Baoba was scribbling on some sort of hide with a fang. He had been doing that for a few minutes, and before that, he was painstakingly inscribing symbols on top of cut-off claws.
In the silence that had followed them since the capital, that noise was the only thing the other four had been able to think of.
Finally, Venus cracked.
"Will you tell us what it is you're doing ? You haven't stopped since, like, an hour !"
It was actually closer to ten minutes.
"Well, I heard your suggestion about the lack of entertainment loud and clear." He said, ostensibly emphasizing the word "loud".
"So, seeing as I can't force you guys to have a conversation, and don't wanna talk to you all day long, I've decided to make you a game."
He rolled up the hide, and took a small bag with the previously carved 32 pieces in it, before chucking them both to Venus.
"There. Done."
Opening the hide, she saw an 8 by 8 'board' of alternating blank and striped squares, all designated by a letter and a number that were marked in the side.
"The good thing with chess is you can play in your head when you're good enough. Bad news is you're not good enough, so I had to make a whole board for you to learn. The pieces are in the bag, you can attach them by piercing the hide."
Inside the bag, she saw a collection of flattened fangs and claws with different symbols on top.
"Having black pieces would prove difficult, so it'll be fangs Vs claws."
Venus was stunned, and the rest of the team couldn't quite believe it either. Pando even looked back at him, instead of facing dead forwards like always.
Venus was just as confused as she always used to be during class."Captain, you.. you did this ?"
He furrowed his brow. "Who else ?"
She shook off a bit of her confusion, and explained : "No, I know, it's just... Back at the grounds, you'd always be alone, and would barely talk to anyone. I didn't peg you as the type of person to do this kind of thing, that's all."
Capcsium joined her : "Yeah, that's right ! Even Urtica wasn't as antisocial !"
"Hey ! Why am I catching a stray ?"
Pando followed, "Every single day, you were either training, eating, or sitting with your eyes closed in that one corner."
She tilted her head a little. "I always did wonder why, you didn't appear to have issues talking in team exercises..."
Baoba was kind of surprised. "Come on, I wasn't always alone, I even often played games with you guys."
Capcsium grommeled : "Wouldn't call that often."
"Ok, well, there you have it. That's the reason, I find chess preferable to having these kind of chats. But what's even worse is this damn silence while I know perfectly well you're wishing to be anywhere else than right here."
He stopped a little, then continued : "You're actually so awkward you got me to feel uncomfortable in complete silence, respect for that, it's quite a feat.
"Anyway, less chitchat, more chess. The goal is to have you four combined rival me before we all die of old age. I'll explain the rules..."
***
30 minutes later, not a game in.
Venus was scratching her head.
"Sooo.. can the rook skip over pieces ?"
Baoba put a bit too much strength into cutting a branch in his way.
"No ! Like I've told you, only the knight can do that !"
"But how does the castle happen then ? Does it teleport ?"
He exhaled while rubbing his eyes slowly. "You know what.. you can see it like that."
Capcsium jolted awake and raised her hand, like she just got a brilliant idea. "Ooh ! Can I teleport my rook next to the other king instead ?"
Baoba clenched the pummel of his sword harder than he ever had before. He couldn't bring himself to answer that, so instead he took a few breaths in to calm himself and said : "Let's just play a game, and you'll let me know if you have any questions, alright ?"
"Fine.." At this point, Venus was starting to get a headache, Capcsium understood no more than when they started, while Pando and Urtica, who already knew the rules, were doing their very best to hold in their laughs in the front.
The captain's blood pressure was reaching never-before-seen heights.
"I'll start. Pawn to E4."
The two girls in the back, in charge of the board, looked at each other.
"Uhh.. Wich one ?"
"THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN GET THERE !"
***
"Queen f7, checkmate."
They had finally succeeded to start a game, and the two stragglers even managed to get a grasp on the rules. A few hours later, they could actually see what was going on, so Pando and Urtica joined them.
Capcsium was pouting. "It's crazy that you can do that so fast."
Baoba laughed and said "No, what's crazy is I've done this exact move three times in a row and you still can't stop me."
"I think I've got it." Urtica got an idea."One more."
"Wait." Pando suddenly stopped. She looked unusually confused.
"What is it ?" The grandmaster immediately got serious.
Venus was trying to put the board away as carefully and fast as possible. "Are we in danger ?"
"No, it's just... Definitely not supposed to be here."
Pando's blessing allowed her to sense shapes she was touching. Her blessing, however, seemed to consider any solids in contact as one single shape. Therefore, after many, many hours of arduous training, she was able to sense anything from a cave, to a tree, to grounded monsters, just by touching a tree or even just her boots. The more she concentrated, the wider the radius was. In fact, for that reason, she didn't allow herself to be too absorbed in the chess games.
This allowed her to always get the jump on monsters, and to never be ambushed. It could also be used to survey the terrain, or to find shelter or water.
The water part was kind of obsolete in this particular team, but still.
Paired with her remarkable intellect, she was the perfect scout, and always knew what to do in every situation.
And yet, she was confused.
This was a highly unusual situation.
Turning at the captain, she added : "I think we should go investigate, there aren't any monsters nearby."
Nodding, he confirmed: "Guide us."
A small walk later, they found the anomaly. Out there, in a small clearing with tree stumps all around it, a house.
A two-story house in this Cursed forest.
It looked cozy, too.
'What the actual fuck is that doing here ?!'
The forest has no residents, for obvious reasons. No elves would be able to survive long enough to even build it, let alone sleep, eat and rest in it.
There was a garden with a hammock, for God's sake !
This wasn't even the most alarming part. The Tree imparted a lot of different blessings, as much as there were elves. Among them, some had to do with seeing the future, or diving revelations out of nowhere. This expedition relied on a lot of information that came from these channels.
And every single one of them was categoric : only monsters lived here !
So, either they just found traces of abominations that love gardening...
Or something was terribly wrong.