Isaac and Tiy sit at the entrance of the cave watching the rain pour down. Silence sits between them for a while before it's broken by Tiy.
"I plan to return to the tribe. If we are going to take out the elders, we should take out the people they have protecting the monument."
Isaac gave her a quick, sceptical glance before responding.
"How hard is it to take them out?"
Isaac still wasn't fully on board with killing a bunch of people, especially since he had only ever killed a fish, and that was with a lot of fighting. He also didn't have any experience in a proper fight.
Tiy looked down at the water pooling on the grass outside and spoke.
"It won't be easy, there is about a hundred of them, and maybe some wanderers like us. They also have traits that have been selectively picked out for the task. The only trait I know of is that they have a good connection to wind magic."
Isaac lets out a deep sigh at the mention of magic. Unlike Tiy, Isaac has no forms of offensive magic, mainly because his textbook on magic didn't contain any ways due to safety concerns.
Tiy took out a folded piece of paper and then handed it to Isaac.
"While I am at the tribe, you should learn some magic that could help us. Personally, I would prefer you learn some healing magic since I can't learn any. That paper has a circle drawn on it that will make people around it lethargic."
Isaac took the paper and put it in his pocket, and while looking down at his clothes, he remembered something and asked Tiy.
"Hey, do you think you could sneak out some clothes for me, and hide them at that clearing with the berries. I have a feeling I should fully cover up soon."
Tiy thought it over before giving Isaac a nod. She had grown used to Isaac less than presentable look over the month they had spent together, but she remembers the uniform that he wore when he was first cursed.
Isaac stood up before walking over to his school bag and then took out his book on magic. He figured that he should ask Tiy about some spells that he should learn for fighting.
The two spent the last day together talking about magic theory and its practical forms. By the time the sun rose, the rain had finally stopped after a month of constant downpour. Isaac walked over to the fire, which was extinguished, and Tiy was not sitting by the fire.
Isaac sat down where he normally would, and he looked at where Tiy would be sitting, while complaining about something random. Isaac couldn't help but feel a pang at Tiy leaving since she was the only person he had known for the past month.
After a quick moment of being in his feelings, he pulled himself out and spoke out loud.
"Get a grip, Isaac, she tried to kill you for crying out loud, why do you miss her..."
"Girls are scary."
Isaac stood up and began packing his things. The cave looked more like a messy bedroom than a tear in the mountain that spans into a complete abyss. After a few minutes of packing, Isaac began his journey through the forest. His first stop was the glade.
Isaac still remembers the way towards it from when he went looking for the berries, especially since both he and Tiy had to make this walk many times when he was working on the circle.
After he walked for a few hours, he arrived at the glade. The tree that stood in the middle was only a few meters bigger since the last time he was here, which was weird since normally it grew astronomically big over a short period of time, but Isaac chalked it up to a lack of light.
Isaac stood near the tree when he noticed a small bag that sat by a bush that normally grew the berries. Isaac walked towards it and opened the bag. Inside the bag were three sets of clothes, as well as a small knife that could be used for food prep and fighting.
Isaac quickly cleaned himself and changed into the clothes. They seemed to be padded with cotton, which Isaac felt like an investment from Tiy, due to the fact that he hadn't seen any growing natively, so it had to have come from Grassciair.
Isaac took the bag and some berries and began walking his way towards his old home. Up to this point, he had stayed clear of it due to the crescent bear that tried to kill him, but due to the fact that the sun was shining brightly above him, he knew that even if the bear was most likely hiding.
It only took a few hours to walk to his old home. Once he arrived, he looked over the remains of the camp. His campfire was nonexistent, having been fully crushed by the bear, his school shirt was caught in the wall of fire that Tiy had made, and nowhere to be seen.
Isaac walked around the camp a bit more before following the tracks of the bear that seemed to turn smaller deep in the forest. The tracks seem to have gone in the opposite direction from the cave.
As Isaac is looking at the tracks, he feels an odd sense that he is being watched, the same sense he felt when Tiy was tracking him, before Isaac gets the chance to think, a stone tipped arrow flies straight into Isaac's hand.
A man jumps down from the trees and lands a couple of meters away from Isaac. The man is tall and is holding a recurve bow made from wood, by his side is a quiver of arrows, and on the other side he holds a dagger that is identical to the one Tiy gave Isaac.
Isaac looks at the man and recognises him as Tiy's bodyguard from when he was cursed. Isaac grabs the arrow and pulls it out of his hand, and chants a few spells.
"*Clog*, *Stich*, *Repair*,*
Since Isaac has not needed to cast healing magic, he didn't know which spell would be best. The clog spell seemed to stop the bleeding with some magical force, the stitch spell made the skin join back together like a stitch, and the repair spell sealed any gaps that the stitches missed.
The man was watching Isaac cast his spells, and when Isaac seemed to effortlessly heal the arrow, it seemed to make the man roar in rage. The man tried to speak, but Isaac couldn't understand it since he didn't cast *understand*
Isaac quickly cast *understand* so that he could gather whatever the man was saying.
"And I won't let you take Lady Tiy. She is mine, I called First, someone like you doesn't get to be near her any longer!"
The man shouted full of rage and vigour. He then pulled back his bow to shoot again.