The open scroll contained a strange language Ellouise couldn’t decipher. She stared at it with wonder. She couldn’t read its script, but the illustrations seemed to match the landscape around her, and that had to mean something, right?
The Lifetender looked at her companions, who were busy scouting the area. Ellouise trusted them to alert her of any danger; they’d been through so much together. Still, she was expecting them to return any moment now.
Glint, her Fowler, landed on her shoulder as if he’d read her thoughts and chirped softly. Ellouise gently stroked his colourful feathers. Glint seemed a bit off, nervous perhaps, but not scared. Puzzled, she looked around. Before long, the sound of undergrowth crumpling underfoot reached her, and she turned to face the source.
A boy came barrelling out of the forest brush, twigs tangled in his hair and wearing strange clothes. He barged through the undergroth with all the grace of a drunken Cactwo. She’d heard him coming, but his expression lit up with surprise. Clearly, he hadn’t expected to run into anyone here. A Purralysis, presumably his, halted tentatively by his side.
Ellouise took a defensive stance and eyed him from head to toe. He appeared to be a fellow teenager, but the only thing she knew about him was that he wasn’t a Lifetender. His clothing and gear were all marked with sharp, angular patterns, and green was conspicuous by its absence, the twigs in his hair notwithstanding.
“Uh, hey, I’m uh, Dross.” he said in his strange accent before walking over, ready to shake hands, but Ellouise eyed him warily. She found dealing with strangers difficult at the best of times. It was the main reason she preferred being an explorer with her companions.
“Suit yourself.” he said, shrugging when Ellouise rejected his greeting. The boy sat down on a bundle of roots near the cliff face.
Ellouise didn’t appreciate his presence at all. She let loose a sharp whistle, and the Fowler took to the air again. Her two Buggleberries, Buggle and Berry, emerged from the forest and fell in line behind her. Together they set off, leaving Dross behind.
She trudged into the forest again, relieved to once again just be with her trusty companions. Her peace didn’t last long however, as the distinct sound of boots stomping through the undergrowth approached again. She whipped around.
“What’s your problem?” she snapped.
"Felt like heading this way as well." he shrugged.
The longer they travelled together, the more frustrated Ellouise became. Dross had an inquisitive temperament that was most annoying. But every time she picked up the pace, he’d keep up. Reluctantly, she accepted the presence of this new, rather irritating, yet seemingly harmless company.
Together, they navigated the forest, negotiating the terrain and warding off wild animals. Dross, a Triumvian as it turned out, constantly enquired about Ellouise and her motivations for being an adventurer. The instant she mentioned her Lifetender origins, a torrent of questions soon followed.
Ellouise hesitated to respond since she disliked talking about herself. Yet Dross persisted with such earnest curiosity that finally, Ellouise began to speak more openly. The annoyance lessened with time, and at one point, she even found herself telling him a bit about her life, such as how she lost her family at the age of 12.
She couldn't explain why; maybe it was the attentive expression Dross held every time she reluctantly answered a question. It differed from the usual looks of contempt she received when she had to beg for food as a child. it helped that he answered her own questions every time, telling her of his past. Apparently he was a member of something called a Delver’s Guild. She’d ask more later.
As they travelled, the wildlife became more hostile. Little by little, they began working together. Dross's companion, a Purralysis named Turro, was unbelievably nimble and could easily divert them, creating opportunities Glint made good use of. Buggle and Berry provided moral support.
Later on in their journey, the stumbled into a clearing, and in that clearing, there was a camp. Piles of goods of various origins stacked in piles, along with racks of swords and spears, made it quite clear that these were bandits. Initially caught by as much surprise as Ellouise and Dross, their slack jaws closed, and the gang reached for weapons.
Their leader stood tall, a figure of muscle and sinew, appearing to have enough brawn to bend an iron bar in his bare hands. He was staring at the unexpected visitors with a vile grin.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" he mocked, his voice deep and menacing.
Ellouise was scared, as any sensible person would be, but she maintained her composure. She hadn’t gotten this far in life by allowing fear to get the better of her.
Ellouise calmly answered, "This led us here.", indicating the scroll in her hand.
The man snatched it from her without hesitation, eyeing it over. Whether or not he could read the script, he wouldn’t say.
"Well kids, I appreciate you coming all this way to deliver this to me but, well, I can’t can’t exactly let you live. Business is business, and letting you walk away from here woulb be very bad business. You know how it is."
She shuddered. Gone was his mocking tone, replaced by an icy-cold determination of a killer. She was thinking of a plan, when suddeny, she heard her own whistled signal. Not quite right, but as close as Dross could mimic. He’d taken the opportunity while the bandits’ attention was fixed on her.
Called by the signal Glint swept in, viciously attacking the leader by going after his face and eyes with his claws and beak. The bandit shrieked in a tone decidedly more high-pitched than before, swatting at the winged assailant, dropping the scroll.
In that same instant, she called for Turro, who rushed through the shrubbery, darting between the bandits and immobilising them with its paralytic fur. The two youths sprinted forward, having to pull Glint off of their would-be killer, the avian seemingly intending to rough him up even more. They snatched the scroll and ran off, accompanied by their companions, including Buggle and Berry.
They ran and ran, until their muscles screamed in protest and their lungs burned. They finally slowed down, taking a rest in the thick, soft grass. They simply rested in silence for a while, catching their breath. The bandits wouldn’t be able to give chase for a day or so, Dross had warned her as much when she had once asked if she could pat Turro.
“Well,” Dross said, “guess we’ll both have quite the tale to tell at the end of this trip.”
She laughed, for the first time since their initial encounter.
“Well,” she replied in kind, “you’re not wrong.”