And so they were off, traveling with Bikke's pirate ship from the port of Pravoka, escaping just in time to avoid taking blame for the disaster they left behind. The sea air was cool and the winds were good as they made off into the seas towards....
Elfland! And so they safely went over the high seas.
Luckly for them, the ship had food! Not that good food, but it was edible and all that important stuff. Traveling south along the ocean ways, Quatre soon spotted land from where he'd been assigned look-out.
Dracos
"Um... HEY EVERYONE! LAND!" Quatre nodded, satisfied with how he'd handled that daunting situation.
"At last, a new land to raze to the grou... er, I mean, at last, we'll be getting off this damned ship." Zack held his stomach, looking over the port side of the ship. Hurk.
"Don't be too happy now you two, we do have to come back this way, afterall." Craig idly made a mental note to take a choppier way back to toughen the two up, even as he started guiding the ship to where he remembered the dock was.
"Start getting the ship ready to land. I just hope we managed to get the crystal without too much of a hassle."
And so they docked the boat on the western shore of Elfland, tying it off by the open dock that Craig has guided them too. For now it'd be a hike through the woods of a few days to get to the center of elfland. For now the three light warriors (one a bit sick and woozy) could at least touch ground again.
Dracos
"Hm. I'm going to check to see if Bikke and crew stowed away. I haven't gotten a real chance to check this ship out since we set sail. You two can fish or something to cool down, if you want." Craig wandered down to check the ship out with a fine comb.
Zack jumped off the ship immediately as they landed, kissing the ground.
"Yeah, yeah, you do that, I'll just stay here, guarding the ship from other things. While being on firm ground."
Craig found not much left by Bikke and crew, but then, they were intent on raiding, so that's not a huge surprise.
He DID find a map.
Which is always cool. You never know when a map comes in handy.
Dracos
Happily claiming the map as his own, Craig made his way out of the ship to join his fellows. "You two ready to head out now?" He idly checked out his new map to see what it was for.
It was a world map. Good detail too.
Dracos
Quatre nodded and followed along. "Yup! Ready and rarin' to go! Hey, that looks like a pretty nice map."
"Well, too bad for Bikke, 'cuz it's mine now." Craig easily responded. Looking over Zack with a shake of the head, he continued. "We seriously need to buy you something to fix that for next time."
And so they traveled into the woods...
The cold woods.
Something chilled them at least as they traveled through, the sun invisible under the heavy brush.
Dracos
"It's oddly cold today for this region." Craig muttered as he lead the group onwards, looking around curiously to see what was beyond their path.
It was indeed chilly for this southern region...the hairs on the back of Craig's neck standing up...almost a ghostly breeze passing before his eyes somewhere ahead, watching.
Dracos
"Huh. Odd." Craig shook it off as he kept walking onwards, checking his map every once in a while, even as he thumbed his knives' hilts. "Get ready guys, something seems to be foul in the air."
"Really? I thought that feeling was just because we were coming up on a concentration of elves, and that was how they smelled." He muttered with a smirk beneath his mask as he readied some ice spells. One forest a year was about his limit for destruction, after all.
Nothing appeared for them to bear their discontent upon but the chill in the air grew worse.
Dracos
"Trust me, it isn't any worse than a coven of wizards. Hoo boy, I wonder if learning how to shower forced the knowledge of the wonderful thing called 'showering' out of their heads?" Craig retorted as he continued pressing on.
Zack blinked. "Leave it to an elf to butcher the sense out of the English language," he sighed, pressing on, looking over his shoulder every once in a while. "So, how far are we from Elfland now, anyhow?"
Craig had...no idea!
But he could check the map. And by guessing, it looked like they were a day to go from the castle.
Dracos