Twisted Destiny

We manage to get a good fill of food to build up our strength again before we decide to get some rest. As had been discussed, there was quite a lot of work ahead of us and especially Gamma needed to rest up for that. 

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep with all this light though…” Gamma comments once we are in our tattered bedrolls. 

“It is a bit bright.” Sid replies. 

“Well, there’s an easy way to fix that, no.” I smile and turn myself towards the largest concentration of crystal. “Would you mind dimming the light a little? We aren’t used to sleeping in such a bright environment.”

The crystal glows brighter as it acknowledges my request before the wide area around us goes really dim. It’s not completely dark but the lighting now reflects a moonlit night. 

“Thank you very much.” I smile again and look over to my friends. “Why don’t you two start sleeping already. I’ll take the first guard shift.” 

“Don’t fall asleep while you are in that position, okay? It’s rather risky laying down when you are tired.” Sid looks back at me. 

“Don’t worry about me. I won’t fall asleep.” 

“Alright then.” Sid smiles back and then turns around. 

Looking upon the ragged bedroll once more suddenly makes an idea pop into mind which I can’t help but exclaim externally. “Wait a minute… I can totally just repair these bedrolls, can’t I?” 

Gamma, who had still ducked below her bedroll for even less light, just snorts. “Ami, really?” 

“Amicia…” Sid groans. 

“What? It’s not like you all remembered that I could do this? It’s been a while since I’ve repaired anything with my magic.” 

“Well… that’s true.” He admits. “But let’s worry about that later. It’s pointless repairing our bedrolls now, it doesn’t matter anyway.” 

“Yeah, sorry, I just couldn’t help myself. Goodnight you two.” 

“Goodnight, Amicia.” Both of them practically reply together. 

The night, or what we experience as the night anyway, progresses smoothly during my watch. The cavern we are in is extremely peaceful and quiet which is hard to believe as there are still quite a lot of devils on the planet’s surface. It does make me wonder why exactly the devils haven’t completely infested or destroyed this place. From the memory that I saw, they clearly know this place existed, devils have walked on these streets. Maybe they think it’s not of any importance? Or maybe they do think the place is destroyed, seeing as the top does look very much like a bog standard ruin. A third option could also be that the crystal weapon destroyed pretty much all devils on the planet. The people then tried to rebuild but failed. After which the devils returned, but when they did, the planet was already as good as destroyed, with only the weapon left to be buried beneath their own structures. 

In the end, all this theorizing doesn’t really matter at this point. We have a safe haven, we can use it to rest and we have a plan for tomorrow. Maybe when all of this is done we can continue to look into things, but right now it’s pointless. 

A couple of hours later, I wake up Sid so he can start his watch. I had little to no issues getting him to wake up and he actually already looked quite rested. It made me feel more than safe to get some rest in for myself. Although there was another set of thoughts creeping into my mind which I was starting to worry about just a little. 

This is the second night we are using the D3u5XMachina… But what happens if we don’t manage to get away from this place in time? Do I get forcibly locked out due to the console’s safety mechanism? Am I stuck here until I manage to get back to Haurchefaud? I’m convinced to get out of here before that ever becomes an issue. But what if things go wrong and we don’t? Murphy’s law is a thing after… 

I shake my head in my bedroll and shift my thoughts elsewhere, otherwise I won’t be getting any sleep and that’s a necessity at the moment. 

I wake up some time later to Gamma softly shaking me. “Good morning.” She says as I open my eyes. 

“Good morning, Gamma. How are you feeling?” I’m pretty much completely awake in an instant. “Still feeling any pain?” 

Gamma shakes her head. “I feel perfectly fine. Maybe not quite as energetic as usual, but about 90% there.” 

“Good.” I smile and give her a pat on the head. Apart from that I see that Gamma has already woken up Sid, who is searching through his bag. 

“What are you looking for?” I ask as I get out of my bedroll, resummoning my angel form without much effort. 

“I’m looking for our breakfast, that’s what I’m doing.” Sid replies. “Aha, I found it.” He pulls out a brick-sized paper wrapped item and holds it in his hand. “This is the last I have though. There’s a little bit of meat left over from yesterday’s dinner, but if we don’t manage to get out of here… Well, let’s just say we will have to get used to being hungry.” He continues to unfold the paper brick to reveal a couple of cereal fruit bars. Homemade by the looks of it. 

“Hmmm. I think I actually still have something.” I look through one of my belt pouches and find what I was looking for. It’s not much as Sam took the rest and put it in her own bag, but it’s a bit of that nutritious bread that Brielle had baked for us. “Should we keep it or should we eat it right now with your fruit bars, Sid?” 

Sid hums while he divides the fruit bars between the three of us. “Good question. I think it might be better to top us off later today if we start to get a bit peckish again. It’s still quite a while before we get to our destination, right?” He asks. 

“There's a bit of flying left to do, yes.” I nod. 

“I say we keep it as well, Ami.” Gamma replies. “I don’t eat that much anyway.” 

I squint at her. “Don’t you always try to eat the food at our place?” 

Gamma looks incredibly guilty as I say that. “Yes… But I’m actually never hungry when I beg for your food… It’s just my way of connecting with people.” 

“Gamma…” I puff my cheeks. “My sister won’t like it if she hears that.” 

“Your sister is very sweet, I’m sure, deep down, she won’t mind. She will maybe get overtly mad at me. But she won’t mean it.” 

“That’s… a bold statement to make.” I chuckle. “But you are right, my sister is really sweet.” 

“Alright, then can you keep the bread safe for later, Amicia?” Sid asks. 

“I will protect it with my life.” 

“Maybe don’t go that far. We still need you to break through to that crystal.” 

“I know, I know.” I put the bread away and then take a bite from Sid’s fruit bars, they taste rather good and I can immediately tell that he put some serious thought into what to put in these. Definitely going to be able to go for a while on these little breakfast snacks. 

As we slowly digest our food I quickly repair our gear by using my healing spells so I don’t forget again in the future. It’s a bit slower than I would really like but definitely easier than the healing spell I casted on Gamma yesterday. @@novelbin@@

When I’m done with that, and our food is wholly eaten, we clean up our camp and get ready to set out. The blue crystal in the meantime has started to shine pretty brightly once more. 

“Alright, are you two ready to go?” I ask my party members. 

“I am.” Gamma nods as she checks her gear one final time to see if she didn’t forget anything. 

“I am too.” Sid replies as he refills his bottle one last time with the energetic spring water. 

“Alright.” I turn towards the crystal and address it as if there were a human standing there. “Thank you for your hospitality and for showing us a solution to our communal problem. We will do the best we can trying to get rid of this enemy that is plaguing your planet. This I promise to you.” 

The light pulses affirmatively. We’ve not really had much interaction apart from the flashbacks it gave me and this interaction through light pulses alone, yet it does somehow feel like saying goodbye to a friend already. 

“Okay, Sid, take a hold Gamma, I’ll carry us out through the way we came in.” 

“Gotcha.” Sid grabs Gamma by her bag and lifts her up. She looks pretty funny, a bit like a cat getting grabbed by the neck by her mom. 

Gamma pouts a little as he does this but for the rest she doesn’t really complain about it. 

In turn I grab Sid and with a powerful flap of my wing, we say goodbye to our safe little camping spot, on our way to save this planet and get home in one fell swoop.