Marco and Riv were eventually able to pry the reluctant Scholar-Scout duo from their seats and to force them to gear up. They squeezed every bit of overdramatic juice they could from the situation, trudging behind Marco and Riv like captured prisoners of war, complaining between themselves with every step.

Marco made the internal decision not to fight their bellyaching too hard. However overwrought it might be, the fact of the matter was that the healing was a big win for the entire team. Elisa had wasted no time waving them all over to her side once she was dressed, sending two quick pulses of glowing green energy through all of them.

“That was healing?” Marco asked. “I’m not particularly hurt.”

“No, that was a delousing,” Elisa said. “I’m not sure if any of you had any parasites in you before, but you for sure don’t now, unless they are strong magic parasites or something. The second pulse was for general illness. You shouldn’t be getting any colds for a while.”

“We didn’t anyway. At least I didn’t,” Riv said.

“You think that because your body is so strong.” Elisa reached out her hand and put another two pulses through Riv. “It fights things off so well you hardly notice them. But it still has to fight them off. From now on, you all get some time with me every day to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore.”

Now they were splashing through streams and slipping in mud, and Marco was glad that he didn’t have to worry about anything that might have been living in the water. The island had apparently gotten some rain since they were last there, and even with their enhanced stats they were finding it hard to navigate the environment as easily as they liked. Everyone except Aethe, at lest.

“It’s not fair how you can do that,” Marco said, as Aethe leapt over a puddle he and landed gracefully on soft, slick terrain that would have left him on his face if he had hit it with anything but the utmost of caution. “I don’t even get it. I probably have as many points in dexterity as you do, or close.”

“I’m a Scout,” Aethe said. “Moving around isn’t just stats for me. It’s skills, too. Part of the build. If you want, I’ll trade you that ability for being able to defend yourself against anyone who closes the distance between you and them.”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so,” she said. “Now let’s keep moving. We are going slower than we should.”

Even with the terrain hindering them and their very late start, they managed to cover a surprising number of miles before the sun started to set. As the light around them dimmed, Aethe managed to take down several rabbit-like animals that emerged from their burrows, stuffing them into a medium-sized sack.

“Must be nocturnal,” Elisa said. “You think we can eat them?”

“They’re meat. Normally I’d be more worried about getting worms or something, but you can handle that now,” Aethe said.

They continued covering ground, eventually getting a respectable total distance from the town before finally bunking down for the night. A quick trip to The Foolish Endeavor

had allowed Riv to pick up supplies for all of them, so they had bedrolls, tents, and some limited amount of bread and vegetables to help them supplement their hunted game in making the camp as home-like as possible.

“It’s pretty clear,” Marco said. “Do you think we really need the tents?”

“Not really. I wouldn’t mind sleeping outside if you don’t,” Elisa said.

“Then let’s just do that. It’s been a really long day.” Marco yawned. “Let’s sleep right away. We can make it up with an earlier start.”

They all pulled their bedrolls up to the fire, taking in the residual warmth as the fire died down. Marco found his head was lined up with Aethe’s, if a bit upside-down relative to each other. He looked into her eyes and smiled sleepily. It really had been a long day. He felt like he could fall asleep that exact moment, if he wanted to. Only a few seconds more with Aethe made it seem worth it to him to hold on to consciousness.

“It’s a good plan,” Aethe said. “Just so you know. Everyone sort of agrees on that. Nobody really said it, but I could tell.”

“Yeah?” Marco smiled. “How?”

“They didn’t argue. Like Elisa said, none of us are shy. Anything that takes down Quill a little faster makes sense.”

“Then you aren't mad.”

"I’m a little mad about having to walk across a whole island," Aethe said. "But not even that if I'm being honest. It's been a while since I really stretched my legs."

Marco smiled at her for a second too long at that and almost fell asleep.

"Hey." Aethe reached out and poked him. "You have to tell me you are doing that or else I'll just feel boring."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Fine." Marco leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "I can't stay up anymore. You'll be here tomorrow?"

"Unless I'm not," she said. "But even then, I'll be right back."

Morning light came slow over the island, filtering through light clouds. It lit up Aethe lying there, not asleep and looking slightly bored.

"I've been lying here awake for a half-hour," she said. "To keep the promise."

"Thanks," Marco said. "You want to get up now? Make some breakfast?"

"Sure. I'll heat up some of the meat from last night. We still have bread. Let's do it."

Marco and the others ate, then got packed up for the rest of the walk. It didn't take incredibly long. Before more than a few minutes had passed they had scrubbed out their cooking stuff, rolled up their bedding, and were on their way.

They made a loose circuit of the nearest rise, following a deer track that wound around boulders and under isolated trees. Marco stopped the crew to take a closer look at a cave mouth they came across, a damp little hollow no more than twenty feet deep. The air inside was wet and stale where the cold, bare rock retained old rainwater. Riv ducked in first, club ready, but nothing happened. It was a bust.

“I thought for sure something cool would be in there,” Riv said. "There's always something cool in caves in books."

"I'm sure there will be plenty more caves," Marco said. "We can check them too."

The next few were the same. There were some differences, like random scrapes in the rock or old campfires from explorers who had made camp there what looked like years and years ago. But every one they checked was quiet, empty, and a little disappointing.

The terrain got rougher as they moved inland. Some of that was on purpose, as the team kept to the highest ground they could to make the most of their mobility. Marco kept the group’s pace slow, making sure nobody missed anything that might be interesting.

“You think Quill’s temple is invisible?” Riv finally asked. “Because we are running out of places to look.”

“No,” Elisa said. “But wherever he hid it, it's well enough obscured that none of the people living on this island have found it either. We never heard a single person talk about Quill as anything but the founder of the mayor. Either he got everyone to keep quiet about a magical temple, or they just never knew about it.”

By midday they had the island mostly whipped into shape. Aethe guiding them through the hardest parts of the travel made it quicker than it would have otherwise been, and they had a few short, very low-probability stretches of ground they had already seen from the ship to review before they had made a complete circuit.

Elisa's hands lit a torch for the first real cavern they found, and everyone ducked under the low entry at the opening into a space that resolved into a wide, dark chamber. Dust puffed up from the floor, seemingly undisturbed for as far into the past as it could indicate.

“No footprints,” Aethe said. “This cavern doesn't get much airflow. I'd say there was no traffic in here for months at least.”

They swept every side passage but one, and none of them went far. They found nothing but mineral veins glittering in the torchlight. It was only when they turned to examine the last one that the interesting thing the cave contained found them.

With a whoosh, the bat became visible as Marco got the slightest of a chance to do anything about it. The sheer momentum of the animal was significant as it brought weight much greater than Marco would have expected from a flying thing down on him. He stabbed at where it had been, but the rapier’s point met only stone, clanging in the dark as the bat whooshed off to safety once more.

The air shifted a bit in the cave, but there was no more warning than that when the Slicing Dark attacked again. Riv swung blindly and far too slow as the bat cut Aethe's leg on a strafing pass. The club struck sparks from the cavern wall, but otherwise accomplished nothing. Elisa flared her hands into brighter torches, trying to cast a wider light. It worked a little, if only providing a few more feet of illumination. The Slicing Dark melted into shadow again, perfectly safe for the moment.

Aethe loosed a storm of arrows, tracking the scrape of claws along the ceiling. Each successive shot ricocheted harmlessly down to the ground.

"I'm firing as fast as I can, not even aiming," Aethe said. "It echoes too much in here for sound to be useful. I might get lucky."

They tightened their formation and set their backs to the wall, listening for the smallest change in the echoes around them. It wasn't enough by itself. Elisa's healing came in handy for the first time she had ever used it as healing per se, and she was able to close up the wounds on each person as the bat opened them. It helped that the bats never took attacks very quickly in succession, which gave her plenty of time to keep her friends mended.

They needed it. Five minutes in, Aethe's rain of arrows had yet to bear any fruit. By then, they had blocked a lot of attacks without returning any, all the while taking lucky damage from the bat whenever it picked the right angle.

"I think we just need one good hit," Aethe said. "It's not hitting us that hard. I don't think it's even that high level of a threat. It's just that it has one good trick we can't counter. If we could get it to hold still for a second, we'd have it. Elisa, you can't get it?"

"I can't. I get the feeling the moment I cut out what little light I can make, we are in a lot more trouble."

"You've been healing."

"That's a second at a time, at most. It hasn't been smart enough to take advantage of that. I'd have to keep the electricity out until it dove and hope I was pointing it in the right direction."

"Guys, are we okay with me trying something dumb?" Riv said. "It's going to be really dumb. Possibly really, really dumb. But it might work."

"What's the downside?"

"It might not work. And there's a very small chance it will bring down the roof on us. But it might work, and if it does, we can hurt this thing."

"Just do it." Marco decided on the spot he'd almost rather have that happen than to keep fighting this bat. He'd much rather have that happen than to run away, after letting the thing hammer them for so long. "We trust you."