A gently blowing wind pushes through the forest. The warm current almost whistles in a sing-song manner as it presses through the trees, gliding along the sharp edges of the leaves dangling high above their heads. It is early in the morning and the four of them are walking again, still heading southward for a while.

They didn’t have much of anything to pack up in the camp, but they did go through the trouble of hiding any evidence of their having been there. The glass that they used to cook, they had destroyed and thrown into the river. Fresh worried about it, saying that it would be dangerous if any children were playing here, but Jubilee said it was fine. Any children playing out here were going to be eaten by monsters anyways, so the glass was their smallest worry. The fire-pit they extinguished and buried with wet sand from the river bank.

Fresh suggested that they bathe in the river. But Jubilee had called her a weird degenerate and Basil didn’t seem pleased with the idea either, fumbling with her sleeves nervously the entire time. The man from the sect said nothing at all and simply stared at a bird sitting on a high branch.

Fresh stares at her friends as she realizes how seriously all of them take the privacy of their bodies. Or maybe they’re just all shy? She isn’t sure actually. Then again, it’s not like she wants to undress to bathe in the river either. So maybe all of them are just the same. A bit dirty and a little sweaty, yet somehow they all preferred that to the alternative. She wonders if all adventurers are like this? Shy that is. Or maybe it really is just them. Maybe they’re just all weirdos.

They walk along the bank of the river, opting not to press too deeply into the forest as it apparently can get rather dangerous the further you get from the northern city. For each day’s worth of walking, the local monster’s levels rose considerably. But near the river, there were only ever small creatures. An occasional goblin. Some wiggly slimes that Fresh does her best to protect from her friends. They even meet a green mush-mush, but it stands on the other side of the river and glares at them with wary eyes.

“Nyeh!” yells the green mush-mush over the water. Fresh gasps, shocked at its foul language.

“Nyeh~!” says the girl, crossing her arms indignantly and looking away as they continue walking. Basil looks back at her.

“Don’t ask,” says Jubilee.

An hour passes and then another and then another. They don’t stop though, apart from a single five minute water break thereafter.

Fresh scratches her cheek as she sits down on the stump, exhausted. She looks around herself. Something is out of place. Something that should be a certain way, but isn’t. Her finger points over her friends as she counts. “One. Two. Three…” her finger turns back and pokes against her own body. “- Four.”

She lifts her other hand up as she counts the other number in her head. The number of members in their party. “One. Two… three… Oh!” The girl shoots up to her feet, realizing immediately what the problem is. She runs over to the giant from the sect who simply stands in the middle of the clearing, not feeling even a little awkward in the least. His towering presence simply stays right there, right in the middle, out in the open, without even a tree to lean against or a stump to sit down on as he waits.

“Hey! Wanna join our party?” asks Fresh, clenching her fists excitedly as she leans in towards him.

He lets out a long exhalation. “I am chosen.”

“Uh…” she scratches her cheek. “Is… is that a yes?” He nods once and Fresh smiles, delighted. That was surprisingly easy.

(Shamrock) has joined the party!

*~- Fresh -~*

Jubilee

Basil

Shamrock

Jubilee chimes in from the side. “Remember this day, meat-head. You’re going to live to regret it.”

Basil laughs a quiet laugh. Fresh frowns back at the two of them, wanting to say that it isn’t that bad. But… maybe it is that bad? She supposes she hasn’t been a very good party-leader. They lost their home and one of her friends died, if only for a little while. That was on her.

“What?” asks Basil.

Fresh blinks, realizing that she has been staring at the priestess. “Ah… nothing, I was just thinking.”

Basil plays with the bracelet on her arm, barely hidden under the torn and bloodied sleeve of her once white robes. “It’s not your fault, you know?”

“Huh?”

“Jubilee told me about the golem.”

Fresh’s eyes open wide in shock. Is Basil mad at her? “Ah! I didn’t me -!”

“It’s okay.” Basil shakes her head. “The dungeon breach was going to happen anyways. So…” The priestess shrugs. “If anything, the golem helped because it woke everybody up.”

Fresh stops, thinking for a moment. It makes sense, but she doesn’t like that it does. It absolves her of too much, as strange as that sounds. In a sense, she wants to feel bad about it. Maybe it’s still that piece of herself that she brought with her from her old life?

“It’s true,” says Jubilee, walking back from the water. “You’re a dumb-ass. But the vampires would have creeped their way around in the middle of the night,” they explain. “That many would have taken out half the plaza before anyone noticed and word got out.” Jubilee shakes their head. “I don’t know how, but somehow you always do the dumbest things at the right time.”

Fresh scratches her cheek, feeling uneasy about it. She turns her head and looks over at the shimmering water. Sometimes she isn’t really sure if the things that she does are really things that she, herself, does. Sometimes ideas just come to her as if whispered into her ears. Sometimes her hands just seem to move on their own, as she rushes to do something new without thinking. But somehow -

Her eyes look around at her collection of friends, up to the floating magical-lantern above them, down to the full bag at her side.

- Somehow everything keeps working out, as if… as if a force were pulling her along. It’s like she wasn’t making any of these decisions at all, like she was following a single, red string that pulls her from one place to the next, guiding her mind and thoughts with a gentle tug to the left and then a soft pull to the right.

She listens to the water trickle, wondering, is the fountain controlling her? Or is that too convenient a thought? It would absolve her again from her own stupidity. She doesn’t want that. She wants to carry it on her own back.

“- ey!” Jubilee yells from a few feet away and she snaps out of it, looking at the three of them who are standing there collected and waiting on her. “We’re leaving, with or without you, goo-brain!”

“Ah! Wait up!” yells Fresh grabbing her bag and running after her friends. “So what’s the plan?” she asks, catching up and already feeling winded from the short sprint. All of this walking is very hard for her with her frail body. But she can’t let them see that. Perking up, she adjusts the straps of her bag and stands upright and tall.

“We go west or we go east. What’s it gonna be?” asks Jubilee.

“Huh?” asks Fresh.

The three of them stare at her. Jubilee shakes their head. “You’re the party-leader, dumb-ass. Make a choice. We’ve gotten pretty far away now, we should have a bit of wiggle room.”

Her eyes wander over Jubilee’s, then Basil’s and then over Shamrock’s. All of them stare at her, expectantly.

But she doesn’t know what to tell them. She doesn’t know anything about either of those places apart from the few sentences that Jubilee had mentioned to her. She doesn’t know anything about this world at all. She can feel her heartbeat growing faster, her clammy skin feels colder than usual and a fresh sweat breaks on its surface. Breathing feels hard for her all of a sudden.

“I… I -” she stutters as something touches her side. Her eyes wander down, to look at her own hand that is digging into her pocket, where it fishes out a single, simple Obol. Without knowing what she’s doing, her hand moves. There is a slight chime, like the ringing of a quiet bell, as the tip of her nail strikes against the body of the coin, flipping it high into the air.

The round piece of metal shimmers as it flies, a nigh-ruby reflection bouncing off of the polished coin, sending a quick glimmer over her eyes. The breeze seems to nudge it in the air, twisting the rotation in a strange, almost unnatural manner that only she seems to notice. Her hand shoots out, catching it as it falls down again and strikes against her open palm. She’s surprised that she didn’t fumble it. Though, she’s surprised at what she’s doing to begin with. Her fingers close tightly together, obscuring it.

“If it’s the side without the face, we go east,” says Fresh.

“You mean tails?” asks Jubilee, rolling their eyes.

Fresh sticks out her tongue. Opening her hand, she shows the coin to her friends and to herself. Five faces are present in the circle that they form.

Jubilee sighs a breath of relief. “Thank fuck. I would have died in the desert.”

Basil nods, rolling her sleeves up as the afternoon heat slowly arrives. “Mhm.”

Shamrock lets out an indifferent grunt.

Fresh smiles, leaning in to her friends. “Let’s go make a new shop in the west then! Better than before! All of us together!”

Jubilee nods. “Yup.”

Basil agrees. “Mhm.”

Shamrock lets out an indifferent grunt.

Fresh stares at her friends and then sighs, having hoped for a little more enthusiasm. But she’s willing to accept this. It’s good enough. Not wanting to think about it any more, she pockets the coin and walks together with her friends, as they break off into the forest and start heading west, towards the city in the mountains.