Day 46

After setting off at dawn, it was well after noon that we stopped running through the forest. We were going to make a final push to get to Pon in time so, despite the agony in our tired muscles, we kept going. That was until we came to the edge of a cliff. It wasn't a long way down, and it was easy enough to climb on branches and roots that poked out the side. But we did stop. Down on the lower level two people were engaged in an epic battle. 

Lanua and I crouched down simultaneously to watch as the two darted between the few trees in the clearing below, colliding often with deafening thuds of fists and rings of striking metals. The two were perfectly matched; it seemed as though they would stay there forever unless one of them made a mistake and the other could seize the opportunity to gain the advantage.

They moved with impossible speed. I struggled to keep focused on them; one moment I would be looking right at them and the next they would be fighting in my peripheral vision. From the look on Lanua's face, she was having the same problem. I remember mumbling a question of how they could move so fast, to which she replied with a clueless sigh. At the time the only explanation I could think of was that they were Demons. It wasn't much of an explanation; Demons always work in the shadows, out of sight - everyone knows that. They don't let people see them. If these were Demons then they were behaving far out of character. No, surely they were something else.

For half an hour we stayed at the top of the cliff and watched them fight, not wanting to climb down into the middle of the action. It was only as we were about to turn to find another way down that a cloud passed in front of the sun and the darker of the two combatants disappeared. As if he was never there. There was no sign of him. The remaining fighter didn't seem as taken aback by this as Lanua and I were, and he immediately took off to the West.

The two of us sat stunned for a minute, not sure whether we should move, or if doing so would place us in the middle of another battle. Then Lanua spoke.

"They were using stones!"

Could they have been? It seemed like a reasonable deduction to make. The stones are supposed to help us fight the Ice Elementals, and if we could fight like that then we would be bound to win! 

My mind was cast back to the Dwarven mines when I fell and lodged a shard of a stone in my arm. When I later fought a dau'kelaq I struck it once and it was slain - a very different outcome to my first encounter with one of those creatures. In my head I skipped forward in time to our trek to Pon. I have carried the water and equipment on the arm with the shard in, and I hadn't even noticed the weight. In fact it was only at the top of that cliff that I realised how odd this was. 

So I agreed with Lanua that they had been using stones, and by my experiences with a tiny sliver, I attempted to appreciate the magnitude of the effect from wielding a full stone. I picked up Enan and jumped off the side of the cliff, catching a vine close to the bottom to slow my decent as I had done in my escape from Teeluw. Nothing broken. I set Enan down for Lanua to look after, and I sprinted, with all the speed I could muster, after the second fighter. 

I'd have preferred not to run off and leave Lanua and Enan behind, but I knew that she would be too slow moving between the trees to ever catch up to the man. I hoped that he also would not be as accustomed to forests as I, so that I would be able to close the gap between us.

He had been in a hurry to get wherever he was going - his sword had carved a path out of the forest and the ground was trampled. Good. He would be slowing to clear the foliage that I may sprint through without diversion.

By the time I got to the end of the trail night had fallen. There I found a wooden building, not unlike N'Ras' inn. A light was flickering through the upstairs window. 

With the Shard-Blade ready in my hand I pushed open the front door. It was clear that this had indeed once been an inn but, apart from the visitor upstairs, only forest animals had stayed here in the longest time. I climbed the stairs and stepped so that I was facing the wooden door into the room of the fighter. 

I raised my left fist.

Knock. Knock. 

The floorboards creaked. The doorknob began to turn. I clenched my sword in my strong arm. The door swung open. 

Before me stood a man. No ordinary man, however. He was easily 7 feet tall at least and his skin had a pattern to it that, at a glance, made him look as if he was covered in feathers. He was holding a sword - the one he had been using earlier. It had symbols on the hilt, as I will draw at the bottom of this page when I get around to it. His chest was about twice the width of mine, and it looked like he would be able to effortlessly withstand any attack I could throw at him. 

"You were using stones to fight," I stated to break the disconcerting silence. 

"I was," he confirmed. 

"My companion, Lanua, and I, Esunai, are on a quest to find stones at Pon so that we may protect her village from an attack. Ice Elementals are moving closer every day as they have done before, but this time there are no stones in the village to use for defence. I have chased you here through the afternoon and into the night so that I may ask, on behalf of the people of Old Traders' Village, to take a stone back with me to ward off the Ice Elementals." 

"I see. So you're who she thought I was. The stones attract evil, one that you have seen. I cannot give them away freely, or at any price. I suggest you carry on to Pon. Now, I must begin my journey to Arzingdale. I have a message for the guilds that must be delivered in person." 

With that he made to leave, but I stood my ground. I could not allow the stones to slip away so easily.

"But Pon is too far! We'll never make it back to the village in time!" 

The man's face shifted as the expression of boredom was joined by an expression of irked discontent. "Perhaps, for your sake, that would be best," he muttered. "If you do find a stone at Pon, which I would consider very unlikely, you would have no trouble getting back to your village in time. If not, then you might find wizards from my city there who can control Elementals as familiars. In that case there would be no fight to race back to. Now, move aside. Neither of us can gain from continuing this conversation." 

Lanua found me at the inn just as the sun was beginning to rise. I regretfully recounted how I had failed to get a stone, and how the man had said it was unlikely we would find any stones at Pon, but telling me that there could be wizards, whatever a 'wizard' might be, who can control Ice Elementals from afar, rekindled the hope that our quest will not fail.