy. Thank you." the horses give her a worried look in response.
- "I'm pleasantly surprised, well as much as I can be at least, by how you handled it though. Most inexperienced drivers would've already got our faces printed into a tree's bark. Maybe you got a knack for high speed driving or something along those lines."
- "Thank you. Adelaios nice."
- "But I'll be taking the reins from now on ! I don't want to lose my breakfast every time we need to go anywhere."
Morgana begrudgingly agrees and Adelaios returns to his quest of trying to make any sense of the map.
Date: July 6th Location: Pan's Woods, Edge
Morgana is woken up from her nap by a victory shout from Adelaios.
- "HAHA ! I'm never truly lost !"
- "Adelaios ?"
- "Look ! We're out of the woods now !"
Morgana looks in the direction he was pointing towards, and is met with a sight she had never seen before. Sand, as far as she could see, but not next to a lake or with any water next to it for that matter. Just dunes of sand spanning for kilometers, with shrubs and bushes here and there.
- "What's this ? Sand everywhere !"
- "That's the Lemnos desert ! I ended up realizing we were barely even in Pan's forest, we were extremely close to the edge. I can't believe such a small strip of forest got us lost for three weeks, haha !" Adelaios replies with a half amused, half depressed laugh.
- "Desert… Place with. Lots sand."
- "Exactly ! Thankfully I know how to navigate it, even though the fauna there is very good at Geomancy, aka Earth magic. The landscape changes all the time at random, but there are specific routes where some landmarks are static enough to be used. I told you I'd take us out of there !"
- "Ooh." Morgana politely claps.
- "Also here, take this. You're not surviving the desert without this." Adelaios forages in the largest chest of his carriage, and hands her a cape, emitting both cold and hot waves in alternance.
- "What for ?"
- "The heat in this place is no joke, no matter the terrain we'll be facing. It can also get pretty damn cold at night in certain parts, and this cape is here to remedy that. I only got four of them, all enchanted with Fire and Frost magic, so take care of it while you have it please."
- "Got it."
They then start traversing the desert. Morgana quickly realizes Adelaios wasn't lying when they wake up the next day on top of a mountain, in the middle of the desert while they had simply stopped on a dune for the night. Another day, they woke up in the middle of a crater in the sand, and the day after in a rocky flatlands with a few cacti here and there.
Adelaios seems mostly unfazed by this, as if he was used to it. Not even the massive monsters that Morgana could see not too far away seemed to cause him to worry whatsoever, as he expertly navigated through them, quickly identifying the passive and aggressive ones to establish his route. Morgana gets to see plenty of new creatures like giant sand cobras, oasis-tapirs that were made of sand, water and plants, little and big sand worms, and many others. She particularly liked the tapirs, since Adelaios would stop by them to drink their water, which tasted amazing, and would invite her to do so too since they are passive creatures. She could see fish swimming inside of the creature, and as she drank she saw some of the fish be dissolved into the water, leaving only bones. Shocked, she would turn to Adelaios for an explanation.
- "Yeah that's why this species is not aggressive. They let creatures from the desert drink their water, and in exchange they extract some of their saliva and amplify its properties to turn it into an acid strong enough to melt flesh in seconds, allowing them to digest the fish living inside their bodies. It's a symbiotic relationship, granted that's only for the desert creatures ! The fish are just getting farmed really."
Morgana took notes as she was asking for definitions for all the terms, and their desert travel was punctuated with more encounters like these, with different creatures, letting Morgana learn a lot more about the world.
Date: August 19th Location: Village near Themiskyra
The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful, as Adelaios knew exactly what routes to take in order to avoid monsters and difficult terrain. They stopped in a few villages here and there to resupply on food and water, but Morgana was unable to talk much with the villagers, since her Greek, while having improved, was still sub-par. One interaction in particular did catch Morgana's attention though, when they made it to a small village in the vicinity of the city of Themiskyra. It was the first one they ever stopped at, and the villagers were gathered outside of the village's tall wall, waving at them.
- "Why. Big wall ?" Morgana asks, curious. "Bigger than. The houses. Hides the. View."
- "You might be right !" Adelaios chuckles. "But it has the upside of keeping them alive. The walls of villages are usually blessed by a god from Mount Olympus or a powerful nature spirit, to drive off monsters. Most of the villagers would die if a serpent like the one that attacked us made it to their houses, so even if the wall ruins the view it's necessary !"
- "I see…"
- "Well, well, well, the benefactor has returned !" One of the villagers shouts as he approaches their carriage. It was an elderly man with a white beard, wearing a clean white shirt and black overalls.
- "Mayor." Adelaios replies with a sigh. "Again, I'm not your benefactor, I'm the debt collector. Get that through your thick skull old man."
- "How cold !" The mayor has a big belly laugh. "Those trade routes you helped us establish did wonders for our economy though !"
- "I just hope it helped you make enough to escape being indebted to Helen just like I am. I wouldn't wish my current situation upon my worst enemy."
- "Poseidon bless your good heart. Here is the money we owe her." The mayor hands him a leather pouch, and when Adelaios looks inside he smiles.
- "Seems like you're finally debt-free, old man. Congrats !"
- "It's all thanks to you !" The mayor gives him a few strong pats on the back. "Also, who is that young lady with you ?"
- "That's-"
Adelaios stops when he notices that Morgana was close to the village's walls, trying her best to communicate with the villagers. They all seemed freaked out by her appearance, and a few of the kids even started making fun of her, mimicking her chopped way of speaking.
- "That's… my… daughter ! Right, it's my daughter Morgana." Adelaios quickly replies.
- "Pardon my rudeness but… she doesn't resemble you one bit." The mayor comments.
- "Listen, it's really hard to explain alright ?"
- "Hmmm." The mayor fiddles with his beard. "Oh well, I know you would never lower yourself to get into human trafficking. You must have your reasons !"
- "You're way too quick to give me your trust, we've spoken to each other about four times…"
- "You've got a good and honest soul. That's all I need to know !"
- "If you say s-" Adelaios is interrupted by a loud sound of sniffling approaching them.
- "I hate. People." Morgana says as she climbs into the carriage, sulking with her shoulders down and tears streaming down her face.
- "Don't say that !" Adelaios tries to cheer her up. "It's just a bunch of kids, they don't know what they're doing ! And I'm sure the villagers didn't mean any offense."
- "I thought. Everyone in. The Outside. Was nice. Like Adelaios."
- "They… well they aren't, unfortunately."
- "People evil. I no. Talk people."
- "And there we go, now she's asocial." Adelaios sighs.
- "I'm sure she'll warm up to other people over time." The mayor says with a hand on Adelaios' shoulder.
- "I'm not so sure… She's got the stubbornness of a dragon."
- "This bad huh ?" The mayor laughs. "Well I wish the both of you good luck for the future ! Do you want to rest in town for the night ?"
- "That'd be great." Adelaios replies, trying to seem enthusiastic. Hermes hasn't been the nicest to me lately."
- "Who's Hermes ?" Morgana suddenly asks, poking her head out of the carriage.
- "Wait, did I never actually think of telling you ?..."
- "No. You talk. About Hermes. All time. Though. I remember. Adelaios said. He's god."
- "Maybe he's mad because I forgot to properly introduce him…" Adelaios sighs. "He's the god of travelers, merchants and a plethora of other things that I'm probably better off not listing if I don't want your opinion of me to decrease. Usually, people blame their bad luck during their travels on Hermes playing a prank on them, and most of the time they're right."
- "So. He's evil."
- "Don't say that, you're gonna get us in trouble. Plus, he's the one who saved the both of us, so we shouldn't be slandering him."
- "Right. You called. His name."
- "Yeah, he owed me a favor after I-"
- "Literally climbed Mount Olympus to see him ?" The mayor finishes.
- "There goes my dramatic effect. Thanks, old man." Adelaios grumbles.
- "He he he ! You love telling that story to anyone who would listen, so don't be surprised everyone already knows it !"
- "You climbed ? Why ?" Morgana asks.
- "My brother." Adelaios' shoulders slump down a bit. "To be blunt, my dad sucked. Not everyone deserves to have a child."
- "Dad ?"
- "Right, you don't know what those are. It's like your mother, but it's a man instead of a woman. Normally, you're supposed to have both of them, but my mother… Let's just say she couldn't take it anymore and left. That leaves me, and my brother. Our dad was basically treating us like less than garbage, so one day I decided to pack my things and leave to become a wandering merchant. That was probably the most cowardly thing I've done in my life, and probably the worst mistake I've ever made."
- "Why ?" Morgana gets off the carriage to get closer, noticing Adelaios wasn't looking her in the eyes anymore.
- "Eventually I started feeling regret. Regret that I abandoned my brother, leaving him alone with our father. But instead of going back to that accursed house to help him, I decided to be even more of a coward. I was… No. I am so terrified of my father that I chose to scale the mountain of the gods instead, so that they would grant me a wish."
- "That is how the legend goes…" The mayor comments.
- "It's not just a rumor. I cheated death more times than I can count thanks to all the preparations I made before I undertook that journey, and the help of a powerful gold-manipulating witch. I met Hermes at the peak, in front of the white gates of the city of Olympus. He offered to make a wish of mine come true, and I asked him to free my brother from our father's clutches. Do you want to know what he answered ? He said that my brother was long dead, killed by our father in a fit of rage. I was shocked, and blinded by my anger I asked him to smite my father instead. But again, he told me that my father also was long dead. He had been executed for murder after the death of my brother."
- "You never told us that part of the story…" The mayor says, placing a hand on his shoulder.
- "Your brother. Is free. Now." Morgana says as she takes Adelaios' hand.
- "I… I guess that's how you'd see it." Adelaios replies with a sad smile. "After that, I didn't really wish for anything. To make up for it, Hermes gave me the ability to find secret passages and places forgotten by time if I came close to them, and a lesser wish that I could claim at any point in time. He also gave me my spell book, Codex. It's thanks to that first ability that I found your mother's lair. Originally, its entrance was just disguised as a regular tree, not standing out in the slightest, but she didn't account for the fact that she couldn't fool Hermes' eyes. Then, I met you, and after realizing that you were also getting unfairly treated, I got reminded of my brother. That's when I knew what I wanted to wish for, with that favor Hermes left me with. When I had the choice to walk away, I realized that I could never live with myself if I abandoned my brother again."
- "..." Morgana stays silent, and holds his hand tighter.
- "...Sorry, I'm being a tad gloomy !" Adelaios forces himself to smile. "Mayor, is your offer still up ?"
- "You can stay for however long you like, it seems like you two had it rough." The mayor replies before leading them to the village's inn.
They get to rest there for the day, and Morgana spends the better part of the night complaining about the quality of the beds before they resume their journey the following day, poorly rested. Adelaios did look a lot better than he did the previous day despite that, which managed to reassure Morgana as they left the village.