The Explorer

Waking up a few hours later, after having passed out, Octavia looks up at the ceiling and sighs.

"I really hope passing out doesn't become a regular occurrence, its starting to get on my nerves."

Lifting herself up from the floor, she surveys the room and is thankful nothing has changed. No more unexpected visitors have come a knocking. The first dead wolf is by the door, thankfully still firmly shut, and the second she slowly releases from her tail and lets it drop to the floor.

Looking down, she gasps at how most of the damage from the wolves has almost healed. Only red marks can be seen on her human half, and small gashes across her tail.

"Faster healing must be some perk of being a lamia as well I guess."

Making her way to the bed, she fashions yet another wrap to wear, with the first having been completely destroyed by the wolves.

Looking towards the shattered window, thankfully it is still light outside, meaning she was likely passed out for only a short while. The glass from the window litters the area beneath it, so even with her durable tail, she steers clear of.

"How did that wolf manage to reach that window anyway. Its quite a height from the floor, did it manage to climb up the side of the cabin."

Wanting to satisfy her curiosity, she leaves the building and heads around to the one side of the cabin she has yet to see. As she turns around the corner a look of annoyance hits her face as a small mound of earth opposite the window comes into view, littered with paw prints.

"So that's how it did it." She inspects the mound seeing even more prints either side of it, looking like it took a few tries to hit the window.

Moving about the area, just a ways off she sees a very rudimentary garden, the vegetables that were growing have long since been eaten by the wildlife or rotted away. "Looks like the cabin owner had a nice little set up."

As she brings up cabin owner, the body that the wolves were gnawing on comes to the forefront of her mind.

"I wonder if that was who lived here. While the light's still out, I should probably go back there and see."

Making her mind up, she heads to the back of the building and passes the mess of fur, blood and wood on the floor where the wolf collided with the shovel that she reached for. Sifting through it, she finds the very basic shovel, and brings it with here to the body. Leaving the body to just lay there and decompose doesn't sit right with her.

Heading through the narrow pathway following the paw prints back the way they came, she puts her hand on the knife, just in case any more wild animals are present and want to ruin the rest of the day.

Coming to the clearing she fled from before, the body comes into view and so too does the bedsheet with the potion bottles and crystal orb she had to ditch, which she quickly picks up.

"I really hope I don't throw up." She states to herself as she makes her way towards the corpse.

Reaching it, a sharp intake of breath is heard from Octavia as she takes in the scene. The person laying there looks to have died quite some time ago. The wildlife and elements made short work of the body, reducing it to almost entirely the skeleton. Teeth marks litter the bones from the wolves gnawing, and the remnants of flesh can be seen hanging off the end of one of the feet, which she has to turn her head away from, lest she vomit.

"Urrk, disgusting. But I need to get use to this, as this is the new norm in this world. Probably."

Fabric similar to what she found on the path, littered the area, having been torn to shreds. Bones from one of the arms is a little further away from the body, where close to this she spots some more leather.

Making her way over to the other bones, she spots an almost completely intact leather backpack. Simple in design, as a leather bag with a flap and two straps, it rests on the dirt by the bones. The damage is minimal, where the odd teeth marks can be seen, but it appears to still be fully usable as there are no holes in the bag. On its side, a sword similar in design to a machete, hangs from the bag.

"What a lucky find. Horrible circumstances to how its found and I hope you can forgive me for this," she asks looking towards the body, "but this will really solve my storage problems for a while. From the looks of it, there must not have been enough time to grab the machete to protect themselves."

Picking it up she finds quite a heft to it, where upon opening several objects can be seen, including what looks to be a small leather-bound book.

"Guess I don't need this anymore" she states as she unwraps the potion bottles, putting both into the backpack along with the crystal ball, string and the fabric used to hold it all.

Looking back to the body, sadness is evident on her face. "I hope burying you is enough of a thank you for the backpack."

Taking the shovel, she does just that. Using the new found strength she gained from becoming a lamia, she makes short work digging a shallow grave, which she moves the body to and covers with dirt. It does take enough time for the sun to have neared the horizon. Taking several stones, she makes a simple marker for the grave, clustering them together at the centre of the grave.

"Thank you again. Now I need to get back before it becomes pitch black, then I need to go through the bag, get some rest and then actually try to find a village or something tomorrow."

.

Making her way back, when she enters the cabin, she drops off the shovel by the door, takes the bag off her back and deposits it on the table.

"Now, let's see what secrets you hold."

Opening the bag, she places the two potion bottles, crystal orb, fabric and string on the table, along with the machete. Inside the bag she manages to find a small pouch of coins, filled with several copper and a few silver ones, all of which are stamped with some sort of design, with a horseshoe on one side and a crown on the other. She then pulls out an almost empty waterskin, annoyingly, which she holds off from drinking till absolutely necessary and vows to fill it as soon as she finds a river. Also in the bag is a metal tinderbox filled with enough materials to start a few fires, a pot of ink, quill and what appears to be bread wrapped up in some cloth. The bite mark on one end, likely means it should be safe to eat, which is just what she does leaving some left over just in case she needs I tomorrow to keep her going.

Finally, she pulls out the last object in the bag, the leather-bound book.

Tattered from frequent use, she can see the name Marilyn Evangeline scrawled across the front in ink.

"How am I able to read this? Is this something that comes with being transmigrated, given to the person by the travelling god or goddess? I mean it would be a problem landing in a new world and not being able to understand anything. I hope it's the same with the spoken language here."

With the day coming to a close, but the light still available for a short while longer, she opens up the book and starts reading, wanting to find out more about the world and the person this belonged to. Coming to the first page she almost jumps for joy, or as much as she could with a snake tail, upon seeing a very simple hand drawing map on separate piece of parchment. The map itself is very basic in that it only shows what she assumes are landmarks in the area, but it was thankfully done well, showing directions and general distances. It shows what she can only assume is the cabin, where behind the cabin moving straight up the page leads to a small drawing of a snake and a house. Moving up and to the left from this contains a drawing of a few houses and a castle. A drawing of a river can also be seen under the castle image, travelling all the way down ending up halfway between the cabin and the snake.

"I'm so glad this was here. So, I imagine the houses and castle must be a town of some sort, while the house and snake might be a village. Why the snake is there I have no idea. But that means I have an idea of where to go tomorrow. I can head to the village and get some water from the river, if there isn't much there, I just change course and head to the town."

Putting the map and plan of action aside for tomorrow, she continues with the book opening it the next page and starts reading.

"I, Marilyn Evangeline, have decided to start a journal to record all that occurs on my journey. Should I meet a premature end, I hope these notes shall assist whoever follows the same path of discovery I have taken. While I hope nothing shall befall me, I am no fool and know the dangers following this path may bring, but the mystery of the Lamia is a puzzle I have dedicated my life to solving. I hope my journey to this lost lamia village shall provide me with the answers I seek. Who were they, what happened to them and why were they removed almost entirely from history, are a few of the questions I have had over the years."

Stunned just from the first paragraph of the journal, Octavia puts the book down and contemplates what she has read.

"Is it just luck that I ended up in the same place that an explorer searching for the lamia was staying in. I hope she managed to learn something about the lamia before she died, for my sake and to accomplish her dream."

Picking the book back up, she continued reading.

The first few pages detail her journey from her home, distances, directions and the name of which is not given most likely to keep it protected should someone less than trustworthy end up with this book, using it to their advantage. It is a little later in her journey that she marks out locations and directions. The interesting part comes once she reaches the town of Caldaria.

"Having resupplied in Caldaria I learnt of an abandoned hunting cabin deep in the woods of Daria, the location of which the lamia village should be in, which should give me a good place to start my search."

The next several paragraphs show the explorer's journey to the cabin, setting things up and then searching the surrounding area, where not much of note occurred. It is the final paragraph that she learns how things came to be.

"I have found it. A lamia village, lost to the world. While time has damaged it, the ruins may provide answers to my questions. This discovery has been overshadowed by what I found amongst the ruins though. An egg, much larger than that of any I have seen or heard off. To what species it belongs to I do not know, but I hope with all my heart that this is a remnant of the Lamia. Given the time since the Lamia were lost, it is likely nothing living remains in the egg, but even this is an amazing discovery. Through much time and effort, I was able to bring it back to the cabin for study. It is close to night now and I shall be head back to the village tomorrow to continue my search. Having found what I hope is a lamia egg, it is possible more exist in the village or even other artefacts, of which I need to find."

This was the final paragraph of the journal. It is here that Octavia realises the next journey to the village must have been the one that ended with her death. It also allows her to understand how her egg came to be in the cabin.

She recalls something that Prisma said before, "The favour I called in, was for a travelling goddess to transport you to another world, set you up in a safe and relevant place and leave the orb with you," the key word being 'relevant', which must be how she ended in the lamia village.

Knowing what she needs to do now, she sets the book back on the table and heads to the bed.

"Right, I need to follow the map towards the lamia village, get some water from the river, maybe try and find some food, then finish what she started and learn about the Lamia. Once done, then I can head to the town."

Realising she has forgotten something; she spots the open window. "Ah, yeah I better close that up."

No having a need for a chair anymore, she breaks it apart and closes up the window as best she can, more to keep animals out than whether the wind will get in.

Having done all she needs to do; she heads to the bed. Upon reaching it, one thought comes to her mind as the remaining light slowly dissipates as the sun heads below the horizon.

"How do I sleep on this small bed with this massive tail?"