Chapter 28 new day empty chances?
Leaving with sunrise was a pleasure for Rohan, he actually enjoyed watching the sun slowly rise as he used to hike up in the mountains. In the city the sunrise was less special, but allowed for beautiful colors on the sky and mountains.
It didn't take long for Rohan to get up and going.
Britta didn't voice her opinion; she just got up and ready "It's because I have to" was her answer when Rohan asked her. Fiora and Jan were similar to one another, they just didn't care, which they said in very little words.
Ragnar and Leslie on the other hand were still snoring deeply while the rest was almost ready. Britta kicked them out of their sleeping bags, leaving Ragnar grumpy and Leslie sore.
"Arg that hits the spot"
Ragnar sipped on his own morning coffee, he brought a whole coffee brewing set with him. It was close to half of all his luggage, but he enjoyed it every morning while walking. He never shared and would be loud about it, trying to get some attention early in the morning. It never worked and if it did it would just be Britta throwing something at him.
Rohan had wanted to try once, but the smell almost killed him. It was the blackest coffee he had ever seen, even the smell was bitter and made him almost shit himself. He couldn't understand how Ragnar's stomach could handle it, or maybe it died long ago.
"Leslie how much longer do you think it's going to be?"
"Ah Rohan it's you I was just going through a couple of routes, but if I had to make an estimation based on best, shortest and safest route it would be around five hours if we can keep this tempo going. But it might also be somewhat quicker as we are moving slightly downhill, but we might need to take a few different turns here and there but just…"
'I need to interrupt him somehow…'
"Ah 5 hours should be fine, we can get back to the shelter sometime during the afternoon. That's perfect thank you Leslie, I will leave the route decision making to you and Britta, I'm no good with maps."
'Hopefully he won't hate me, but I'm not in the mood for a lengthy talk this early.'
"No worries Rohan, I'll get right on it."
Rohan did have to lie, he could manage pretty darn well with navigating via maps. He used them often where the gps connection was limited but didn't tell Leslie. Otherwise Britta or Ragnar would push him completely to Leslie.
The only person that could evade talking to Leslie was Jan, but honestly, Jan could evade anyone that was talking to him. It was the skillset of a bland person acting bland.
Minutes turned into hours as they kept following Leslie leading the route. Rohan kept being on guard being in the back. But a certain gnawing feeling wouldn't leave him. He had the urge to run fast and far, but for what? There was no enemy to be seen nor were they being followed.
Britta had told them to be on guard more, and they would often check for the stalking satyr or just any straggler or satyr's potentially following them. None would be there, even the stragglers were not seen anymore. They might have all died on the bridge, but they couldn't be sure.
It took the team exactly 5 hours to get back to the shelter location. They could see the mall and Britta gave the signal at a store nearby. Follin or Amanda would get notified in the shelter. There was no way yet to return the signal, so they just approached the mall with slight caution.
Nothing happened when they stepped inside and went back to the marble mermaid fountain. Fiora for some reason stepped inside again, but Rohan was too tired to care about it.
"Shouldn't some guards be meeting up here?" Ragnar sounded annoyed and impatient
"We wait 3 minutes, then we go down, stay alert. Rohan take south hallway, Ragnar you take north. The rest around the fountain." Britta was taking some precautions, but it might have just been an overreaction.
Just as Rohan walked to the south hallway, he heard steps coming from the north, he turned around and saw a slender girl step out of the dark. She had long dark black curls, and a dark brown skin color that showed no imperfections. She had bright blue eyes and her hair was all pulled back.
Rohan remembered that she was the previous team member, he had only forgotten her name…
"Britta you came back earlier than expected." She called out to Britta, not giving Ragnar any attention.
"AH Ntombi, yes we had some hiccups, but also some new information. Where is the rest and Follin?" Britta seemed rather enthusiastic to see Ntombi.
'Ah so that was her name, I had completely forgotten.' Rohan felt a bit stupid as he walked back to Britta.
"Well, the rest have all moved to the northwestern part of the city. It got a bit hectic the last two days so quick decisions were made. I stayed behind to relay it back to you. Follin and everyone else in the shelter left after some scouts came from the other shelters. There are 3 shelters in total. The one here, the southwestern bunker and the northwestern castle shelter. The castle is where everyone left for, we should meet up with them soon."
Ntombi explained shortly, they would need to leave again soon. No time for rest again.
"Then we leave in an hour, I expect Follin to have a good reason right?"
"Yes but he didn't explain it fully, the other shelter have found more information and saw that many satyr's were starting to gather in the inner city. We should stay as one full group and stay at the castle that has a somewhat protective layout. And for the next scouting mission inside the inner city we need more manpower anyways he told us."
"Somehow, Follin would have expected this anyway." Britta sighed.