The Jungle Adventure

The Jungle Adventure

Vendane. Such a beautiful little town. Or so we expected. We were wrong.

What used to be houses are now vine-covered ruins, the town square is a pile of skeletons, and I honestly hope those red stains are paint.

‘Sheila’ Dean says, ‘You’re the smart one, what happened here?’

She walks up to one of the houses and touches the shattered bricks, examining the dust on her fingers and adding a bit of magic.

‘This was smashed, it didn’t just fall apart.’

‘Sounds like adventure’ Geirolf says, shockingly exited. He walks up to the red stains on the ground and feels the texture. ‘Blood’

Sheila walks further to look at the skeletons, but falls on her face when she enters the square.

‘Strange’ she says as I help her up, ‘the ground here is a bit lower than the rest’.

I take a look myself and see she’s right.

‘Yeah, it’s like something was lying here’, the reality of the situation hits me as soon as the words escape my mouth.

‘Hide!’ I scream, but a high pitched roar prevents them from hearing me. Luckily, the moment they hear the roar, they’re smart enough to figure out what I said.

The wyvern’s mighty wings fling up dust from the ground. It has a cow in one paw, which it drops into one of the ruined houses, so it can’t escape. I look for Dean and Geirolf, and spot them hiding behind one of the taller houses. I use my hands to signal an attack plan. Attack when it eats.

Sheila is sitting next to me, calmly drawing the wyvern on a piece of paper.

‘Drawing, are we?’ I ask.

She looks at me, a bit dazzled. ‘What? O, yes yes. I am.’

‘Is this really the best time to start drawing wyverns?’

‘It’s not like you see one every day. Besides, I thought It’d be nice to have a reminder of this beautiful creature.’

I think back to the conversation we had last night. ‘You’re right, it would be nice.’

‘So, what’s the plan?’ She asks.

‘We’ll wait until it starts eating, then we’ll attack.’

‘Won’t it smell us?’

‘It’s too distracted by the smell of the cow, we’re fine.’

‘Alright’ she says, ‘Sounds good.’

The wyvern shakes his head and stretches its wings. Even though it could crush me in one bite, it’s still adorable. It turns around, opening its mouth in an attempt to eat the cow.

Geirolf, standing atop the tallest house, jumps down onto the creature, pushing his swords into its neck. The wyvern roars, shaking his head wildly. Geirolf is flung off, lying face to face with the angry creature. I shoot an arrow into his eye while Dean slices one of his main arteries. Sheila uses her magic to make the ground come up and grab the wyverns feet, so it can’t escape. He is finished off by Geirolf with his axe.

After the wyvern is dead we follow the usual protocol. We check to make sure it’s dead, clean our weapons, look for valuables, etcetera. Dragon scales and teeth are surprisingly valuable, some believe the tail of a wyvern has healing properties, which is not true, it’s actually quite poisonous.

We look for gold and other valuables, in vain. Wyverns are less fond of gold than dragons, which is a shame.

‘Well, so much for Vendane’ Dean says, disappointed.

Sheila grabs the map and looks for another town to go to, her face lights up as she reads it.

‘Yes! Finally!’ She yells, flinging her arms into the air in excitement.

‘Why so happy?’ I ask.

‘The nearest town is Veneficus!’

‘I’d probably share your excitement’ Geirolf says, ‘if I knew what that meant.’

‘You’ve never heard of Veneficus?’ Dean asks.

‘Nope’ He answers gladly.

‘After the war magic was frowned upon in most places, even forbidden in some kingdoms’ Dean begins, ‘So some magicians decided to build a little city where all magic users are welcome.’

‘But we’re not mages’ Geirolf says, ‘So only Sheila can enter, right?’

‘No worries’ Sheila quickly says, ‘Non-magic users are allowed inside, they just can’t stay for too long’ she tries to whisper that last part, but everyone heard.

She turns to face me, ‘Can we please go? It might be my only chance to meet other mages.’

I look at the others, ‘I’m okay with it, how about you guys?’

‘Sure’ Dean says, Geirolf just nods.

It’s pretty clear Sheila is excited, I’d be too if I were her. She marches in the front of the group, constantly telling us to pick up the pace. Geirolf is in the back, trying to ride the cow we saved from the wyvern.

‘What are you planning to do with that cow?’ Dean asks.

‘I’m gonna ride it into battle, obviously.’

‘Let me help’ Sheila says, walking up to the cow.

She uses her magic on the cow, and it quickly becomes very obedient.

‘There you go, now can we go faster?’ she says again.

‘Sheila, calm down, we’ll get there’ Dean says, annoyed.

‘You did take a good look at the map, right?’ Geirolf asks, ‘You may have been a bit too distracted to actually memorize the path.’

She picks the map out of her leather sack and tries to find out where we are. It takes her a while to find us, and when she does, she freezes.

‘We’ll… we’ll have to cross the Border’ she says nervously.

Now we all freeze, except Geirolf. ‘Am I the only one who doesn’t actually know what that is?’ he asks.

Dean sighs, ‘It was the frontline during the war’.

‘Yeah, so?’

‘That place is enchanted and cursed like you wouldn’t believe. You’ve got buried immortals, depressed giants, flaming scorpions, you name it’

‘We’ll just fight our way through, we always do’

We pick the pace back up again, but even Sheila is less determined now.

It looks like a desert, but more depressing. Rivers of blood, mountains of decaying bodies, the bones of monsters stand up like towers among the ashes of their masters. The silence is only broken by the mooing of Geirolf’s cow. We stand there is silence for a while, except for Geirolf, he doesn’t even flinch. Sheila closes her eyes and hums a melody softly. It calms me, like it always does. We continue walking, trying, and failing, to ignore the bodies. Geirolf’s cow becomes distressed and runs of, with Geirolf still on him. We chase it down, and catch up to it a couple dozen meters further. It’s standing beside the corpse of a man. His bracelet reflects the sunlight into my eye, blinding me. I kneel beside him and take off the bracelet, it’s engraved. “For daddy, love, Sheila”.

This… is the body of Sheila’s father.