They stopped right next to the forest. The rest was without any events, except for Elisa not wanting to leave the carriage until they ate. After that she returned without a word.

Michael walked next to the trees and looked around surveying the forest.

"It seems safe for now. But from now on there might be creatures standing in our way. We have to be more carefull, so I cast the spells we need. Everyone go back to your positions."

Joseph got on the carriage. Elisa was lying on the seat and she faced the otherway.

'Seems like she is sleeping.'

He sit down and looked outside. Michael was chanting something in elven. While the others stayed next to the carriage waiting for him to finish.

After a few minutes they started to move again. The trees in their way split, like they were trained soldiers obeying to the commander's comands.

'It will make the travell faster. But it will be more dangerous as well. All the monsters can see us from far away. But I think these guys are confident enough. Their skills should be good afterall.'

After a while he heard noises from the outside. He opened the door and looked around. The guards were fighting with goblins. There were over ten goblins, but they died from just a swing of a sword. It took less than a minute to kill them. After that, they took the cores out and moved on.

A few hours later they stopped to take rest. Eric turned to Joseph when after a few minutes he left the carriage alone.

"Where is Lady Elisa?"

"She is asleep. I didn't want to wake her up. But after I think about it, you should go and wake her."

Eric seemed a little bit supprised by him, but got in the carriage.

Joseph sit down to eat with the guards. After a few minutes Gustave looked at the carriage.

"It takes quiet a lot of time to wake her up. I should check on them."

He stood up, but Joseph stopped him.

"Let the kids be. You might interrupt something important."

Michael seemed to realize what was going in, but Gustav didn't really know.

"What would I interrupt?"

"Come on Gus! Just eat you damn food and let them be!"

Michael grabbed him and pulled him back to his place.

"If you say so..."

"Also Joseph you call them kids, but you don't look that old neither."

Joseph looked at Michael.

"It's my habbit. I alway call younger people kids. Mainly if they are like them. They are really naive and oblivious of the world around them."

"Hahaha... That's true. But I wonder how old are you?"

Joseph looked at him smiling.

"I'm allready a grownup in my kin's lifespan. We live up to around a 100 years, if we are "lucky", but usually it's around 80 years. So if I say I'm 24 don't think that I'm a children, like in your race it would be."

He didn't want any misunderstanding so he just delibaretly shared this with him.

"I see... Also Eric is 50 years old, more than twice your age. It's facinating how different you two are!"

"Yeah! But as I said 60 years old would person would be old for my kin. So we mature faster."

"I see."

They talked for a while, then both of the "kids" left the carriage silently. They just sit down and eat without a word. Gustav walked to Eric.

"So. What were you two doing?"

After a few second of silence Eric replied.

"We were just talking."

"Oh."

Gustav went back to his post disappointed, like he was waiting for something different. Michael just laughed at him.

"This guy is dense as a brick!"

Joseph laughed with him, got back on the carriage and started to read again.

'It seems like this book alone is not enough for the ride back. I should ask for an other one from Elder Bran.'

A few minutes later Elisa got on as well. She sit down and looked at Joseph with a sulky face.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome!"

She went back to sleep. Joseph was supprised.

'How does she want to sleep at night, if he sleeps all day?'

He took out his book.

'Well. Not my problem.'

He read a few pages.

'I'm curious what they were "talking" about. But I guess I'll never know.'

After a while he heard some noises from the outside again. He didn't even look out.

'Some goblins again. I don't think it will take too much time.'

But the fight didn't end for minutes and the carriage stopped as well.

"Elisa! Get up! We got some company!"

Joseph opened the door, jumped out and saw it. It was the troll. Michael and Gustav was fighting it and Eric stayed back to watch for an opening. It seemed like it was a balanced fight. The two guards fought well against that thing, the problem was that it's skin was so thick they couldn't hurt it.

'I can't belive we meet again. Now you will pay!'

He stood and held out his hand aiming at the troll's head. Elisa looked out through the window of the carriage.

'What spell should I use? Trolls have high regeneration. Usually burning them, or dipping them in acid is a good choice. That I should use this!'

He formed his hand as a pistol. It looked like he was a kid playing around. She first laughed at him, but then he concentrated his manna in his finger and made four little convex lens, from energy, before his finger.

'As I read: Manna is an energy that can be manipulated to behave as different materials. Now I'm going to use it as light!'

He released all the manna he collected in his finger through the lenses and it shout out like a laser from a sci fi movie, except that but it was blue and somewhat slower.

'It is slower than light, but it should be a condensed energy, which burns everything in it's way.'

It hit the distracted troll's right eye. It froze for a second. It lost it's eye and a part of it's head from the hit. In the opening the guards cut it's tendors and Eric pushed his sword in it's jaw and the sword errupted in flames burning it's head. It took only a few seconds to kill it, thanks to the opening.

"Nice job Joseph!"

As Michael turned back to look at him, he saw Joseph fell to the ground like a bag of potato.

"Hey! What happened? Are you allr..."

Joseph lost his conciousness.

Alert

You have lost all your manna! You will suffer side effects from mana exhaustion!