Advent of Eternity - Chapter 54 (Patreon)

Knell awoke with a start. He grimaced, blinking the blinding light away as he sat up. Cyll raised a hand in greeting.

“Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Doesn’t feel like the land of the living,” Knell muttered, wiping the crust from his eyes and stretching. “How long was I out?”

“A little over a day,” Cyll replied. Knell’s eyebrows rose and he glanced around. They sat in the forest once again, and its density implied they were pretty close to Silver Ridge if Knell remembered the topology correctly.

“Seriously?”

“Yep. You’ve got a few white hairs, you know. Were those always there?”

Knell scrunched his nose and ruffled through his hair, plucking the offending white strands. “No. Where’s Stix?”

“Using her Yin flower,” Cyll replied. “She climbed into a tree because apparently she can focus better there.”

“More like she was trying to get away from you,” Knell said with a smirk. “Did we run into any trouble while I was out?”

“Nothing,” Cyll replied. “It’s a ghost town. Literally, this time.”

Knell sighed. “Yeah, I can imagine. I wonder how many of the townsfolk we actually managed to save.”

“Eliza was at least one.”

“She didn’t come from here,” Knell pointed out. “But one is better than nothing. Hopefully some of the others managed to escape in the chaos.”

“You can’t save everyone,” Cyll said, his lips turning down as an old memory seemed to wash over him. “Better to not care and focus on keeping yourself alive.”

“Then I’d be no better than the gods,” Knell said. He spotted his staff on the ground next to him and grabbed it, pushing himself upright with a grimace. Needles danced up his good leg and it took him a moment to get his full range of movement back.

“Ready to get moving already?” Cyll asked. “What about food? You’ve got to be hungry.”

“I’ll eat once we’re on the ship,” Knell said. “The sooner we’re moving toward a city, the better.”

The trees above rustled and Stix dropped from the foliage, landing lightly on her feet. She looked refreshed, and the remnants of a faint white aura flickered around her for a few seconds before fading away.

“You look happy,” Knell observed.

“The Yin flower is incredible,” Stix said breathlessly. “I’ve gone up three levels already. I know this speed won’t last that long, but I’ve been stuck at level twelve for nearly a year. Now I’m up to fifteen and I got a new ability.”

“Oh?” Cyll asked. “What is it?”

“An improved tracking spell,” Stix replied. “I can bring back the shadows of the people that were in an area sometime in the past day, and they’ll show me what the people did and where they went.”

“Sounds boring.”

Stix rolled her eyes. “At least I have abilities. All you can do is not die.”

“Ouch. I actually felt that one,” Cyll said, clambering to his feet. “If you had a few hundred years, I might actually start to have a match in you.”

Stix harrumphed. “We’re heading off, right?”

Knell nodded in reply. “Lead the way, if you please. I’ve got no idea where we are.”

“Ha. See? I’m useful,” Stix said, taking the front of the party and heading into the forest with the crew behind.

“Congratulations,” Cyll said. “You’re the group bloodhound. I’ll toss you a slice of cheese as reward once we get back to the ship.”

They made good time through the forest and soon came back upon the walls of Silver Ridge. The fog that had hung in the air the previous day was gone – now, the city just looked sad.

After a quick stop to raid a few house pantries for food, the three got back onto their ship and set sail along the shore. They had the old captain’s logbook, but since none of them were particularly good at navigating or deciphering it, their course was estimated at best.

Luckily, Cyll knew enough to keep them moving in the right direction. It helped that they were just following the shore, and having a solid starting point of Silver Ridge made it so that all they had to do was not crash the ship.

Around a day later, a bay came into view. Masts poked out from within it, and Knell could see a decently sized city behind the dock nestled within it.

“There we go,” Cyll said triumphantly, turning the wheel to angle them toward the entrance of the bay. “Land ho. Lighthill.”

“I thought you said we were going to some place called Queen’s Stranding,” Stix muttered, glancing up from the Yin flower nestled in her hands.

“Turns out, that was the other direction,” Cyll said with a shrug. “Oh well. There was a city on either side of Silver Ridge, so it was a fifty-fifty guess.”

“We really need to find someone who knows how to navigate the gods cursed ship,” Knell said with a sigh, opening his eyes and breaking free of his meditation. He hadn’t moved from his spot much during the trip, and he was pretty confident that his next level wasn’t too far away.

“You think they’re friendly to pirates?” Stix asked as the docks grew closer.

“Doubtful, considering Silver Ridge was supposed to be in guild territory,” Knell replied. “But the flag is already lowered, and nobody knows who we are yet. We shouldn’t have any trouble, especially since the guild and the pirates aren’t currently at war.”

“Not to mention we aren’t officially part of the pirates,” Cyll said, raising one of the sails and turning back to grin at Stix. “We got kicked off Blackfoot Bay before we could join that wench, Sorfina.”

“Oh yeah,” Stix said, her eyes narrowing. “I remember.”

“She’ll get what’s coming,” Knell said evenly. “As will Maya and her crew. I haven’t forgotten. We must simply pick our battles, and their just rewards will be dealt during the Mount Bloodwater opening, when we take whatever it is they wanted.”