Waiting In Vain

On the outskirts of Greensplinter Grove the rest of The Chiming Spring were still waiting. It had been several hours since Mimi had gone off and they had seen no sign of her.

"It’s been too long." Verena said through gritted teeth, “I shouldn’t have sent her in.”

It had been several hours since Mimi had left to go scouting and they had not heard anything of her. There had been a terrible howling earlier, splitting the deathly silence of the grove but since then there had been no sign that anything or anyone resided within the grove.

"She probably got distracted by a shiny object and forgot all about her job." Ilia scoffed. She was sitting against a large tree, her tome of spells balanced on her crossed legs. Verena ignored Ilia's insult of Mimi and paced.

Amelia was a nervous wreck, standing as far away from the grove as she could get without being apart from the group, her staff clutched against her chest.

“We should not have come…” She moaned, looking at Verena. The druid clearly wanted to leave but wanted Verena to be the one to tell her.

Verena placed a hand on Amelia’s shoulder. She hoped it was a reassuring gesture but the druid gave a startled little jump and shifted away from the party’s leader.

“We…just need to put our faith in Mimi.” Verena sighed, wishing she had faith in the demkin. For all she knew the little thief was dead.

Ilia scoffed and looked back to her book. The mage was the oldest of the group

“What do you think we should do, Ilia?” Verena hissed, “You clearly don’t think much of any of my ideas.”

“I’m not in charge here.” The mage shrugged, “I’ll go where you tell me.”

“Not helpful!” Verena stood over the mage and resisted the urge to hit her in the head with her shield.

“Look. If you think Mimi is coming back then we can keep waiting here. If you think she isn’t…” Ilia shrugged and looked up at Verena expectantly.

Verena looked from Ilia to Amelia and back again. The blond druid was just going to drive herself insane just waiting and Verena was going to go insane herself if she had to listen to Ilia sniping any longer.

“Fine. Fine! You are right. We have to do something..” Verena gritted her teeth.

“We going in?” Ilia asked, closing her tome. Her eyes bored into Verena, demanding a decision from the group’s leader. Verena retrieved her shield from where she had left it and unstrapped her mace from her waist.

“Let’s go.”