When it comes to the A.T.V, I would say that personally, I am a fan. We travel places in an 8th of the time others have on foot and have everything from beds to be out of the rain, to even other small amenities to just help in general. Yet despite my normal love for our vehicle, the path we were on was not nearly as fun.
Liora had called front seat today, so I was in the trailer with Selene, Thalia, and Beatrice. Though both Beatrice and I were hanging out of the opened back door with a sickly color to our faces.
The road we were on was an old mountain pass that had a mix of twists, turns, ups, downs, and bumps everywhere.
"I told you trying to read on a road like this wouldn't end well."
Thalia said as she patted Beatrice on the back who dry heaved for a moment before laying back down looking miserable.
"H-Hey Aiden, do you have something that can help with motion sickness?"
Selene called towards the front while it was my turn to dry heave.
"I have something for it, but I would need to make a new batch, we're almost to the end of this road, can they hold on for a few more minutes."
Aiden asked, taking a sharp turn that caused my already hungover stomach to decide to begin doing gymnastics to the horror of the rest of my organs.
"What kind of cruel god would invent such a heinous thing as this!"
Beatrice said as she lay sprawled with a look of fatigue on her face.
"Probably Sinic Valba that tricky fu-bleah"
I said cut off by another round of dry heaving. Both to Beatrice and my own horror, we ended up traveling for another hour before finally reaching a stopping point on the side of the road on a plateau of the small ridge we had been climbing all day.
Be it pity or just because both Beatrice and I were refusing to stand, the others set up camp while we laid there, letting our restless stomachs settle.
I refused to look at her knowing what would happen if I did. The obsession has been growing steadily, and by now it was rather extreme, even physically leaking out of me in the small tests we had done away from the others as a strange inky redness.
Despite this, it seemed the more I could detect Beatrice, the more it would apply, so I couldn't look at her in what was probably a sprawled-out state or have it go into a frenzy of protectiveness. Instead, I looked on at the assembling camp, keeping the mental image of Beatrice being fine but bored in my mind to quell the obsession as much as possible.
By the time camp was finished and Aiden had given us a remedy, we were all sitting around trying to discuss what to eat.
"Look, we have the jerky and nuts, shouldn't we save the good food for when it's a celebration?"
Aiden asked, turning to the rest of us. I shook my head and said.
"Aiden, love you buddy, but I have been puking my guts out all day, I am not eating nuts and week-old jerky tonight."
Beatrice nodded in agreement as Selene added.
"P-Plus, it's a beautiful spot to eat a nice meal. F-From what my brother said, Alucan has some of the best night sky views of the world.
Thalia had her head in a small booklet we had gotten in Vexbourne before we began our long trip and said.
"True, but personally I'm curious to see the Shattered reflections on the coastline when we get there."
We all turned to her with confused looks before Liora perked up.
"Oh, I heard about this, apparently in certain spots the water can reflect moments of one's past. It's one of the weird phenomena I was reading about in my book."
As if to show off, she made her way from the campfire to the A.T.V and grabbed a leather book, bringing it back over and holding it for everyone to see.
"There are all sorts of weirdness in the world. Like in Fortunz, apparently there are nights when the stars are cracks on glass, and a bunch of super trippy and weird visions appear to those who watch them, and Flinkeq even has a strange thing where for a few minutes every few years the sky will seem to appear to switch placed with the ground so your standing on sky, and above you is the ground."
"The sky switches with the ground, how in the hells does something like that even happen?"
Beatrice asked, walking over to pear over Liora's shoulder as I tried to subtly bit my lip as the obsession flared demanding that Beatrice pay attention to me instead of anyone else.
"Well, nobody's exactly sure, but Relic Helia says here that the running theory is that many of the strange phenomena only started after you know who came to be well known. Some say it was them testing their powers that caused the oddities."
"Hey, I've heard of that author before, didn't they write like a bunch of monster encyclopedias?"
Aiden asked as he also leaned over to read over Liora's shoulder. By this point we had all begun to gather and read as Liora flipped to the back for the Author Bio, which to our surprise showed a picture of a skeleton wearing a bycocket hat and a fancy looking coat. Below the picture a small description read.
Relic Helia is a traveler who achieved lichdom thousands of years ago for the sole purpose of researching the world. In this research, they have found many things, and began to write them down in hundreds of books to be mass produced and distributed across the world. When asked why he was doing this, he said.
"Knowledge is the seed of inventivity, and when you get as old as I have, your greatest passion in life is watching seeds become towering forests of trees."
"Huh, surprised people aren't getting super angry at him for being a lich, aren't they like the super kill people for undead army guys?"
Aiden asked, his eyes glancing back to the picture again.
"Actually no, necromancers come in 3 types. White robes that are basically undead exterminators, they do things like deal with a ghost haunting your house in exchange for keeping the ghost. Gray robes are more of a purchase than your uncle who passed recently to revive. Black robe is the make undead army guys."
Thalia said as she walked back over and began to rummage in her pack to pick what to eat.
"Oh, like those guys in the dungeon we saw what all gave up right?"
Beatrice asked, looking towards Thalia like a student hoping for praise from a teacher.
"Yea, turns out most were white robe, with only the girl we fought at the end being a black robe who tricked the others."
Thalia explained while I tensed, to not let obsession make me tackle her. I shook my head, hoping to let the obsession settle as a strange feeling washed over me. It was hard to identify like something was missing that had been in the background but not really noticed.
I turned to the others who also were looking around before I saw Aiden open his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Aiden's hand shot to his throat like he was trying to feel for something as he pointed to his own mouth.
Everyone began doing the same as I tried to speak but realized no sound was coming out, only silence. I even tried to yell, but nothing happened. Everyone turned, their backs to the fire and looking around us, on alert, but I was the first one to see it.
The figure seemed to be a rabbit half-blood, wearing a long black dress that was torn in spots with a small group of little regular black rabbits running around her feet. However, what was worrisome wasn't the small group of rabbits, or the strangeness of the girl. Instead, it was because she was soaked head to toe in blood.