The World of Astrial

Kris was left to watch the fight, and blink whenever Eliana disappeared. Sighing with exasperation, she crossed her arms over her chest. The elf had half a mind to just start walking back toward the guild. She quickly glanced around, checking to see if anyone else was present, before looking back in the direction of the guild.

Deciding to do just that, the cleric started putting more distance between herself and the two males. She noted that Lilica seemed to have just disappeared, keeping a wary eye on her surroundings.

"Eh?" Arisa looked as people started to disappear left and right, "H-Heroes? E-ehhhhh?!?"

The forest seemed to shift around Kris as she walked. Lilica attempted to guide Kris to her where she was laying in a hammock of vines clearly bored.

Eliana wasn't far from the guild now.

Kris had all but forgotten about Arisa, stopping to pause. She wasn't going to use her healing magics on people because they were choosing to fight, as a sort of game. Her keen ears picked up on the arbitrator that had come with them and she turned and waved, "May as well leave the boys to it, c'mon!" she told Arisa.

Her pace slowed as the hammock shifted around her, she glanced over to Arisa to gauge her reaction to it. The elf stopped, looking tense, whenever she came across Lilica on her hammock of vines. "What do you want of us?" Kris called out.

Korbin simply laid there on the ground. A childlike grin started to form on his face. He got up and started brushing off all the dirt and such.

"This was fulfilling. How about we finish this another time?" He asked, checking his arm.

Surprisingly, the heat from the attack ended up cauterizing the cuts from Adrian's sword on his arm.

"Eliana is gonna be pissed with me." He said with a slight chuckle.

Eliana was running towards the forest again.

It is wrong. What I have done. Fazer would be so displeased. You cannot abandon comrades.

But she stopped dead. What am I doing? I should be doing zis.

She shot a teleport arrow towards the forest. This was unlike her. Emotional and impulsive. She had remained rather cold most of the time but she was feeling foolish for what she had done. Sometimes when people's act comes undone, it comes.... undone.

Adrian's cuts were actually almost healed. He only sighed in response and turned to walk away and find Lilica.

"Welp, time to get the wolves." Korbin said.

He went around gathering up the wolves they had killed, having a little trouble carrying them. He then set off back to the guild.

"Kris I'm headed off. Better join up with me or else you'll be left behind." He called back to Kris.

After about a minute of walking, he saw Eliana in the distance.

Kris turned from Lilica and scowled back at Korbin, seeing him walking off in the distance with a bunch of wolves over his shoulder. "I'm way ahead of you, you might have noticed if you weren't dueling for the fun of it! Between Eliana deserting and you acting like a boy in a school yard, I'm wondering just who the real amateur is here!" She sighed to herself, shaking her head and wondering if what had happened with the guild members today was something that was commonplace.

The elf strode back to the guild, ignoring Lilica unless the female did something to warrant her stopping. She didn't send a second glance back at Korbin for a long time, but finally her anger cooled and she stopped long enough to offer him help with the wolves. "We can make a liter of a blanket and drag them along, or just skin them and take them back. Sometimes wolf furs are accepted for a bounty."

Now that she was mostly over being angry, a thought occurred to he. She looked at Arisa, "Do we need to take any other proof back to the guild, aside from wolf carcasses or furs?"

"I don't think a person's disposition or post battle choices determine their experience Kris." Korbin said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"If my memory serves me correctly, you did hardly anything when the wolves arrived, I had the courage to face the consequences of my actions head on, and Eliana left since it was tactically advantageous for her to leave since she believed we had completed all that we needed to. Calling me an amateur is just absolutely rich coming from you darling."

Korbin knew he didn't need to add in the last part but it was necessary to put Kris in her place. She was inexperienced and didn't look deeper into the actions of others. Korbin reminded himself that he we once the same way, however.

Kris shot right back at him, her anger resurfacing, “Just how observant are you? Or maybe you have problems with your vision? I cast spells to bless you and make your attacks cause more damage, and cast a stinking cloud at them to scatter them. And I shot at them with my sling and bullets, took a couple out and made another limp. Seems alright for an amateur to me."

Whenever he did not respond to her offer to help with with the wolves by making a liter and dragging them along, she simply left him to his task.

The cleric thought to herself that she needed to find other people to work with. Eliana had deserted them and Korbin not only had terrible communication skills, but he refused to give his fellow party members any credit for their acts, or apparently he didn’t notice them at all.

Walking far ahead of Korbin, she found herself hoping that this was not indicative of how all of her quests and assignments would go. Sighing, she reflected that maybe they should try better communication this time and resolved to talk about it whenever they were back at the guild.

As she continued walking back toward the guild, she saw Eliana sprinting back and lifted a hand in a wave.

Eliana immediately stopped and put on a calm demeanor. She lit up a cigarette and casually walked towards Kris.

As she neared, she noticed Kris' angered face.

Hmmm

"Kris. Listen. Earlier was mistake. New to spell casting. Especially zat spell. Ze truth is I'm not much more zan you. I know how to hunt wolf, but zere was no magic where I'm from. I meant to bring you wiz me. "

She puffed off her cigarette.

"As for korbin, he's overconfident. He doesn't know zat he's as vulnerable as we are.

We need to keep eye on him and keep him safe, no? Besides, he's useful. "

He is fool, but an army disbanded is not.

Kris took a deep breath, red patches that had grown on her cheeks began to fade. "Oh. I thought you'd-well . . . Everything has turned out fine, in the end. We will improve next time, it was a learning experience and we killed the wolves. Perhaps we could sign to each other, to better communicate over a distance." Looking back over her shoulder at Korbin for a moment, she nodded, "Yes, he probably wanted to test his abilities . . . but there is a better time and place for it."

She looked around for Arisa, not wanting to get separated again. Having been reprimanded over her feisty attitude more than once during her stay at the temple, she tamed her passion.

Eliana whispered into Kris' ear "men like that need to be tamed."

She shot Kris an evil, playful smile.

She couldn't help but laugh. She proceeded to look over to Arisa. Then to korbin.

Zat Arisa and korbin need to mix zeir personalities togezer. Zat'd make them both a lot more useful.

She puffed off her cigarette again.

She finally sighed peacefully, Thankfully that didn't get out of control....but who were they...? I fear....she would want to know...No...she knows. "U-um...p-please don't run off like t-that...in the mist of battle....especially when people will l-look up to you...though I don't think that makes any difference...due to the last...b-batch."

"Arisa, my dearest apologies. I will control my magic better in ze future. "

She puffed her cigarette.

I should make it a point to tell Kris later. But for now I'll leave things how they are.

"We had best get moving. I'd rather not deal with another group of opponents right now." Korbin continued walking to the guild with the wolf corpses in tow.

Kris needs to understand that I do this to all of my students. She reminds me of one who I had trained.

Do YoU rEAlLy beLiEVe YoüRsĒlF? DÔnt mÆkę mê laugH. A FÖŒŁ ŠŪÇH ÀŠ ŸŌÚRŠĘŁF DÊŠËRVĒŚ ĖVÈRŸ BĮT OF GUILT AND SHAME. SHĘ DIED UNDER YOUR TEACHINGS AND THE SAME WILL HAPPEN TO THIS NEW GIRL::::