“Hells bells! What is wrong with the lot of you?” If the stunned faces weren’t looking directly at him, mouths agape, Kre wouldn’t have been certain that the voice was his own.
“Well,” said one of his gruff looking captors, “that just takes all the fun out of it.” Kre felt the steel-like grips on his arms and legs immediately release and soon after started to feel the tingle along his limbs as blood rushed back into his extremities.
Kre lay there in the dirt and leaves for a few moments longer, listening as the others shuffled about him and not quite being able to make out their hushed words. When no one seemed to be overly concerned about him, he slowly sat up and started to pull some of the dead leaves from his hair.
“You missed one.”
The voice was soft, yet familiar, and Kre felt himself smile despite the craziness of what had just occurred. “Thanks Ras,” he replied softly. He turned as he spoke the words, but the hauflin was already walking away and towards the campfire. With a sigh, Kre pushed himself to his feet and finished brushing himself off, taking extra care to find and extract the leaf that Ras identified.
He turned to face the forest in the direction opposite the campfire, wondering if he should simply walk away from this insane group of adventurers and take his chances in the woods. Alone, and at night. The very fact that he was even considering this was a strong indication of just how uncomfortable he felt with this group.
He had always thought the life of an adventurer was glamorous and exciting, and the adventurers themselves were dashing heroes and heroines that humbly served the realm, doing what normal people could not. He and his friends had always talked about one day going off to be adventurers. They talked about running away from Mintas and going off to explore the ruins of the Ancients and serving as a sort of community force for justice and honor.
The idealistic vision of adventuring didn’t last too long, especially once it was announced that the Tehynshin military would no longer work with or employ the adventuring teams as they once did. In fact, most of the adventuring groups had been classified as brigands and outlaws by the military almost immediately after, given that many of the once-heroes continued to delve into the ruins and keeping their finds and treasures for themselves rather than turning them in as they once did.
Kre wondered if this group, the Red Feather Adventuring Company, was one of the outlawed ones. Judging from his own experiences with them thus far, it wouldn’t surprise him to hear that this group was made up of criminals, at least in the eyes of the Tehynshin government.
Still, wandering lost in the woods as night was fast approaching numbered very high on his list of things he had no desire to do. That, and he could smell something delicious and meaty from the direction of the campfire, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in… well, he didn’t even know how long.
After one final wondering look at the tree line before him, Kre turned and once again found himself face to face with the dark-skinned Ylveryan.