Prince Petro Liam Gelli the thirty second was rather perturbed. When he asked about muffling the tracer spell on the journal he assumed that it would be placed under a cloaking spell or perhaps have the spell ‘punctured’ as the slave seal had been but neither of these methods were used to mask the signal. No, the book, still in its Magi-ware® container was unceremoniously shoved right up the prince’s… jelly. It was disgusting but so long as he cycled his mana it would prove to be somewhat effective in masking the signal. In truth this method was probably better than anything they could do magically with the tools they had on hand but it was also quite demeaning.

Cycling mana was easy but it was also tiring so he had to trade off with Mary-Ann every few hours. Thankfully Jellies don’t need to sleep much or this would have been intolerable. It had been just over a day since Phyron had attacked the den but they had actually been making pretty good time with the goblin only stopping long enough to eat though by the look of him it wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer.

Despite the strain he also maintained a link to the outside so he kept his attention mostly on the path they were traveling. It was much less boring than just concentrating on cycling his mana. The path along the creek was mostly clear but it wasn’t a well-trodden path. It looked like it was used often enough to be relatively flat and clear of obstructions however it wasn’t a paved road, nor was actually maintained in a purposeful way so there were several areas where it was washed out or had rocks or limbs across it. It was actually at a point where a tree had fallen creating a natural bridge that they decided to cross the stream and head south. It was barely five minutes later that Al tripped over a branch and fell face first into the side of a tree. For some reason they felt it was time to take a brake and let him sleep for a bit. To make it easier they backtracked to the creek and put the journal under a rock in the middle of the creek. The moving water would act to block the tracking spell nearly as well as if the jellies were to keep it inside of themselves and this allowed them all to rest at the same time.

That done they set camp and Al fell asleep as soon as the camp fire was lit. Thankfully he had some flint and steel in his bag as his magic was still out of commission. Floppy curled up against Al’s side facing the fire and he too seemed to fall asleep immediately. In fact the only ones awake were the jellies, including the unnamed iridescent slime, which was in truth a jelly as well. Oddly enough it didn’t seem to eat, at least not anything that the prince had seen but it still seemed heathy and content. It rolled up behind Al and kind of purred as it rubbed against him, all in all the prince found it to be a strange creature.

“Do you want to take the first watch, or try to get some rest?” Mary-Ann’s voice broke the prince out of his silent contemplation. He actually had to stop and consider how he felt before replying.

“After cycling my mana I am rather spent so it would be best if I got some sleep.” He actually wanted to complain that it was below him to ‘take a watch’ as it were but given that only the two of them were in any condition to actually keep watch, he kept it to himself.

Mary-Ann grunted affirmatively and rolled off to keep watch leaving the prince to his own thoughts. He considered what it would take to successfully escape to the south and what to do if Phyron caught up with them. He considered the best way to get both himself and the journal to his kingdom but he was also prepared to abandon both it and the rest if it was necessary to make his escape. He certainly wouldn’t allow himself to be recaptured.

So far, despite Phyron’s attack, everything was going his way: they had escaped the lab; they had the journal with the experimental notes; and they had the human that had been turned into a jelly. Actually they even had the jelly Phyron had created in an earlier experiment. They had everything he could have asked for and now all he needed was to get it back to his kingdom so they could figure it all out. As he thought on this he was quite content and if he were human he would be smiling as he fell asleep.

******

Mary-Ann didn’t really trust the prince but she needed him. Right now all she wanted was to be returned to normal. As the days past one by one she had begun to fear that she would lose her humanity and become a jelly in thought and deed. It worried her to the point that she would purposely try to do thing like use her hands to grab onto something. Of course this didn’t work but it did remind her of her true form and that was all that mattered to her. It still upset her however when she forgot about the change and something rudely reminded her of it.

Being awoken suddenly caused her to flail around as she tried to stand up only to realize she couldn’t find her legs, this caused her to recall the accident and her current state. After a few seconds of feeling sorry for herself she came her senses and realized that they were breaking camp. Al had bumped into her as he put the fire out and was now wading through the creek looking for where they had buried the journal under some rocks.

“You should have enough magic to cast a search spell.” She told him as she rolled across the log that bridged the creek.

“R-r-r-realy-y-y?” He stuttered obviously chilled by the cold water.

“Come up here.” She said to him as she prepared to teach him the search spell. He was still shivering but the morning sun was shining down on the log as, unlike the woods on either side, the creek was open to the sky. As he warmed up he tried the simple spell Mary-Ann had taught him but he was unable to detect the book. She had him stop after a couple of tries as she thought about the problem. It seemed that the book was even better hidden than they had imagined. After the third attempt failed she had him stop and they went back to camp at her urging.

“We have a problem…” she started when they were all together, “and maybe an opportunity.” She finished.

“What is this problem and opportunity?” the prince asked.

“We can’t find the journal.” She stated simply.

“That seems to be a plain problem.” The prince sounded annoyed.

“We COULD find it,” she replied, “IF we looked hard enough. The thing is I had Al look for it magically and he couldn’t detect it.”

“And how exactly is this not a problem?” he asked.

“If we couldn’t find it from five feet away, how would Phyron possibly detect it?” She asked rhetorically. When the prince didn’t respond she continued; “I suggest we mark this area and continue on to town, once we have gathered enough funds to travel south we can come back and retrieve the journal.” She sat there quietly letting them consider her idea.

“How could we find it later if we can’t find it now?” The prince asked after considering the matter.

“I’m pretty sure it won’t move considering the size of the rocks we buried it under so all we have to do is make sure we can find this spot again and then it shouldn’t take too much more effort than finding now.” She stopped and considered it for a minute. “I actually think we need to mark not just here but several places to lead us back to here.”

“Magic mark?” Al asked.

“No.” Mary-Ann answered immediately. “If we mark it magically then Phyron may notice that, I think we have to do something different. To mark the edge of our farm my father would gather and stack stones, he told me that the number of stones and the patters they were stacked in could say a lot. I have no idea how to do that but I think we could easily make a couple of stacks of stones that we could use to mark this place and our path.”

“That sounds reasonable.” The prince said. “What about the tracking on the slave mark?” he asked.

“Unfortunately it will take a while for it to go away completely. That said, it is considerably weaker than it was before, but it will still be a problem.” She had to stop and consider the situation. “We might be able to further muffle the signal… actually if we do it right it might even help him blend in.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the prince asked.

“Well, goblins are never allowed to enter towns as free beings, they are either slaves or bound as familiars. Most people consider them monsters and kill them on sight. That’s why it would be reasonable for Al to cover his face.” She finished as if that explained everything.

“You’ve lost me.” The prince stated after he considered her statement. He just couldn’t connect the two.

“You see, there is no such thing as a goblin mage; therefore we pass Al off as a mage that was cursed to look like he does. Of course as a coursed person he would feel obligated to cover his face so people won’t attack him on sight. Thankfully the visible portion of the slave seal has nearly disappeared and will likely be gone by the time we get to town so we don’t have to be overly concerned with that. But what I am thinking is we have to get him a scarf or something else to cover his face but we can also add an enchantment to help hide the tracking mark. Even though the enchantment will have to be temporary as none of us the skill and training to create permanent enchantments it should still last long enough for the mark to fade away; at worst we have to create a new enchantment.”

“Ok, so he can get into town, once we get the scarf and enchant it, so what are we going to do to make enough to travel down south?” The prince was confused because, while the others really couldn’t tell, he knew she had the equivalent of an evil smile.

“Why Al here is going to become the first goblin adventurer!”