The Wilderness

Wura opened her eyes, and as if in a daze, she closed them back up again, as she tried to open her eyes she was blinded by a strong light, as if she was staring directly at the sun.

In the same moment, Wura forced herself to open her eyes as the bright light ceased and she blinked repeatedly as she looked around and she gasped as she saw Mero, Nora and the others with her as they looked just as confused as she did.

"My Goodness" said Nora as she gasped, she could not control herself, this was witchcraft, nothing less but witchcraft.

Mero looked around as he was just as surprised as they all were.

Wura looked around in disbelief, were they not in a dark cold cave a moment ago? How come now they were outside, in the bright shining sun under the blue sky.

"This is nothing less than sorcery" said Elihu as he looked around.

"You can say that again Elihu" said Zuph as he looked around, how did a little dark door in a dark cave, lead outside to a bare place like this.

"We are not in the forest my Queen, in fact, I do not think that we are anywhere familiar at all" said Nora as she looked at Wura, at first she had thought that maybe they were taken just outside, but she was not blind to see that this was not how outside the cave looked, they were in a completely different place entirely.

"We are not… we are in the Yonder Realm, we are actually here" said Wura as she could not believe it, it was like a dream, in the blink of an eye, she was somewhere else entirely, it was just unbelievable.

"You really believe that we are?" asked Elihu as Wura turned to look at him.

"How are we so sure that, that man just did not transport us somewhere else" said Elihu.

"No, he would not do that, we are here, in the Yonder Realm" said Wura as she shook her head.

"Mero" said Elihu as he did not believe Wura at all as he turned to look at Mero instead.

"We are here Elihu" said Mero as he could tell the different between their Realm and this place, they were no longer in Wyverdale, not at all, the soil was a different colour, and the sky was somewhat brighter, it was clear that they were somewhere else now.

"Well then, that is just great" said Elihu.

"What do you mean Elihu?" asked Zuph as they all turned to look at Elihu as Nora kept quiet trying to calm herself down, her heart was racing, just where were they? It was so unreal to her, and yet they were here.

"Well instead of that man to at least help us reach some civilisation, we are now stuck in the wilderness" said Elihu as he did not know why he had to be the one to point out the obvious.

"Can you not see all around us? Everywhere is completely bare, no trees, no rocks, no nothing, we are the only living things here, it Is clear that we are lost" said Elihu as he pointed all around them, there were no plants at all, the only thing that was in abundance was the weirdly coloured soil that they were stepping on.

"Where do we go from here? Because we have nothing to guide us or lead us" said Elihu.

"No, we do" said Wura as she suddenly remembered that she had a map, in the moment of awe that she was, she had forgotten that they had a mission to find Liam, but now, she was back to her senses, and she would do just that.

"And what is that?" asked Elihu.

"The map Elysia gave me" said Wura as she removed the map from her pocket, now was the moment of truth, to know if what Elysia had said was true or false, and Wura really hoped that it was true, for her sake and her belief.

Wura felt her heart pounding as she carefully unfolded the map, and with every fold, she felt her heart clench in anticipation as she unfolded the map and everyone watched her.

"What a surprise, it is blank" said Elihu as he scoffed, he knew that this would end up badly, they should have done more searching before they decided to go on this journey of theirs.

Wura felt her heart sink as she looked away, it could not be true that the map was blank, not at all, it would only break her heart, even more.

"Wait, my Queen, look" said Nora as she kept on looking at the map as she gasped in surprise and she pointed as Wura looked back down at the map in her hands as she gasped as well.

Just like magic, the once blank map was started to be filled, as if a drop of invisible ink had been dropped on it, it started to form intricate patterns and waves as the map was being written right in front of them.

Wura did not dare drop the map in her hands, less she end the process of it revealing.

Wura watched the process of the map writing itself as from the one colour of black ink started to form different colours of, red yellow and blue.

Wura watch intently until finally the ink finally stopped.

"Is it done My Queen?" asked Nora as she looked at Wura.

"I.. I think so" replied Wura as the once blank empty map, was now filled with many different places and paths.

"That is… magic…?" asked Zuph as he could not believe this, if not for the fact that they were all present and they all saw as the map was writing itself, they would not have believed it.

"It Is magic, it is magic" said Wura as she laughed in joy, it was magic, real magic, the map wrote itself in front of their eyes.

Wura moved her finger to touch the map, thinking that the ink would still be wet, but it was dry, very dry.

"It is dry, very dry" said Wura in surprise, she was so surprise, Nora could not believe what she had just seen.

"Let me take a look at that map" said Mero as he walked to where Wura was standing as she handed him the map.

Mero looked at the map intently as he scanned all the areas on the map.

"I would like to believe that this is an entire map of the Yonder Realm, but I do not want raise such hopes" said Mero.

"But believe it, it might be possible" said Wura as she smiled and she looked at the map as she saw some strange words that she did not understand.

"I think that these are the names of all the areas, but it is written in a foreign language" said Mero.

"You are right about that Mero, I cannot read what these places are at all" said Wura as she sighed, that was one downside of the map, they could not understand it.

"Since we are in the Yonder Realm, it might be possible that the map is written in their language" said Zuph as they all turned to look at him, and they agreed with him, that was highly probable.

"Something is… Is moving on the map my Queen" said Nora as she knew that she sounded crazy, but she could promise you that she was not, she saw a part of the map moving.

"How do you mean Nora?" asked Wura as she looked at Nora.

"Over there my Queen, look" said Nora as she pointed to the map and Wura followed Nora's hand as she saw a red dot on the map that truly was moving.

"It truly is moving" said Wura in surprise.

"And there is another dot as well, it is blue, all the way over here" said Zuph as he pointed and as Elihu moved closer to them, the blue dot moved.

"Wait, the blue dot moved" said Wura.

"It did?" asked Zuph as Elihu took a step back and Wura looked at him, and then back at the map as the dot moved.

"Wait, Elihu, move over there please" said Wura as she looked at Elihu, and Elihu looked at her as if wondering why she would ask him to do such a thing.

"Why?" asked Elihu.

"Just do it, move there" said Wura as she pointed a bit further as Elihu sighed and he reluctantly walked to where Wura pointed as she looked at the map.

"Now walk back over here, to where we are" said Wura as Elihu wondered if she just wanted to irritate him, because she was succeeding.

"Mero, as Elihu is moving, the blue dot is moving as well" said Wura as she looked at Mero and he nodded his head, he had observed that as well.

"Elysia said that this map would lead us to Liam, so if the blue dot is us, and whenever we move it moves, then it means that the red dot that is constantly moving is Liam" said Wura as she was sure of it.

"Come on, we have a map, we know where he is" said Wura excitedly.

"Let us go, we are all the way over here" said Wura as she pointed to the blue dot that was on the edge of the map.

"And he is all the way over there, we have to catch up to him" said Wura as she looked at Mero.

"Let us go now" said Wura.

"Wait, before a take a single step, we need to mark where we came from" said Mero.

"Elihu give me your dagger" said Mero as Elihu threw his dagger to him as he caught it and he removed the sheath on it as he made a little mark on the map of where they were currently.

"There" said Mero as he marked the spot and Wura did not wait for him at all as she walked to Zuph, she collected the horse from Zuph and she mounted on it.

"Come on Nora, you are riding with me" said Wura.

"Oh…" said Nora as she really did not think this through, she was scared of horses, but nevertheless Wura seemed very serious and she did not want to annoy her so she quickly walked to Wura.

"Yes my Queen" said Nora as she walked to the horse and Wura helped her up as Nora just closed her eyes.

"Are you all coming with me or not?" asked Wura as she turned to look at Mero as she did not like that he was wasting valuable time that they could be using to get closer to Liam.

"Alright my Queen, fine we will go, but you have to allow me keep the map" said Mero.

"You can keep it if you want, let us go now" said Wura as Mero nodded his head and he mounted his own horse as Zuph and Elihu did the same, they could all see that Wura was in a rush.

"You have the map Elihu, lead the way" said Wura as she looked at Elihu and he nodded his head as he moved his horse ahead and they all followed after him as Wura felt relieved, she knew that they would find Liam very, very soon.