Lucian's body lightened as he walked over to Excalibur. He then placed the armor inside the saddlebag. Sadly, throwing it inside wasn't enough as it poked out, not allowing him to close it. So he had no choice and needed to sort the armor inside the saddlebag.
After some time pressing and twisting the armor into place, Lucian was finally successful-ish. Muttering to himself, "Finally. This took way, way too long. Who knew armor would be such a pain to sort and store..." Suddenly a reflection of Felix flashed in his mind, slightly putting Lucian in a daze, before he managed to shake it off.
Roderic then came and asked when he would be finished placing the armor inside, as his nose was in complete and utter pain from all the horrid liquids, flesh, and urine. He could barely hold himself back from just sprinting far, far away into the distance.
"Calm your horses, Roderic. I just finished placing it inside. It's still slightly sticking out, but still, I was at least successful in pressing down the flap of the saddlebag. And that's by far the most important thing, as I don't believe it will just fall out..." Lucian replied, a little tense, gazing at the saddlebag before shifting his gaze over at Roderic.
"Um... That thing will definitely fall out..." Roderic then pointed at the part that was sticking out of the saddlebag's right side. "That part is straight up almost completely outside of the f*cking bag. Like come on, man... that armor has no chance!" Roderic mocked, trying not to laugh at his new teammate's horrible attempt at storing armor. "Weren't knights like you retainers when they were younger? Or did you just completely forget how to do it!?" Roderic questioned, trying to add more salt to the injury.
"Well, my newly found friend. Just so you know, I was never a retainer. I started out in the field as a knight almost immediately. The King believed that my skill when I was being coached was so good that I could just start out immediately." Lucian subconsciously puffed out his chest, as his pride was leaking out from every word he muttered.
Roderic looked at him with some suspicion, as he had never heard of someone becoming a knight without the field experience needed as a retainer or some military figure. "That's pretty weird, isn't it? Like no knight I've ever heard of has become one through talent alone. You must be joking, right? Or are you like one of the lost sons of the king?" Roderic asked, pricking up his right eyebrow.
"I'm definitely not King Sol's son. My surname is Rubedo, and I look nothing like the king. But I was indeed adopted by a noble family... as both my parents died when I was young. Not really too sure about the details though." Lucian answered, still a little unsure about his parents' death.
"Also, I must just be a special case, as my talents are quite well known, you know. I beat my coach, who was a former knight of the kingdom, at the age of twelve. I'm pretty sure my talents were enough for me to be given the position of knight when I turned seventeen." Lucian boasted as he looked at Roderic with a prideful smile which could easily annoy the calmest of people.
"What a load of rubbish." Roderic retorted, before pushing him to the side as he started fixing up Lucian's horrible sortments, completing it in a fourth of the time it took Lucian. "You see, it ain't that hard, is it?" Roderic scoffed, trying his best to piss Lucian off.
"Well, I'll be damned... Well done, Roderic. I guess we can finally get going then." Lucian commented as he sighed to himself before mounting his trusted steed, Excalibur, getting ready to continue their travel.
Roderic, seeing this, tsked before mounting his own horse.
Then they both steered their horses to avoid stepping on the dead corpses of the bandits. Roderic still kept Lucian's helmet as it was now the middle of the day, where the sun shines the brightest.
Later in the day, when the sun was being slightly blocked by the mountains, causing the lands to be plunged in a reddish-orange hue, Roderic and Lucian saw a path leading left with a big wooden sign hanging up on one of the trees. The sign was slightly worn with a small amount of moss growing on it. Roderic and Lucian signaled their horses to slow down before shifting their gaze to the sign. The sign said in big, bold letters, "Waterbridge City 30 miles up ahead," with a big bold red arrow pointing down the left road.
"Looks like we're close. I believe we will only need to put up camp once on the way," Lucian noted.
Roderic then nodded before both leaned forward, signaling to their horses to get moving once again.
As they moved through the woods, the reddish-orange hue flickered through the leaves. The horses had started to show steam blowing off them as their heat mixed with the ever-encroaching midnight cool.
Suddenly, the sun was propped up high in the sky once more. The bright white light enveloped the two of them, as Roderic's eyes were battered with the sharp light. Roderic couldn't see anything as his eyes weren't able to catch up in time. Roderic accidentally steered into Lucian, causing the two horses to retaliate by throwing the two of them off before running in different directions.
Lying on the ground, Roderic was able to adapt to the bright light. As Roderic turned his head, he saw Lucian's expression—a mix of confusion and shock. Roderic's confusion grew even more as he looked in the direction Lucian was staring, seeing ten human beings in front of them.
Suddenly one of them moved forward, a man that looked to be different from the rest.
His medium-long golden hair flowed elegantly in the wind, his eyes were sharp and his irises were black, blacker than the deepest, darkest spots in the night sky.
Where his pupils should have been were two golden stars, which immediately put Roderic off as that is a trait only a mage could possibly possess. Further than that, the man had an androgynous beauty about him, which was accentuated further with his golden-rimmed glasses which had one black star on each hinge.
He had some light armor over his black tunic, but not enough to hinder his movement or weigh him down. The armor was made of high-quality steel, with golden engraving flowing around the entire steel part of the armor. He had striped black and grey pants with knee guards on each leg, and some high-quality boots with steel tips.
On top of his golden hair was a pointed hat, which was a common accessory among mages, which helped to confirm even further that this man was in fact a mage, most likely the cause of the sun reappearing high in the sky.
His expression was smug as he grinned, seeming to be scheming in a way.
Moving towards the two of them, he suddenly opened his mouth. "Hello my friends, how may I address you two?" Roderic and Lucian didn't respond as they kept glaring at him. "Oh my, how impolite of me, I forgot to introduce myself first! Well, my name is Varyn, and I'm the leader of these guys over here." He then pointed at the nine other people, as they looked to be similar to the bandit leader which Roderic killed.
"Well, the reason why I have decided to come here to meet you two was because you two ended up massacring one of my bandit groups. Which is quite the inconvenience for me as it's a way for me to keep my resources up, and let me continue on my lavish lifestyle, even when traveling, to all sorts of pla—" Suddenly while the golden-haired Varyn was continuing to gab, an icy statue of Roderic appeared, trying to strangle Varyn. It seemed to have manifested from a strand of ice which Roderic had sent traveling underground behind Varyn. The icy statue quickly became Roderic himself as he let his body travel through the ice to reach it.
"You know, starting a duel without you two giving yourselves an introduction is bad manners." Varyn commented, his grin growing even slyer, before grabbing Roderic's arms, slinging Roderic over himself, letting him crash into a nearby tree.
Dusting his hands, he signaled to the others to not interfere.
Roderic, still unscathed, asked, "Is the sun in the sky caused by you?"
"Well yeah, but if you want to know more you will have to continue fighting me." Varyn's grin growing cocky.
Roderic, hearing this, quickly whipped out his chain. He knew Lucian had no chance, so it was best for this to not be a duel between all three but instead a duel between two.
Lucian, seeing the two fighting, quickly pulled out his sword before realizing that his legs were frozen down onto the ground.
"Lucian, you will only interfere with me if you fight him. He's a mage with extraordinary abilities you can't compete with at all. No talent will help you out here." Roderic reasoned, trying his best to keep Lucian out, before whipping his chain in Varyn's direction, causing giant ice spikes to appear.
Lucian was prideful, but he knew his limits well and this was way over his head, so he had no choice but to just watch.
Seeing the ice spikes quickly fly towards Varyn, Lucian wondered if he would be able to get powers like this in the future. Suddenly while Lucian pondered, Varyn snapped his finger, letting a golden glow appear, shooting quickly towards the ice spikes.
The glowing ball of light collided with the ice spikes. Red light flared inside the ice before steam erupted in a violent explosion, blasting outward in all directions and surging toward Roderic with barely any loss of momentum.
Seeing this, Roderic poured energy into his chain, attempting to compress and strengthen the ice spikes against the heat. The effort proved futile. The blazing hot sphere struck him directly, its temperature fracturing his invisible ice armor with hairline cracks. Yet the armor held. It was constructed in three perpetually cycling layers that replaced themselves every nanosecond, making it virtually indestructible against even intense heat. The cracks vanished as quickly as they appeared, the ice reforming seamlessly.
"Phew!" Roderic breathed out, before whipping his chain upwards, creating 15 ice spikes, all flying in different directions, not letting Varyn be able to blast them with his ball of light.
Varyn giggled to himself before a chain, which was hidden inside his pocket, was pulled out. Varyn swiftly whipped it in a circular motion above his head, causing a giant amount of heat to blast outwards, melting the ice, then quickly condensing into a giant ball of light which moved rapidly towards Roderic.
It smashed into him without him being able to block at all, vaporizing the first layer, then the second layer, before stopping as the layers kept reappearing. Still, it toppled Roderic, not letting him stand.
Varyn moved in slowly towards Roderic, ignoring Lucian as he grabbed Roderic by the fur-coated hood, melting through the ice layers, allowing him to touch the fur-coated man. The ice layers attempted to repair themselves, but as the man was producing a massive amount of heat, the ice couldn't fully repair itself.
"I really like your ice armor. It's unique, I must say. I wonder, where do you come from?" Varyn acknowledged. His grin turned into a friendly smile, which disturbed Roderic.
"I don't remember," Roderic responded, attempting to calm himself.
"Come on now, I know you can." Suddenly he let go of Roderic's fur-coated hood.
Varyn turned around, moving away as he remarked, "I'll let go of this incident, as you are just two bumbling idiots who don't threaten me at all. The loot you stole you can keep, as I don't care all too much about it. Keep it as a reminder of my kindness."
Suddenly the sun in the sky vanished as the nine other people under him moved away with him as they disappeared.
This left Roderic and Lucian confused as to why they would leave without even taking anything.
"Roderic… why did he ask about where you come from?" Lucian asked, confused, still attempting to loosen his legs from the ice.
"Well, the Shifting Sanctum might be a dangerous place for evil mages like him, but it still keeps a lot of valuable stuff which does kind of make mages want it. Like for example, mimics."
"Mimics, what's that?" Lucian asked.
"Well, when a rend is killed, their energy doesn't really disappear as it will manifest into an orb which can be imbued into a weapon. At least that's what I've heard. It's rare for a mage to have one as killing a rend can only be done by a few mages, like the Abomination I mentioned before."
"Oh, okay, thanks for the explanation. But still, why did he just leave like that?" Lucian questioned as his legs were released from the ice, as Roderic snapped his fingers.
"Well, I don't really know myself… Well, let's keep an extra watchful eye. Maybe he's trying to get something from me." Roderic wondered as he rubbed his chin, quite puzzled by the situation.
"Umm, for now we should probably get the horses back first… as they kinda ran away…" Roderic mumbled, still slightly embarrassed from crashing into Lucian.
"I mean yeah, could you maybe use your smell or something for this?" Lucian asked.
"Well yeah." Roderic then sniffed, finding a reminiscence of the horses' sweat hanging around in the air.
Following this, they moved through the forest. For Lucian, this was exceptionally hard as he wasn't as fortunate as Roderic to have night vision.
Lucian stumbled on rocks, sticks, and logs, trying his best to follow Roderic.
"Hey Roderic, could you perhaps slow down… I'm struggling to keep up!" Lucian snarled as Roderic turned around looking at him. "Well, I could, but it's best to get this done as fast as possible as I don't really want them to disappear or me losing track of them. Maybe you should stay here while I sprint and get them for us?" Roderic scoffed, giving a proper reason for his fast walk.
"Well… I could." Lucian pondered before propping himself up as he yelled, "Sprint then, you two-legged horse!" Roderic was taken aback by this comment as he tsked before sprinting off, letting Lucian stay in the darkness alone.
Lucian sat himself on a nearby rock, attempting to get some sleep in.