Roderic flew through the woods, following the scent of sweat from Excalibur.
He jumped over a log which was neatly blocking his path, then a bunch of rocks which were clustered together. Finally reaching an open field where the crescent moon hung above, smearing the field in a nocturnal light.
Roderic slowed down as he was mesmerized by it. Fireflies scattered all around, making slight buzzing sounds.
Roderic then sniffed again, following up a hill in the open field. When he reached the top, he saw a white horse with a yellow spot on its head eating grass, which he instantly recognized as Lucian's horse, Excalibur.
From Roderic's perspective, the moon was placed neatly behind the horse, creating an enhancing scene. Roderic felt slightly stunned before quickly and quietly sneaking behind it and grabbing the rein. Excalibur, of course, reacted in shock, trying to quickly run away, but to no avail. Roderic was just too strong.
This caused the horse to accept its fate, calming down and recognizing the person standing in front of it.
Roderic sighed before pulling Excalibur along to where Lucian was.
Roderic avoided riding the horse as it seemed to be in distress, and instead decided to pull it.
Sadly for Roderic, taking the way back was quite tedious, as he needed to avoid all sorts of natural obstacles, such as small bluffs which Roderic needed to walk around, logs which had fallen due to winds or lightning, and rocks in annoying placements, all pissing Roderic off. The horse's limited night vision did not help.
Following his previous steps, Roderic managed to find Lucian, who was soundly asleep, which slightly pissed Roderic off as he also felt the need to sleep.
But as Roderic didn't want to be rude and awaken him, he instead tied Excalibur's rein around a tree. Now, instead of following his own horse's scent, which was now basically gone, he then instead followed its footsteps. It had recently rained, so it was decently moist, which allowed for the horse's footsteps to be tracked.
Finding his path, Roderic realized the blond-haired Varyn's heat blast had caused the moisture to disappear. Luckily for Roderic, the horse's steps were already planted in the soil, still allowing it to be tracked.
Following the tracks left behind, he continued through the deep darkness, continuing to avoid the natural obstacles.
Finally finding his black horse munching on a nice spot of grass, he silently walked up to the horse, grabbing its rein and immediately starting to drag it, which caused the horse to notice his presence. It swiftly turned around, using both of its hind legs to back-kick Roderic. Roderic didn't react at all, allowing it to hit him, causing some small cracks to form before disappearing almost instantly. This caused the horse to calm down as it felt resistance was futile, allowing itself to be dragged along.
"Well then, you angry horse. Have you calmed down? You know what, I'll give you a name. How about Spite, you spiteful piece of shit." Roderic then turned his head back, wondering why he didn't pick one of the other horses which were available for him. Spite continued along, sometimes trying to pull itself away, but still to no avail.
Roderic continued the process which he did with Excalibur, finally ending up on the main road. Looking at his angry horse with a grin, "Finally calmed down, have you? That's nice. Maybe if you continue, I might have to change your name... nah, when I think about it, Spite has a nice ring to it," laughing slightly to himself before continuing into the woods where Lucian was located.
After a little while of avoiding natural obstructions, he found Lucian sleeping as soundly as ever, feeling envious of Lucian's sleep as he was not needed in finding the horses, since Lucian didn't have the same advantages as himself.
Tying Spite's rein to a nearby tree, Roderic found a nice rock to sleep on, finally falling into a deep sleep.
Morning arose as the sky was set ablaze by a mix of different yellows, oranges, and reds. It was golden hour.
Roderic awoke, looking around, seeing the mixture of colors in the sky, feeling his breath being taken away, almost staring at it for ten seconds.
Managing to snap out of it, he looked over at Lucian, still sleeping as soundly as ever. Feeling his tummy rumble, he decided to let Lucian awake to a warm meal.
As he did his morning routine consisting of a combo of arm, leg, neck, back, and ab stretches, he then set out using his inhuman senses to scout out a wild animal to use for breakfast. He quickly picked up on the scent of a boar. Following it, he managed to pick up the sound of it, using the morning mist to mask himself.
It didn't take long before he was behind the boar, laying in a decently open field. The boar was chewing on some exposed tree roots. Roderic, still managing to mask himself in the morning mist, quickly jumped, flying over the boar and sending a quick small ice spike flying straight through the boar's heart, instantly killing it. Roderic smoothly landed beside the tree. Moving up to the boar, he broke the ice stuck to the ground, then picked up the boar and ran back to where Lucian was.
Roderic jumped and sprinted for a while before finally arriving back to where Lucian was. He then picked up some sticks, suddenly getting an idea to get dry sticks. First he froze the moisture inside the sticks, causing the ice to concentrate near the surface. Then he controlled the ice, pulling it outward and away from the wood, letting it fall to the ground, leaving the wood completely dry.
Happy with the result, he attempted to remove the moisture from one spot in the ground, allowing him to use it as his campfire spot.
Succeeding, he placed the sticks down on the spot, arranging them in a cone shape, then placing some tinder he made with his now placed-back knife.
He then used his flint and steel, flicking around ten times before getting a successful ignition of the tinder. He sat back down on the rock, staring back towards the blue hour of the dawn, where the sky had now turned a deep cool blue color.
Roderic, while looking out towards the deep blue sky, pondered if he would be able to become a full mage, as his apprenticeship was cut short by Anna turning into a rend. It was still two months off, as he needed at least four years under Anna to be seen as a full proper mage, then be able to choose a job.
If he were to choose a job, it would definitely be one with action, not like Anna, who chose a safe and comforting job as a historian. Her job came with benefits though—he would often listen to Anna's unique stories as well as theories about the past. Now she was gone. He wasn't particularly upset about it, but it was disappointing that he wouldn't be able to hear those stories about history anymore.
Suddenly Lucian awoke, cracking his back as the rock had left him feeling horrible. "Man, my back hurts so much!" Lucian then spotted Roderic pondering to himself. "Good morning, my good philosophical friend. What has gotten you pondering?"
Roderic suddenly snapped out of his deep thought as he looked over at Lucian. "Oh... sorry, it was nothing. I was just looking out towards the morning sky." Roderic then pointed at the boar he killed. "Look, I got us breakfast."
Lucian looked at the boar, mouth agape. "Roderic, you know we have food in the saddlebag, right?"
Roderic retorted, "Well yeah, I was the one who packed it. But nothing beats fresh meat straight from the source." Roderic then walked towards the boar, cutting it up. He then got Lucian to get more sticks for the fire.
After a bit, the meat was ready. He cut it up into multiple pieces, but as there was no need for too much meat, he cut up the best parts before throwing the rest out, letting some other animal eat it.
He then grabbed two big rocks, placing them each on a different side of the campfire, then grabbing a third thin one. He froze the moisture on the surface of it, causing the ice to be able to be controlled by Roderic, allowing him to totally remove the ice from the rock.
If he decided to put it on the campfire without removing the moisture, it would have exploded, hitting Roderic and Lucian, destroying their meal.
Placing it on top of the two other rocks, he grabbed the meat slices, waiting a bit before the meat sizzled. Roderic then waited a bit again before he grabbed the meat slices, flipping them. He continued this cycle until the meat was decently cooked.
He then grabbed some of the stick reserves Lucian collected, stabbing through the meat slices in a few different spots to make a few meat sticks.
Roderic then gave one of the meat sticks to Lucian and one to himself, leaning the rest on one of the rocks which were beside the campfire.
He went to Spite, grabbing some salt, drizzling it over his meat stick, then grabbing some for Lucian, drizzling a bit on his too.
Biting into it, Lucian and Roderic experienced a combination of a slightly rich umami flavor, the salt enhancing its savoriness slightly, but as Roderic was saving some of the salt, he didn't add too much. The boar meat had a taste of earthiness and nuttiness as well, adding to the unique flavor profile of the boar.
Roderic and Lucian were quite hungry, so they both ended up eating three meat sticks each, feeling full but still feeling the need for some vegetables as well.
They both nodded in agreement as they went to Spite's saddlebag once more, grabbing a cabbage head and a jar of honey, most likely stolen from a merchant.
Roderic grabbed a few more sticks from the stick reserve, using his newfound technique to pull out the moisture, placing them inside and seeing them burn briskly.
Roderic pulled out his knife, slicing the cabbage into six slices and throwing them on the thin rock. As he waited for them to sizzle, he went back to grab some salt.
When he came back, he split a bit of honey on each slice, then threw a bit of salt on top.
He then flipped them, repeating the process.
After a bit of time, the slices were ready. While Roderic was cooking, Lucian was scouring in the woods to find two flat plated rocks which they could use as plates. Roderic removed the moisture from them, then moved the cabbages over. Waiting a bit for the heat to settle, as Roderic and Lucian enjoyed the honey cabbages.
The flavor was sweet, quite sweet. Sadly the sugar in the honey hadn't fully caramelized, so it wasn't as good as it could have been. Luckily the salt still added a nice contrast between the sweetness and savory flavor from the salt.
Roderic and Lucian ended up eating all six slices of honey cabbage, each having three.
Both were stuffed and felt a need to take a break before finally getting a move on.
After a bit of resting, the sky had now taken the form of an almost nice clear blue sky. A few strands of white clouds scattered across it.
Lucian and Roderic got lazily on top of their respective horses, tilting forward and applying slight pressure with their legs to indicate them to start moving.
After finding a path out leading to the main road, both continued on their journey to Waterbridge City, planning to stay there for a bit to avoid the bandits and their leader, the sun mage Varyn.
Roderic and Lucian continued down the almost straight road, the orange sky shining on their faces.
"Roderic, it's almost dark. Should we find a place to sleep?" Lucian asked, looking to get Roderic's opinion.
"Well, we spent a lot of time earlier today cooking food. I believe we should find a nice spot of grass to lay down in, then rest for a bit. Then when the sun is visible, we'll immediately travel, buying some food once we reach the city. How about it?" Roderic explained, trying to avoid wasting time like earlier.
"Well, you were the reason why it took so long, but yeah, I agree. Let's tie down Excalibur and Keth." Lucian affirmed before Roderic immediately blurted, "Spite's name is Keth?"
Lucian looked at Roderic, nodding, then asked, "Did you really decide to call Keth 'Spite'? Like come on, man, that's a pretty bad name." Lucian inquired, seriously wondering what could possibly be the reason to call a horse Spite.
Roderic's expression turned stale before he answered, "Well, he kicked me and was being annoying the entire time attempting to pull me multiple times, so out of my own spite I decided to name him Spite..."
Lucian snorted. "Some nice creativity you have there!"
Suddenly while they were occupied chatting, a new sign appeared in front of them. This time looking less crude and with no moss like the other sign had, seeming to be cleaned often.
Same as last time, they signaled to their horses to slow down, finally being able to read, "Welcome To Waterbridge City! 5 miles ahead."
Roderic and Lucian both sighed to themselves before moving their horses to the side, jumping off, then tying the horses' reins to a nearby tree.
Both found a nice patch of grass before wishing each other a good night's sleep, now darkness completely surrounding them, the moon's glow glistening on their skin.
Dawn was once more upon them as Lucian attempted Roderic's stretching routine, struggling slightly but managing to keep up.
They jumped on Spite and Excalibur's backs, returning back on the path towards Waterbridge City.
After a bit of chit-chat between the two, Roderic and Lucian saw a massive blue gate with two uniquely armored guards on each side.
The armor's tint was of a light blue color. The in-betweens of the armor were hidden by layers of white cloth, which had unique blue symbols on them. Their faces were completely covered by helmets which Lucian immediately recognized as Waterbridge's knights. Sometimes guards would switch posts with knights if there were dangerous events going around.
Lucian thought about it and guessed it might have something to do with the unique bandits roaming around.
"Hey Roderic, we should be careful. It seems knights have switched posts with the guards, most likely because of a dangerous situation the city is experiencing."
Roderic nodded as he focused on any spots which were suspicious on him.
Before both knew it, they were in front of the two knights, both riding up to them.
"Hey, what is the purpose of your visit?" the knight asked nonchalantly, not seeming too suspicious of the two men, as they did often get visitors since this town was frequently visited by nobles, merchants, and travelers alike.