When it comes to the majesty one imagines from adventuring, I would call my party less than Ideal. Though the level of severity depends on who you look at. On the side of majesty you have myself, the elegant and wondrous wind mage who weaves spells from mana and who can practically fly through the air. However I seem to be the only one on the side of majestic.
Closest to that line were Kaelen and Selene. Selene because she has noble bearing and a cause, she just has to figure out the random mutation thing. Kaelen is a bit of a klutz and has low physical stamina, but have you seen those dimples!? They got him a good chunk of extra credit.
Aidens close behind them, but he's a bit weird. At first he seemed to be resistant to wanting to be an adventurer, but now he is practicing with a spear so much it's almost hard to imagine him as an alchemist like he is resistant to the idea of his own class. He is saved a bit because he saved Kaelen and I from dying in a bullshit trap that was stupid in its placement.
However on the deep end of crude are Jax and Thalia. Jax is our alcoholic mutt of a leader who seems to be running on 3 or less brain cells at any given time. Combined with his bad spending has required someone be sent with him to stores to monitor purchases. Thalia on the other hand doesn't have as many problems as Jax, she is just creepy. She rarely shows emotions, and combined with her size and pastyness makes her seem like an old doll brought to life.
Nevertheless they have the blessing of traveling with me despite their flaws, and yet I seem to be reaching a bottleneck. We have been traveling for two days now, and we are getting ready to depart for the third day. Just yesterday Aiden learned the Accel Thought(E) skill. Kaelen learned a skill called Ernisty of prayer(E) and even Thalia upgraded her Marionetting fingers(E) to D rank.
I managed to upgrade my Soaring Rythme(E) skill to D rank, after all I would be aghast to fall behind Jax and Thalia in terms of power. Even among our group I was growing faster than the others. This may come from my high intelligence and sense in terms of magic, I would lying If I didn't say much of that probably came from my father.
Pushing that thought to the back of my mind, it was my turn to cook this morning as Kaelen had been in charge of it yesterday. So I sat on a small stone, using the wind that responded to my fingertips to stoke the fire as I cook what remained of our rations. Glancing back to what we had, a set of 3 jugs of water were on the trailer, but all but 1 was empty. Beyond that we were running low on food which means we need to restock before we go too much farther unless everyone wants to go hungry until we get to the next town.
As I flipped the eggs Aiden was sparring with Jax, Sir Braedon watching from the sidelines, something about watching him and improving his form. Thalia was packing up for our trip and trying to figure out our route while Kaelen was with me helping by gathering plates and stuff.
"How goes breakfast?"
Kaelen asked as he placed everyones bowls and forks at their spots.
"Almost done, but Kaelen, I do have a question for you."
Kaelen looked up a small look of surprise on his face as he said.
"Uh, sure, what's up?"
"Why do you think Jax is so on edge around Sir Braedon?"
Kaelen stopped for a moment and took a moment to think before he turned back to where Jax and Aiden sparred as Sir Braedon watched on.
"Not really sure, maybe he just gets a bad feeling from him or something, he is a bit… strange to say the least."
I turned to Kaelen raising an eyebrow.
"In what way?"
Kaelen took a moment to think, scratching the back of his head as my eyes glanced towards the pendant on his neck that made his face uglier despite the fact he was still beautiful, even now.
"Well, I think it may be because of his strange habits, like how he refuses to remove his armor for any reason."
"Really, I just thought it was because his armor never rattled."
Kaelen turned to me with a surprised look on his face.
"Really, I never noticed."
"Yea, despite the big plates and bits of chainmail you can see in places like his gloves, he makes just as much noise as if he was wearing a tunic."
We both took a moment to think as Kaelen asked.
"I wonder what skill lets them do that, or maybe the armor itself is enchanted."
I shrugged as I started to put food on everyone's plates.
"By the way, how has your training been going?"
Kaelen asked suddenly as he started to help me.
"So far so good, I upgraded my skill, and now it's like I can sense the air around me for a small distance, I bet I could even tell where you are if I closed my eyes."
"Want to test it?"
Kaelen asked walking behind me. I grinned as I finished setting out the food and closed my eyes. Behind me I could hear a sound to my left, but as I focused on the air around me I could feel the rhythmic in and out of air from Kaelen's breathing where he stayed put, probably throwing something to throw me off.
"You haven't moved."
I said confidently as I spun. Kaelen's eyebrows raised in surprise as he nodded with a grin.
"Thats a cool skill that you picked up there."
I felt a feeling of pride rising up in my chest as I thought about how the others would react, but as I could feel everyone approaching without even turning around a shiver went down my spine as one of the plates in my hand fell and shattered on the floor.
"Dang it, my bowl!"
Aiden cried out lunging for the food grabbing what wasn't on the ground, but there was a cold sweat on my spine. I turned to where the others had gathered and to where Sir Braedon stood.
Did his spear just breath?
I shook my head, pushing the impossible thought away. It must be because I haven't had much practice with the detection. So as we all ate, I kept my eyes close to focus feeling everyone's breaths. A breath from Kaelen, a breath from Thalia, a breath from Aiden, a Breath from Jax, a breath from Selene. Even around 20ft away where the vehicle sat, Sir Oinks-a-lot was happily munching away on a small bowl of burned eggs I haden't been paying attention to earlier had a breath.
The only one missing was Sir Braedon who seemed to have no breath in his lungs, and yet his spear was breathing in and out. Rhythmic as anyone else's was. As I was focusing on it, I felt my breath speeding up, if Sir Braedon himself wasn't breathing then what did that mean that his spear was, is it alive?
My thoughts were interrupted by Jaelen grabbing my shoulder as my eyes shot open. Everyone was staring at me as I has started to breath faster and faster without realizing it.
"Liora, are you ok, you seem panicked."
I saw the others looking at me, but across from them Sir Braedon was staring at me, and as I looked back at him I realized, I had never seen the mans eyes behind the visor. As my panic grew more and more, a familiar feeling of calculation settled, just as it had when I had been in that magic circle, death ticking down.
"D-don't worry about me, I'm testing a new skill and just got overwhelmed."
It was flimsy, I heard it, the others heard it, Sir Braedon definitely heard it, but it was all I had. Aiden gave an awkward nod as he turned back to his food glancing back every now and then. The others did the same, and while it might have been paranoia, my eyes seemed to lock onto Sir Braedon's hand, his fingers resting inches away from the shaft of his spear as if he had been ready in case I said too much.