COMPASS OF TRUE LOVE - CHAPTER 24

Chapter 24: We are running way too much in this current arc of the story. Why couldn’t Maeve make me into some kind of super overpowered Isekai protag?

-Sephie-

You know what’s worse than walking all day? Running all night after walking all day.

We managed to quickly pack up and sneak away, before the scouts could get to us. After our last encounter with goblins, Cassie and I didn’t want to take any chances and decided that we’d stay on the move, away from the goblins, until morning.

The scouts had been following us for most of the trek, we could hear the howls of their wolves up until an hour or so before sunrise.

We set up on top of a small hill for a quick rest, as the sky slowly shifted through reds and oranges into a soft blue. There were remains of an abandoned campsite here, which made setting up a lot easier. Cassie and I were thoroughly exhausted by the time we sat down and Ashe looked a bit rough as well. Nydia didn’t seem to be breaking a sweat, even after all that, so she decided to take first watch.

I didn’t feel like I’d slept at all, when Ashe shook me awake.

“Hey Sephie,” she whispered. “It’s midday. Nydia says we should move on, but she doesn’t know where.”

I begrudgingly sat up and unsuccessfully tried blinking away the sleepiness. I was promptly handed a warm cup of rudimentary tea and then left to my own devices as Ashe moved on to wake up Cassie.

“Morning sleepyhead,” Nydia flirted and sat down next to me. “Feeling well rested?”

I glared at her beautiful face and quickly shifted into a smile. “I feel terrible. But the tea helps,” I mused, or tried to, at least. My voice was hoarse and rough from dehydration.

She gently pulled me closer and brushed her hand through my hair. “Take your time, sweetheart,” she whispered and held me close while I drank my tea.

Cassie soon joined us and got handed her own cup. “This actually tastes pretty great!” she beamed with more energy than I could ever muster. “Where’d you get the herbs for this anyways?”

“Ashe gathered them while we were on the run last night,” Nydia answered, nodding to the tiny rat girl at the edge of the campsite, overlooking the plains.

I finished up my tea and stood up properly, much to the protest of Nydia, who’d begun cuddling up to me.

If my sense of direction was any good, I was pretty sure we moved east when we were running away, which meant me practically undid a whole day of progress. In the far north I could make out the faint outlines of the Great Northern Mountains, but that didn’t trouble me as much as the other thing. We were shockingly close to the Wolfland Forest. The entire eastern horizon was one massive cluster of green.

“How far away do you think we are,” I muttered to Nydia.

She squinted her eyes a little. “Four hours at regular pace. Maybe two if we’re in a hurry. Why?”

“There are worse things than goblins in that forest,” I commented dryly. “And I’d like to avoid either of them getting to us.”

Luckily, the town of Vismar should be somewhere to the south of us, if we really made it this close to Wolfland. It was walled and well defended. But just for good measure, I pulled out the compass to check on the other needles.

Yellow was still aggressively spinning in place, like the annoying bitch she is. Green and purple pointed south-southwest, it was safe to assume Marion was going through the Wildlands at this point. Red moved upwards and was now pointing directly east and orange was still southeast. Lastly, of course, blue was pointing to the pretty lady next to me.

I gave her a sneaky kiss on the cheek before turning to the other side of the camp. Ashe was still staring out into the valley to the west, Cassie next to her. When they noticed me approaching, Ashe waved me closer.

“There’s two figures coming in our direction,” she warned. “Real creepy looking. An hour or two by foot.”

I squinted my eyes in the direction Ashe pointed at and saw three figures slowly walking down a small path towards our hill.

“There’s three, actually.” Ashe and Cassie both looked at me bewildered. “There’s three people coming towards us,” I clarified.

They still stared at me and even Nydia, who just came over as well frowned. “There are only two people on that path Sephie,” Cassie said pointedly.

Wait but there were definitely three shapes down there. Two lanky ones and one… hunched… oh no.

“We need to leave.”

“Again?”

“Right fucking now. It’s the old man from Omar.”

I immediately rushed over to the camp and gathered up my things. The others did the same, though much less panicked than me. Well they never saw that fucker. He was creepy as hell and I do not, under any circumstances, want to encounter him again.

Once I had everything that mattered, I rushed over to the edge again to check on our pursuers. The two lanky figures had split off, one of them circled northwards and the other one southwards. If we tried to get to Vismar now, we would definitely run into one of them. But fleeing east would mean… going into the forest.

A shiver ran down my spine just at the thought of it. I began trying to fit the old man into my levels-of-danger chart. I quickly decided, yes, I’d sooner fight goblins than anything that forest coughed up, but remembering the sheer amount of power that man radiated, there was no way in hell I’d face him instead of this forest.

I swallowed hard before turning to my companions. “We’re going into the Wolfland.”

*****

At first, the forest felt comfortable. The canopy was shielding us from the blazing sun and the air nice and fresh. But soon the underbrush became nearly impossible to navigate, the plants, especially the trees, grew bigger and bigger and we started hearing noises that we really wanted to ignore. Growling and chittering and clacking from sounded every corner and I was beginning to regret my decision.

Maybe the old man was manageable in comparison after all.

Ashe kept slipping in and out of view, scouting ahead or behind us. It felt almost magical to me, the way she seemed to suddenly vanish from sight whenever she dove into the undergrowth.

To our surprise, despite the nearly unnavigable terrain, our pursuers kept following us at every turn. I was beginning to fear we might have to walk through another night. The sun was already getting dangerously low and the forest has gotten much darker than before. Our legs were also still throbbing with pain from yesterday.

“Oh come oooooon Stephanie~ “a familiar girly voice trilled through the woods. “You can’t escape from us like last time NYAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!”

Lissa, the death demon’s cackle sent a shiver down my spine and I froze in place.

“She is speaking truth, mortal. Thou canst no longer escape. Thou canst no longer hide. Thou canst only run ‘til thou body sunders apart,” the gravelly voice of Naga echoed from the other direction.

The hairs on my neck started to tingle and I had that uncomfortable feeling of being watched again.

“We know where you are, Stephanie. Always. Our master knows your location at all times, much like that compass you wear around your neck,” a third, calm and collected, but at the same time cold and harsh voice whispered from somewhere in front of us.

The air around us grew colder and colder and a blueish glow started to emanate from the underbrush.

“If you surrender the artefact, we will let you and your companions go without a scratch. However, if you resist…” The glow came closer and Ashe’s limp, upright body slowly floated towards us. “We will destroy you all, starting with the rat.”

The three figures emerged from the woods from three different sides.

Lissa had ghoulish skin, the flesh on her left cheek had rotten away, revealing her playful grin even more. Two short stubby black horns protruded from her skull and her pitch-black orbs of eyes were glimmering with anticipation. She wore green and purple jester’s clothes, with the had with the little bells and everything. In each of her hands rested a curved golden dagger with green flames licking up the blades. She flipped one of them playfully.

Naga looked almost entirely skeletal. A little bit of flesh still clung to his skull and a singular blackened feathered wing extended from his right shoulder. He wore a proud and regal look on his face. He wore a tattered half-buttoned-up green suit that revealed part of his ribcage and a long, hooded green trench coat on top of it. In his right hand sat a massive dark-grey scythe with a jagged head that looked like ghostly glowing jade.

The old man looked the same as when I first saw him. Pale-white skin. Black winter furs and hides with a deep black hood. A long grey-black beard, slitted ice blue glowing eyes and black make-up around the eyes that looked like he had been crying. A goat skull with similarly glowing eyes on his right shoulder. His entire short form even shorter from leaning on an elegant brass cane.

My eyes wandered over each of them and then became fixed on Ashe’s unconscious form. If only I had super-fast wind magic like Marl- Marion. Then I could just sweep in there, grab her and then get us all to safety.

But… I’m just not made for combat. I know a few spells that can hurt, if done right. The first goblin encounter was proof of that, but most of that was luck and someone interfered with the spells somehow.

“So, what will it be Stephanie? Will you want over the artefact, or do we need to take it off your corpse?” the old man asked.

Wait! The compass! Nydia said it is really powerful, maybe I can use it somehow to get us all out of here. But how do I… access it? How does the ‘power’ inside it work? Whatever I do, protecting Ashe has to be my first priority. She was vulnerable right now and they said they’d take her out first.

Did I even know any protection spells I could use? Maybe I could use the forest to grow a cocoon of roots around us… But what then? With enough time I could probably transport us through a tree or something. Would the cocoon hold on long enough?

My mind was racing through a bunch of possibilities, routes of escape, anything and the old man was starting to get impatient. Cassie was clutching one of the blades she brought tightly, ready to pull it out the moment we needed it, though I didn’t think it would do us much good against these foes. Nydia just looked shocked, frozen, helpless.

The old man’s hand twitched and I reacted almost instinctively, so fast even Ma-rion would be proud. An ice-cold shroud of magic shot from his hand and was immediately intercepted by a root big enough to house a family of gnomes. I did not expect it to be this potent. But I had no time to pat myself on the back. I pulled more of the root out of the ground and wreathed it around us in a fluid motion.

Cassie pulled her sword out and covered the unconscious Ashe. A barrage of ghostly missiles sprung out of Naga’s empty hand and started to chip away at our wooden shield. Lissa just laughed.

Okay okay okay, Sephie you’ve got this. The transportation spell was complicated, but doable. I didn’t have the time to fish out my notes, I just had to trust I knew what I was doing. Which I did. Hopefully.

Luckily, the biggest concern didn’t matter much right now. Tree transportation tended to pull one alongside the world roots, which all lead through Wolfland Forest. There was always a high risk of getting shunted out in one of the most dangerous places in the world. But since we were already here…

I dug my hands deep into the earth until they grasped the base of one of the non-conjured roots. I closed my eyes and began chanting. Ardem vaelus so rai Eden. I repeated the words. Again and again and again, while I felt our pursuers slowly chip away at the root.

I felt as the root protecting us started to falter when I finally found something. A connection. Deep and powerful. Something that just screamed world root.

“HOLD ONTO ME!” I screamed to my companions as the root started splitting open from the assault.

Nydia grabbed my arm and Cassie carried Ashe over, took the ratgirl’s hand into her own and placed them on my shoulder.

The old man stepped through the hole and unleashed a sickly green wave of what I could only describe as ‘death’ on us.

FUNDA ARDEM VAELUS! I cried at the top of my lungs and just before the wave hit us I lost all sense of direction as our bodies were magically dragged through and invisible barrier and vanished.