Torturous Travel

Earnest felt a tiny modicum of relief as he caught sight of Lindow’s town gates. His **** journey was only full of stress and worry. When he started his trek back from Knottori, he felt like an empty container. He was on automatic mode, trying to execute his plan as quickly and as efficiently as possible to save Rosalind. However, while he traveled the road alone, his mind began to fill the emptiness with burning hot emotion. Terror and vexation for Rosalind, who was at the mercy of a foul spell. Disgust and hatred towards the misfit boys who were abusing her. Desperation and anger at how powerless he felt.

His thoughts ran wild, as they always did. Who was Morgan Avanath? Reading the journal gave hints to the being that penned it. An absolute disregard for humanity that made them inhuman, but also a perverse desire for power that was all too human in its own way. Morgan’s ambition seemed to be tempered by a sinister intelligence and care, as they were able to conduct their thorough experimentation without being discovered. Was Morgan still out there skulking in the dark, or had they perhaps met a gruesome end already? How did Morgan’s notebook end up with the misfit boys in the middle of nowhere anyways?

The misfit boys didn’t seem like anything special. Every village had its group of troublemakers, but few people would have the guts to touch dark magic. Earnest had gotten an earful of the group’s reputation from the bar-goers that he talked to, as well as from Barnabas’s parents. He realized that the conversation that he had in the bakery was not with Rosalind. It was Barnabas’s mind covering her’s, piloting her body like a puppet. The Rosalind that he knew was a ball of confidence, absolutely radiating energy with everything she did. Barnabas within her made her look like a nervous wreck, not only with a weak and quiet voice, but also with body language that made her look like a frightened deer.

Barnabas was the one who drew the magic circle, and was likely the only one of the three that could. However, Barnabas didn’t seem like the kind of person to do such a horrible thing to another human. Even though he wanted to wield more powerful magic to enter the royal mage corps, he seemed too cowardly to take another’s body to make it happen. From the way he watched the misfit boys talk in their secret base, it looked like he was being pulled around by the other members. Ricard was clearly the leader of the group, so Earnest reasoned that he was the reason that Barnabas used the spell. Earnest remembered their argument about rules. Rules to take turns in Rosalind’s body.

All the molten emotions within Earnest churned and twisted at this thought. The thought of a bunch of rascals passing Rosalind’s body around like a toy, using her however they liked. They used her body while her mind was asleep, walking with her legs, and talking with her mouth. Worse yet, according to the notes, Rosalind thought that she was doing it all of her own accord. The heat in Earnest’s chest churned again with a fresh addition of more rage. Whenever his thinking got too hateful, he had to pull himself back, and remember that he had an enemy to defeat to save Rosalind.

The misfit boys seemed to have a certain dynamic to them. Barnabas was usually the one being pushed around, but he was the one that put the rules in place. Even though Ricard was the leader, Barnabas was the only one able to use the spell, so the rule of taking turns would’ve kept a delicate balance between the members. Earnest already knew Barnabas’s motivations well, and he also had an idea of what Ricard and Thomlin wanted too.

Ricard was lazy, but ambitious and cunning. He wanted a high position in the knights where he could command and strategize to make use of his wits. He likely wanted Rosalind’s body as a substitute for his own weak form. Thomlin on the other hand was a powerhouse with little inhibition. Earnest guessed that it was Thomlin who was controlling Rosalind on the first night that he saw her. She had drunk herself into a stupor, while the Rosalind that Earnest knew didn’t like the taste of **** at all. Thomlin probably didn’t have any big ideas like the other two members of his group, and just did whatever he felt like. Earnest remembered watching him grope Rosalind’s breasts in front of him with such a dumb arrogance, and the rage began to return. Again Earnest had to pull himself back, but his thinking was cyclic and he would eventually return to the same point, going back and forth between emotions. It made the trip torturous.

Well, to add to the ****, Earnest didn’t have the time to resupply him food supply before setting of from Knottori in a hurry. He thankfully refilled his water reserves, but the small amount of remaining food ran out quickly. He couldn’t turn back, so he pushed himself onwards. The days were brutally hot, with scorching sunlight, while the nights were cold, with constant chills that pierced to the bone. His body was working itself as hard as it could, and begged for nourishment, for anything to fill his painfully empty stomach. When he felt that he could go on no longer, he experienced something that he would call a miracle. Along the road, he watched a rabbit run across at full speed, glance at him as it ran, and knock its head into a tree.

Earnest recalled a story from his childhood about such a thing. A farmer who saw a rabbit run straight into a tree stump. The farmer then decided to wait at the tree stump for another rabbit to run into it. Of course it didn’t happen a second time, and the farmer ended up wasting his crops while he waited. The point of the story was to teach children to seek opportunities rather than wait for them to come at their own pace. At the time, Earnest dismissed the story. Such a thing only happened in stories, not real life. But here it was, right in front of him, right as he needed it the most.

Earnest wasn’t the most devout nor pious, but he believed that something had granted a miracle to aid him. He said his thanks in a prayer to no one in particular, as he cooked and ate the rabbit. It was just enough to sustain him up until his journey’s end. He had traveled as quickly as possible, pushing his body even harder than before. Now, he was arriving at Lindow, finally reaching the guards at the gate and entering the town.