18: Plan

It had been half an hour since Pala had last spoken to her two 'companions', but she was unbothered by it; wandering on her decision would only make her anxious about it, although she wasn't the type to second guess herself in the first place. She had warped sixteen times by this point, with each warp becoming more erratic in direction in distance. The last few warps had left her too far away to determine which direction she had teleported in, but Pala felt like even in the worst case scenario, she was making progress towards her goal.

In the earlier, shorter warps, Pala had managed to partially understand the quirks of the creature's ability. The first thing she realised is that her direction she was facing and moving in remained the same after her warp. In her case that was relatively helpful; it let her march forwards, ignoring the warps other than for the presence of predators. The second was that the forests around her seemed strangely quiet, which seemed strange considering that there had been plenty of life there before. Perhaps the creatures of the forest knew of some sort of way to escape the trap they had been placed in, but Pala wasn't intrigued enough to investigate. The third was that she kept all the belongings that she was 'touching'; plucking a blade of grass and holding it in her hand let it follow her through the warp alongside her clothes and everything in her bag, but the knife she had tossed into the trunk of a tree didn't jump with her.

With these three conclusions in mind, Pala marched forward, mindlessly heading in the direction she had been pointed towards. She didn't have much of a plan, but these things tended to work out.

After a few more warps, Pala found herself facing a wall. Instead of brick or stone, this wall was made of some sort of translucent membrane, reflecting the light in different colours and dimly shining onto the grass like the stained windows of a church. The wall curved around her, reaching outwards towards her sides and above her, reaching about five meters around her. As she followed the edges of the wall, the translucent membrane moved with her, following an invisible curve that she predicted would form a dome.

After looking around for a few seconds, Pala simply walked towards the wall without hesitation. She didn't have a plan, but these things tended to work out.

Thankfully, she passed through unscathed. Thinking nothing of it, Pala walked onwards, continuing in the direction she had set herself. However, it soon dawned on her that she wasn't being teleported around every half a minute. Alongside that, the wildlife around her was slowly coming back into place as she walked further from the wall; about an hour later the cries of small critters and animals had returned back to their former glory. Although this was reassuring, there was most definitely a downside. With her numbers reduced down to one, she would become the targets of the more territorial creatures. Her first encounter was with hive of wasps; Pala had unknowingly approached the heart of their hive, a cluster of numerous infected trees. They approached her from behind silently despite their tiny wings flapping hundreds of times a second, their glistening shine of their bright purple bodies hidden in the shadows of the trees. The only warning Pala had was the disturbance in the air as they swooped, her hyper awareness only saving her by a few millimetres. She managed to escape relatively quickly, which was partially thanks to the unwillingness of the swarm to chase.

The wasps weren't the only challengers. Pala passed through the small territories of many magical creatures and most of them were aggressive. She could handle the ones that attacked her head on easily; the tougher ones were the ones with specific hunting strategies like traps or attacking in packs. The worst of the bunch was a tiger-like creature that stalked her for three days and two nights, consuming the corpses of the creatures she killed. It was confident enough to not hide its presence, but after tormenting her with the threat of it pouncing, it simply left her be. She didn't sleep, of course; she gave herself time to rest her weary legs, but leaving herself vulnerable was out of the picture. Despite needing to save energy, she chose as many direct engagements as she could, hunting down any animals that weren't familiar to her. She didn't have a plan, but these things tended to work out.

After a long five days, at the crack of dawn, Pala stuck her head out of the trees into a suspicious clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a wooden structure; a set of pillars housing small huts held together by bridges made of planks and vines. The ground around the clearing was messy mixture of lush green grass and black wilted weeds, with the smell of blood ripe throughout the air. Pala followed her nose to a patch of weeds, quickly coming to the conclusion that the smell emanated from the ground beneath her. For a mercenary, this could only mean one thing; this clearing had seen a lot of death.

Pala walked forwards despite her exhaustion, her hand on the handle of her blade. She didn't have a plan, but it would probably be fine.