The morning bustle of the Arkenfall Inn lobby hummed around them.
Ravon stood near the front door, shrugging his shoulders to settle the heavy weight of his stuffed traveler's bag. He turned to Lyra. The silver-haired girl stood perfectly straight, leaning lightly on her curved wooden staff. Aside from the small leather pouch strapped to her black dress, her hands were entirely empty.
"Where is your bag?" Ravon asked, adjusting his leather straps.
"I don't need to carry a sack of heavy rocks like you," Lyra replied, tapping the small pouch on her hip. "This is a dimensional pouch. It holds a localized pocket of expanded space. All my travel supplies, potions, and camping gear are stored inside."
Ravon stared at the tiny pouch, amazed. "Magic is incredibly convenient."
"It is expensive, not convenient," she corrected. "Let's go. We are exiting through the North Gate."
"That works out perfectly," Ravon smiled, following her out onto the yellow brick road. "I can submit my gathering quest at the Apothecary on the way. With that eight silver, I will have exactly fifteen silver coins for the trip."
Lyra stopped dead in the street. She slowly turned her head, her blue eyes wide with genuine horror. "What? You are undertaking a four-month expedition to the deadliest mountain range on the continent, and you only have fifteen silver coins?"
"Well... yes."
Lyra pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a heavy, suffering sigh. "Take some more coin out of your savings, Ravon."
"I... I don't have any savings," he admitted sheepishly.
"Oh, gods," Lyra groaned, looking up at the sky as if praying for patience. "You have no savings. You are completely broke. Which means I am going to have to spend my own coin to feed you on the road."
Ravon flashed a bright, apologetic smile, showing all his teeth.
"I will break those teeth," she threatened, pointing a gloved finger at his face. "Keep walking."
By midday, the towering stone walls of Arkenfall were far behind them. Instead of taking the paved northern highway, Lyra had led them straight into the dense, untamed timber of the Arora Forest.
Navigating the thick ferns and towering oak roots, Ravon ducked under a low branch. "By the way, what exactly is the Soulfrost Scale we are supposed to collect?"
Lyra used her staff to push a thorny vine out of her path. "It is a scale from Cryovax. And before you ask what a Cryovax is—"
"He is the ancient, mythical dragon who rules the Cryostone mountains," Ravon interrupted proudly, remembering the blacksmith's warning.
Lyra glanced back, a sliver of genuine surprise crossing her features. "At least you know something useful. Yes."
"But why is the bounty for a dragon scale only twenty-four gold coins, while bringing back raw Mithril ore pays over fifty?"
"Because Mithril never decays," Lyra explained, her tone slipping into her scholar's cadence. "A dragon scale rots away over time. Furthermore, handling items crafted from a Soulfrost scale is not child's play. The scales emit an intense, freezing aura that cannot be blocked by physical clothing or armor. If you get too close, the frostbite bypasses your skin and attacks your core. Hence the name, Soulfrost."
Ravon shivered despite the warm forest air. "Just hearing about it makes me cold. How are we supposed to get them?"
"Cryovax flies all over the Cryostone peaks," Lyra said practically. "We don't need to fight a mythical dragon. We just need to scavenge the slopes and find two scales he shed naturally."
"What if we get caught by him?"
"Then you will act as the decoy so I can escape." She didn't even blink. "You owe me a life debt, remember?"
That is exactly why everyone calls you the little witch, Ravon muttered under his breath.
Lyra's sharp ears twitched. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," Ravon lied quickly. "I just remembered Elizabeth telling me it takes over a month to reach the villages at the base of Mount Cryostone by foot. How are we supposed to get there and back, plus scavenge the mountain, in only four months?"
"You ask an exhausting amount of questions," Lyra huffed. "Look around. We are cutting straight through the deep woods instead of taking the winding, protected merchant roads. It cuts the travel time in half."
Ravon looked at the dark, untamed wilderness stretching out in every direction. "That makes sense."
By evening, the forest shadows stretched long and dark. Lyra stopped in front of a shallow, rocky cave carved into the side of a steep earth embankment.
"We will rest here for the night," she declared.
Ravon unslung his heavy bag with a relieved groan, dropping it inside the dry mouth of the cave. He sat down heavily on the stone floor, ready to stretch his aching legs.
"Idiot," Lyra snapped. "Instead of sitting around, go gather wood for a campfire. This forest will be pitch black in less than an hour. Return with the firewood before the darkness sets in."
Holding back a tired sigh, Ravon stood up and marched back out into the fading light.
He wandered a few hundred yards from the cave, his eyes scanning the brush. He spotted a thick, dead pine tree that had toppled over in a recent storm. The wood was perfectly dry. Drawing his sword, he funneled green Motion mana into his arm, unleashing a rapid, precise flurry of slashes. The enchanted steel cleaved the dead timber into perfectly sized logs in seconds.
He gathered the wood, securing the bundle tightly with the climbing rope from his pouch.
As he hoisted the heavy bundle over his shoulder, a distinct, guttural snorting echoed through the trees.
Ravon dropped low, peering through a thick patch of ferns. A hunting party of four green-skinned goblins marched through the brush. He quickly analyzed their gear. Two were small, unarmored scouts carrying crude wooden clubs. The other two were heavily muscled soldiers, gripping rusted iron axes and wearing boiled leather vests.
"Bingo," Ravon whispered.
He gently lowered the firewood to the dirt. He wasn't going to repeat the mistakes of his first hunt. There would be no hesitation, and no retreating.
Exploding from the brush, Ravon launched his enchanted sword like a javelin. The blade spun through the air, burying itself perfectly into the skull of the first soldier goblin. The monster dropped instantly.
Before the remaining three could react, Ravon closed the distance. Channeling the red aura of Strength directly into his right fist, he delivered a devastating uppercut to the jaw of the closest scout. The sheer kinetic impact shattered the creature's neck, dropping it to the forest floor.
The second soldier roared, swinging its rusted battleaxe in a lethal horizontal sweep.
Ravon dropped into a deep crouch, letting the heavy blade whistle inches over his head. Without missing a beat, he slammed his palms into the earth. Three razor-sharp spikes of rock erupted from the soil, piercing cleanly through the goblin soldier's leather armor and stomach. It choked on dark blue blood, collapsing backward.
Seeing the massacre, the final scout dropped its club and bolted toward the thickest part of the timber. Its chest expanded, preparing to unleash the piercing, high-pitched scream that would summon the horde.
Not this time.
Ravon blurred forward. He ripped his sword free from the skull of the first soldier as he passed it, closing the gap in a fraction of a second. A single, sweeping strike of enchanted steel took the fleeing scout's head clean off its shoulders before a single sound could escape its throat.
The forest remained perfectly quiet.
Breathing steadily, Ravon wiped his blade clean on the grass. He quickly dug the four green mana cores from their chests, tucking the extra silver into his pocket.
By the time he returned to the bundle of wood, the sun had vanished completely. The Arora Forest plunged into suffocating, pitch-black darkness.
Summoning a bright, roaring fireball over his empty palm, Ravon used the magical light to navigate back to the rocky embankment. The glow illuminated the mouth of the cave. Lyra was sitting cross-legged on the stone floor, cloaked entirely in the dark.
"Welcome back, Ravon," she said. Her voice was terrifyingly calm. "Pass me the wood."
Ravon stepped into the cave, tossing the heavy bundle of logs onto the floor. "Here. Sorry it took—"
"Gale Burst."
A compressed, explosive shockwave of wind erupted from the tip of Lyra's staff. The concussive force hit Ravon squarely in the chest. He flew backward out of the cave entrance, skidding hard across the damp dirt of the forest floor.
He groaned, sitting up and rubbing his bruised ribs. "What was that for?!"
"I was waiting in the dark for an hour!" Lyra shouted, stepping to the mouth of the cave. Her blue eyes blazed with fury. "How long does it take to gather a few dead branches?"
"I was fighting goblins!" Ravon argued, gesturing to his slightly scuffed clothes.
"Why were you fighting goblins, you idiot?" she demanded. "I explicitly told you to return before nightfall!"
"Why didn't you just use magic to light the cave?"
"Because maintaining a light spell for an hour drains mana!" Lyra fired back, her voice echoing in the quiet woods. "If I empty my core just to act as a lantern, the next monster that wanders by will kill both of us! You made me wait in the dark, exposed and vulnerable. As punishment, you are sleeping outside."
She picked up his heavy leather bag and hurled it out of the cave. It smacked him right in the shoulder.
Before he could argue further, Lyra tapped her staff against the stone floor. A sequence of glowing blue runes flared to life across the cave entrance, snapping a translucent magical barrier into place. She turned her back, walking deeper into the cave to roll out her sleeping mat.
"Unbelievable," Ravon muttered, rubbing his sore arm.
Defeated, he unrolled his thick wool blanket onto the cold dirt. He pulled a strip of dried meat from his bag, chewing the tough rations in the dark. The night air was freezing, but the canopy above was clear. Laying back against his pack, he stared up through the branches, searching until he found his bright, solitary star.
I survived day one, he told the star silently, pulling the blanket tight to his chin as exhaustion finally dragged him to sleep.
A bright, high-pitched chirping pulled Ravon from his dreams.
He opened his red eyes, blinking against the morning light. Instead of the thick pine canopy of the Arora Forest, the rough, rocky ceiling of the cave loomed directly above him.
He sat up, utterly confused. He wasn't lying in the dirt outside. His blanket and his bag had been neatly moved inside the cave.
He looked across the small cavern. Lyra was still sound asleep on her mat, her silver hair spilling over her face, the pointed hat resting on her staff nearby. She had dropped the barrier, dragged him inside while he slept, and put the runes back up to ensure he didn't freeze or get eaten in the night.
A small, genuine smile broke across Ravon's face. He didn't say a word.
He quietly grabbed his sword and slipped past the magical barrier. Half an hour later, he returned to the cave holding two freshly hunted horn rabbits by their ears.
Lyra was awake, dismantling her camp. She had Ravon's heavy leather bag open and was methodically shoving his spare clothes, rations, and ropes into her tiny dimensional pouch. The items vanished into the expanded space effortlessly.
"Why are you putting my things in your pouch?" Ravon asked, dropping the rabbits near the cold fire pit.
"Because carrying that massive sack of rocks is slowing your footwork down," she answered practically, tossing the empty leather bag to the side. She glanced at the dead rabbits, her stomach giving a faint, traitorous rumble.
"Finally," she said, pulling a skinning knife from her boot. "You are proving yourself useful."
Ravon took the harsh words exactly as they were meant—as a high compliment. He sat back and watched as the little witch expertly roasted the meat over a quick magical fire, preparing for the long road ahead.