CH76

Morning came and with it more walking. Both of them had the gist of it now at least. Walk for a bit and eventually encounter the next part of the trial.

“But why can’t it all just be back to back, or at least a bit closer together?” Ben complained, growing tired of how monotonous it was starting to feel.

“It’s probably to give us a bit of a break between parts as well as places to rest. Besides, would you really want to go through each of those things one after the other until we reach the end?”

He groaned. “No you’re right, that would suck, I just want to get this over with.” Perhaps he’d grown a bit too casual with what they had been going through. Now that his mind had expanded he just couldn’t force his every thought to focus entirely on their surroundings, it was too dull. At the same time he couldn’t exactly take his eyes off of it, sure Thera was staying vigilant too but it wasn’t like he could leave it all to her, it wouldn’t be fair.

As a compromise to himself, he picked up a stone and did the same thing he always did on their hunts. Utilizing the more destructive properties of enchanting he started to carve into it, breaking off chunks to shape it to his desires. It went a bit worse than usual as he wasn’t taking his eyes off the forest, instead relying on his sense of touch and a mental image of what he wanted it to look like to make different things that he ultimately just dropped in the woods once he was done. No point carrying them out with him when he could just make better ones later. Still, it helped the time go by, and like that an entire day was gone, with no sign of the next section in sight.

As night began to fall and they set up camp again, Thera was feeling worried.

“Do you think we did something wrong?”

The thought had drifted through his head too as the hours progressed. Spending the entire day walking, no sign that they had found their next challenge had put them both on edge, but Ben decided to try and stay positive about it.

“Maybe we’re just nearing the end of it. If we don’t see anything for I’d say two more days I’d say we start worrying then.”

“That’s a fair bit of time we could be wasting,” She pointed out, but Ben could only shrug.

“What else can we do? As far as we know the next part of the trial could be about being patient and not giving up. That would sort of go along with emotional strength, right?”

“I guess,” She said, but she felt doubtful. Still with nothing else to do they decided to wait to see what tomorrow held.

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