Erlem & Daisy

Daisy and Erlem had been at the gnob for a few days and had begun settling in, Daisy had insisted Erlem continued his magical studies and had begun picking up where his tutors had left off. She wasn't an elite mage yet, but she was still pretty talented herself, she was still an Autumn witch after all. After his studies in the morning they would go to the woods and check traps they'd set for spider-squirrel or white-tailed jacko's. There was a patch of nut trees and fig bushes close by but there were more dangerous creatures there. " im kind of tired of little jackos and squirrels." Erlem said in a low voice, they had been eating them for the last four days, they weren't particularly tasty and there was such a small amount of meat on them they would have to eat three or four to get full. The jackos tasted better but were harder to trap because of their speed alone, they could run through the trap before it would even register it was flipped.

"I am too but it's not been that long, the beach is probably still teaming with the royal military." They both sighed as they put on their cloaks and prepared to go check their traps for the day.

The gnob had begun to look more like a home than it had days before. There were meats hanging being cured in the rafters, the table had flowers in a small vase sitting on it, there were quills and parchment as well left over from Erlems lesson for the day.

Daisy was talented at transfigurations and was able to make more clothes for the pair from the pelts of the animals they had killed. A low magical fire was always going with a cauldron of squirrel and chestnut stew. It wasn't the best but it was better than nothing, they weren't sure about the native flora quite yet and stuck to the things they did know. Razzleberries, wild onions, chestnuts all were plentiful.

As the pair checked their traps and came up empty, no squirrels even for dinner tonight. "Daisy, what if we just sneak to the beach and see if anyone's there?" Erlem really wanted something other than watered down squirrel stew and some wild onions. Daisy sighed and finally agreed, but only if they stayed in the shadows and Erlem listened to Daisy no questions asked. He of course agreed and they hopped into the shadows towards the unknown beyond their little woods. Luckily the tree line connected to a ridge that looked over the beach, Daisy could use this to survey if there was any part that was safe for them to enter. The ridge was a few miles north-east, if they shadow hopped they could be there in half an hour, if they had to go by foot a couple of hours.

Shadow hopping was a basic skill, it allowed the user to enter a shadow as a shadow and slingshot themselves between them as lightning speeds. Not as fast as blinking but the user was invulnerable from attacks while in the shadows. It was very stressful on a persons body energy to maintain, once you've depleted your energy you would be shot out of the shadows. This was just a leisurely stroll, they didn't have to push themselves at all so there was no chance that would happen. Erlem day dreamed about when him and Stanley would ride the water-ponies in the big fountain and he wondered if he would see some wild ones. " up ahead is the ledge, do not go down the ridge until i say its ok" Erlem just nodded, Daisy was a very kind lady, and she cared for Erlem, but she underestimated him and it started to really bother him. Erlem was used to being pushed to do things and people expecting him to be great all the time, Daisy treated him as though he may break. They reached the ridge line sticking to the shadow af the closest tree. They were overlooking milds of sandy beaches and beautiful emerald water, there were gulls in the distance, and tiger seals on the rocks and shoals, but no army, no remnants of a camp even.

"What's going on?" Daisy thought to herself, as she scanned the beach she decided to cast a perception charm to see if there was any charms maybe blanketing the army. Her eyes glowed bright blue like sapphires as she she activated the spell.

A purple tint came over her vision, as she gazed below there were no signs of any charms or hexes in the area, but there was arcane residue. Silver smoke filled the beach like steam in the shower. "There must have been a battle here, but wheres the bodies, the remnants of a battle?" Either way the beach was safe, they would be careful but she didn't see anything that could harm them.

She motioned to Erlem and she took off the shadows and down to the beach, he followed suit. They lept out of the shadows and into the sand, they removed their shoes and let the sand hit their feet. Erlem had been to the beach many time with the orphanage, the headmistress believed that you couldn't learn about the world in the old stuff orphanage class rooms and would often take them on outings. They walked across the beach towards the tiger seals to check the nearby shallows for edible creatures. As they came across the tiger seals they " orfed" loudly and jumped into the water, some peaked there bright orange and black striped heads out of the water to watch them curiously. Almost as soon as they came up to a nice shallow area they saw a nest of pineapple crabs, fist sized yellow crabs with large lags, and extremely delicious. Erlem created a net by transmuting some seaweed and tossed one side to Daisy, they threw the net at the nest of the crab and pulled.

The net was crude but effective nabbing the pair 10 or so large yellow crabs, the pair were ecstatic about their haul. Then Erlem had and idea, he walked over to some driftwood and began to transmute them i to a cone trap, he yanked one of the crabs out of the sac that was once the net and proceeded to kill it and dismember it. Daisy caught onto the idea and began to transmute copies of the trap. "Five traps, five times the amount of fish!" Erlem said pleased with himself. He put the pieces of dead crab into the traps and took them down the beach to a deep rock bed and jumped in with his traps behind him. He secured the traps on the floor of the rock bed and swam back to the beach.

" if we come back every couple of days we could have sea food as well as what we find at the gnob!" Erlem wanted these beach trips to be a regular occurrence, and he also wanted to kill a tiger seal. The meat would last for months and the coats was much thicker than the squirrels, even its fat could be used to light their lamps and make soaps. He didn't dare try with the whole pack watching him, he would certainly be killed, but one day he would try.

Daisy looked at the sky and determined it was after lunch and they had a pretty good haul to go home with, so she and Erlem headed back to the gnob pleased with todays activities.

The two had to walk the roads back home because of the extra weight of the crabs and various shells Erlem kept stuffing into his pockets as they walked up the beach towards the road that lead back towards their forest.

It had been a few days since the two had seen any other people, mostly for fear that they were going to be killed on sight, but as they came over a small hill to their displeasure there was a large band of people traveling towards them. They were still a few miles away but without going all the way around and losing a whole day they were sure to come up on each other. There were no trees, no shadows to hide in either, " remember we are not from Autumnveil, we don't know if they're crown sympathizers or Magestrate, We will keep our heads down and hopefully no one will bother us." Fingers crossed they continued down the road towards the group.