Along the river

The destination was decided, and now all that was left to do was to reach it.
Iriel loved to explore new place but was very careles about it, whereas Belus knew the general geography but not the actual place they had to reach so the group had to follow along Samantha as they headed north.
Apparently they would have to reach the river, the same main river that flowed down from the mountains north beyond the desert and then headed east, splitting the rocky wasteland in two as it headed towards the ocean... it was a grand sight, but not one they should openly enjoy.

As nice as the big river was, it was also a focal point which drew locals as well as dangers of all kinds so while they should definitively follow the waters upstreams they'd have to do so without getting noticed by anyone heading for the river or living along it... or hunt along its shores. Bandits, pirates, beasts... if they weren't careful, they could draw any sort of threat and while the trio was strong enough to deal with most of them, it'd be way too dangerous to do so with the low-leveled Sae around.

Better be safe than sorry, or so they thought.
Luckily Sae affinity with illusion magic was high, and with Belus own spells backing her they easily managed to travel undisturbed by most threats whereas those they didn't manage to avoid were fried by Samantha's thunder magic.

It took some days for the sandy landscape to change into a more verdant one, and along the way Sae could feel some serious sexual vibes in this group... her praying to Anubis indeed only stopped at just chatting (albeit she always forgot to mention about the rose mark), but the mood among her group often felt sexually charged and especially so around the old Belus and Samantha.
She never caught them in the act, but Sae seriously though that there must be something going on between the two despite his age being at least three times that of the younger mage!

But then again, it may just be her imagining things... after all just because the girl dressed all slutty and sometime threw flirty looks to the old man (to be precise towards his wallet, but Sae never noticed the detail) and they sometimes disappeared together didn't mean they were fucking around. She must be overthinking things just because Anubis talked too much about the love goddess influence in the world... after all even Iriel would sometime disappear with Samantha!

Too bad Sae was wrong and the three were indeed fucking around behind her back, each having their own thoughts about Sae herself but still not acting on them as they were unsure about how far they could go without incurring Anubis wrath...

To be precise... Iriel knew she had pretty much free reign but was still planning how to slut Sae up without her grumbling too much about it
Belus on the other hand couldn't wait to pound that pussy and give her a nice full creampie, but was waiting for Iriel to give him the green light.
As for Samantha, selling herself to Sae didn't sound profitable as the new champion had no money on her. On the other hand, since she did have some power upon her as one of her summoners... she will have many chance to pimp Sae out, wouldn't she?

Each party member had their own thoughts, yet Sae knew little about how sexually nefarious were their plans for her and instead looked forward to going to new places and meet new people, something that'd happen soon as they finally left the desert and approached a more verdant terrain... they could see a forest extend as far as the eyes could see, and a road going around it and most likely leading to the village Samantha's mentioned.
As for where they'll find the quest giver... well, they'll have to try their luck.

But first they had to make a choice: take the long way around the forest to reach the village and make it their base before moving out to level, or go through the forest and level as they walked forward?